1 elt forum 5 (2) (2016) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt syntactic shifts in english-indonesian translation (a case study of the fifth semester students of the english department of state university of semarang) eman risqi noviyanti drs. laurentius elyas nugraha, ma. english department. faculty of languages and arts. state university of semarang. aticle info ________________ article history: received in april 2016 approved in april 2016 published in may 2016 ________________ keywords: syntactic shift, englishindonesian translation, case study. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this final project is about syntactic shift used in english-indonesian translation by the fifth semester students of the english department of state university of semarang in the academic year of 2013/2014. the objectives of the study are to describe what types of syntactic shifts are commonly used and less used by the fifth semester students, and to explain how the fifth semester students do syntactic shift in english-indonesian translation. the study uses descriptive qualitative approach and it belongs to a case study. the subject of the study is the fifth semester students of the english department of state university of semarang in the academic year of 2013/2014. the source of data is the students’ translation tests which have been done in the fifth semester entitled advantages of translation. it was a task given by dr. rudi hartono, s.s. m.pd. as the lecturer in english-indonesian translation class in fifth semester. from five sub-categories of syntactic shift, there are three sub-categories of them which were used by the fifth semester students. translation by using word-into-phrase shift reaches a total of 86.4%. about 10.2% is the translation by using phrase-into-clause shift. the other 3.4% is the translation by using clause-into-sentence shift. both phrase-into-sentence and sentence-into-paragraph shifts are not found in the students’ assignments of english-indonesian translation. © 2016 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: risqibluefresh@gmail.com issn 2252-6706 eman risqi noviyanti / journal of english language teaching 5 (2) (2016) 2 introduction background of the study basically, difficulties in communication will infrequently be found if all of the people in the world use the same language, like english as the global one. in fact, not all nations use english as the first or second language. even most of development countries regard english as a foreign language. in this case, translation will be a very useful branch of linguistics. back to the importance of translation in development countries such as indonesia and based on the position of english as a global language, english will be the source language of the study and indonesian as the target language. each language in the world has its own rules or structure in expressing meaning. the rules of one language cannot be applied into another. the same as the rules of english cannot be thoroughly applied in indonesian. therefore, in translation, there will be what so called shifting. syntactic shifts are needed to improve the quality in english-indonesian translation so that the students can achieve the goal as good translators who can deliver translated version which is authentically understood and enjoyed by the receptor without deviating the meaning and style or tone of the source language. in this study, i would like to describe what types syntactic shifts are commonly used and less used by the fifth semester students of the english department of state university of semarang in the academic year of 2013/2014 in englishindonesian translation, and to explain how the fifth semester students of the english department of state university of semarang in the academic year of 2013/2014 do syntactic shifts in englishindonesian translation. review of related literature the notion of translation catford has defined the meaning of translation in general as cited by eppert (1982:193) that “translation is the replacement of textual material in one language (sl) by equivalent material in another language,” but does it mean translation is an activity in which the translator literally changes the word by word and then arrange them? in a very broad sense the answer is yes. however, it cannot be the answer in a narrow sense. according to the significance of translation as stated by engle in gentzler (1993:9) in khasanah (2010), that “the lives of every creature on earth may one depend on the instant and accurate translation of one word.” the statement really makes translation be a very important activity that can be the key of human life. it declares that translation is not only an activity in which the subject literally changes the word by word and then arranges them. the subject must have more than dictionary and skill to arrange the words. bassnett (2005:52) awares of the importance of translation as translation is not an easy thing so that she stated that translation needs a great deal of skill, preparation, knowledge, and intuitive feeling for the texts more than just dictionary. “the good translator, therefore, presupposed the reader’s acquintance with the sl text and was bound by that knowledge, for any assessment of his skill as translator would be based on the creative use he was able to make of his model.” otherwise, translation needs to deliver the intended meaning of the sl as stated by larson (1984:3) in hartono (2013:5) “translation is transferring the meaning of the source language into the receptor language. this is done by going from the form of the first language to the form of the second language by way of semantic structure. it is the meaning which is being transferred and must be held constantly.” from the definitions above, translation is not a merely the replacement of word by word from source language to target language, but it is rather an important activity in which every creature depends on it to transfer meaning and it needs skill to synchronize both source language and target language. syntactic shifts syntactic shift is divided into five types; they are categorized in the following table: eman risqi noviyanti / journal of english language teaching 5 (2) (2016) 3 table 2.1 types of syntactic shifts no. type english indonesian 1. word into phrase stallion kuda jantan puppy anak anjing 2. phrase into clause not knowing what to say, (he just kept quiet) (karena) dia tidak tahu apa yang hendak dikatakannya, (...) after reading the letter, (...) setelah dia membaca surat itu, (...) 3. phrase into sentence his misinterpretation of the situation (caused his downfall.) dia salah menafsirkan situasi (dan itulah yang menyebabkan kejatuhannya.) 4. clause into sentence her unusual voice and singing style thrilled her fans, who reacted by screaming, crying, and clapping suaranya yang luar biasa dan gayanya bernyanyi memikat para penggemarnya. mereka memberikan reaksi dengan berteriak-teriak dan bertepuk tangan. 5. sentence into paragraph standing in a muddy jungle clearing strewn with recently felled trees, the baliness village headmaster looked at his tiny house at the end of a line of identical buildings and said he felt strange. kepala kampung orang bali itu berdiri di sebuah lahan yang baru dibuka di tengah hutan. batang-batang pohon yang baru ditebang masih berserakan di sana-sini. dia memandang rumahnya yang kecil yang berdiri di ujung deretan rumah yang sama bentuknya dan berkata bahwa dia merasa aneh. methods the study uses descriptive qualitative approach since the objectives of the study are to gain and explain the description of how the students in the fifth semester do syntactic shifts and the description of syntactic shift that are commonly used and less used by the subject of the study. the study belongs to a case study. case study research is a qualitative approach in which the researcher explores a bounded system (a case) and in the data collection may involve many sources of information (creswell, 2007). therefore, creswell bravely states that an issue to study may involve one or more cases, yet stake (2005) in creswell states what to study, one or more cases, is a choice of the researcher. in this research, the case to study is the students’ syntactic shift in translation. there are some steps in conducting the study. the first step is collecting one of each subject’s assignments which they do in english-indonesian translation class. next, i analyse the syntactic shift that the subject use in their translation. eman risqi noviyanti / journal of english language teaching 5 (2) (2016) 4 result the table below shows each sub-category used: table 4.1 results of the study no. the syntactic shift and its subcategories number of data (%) 1. word into phrase 51 86.4% 2. phrase into clause 6 10.2% 3. phrase into sentence 0% 4. clause into sentence 2 3.4% 5. sentence into paragraph 0% total 59 100.0% as shown in the table above, the syntactic shift sub-category which has the highest frequency is word-into-phrase shift. it reaches 86.4% out of 100%, while phrase-into-sentence and sentence-into-paragraph shifts are definitely unused. discussion word-into-phrase shift is the most frequently syntactic shift that occurs in this study. it happens because most of the students as the subject of the study translate the assignment in literal. therefore, not so many paraphrasing occur in their translation products. there are some word-into-phrase shifts happen because of the influence of additional morpheme. in other words, some of word-into-phrase shifts also belong to a morphemic shift. however, there are also some words which are shifted in purpose. a phrase is a small group of words that forms a meaningful unit within a clause. however, according geoffrey leech on his book english grammar for today, phrase consists of one or more words. in other words, a phrase may consist of only one word, while clause is a group of words that contains a verb (and usually other components too). samples to explain below will show how a word can be a phrase and how they are shifted into clauses. basically, there is no limitation what kind of clauses is produced by the phrase-into-clause shift. as long as a phrase is shifted into a clause and has a verb phrase in it, it is categorized as phrase-into-clause shift. in phrase-into-sentence shift, a phrase is translated into a sentence in the tl. a sentence is a group of words that makes a complete sense, contains a main verb, begins with a capital letter and ends with full stop. however, in this study is not found this sub-category of syntactic shift. according to oxford dictionary, clause may form part of a sentence or it may be a complete sentence in itself. there are two building blocks of a sentence. they are independent and dependent clause. the one which can be a sentence by itself is the independent clause. a sentence contains of main verb which begins with capital letter and ends with full stop. a paragraph usually deals with one subject which begins on a new line and is made up of one or more sentences. a sentence which is shifted into a paragraph means it splits into many sentences with the same topic. however, in this study, a sentence-into-paragraph shift is not found. conclusion in conclusion, the syntactic shift subcategory which has the highest frequency was word-into-phrase shift. it reaches a total of 86.4%, while phrase-into-sentence and sentence-intoparagraph shifts are not used by the students in the fifth semester of english department of state university of semarang in the academic year of 2013/2014. although syntactic shift is not presented theoretically in english-indonesian translation class, yet all students in the fifth semester as the subject of the study do syntactic shift in their translation of advantages of translation. references baker, m. 1992. in other words: a coursebook on translation. new york: routledge. bassnett, s. 2005. translation studies. london: routledge. eman risqi noviyanti / journal of english language teaching 5 (2) (2016) 5 catford, j.c. 1965. a linguistic theory of translation. oxford: oxford university press. creswell, j.w. 2007. qualitative inquiry and research design: choosing among five approaches. london: sage publications ltd. ___________. 2012. educational research: planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research. boston: pearson education, inc. leech, g., deuchar, m. and hoogenraad, r. 1982. english grammar for today. london: macmillan education ltd. mildred, l.l. 1984. summary of meaning based translation: a guide to cross language equivalence. lanham: university press of america. newmark, p. 1988. a textbook of translation. shanghai: shanghai foreign language education press. simatupang, m.d.s. 2000. pengantar teori terjemahan. jakarta: direktorat jenderal pendididkan tinggi departemen pendidikan nasional. suryawinata, z. 1989. terjemahan: pengantar teori dan praktek. jakarta: departemen pendidikan dan kebudayaan direktorat jenderal pendidikan tinggi proyek pengembangan lembaga pendidikan tenaga kependidikan. widyamartaya, a. 1989. seni menerjemahkan. yogyakarta: kanisius. 1 elt forum 2 (1) (2013) english language teaching forum http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt improving student’s writing ability in narrative text by using chronological 3d pictures as media kukuh arif wibowo department of english, faculty language and arts, semarang state university, indonesia info artikel ________________ sejarahartikel: diterimajanuari 2013 disetujuifebruari 2013 dipublikasikanjuni 2013 ________________ keywords: writing skill, narrative text, chronological 3d pictures, action research. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ the use of chronological 3d pictures in this study has a purpose at developing students’ competence in writing narrative texts. the objective of the study is to find out the student’s difficulties in writing narrative text, how effective chronological 3d pictures improve student’s ability in writing narrative, and why chronological 3d pictures proposed as media in teaching narrative text. four tests given to the students showed student’s improvement. the mean of the pretest was 63.12. cycle 1’result was 69.25 and cycle 2 ‘result was 77.37. after that, the mean of the post-test was 86.25. from the result, it can be seen that chronological 3d pictures gave significance improvement in teaching narrative text for tenth grade students. in line with the result, i propose that using chronological 3d picture as a media to improve student’s writing narrative text can be one of the positive ways to increase students’ enthusiasm in learning english. © 2013universitasnegeri semarang alamatkorespondensi: gedungb3lantai3 fbsunnes kampussekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: issn 2252-6706 kukuh arif wibowo/ journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 2 introduction writing is a mean of communication that enables someone to communicate to each other. martha (2005:281) stated that writing is a tool that enables people in every discipline to wrestle with facts and idea. writing is effective because in writing the readers are able to know and understand more about the information because they are able to read it repeatedly it until they get the point. writing is different from speaking where the listener only listens to the speaker once. according to kenneth beare (1997), for many english learners, learning to write fluently in english is much more challenging than learning to speak fluently. even for advanced level learners, written communications can come much more slowly in english than spoken communications. in line the problem above, there is also some writing problems occur in learning process. obviously, students have difficulties in expressing their idea into written form. especially in writing narrative text, students have to express their idea to make a story which is can entertain the reader. this is what the writer found in his teacher training practice (ppl/praktik pengalaman lapangan) in august-october 2011 that there were students who had difficulties in writing narrative text. in doing his teaching practice, the writer was requested by the english teacher to teach the seventh grade students of smp kristen 1 magelang. based on the syllabus, the writer had to give the english lesson of narrative text. once, in the classroom activities, he found some of his students got trouble when they were requested to practice writing a narrative text. after being observed, they got difficulties in developing ideas into written form. in teaching language, the teacher should find out some media, methods or techniques in order to make the teaching senior high school students enjoy the learning process. the writer found an idea to use pictures as media to help them developing their idea. those media inspired students’ imagination which leads to be more creative in writing. in this case, the writer intends to use chronological 3d picture into classroom in teaching writing narrative text. by using chronological 3d picture as media in teaching writing narrative text, the senior high school students are given something new and different from what they usually get in class. they are not only the object of the teaching learning process but also the participant. in other words, the teacher makes the students active instead of being silent. through this study, the writer wants to find out a new teaching technique to increase the quality of english teaching learning process in senior high school. . dealing with this study, the writer wants to emphasize in using chronological 3d picture in learning writing process. the writer believes that chronological 3d pictures are very helpful to develop student’s ability in writing, especially narrative text. method of investigation this study is an action research which concerned with the use of chronological 3d picture in teaching narrative texts to develop students’ writing ability. an action research was a form of educational inquiry that used real action of the teachers in response to a certain problem encountered during the teaching and learning process through cycles of action. in the action research there are four steps, there are: 1. planning plan means identify the problem area. planning is the important steps in conducting an action research. it is conducted before a researcher starts her action research. the purpose of this activity is to know the problems and find a good solution for the problems. 2. action acting is the second step after the planning step to implement the instructional strategy that has been planned. 3. observing the third step is an observation which is done by the observer in the same time with the http://esl.about.com/bio/kenneth-beare-2205.htm kukuh arif wibowo/ journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 3 acting. an observer observes the outcomes of the intervention and reflects on the effectiveness of the acting done. 4. reflecting reflection is the process of analyzing data to determine how far the data collected have shown the success of the strategy in solving the problem. in this research, the writer used test and checklist as the instruments. 1. test to assess the development achieved by the students, a series of test were carried out. the test itself was used to measure the improvement of students’ spelling ability. the tests were conducted four times, they were; pretest, test in the end of cycle 1 and cycle 2, and also post-test. 2. classroom observation classroom observation is used in this study because observation technique is based on the direct experiences of the subject observed. observation allows researcher to see and observe behavior changes from his own point of view. in this study, the writer gave writing tests and then analyzed the scores to measure the students’ improvement, proficiency and achievement. in detail this method of analyzing data consists of method of scoring and classifying the scores. 1. method of scoring i used the scoring guidance taken from heaton grid and categories (1975:109-111) in five areas. they are fluency, grammar, vocabulary, content and spelling. the scoring is rated 1 until 5. here is the description: the scoring guidance modified from heaton grid and categories criteria score descriptor fluency 5 excellent: flow style, very easy to understand, both complex and simple sentences, very effective. 4 good: quite flowing in style, mostly easy to understand, and a few complex sentences, very effective. 3 fair: style reasonably smooth, not too hard to understand mostly (but not all), simple sentences, fairly effective. 2 inadequate: bad style, an effort need to understand and enjoy, complex sentences, confusing, mostly simple sentences or compound sentences. 1 unacceptable: very bad, hard to understand, cannot enjoy reading, almost all simple sentences, complex sentences confusing, excessive use of “and”. grammar 5 excellent: mastery of grammar taught one course, only 15% mistakes. 4 good: 25% mistakes only (prepositions, articles, etc). 3 fair: only 30% mistakes, but there are 3-4 minor ones. 2 inadequate: 50% mistakes in grammar 1 unacceptable: there are more 50% mistakes. vocabulary 5 excellent: use of wide range of vocabulary taught previously. only one mistake vocabulary. 4 good: good use of new words acquired, fairly appropriate synonyms, circumlocutions. there are 2-3 mistakes vocabulary. 3 fair: attempts to use words acquired fairly appropriate vocabulary on the whole but there are 4 mistakes vocabulary. kukuh arif wibowo/ journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 4 2 inadequate: restricted in vocabulary, use of synonyms (but not always appropriate), imprecise and vague, affects meaning. there are 5 mistakes vocabulary. 1 unacceptable: very restricted vocabulary, not inappropriate use of synonyms seriously hinders communications. there are more than 5 mistakes vocabularies. content 5 excellent: all sentences support the topic, highly organized, clear progression of ideas, well linked, like educated native speaker. 4 good: ideas well organized, linked could occasionally be clearer but communication not impaired. 3 fair: some lack of organization, reading required for classification of ideas. 2 inadequate: little or no attempt at connectivity, though reader can deduce some organization, individual ideas may be clear but very difficult to deduce connection between them. 1 unacceptable: lacks of organization to serve that communication is seriously impaired. spelling 5 excellent: 15% error in spelling. 4 good: 25% errors in spelling. 3 fair: 40% errors in spelling. 2 inadequate: 60% errors in spelling 1 unacceptable: 80% errors in spelling 2. the classifying score the classifying scores criteria of mastery grade 91-100 excellent 81-90 very good 71-80 good 61-70 fair 51-60 poor less than 50 very poor result and interpretation of the study this research was conducted in state senior high school banyumas. before i conducted the research, i had done the observation on november 28th 2012. i met the headmaster of the school. i asked permission to conduct the research in xc (tenth c) class for six meetings. then, i set the schedule for the research. in conducting the research, test instruments were used to collect the data. they were pre-test, test of cycle one, test of cycle two, and post-test. 1. result of pretest before conducting this action research, a pre-test was given. the purpose of the pre-test was to find out some problems in the classroom especially in writing narrative text. this stage was intended to know the students’ weaknesses before having some treatments. the average of students’ score percentage was then calculated by using this formula: mean = = x 100% = 63.12% the average score of pre-test is 63.12. 2. result of cycle 1 in this cycle, i started the lesson by asking whether they have known about the narrative text or not. almost all students already knew about narrative text since they have learned it before. then i continued by proposing the objectives of the study. to refresh the student’s memory about narrative, i told them the review kukuh arif wibowo/ journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 5 about what exactly narrative text is, the social function, and what the generic structure and language feature of narrative text are. the average of students’ score percentage was then calculated by using this formula mean = = x 100% = 69.25% 3. result of cycle 2 in this cycle, i developed my lesson plan into a better one since at the last meeting i did not satisfied enough with the result of observation. the average of students’ score percentage was then calculated by using this formula; mean = = x 100% = 77.37% 4. result of post-test the post-test was aimed to find out the students’ skill in writing narrative text after the treatment given. in this test, the students were given a work-sheet. the items were same as pretest. i gave them 90 minutes to write a narrative text based on their idea. they did the test very seriously since i told them that the test was intended as final test which will be submitted it to the teacher. the students’ scores were very high. the average of students’ score percentage was then calculated by using this formula; mean = = x 100% = 86.25% since action research was processoriented, it means the research is focused on the students’ process, not on the students’ result. thus, i observed and analyzed the students’ behavioral changes in the learning process. in taking students’ data about the behavioral changes in the process of learning, i used observation sheet as my instruments. observation sheet was used to observe the students’ activity. here are the indicators: a : student’s response toward teacher instructions b : student’s attention in listening to the teacher’s explanation c : student’s activities in asking questions d : student’s activities in answering questions e : student’s activities to look up the dictionary f : student’s activities in taking notes conclusions and suggestions after conducting my study, i would like to conclude that chronological 3d pictures successfully improved the students’ writing skill in narrative text. the students’ interests and motivation after being taught by using chronological 3d pictures were better. it seemed that they felt more relaxed to write their narrative story. it meant that there was an improvement in the students’ behaviors. the students’ improvements were shown by the students’ interest in responding the questions and their motivation in taking part of the activities in the learning process. it meant that there was a better participation of the students at class. therefore, it indicated that chronological 3d pictures definitely developed a better students’ behavior in writing narrative texts. based on the whole result of the study, the writer could recommend some suggestions in this study. based on the research, it is good for students in writing narrative text by using chronological 3d pictures. this will make them to be better and better in their writings’ achievement. for other researchers, they can use this study as their reference to conduct other researches on the same field. they are also expected to be able to cover the limitation in this study and provide more detail information about this. kukuh arif wibowo/ journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 6 bibliography ruddel, martha rapp. 2005. teaching content reading and writing. usa: john wiley and sons, inc beare, kenneth.1997. english as second language. available at www.about.com. heaton, j.b. 1975. writing english language test. new york: mcgraw-hill. heinich. 1982. mcniff, j and whitehead, j 2002. action research: principles and practice. second edition. london and newyork: routledge falmer. harmer, j. 2001. the practice of english language teaching. cambridge: longman. harris, p. 2003. writing in the primary school years. south melbourne: social science press. hyland, k. 2002. teaching and researching writing. london: longman. tendero, a. 2006. facing versions of the self: the effects of digital storytelling on english education. contemporary issues in technology and teacher education, 6(2), 174-194. retrieved february, 13, 2013, from http://www.citejournal.org/articles/v6i2languagearts 2.pdf. mplemented in teaching written descriptive text for seventh grade students at secondary school. assume that team pair solo technique and round robin technique are proven effective to be 1 elt forum 2 (2) (2013) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the impact of team pair solo technique and round robin technique on students’ ability in writing descriptive text rega detapratiwi  department of english, faculty language and arts, semarang state university, indonesia info artikel ________________ sejarah artikel: diterima oktober 2013 disetujui oktober 2013 dipublikasikan november 2013 ________________ keywords: team pair solo, round robin, writing, descriptive text ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this journal is based on a study which attempts to improve the students’ writing ability of the seventh grade students of smp negeri 1 parakan to write descriptive text using team pair solo technique and round robin technique. the study aimed to examine the effectiveness of team pair solo technique and round robin t echnique to improve students’ ability in writing descriptive text. test and scoring system were used as the instruments to collect the data needed. pretest and posttest were given to both experimental group and comparison group. in the treatments, the students of the experimental group were taught using team pair solo technique. on the other hand, the students of comparison group were taught using round robin technique. posttest was given after the treatments. the t-test result showed that tvalue was 2.64 and ttable for σ = 5% was 2.01. it can be clearly seen that tvalue is higher than the critical value (2.64>2.01). it means that the hypothesis of h1 is accepted and h0 is refused. based on the proven hypotheses, the writer can conclude and i © 2013 universitas negeri semarang  alamat korespondensi: gedung b3 lantai 3 fbs unnes kampus sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: theblood.orchid@gmail.com issn 2252-6706 mailto:theblood.orchid@gmail.com rega detapratiwi / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 2 introduction writing as one of four language skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) is very important in learning language. writing activity has given an important contribution to human life, according to harmer (2011:4), “writing is used for a wide variety of purposes it is produced in many different forms.” it can be seen in people daily life activities when they need to write memos, letter, notes, invitation, brochure, articles, application letter, and many others. writing plays an important role in modern societies. the examples of writing activities products are books, magazine and newspaper that we read almost every day. writing skill at junior high school is taught based on genres. the genres that should be taught for junior high school students are descriptive and procedure. furthermore, this final project will focus in descriptive text that needs more concrete and detail idea than procedure text. descriptive text is one of the genres that must be taught, so that the students will know how to describe any object (person, place or thing) in their surroundings. in writing class, the teachers should teach their students using proper technique to get students’ attention. an interesting activity in writing class that can be created by proper technique will take more students’ attention and they will understand the lesson well. a proper teaching technique that used by the teachers can also improve the quality of teaching and learning. to avoid of being bored and to make teaching writing comprehension more effective and interesting, in this final project, the writer compares the impact of two techniques that can be used in teaching writing comprehension; team pair solo and round robin. hopefully, by using those techniques the students will be more interested and enthusiastic in learning writing comprehension so that they will improve their writing skill and not to mention, they will enjoy the lesson. team pair solo and round robin technique are two of the techniques in cooperative learning. those techniques involve students’ participation and they have to work cooperatively with their classmates in groups. the statement about the group work is stated by harmer (2002:260): it is considered that writing in groups, whether as part of a long process or as part of a short game like communicative activity, can be greatly motivating students, including as it does, not only writing, but also research, discussion, peer evaluation, and group pride in a group accomplishment. through team pair solo or round robin technique, it is expected the students can be motivated to write descriptive text and improve their writing skill. literature review as one of the four skills, writing has given an important contribution to human life. acquiring writing skill is more laborious and demanding than acquiring the three other skills. writing is one of the important skills in studying language. however, as richard and renandya (2010: 303) stated, writing can be said as the most difficult skill among the four skills; listening, speaking, reading, and writing. some techniques have been applied in teaching writing. seow (in richards and renandya 2010:304) states that “writing consists of four basic stages; planning, drafting, revising, and editing. three other stages could be inserted after the drafting stage; these are responding, evaluating and post-writing.” it means that writing is not an instant activity, to improve this skill students need to do a lot of practices by using some steps/ stages. one of text types or genres given to junior high school is descriptive text. descriptive text is used to describe a particular person, place or thing. a good descriptive text will make the readers understand about particular things that described in text. description is a useful tool in many kind of writing. a clear and lively description depends on close observation. we must pay attention to what we see and hear, and rega detapratiwi / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 3 to specific word choices that will make those observations vivid for our readers. as international language, english is taught to students from elementary school, junior high school, senior high school, and it is still taught in university. according ktsp 2006 for junior high school, students should be able to use english to overcome their problems in daily life with their language skills in spoken and written forms. the seventh graders of junior high school are categorized as pre intermediate level, so they are not able to produce a long writing. the short writing is the suitable one for them. arends (2007:344) states: the cooperative learning model requires student cooperation and interdependence in its task, goal and reward structures. the cooperative learning model was developed to achieve at least three important instructional goals: academic achievement, tolerance and acceptance of diversity, and social skill development. cooperative learning is a method that makes the students learn how to communicate, socialize and respect each other in group. they can share their opinions or ideas and then discuss with the members of group to decide the best opinion to solve the problem. in cooperative learning activity students are more active than the teacher. the students are expected to conduct and manage the situation, they are demanded to think creatively and independently. in this study, the cooperative learning techniques used by the writer are round robin technique and team pair solo technique. research method in this research, the writer chose true experimental design which uses pretest-posttest control group design. the writer used this design because she used two classes, one was as experimental group and the other was as control or the comparison group; and subjects were assigned randomly to each group. the study was conducted in smp n 1 parakan. population of the study was seventh grade students of smp n 1 parakan in the academic year 2012/ 2013. there were eight classes of the seventh grade students of smp n 1 parakan. on the average, each class consisted of 25 students. all of them were given same materials in teaching and learning process. the samples of the study are two classes of seventh grade students of smp n 1 parakan. the first class was 7-3 as an experimental class and the second class was 7-2 as a comparison class. the writer chose the sample based on the consideration: these classes were given the same english material by the same english teacher; these classes had the same average in english achievement; the students had been studying english for the same period. in this study, the writer used test and scoring system as instruments, then analyzed the result of the experiment using t-test formula. it is used to know whether there is any significant difference between the students who were treated by using team pair solo technique and those who were treated by using round robin technique. before computing the t-test value, the writer had to find the normality and homogeneity of experimental and comparison group’s pre-test to find out that the data was normally distributed and homogeneous. if the tvalue is higher than t-table, it means that there is a significant difference between two means. on the other hand, if the t-value is lower than ttable, it means that there is no significant difference between two means. result and discussion result of the test the data were obtained from students’ achievement of writing descriptive text. the following is the table that shows the average scores for pre-test and post-test for all aspects of students’ mastery. rega detapratiwi / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 4 table 1. the result of pre-test and post-test average scores of the experimental and comparison group group mean (x) of pretest mean (x) of post-test the difference between pre-test and post-test experimental 66.08 80.48 14.4 comparison 68.32 75.44 7.12 the difference between pre-test and post-test 2.24 5.04 according to table 4.3, it could be seen that the difference in average between the pretest of experimental and comparison group is 2.24. the difference in average between the posttest of experimental and comparison group is 5.04, the difference between pre-test and posttest of experimental group is 14.4, and the difference between pre-test and post-test of comparison group is 7.12. in classifying the score, the writer used the measurement of the students’ achievement. table 2. table of criteria assessment students’ mastery criteria of assessment grade 91-100 excellent 81-90 very good 71-80 good 61-70 fair 51-60 poor less than 50 very poor (harris 1969:134) to make the difference easier to be understood, the writer applied the percentage scores of pre-test and post-test of both groups using the criteria assessment into the chart as follows: rega detapratiwi / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 5 chart 1. the percentage of experimental group score the chart 1 describes about the pre-test and post-test result of experimental group. from the chart, it is shown that the result of post-test is better than pre-test. in pre-test there were 24% of students who got “poor” criteria, and only could reach “fair” and “good” criteria. in post-test 4% got “excellent” and the rest increased from “poor” and “fair” to “good” and “very good”. chart 2. the percentage of comparison group score chart 2 shows the achievement of the pretest and post-test obtained by comparison group. for the pre-test achievement, students who got “very good” were only 4%, 36% for “good” and 40% for “fair” criteria. after the treatment, the percentage of the students who got “very good” and “good” increased 12% and 32%, while “fair” criteria was only 12%. for both pre-test and post-test, there were no excellent and very poor criteria based on the chart. after getting the data of the experimental and comparison groups, the normality of those data were analyzed to make sure the data are normal. the writer used liliefors test to analyze the normality of the data. result of the data analysis could be seen from the significance that was written in the table. if dvalue < dtable, it means that the data was distributed normally. from the tables 4.1 and table 4.2, for experimental group the dvalue was 0.1643 and for comparison group the dvalue was 0.1389. the dtable for σ = 0.05 and n = 24 was 0.27. for both groups, each critical value was lower than the d table. for experimental group the dvalue (0.1643) < dtable (0.27) and for comparison group the dvalue (0.1389) < dtable (0.27). the result proven that all of the scores in the data were normally distributed. the writer used bartlett test to find the variance of homogeneity between the pre-test of experimental group and pre-test of comparison group. homogeneity is important to check 0 0 28 48 24 0 4 44 44 8 0 0 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 excellent very good good fair poor very poor pre-test post-test 0 4 36 40 5 0 0 16 68 12 0 0 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 excellent very good good fair poor very poor pre-test post-test rega detapratiwi / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 6 whether the data of each group are homogenous or not. if x2 value < x2 table it means that the data had the same variance and they were homogenous. from the computation using bartlett test, the writer found that the x2 value was 0.94609 and the x2 table was 3.8414. because x2 value (0.94609) < x2 table (3.8414), it could be said that the data had the same variance and they were homogenous. after the data were considered as normal and homogenous, the writer applied the t-test. in order to know the t-test, it is needed to find the mean score and score deviation of the post-test of the two groups. to find the score deviation of experimental and comparison group the writer used formula: ∑x2 = ( ) where: ∑x2 = total of quadrant score of students’ post-test in experimental group. .∑x = total score of students’ post-test in experimental group. nx = the number of the students in experimental group. the computation of score deviation of experimental group’s post-test is as follows: ∑x2 = ( ) = 162896 ( ) = 162896 = – 161925.76 = 970.24 the computation of score deviation of comparison group’s post-test is as follows: ∑x2 = 143500 ( ) = 143500 = 143500 – 142279.84 = 1220.16 after getting all data, the result can be put into the formula of t-test: t √[ ][ ] = √[ ][ ] = √[ ][ ] = √[ ][ ] = √ = = 2.64 after calculating t-test, the writer used the critical value of t-table to check whether the difference is significant or not. for σ = 5% and the number of the students (df) was 25+25-2= 48, it was obtained from the formula ∑nx+∑ny2. the writer found the t-table = 2.01. based on the computation, the writer found the t-value was 2.64. because t-value (2.64) > t-table (2.01), it could be concluded that there is a significant difference between experimental and comparison group. rega detapratiwi / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 7 discussion after doing the experiment and analyzing the result statistically, the writer could conclude that there is an improvement to the students’ ability in writing descriptive text using team pair solo technique and round robin technique to the seventh grade students of smp n 1 parakan. based on the computation result, the tvalue (2.64)>the t-table (2.01), it proved that the difference is statistically significant. from this study, it can be concluded that there is significant difference between comparison and experimental group. the aim of this study is to know if there is significant difference in improving writing a descriptive text between the group who was taught by using team pair solo technique and the group who was taught by using round robin technique in seventh grade students of smp n 1 parakan in academic year 2012/ 2013. from both groups there is an improvement, but based on the analysis the result of experimental group is higher than the result of comparison group. the post-test average scores (mean) of comparison and experimental group were 75.44 and 80.48. it can be said that teaching by using team pair solo technique is more effective to improve students’ writing ability than using round robin technique. conclusion based on the result of the study that had been discussed on previous chapter, there was an improvement in both comparison and experimental group after they got the treatment. in the experimental group which was taught using team pair solo technique, their pre-test’s mean score was 66.08 and their post-test’s mean score was 80.48. while in the comparison group which was taught using round robin technique, their pre-test’s mean score was 68.32 and their post-test’s mean score was 75.44.the two techniques that used by the writer to teach comparison and experimental group were effective to improve students’ ability in writing descriptive text. however, it could be seen that the post-test’s mean score of experimental group was higher than comparison group. it proven that the students’ improvement in experimental group was higher than comparison group. the ttest result showed that t-value was 2.64 and ttable for σ = 5% was 2.01. it proven that there was a significant difference between teaching writing descriptive text by using team pair solo technique and round robin technique, because t-value (2.64)> t-table (2.01). based on the result of the study, the writer concluded that team pair solo technique was more effective than round robin technique to improve students’ ability in writing descriptive text. using team pair solo technique in teaching writing descriptive text is more effective than using round robin technique, because in team pair solo technique the students can share and develop their idea more frequent. at the first time students can share and get the ideas from the group, secondly they work in pairs so they can add the idea by sharing with their partner who has work in different group and finally they can write their own descriptive text individually by using the ideas they’ve got from previous activities. references arends, richard i. 2007. learning to teach. new york: mcgraw-hill companies inc. arikunto, s. 2006. prosedur penelitian: suatu pendekatan praktik. jakarta: pt. rineka cipta. harmer, jeremy. 2002. the practice of english language teaching: third edition completely revised and updated. malaysia: longman. rega detapratiwi / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 8 --------------------. 2011. how to teach writing. essex: longman. harris, d. p. 1969. teaching english as second language. new york: mcgraw hill book company. muhidin, sambas a. and abdurrahman, maman. 2007. analisis korelasi, regresi, dan jalur dalam penelitian (dilengkapi aplikasi program spss). bandung: pustaka setia. richards, jack c. and renandya, willy a. 2010. methodology in language teaching: an anthology of current practice. usa: cambridge university press. 1 elt forum 4 (1) (2015) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the use of bamboo dancing technique to imrpove students’ speaking skill in interpersonal conversation (a classroom action research at grade vii students of smp it insan cendekia semarang in the academic year of 2014/2015) linna endah nur wahyuni english department. faculty of languages and arts. state university of semarang aticle info ________________ article history: received in juni 2015 approved in juli 2015 published in agustus 2015 ________________ keywords: bamboo-dancing technique, speaking skill, interpersonal conversation, action research. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ mostly students of junior high school have difficulties in their speaking skill, especially in interpersonal conversation. it is because they have to concern with the material and also the practice of the conversation itself. so, some techniques should be carried out to make speaking easier and interesting. one of the techniques to teach speaking is bamboo-dancing technique which is one of cooperative learning technique, in which students are placed in two lines to see each other and make conversation (suprijono (2009:98)). the aim of this study is to find out how bamboo-dancing technique can be implemented in improving students’ skill to master interpersonal conversation. in order to achieve the objectives, an action research was designed and carried out in this study. the participants of this study were 28 students of class vii b of smp it insan cendekia semarang in the academic year of 2014/2015. questionnaires, observation guide, and speaking tests were used as the instruments for collecting the data. the analysis results of the first and second questionnaires showed that bamboo-dancing technique was useful to most of students of smp it insan cendekia semarang to improve their learning motivation and interesting in interpersonal conversation. their perception was changed positively after having the treatment. it meant that the use of bmboo-dancing technique could ease their problem in speaking in english especially interpersonal conversation. the results of the study showed significant improvement of the students’ achievement in mastering interpersonal conversation. it is proven by the average results in every test; pre cycle test (67), cycle 1 test (73), and post cycle test (79). moreover, the result of the observation guide showed that bamboo-dancing technique changed the students’ learning behaviour being better than before. based on the results of those research instruments, it can be concluded that the use of bamboo-dancing technique as learning technique gives the improvement of students’ speaking skill in interpersonal conversation in terms of motivation, attitude and mastery. © 2015 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: linnaendah@yahoo.com issn 2252-6706 linna endah nur wahyuni / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 2 introduction speaking is regarded as a skill which is difficult to learn because people have to know how to pronounce, how to deliver the message of the speech when they speak to someone. besides, they have to know how to use the rules of speaking. speaking has some activities, and conversation is one of them. as we know, conversation is when two people or more talk to each other in a formal and informal situation. based on the current curriculum in our country that is 2013 curriculum especially for the seventh grader students of junior high school, they learn about one kind of conversation that is interpersonal conversation. in interpersonal conversation, the students learn how to socialize by using spoken language to interact with surrounding. brown (2001: 274) says that “interpersonal conversation is carried out more for the purpose of maintaining social relationships than for the transmission of facts and information”. interpersonal conversation includes the materials for example suggestions and offers, greeting and leave taking, asking and giving opinion, giving compliments and congratulations, etc. for this interpersonal conversation material, the students have to concentrate to the teacher explanation about the material and also the ways to practice it. in reality, the seventh graders students of junior high school get some problems in learning interpersonal conversation. there are two common problems faced by the students in doing interpersonal conversation. first is they don’t know the expressions used for stating, asking, giving, and also responding to the conversation, and the second they also get confused in the turn taking, when their turn to ask/ state and when their turn to answer/ give responses. the fact that students in the seventh graders get difficulties in interpersonal conversation is experienced by the researcher while doing teaching practice in the smp it insan cendekia semarang. when the researcher asked the students to practice interpersonal conversation in pairs by the theme introducing to others, the students did not know who started the conversation first, what should be said at the first time, and what expressions must be used. by seeing these problems, the teachers should find other techniques in teaching interpersonal conversation. as we know that in speaking activities it will make the students always practice the conversation, so to make them practice the conversation easily, it will be better to place the students in a group work/ pairs work as elaborated by cooperative learning technique in which students learn the material in a group work. related to the difficulties faced by the students in interpersonal conversation, we need a cooperative technique which will make students really active and participate in the learning process as stated by slavin (1995) that cooperative learning is an instructional method in which students are put in small groups through which students work together to maximize their own and each other’s learning. due to the reasons above, the writer intended to carry out a research on the use of bamboo-dancing technique to improve the students’ speaking skill in interpersonal conversation. the objectives of this study are, the first to describe how bamboo dancing technique applied in teaching interpersonal conversation material, and linna endah nur wahyuni / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 3 the second, to describe how the students’ improvement in their speaking skill after bamboo-dancing had been applied. method of investigation the writer uses action research in this study. action research defines as a systematic study that combines action and reflection with the intention of improving practiced (ebbutt 1985:156 in cohen 1994:297). action research means the researcher does his or her research by teaching real students in the real class, using steps which were designed by him or herself. besides, one of the characteristic of action research is problem solving oriented. then, wallace (1998) said that action research is different from this in that it nearly always arises from some specific problem or issue arising out of our professional practiced, but it is very problem focused in its approach and every practical in its intended out comes. it means that researcher should discover something if he or she finds one or more problems in the learning activity in the class. in this action research there were four phases in one cycle for doing classroom, there were planning, acting, observing, and reflecting (hopkin1985:50). research design which will be done in this study will be applying two cycles. each cycle consists of two meetings. then, each meeting consists of four activities; planning, acting, observing, and reflecting as hopkin to said above. it means that if the target was not achieved yet in cycle 1, the next cycle must be conducted after revising plan. continuing the definition of action research, here, i apply the four components; planning, acting, observing, and reflecting in each cycle. then, this research has two cycles. linna endah nur wahyuni / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 4 the description will be drawn in graphic below: figure 3.1: design of classroom action research (adapted from kemmis and mctaggart in arikunto, 2006) a. planning in this step, the writer explains about what, why, when, where, and how the action will be done. in planning step of the study, the writer prepares everything that will be needed and used in the study. the writer prepares such as the lesson plan, teaching material, attendance list, observation guide, exercises, and also scoring technique (scoring sheet). b. acting this step is the implementation of the planning. this step must follow the plant hat had been planned in the planning steps. the writer as the teacher may do modification but may not deviate from the planning. in this study, the writer conducts 2 cycles which each cycle consists of 4 meetings. the writer used the same technique of teaching interpersonal conversation that is using bamboo dancing technique for those cycles, but as stated before that the writer had to do modification in it when the writer conduct cycle 2. it purposes to improve the students’ achievement. c. observing observing is execution of observation which is done by the observer. in this study, the person who acts as the observers is the real teacher of the subject study. the observer had to note what is happened when the writer does the action. d. reflecting in this step, the observer had to reflect the action which had been done to the writer who acts as the teacher in this action research. if the result of the first cycle is not good enough, the writer should do the second cycle. to support the research, the writer used questionnaire and test to gather the data. hopefully, this research could be linna endah nur wahyuni / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 5 conducted well and could achieve the objective of this research. in this study, the researcher used random sampling technique. as stated by huck, cormier, and bounds that the accuracy of the researcher’s inference depends on how representative the sample is. thus, to make the sample more representatives, most researchers select the sample from the population randomly. in random sample, each member of population that you were sampling had an equal chance or probability of being selected as a subject. in this study, the researcher took one class from two classes that became the member of population. it is done by the researcher because the school had applied the randomization in students’ acceptance. the learning experience background of the students is different between one and other students since they were from many different elementary schools. from the explanation above, that is why the writer does not need to hold the random sampling again, and the writer is brave enough to choose the class 7a as the sample of this study. the first instrument in this study used by the writer is a test based on murcia (2001) said that perhaps the most difficult aspect of spoken english was that it was almost always accomplished via interaction with at least one other speaker. there were three tests which had been conducted during research; they were pretest, treatment i test/ cycle1 test, and post test. the pre-test given by giving the researcher made some oral test; they were interaction test and comprehension test about interpersonal conversation. after doing pre-test, the writer did the cycle 1. in the end of cycle 1, students were given simple evaluation to check students’ improvement. the form of cycle 1 was the same with the pretest form. then the last test that had to be conducted was post-test. the form of posttest was just the same with pre-test and cycle 1 test. in this action research, the writer also used the second instrument that was observation guide as one of research instruments. the observation guide was filled by the writer to know the students’ behavior changes as used in 2013 curriculum when they were taught before and after using bamboodancing technique in interpersonal conversation competence. results of the study then, the result of each test showed that there was a good improvement of students’ speaking skill in interpersonal conversation competence. then, the improvement of them could be seen in the chart below: linna endah nur wahyuni / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 6 the average score of pretest was only 67. it showed that the average in pretest was lower than the criterion of the passing assessment of smp it insan cendekia semarang that had high criterion or kkm that is 75. in pretest, almost of them were still confused in doing interpersonal conversation, especially about what response to give and the turn taking. in detail, the writer also found that almost students of 7b did not have good grammar, proper pronunciation, good comprehension, vocabularies, and fluency in speaking. then, in cycle 1 the average score was 73. although it showed that the average was still lower than the criterion of the passing assessment of smp it insan cendekia semarang which is 75, the writer found that many of the students got improvement in speaking skill in this first cycle. they seemed more confident, more talk active, and more attractive in practicing the conversation. the students who got improvement could be seen for example c-1. in the pretest c-1 got 68,75 and in the cycle 1 got 81,25. the other example c-21 who got significance score from 62,5 to 81,25. even though, in the first cycle we had been able to see the students’ improvement, the writer still had a responsibility to make some of students who still got lower score than 75 to pass the kkm. the average score of post test was 79. it showed that the average had passed the passing assessment of smp it insan cendekia semarang which is 75. the improvement from cycle 1 to cycle 2 was 6,0 and there were eleven students got 75 and 14 students got 81,25, and even though only three students got the highest score 87,5. it was a good improvement, and the average score of them was considered to be successful, and the comparison m pretest: m post test = 67 : 79. then, it showed that the use of bamboo-dancing technique gave a good contribution to improve students’ speaking skill in interpersonal conversation especially about spoken introduction, greeting and leave taking, and also apologizing material. the result of the post test also showed that using bamboo-dancing technique in teaching interpersonal conversation gave many good impacts. first, english speaking class being attractive, interesting, fun, and not boring. second, the students got easy to memorize and 60 62 64 66 68 70 72 74 76 78 80 pretest cycle 1 cycle 2 linna endah nur wahyuni / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 7 understand the expressions used and the turn taking. third, the students seemed more active, more confidence, and attractive in practicing interpersonal conversation with their friends. test was not the only proof to say that the use of bamboodancing technique improved students’ speaking skill. there were also observation guides in this study. the observation guide (to know students’ learning behavior) showed that the students’ behavior from pretest, cycle 1, and post test had improved well. in pretest, the writer still found so many students were busy by themselves. most of them did not pay attention to the teacher when explained the materials, and friends who performed the dialog. in cycle 1 the students were more respect to the teacher and friends. the students liked to pay attention when the writer explained the material. then, when the writer asked them to practice the expression using bamboodancing technique they were very enthusiastic. not only improved their respect, applying bamboodancing technique in interpersonal conversation also improved their confidence, honesty, and responsibility. the improvement of students’ behavior changes also appeared in the cycle 2. in cycle 2, all students seemed to be nice and good students. they always paid attention to the teacher when the teacher explained the materials, they always did the task very well and on time, and they were much more active in questioning, active in answering questions, and confident in performing dialog in front of the class. the other proof which showed that using of bamboo-dancing technique in teaching interpersonal conversation gave a good contribution in interpersonal conversation competence was the result of questionnaire that was filled by the students as the subject of the study. this questionnaire had 8 questions based on certain categories; they were about students’ interest, the advantage of using bamboo-dancing technique in teaching leaning process, students’ motivation, the relevancy of using bamboodancing technique in teaching interpersonal conversation, and its sustainability. then, the result showed that the students thought that the use of bamboo-dancing technique in teaching learning process helped them very much. based on the result above, the writer concluded that the improvement of the students’ speaking skill in interpersonal conversations not only proved by the result of the test, but also proved by the result of the observation guide that was done by the writer, and the result of the questionnaire. in short, the writer concluded that bamboo-dancing technique really gave a good contribution to improve students’ speaking skill in interpersonal conversation competence; besides, it also changed the students’ learning behavior to be better. conclussion then, the aim of this study was to investigate the use of bamboo-dancing technique in improving students’ speaking skill in interpersonal conversation at seventh grade students of smp it insan cendekia semarang. the students’ achievement could be seen from the analysis in the test including pre test, cycle 1 test, and post test. the result showed that the implementation of bamboo-dancing technique could improve students’ speaking skill, especially in interpersonal conversation competence. the students’ improvement in speaking skill is including some aspect of speaking (pronunciation, fluency, grammar, and vocabularies). the mean of students’ score from pre test to cycle 1 test was improved from 67 to 73. the next improvement was showed by the mean of the student’s result from cycle 1 to post test, which is 73 to 79. both cycles showed good result and positive progress which indicated that bamboo-dancing technique improved very much students’ speaking skill in interpersonal conversation competence at seventh grade students in smp it insan cendekia semarang. and the last aim of this study was to investigate the students’ learning behaviour before and after bamboo-dancing technique was linna endah nur wahyuni / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 8 implemented. the first evidence could be seen from the questionnaire. from the questionnaire, the students showed what being expected in this study. based on the questionnaire, it showed that, the students’ interest in learning english was improved, bamboo-dancing technique improved the students’ motivation in learning interpersonal conversation materials, the use of bamboodancing technique helped the students very much to improve their interpersonal conversation, students felt many differences in their speaking ability before and after bamboo-dancing technique had been implemented, the technique was very important to the students so that they wanted it to be done continuously. second evidence, students’ behaviour changes was showed by the observation guide. students’ learning behaviour had been changed from pre test to cycle 1, and from cycle 1 to cycle 2/ posttest. the students’ behaviour had changed including their honesty, discipline, responsibility, and also their confidence. in pre test most of the students got c in their behaviour score, and in cycle 1, most of them improved their attitude in b score. not only in cycle 1, in cycle 2/ post test, students also showed their behaviour improvement from b to a score. the students’ behaviour improvement was concluded very good improvement. bibliography arikunto, suharsimi. 2006. prosedur penelitian: suatu pendekatan praktik. jakarta: pt asdi mahasatya. brown, h. douglas. 2001. teaching by principle: an interactive approach to language pedagogy (second edition). new york: longman. paul, d. 2007. teaching english to children in asia. hong kong: pearson education asia limited. bailey. 2005. practical english language teaching speaking. new york: mc. graw hill. design of classroom action research (adapted from kemmis and mctaggart in arikunto, 2006) suprijono.2009. cooperative learning. yogyakarta: pustaka bealajar. hopkins, d. 1985. a teachers guide to classroom research. philadelpia: open university press. brown, h. douglas. 2004. language assessment: principles and classroom practices. united states of america: pearson education, inc. celce, m dan murcia. 2001. teaching english as a second or foreign language (3rd ed). united states of america: heinle & heinle, a division of thomson, inc. http://pubs.cde.ca.gov/tcsii/documentlibrary/charac teristicsmg.aspx (accessed on 10 september 2014) http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/cooperative/techni ques.html (accessed on 11 september 2014) http://area.dgidc.minedu.pt/gramatica/whatspeakingis.htm (accessed on 11 september 2014) http://www.cal.org/caela/esl_resources/digests/spe ak.html (accessed on 11 september 2014) florez.1999. improving adult english language learners’ speaking skill. eric diget.in http://www.ericdigests.org/20003/adult.htmf (accessed on 11 september 2014) normayulita, a.n. 2011. the use of puppets as media in teaching transactional and interpersonal conversation ( an action research at the eight graders of smp negeri 1 slawi in the academic year of 2010 / 2011 ). maharani, lutfiana tyas. 2014. improving students’ skill in writing descriptive text by using four square writing method (a classroom action research at grade viii students of smp negeri 1 alian in the academic year of 2014/2015). putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 1 elt forum 6 (1) (2017) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the use of 20-squares: add one more word and word clap games to teach vocabulary a quasi experimental study at the seventh graders of smpn 5 magelang in the academic year 2015/2016 afrilita mardiana putri, djoko sutopo, dwi anggani linggar bharati english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in june 2017 approved in july 2017 published in august 2017 ________________ keywords: 20-squares: add one more word, word clap, vocabulary, quasi-experimental research ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ the study has objectives to find out whether 20-squares: add one more word can be used in teaching vocabulary to the seventh graders of smpn 5 magelang and to find out whether there is a significant difference of the use of 20-squares: add one more word and word clap games in the students’ vocabulary achievement. the subjects of this study are two classes of seventh grade of smpn 5 magelang. one class serves as the control group and one class as the experimental group. this is a quasi-experimental research by using non-equivalent control group design. the instrument used is tests. the result shows that 20-squares: add one more word improves the students’ vocabulary mastery. the result of t-test analysis shows that the experimental group get better achievement than the control group. in the pre-test, the average score of the experimental group is 63 and the control group is 62.67. in the post-test, the average score of experimental group is 81,17 and the control group is 70,67. the result of the t-test is 3.895 and t-table is 1.67. it means that the t-value is higher than t-table (3.895 > 1.67). therefore, it can be concluded that 20-squares: add one more word can be used as an alternative way in teaching vocabulary. © 2017 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: unnes_english@yahoo.com a. mardiana putri & d. sutopo & d. anggani linggar bharati / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 2 introduction language takes an important part in social relationship among human beings. people need language to express their feeling, thought and desire. people use language to communicate properly with others in many fields and places. one of the languages that are most widely spoken in the world is english. as cited by harmer (2001:1), although english is not the largest number of native or „first‟ language speakers, it is widely used by many people all over the world as their „second‟ language. people have to master it well since it is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. regarding to the importance of english, it has accordingly been chosen as the first foreign language to be taught in some schools in indonesia (ramelan, 1992:6). as stated in school based curriculum (2006:36), the purposes of english language teaching are to develop students‟ competence in spoken and written communication and to reach the informational literacy level. vocabulary is one of the most important components that has to be firstly learnt because people could not express what they want if they do not have enough vocabulary. “without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed” (thornbury, 2002: 13). people can still understand what others try to convey by any vocabularies although the grammar is incorrect. dellar and hocking in thornbury also quotes (2002: 13): if you spend most of your time studying grammar, your english will not improve very much. you will see most improvement if you learn more words and expression. you can say very little with grammar, but you can say almost anything with words! based on the writer‟s experience in her internship in the junior high school, most of the seventh graders found difficulties in acquiring new vocabulary since they have not got english subject in their elementary school. teaching vocabulary for beginner students is different from teaching vocabulary to intermediate or advanced students. they have different characteristics, attention, and ability. by doing so, teacher should choose an appropriate technique in teaching vocabulary to those different levels of students. teachers are expected to be creative to create enjoyable activities in order to make the students attract the learning. . if the teachers can not attract the students to enjoy the learning, it might be difficult to reach the goal of the lesson. teaching vocabulary to the beginners should be more fun than teaching to intermediate and advanced students because a monotonous teaching technique can make students get bored easily. based on the explanations above, one of the problems is the students feel anxious, afraid, and bored because teachers still use the same monotonous teaching technique to teach vocabulary. this problem existed in the seventh graders of smpn 5 magelang in the academic year of 2015/2016. most of them got bad marks in doing shopping list midterm test. thus, to overcome the problem, the writer tried to help them to learn shopping list lesson by using 20-squares: add one more word. 20-squares: add one more word is a kind of vocabulary game in which students are divided into and work in groups. each group consists of 4 students. each two students in a group will be given a piece of paper that consists lists of words in 20 squares. every square contains three words which have the same type, for example: a group of fruit (apple, orange, grape,..., etc.), a group of flower (jasmine, rose, tulip, . . .etc.). then, students have to try to add one extra word (in the same type) to three that are already given in every square. this game has purpose to ease the students learn vocabulary by grouping the words. a. mardiana putri & d. sutopo & d. anggani linggar bharati / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 3 the writer chooses 20-squares: add one more word because the game is practical and simple to be applied in class. the game is also suitable to teach english vocabulary for beginner students because this game is a kind of word grouping that will ease the students in learning new words. this game can also build students‟ self-confidence because this game is played in groups. the writer expects that by using 20-squares: add one more word, students can memorize new vocabularies easily and enjoy the learning. this issue motivates the writer to conduct a research on the students‟ vocabulary achievement to the seventh graders in smpn 5 magelang. the writer is interested in conducting a research to find out the student‟s achievement in learning shopping list lesson by using 20-squares: add one more word game. methodology of the research this study uses a quasi-experimental as the research design. according to creswell (2009: 154), quasi-experimental is a form of experimental research in which individuals are not randomly assigned to groups. in this study, non-equivalent control group design was used. a non-equivalent groups design includes an existing group of participants who receive a treatment and another existing group of participants to serve as a control group. the subject of this study was seventh graders of smpn 5 magelang in the academic year 2015/2016. the writer divided the subject of the study into two groups, vii h assigned to experimental group and vii g as control group. during the treatment, students in experimental group used 20-squares: add one more word in teaching vocabulary, while students in control group used word clap game. in order to collect data about students‟ vocabulary mastery improvement between the two groups and to compare the effectiveness of two games in improving students` vocabulary mastery, the writer used vocabulary test as a main instrument. the research design of the study can be described as follows: r 01 x 02 r 03 y 04 in which, r : respondents, 01 : pre-test for the experimental group 02 : post-test for the experimental group 03 : pre-test for the control group 04 : post-test for control group x : treatment using 20-squares: add one more word y : treatment using word clap in this study, the writer divided the subjects of the study into two groups, an experimental group and a control group. before and after the experiment, both groups were given pre-test and post-test of vocabulary knowledge. both groups took pre-test (01) and (03) to check the equivalence between the two groups before getting the experiment. during the experiment, the experimental group was taught by using 20-squares: add one more word (x), while the word clap (y) was performed to the control group. after the experiment, the same post-tests (02) and (04) were administrated to investigate whether any significant differences in learning vocabulary between the two groups. a. mardiana putri & d. sutopo & d. anggani linggar bharati / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 4 the result of test was analyzed using t-test formula to make sure whether there was a significant difference between pre-test and post test of the experimental and control groups and to know which strategy was more effective to improve students` vocabulary mastery. however, the standard deviation should be computed before counting the t-test. the formula of standard deviation is as follows: in which, s = standard deviation of both groups n1 = students amount of experimental group s1 = standard deviation of experimental group n2 = students amount of control group s2 = standard deviation of control group to find out the t-value of the significant difference between the two means of the pre-test and post-test, the formula is as follows: in which, t = t-value s = standard deviation of both groups x1 = mean of experimental group n1 = students amount of experimental group x2 = mean of control group n2 = students amount of control group result and analysis pre test findings the writer first gave pretest to control and experimental classes. in the instrument of pretest, there were 20 multiple choice items about vocabulary related to shopping list. in doing the test, the writer gave 40 minutes to complete the test. based on the result of the pretest, the total scores of the experimental group is 1890 and mean score of this group was 63.00. different from the experimental groug that the total scores of pretest in control group was 1880 and the mean score was 62.67. the result of pretest in control group was slightly different from the experimental group. so, the writer concluded that two groups had equal level vocabulary mastery before getting the treatment, therefore, the experiment could be continued. implementation of the experiment after conducting pretest to both classes, viig and viih as control group and experimental group, the next step is giving treatment. the control group, vii g was taught using word clap game, t = ̅̅̅̅ ̅̅̅̅ √ s =√ ( ) ( ) a. mardiana putri & d. sutopo & d. anggani linggar bharati / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 5 and the experimental group, vii h was taught by using 20-squares: add one more word. both classes were taught with the same topic and materials: shopping list, but different in learning technique. first treatment the first treatment for the control group was done on may 23th, 2016, while the first treatment of the experimental group was conducted on may 27th, 2016. after teaching about the material, the writer gave 20-squares: add one more word game in the experimental group and word clap game in the control group. the writer told the students how to play the games in short explanation. after playing the game, the writer reviewed about the vocabulary that had been taught related to the material. second treatment the second treatment for the control group was conducted on may 30th, 2016 and the second treatment of the experimental group was performed on june 3rd, 2016. the writer asked the students some questions about the material which had been learned in the previous meeting. the writer asked them to explain the difference between countable and uncountable nouns in items of shopping list. the writer‟s purpose was to check whether students still memorized the material which they had learned in the previous meeting or not. after several minutes in repeating the previous material, they were given singular and plural material, then the writer administered the games related to the material. the students were excited playing the games. the game proved that the competition atmosphere made students put much effort and explored all their ability in order to win the game. third treatment after conducting two times treatments, the writer conducted the last treatment. the treatment for the control group was conducted on june 6th 2016 and the treatment of the experimental group was performed on june 10th, 2016. in this last treatment, the students were still excited to play the game. they were always asking for the next games. the writer then reviewing the last two materials that have been learned in the previous meeting. afterwards, the writer gave the last games treatment to the students. the students were still excited to play the game. after playing the game, the writer reviewed the three materials in the treatments. post test findings after the treatments were conducted, the writer gave the posttest for both groups on june 13th, 2016. the purpose of the posttest is to find out the students‟ improvement in vocabulary mastery after receiving the treartments. based on the posttest result, the total score of experimental group was 2435, whereas total score of control group was 2120. the experimental group got mean score 81.17 while the control group got mean score 70.67. it meant the students‟ improvement of experimental group was higher than control group. in rather simple observation, there was a significant difference in vocabulary mastery between students of experimental group and control group after getting the treatment by using 20-square: add one more word. based on the post test results, it can be concluded that 20square: add one more word was more effective to improve students‟ vocabulary mastery than word clap. mean scores differences between pre test and post test of experimental group and control group a. mardiana putri & d. sutopo & d. anggani linggar bharati / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 6 the significant difference of the experiment could be seen through the difference of means scores in two groups. the mean score of the pretest of the experimental group = 63 the mean score of the pretest of the control group = 62,67 the mean score of the post test of the experimental group = 81,17 the mean score of the post test of the control group = 70,67 the results above showed that the mean score of the pre-test in the experimental group was 63. meanwhile, the mean score of the post test was 81,17. the percentage of the students‟ improvement of this group was 18,17%. therefore, there was a significant improvement between the pretest and the post test scores achieved by the students of the experimental group. the mean scores of control group also showed an improvement. it was 62,67 in the pretest and 70,67 in the post test. in this group, there was less improvement than the experimental group. the improvement was only 8%. it means that the difference mean score on the experimental group was higher than in the control group. in short, the writer concluded that there was better improvement of the experimental group‟s achievement after they received the treatment by using 20square: add one more word to teach vocabulary. the clear comparison of mean scores between two groups can be seen in the following table: mean scores comparison group pre-test post-test progress experimental 63 81,17 18,17% control 62,67 70,67 8% table 3.1 comparison of mean scores between two groups the table above demonstrated that there were improvements in both groups. however, the progress of the experimental group which was taught by 20-square: add one more word was higher than the control group which was taught using word clap game. then, the results were tested by using t-test to prove the significant improvement of both groups. t-test statistical analysis the result of the t-test becomes the quantitative proof whether there is a significant difference of the pre-test and post-test between two groups or not. the following is the result score of posttest between both groups: experimental group control group a. mardiana putri & d. sutopo & d. anggani linggar bharati / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 7 hypotheses : ho : 1 = 2 ha : 1 = 2 ho is accepted if tvalue < ttable before analyzing the scores by using t-test formula, firstly, the standard deviation should be counted. the formula of standard deviation is as follows: s =√ ( ) ( ) in which, s = standard deviation of both groups n1 = students amount of experimental group s2 1 = variance of experimental group n2 = students amount of control group s2 2 = variance of control group to find out the t-value of the significant difference between the two means of the pre-test and post-test, the formula used is as follows: t = ̅̅ ̅̅ ̅̅ ̅̅ √ in which, t = t-value (t-test) s = standard deviation of both groups x1 = mean of experimental group n1 = students amount of experimental group x2 = mean of control group n2 = students amount of control group the computation of standard deviation of post test scores was as follows: √ ( ) ( ) after getting the standard deviation score, then t-test formula was applied in order to find tvalue. next, tvalue was consulted with ttable. if the number of participants of both groups were 30 students, dk = 30+30 2 = 58 and significance level (α) =5%, so ttable was 1,67. based on the criteria, if tvalue exceeded ttable (tvalue > ttable), it meant that there was a significant difference in vocabulary mastery between students of experimental group and students of control group. on the contrary, if tvalue was less than ttable (tvalue< ttable), the vocabulary achievement between experimental and control groups were not significantly different. σ (the total score) 2435 2120 n 30 30 mean 81,17 70,67 variance (s2) 94,2816 123,6782 standard deviation (s) 9,71 11,12 a. mardiana putri & d. sutopo & d. anggani linggar bharati / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 8 from the computation above, it can be seen that standard deviation of post test scores was 10.4393. next, the standard deviation was applied in t-test formula to get tvalue. the computation of tvalue by using t-test formula was as follows: ̅ ̅ √ √ 2 = 58, t(0.95)(58) = 1,67 1,67 3,895 based on the computation above, it showed that there was a significant difference on post test result between experimental and control groups because tvalue exceeds ttable (3,895 > 1,67). since t value > t table, the null hypothesis (ho) is rejected and the alternative hypothesis (ha) that there is a significant difference in vocabulary achievement between the students who were taught by using 20-square: add one more word and those who were taught by using word clap, is accepted. it means, teaching vocabulary by using 20-square: add one more word is more efffetive to improve students’ vocabulary mastery of the seventh grade of smp n 5 magelang in the academic year of 2015/2016 than word clap game. the result proved that the working hypothesis or the alternative hypothesis (h1) “there is significant effect in the use of 20-squares: add one more game to teach vocabulary” is accepted. conclusions 20-square: add one more word was well-accepted by the students. during the activity, they looked active and enthusiastic. 20-square: add one more word enriched the participants‟ vocabulary. it was proven by the participants‟ improvement of vocabulary knowledge after the treatment of 20square: add one more word. the result of t-test analysis showed that the experimental group got better achievement than the control group. in the pre-test, the average score of the experimental group was 63 and the control group was 62.67. in the post-test, the average score of experimental group was 81,17 and the control group was 70,67. the result of the t-test was 3.895 and t-table was 1.67. it means that the t-value was higher than t-table (3.895 > 1.67). it can be concluded that 20-squares: add one more word is effective to be used as a vocabulary teaching technique and it can be used as an alternative way in teaching vocabulary. furthermore, based on the data findings and analysis, the writer concludes that there is a significant difference in the students‟ achievement of their vocabulary mastery between the experimental and the control groups after they got the treatments. in addition, the t-test analysis resulted the students‟ improvement in mastering vocabulary has been determined which suggests that 20-square: add one more word is an effective technique which contributes to the students‟ vocabulary mastery. the treatment given to the experimental group affects the students‟ vocabulary mastery. it can be applied easily in the teaching and learning process and make the students participate in the learning activities actively. ho accepted area a. mardiana putri & d. sutopo & d. anggani linggar bharati / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 9 references creswell, john w. 2009. research design 3rd edition: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. usa: sage publicatio ns, inc.ramelan, h. 1994. teaching and learning language. semarang: ikip press. depdiknas. 2006. kurikulum tingkat satuan pendidikan (ktsp) untuk smp/mts. jakarta: depdiknas. harmer, j. 2001. the practice of english language teaching. cambridge: longman. thornbury, scott. 2002. how to teach vocabulary. england: longman. 1 elt forum 4 (1) (2015) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt accuracy of english-indonesian scanlation of detective conan manga as compared to its japanese-indonesian translation vina darissurayya english department. faculty of languages and arts. state university of semarang aticle info ________________ article history: received in juni 2015 approved in juli 2015 published in agustus 2015 ________________ keywords: accuracy, translation, manga, scanlation. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ popularity of scanlated manga urged me to do this research. there are three main problems in this study: (1) to find out how the accuracy of english-indonesia manga scanlation, (2) to find out differences between online manga (scanlated manga), and printed manga (indonesian officially published manga) and (3) to find out which more accurate between both compared to original japanese manga. at the end, i found that that although the scanlation of detective conan manga is accurate but the printed manga was more accurate. still, further research needed to analyze scanlation more detail. as readers of manga, we should be smarter by reading printed manga rather than online manga. this way we will get the better translation and also we can give our appreciation toward the author. © 2015 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: vinadaris@gmail.com issn 2252-6706 vina darissurayya / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 2 introduction in the era of technology, translation is no longer exclusively owned by professionals. people become more concern with translation even they can produce their own works despite the fact that they are not expert in that field. this situation results in the existence of ‘unofficial’ translators. they work voluntarily, or unpaid. the works they chosen are often fictional, like movies and comics. this phenomenon makes me interested in analyzing a translation product of ‘unofficial’ translators. the product here is a japanese comic; or better known as manga. mangas are popular culture throughout the world. a news article by richard susilo (2013) mentioned that in a television program, ntv sekai banzuke (world’s rank), indonesia placed 2nd for the biggest manga readers in the world. unfortunately, although the popularity of manga keeps increasing, the industry itself is suffering. the cause is piracy. the existence of ‘unofficial’ translators interferes official industry of manga because fans of manga can easily read their desired manga via internet. readers prefer reading manga online than buying it officially because of two reasons: (1) reading manga online is free of charge, so it is cheaper than buying it, (2) online manga releases manga faster than the one officially published. larson (1984) states, that translation is basically a change of forms. the forms here refer to surface structure of a language, parts which are observable by human senses. the steps of translation are reading the source text as well as comprehending it. without translators’ knowledge and understanding of the source text, it will not be possible to produce a good translation. in translating, translators will also face another problem called translatability, the possibility of certain text to be translated. still, translators can make some adjustment as long as he or she understands what the purpose of the text is (munday and hatim, 2014). translation is an important process of replacing and reproducing the messages from a text in a source language into a target language. the most important point of translation is finding the equivalence. the process of scanlation is almost the same as common translation. the following chart summarizes the complete process of scanlation (ratti, 2013: 49). chart 1 the modules of the scanlating process cleaning translating typesettingediting quality checking scanning content content vina darissurayya / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 3 my early observation, it is rare for indonesian scanlation group to scanlate from original japanese mangas. they usually take the work from english scanlated version and translate it into bahasa. it happens because many translators in the group do not understand japanese, so it is difficult for them to translate from original version. this circumstance shows that indonesian scanlation group does not have direct connection with japanese. this situation raises doubts on the accuracy of the translation. that is why i want to know the quality of english-indonesian scanlation of a manga, in this case is meitantei conan (detective conan), by indonesian fans. then, i also want to compare this scanlation with the official published one in order to know where the differences occur. the last, i would like to know the quality of those differences if it is compared to the original japanese version. method this study is a qualitative descriptive research. in this study, i investigate the accuracy of english-indonesian detective conan manga scanlation as well as how if it is compared to official translation of japaneseindonesian. i also want to know which one is more accurate if compared to japanese version. the data consisted of three languages, japanese, english and, bahasa and only simple sentences were used. the result of the analysis will be described to answer the problems stated in question statements. the object of the study is a manga entitled detective conan which was written by gosho aoyama. i chose 3 chapters from the manga, chapter 809-chapter 811. the data were taken from the english scanlation chapter 809-811 were taken from http://mangafox.me/manga/detective_conan/. the indonesian scanlation chapter 809-811 were taken from http://mangaku.web.id/detectiv-conan-bahasaindonesia-terbaru/. the original japanese manga volume 77 was taken from http://rawcs.net/3084.html. the printed version was taken from “detective conan” volume 77 published by elex media komputindo, gramedia group. to analyse the accuracy, i used accuracy indicators proposed by nababan et. al 2012. there are 3 categories, accurate, less accurate and inaccurate. i asked help from lecturers from english department and japanese department to rate englishindonesia scanlation and japanese-indonesian translation respectively. here is the instrument: table 1 instrument to rate translation accuracy scale indicators result 3 the meaning of words, phrases and clauses from source language are translated accurately into target language; without any distortion. accurate translation 2 some meanings of words, phrases, and clauses have been accurately translated into target language. however, there exist some meaning distortions which disturb message unity. less translation 1 the meanings of words, phrases and clauses from source language are not translated accurately into target language. inaccurate translation vina darissurayya / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 4 results and discussion 1. the accuracy analysis of englishindonesian scanlation of detective conan manga case of froth steam and smoke a. accurate translation the first assessor, english department lecturer, found 428 dialogues belonged to this accurate group. it was 72,8% from the whole data while the second rater found 428 accurate data. it was 72,8% from the total data found. the translator mostly used literal translation method and literal technique of translation. in this scanlation accurate translations mostly came into being because the source texts’ grammatical pattern was similar to target texts’ grammatical pattern like the examples below: st file 809 traces of having been in the room tt file 809 jejak pernah berada di ruangan bt file 809 traces of having been in the room the first example was the chapter’s title. as can be seen, the form of both source text and target text were similar. the translator did not need to adjust anything, he only translated the words and phrases according to its functions, like the way literal translation method was. in the first example, the translator also translated tenses of st (source text) by adding the word “pernah” to replace the present perfect tenses. st you sure have a lot of them… tt kau punya banyak, ya… bt you have a lot, don’t you… the source text contained impressed feeling of the speaker with the use of “sure”. the translator successfully conveyed this feeling by replacing “sure” into “ya” at the end of the sentence. in addition he also removed “them”, referred to the keys owned by mr. sodesaki, from the translation. here he did not only use literal technique but also compensation and reduction. if the translator only used literal technique the translation would be “kamu sungguh punya kunci banyak. (you really have many keys)”, readers would not be able to get the feeling of the speaker. b. less accurate translation the first assessor found that 6,4% of the dialogues in this study were not translated accurately. there were 38 data belonged to this category. in addition, the second rater found 39 data belonged to inaccurate translation. it was 6,6% from the whole text. here is one of the examples: st it’s not like i’m a kid after all… tt sepertinya aku bukan anak kecil… bt it seemed i am not a little kid… the translation above belonged to inaccurate translation. text actually had the purpose to show that the speaker’s strong argument stating that she was not a kid. however, it was translated into “it seemed i am not a little kid” which was not filled with confidence of the speaker. the target text will be accurate if it was translated into “lagipula aku kan bukan anak kecil”. if “sepertinya aku bukan anak kecil” was translated into english, it would be “it seems that i am not a kid.” the message was not the same as the one stated in the source text. c. inaccurate translation in this category, the first rater found about 38 data or 6.4%. not much different, the vina darissurayya / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 5 second rate found 39 dialogues or 6.6% from the whole data belonged to this category. the following is the example: st it went out… tt tidak mau keluar… bt it didn’t want to come out… the sentence above was translated inaccurately. “it went out” in this context belonged to a cigarette. the speaker, mr. sodesaki, was desperate because his lit cigarette had gone out so it would be difficult for him to proof his alibi. if it was translated into “tidak mau keluar” or “it didn’t want to come out” readers will not be able to understand the meaning behind the dialogue. the appropriate translation should be “sudah mati”, which meant that the cigarette went out, “rokoknya sudah mati (the cigarette went out”. it will be more correct in indonesian language. 2. the differences found in comparing the scanlated version and the official version of detective conan manga the second research problem in this study was how the difference between englishindonesian scanlation and official japaneseindonesian translation of detective conan manga is. from the 586 dialogues found in the english-indonesian scanlation version of detective conan manga, i found 120 dialogues different from the official indonesian version of the manga, it was 20.5% in total. in order to make it easier in addressing the comparison, i will call scanlated version as “online manga” while the officially published version as “printed manga”. the differences found in the sentences’ form, meaning and word chosen. these are some discussion of those differences: om akulah yang akan mengirimmu ke kuburanmu terlebih dahulu. i will send you to your grave first pm akan kubuat kau merasakan pembalasanku i will make you get my revenge in the first example, the sentence was found in an e-mail sent by the victim before he passed away. this e-mail contained a challenge to its reader. the preceding sentence in this e-mail was “if you can kill me, come and try it”. the message found in online manga was that the sender (president katsumoto) swearing that he would kill the one who dare trying to kill him while the published version implied that the sender want to take a revenge to the reader if he/she dare to do something to them. although generally the purpose of the sentences was to threaten its reader but the sentences were too different. sending to grave in om (online manga) meant to kill, so before the e-mail target can kill him, president katsumoto promised that he will kill him first. on the other hand, the sentence’s implication in pm (published manga) was president katsumoto would take action if the e-mail target indeed killed him. the situations were not the same. om karena aku yang melupakan sesuatu, akukan bisa pulang sendiri dan mengambilnya sendiri since i was the one who forgot thing, i can go back alone and take it alone. pm biar aku sendiri yang mengambil barangku yang ketinggalan let me alone who take my left good. vina darissurayya / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 6 the keywords for the first example were left, alone, go back. in om the sentence was longer than the pm version. the sentence on om described in the detail the condition of the speaker at that time. she explained the reason why she had to go back by herself. the second sentence did not explain her reason but only her purpose of going back. in addition the om sentence did not ask for permission while the pm gave asking permission vibe. that was why those sentences were considered different even though it had same keywords. 3. the accuracy analysis of scanlated version and official version differences compare to its original japanese version in the last research problems, fifty dialogues from printed manga were rated accurate while only 22 dialogues from online manga were given the same score. the differences were more than 50%. moreover, the percentage of accurate translation found in printed manga was 41.7 % from all data. there was only one datum that was given the same 3 score by both raters, data number 78. oj 高木刑事 眠そうだ ね．．． you look sleepy detective keiji, don’t you? the dialogue occurred was said by conan after he saw detective takagi yawning. in original japanese, the meaning of the sentence was that conan was wondering if detective takagi was sleepy. if we translate ” 眠そう” (nemusou) literally, it will be “look sleepy”. in printed manga or indonesian publish version, it was translated literally but in online manga it was translated as “tired”. it was similar to the english scanlated version. according to both raters ”眠そう” can also be translated into tired, since both can be expressed to describe the reasons of detective takagi’s yawn. that was why both translations were accurate. unfortunately, this was the only dialogue that was given same scores despite its difference. although some data from online manga were more accurate than printed manga, the sentences were not so natural. in the following example the online manga was more accurate than printed manga, the sentences in printed manga were more natural. oj 彼女の所属事務所の関係者って 事で参列したんだけどね．．． however we came as people related to that woman’s agency om kami hadir sebagai orang yang berhubungan dengan manajemen perusahaanya… we came as people related to her management company… pm kami mengambil tempat di barisan orang-orang di kantor agensinya… we took place in the row of people in her agency company om paman takagi kelelahan, ya? uncle takagi tired, don’t you? pm kak takagi ngantuk? are you sleepy brother takagi? vina darissurayya / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 7 from the original japanese’s back translation it contained the information that the three suspects, mr. ogino, mr. sodesaki and ms. tsukihara, went to the actress’ funeral hiding their identities. they even pretended to be the people from actress’ agency. in online manga translation the word “agency” was changed into “management company”. although it was translated into different word, the purpose was still the same. both words referred to a company which managed the activities of actors and actresses. in addition, the information delivered by the online manga version was the same as the original japanese version. on the other hand, in printed version was a less accurate translation. even though the translation of “agency” was correctly used, the whole sentence did not deliver the same message as the original japanese version. the printed manga version only explained that the three suspects sat next to people from the actress’ agency without stating the fact they were pretending to hide the fact they worked for the magazine which pushed the actress to suicide. another example was an accurate datum from printed manga: oj でも、興味があるのは殺しではな く謎解きの方がですけどね．．． online manga but, i am more interested not in the murder, but to solve the mystery… pm tetapi aku lebih tertarik pada pemecahan misterinya, bukan pembunuhan but, i am more interested in mystery solving, not in the murder om tetapi daripada pembunuhan, minantku yang sesungguhnya terletak pada pemecahan teka-teki… but rather than murder, my real interest was in the puzzle soving… subaru told the sentence to haibara. he meant to tell her that in spite of his well knowledge about murder, he was not interested in it. he did it only for the sake of his interest in solving mystery. using almost similar grammatical patter, the translation from printed manga successfully conveyed that message, no omission or addition of information. on the other hand, the translation from online manga was less accurate. the reason lied on the use of “tekateki (puzzle)” to replace ”謎解き(nazotoki)” or “mystery” in english. even though “謎 (nazo)” can also mean riddle or puzzle, in this context it was not a good idea to use those word. it was because what subaru meant was not only a piece of riddle but the accumulation of hints that found in the scene to solve a case so “mystery” would be more appropriate. conclusions in conclusion, even though the translation of online manga which is translated from english is accurate it is still less accurate than printed manga. moreover, even some online manga data are more accurate than printed manga, the language used in printed manga is more natural. there is the possibility that the translator of printed manga takes some consideration into naturalness of the language so he makes some adjustment in the translation which decreases its accuracy. printed comic which is officially published and translated from the original japanese version have more accurate data than the online comic if it is compared to original japanese version. i also have some suggestions to give for anyone who wants to use this study. the first suggestion is to do further analysis to vina darissurayya / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 8 investigate the accuracy of japanese-english scanlation of detective conan manga. the second one is to do the same analysis but with more raters to check if there will be any difference from this one and also what kind of techniques used in the translation process. at the end, the writer would like to suggest manga readers buying the original published version of manga rather than reading it online since online comics have many inaccuracies which make the messages of the manga itself gone. by reading online manga, you show your disrespect toward the original author. acknowledgment this research can be completed well because of the amount of support from many people. i would like to express my biggest thank to dr. issy yuliasri, m.pd. who has provided me with careful input, guidance, and feedbacks. furthermore, thanks to drs. laurentius elyas nugraha, ma., and seful bahri, s.pd., m.pd., who are my first and second examiners, for the meaningful corrections and suggestions. my special honor expressed to all my lecturers of english department who had helped me in various ways. thanks also to my friends who accompanied me in many situations. bibliography gosho, a. 1994. detective conan volume 77. translated by m. 2014, jakarta: elex media komputindo. hatim, b and munday, j. 2004. translation: an advance resource book. routledge abingdon. larson, m.1984. meaning-based translation: a guide to cross-language equivalence. boston : university press of america. nababan, m. 2012. pengembangan model penilaian kualitas terjemahan. kajian linguistik dan sastra. pp. 39-57. availablet at https://www.google.co.id/url?sa=t&rct=j &q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja &uact=8&ved=0ccaqfjaa&url=https% 3a%2f%2fpublikasiilmiah.ums.ac.id%2f bitstream%2fhandle%2f123456789%2f22 20%2f4.%2520mangatur%2520nab aban.pdf%3fsequence%3d1&ei=aa5g vbpaxz26blrvgcag&usg=afqjcnf8s toxkx4bk2cwqqkzvwbqlu2n9q&sig2=p g3n6rrptmzwjhhyxwi9q&bvm=bv.92291466,d.c2e [accessed: 20/02/2015] richard, s. 2013. indonesia peringkat ke-2 pembaca manga terbanyak di dunia. available at http://www.tribunnews.com/lifestyle/201 3/11/29/indonesia-peringkat-ke-2pembaca-manga-terbanyak-di-dunia [accessed: 20/10/2014] s. ratti.2013. scanlators as producers fan participatory practice online: free and affective manga produsage and distribution. thesis department of informatics and media uppsala university. available at www.divaportal.se/smash/get/diva2:625476/full text01.pdf [accessed: 10/11/2014] 1 elt forum 4 (1) (2015) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt developing quartet card games for teaching vocabulary (a case of the eighth grade students of smp islam al madina semarang in the academic year of 2014/2015) lutfiana ilma annisa rohani, s.pd., m.a. english department. faculty of languages and arts. state university of semarang aticle info ________________ article history: received in juni 2015 approved in juli 2015 published in agustus 2015 ________________ keywords: quartet card games, vocabulary, teaching media development. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ vocabulary is an important aspect of language development. teaching vocabulary is getting crucial nowadays especially in junior high school. however, some english teachers cannot provide appropriate english teaching media. commonly some english teachers taught vocabulary in random topics. the vocabulary teaching media was less interesting. this study has three aims. first, to explain the problems of the english teacher and the eighth grade students of smp islam al madina semarang. second, to explain the needs vocabulary of the english teacher and the eighth grade students of smp islam al madina semarang. third, to show how to develop effective quartet card games to enrich vocabulary. there are two subjects of the research. first, the eighth grade students of smp islam al madina semarang in the academic year of 2014/2015. second, the english teacher of smp islam al madina semarang. r&d (research and development) approach was adopted in this study. the study revealed that the problem faced by the english teacher was lack of media for teaching vocabulary. the students were bored of vocabulary learning. the need analysis showed that the students needed various vocabulary items. the english teacher believed that the vocabulary teaching media should be interesting and colorful. through the process of drafting, trying out, and refining the quartet card games it was found that some cards contained ambiguities. to avoid any ambiguity check (√) and cross (x) signs were added to some cards. it is suggested that the teacher choose appropriate vocabulary teaching media. it is also suggested that further research is conducted to gain better understanding of the vocabulary teaching media. © 2015 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: unnes_english@yahoo.com issn 2252-6706 introduction according to hatch & brown (1995) vocabulary is the list of words that speakers of a particular language use. a language, like english, has millions vocabulary that rise time after time. people who want to learn it, moreover nonnatives, have to master its vocabulary first, especially basic vocabulary, like nouns, verbs for daily activity, and common adjectives emotion because it is impossible for one to master a language without knowing any vocabulary of it. moreover, the number of one’s vocabulary will impact his study speed of particular language. for a second language teacher, to make students understand vocabulary is a very basic lutfiana ilma annisa / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 2 task in language teaching, but sometimes difficult in practice. there should be such creative techniques in vocabulary teaching to help teacher’s explanation. there are some tips to teach vocabulary as what have been suggested by marry slattery and jane willis (2001) as follows: a. make class displays of pictures and other memory aids to support new vocabulary. b. prepare to teach new words and phrases in a meaningful way by linking with a topic that the students are familiar with. c. show the students how to play vocabulary games and give instruction in english while doing the games. d. use lots of different games but use the same vocabulary to help the students become familiar with it. e. need new words and phrases to be used a lot after introducing them so that the students learn to use them actively. according to those vocabulary teaching tips, a language classroom basically needs teaching media that support the english teaching and learning. the observation result that was done in the smp islam al madina semarang shows that the school does not have any vocabulary teaching media which is actually very important to enrich the students vocabulary and support the english teaching and learning. the only vocabulary teaching media provided by the school are word cards made by the english teacher in which the number is very limited. however, the word cards are still less effective to be used during the teaching and learning process because of some problems: (1) the word cards are made manually using carton and board marker, so that they are less interesting, too fragile and have a high risk of typo. (2) the word cards are too small and are in random topics. (3) the word cards are often misused by some students. once they get bored in guessing the meaning of the words, they use the word cards to play improperly. hence, the writer is interested in developing teaching media to enrich junior high school students’ vocabulary called quartet card games which contains a lot of picture cards with various topics and fun games possibilities. this will enable the students to learn new vocabulary repeatedly without feeling bored quickly. besides, this teaching media will be designed to be played in group to make the vocabulary learning more effective. this game combines picture cards with a game. by using quartet card games, it is hoped that the teacher will be able to motivate the students to learn and pay attention to the material well. it can also avoid student’s feeling of boredom. the writer’s considerations are supported by the statements suggested by finocchiaro (1974: 163) who said that the students understand and retain better when they have been shown or have touched some objects associated with it. using a variety of media will increase the probability that students will learn more, retain better what they learn, and improve their performance of the skills they are expected to develop. quartet card games can be used as one of many teaching media in which students are given a chance to learn english more fun and they will be more motivated. moreover, the students will have more chance to learn the vocabulary actively at their leisure time. methods of investigation this study used r&d (research and development) as the research design since the objective of the study was to develop vocabulary teaching media. the product that was developed in this study was material object. the designed material was hardware. the material was designed to meet the educational need. the objective of the material was based on the standard competence and basic competence in the curriculum. subject of the study the subject of the study was the students of eighth grade students of smp islam al madina semarang in the academic year of 2014/2015. instrument of the study lutfiana ilma annisa / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 3 this study used two kinds of instrument which were questionnaire and interview. stage of media development in this study, the researcher use the model of development research from borg & gall (2003: 775), which has been simplified into a simpler model of development, and become the foundation for this research. basically, the model can be seen from the diagram below. data analysis techniques the data which had been collected gave us a series of scores. to make them valuable, they must be computed and analyzed by means of certain techniques in accordance with the method used. the data to be analyzed in this study were taken from the questionnaire (students, teacher and expert lecturers), interview (teacher) and test or try-out (students). the method of data analysis used in this research was the qualitative descriptive method. this was a procedure to solve the research problem by describing the condition of the object factually at the present time. the data have to fulfill the requirements of students’ need in using vocabulary teaching media and the evaluation concerning with the draft of quartet card games for the eighth grade students. the paired-samples t test was used to determine whether the media was quiet significant or not to be used as the vocabulary teaching media for junior high school students. results the problems of teacher and the students in the vocabulary teaching and learning this study consists of two main parts, they are research and development. the research was done by having an interview and need analysis from the english teacher and the students about the vocabulary teaching and learning in the eighth grade of junior high school. after doing the research, the next step was developing the vocabulary teaching media based on the research done before and having an assessment, try-out (limited testing) and revision towards the media. the interview towards the english teacher as the beginning research was conducted on january 6th, 2015. seeing this fact, the english teacher had an expectation that her students would have vocabulary teaching media which has good quality, easy to use, and fun to be played inside the classroom. therefore, a new form of vocabulary teaching media which can meet the expectation of both the english teacher and also the students is really necessary. the interview was also done towards the eighth grade students of smp islam al madina semarang to support this research. the main problems were that the teacher was lack of such a development in using the vocabulary teaching media. the students were actually interested in every meeting of the english teaching and learning, especially at the moment of having lots of chances to enrich their vocabulary. however, they were usually obstructed by the condition in which they had to learn lots of vocabulary in random topics and also played the word cards in group. some of the group members usually played the word cards properly, but some others got bored easily then separated themselves and played the word cards improperly. the other probems are; 1) the word cards are made 58 lutfiana ilma annisa / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 4 manually using carton and board marker, so that they are less interesting, too fragile and have a high risk of typo. 2) the word cards are too small and are in random topics. 3) the word cards are often misused by some students. once they get bored in guessing the meaning of the words, they use the word cards to play improperly. due to this condition, the goal of the vocabulary teaching and learning in which to enrich the students’ vocabulary could not be achieved successfully. hence, the research and development of new vocabulary teaching media is needed and appropriate to be effective used in the classroom during the english teaching and learning process. the product which was proposed in this study was quartet card games; a compilation of some popular vocabularies teaching media used to teach english to the junior high school students. the needs vocabulary of the english teacher and the students after finding some problems faced by the english teacher and the eighth grade students of smp islam al madina semarang in the vocabulary teaching and learning process, the research was continued by having a need analysis of the product towards the subjects of the study. it was conducted on january 13th, 2015. the results of the need analysis and the explanation were as follows (see appendix for the details): 1) the first question showed that 73.7% of the students wanted to have vocabulary teaching media likes quartet card games. 2) the second question showed that 52.6% of the students agreed that vocabulary teaching media would support the teaching and learning process. 3) the third question showed that 78.9% of the students wanted the various vocabularies teaching media, it is not only the vocabulary based on the english curriculum (syllabus) for the eighth grade students of junior high school, but also the other vocabularies. 4) the forth question showed that 73.7% of the students wanted to have an interesting vocabulary teaching media with bright colours. 5) the fifth question showed that 63.2% of the students liked a medium size card of vocabulary teaching media. 6) the sixth question showed that 84.2% of the students believed that the vocabulary teaching media should be completed with pictures which are appropriate with the vocabulary. 7) the seventh question showed that 57.9% of the students believed that the vocabulary teaching media should be categorized based on its topic. 8) the eighth question showed that 89.5% of the students agreed that ivory is the most appropriate material for the cards of the vocabulary teaching media. 9) the ninth question showed that 57.9% of the students agreed that quartet card games is an interesting game for teaching vocabulary. 10) the tenth question showed that 89.5% of the students expected that the vocabulary teaching media quartet card games would be a teaching media which supports the english teaching and learning process. meanwhile, the need analysis result of the english teacher of smp islam al madina semarang was quite the same. some different points were only in vocabulary used and appearance of the vocabulary teaching media. the teacher thought that it would be better to have various vocabularies at once in order to enrich the students’ vocabulary. moreover, she suggested that the vocabulary teaching media should be interesting and colorful. those differences could be solved by mixing those things in order to be varied and giving the portion appropriate with the need. overall the students and teacher had the same idea about the vocabulary teaching media to be developed; quartet card games. the development of effective quartet card games lutfiana ilma annisa / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 5 there were some important steps in developing quartet card games as a vocabulary teaching media. this process needed to be done systematically in order to get the significant result of the product. the writer had conducted and supervised the process of developing quartet card games starting from analysing the purpose of english learning process until doing the product validation and revision, so that the product could be valid and credible to be used in learning and enriching vocabulary for the eighth grade students of junior high school. the way to develop quartet card games was by following some systematic steps. it was started by observing and interviewing the english teacher of smp islam al madina semarang, citra isna norlaili, s.pd. about the problem faced on teaching and learning process recently. it was conducted on january 6th, 2015. after doing that, the process was continued by planning the data collecting instrument of vocabulary teaching media. the main consideration was based on the english curriculum (syllabus) of the eighth grade students of junior high school. moreover, the data collecting instrument was arranged into two main parts which included the need analysis of the students and english teacher of smp islam al madina semarang. the need analysis contained some points to be considered by the subjects of the study. those points were as follows: 1) the media-display of quartet card games including the colour composition, font type, the size of the card, the shape of the card, colour arrangement, picture choice, and the meaning of the pictures. 2) the content of quartet card games including the content suitability, vocabulary choice, grammar, the ability to motivate the students, and the ability to encourage the students. 3) the teaching and learning process of quartet card games including the student-centered action, the students’ participation, and the interactive communication. the above points were also used in the assessment form of quartet card games prototype. it was just added with the point essay of suggestion from the reviewers to improve the quality of the media and also as the criticism to revise it in order to be better and qualified. the further step was designing the prototype of quartet card games as a vocabulary teaching media to enrich junior high school students’ vocabulary. the vocabulary was taken from many sources, for example dictionaries and internet. there were thirteen topics in the quartet card games. they were clothes, classroom, stationary, size, height, description, adverb, notice, notice 2, notice 3, holiday, hobby and daily activities. the development process was then followed by other steps; product validation, tryout (limited testing) and revision of quartet card games. this was to get the review from the english teacher of smp islam al madina semarang and expert lecturer as a subject of product validation of this media and also to know whether this media was appropriate or not for the students. they were asked to give the review by fulfilling the assessment form about the prototype of quartet card games. after doing so, the review was determined as the consideration to revise the media, so the prototype could be used by the junior high school students, if the prototype is already valid, as soon as possible during the english teaching and learning process. to make the explanation clearer, the following pictures were the examples of the designs of quartet card games. it was designed like that in order to be more attractive and able to represent the essence of quartet card games. the analysis of the use of quartet card games to get the significant responses from the eighth grade students of junior high school towards the use of quartet card games in lutfiana ilma annisa / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 6 vocabulary teaching and learning, researcher held a limited testing in the form of try-out. the data obtained from the pre-test and post-test are valid to be analyzed by using paired-samples t test. from the data above, it showed that the degree of freedom (df) = 17 with the 95% confidence interval of the difference based on the t-table results in t=1.740 which is smaller than t=9.696. therefore, it could be concluded that the media had significant effect towards the learning process of the students and could be used as the vocabulary teaching media.. the researcher asked the expert lecturer and the english teacher to be the evaluators of quartet card games. the score range was one up to five (1 = very less/vl, 2 = less/l, 3 = enough/e, 4 = good/g, 5 = very good/vg). meanwhile, the average score range was one up to ten (1-2 = very less/vl, 3-4 = less/l, 5-6 = enough/e, 7-8 = good/g, 9-10 = very good/vg). the points were as follows. the assessment of media-display showed that the product of quartet card games had a very good quality in the points of colour composition, font type, size of the card, shape of the card, colour arrangement, picture choice, and the meaning of the pictures. the average score for this part of assessment was 8 (good). the assessment of content showed that the product of quartet card games had a good quality in the points of the content suitability, vocabulary choice, grammar, the ability to motivate the students, and the ability to encourage the students. the average score for this part of assessment was 9 (very good). the assessment of games showed that the product of quartet card games had a good quality in the points of the student-centered action, the students’ participation, and the interactive communication. the average score for this part of assessment was 9 (very good). regarding the validation and assessment from the teacher and expert lecturer and also the limited testing done by the students, the product of quartet card games is valid to be used as the teaching media for the eighth grade students of junior high school, especially in terms of vocabulary as the main concern in this research and development. conclusion based on the analysis, the researcher makes some conclusions. firstly, there were some problems faced by the teacher and the eighth grade students of smp islam al madina in the vocabulary teaching and learning process. the current vocabulary teaching media used by the teacher are somehow fragile and quite boring. hence, the research and development of new vocabulary teaching media is needed and appropriate to be used inside the classroom during the english teaching and learning process. secondly, there were some needs of vocabulary. the need analysis showed that the students needed various vocabulary items. the english teacher believed that the vocabulary teaching media should be interesting and colorful. through the process of drafting, trying out, and refining the quartet card games it was found that some cards contained ambiguities. to avoid any ambiguity check (√) and cross (x) signs were added to some cards. thirdly, there were important steps to develop quartet card games as a vocabulary teaching media. it started from analysing the purpose of english learning process until doing the product validation and revision, so that the product could be valid and credible to be used in the vocabulary teaching and learning for junior high school students. lastly, to get the significant responses from the eighth grade students towards the use of quartet card games in the vocabulary teaching and learning, the writer held a limited testing in lutfiana ilma annisa / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 7 the form of try-out. besides, the assessment was given by the teacher and expert lecturer. therefore, it can be concluded that quartet card games has a good prospect to be used in the vocabulary teaching and learning for junior high school students. from the result of the research, the writer would like to offer some suggestions to be considered by the english teacher and future researchers. firstly, the english teachers should be able to choose appropriate vocabulary teaching media to be used in the english teaching and learning process. secondly, the future researchers should conduct the better research and development of vocabulary teaching media to enrich junior high school students’ vocabulary by improving the games and expressions used in the vocabulary teaching and learning process. references arikunto, suharsimi. 2010. prosedur penelitian suatu pendekatan praktek. jakarta: pt. rineka cipta. borg, walter r. & gall, meredith d. 1983. educational research an introduction. new york: longman. brown, douglas. 2004. language assessment: principle and classroom practices. san francisco: san francisco state university. dobbs, jeannine. 2001. using the board in the language classroom. cambridge: cambridge university press. ersöz, aydan. 2000. six games for the efl/esl classroom. the internet tesl journal, [on-line serial]: retrieved on 13-june-2015, at url: http://iteslj.org/lessons/ersoz-games.html. finocchiaro, mary. 1974. english as a second language: from theory to practice. london: regents publishing company. gay, lorraine. r. 1981. educational research: competencies for analysis & application. columbus: charles e. merrill publishing co. hatch, evelyn & brown, cheryl. 1995. vocabulary, semantics and language education. cambrigde: cambridge university press. hornby, albert s. 1995. oxford advanced learners dictionary of current english. london: oxford university press. joklová, kateřina. 2009. using pictures in teaching vocabulary. bachelor’s thesis. department of english language and literature faculty of education masaryk university. lee, william w., & owens, diana l. 2000. multimedia-based instructional design. san francisco, ca: jossey-bass. lodico, m.g., spaulding, d.t., & voegtle k.n. 2006. methods in educational research from theory to practice. san fransisco, usa: john wiley & son. piskozub sick, gry i. 1994. zahacoyw nauczaniu jezykow obcych, warsawa: wsw. richard-amato, patricia 1988. making it happen: interaction in the second language classroom. new york: longman. . slattery, mary & willis, jane. 2001. english for primary teachers. china: oxford university press. thornbury, scott. 2002. how to teach vocabulary. london: pearson education limited. e-book. wallace, michael j. 1982. teaching vocabulary. london: biddles ltd, guildford. webster, merriam. 1993. new international dictionary. new york: longman 1 elt forum 4 (1) (2015) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt improving students’ skill in writing recount text by using peer review technique (a classroom action research of the eighth grade students of smp n 4 batang year 2014/2015) candra arifiana english department. faculty of languages and arts. state university of semarang aticle info ________________ article history: received in juni 2015 approved in juli 2015 published in agustus 2015 ________________ keywords: peer review technique, writing skill, action research. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this study was conducted based on the fact that writing is the most difficult skill for students to master. students face difficulties in learning writing. they are not sure of how to arrange sentences into good paragraphs, how to develop their ideas, they have lack of vocabulary and tend to use only certain words they have known in writing. they also apply incorrect grammar in their writing. teacher considers that teaching writing is a difficult task. this final project is about teaching writing recount text by using peer review technique to the eighth graders students of junior high school 4 batang in the academic year of 2014/2015. the aim of this study is to find out how peer review technique can be implemented to improve students’ skill in writing recount text. in order to achieve the objectives, an action research was designed and carried out in this study. the participants of this study were 38 students of class viii d of smp n 4 batang in the academic year of 2014/2015. questionnaire, observation sheet, and writing tests were used as the instruments for collecting data. the results of the study showed significant improvement of the students’ achievement in writing recount text. it is proven by the average results in every test; pre test (63.00), formative test (74.29), and post test (79.50). the students’ writing skill (organization, content, grammar, punctuation, and style and quality of expression) in each test improved, too. moreover, the result of the observation sheet showed that peer review technique changed the students’ learning behavior being better than before. their enthusiasm during the learning process increased in each cycle. the analysis result of questionnaire showed that peer review technique was useful to most of students to improve their learning interest in writing recount text. their perception changed positively after having the treatment. it meant that the use of peer review technique could ease their problem in writing english especially recount text based on the results of those research instruments, it can be concluded that using peer review technique as a learning technique gives the improvement to students’ skill in writing recount text. © 2015 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: candra1104@gmail.com issn 2252-6706 candra arifiana / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 2 introduction english as international language has an important role in the world. not only used in communication, but also in transferring information. there are four skills that students must be mastered in english they are listening, speaking, reading, and writing. these skills have to be mastered by the students, especially writing skill, because, according to harmer (2004), “being able to write is a vital skill for ‘speakers’ of a foreign language as much as for everyone using their own first language” (p. 3). it means that writing is the basic skill to communicate. also, writing is used for a wide variety of purposes. it is produced in many different forms (harmer, 2004, p. 4). for examples, letter, book, etc. so, in everyday life, the people need to master writing. based on the school-based curriculum in junior high school, in english subject the students have to understand and create some short functional texts such as procedure, descriptive, recount, narrative, and report. in fact, students have many difficulties to write recount text. based on the researcher observation when the researcher had teaching practice in smp 4 batang class 8d, students find it difficult in writing . the students had some difficulties in organizing the paragraph and grammatical use. there were many mistakes in their writing in grammar, diction and also lack of vocabulary. the problem is they are not aware or do not know the mistakes that they have made. the students’ problem in writing is also caused by the difficulty of expressing ideas in writing. it is caused by their insufficient knowledge of language components such as vocabulary and grammar. besides the difficulties in writing itself, writing problems also exist because of the students’ reluctance in writing. harmer (2004:61) states that “the students are reluctant to write because they rarely write, even in their own language”. the lack of writing practice makes students perform poorly in writing. furthermore, they are bored and uninterested with the conventional strategy of teaching recount text which has been applied. because of that, the teacher should give some strategies to help students increase or even solve their difficulties. these strategies should be interesting in order to interest students to write. because basically, the students or children enjoy experimenting with writing and putting their ideas down on paper (linse, 2006, p. 99). based on linse’s statement, students actually have had basic interest to write. so, the teachers just need to give some motivation or direction to develop it. seeing those students’ difficulties in writing recount text and when their teacher corrects their writing, they often just throw it away or do not see or check it again. so, peer review is adequate technique to help students correct their work when there was something wrong in their writing; this gives the student the opportunity to reflect on their mistakes and make improvements to their writing. it also shows the teacher what the learners are able to do and what still remains difficult or unknown. peer review technique is an essential part of the writing process. it is utilized between the drafting and revision stages, considering the process of writing involves four elements: planning, drafting, editing, and final version. by peer review technique, students can get the four elements in the writing process. by applying peer review technique, it will help students to know what the strengths are and weaknesses or what are missing from their writing so they can revise and improve it. through this technique, students could exchange their writing with their partners to check the organization in writing. bartels (2003) states that in peer review students read each other papers and provide feedback to the researcher, usually answering specific questions that teacher has provided. so, through this technique, students got good feedback to evaluate their writing better and it was very useful for students. candra arifiana / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 3 in this research, the researcher would like to find out the students’ improvement in writing recount text after being taught by this technique. hopefully, the result of this study will give much benefit to the education world of indonesia and be able to offer some significant information dealing with the application of the games in language learning activity. literature review farid helmi in 2012 conducted a research entitled “improving students’ skill in writing recount text by using a personal letter”. he conducted a classroom action research to the tenth graders of mass proto pekalongan in the academic year of 2011/2012. writing according to sokolik in linse (2006), writing is a combination of process and product. the process refers to the act of gathering ideas and working with them until they are presented in a manner that is polished and comprehensible to readers (linse, 2006, p. 98). recount text according to anderson (1997: 48) a recount is speaking or writing about past events or a piece of text that retells past events, usually in the order which they happened. peer review technique peer review is one of techniques in teaching writing. it is very important in writing process. bartels (2003) states that peer review is also referred to as peer editing, peer response, peer evaluation, and peer feedback, in which students read each other's writing and provide feedback to the researcher. peer review is an activity in process of students’ writing to responding to each other’s writing. method of investigation a research method which is used in this study is action research, while the approach is qualitative. arikunto (2006: 2) also claims that action research is a kind of research done by someone who conducts the research on what he/she is really doing without changing its system. action research has some procedures. the steps above will be explained as follows: (1) planning planning is the first step in doing action research. (2) acting in this step, the researcher or teacher executes carefully the plan which is made before. this step is the main step of action research. (3) observing in observation, the researcher or teacher observes the collected data during the action step. the purpose of this step is to find out whether the improvement or the change has reached or not throughout the action. (4) reflecting in the last step, reflection, the research or the teacher evaluates the effect of action in order to make sense of what has happened and to understand the problem and also describe whether there is the positive or negative aspect for the study improvement. based on the reflection, the researcher revises the previous plan to go for the next cycle. the subjects of this research were students in the eighth grade of smp n 4 batang in class viii a in the academic year of 2013/2014. the researcher chose the eighth grade students of junior high school because the researcher found that the material was appropriate with the curriculum. moreover, it would help them to understand more about the material which was writing recount text. the instruments of this study were writing tests, observation checklists, and questionnaire. there were observation checklist for the students and observation checklist for the teacher. there were two candra arifiana / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 4 cycles in this research. in the first meeting before conducted the treatment, the researcher conducted the pre test. it was aimed to measure students’ ability in writing recount text before the researcher gave the treatment. in this research, the researcher introduced sentence race game as the treatment for the students to learn recount text. by playing sentence race game, the students knew how to write and construct a good sentence in english. in addition, they learnt grammar especially past tense and also vocabulary. in the last meeting, the researcher conducted the post-test. post-test was conducted to measure the students’ achievement after the treatments. the purpose of the post-test was to check the students’ improvement in writing recount text after they had been taught using sentence race game. result of the study general description this action research was conducted in class viii d of smp negeri 4 batang, in the academic year of 2014/2015. the research was conducted in five meetings started from march 23th, 2015 until april 11th, 2014. this action research consisted of three main activities. they were pre-test, first cycle and second cycle. each cycle consists of planning, action, observation and reflection. cycle 1 the first cycle consisted of two meetings. the first meeting was conducted on march 28th 2015 and the second meeting was conducted on march 30th 2015. all the students were present in the teaching and learning process in first cycle. in the first meeting, the students were introduced with peer review. the purpose of this meeting was to give the treatment related to recount text using peer review as the technique. in this cycle, the researcher started to do the first step of action research. first of all, the researcher greeted the students and checked students’ attendance. before peer review technique was introduced to the students, the researcher explained to them about recount text about generic structures and the language features of recount text. after that, the researcher explained about peer review technique. the researcher also gave an example of how to do peer review, how to analyze, correct others’ mistake, and give feedback to their friends’ work. the researchers asked the students to work in pairs and gave them an example of recount text with same mistakes and distribute the peer review guidelines and peer review sheet. when they had finished doing peer review training, the researcher asked them to write a recount text as the first draft. after they finished writing the first draft of recount text, i asked them to do peer review. the activity in the second meeting in this cycle was giving the material of simple past tense and held a formative test. the students were asked to make a recount text which theme was “study tour”. the researcher gave them time about 45 minutes to make their recount text. meanwhile, i recorded the students’ behavior by filling the observation checklist for the students. the english teacher of the class also filled the observation checklist to observe me. cycle 2 based on the first cycle evaluation, it could be seen that there were some mistakes were found in their writing product. most of the students were not able to express their idea using simple past tense, they used the same words to express their writing (repetition), and etc. in addition, the mean score of the students’ first cycle test result was unsatisfactory and under the kkm. that is why another treatment was necessary to be given to the students so that they were able to construct recount text using simple past tense. the second cycle was conducted on april 4th and april 11nd 2015. all the students joined the teaching and learning process. at candra arifiana / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 5 the end of the second cycle, the researcher handed out the questionnaire to the students. the first meeting of second cycle was conducted on april 4th 2015. the procedure of teaching and learning process was almost the same with the first cycle. before applying peer review technique, the students were given another example of recount text and exercise about past tense. they were asked to analyze and understand the text with their partner also done the exercises. then, the researcher asked them to make a short recount text related to their past activity. after they had finished it, the researcher asked some students to do peer review technique. the steps were the same with first cycle. in this meeting in cycle 2, the researcher allocated the time to review the material and gave the last test which was post-test. all of the students were present on that day. students were asked to make a recount text for about 45 minutes. the theme was about “my holiday”. at the end of the lesson, questionnaire was handed out to the students and they had to fill it. the students’ score improvement after knowing the result of every student, in order to find out further on the students’ achievement in detail, the researcher used the following formula to find out the average of the students’ achievement in pre-test. the average of the students’ score = the total of the students’ score the total number of the students the average of the students’ score = 2394 38 = 63 the average of the students’ score in pre-test was 63. according to the harris scoring system, it could be said that their score was in the level of fair. on the other hand, their score was still low. it was lower than the minimum score (kkm = kriteria ketuntasan minimal) of smp n 4 batang, especially in english subject which was 75.00. moreover, almost 75% of the students got less than 75.00. then, in calculating the average score of the students’ writing skill in formative-test, it was used the same formula: the average of the students’ score = the total of the students’ score the total number of the students the average of the students’ score = 2823 38 = 74.29 the average of the students’ score in formative-test was 74.29. it increased 11.29 points from pre-test. it meant that the treatment of teaching writing recount text using peer review was useful. it could improve the students’ writing skill and it could be seen from the improvement of their score in formative-test. although the score increased, their score was still fair. it was also still lower than the minimum score (kkm = kriteriaketuntasan minimal) of the smp n 4 batang. there were still students who got the score below 75.00. candra arifiana / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 6 here, in calculating the average of the students’ writing achievement in post-test, it was used the same formula below: the average of the students’ score = the total of the students’ score the total number of the students the average of the students’ score = 3021 38 = 79.50 the average of the students’ score in post-test was 79.50; it increased from the formative-test, what a good progress. initially their average in pre-test was 63, then it became 74.29 in formative-test, and finally their average score obtained 79.50 in post-test. it meant that the treatment of teaching writing using peer review as the technique was helpful. it was helpful to improve the students’ writing skill, especially writing recount text. it was proven by seeing their average score which passed the criterion of passing assessment (kkm = kriteriaketuntasan minimal) of the smp n 4 batang, especially in english subject which was 75.00. the result of each test showed improvements of the students’ skill in writing recount text. the average score are presented in the table below: no. test average score 1. pre-test 63 2. formative test (1st cycle) 74.29 3. post-test (2nd cycle) 79.50 table 1: students’ score improvement in the first cycle, the improvement of the result was increased 11.29 points. in the pre-test, the average score was 63 and in the formative test, the average score was 74.29. although the average score was lower than the criterion of passing assessment (kkm = kriteriaketuntasan minimal) of the smp n 4 batang, at least it shows an improvement from the pre-test. in the second cycle, the result of the post-test score also showed a good improvement. the students’ average score had increased better, from 74.29.9 to79.50. it was more than the criterion of passing assessment or kkm. from the diagram above, we can see that there is an increase of the students’ average score. it meant that the treatment of teaching writing using sentence race game was helpful. it was really helpful to improve the students’ writing skill, especially writing recount text. analysis of the result of observation checklist the researcher used observation checklists for this action research. the checklist for the students checked their behaviour and responses toward the teaching learning process. the observation checklist for was done by the english teacher of smp n 4 batang. observation checklist for the students was categorized in four categories ways, they are:(a) the students’ attention to the teacher’s explanation (b) the students’ active participation during the lesson (asking and answering questions, giving opinion, etc) (c) the students’ positive response toward peer review technique (d) the students’ seriousness in writing recount text.the observation sheet then be analyzed to see the students’ behavioral changes in the learning process. candra arifiana / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 7 overall, the result of observation sheet showed that the students’ seriousness in writing recount text increased from first cycle and second cycle analysis of the result of questionnaire the questionnaire was distributed to the students on april 11th, 2014 after the post-test was conducted. it was aimed to investigate students’ perception towards the use of peer review in teaching recount text. there were 10 items in the questionnaire which given in bahasa indonesia in order to help the students got the best understanding of each item.from the students’ responses of the questionnaire, the researcher could draw the interpretation as follows: item number 1 stated that students liked english subject. the result of the questionnaire showed that 24% of students strongly agreed, 71% of students agreed, and 5% of students disagreed that writing in english subject was likeable. none of them strongly disagreed with that statement. item number 2 stated that students liked writing in english subject. the result of the questionnaire showed that 21% of students strongly agreed, 68% of students agreed, and 11% of students disagreed that writing in english subject was likeable. none of them strongly disagreed with that statement. item number 3 stated that the learning activity in the school was interesting. from the questionnaire result, there were 24% of students or 9 students strongly agreed, 65% of students or 25 students agreed, 11 of students or 4 students disagreed, and 0% or none of them strongly disagreed with the statement. item number 4 stated thatwhether the students were excited about the technique use.. there were 42% of students strongly agreed, 58% of students agreed, and none of them disageed and strongly disagreed. it meant that they were interested in the technique i used. item number 5 stated that the students enjoyed learning through peer review. there were 42% of students strongly agreed, 58% of students agreed, and 0% of students disageed or strongly disagreed. it meant that the technique was enjoyable. item number 6 stated that the situation of the teaching learning process was enjoyable after being taught by peer review. there were 37% of students strongly agreed, 58% of students agreed, and 5% of students disagreed and none of them strongly disagreed. item number 7 statedpeer review technique could improve the students’ understanding of how to compose a good writing. it found that 37% of students \ strongly agreed, 60% of students agreed and 3% of students disagreed and none of students strongly disagreed. item number 8 stated peer review applied by the researcher in writing recount text could help the students improve their writing composition. there were 45% of students strongly agreed, 55% of students agreed, 0% or none of the students disagreed or strongly agreed. it could be seen on students’ improvement in aspects of writing in each test. item number 9 stated that peer review applied by the researcher in writing recount text could help the students improve their writing. item number 10 stated that writing practice by using peer review was necessary to be used continuously. based on the questionnaire analysis, it showed that peer review technique teaching helped the students to improve their writing skill especially recount text. it could be seen on the tests result, the students’ score in writing recount text was increasing. conclusion from the students’ achievements results, the writer draws some conclusions. they are: the students’ achievement of writing recount text of the eighth grade of students of smp n 4 batang in the academic year of 2014/2015 was improving after being taught by peer review. it was proved by the data shown that there is improvement in this research. the average of the students’ writing score in the pre-test was 63, and it increased candra arifiana / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 8 11.29 points become 74.29 in the formative test and become 79.50 in the post-test. students’ learning behavior had been changed from first cycle and second cycle. the students’ learning behavior got better and better including their active and also their confidence in giving constructive feedback to their partner draft of recount text. the result is based on the analysis from the observation checklist about students’ behaviour and also the analysis of the questionnaire. bibliography anderson, m. and kathy a. 1997. text types in english. australia: macmillan education australia pty ltd. bartels, nat. 2003. written peer response in l2 writing. english teaching forum. germany. 34-37 belcher, diane. 2007. genre and second language writing. united states of america: the university of michigan press. best, j. w. 1981. research in education. new jersey: prenticehall inc. burns, anne.. 2003. collaborative action research for english language teachers. cambridge: cambridge university press. brown, h. d. 2004. language assessment: principles and classroom practices. new york: pearson education. celce-murcia, m. 2001.teaching english as a second foreign language (third edition). usa: heinle&heinle. elliot, j. (1991) action research for educational change. buckingham: open university press. harmer, jeremy. 2004. how to teach writing. united kingdom: longman. helmi, farid. 2012. improving students’ skill in writing recount text by using a personal letter. thesis. semarang: iain walisongo. liu, j. and hansen, j. 2005. guiding principles for effective peer response.elt journal: oxford university press.59 (1). 31-38. 1 elt forum 3 (1) (2014) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt comparison between using authentic song lyrics and pictures as media to teach students’ writing competence of narrative text aditya rizkiyanto  english department, faculty of languages and arts, state university of semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in april 2014 approved in mei 2014 published in juni 2014 ________________ keywords: authentic song lyrics, pictures, media, writing, narrative text ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this final project is a quasi experimental research aiming at investigating any significant difference of students’ achievement in writing narrative texts which are taught by using authentic song lyrics and the one who are taught by using pictures with an assumption that these media can help them to interpret the content of the course. the subjects of the study were the eleventh graders of semarang state senior high school 2 in the academic year of 2013/2014. there were two groups which were given different treatments. the first group was the experimental group consisting of 34 students that was taught by using “authentic song lyrics” as media and the second group was the control group consisting of 34 students that was taught by using “pictures”. in conducting experimental research, there were two classes that were used, xi natural science program 11 as the experimental group and xi natural science program 9 as the control group. both groups were given pre test, treatments, and post test. in analyzing the data, normality test, homogeneity test, and t-test were used. the results of the study showed that the “authentic song lyrics” media which was applied in creating narrative text gave contribution in helping them write narrative texts. the data proved that there was a significant difference between the experimental and the control group achievement. based on the statistical analysis, it could be seen that the students’ post-test in the experimental group was higher than the control group. the mean of the experimental group improved than the control group. the t-value for two means of post-test was 3.333; meanwhile the critical value at α = 5% was 2.035. it proved that there is significant difference between the experimental group which was given “authentic song lyrics” media and the control group which was given “picture”. it can be concluded that the “authentic song lyrics” is more effective than “pictures” to help the students in writing narrative texts. © 2014 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: storyofmachiatto@yahoo.com issn 2252-6706 aditya rizkiyanto / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 2 introduction “language”, that is a simple word, but it has an enormous meaning in our life. every word that human said is language. every activity that human do is language. but, they are simple forms of language. language is a very important thing for human being as a means to communicate among society. human in society needs languages both spoken and written not only to convey their problems but also to communicate each other. as ramelan (1992:8) said, “with language man can express his ideas and wishes to other people such as when he needs their help so that close operation among members of the group can be carried out”. in order to communicate each other, human not only use first language but also second language. there are many kinds of language used among the country that is also different among other country because language is an identity of the country. every country has its own language that usually used by their society in order to communicate each other. in this case, every country need a unite language in order to do communication between at least two countries or more. they agree that english is a language that can unite every country around the world. with english they can communicate with other people from other countries. no wonder if there is no united language; it is very difficult to communicate with people around the world even when it can be conducted, there are a lot of misunderstandings between two countries when they are communicating using their own language. so, english is an important language which has to be understood by every human in the world during their life. “some people study english because they think it offers a chance for advancement in their professional lives. they will get a better job with two languages than if they only know their mother tongue. english has special position here since it becomes the international language of communication” (harmer 1991:1). based on this statement, we know more that english is a united language that is very important to learn because of there are many advantages of it. study english is compulsory for every productive people, especially students in many stages like elementary school, junior high school, senior high school, even at a university level. considering the important of english, the government included english as a program in education field. indonesia as a developing country needs english as an international language to communicate with other country in many sectors. with english included in the curricula, hopefully most of the indonesian society can acquired english as a foreign language carefully. we can imagine if every people in indonesia can acquire english fluently both spoken and written, it can be a pride of our nations to master in english. it also can make our nations not only as a developing country but also developed country in every people’s point of view. it also can be applied on all of students that are still learning english in their education programs. it would be a part of life when students acquire english because through mastering in english, every student can apply for job in virtually every profession that is needed english as a communication means. it can be an important thing for their future life by mastering in english both spoken and written. by mastering english, the students are supposed to be able to gain valuable information and knowledge from the texts and books about science, commerce, economy, technology, etc which are written in english. based on the school – based curriculum (sbc) or we can called it as kurikulum tingkat satuan pendidikan (ktsp), the teaching learning of english has to develop four language skill; listening, speaking, reading, and writing. however, not only the four aspect that must be acquired by students, but also there will be others aspects that can support the development of students in mastering english, they are vocabulary, structure, and also pronunciation. these components are very important to support the four english skills. it means that english teachers have to mastering on these aspects and also taught them for supporting four skills on english. aditya rizkiyanto / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 3 in order to teach all of components and skills in english, the english teachers should use a certain media related to the material that will be delivered. the use of media itself has been applied for increasing students’ interest during the lessons. another purpose that should be achieved from the use of media is to make students understand about material. one of the writer’s suggestions that will be examined in this final project is about the implementation of teaching english to see the students’ improvement in writing narrative text by using media that are authentic song lyrics and pictures and also find out the most effective of it by comparing the significant differences between both of them. harmer (2004:24), states that students who are writing within certain genre need to consider a number of different factors. based on this statement, the students have to consider many components constructing a text with certain genre. according to anderson (1997:1), creating a text requires us to make choices about the words we use and how we put them together. it means that in order to know how to construct a text, we have to understand about the important elements before creating a text. hazel (2007:1), states that narrative is first and foremost a prodigious variety of genres, themselves distributed amongst different substances as though any material were fit to receive man’s stories. “narrative text type tells a story using spoken or written language. it can be communicated using radio, television, books, newspapers or computer files. pictures, facial expressions and camera angles can also be used to help communicate meaning.” (anderson, m & k. anderson, 1997:2). based on the explanation, several media can be used to deliver and also create narrative text. the study will focus on writing a narrative text only, which is included on the material in english lesson for sma. we know that writing is very complex skill that must be acquired by students in senior high school. in this study, the writer will compare two media that can be used in writing narrative text in order to know which media is more effective for narrative. song lyrics can be delivered by using paper at the same time as the music played. while pictures can be deliver in a form of printed paper that must be understood by students. the students have to write a narrative text by their own words based on the story from both media used. hopefully both media can be understood easily by the student in writing narrative. the objectives are to find out the significant difference of students’ achievement in the improvement of students’ competence in writing narrative text between using authentic song lyrics and pictures; to compare the effectiveness of both medium that for students in order to improve their competencies in writing narrative text. methods of the study this study used quasi experimental design that can be described as follow: e 01 x 02 c 03 y 04 (arikunto, 2006:86) e is experimental group c is control group 01 is pre – test for the experimental group 02 is post – test for the experimental group 03 is pre – test for the control group 04 is post – test for the control group x is treatment for experimental group (authentic song lyrics) y is treatment for control group (pictures) the population of the study was the eleventh grade students of sma n 2 semarang in the academic year of 2013/2014 and the samples were xi ia 9 as a control group and xi ia 11 as an experimental group. the hypotheses of this study are stated below: (h1): there is a significant difference of students’ achievements in writing narrative text aditya rizkiyanto / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 4 that are taught by using authentic song lyrics and those who are taught by using pictures. (h0): there is no difference of students’ achievement in writing narrative text that are taught by using authentic song lyrics and those who are taught by using pictures. i used experimental method by doing three activities: a pre-test, a treatment, and a post-test. the pre-tests of experimental and control were conducted on the first meeting. for two next meetings, both classes were given different treatment. the experimental group was given “authentic song lyrics” media as the treatment and the control group was given pictures equipped with helper sentences. on the forth meeting, they were given a post-test to measure their achievement in creating narrative texts. after collecting data, i analyzed it by doing these steps: scoring, tabulating data, and using the appropriate formula to analyze the data. in facilitating to analyze the students’ test result in writing narrative text of the both groups, i.e. the experimental and the control group, the writer limited only to the analytic scale as stated by brown and bailey (1984:39-41) as quoted by brown (2004:244). the following is the table of analytic scale for rating composition task devised by brown: 20-18 excellent to good 17-15 good to adequate 14-12 adequate to fair 11-6 unacceptable – not 5-1 college –level work 1. organization: introduction, body, and conclusion. appropriate title, effective introductory paragraph, topic is stated and leads to body; supporting evidence given for generalizations; conclusion logical and complete. adequate title, introduction, body and conclusion of essay are acceptable but some evidence may be lacking. mediocre or scant introduction or conclusion; problems with the order of ideas in body. shaky or minimally recognizable introduction; severe problems with ordering of ideas; lack of supporting evidence; conclusion weak or illogical. absence of introduction or conclusion; no apparent organization of body. 2.logical development of ideas: content essay addresses the assigned topic; the ideas are concrete and thoroughly developed; no extraneous materials; essay reflect thought. essay addresses the issues but misses some points; ideas could be more fully developed; some extraneous material is present. development of ideas is not complete or essay is somewhat off the topic; paragraphs aren’t divided exactly right. ideas incomplete; essay doesn’t reflect careful thinking or was hurried written; inadequate effort in the area of content. essay is completely inadequate and doesn’t reflect college level work; no apparent effort to consider the topic carefully. aditya rizkiyanto / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 5 3.grammar native-like fluency in english grammar; correct use of relative clauses, prepositions, modals, articles, verb forms, and tense sequencing; no fragments or run-on sentences. advanced proficiency in english grammar; some grammar problems don’t influence communication; no fragments or run-on sentences. grammar problems are apparent and have a negative effect on communication ; run-on sentences or fragments presents. numerous serious grammar problems interfere with communicati on of the writer’s ideas; grammar review of some area clearly needed; difficult to read sentences. severe grammar problems interfere greatly with the message, reader can’t understand what the writer was trying to say. 4.punctuation, spelling, and mechanics correct use of english writing conventions: all needed capitals, paragraphs intended, punctuation and spelling; very neat. some problems with writing conventions or punctuations; occasional spelling errors; paper is neat and legible. uses general writing conventions but has errors; spelling problems distract reader; punctuation errors interfere with ideas. parts of essay not legible; errors in sentence punctuation and final punctuation; unacceptable to educated reader. complete disregard for english conventions; paper illegible; obvious capitals missing, severe spelling problems. 5.style and quality of expression precise vocabulary usage; use of parallel structures; concise; register good. attempts variety; good vocabulary; not wordy; register ok; style fairly concise. some vocabulary misused; lack awareness of register; may be too wordy. poor expression of ideas; problems in vocabulary; lack variety of structure inappropriate use of vocabulary; no concept of register or sentence variety. (brown, 2004:244) results of the study after conducting the pre-test, treatment for both groups, and the post-test, i calculated the scores which are shown in the following tables: experimental group five components organization content grammar punctuation style pre test 13.235 13.118 12.029 12.412 12.029 post test 15.323 15.559 13.823 14.294 13.5 aditya rizkiyanto / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 6 control group five components organization content grammar punctuation style pre test 12.794 12.235 11.206 12.147 11.441 post test 14.353 13.677 12.853 13 12.118 according to the data from the pre-test and the post-test, it was obtained the average scores for both groups: group average score of pre test average score of post test difference between pre test and post test experimental group 62.823 72.5 9.677 control group 59.823 66 6.177 the difference between experimental group and control group 3 6.5 the average difference between the pre test of the experimental group and the control group was 3. the average difference between the post test of the experimental group and the control group was 6.5. the difference between pre test and post test of the experimental group was 9.677. meanwhile, the difference between pre test and post test of the control group was 6.177. it means that the difference between pre test and post test of the students who are treated by authentic song lyrics is better than the students who are treated by sequence of pictures. in analyzing data, i calculated the normality test and the homogeneity test by using spss program. the following tables are the normality test result and the homogeneity test result: table of normality test pre-test of experimental group sig. = 0.200 pre-test of control group sig. = 0.434 post-test of experimental group sig. = 0.076 post-test of control group sig. = 0.844 according to the table, all the sig values as p-values are higher than the level of significance: 0.05. then, all the scores of pretests and post-tests for experimental and control group are said to be normally distributed. test of homogeneity of variance levene statistic df1 df2 sig. var00001 based on mean 1.910 1 66 .172 based on median 2.008 1 66 .161 based on median and with adjusted df 2.008 1 65.406 .161 based on trimmed mean 1.870 1 66 .176 aditya rizkiyanto / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 7 according to the table, sig value based on mean is 0.172, while the level of significance is 0.05. because of sig value is higher than level of significance; it means that the data of both pre tests are homogeny. in order to measure the significance of pre test and post test, t-test was used. the writer used spss 21 to calculate the t-test result. below is the table of t-test calculation by using spss. t-test table paired samples test paired differences t df sig. (2 tailed) mean std. deviation std. error mean 95% confidence interval of the difference lower upper pair 1 var00001 var00002 6.50000 11.37048 1.95002 2.53265 10.46735 3.333 33 .002 based on the calculation of t-test using spss 21, t-value should be interpreted. in order to interpret t-value, it should be consulted with ttable whether the difference was significant or not. if the t-value is higher than t-table, it means that there is significant difference between the experimental group and control group. level of significant in educational research was 0.05 and the degree of freedom was 33. based on the degree of freedom, it was obtained that t-table was 2.035. meanwhile, according to the calculation by using spss above, t-value was 3.333. it meant that t-value was higher than t-table, so it could be concluded that there was significant difference between the experimental group and the control group. based on that result, the hypothesis that there is significant difference of students’ achievement in writing narrative text that are taught by using authentic song lyrics and those who are taught by using picture was accepted. thereby, the hypothesis that there is no difference of students’ achievement in writing narrative text that are taught by using authentic song lyrics and those who are taught by using pictures was refused. after calculating all data, i can conclude that the improvement of the students’ writing in experimental group is higher than the control group. there was a pre test for the experimental group and a post test for the experimental group. both of the tests were aimed to measure the students’ competence in writing narrative text. if the pre test was designed to measure the students’ basic competence in writing narrative text, it would be different with the post test that was designed to measure the students’ competence after given treatment. when the results were compared, the post test result showed improvements in the students’ writing competence. based on the result, the writer concluded that there is a significant difference in achievement between the students of the experimental group that was taught by using authentic song lyrics as media and the students of the control group that was taught by using pictures as media. the following table is the table which shows the average score of pre test and post test difference based on the five components. test five components organization content grammar punctuation style pre test 13,235 13,118 12,029 12,412 12,029 post test 15,323 15,559 13,823 14,294 13,5 aditya rizkiyanto / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 8 from the table above, it can be seen that there is an improvement in the post test of the experimental group for each component. after analyzed the students’ project, it was found that the students’ competence in organizing sentences into a good paragraph was poor at the first time before treatment. they arranged sentences to introduce the participants in narrative not clearly enough. after being given the treatment by using “authentic song lyrics” as media, the students’ organization in writing improved. they were not producing uncompleted introduction anymore and they used more appropriate title in the story to construct better narrative text than before given treatment. the students’ competence in developing content or idea to be a good paragraph was poor at the first time before treatment. most of them developed uncompleted ideas on the paragraph and seemed like produced it hurriedly in the pre test. thereby, they produced uncompleted chronological of situation in the text, so it could make the reader confuse when reading the story. after being given treatment by using “authentic song lyrics” as media, their competence in developing content component improved. the media that used could stimulate their creativity to construct good paragraphs in order to make the content better than their pre test. the students’ competence of the experimental group in grammar was so poor. their work in the pre-test showed that they had poor ability in producing good structure. they could not differentiate word forms and did not use the correct tense in writing narrative text. the given treatment influenced their grammar understanding and gave contribution in improving their grammatical structure in writing although there were still many students made mistakes in their writing. in constructing a narrative text, the students’ competence in spelling the words, using punctuation and mechanics in writing was poor at the first time before treatment. they often used wrong spelling, punctuation, and mechanics when they wrote words and combined into sentences. the errors made by the students in spelling words, using punctuation and mechanics in writing interfered with their ideas. the treatments given influenced the students’ competence to use right spelling, punctuation, and mechanics in writing text. in constructing a narrative text, the students’ style and quality of expression in writing was poor at the first time before treatment. they often chose the inappropriate words to construct sentences in writing narrative text. they also lacked of vocabulary mastery. the given treatment by using “authentic song lyrics” influenced their style and quality of expression and gave contribution in improving their vocabulary to construct sentences in writing. using “pictures” in control group in the control group, the result of pre test and post test were lower than the experimental group. in the control group, the media that used to improve the students’ competence in writing narrative text was sequence of pictures. the students were interested in this media because the media showed the chronological pictures of the story. sequence of pictures in the control group was applied to improve the students’ creativity in writing story. by using the media, the students understood the story line, but they didn’t understand well about the participants in the story. in order to help the students, the writer mentioned the participants in the story and gave information about the participants’ background. thereby, the students could understand who were the participants and they could develop the story by using their creativity to make a good narrative text. conclusion according to the results of the study, i will conclude that in writing narrative text, the use of “authentic song lyrics” gives much contribution and supports the students. by using this media, the students are able to catch the story in the lyrics. they are able to use their own words to convey their own story based on aditya rizkiyanto / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 9 the lyrics. by using this media, the students’ creativity is used to make the story more colorful. this media stimulates the students to think creatively after the story in a form of song was available. on the other side, the use of “pictures” also gives contributions to the students in writing narrative text. however, it has many disadvantages to apply this media in order to write a narrative text. bibliography anderson, m. & k. anderson. 1997. text types in english 1. macmillan: education australia pty ltd. arikunto, s. 2006. prosedure penelitian: suatu pendekatan praktik.jakarta; pt. rineka cipta. brown, h. d. 2004. language assessment: principles and classroom practices. united states: pearson education,inc. brown, j.w. 1977. audio visual instruction: technology, media and methods. new york: mc, graw hill book company. depdiknas. 2006. kurikulum tingkat satuan pendidikan (ktsp). jakarta: depdiknas. gebhardt, r. c. and d. rodrigues. 1989. writing process and intentions. massachusetts: d.c. heath and company gerlach, v. s. and d. p, ely. 1980. teaching and media: a systemic approach. new jersey: prentice-hall, inc. harmer, j. 1991. the practice of english language teaching. cambridge: longman. harmer, j. 2004. how to teach writing. new york: longman. hazel, p. 2007. narrative: an introduction. swansea: swansea institute of higher education. hornby, a.s. 2005. oxford advanced learner’s dictionary. new york: oxford university press. raimes, ann. 1983. tecqniques in teaching writing. new york: oxford university ramelan. 1992. introduction to linguistic analysis. semarang : ikip semarang press. wright, andrew. 1997. pictures for language learning. cambridge: cambridge university press. 1 elt forum 4 (1) (2015) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the integration of second core competence (ki 2) of curriculum 2013 in english classes yulia anugrahwati english department. faculty of languages and arts. state university of semarang aticle info ________________ article history: received in juni 2015 approved in juli 2015 published in agustus 2015 ________________ keywords: character education, curriculum 2013, english real teaching. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this final project is based on a study which attempted to describe the integration of character education in a real teaching. the main purpose of the study was to describe how the teachers integrated and assessed (ki 2) or character education to their students in english classes. three english teachers from two different school levels participated in this research. they taught their students in the class. from the teaching and learning process, the transcriptions which contained teachers’ acts and talks was provided. then, both teachers’ acts and talks were displayed on a table. they were categorized based on 18 pillars of character education which is proposed by kemendiknas. after both teachers’ acts and talks were categorized, the researcher explained what methods or strategies were used in integrating and assesing character education. after that, the researcher summarized all the findings from the data and conclude them. results indicated that all the three teachers who became the source of data have already integrated character education in their class. the first teacher or teacher a integrated discipline and social care. both discipline and social care are displayed twice on the transcription. the next teacher is teacher b. during her class, she integrated tolerance three times, respect of the achievement three times, social care four times, each democratic, communicative and discipline one time to all her students. the last teacher is teacher c. she did integrate curiosity once, religious for four times and both tolerance and democratic twice. charater education has already integrated by all teacher in each class. there was no new strategy which was used by all the teachers in integrating character education. the strategies which were mostly used by the teachers were only in the form of advice. in addition, there was no strategy which was used by the teachers to assess character education. this could happen because the teachers did not do any single assessment to character education which they have transferred on that day. © 2015 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: yulia_anugrahwati@yahoo.com issn 2252-6706 yulia anugrahwati / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 2 introduction education in indonesia has many problems till now. according to senior advisor to the minister of national education, prof. dr. kacung marijan, indonesia experienced very complex educational problems. from those problems, he grouped them into three main problems. the problems are low teacher’s quality, inadequate infrastructure, and curriculum which has not been standardized. the first problem is low teacher’s quality. based on national seminar on global education perspective: roots of the change education system in indonesia, in solo, central java, on 2013 amongst 2.92 millions of new teachers, about 1.44 millions of them have not mastered the s-1 degree. that amount is equivalent to 49.3 percent of the total teachers in indonesia. and also, there are only 2.06 millions or about 70.5% of the teachers who are qualified for certification while the rest are not qualified. the next problem is inadequate infrastructure. based on data from ministry of national education, indonesia has 899,016 primary school classrooms, but there are 293,098 (32.6%) classrooms in a bad condition. in junior high schools, indonesia has 298,268 classrooms but some of them which are in bad condition reach 125,320 (42%). based on the region, east nusa tenggara (ntt) has 7,652 classrooms in bad condition, followed by 1,186 in central sulawesi, lampung 911, west java 23,415, southeast sulawesi 2,776, banten 4,696, south sulawesi 3,819, west papua 576, central java 22, 062, east java 17,972 and west sulawesi 898. the last problem relates to our education is about curriculum which has not been standardized. in fact, curriculum in indonesia has already changed many times. due to frequent change of curriculum, there was a public perception stated that "minister changes, curriculum also changes". this perception shows that curriculum which is used or implemented in indonesia depends on the minister who is on duty. as the result, the curriculum which is implemented lasts only for couple years. this situation makes the curriculum ended before it can be evaluated. once again, curriculum in indonesia is changed. mohammad nuh, the former minister of education launched and implemented new curriculum on july, 15th 2013. this new curriculum is known as curriculum 2013. curriculum 2013 brings some changes to its content. one of them is putting character education into core competence. the government named character education into second core competence (ki 2). in relation to that issue, the government insists every school level to optimize character education. the government insists the optimization of the character education based on the importance of character education itself and some social phenomena which appear recently, that is the moral degradation of indonesian society. for example, pornography, students bullying, drugs, corruption etc. the reason why this research needs to be done are curriculum 2013 has triggered a lot of public debates among experts and layman alike. then, the classroom practices that integrate character education and subject matter needs to be documented to provide authentic information to the authority regarding the implementation of one aspect of the curriculum. the last reason is the documentation of the classroom practices will be useful for teacher training institution such as unnes that trains student teachers. the results of this study may serve as useful input for preparing teachers to implement the new curriculum. hopefully, this research is expected to be able to give information to the researcher herself and some intellectuals and also people in educational field dealing with curriculum 2013, core competences of curriculum 2013 and character education (ki 2). the researcher hopes that this research brings some advantages to the teachers, government and the researcher herself in the future. yulia anugrahwati / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 3 review of related literature kelly (1999) stated that “curriculum as, 'all the learning which is planned and guided by the school, whether it is carried on in groups or individually, inside or outside the school.” based on this definition, curricular activities cover some activities both inside and outside of the class. based on relc journal 44 (1), the term “curriculum is used here to refer to the overall plan or design for a course and how the content for a course is transformed into a blueprint for teaching and learning which enables the desired learning outcomes to be achieve.” further, null (2011:34) suggested that curriculum, however, is a specific, tangible subject that is always tied to decision making within institutions, whether they are schools, churches, nonprofit agencies, or governmental programs. he also suggested that a curriculum forces us to think about ethics. overview of this definition fits perfectly with the curriculum 2013 which emphasizes on character education. character education becomes second core competence and main point of this curriculum. the proof of the previous statement is reduction the sum and period of subject in all education levels and the integration of character education on each subject. curriculum 2013 is a curriculum that prioritizes on the understanding, skills, and character education. students are demanded to understand the materials, active in the discussions and presentations as well as have manners and discipline (wikipedia.com). etymologically, the word education is derived from educare (latin) "bring up", which is related to educere "bring out", "bring forth what is within", "bring out potential" and ducere "to lead". education in the largest sense is any act or experience that has a formative effect on the mind, character or physical ability of an individual. in its technical sense, education is the process by which society deliberately transmits its accumulated knowledge, skills and values from one generation to another. webster defines education as the process of educating or teaching. educate is further defined as "to develop the knowledge, skill, or character of..." thus, from these definitions, we might assume that the purpose of education is to develop the knowledge, skill, or character of students. ki hajar dewantara defines “education as an effort to advance the character, mind and body of children, in order to advance the perfection of life that is alive and bring the child in harmony with nature and society”. basically, “the english word ‘character’ is derived from the greek charaktêr, which originally referred to a mark impressed upon a coin. later and more generally, ‘character’ came to mean a distinctive mark by which one thing was distinguished from others, and then primarily to mean the assemblage of qualities that distinguish one individual from another” (homiak, 2007). besides, there is another definition stated by thomas lickona (1991: 52), character is “a reliable inner disposition to respond to situations in a morally good way”. the greek philosopher aristotle on lickona (1991:50) defined good character as the life of right conduct-right conduct in relation to other persons and in relation to oneself. further, the definition of character education clearly explained in http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/character_education “character education is an umbrella term loosely used to describe the teaching of children in a manner that will help them develop variously as moral, civic, good, mannered, behaved, non-bullying, healthy, critical, successful, traditional, compliant and/ or socially acceptable beings.” in other hand, schwartz (2008) also stated character education is a national movement encouraging schools to create environment that foster ethical responsible, and caring young people. in daily life, there are so many characters that we have to apply to be considered as a good human beings. on buku panduan pelaksanaan pendidikan karakter which is published by kemendiknas (2011), there are 18 values as the result of empirical study which is done by pusat kurikulum. those values are sourced from religion, pancasila, culture, and the goal of yulia anugrahwati / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 4 national education.the values are (1) religiousity, (2) honesty, (3) tolerance, (4) discipline, (5) hard work, (6) creative, (7) independent, (8) democrat, (9) curiosity, (10) the national spirit, (11) nationalism, (12) respect for the achievements, (13) friendly/communicative, (14) pacifism, (15) love to read, (16) environmental care , (17) social care, (18) responsibility. in other hand, koesoema a proposes twelve pillars of complete and comprehensive character education. the pillars are appreciation of the body, transcendental, academic excellence, self-control, bravery, love of rigteousness, skilled, democratic, appreciate to differences, responsibility, fairness, moral integrity further, the good characters according to josephson institute of ethics, can be categorized into six pillars of character education. they are trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring and citizenship character education is integrated on real teaching is an introduction to values, a facility to gain awareness about values and internalize some values into student’s behavior through a learning process which take place inside or outside the classroom for all the subject. after understanding the core (ki) and basic competence (kd) of curriculum 2013 for english lesson, the next step is to integrate the character education (ki 2) in english classroom, which steps are explained as follows: 1. preparing the english syllabus which includes the character education. 2. explaining the syllabus that has included the character education into the lesson plan 3. implementing the rpp in english learning. the teacher is expected to create the materials which contain the character education. one of the techniques is to as the students begin with understanding the material and continue to observing values that can be generated from the materials. 4. the last step is evaluation. the evaluation implemented by teacher must include (a) evaluation of the english materials understanding (cognitive aspect) (b) evaluation to understand the attitude and value to be developed from the english materials (effective aspect) research methodologies descriptive-qualitative approach is used in this research to analyze character education is integrated on english class and display the whole result of the research itself regarding on answering the research problems. the object of this study is english teachers in man babakan and mts. this study is only concerned on teachers’ strategies in case integrating and assessing character education in english classes. in this final project, the researcher is an outsider who pay attention and record teaching and learning process. based on the explanation above, i am an outsider who responsible to be the data collector, observer, analyzer, and reporter. as the data collector, i take the data from english teacher in a real teaching. i, myself record the teacher in teaching the students. as an observer, i just observe closely the teachers in doing their job. as an analyzer, i am in charge of analyzing some methods or strategies used by teachers in integrating and assessing character education. then, i categorize the data based on the eighteen values from kemendiknas which is the criteria of data analyzing. the last, i am responsible to be a reporter. it means that i need to composed and report the whole result of the research in the form of final project. the data is needed to compose this final project is categorized as naturally occurring data where it is not made up. it means that the data is not artificial. the data which is obtained is in the form of english teacher’s performance in integrating and assessing second core competence (ki2) of curriculum 2013 in english class. to obtain data of this study, the researcher uses video recording. i use video recording because the data is in the form of teacher’s performance in integrating and assesing second core competence (ki 2) of curriculum 2013. i use video recording because the data can display the yulia anugrahwati / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 5 whole process of integrating and assessing ki 2 of curriculum 2013 . in analyzing the data, the first step is making a transcript of the video. the process is called with transcribing. in this process, i specify every word which were said by the teacher on the video. then, i specify teacher’s talk and act on each activity to find what character education which are addressed by the teacher. here, i categorized the findings based on 18 pillars of character education which is proposed by kemendiknas such as religiosity, honesty, tolerance, discipline, hard work, creative, independent, democrat, curiosity, the national spirit, nationalism, respect for the achievements, friendly/communicative, pacifism, love to read, environmental care, social care, and responsibility. then, i explain what methods or strategies are done by teacher to addressing and assessing character education. in simple way, data display can be seen on the table below. teacher’s talk or act pillar of character education strategies the last step is conclusion or verification. conclusion of a qualitative research may be able to answer the research problems which are formulated from the beginning, but maybe no. it may happen due to the problem and research problems in qualitative research are still tentative and will be developed after the research itself completed. in this stage, i summarize all the findings from the data and conclude them. findings and discussions of findings this chapter deals with two main points of analysis. they are research findings and discussions of the findings. the research findings describes what had happened in english classes and presents some facts which are related to the strategies in integrating and assessing second core competence of curriculum 2013 or character education which were done by the teachers. in addition, the discussion of the finding presents the description and interpretation of the finding in order to provide more comprehensive explanation. in this point of analysis, i will categorize all teacher’s acts and talks using eighteen pillars of character education including religiosity, honesty, tolerance, discipline, hard work, creative, independent, democrat, curiosity, the national spirit, nationalism, respect for the achievements, friendly/communicative, pacifism, love to read, environmental care, social care, and responsibility (badan pusat pelatihan dan pengembangan kurikulum, 2010). findings and discussions of findings there are three teachers who become the participants of this research. for privacy reasons, they will be referred to as teachers a, b and c. these three teachers come from two different school levels. teacher a is an english teacher in madrasah aliyah negeri or islamic senior high school of babakan, lebaksiu. in addition, both teacher b and c are english teachers in madrasah tsanawiyah or islamic junior high school of slawi. yulia anugrahwati / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 6 the transcriptions which are derived from the videos of teachers in teaching character education on english classes show that each teacher has already integrated character education in their classes. the transcriptions show that the first teacher or teacher a integrated character education for four times during sixty five minutes of his class. the character education which he integrated is classified into two pillars from eighteen pillars of character education. they are discipline and social care. both discipline and social care are displayed twice on the transcription. the next teacher is teacher b. she taught her students for about an hour and fifty eight minutes. during her class, she integrated character education for eight times. she has integrated six pillars out of eighteen pillars of character education which is proposed by kemendiknas. the characters which she integrated are tolerance, respect of the achievement, social care, democrat, communicative, and discipline. she incorporated tolerance three times, respect of the achievement three times, social care four times, each democrat, communicative and discipline one time to all her students. the last teacher is teacher c. she did teach her students for about thirty two minutes. she integrated character education for eight times out of eighteen pillar of character education which is proposed by kemendiknas. she did integrate religiosity, curiosity, tolerance, and democrat. teacher c integrated religiosity for four times and both tolerance and democrat twice. conclusion finally, from the analysis findings above, it could be summarized; the three teachers who became the participants and the data sources of this research had already integrated character education in their class. the first teacher or teacher a integrated two pillars of character education during sixty five minutes of his class. he integrated pillar discipline and social care. both discipline and social care were displayed twice on the transcription. the second teacher is teacher b. she taught her students for about one hour and fifty eight minutes. during her class, she integrated pillar tolerance, respect of the achievement, social care, democratic, communicative, and discipline. she integrated tolerance three times, respect of the achievement three times, social care four times, each democratic, communicative and discipline one time to all her students. the last teacher is teacher c. she taught her students for about thirty two minutes. she integrated eight pillars out of eighteen pillar of character education proposed by kemendiknas. she did integrate religiosity, curiosity, tolerance, and democrat. teacher c integrated curiosity once, religious four times and both tolerance and democratic twice. secondly, there was no new strategy which was used by all the teachers in integrating character education. the teachers mostly integrated character education by some actions they did in teaching and learning process which actually most of their students did not notice. they did not clearly say or give examples to what characters which become objectives or listed on the lesson plan. the strategies which were mostly used by the teachers were only in the form of advice. in addition, there was no strategy which was used by the teachers to assess character education. this could happen because the teachers did not do any single assessment to character education which they have transferred on that day. references aqib, zainal dan sujak. 2011. panduan aplikasi pendidikan karakter. bandung: yrama widya. bramantyo. 2013. astaga, 49,3% guru di indonesia belum sarjana. online at http://kampus.okezone.com/read/2013/ 03/08/373/772874/astaga-49-3-guru-diindonesia-belum-sarjana [ accessed 4/10/2014] berkowitz, marvin w. 2012. understanding effective character education. online at http://www.character.org/wpcontent/uploads/2011/12/understandin yulia anugrahwati / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 7 g-effective-character-education.pdf [accessed 2/11/14] berkowitz, m. & bier, m. 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21/01/14] 1 elt forum 5 (1) (2016) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt interpersonal meanings in michelle obama’s speech at memorial service for dr. maya angelou (a descriptive qualitative study) isni mafruchatunnisa  english department. faculty of languages and arts. state university of semarang. aticle info ________________ article history: received in february 2016 approved in march 2016 published in april 2016 ________________ keywords: speech, eulogy, tenor, interpersonal meanings, appraisal, michelle obama, dr. maya angelou ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this study investigated the interpersonal meaning which lies on the eulogy speech which was delivered by michelle obama at dr. maya angelou’s memorial service. the purposes of this study were to describe the tenor realized in the text, the construction of the interpersonal meaning and the contribution of this study for language education. this study was categorized as a discourse analysis which used qualitative approach as its main method. the qualitative approach was used to describe the quantitative data which was got from the analysis. the data for this study was analyzed using two units of analysis. in terms of grammar analysis, the units of analysis were the mood system, modality, and mood types, while the lexical analysis mainly analyzed the appraisal of the speech. based on those analysis, it can be concluded that the tenor that was realized in the speech showed the strong social relationship between the interactants. in term of status, she did not stand as the first lady of united states. in terms of contact, she tried to make the situation as friendly as possible. in addition, in terms of affect, she showed that she gave a strong involvement with the audiences through her speech. in terms of grammar analysis, it showed that michelle obama tended to represent herself as one of the black women who got inspiration from dr. maya angelou. she also intended to inform the audiences about dr. maya angelou’s life. the appraisal analysis showed that judgment was the most frequent appraisal system in the speech. michelle obama tended to give a high appraisement towards dr. maya angelou’s struggle and actions during her life. © 2016 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: isnimafruchatunnisa.pending@gmail.com issn 2252-6706 isni mafruchatunnisa / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 2 introduction this study is going to investigate the interpersonal meanings in michelle obama’s speech at memorial service for dr. maya angelou. the interpersonal meaning here refers to the tenor of discourse involving power, contact and affective involvement. power refers to the roles that the interactants are playing in a situation, whether it is on the equal or unequal status (teachers to their students, parents to their children, or among friends); contact refers to the frequency of the interactions between the interactants or in other words, how many times the interactants communicate with each other. whereas affective involvement refers to the degree of the affective involvement between the interactants. the text type that is analyzed in this study is a speech that is delivered in a funeral known as eulogy. it is a speech or writing in praise of a person(s) or thing(s), especially one who recently died or retired. it is a special speech that is usually given by a family member or a close family friend. while giving this speech, the speaker usually delivers some good things about the deceased person instead of the bad things. mrs. michelle obama, the first lady of the united state and the first african-american first lady of united states delivered this eulogy. as the first lady of the united states, she also gets so much attention from the public, not only in united states but also from the other countries. michelle obama is well known for being one of the most inspiring women in the world. as the first lady of united states, she also has given so many speeches in different occasions. she usually delivers her speeches on some charity events, campaigns, and some other commemorative events. dr. maya angelou was one of africanamerican women who successfully stole world’s attention by her works. she was an author, actress, screenwriter, dancer and poet. one of her masterpiece is i know why the caged bird sings, which made literary history as the first nonfiction best-seller by an african-american woman. in spite of her difficult childhood, dr. maya angelou successfully passed her difficult time and appreciated by some other people. one of a black woman who was touched by dr. maya angelou’s word is michelle obama. it is clear that dr. maya angelou is one of the inspirational figures for michelle obama. from dr maya angelou, michelle obama learned that she was special despite the misconception of people towards black people especially women. this study, thus, investigates the interpersonal meanings in michelle obama’s speech in memorial service for dr. maya angelou. it tends to unveil how michelle obama arranges her words in order to realize her interpersonal meaning in that situation. by analyzing the interpersonal meaning of this eulogy speech, people will be able to find out how the arrangement of words is able to represent the social relationship that exists between interactants and also to show or express their feeling or judgment towards a specific matter in their surroundings. this study investigates a eulogy speech which is categorized as a text. indonesian people may not be familiar with eulogy speech since a ritual such memorial service does not exist in indonesian culture. it is mainly used by them who are american or other western people. people should be reminded that culture is embedded in the language. in order to be able to know the meaning behind a language, they should be familiar with the culture of the language of the text. therefore, this study is aimed to introduce such a new kind of culture for indonesian people in general through the use of languages. this study also needs to be carried out especially for english learners because first, learning a text is necessary for them. by learning a text, they will be able to understand how does the language is used in order to make meaning. a text can represent the speaker’s ideas towards things around them either in a written or spoken form. creating a good text is important for english learners, since communication happens in their text. therefore, this study is conducted in order to help the english learner in making a good text. isni mafruchatunnisa / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 3 the second one, based on my experience when i was being a teacher for my students in my teaching practice for about three months in a vocational school, i found out that actually there are some students who have some difficulties on creating a good text or sentence. the main problem that they have is about the grammar. the students often tend to make some errors in grammar which it means that it will lead them to fail on doing the communication through their text. learning a meaning in a text can be done successfully while having a good comprehension on the grammar of the text. the best theory of grammar that can be used here is functional grammar. unlike the others theory of grammars, functional grammar does not only focus on how the sentences are well constructed through words. it gets more focus on the function of each word and the meaning behind the text. it is used as the source of making meaning in a text. therefore, it can help to analyze the meaning behind the text that the students made. in order to help the students to be able to create a good sentence or text, this study that analyze the interpersonal meanings in a text will help them to learn both how to convey the meaning and how to make a sentence which follows the right grammatical structure. because, indirectly, when the students learn the realization of interpersonal meanings, they are also learning the right grammatical structure of their text. based on those two cases, it can be concluded that the main problem that lies here is how people especially english learners to be able to create a good text which is able to convey the meaning well and has the correct grammar by maintaining the role or relation of the people themselves. by the time the function of the text can be fulfilled, the main point of communication is also done. therefore, in order to analyze the data, the theory of interpersonal meaning on systemic functional grammar will be used here. halliday (1985) in his book introduction to functional grammar introduces the theory of three strands of meaning. they are ideational meaning that deals with phenomena, textual meaning which deals with messages, and interpersonal meanings which deals with relations. however, this study will only focus on the realization of interpersonal meaning on the eulogy speech text. in order to unveil the realization of the tenor or the interpersonal meaning in a text, people need to analyze it by using mood system and modality. the mood system of a clause can help to unveil the role or position of the speaker at a speech situation. in a simple explanation, mood system has three different kinds of types. they are declarative, interrogative and imperative. when a speaker uses a declarative mood, it means that the speaker is giving information/statement. interrogative mood means that the speaker is demanding information from the listener and imperative means that the speaker is giving a command. the following illustration is the relation of speech function and mood types. speech function clause mood types statement she is a flight attendant. subject finite residue declarative question is she a flight attendant? finite subject residue interrogative command stay here without finite or subject imperative the relation of speech function and mood types. in addition, there is another term that also relates with interpersonal meanings. it is appraisal. it can be said that appraisal is the resources for speakers to negotiate their social relationship. it will help them to be able to tell the readers or listeners of the text about what they think and what are their judgments about something that exist around them. there are also three aspects of appraisal based on martin and rose (1992) that will be used in order to unveil the realization of interpersonal isni mafruchatunnisa / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 4 meaning. they are affect, judgment and appreciation. those three aspects will give different feeling on each of the text depends on the intensity that we feel towards the matter. affect refers to expressing the feeling such as the expression of emotional states, whether it is positive or negative. judgment deals with judging people’s character, ethics, morality or their social values both in negative and positive way. appreciation deals with speaker’s reaction to and evaluations of reality. the appraisal system relates with the way they choose the dictions of the text that is made. it often uses some adjectives since it shows the judgment of the speakers. however, it is also possible to use the other class of words. to sum up, as the speakers, people have so many things that need to be paid attention in making their text. it can be concluded that grammar, mood system, modality, appraisal and diction can be used to help in making a good text that is able to convey the meaning, judgments or feeling and maintain the interactants role in a speech situation. method of investigation the research approach that is used for this study is a multimethod research which combines the qualitative and quantitative approach. a mixed methods study involves the collection or analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data in a single study with some attempts to integrate the two approaches at one or more stages of the research process (dornyei, 2007: 163). the qualitative data that is used in this study comes from the objective of this study itself which will unveil the realization of interpersonal meaning of the eulogy text. interpersonal meaning itself deals with the social relationship which lies between the speaker/writer and the listener/reader. in addition, the quantitative data of this study comes from the result of the interpersonal analysis constituents and also appraisal analysis of the speech which can support the qualitative data. to sum up, the writer of this study mainly uses qualitative approach to analyze and collect the result of the data from this study. the use of quantitative data that is got from the quantitative approach is just used to support and strengthen the qualitative data of this study. then, at the end of the analysis process, interpretation is also used to describe the result of the study. the object of the study which the writer has chosen is a speech from the first africanamerican first lady of the united states, michelle obama. this speech was delivered by michelle obama at the memorial service for dr. maya angelou on 7th june 2014 at wake forest university in north carolina. this study is analyzing the interpersonal meanings of michelle obama’s speech at the memorial service for dr. maya angelou. thus, the unit of the analysis of this study is identified as the following: 1. grammatical analysis 1. 1 mood system analysis 1.1.1 analysis of subject 1.1.2 analysis of finite 1. 2 modality 1. 3 mood types 2. lexical analysis 2. 1 appraisal 2. 1. 1 affect 2. 1. 2 appreciation 2. 1. 3 judgment in doing this study, there are some steps that will be done by the writer. after collecting the data, the writer will divide all the sentences in this speech into the smaller part. it means that the sentences will be divided into clauses to make the analysis at ease. after that, the writer will start to analyze some aspects of each clause. the analysis of those aspects will be delivered in the form of table which represents the frequencies of each aspect. at this state, the table is representing the quantitative data which support the qualitative data. after getting the quantitative data from the table of analysis, the writer will interpret and describe the data into paragraphs to complete the process of analysis for this study. result of study based on the procedure of analysisng the data that has been mentioned above, it is got the result of study as follows. the result of study is isni mafruchatunnisa / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 5 divided into two main parts. they are the grammar analysis and the lexical analysis. grammar analysis as it has been stated above that the grammar analysis is divided into some main constituents which are based on the theory of interpersonal meanings. the following is the result of the grammar analyis foe this study. subject analysis the first constituent of mood system of interpersonal meanings is the subject. the following table shows the result of analysis for the most frequent subject that is used in michelle obama’s eulogy speech. i you he she we they it that who dr.maya angelou oprah marian robinson god others 50 4 0 34 9 2 2 8 1 7 1 1 1 24 34,7 2 2,78 0 23,61 6,2 5 1,38 1,3 8 5,56 0,7 4,86 0,7 0,7 0,7 16,67 from the above table, we can see that the most used subject is “i”. it takes 34,72% from the all clauses of the speech. the subject “i” itself refers to michelle obama as the speaker. michelle obama mostly used “i” in her speech in order to emphasize that she was mostly influenced by dr. maya angelou. she stood at that time was not as the first lady of united states, but as one of the black woman in united states who changed her mind set after meeting maya angelou and learned about the different part of the world through dr. maya angelou’s words. michelle obama tended to use “i” more that the other subjcet because she wanted to show the audiences the process on how she met dr. maya angelou for the first time and decided to follow her steps through their own way. michelle obama used the other subjects to complete the story that she wanted to share with the audiences at that time. finite analysis the secons constituent for the grammar analysis in mood syatem is the finite analysis. the table below is the result for the finite analysis in michelle obama’s speech. finite simple present present continous present perfect simple past past continous past perfect modal total 44 5 0 80 2 2 11 percentage 30,55 3,47 0 55,55 1,38 1,28 7,63 in order to make it more simple in seeing the result of finite analysis, the table above can be simplified as the following one. present past modal 49 84 11 34,02% 58,33% 7,63% from the above table, it can be seen that the most used finite in michelle obama’s speech is past finite. the use of past tense here refers to the story of dr. maya angelou in her past life. in line with the function of eulogy speech itself, michelle obama wanted to recall the memories of dr. maya angelou’s struggle together with the family, collegues, friends and audiences at the memorial service. besides that, michelle obama also wanted to emphasize the influences that maya angelou gave to her which can changed her mind set about a perfect girl during her chilhood. that is why, michelle obama mostly used past tense becaus eshe mostly delivered past events of dr. maya angelou’s life and her life isni mafruchatunnisa / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 6 modality analysis the next constituent for the grammar analysis is the modality. from the finite analysis,it acn be seen that there are some modality that were found in the soeech. this following table is a more detail review for the modality analysis of the speech. modal verbs adverbials adjectival noun clauses & phrases lo me hi lo me hi lo me hi lo me hi lo me hi total 6 4 5 0 0 10 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 percentage 23, 07 15,3 8 19,2 3 0 0 38,46 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3,8 4 0 the most frequent modality that appears in michelle obama speech is modal verbs. it goes like that because modal verbs seem to have a clear allotment between the high, medium and low level. in addition, modal verbs also can cover different degree of probability, usuality, obligation or inclination in a clearer way. it means that the speaker can express his/her judgment or evaluation towards something also in a better way. the judgment that is shown by michelle obama by using modality in this text has a strong expression in showing michelle obama’s admiration towards maya angelou. she knew that although michelle obama’s figure has passed away, the spirit of her will always be with her and all the women in general. although it is only a probability, but it can show how much michelle obama has her trust on the spirit of dr. maya angelou. mood types analysis the following table is the result of the mood types analysis of michelle obama’s speech at the memorial service. mood types declarative interrogative imperative exclamative total 136 4 2 2 percentage 94,44 2,77 1,38 1,38 the last interpretation for the grammar analysis is the mood type analysis. the result of the analysis shows that the most used mood types in the speech is declarative clause. the reason behind this result is because the text that is analyzed for this study is a eulogy speech. it means that there is no interaction between the speaker and the audiences. if there is one, it is only for a small interaction between them. that is why most of the clauses in the speech are declarative clause, since the speaker just wanted to share some information about the subject of the speech. she also wanted to give some statement relate to her experiences in knowing maya angelou and what she had learned from maya angelou. lexical analysis appraisal analysis appraisal system affect judgment appreciation total 37 49 36 percentage 30,32% 40,16% 29,50% based on the result for the appraisal analysis, it shows that the most appraisal system appears in the speech text is judgment. it has been stated that judgment has two different ways in expressing its evaluation of someone attitude. expressions of judgments are used to assess isni mafruchatunnisa / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 7 (positively or negatively) what people do, say or believe according to values of particular institutions (droga and humphrey, 2003: 68). based on this statement, it relates with what michelle obama did most in her speech, she appraises maya angelou’s actions in struggling for most of black women at that time. she praises her actions and works in order to make available a place for black women beside her and being phenomenal together. the result of appraisal analysis can be related with modality analysis since both of them can show the judgment or evaluation towards the matter. while the other grammar analysis such as the mood system and moods types analysis show the way michelle obama’s status, contact and power through her speech. both modality and appraisal analysis show the evaluation of maya angelou as what has been stated in the appraisal and modality analysis. conlucions finally, the writer comes up with some conclusions which can answer the research questions of this study. they consist of the result of the tenor of the speech, the realization of the interpersonal meanings and the contribution for language education. here is the result for the tenor of the speech. in terms of status, michelle obama here does not place herself as the first lady of united states. however, she tried to place herself as one of black women who was influenced by dr. maya angelou. thus, she intended to make the status between her and the audiences as equal as possible in order to make the atmosphere in that occasion as comfortable as possible. in terms of contact, it can be concluded that the contact between michelle obama and the audience is not too frequent. this matter appears since the text that is analyzed for this study is a eulogy speech, which means that the interaction between the speaker and the reader is not the main focus of the topic. however, michelle obama tried to be as friendly as possible to the audience by greeting oprah winfrey during her speech. while in terms of affect, the writer can conclude that michelle obama highly emotionally involved to the situation first, from the grammar analysis, it can be concluded that michelle obama did not want to show off her position as the first lady of united states. however, she tried to place herself as one of the black women who has strongly influenced by dr. maya angelou’s words through her life. it can be seen from the result of the subject analysis which shows “i” as the most frequent subject used in the speech. she wanted to emphasize that she had a strong belief on maya angelou’s words and inspiration which can make her stand in her position now secondly, from the finite and mood type analysis, she tends to inform the journey of maya angelou during her late life in order to make a place for black women besides her. in addition, she also told the audience about the process of how she knew maya angelou and made her as one of her inspiring figure. thirdly, based on the result of the appraisal analysis, it can be concluded that michelle obama mostly used judgment as one of the aspect from attitude analysis to show her admiration towards dr. maya angelou. she praised dr. maya angelou’s action who bravely cross the line and face some obstacles to make a place for black women at that time. the writer also comes with a conclusion that this study also has some contributions to language education. first, studying interpersonal meaning constituents such as mood system (mood-residue), modality, and also the appraisal system can help students to have a better understanding on how they should create a good text. the study of interpersonal meaning also can give a teacher a new way in teaching their students to be a good public speaker through their good text. through this study, the teacher will not only teach the students on making the text that is right in the structure but also in maintaining the diction which are appropriate with the situation itself. furthermore, by studying interpersonal meanings especially in a speech text, it can help students to understand people’s intention through isni mafruchatunnisa / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 8 their utterances, since every single clause may give different interpretations based on the situation itself. by knowing people’s intention, students also will be able to react correctly to what people say to them. references dornyei, zoltan. 2007. research methods in applied linguistic; quantitative, qualitative and mixed methodologies. new york; oxford university press droga, l. and s. humphrey. 2005. grammar and meaning; an introduction for primary teachers. new south wales; southwood press. eggins, s. 2004. an introduction to systemic functional linguistics 2nd ed. london; continuum. eggins, s. and d. slade. 1997. analysing casual conversation. london; cassell. gerot, l. and p. wignell. 1995. making sense of functional grammar.new south wales; gerdstabler. halliday, m.a.k.1985 .an introduction to functional grammar.2nd ed. london; edward arnold. halliday, m.a.k.1994 .an introduction to functional grammar.2nd ed. london; edward arnold. halliday, m.a.k. 2004.an introduction to functional grammar.3rd ed, revised by c. m.i.m. matthiessen. london: arnold. halliday, m.a.k and r. hasan. 1989. language, context, and text: aspect of language in socialsemiotic perspective. victoria: deakin university press. hastomo, wisdiyanhadi. 2010. the interpersonal meaningofbarackobama’sspeech entitled “america will never be at war with islam”.final project.english department, faculty of languages and arts, semarang state university. kent, michael lee. 1997.the rhetoric of eulogies: a generic critique of classic and contemporary funeral oratory. thesis.purdue university. kothari, c.r. 2004. research methodology;methods and techniques 2nded. new.delhi; new age international. martin, j.r., d. rose. 2004. working with discourse.new york; continuum. najib, aha ainun. 2014. tenor, interpersonal meanings and appraisal found in the speech of barack obama at nelson mandela memorial.finalproject.english department, faculty of languages and arts, semarang state university. patton, m. 1990. qualitative evaluation and research methods. beverly hills, ca: sage. 1 elt forum 4 (1) (2015) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt developing teaching media of kangaroo smart frieze to enrich elementary school students’ vocabulary sakilah bewafa english department. faculty of languages and arts. state university of semarang aticle info ________________ article history: received in juni 2015 approved in juli 2015 published in agustus 2015 ________________ keywords: kangaroo smart frieze, vocabulary, teaching media development. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ the implementation of the newest curriculum (curriculum 2013) leads some elementary schools to finally exclude english from the schools subjects. however, some elementary schools that keep teaching english as a subject still cannot provide appropriate english teaching media, especially to teach vocabulary. in this study, the researcher aimed to know the problems faced by the english teacher and the fourth grade students of sd n 2 sekaran in the vocabulary teaching and learning, and also to know how to develop teaching media of kangaroo smart frieze. the research and development (r & d) approach was adopted by conducting the preliminary survey, designing and developing the prototype of the product, conducting limited testing and product validation, having a revision process and describing the research result. the subjects of the study were the fourth grade students of sd n 2 sekaran in the academic year of 2013/2014. the instruments used were questionnaires, interview guideline and test. according to the interview to the english teacher and students, it can be concluded that the vocabulary teaching media kangaroo smart frieze needs to be developed with the focus on the quality of the media and also the variety of games played. the development of kangaroo smart frieze was started by observing and interviewing the english teacher and students. after doing that, the process was continued by planning the data collecting instrument of vocabulary teaching media. the main consideration was based on the english curriculum (syllabus) of the fourth grade students of elementary school and also some related theories. moreover, the data collecting instrument was arranged into two main parts which included the need analysis of the students and english teacher. the further step was designing the prototype. the development process was then followed by other steps; product validation, try-out (limited testing) and revision of kangaroo smart frieze. the results of the students’ test by using kangaroo smart frieze as the vocabulary teaching media, and also the assessment from the experts were very good. therefore, it could be concluded that kangaroo smart frieze has a good prospect to be used in the vocabulary teaching and learning process. as suggestion, the teachers should always try to choose appropriate vocabulary teaching media, and the future researchers should conduct better research and development to develop better vocabulary teaching media for elementary school students. © 2015 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: shaqiemaguire@gmail.com issn 2252-6706 sakilah bewafa / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 2 introduction the implementation of the newest curriculum (curriculum 2013) has given a new rule towards the english teaching and learning. english in elementary school will not be taught as a subject anymore. this decision came from a consideration that young children should know their mother tongue better than other languages. therefore, english teaching and learning will only become an extracurricular or an additional subject. unfortunately, there is a serious consequence behind this decision. the development of english teaching and learning in elementary school will not get much attention anymore because the government does not even include english as a subject in the new curriculum. although the children who have an early start make slower progress in learning grammar, reading and writing, they are still able to develop and maintain advantages in some areas of language skill such as listening, speaking, and vocabulary (cameron, 2001:17). therefore, there are still lots of advantages of teaching english early. the focus now is only how to teach english to elementary school students through fun and meaningful ways. new language is usually introduced, understood, practiced, and automatized orally and aurally. therefore, the solution toward foreign language learning is that focus on words and interaction (cameron, 2001:18). this means that english can be taught to elementary school students by focusing on vocabulary and discourse. as what stated by mccarthy (1990); it is the experience of most language teachers that the single, biggest component of any language course is vocabulary. no matter how well the student learns grammar, no matter how successfully the sounds of l2 are mastered, without words to express a wide range of meanings, communication in an l2 just cannot happen in any meaningful way. this statement shows us how important learning vocabulary is, especially for the early stage of learning a new language. vocabulary development is an important aspect of language development and a variety of studies have proven that appropriate vocabulary instruction benefits language students, especially school-age learners (linse, 2006:122). there are some tips to teach vocabulary as what have been suggested by marry slattery and jane willis (2001) as follows: a. make class displays of pictures and other memory aids to support new vocabulary. b. prepare to teach new words and phrases in a meaningful way by linking with a topic that the students are familiar with. c. show the students how to play vocabulary games and give instruction in english while doing the games. d. use lots of different games but use the same vocabulary to help the students become familiar with it. e. new words and phrases need to be used a lot after introducing them so that the students learn to use them actively. according to those vocabulary teaching tips, a language classroom basically needs teaching media that support the english teaching and learning. for example, fourth grade students of elementary school actually need teaching media to enrich their vocabulary because they are in the early stage of english learning which most of the materials are focus on various basic vocabulary related to school, jobs, body parts, colors, animal, etc. however, there are still many elementary schools that cannot provide any vocabulary teaching media. one of them is sd n 2 sekaran. the observation result shows that the fourth grade classroom in sd n 2 sekaran does not have any vocabulary teaching media which is actually very important to enrich their vocabulary and support the english teaching and learning. the only vocabulary teaching sakilah bewafa / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 3 media provided by the school are flashcards in which the number is very limited. hence, the researcher is interested in developing teaching media to enrich elementary school students’ vocabulary called kangaroo smart frieze which contains lots of picture cards with various topics and fun games possibilities. this will enable the students to learn new vocabulary repeatedly without feeling bored quickly. besides that, this teaching media will be designed to be played in pairs to make the vocabulary learning more effective. moreover, by providing vocabulary teaching media inside the classroom, the students will have more chance to learn the vocabulary actively at their leisure time. discussion the characteristics of the young language learner compared to the adult language learners, the young language learners have lots of unique characteristics. besides what have been mentioned above, the young language learners also have some other general characteristics as stated by scott and ytreberg (1990: 2-3) as follows: some characteristics of young learners are they know that the world is governed by rules; they use language skills before they aware of them, they are very logical, have short attention and concentration span, love to play and learn best when they are enjoying themselves, very enthusiastic and positive learning....they ask questions all the time, rely on spoken word as well as physical word to convey and understand meaning, they are able to work with others and learn from others... those characteristics are then strengthened by slattery and willis (2001:4) in their notion of what the children like as learners and how the teacher should teach them. slattery and willis (2001: 4) give description about what children are like as learners: they are developing quickly as individuals, learn in variety of ways, for example by watching, by listening, by imitating, by doing things, are not able to understand the grammatical rules and explanations about the language, try to make sense of situations by making use of non-verbal clues, talk in their mother tongue about what they understand and do – this helps them learn, can generally imitate the sounds they hear quite accurately and copy the way adults speak, are naturally curious, love to play and use their imagination, are comfortable with routines and enjoy repetition, have quite a short attention span and so need variety. teaching vocabulary to young learner in line with the characteristics of young language learner and also the definition of vocabulary, hatch and brown (1995: 372), as stated by cameron (2001: 84), describe five “essential steps” in vocabulary learning based on research into learners’ strategies: (1) having source for encountering new words; (2) getting a clear image, whether visual or auditory or both, for the forms of the new words; (3) learning the meaning of the words; (4) making a strong memory connection between the forms and meanings of the words; and (5) using the words. therefore, in teaching vocabulary to young learner, teachers need a visual media to provide new vocabulary that can be used regularly to build a strong memory. this theory is also strengthen by suyanto (2007: 102) by stating that in teaching english to young learner, teachers should use some media , especially visual media such as pictures, flash cards, puppets, miniature, or anything else that can be brought to the classroom. teachers should be creative and able to create, imitate, adapt, select, or use appropriate teaching media based on the need of teachers and students. sakilah bewafa / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 4 pairwork scott and ytreberg (1990: 15) state that pairwork is a very useful and efficient way of working in language teaching because it is simple to organize and easy to explain. in addition, they suggest that groupwork should not be attempted before the children are used to working in twos first. furthermore, jeremy harmer (1991: 116-117) states that in pairwork, students can practice language together. however, the teachers should pay attention to the disadvantages and disadvantages of pairwork so that they can anticipate any possible difficulties. kangaroo smart frieze kangaroo smart frieze is a teaching media developed from the compilation ideas of some common teaching media such as alphabet frieze, word wall, and picture card. the name kangaroo smart frieze is chosen as an identity that this media is not only a usual frieze, but a modified frieze that consists of lots of picture cards with their spelling arranged into some kangaroo’s pouches. in addition, there will be a guidance book on how to use the kangaroo smart frieze as it is designed to be used in pairs with various games or activities. later on, kangaroo smart frieze can be used as media for vocabulary teaching and learning. the children can use kangaroo smart frieze during the english class and in any leisure time, because it is also designed to be an english routine which can enrich children’s vocabulary day by day. this english routine is very important to make sure that the children will memorize the vocabulary in a long term retention. method this study used r&d (research and development) as the research design since the objective of the study was to develop vocabulary teaching media. the product that was developed in this study was material object. the designed material was hardware. the material was designed to meet the educational need. the objective of the material was based on the standard competence and basic competence in the curriculum. subject of the study the subject of the study was the students of fourth grade students of sd n 2 sekaran in the academic year of 2013/2014. instrument of the study this study used two kinds of instrument which were questionnaire and interview. stage of media development in this study, the researcher use the model of development research from borg & gall (2003: 775), which has been simplified into a simpler model of development, and become the foundation for this research. basically, the model can be seen from the diagram below. sakilah bewafa / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 5 data analysis techniques the data which had been collected gave us a series of scores. to make them valuable, they must be computed and analyzed by means of certain techniques in accordance with the method used. the data to be analyzed in this study were taken from the questionnaire (students, teacher and expert lecturers), interview (teacher) and test or try-out (students). the method of data analysis used in this research was the qualitative descriptive method. this was a procedure to solve the research problem by describing the condition of the object factually at the present time. the data have to fulfill the requirements of students’ need in using vocabulary teaching media and the evaluation concerning with the draft of kangaroo smart frieze for the fourth graders. the paired-samples t test was used to determine whether the media was quiet significant or not to be used as the vocabulary teaching media for elementary school students. results the problems faced by the english teacher and the fourth grade students of sd n 2 sekaran in the vocabulary teaching and learning according to the interview to the english teacher of sd n 2 sekaran, it can be concluded that the vocabulary teaching media needs to be developed with the focus on the quality of the media and also the variety of games played. the current vocabulary teaching media used by the fourth grade students of sd n 2 sekaran are somehow fragile and quite boring. the current vocabulary teaching media in the form of word cards are so fragile because of some reasons: (1) the word cards are made manually using carton and boardmarker, so that they are less interesting, too fragile and have a high risk of typo. (2) the word cards are too small and are in random topics. (3) the word cards are often misused by some students. once they get bored in guessing the meaning of the words, they use the word cards to play improperly. this condition led the students to get bored quickly. moreover, most of them lost their spirit in learning new vocabulary in the middle of english teaching and learning process. seeing this fact, the english teacher had an expectation that her students would have vocabulary teaching media which has good quality, easy to use, and fun to be played inside the classroom. therefore, it needs such a new form of vocabulary teaching media which can sakilah bewafa / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 6 meet the expectation of both the english teacher and also the students. the interview was also done towards the fourth grade students of sd n 2 sekaran to support this research. the result was that it needs such a development in using the vocabulary teaching media. the students were actually interested in every meeting of the english teaching and learning, especially at the moment of having lots of chances to enrich their vocabulary. however, they were usually obstructed by the condition in which they had to learn lots of vocabulary in random topics and also played the word cards in group. some of the group members usually played the word cards properly, but some others got bored easily then separated themselves and played the word cards improperly. due to this condition, the goal of the vocabulary teaching and learning in which to enrich the students’ vocabulary could not be achieved successfully. hence, the research and development of new vocabulary teaching media is needed and appropriate to be used inside the classroom during the english teaching and learning process. the product which was proposed in this study was kangaroo smart frieze; a compilation of some popular vocabulary teaching media used to teach english to the young language learners. after finding some problems faced by the english teacher and the fourth grade students of sd n 2 sekaran in the vocabulary teaching and learning process, the research was continued by having a need analysis of the product towards the subjects of the study. the steps in developing kangaroo smart frieze as vocabulary teaching media for the fourth grade students the development of kangaroo smart frieze was started by observing and interviewing the english teacher of sd n 2 sekaran, mrs. ani, about the purpose of teaching and learning process recently. after doing that, the process was continued by planning the data collecting instrument of vocabulary teaching media. the main consideration was based on the english curriculum (syllabus) of the fourth grade students of elementary school and also some related theories such as the theory of young learners, theory of vocabulary, and theory of development of teaching media. moreover, the data collecting instrument was arranged into two main parts which included the need analysis of the students and english teacher of sd n 2 sekaran. the need analysis contained some points to be considered by the subjects of the study. those points were as follows: a) the front performance of kangaroo smart frieze including the colour composition, picture arrangement, title attractiveness, pictures choice, and the size of the board and the cards. b) the content of kangaroo smart frieze including the content suitability, vocabulary choice, font type, and title choice. c) the games of kangaroo smart frieze including the choice of games and choice of expressions. the further step was designing the prototype of kangaroo smart frieze as a vocabulary teaching media to enrich elementary school students’ vocabulary. it could be seen clearly through the diagram below: sakilah bewafa / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 7 the vocabulary was taken from many sources, for example dictionaries and internet. then, the vocabulary was translated into bahasa indonesia. there were five topics in the kangaroo smart frieze. those were the topics of animals, body parts, jobs, school, and colours. the development process was then followed by other steps; product validation, try-out (limited testing) and revision of kangaroo smart frieze. this was to get the review from the english teacher of sd n 2 sekaran and expert lecturers as the subjects of product validation of this media and also to know whether this media was appropriate or not for the students. they were asked to give the review by fulfilling the assessment form about the prototype of kangaroo smart frieze. after doing so, the review was determined as the consideration to revise the media, so that it could be used by the elementary school students, if it is already valid, as soon as possible during the english teaching and learning process. to make the explanation clearer, the following pictures were the examples of the designs of the board and cards of kangaroo smart frieze. the kangaroos arranged on the board design represented the concept of kangaroo smart frieze that was the kangaroo pouches containing various cards to be played in pairs. meanwhile, the cards picture showed the cards which were design based on the need analysis done towards the english teacher and the fourth grade students of sd n 2 sekaran. choosing and preparing some tools to develop the vocabulary teaching media kangaroo smart frieze. for this project, it used combination of various kinds of media such as alphabet frieze, word wall, and picture cards. creating kangaroo smart frieze began with the drawing, cutting, and sticking of the kangaroo shapes on the board. the pouches were then drawn, cut, and sticked to the kangaroo shapes. each pouch was then given a topic. the topic was then given some vocabulary cards completed with the picture, english word, and its meaning in bahasa indonesia. checking and editing the draft (prototype) sakilah bewafa / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 8 basically the teaching material of kangaroo smart frieze had a vision that was intended for elementary school teachers and students. that vision was to help teachers and provide a vocabulary teaching media used for the english teaching and learning process, especially for the fourth grade students in order to enrich their vocabulary. the games and technique used in the implementation of the vocabulary teaching media kangaroo smart frieze provided chances for the students to enrich their vocabulary through fun and effective ways. around twenty students in the class could play the games in this media in pairs simultaneously since the cards provided were more than enough that was 60 cards. this then enabled the students to enrich their vocabulary in the english teaching and learning more quickly and more effectively. this vocabulary teaching media was designed to be synergistic and complementary, so that the results achieved by learning subjects were also much better than the use of other vocabulary teaching media such as alphabet frieze, word cards, and picture cards. the analysis of the use of kangaroo smart frieze as vocabulary teaching media to enrich elementary school students’ vocabulary to get the significant responses from the fourth grade students of elementary school towards the use of kangaroo smart frieze in vocabulary teaching and learning, researcher held a limited testing in the form of try-out. the data obtained from the pre-test and posttest are valid to be analyzed by using pairedsamples t test. from the data above, it showed that the degree of freedom (df) = 13 with the 95% confidence interval of the difference based on the t-table results in t=1.771 which is smaller than t=3.899. therefore, it could be concluded that the media had significant effect towards the learning process of the students and could be used as the vocabulary teaching media. the researcher asked three expert lecturers and one school teacher to be the evaluators of kangaroo smart frieze. the score range was one up to four (1 = less/l, 2 = enough/e, 3 = good/g, 4 = very good/vg). meanwhile, the average score range was one up to twelve (1-5 = less/l, 6-8 = enough/e, 910 = good/g, 11-12 = very good/vg). the points were as follows. the assessment of front-performance showed that the product of kangaroo smart frieze had a very good quality in the points of color composition, picture arrangement, title attractiveness, pictures choice, and the size of the board and the cards. the average score for this part of assessment was 10.8 (very good). the assessment of content showed that the product of kangaroo smart frieze had a good quality in the points of the content suitability, vocabulary choice, font type, and title choice. the average score for this part of assessment was 11.25 (very good). the assessment of games showed that the product of kangaroo smart frieze had a good quality in the points of the choice of games and choice of expressions. the average score for this part of assessment was 10.5 (good). regarding the validation and assessment from the teacher and expert lecturers and also the limited testing done by the students, the product of kangaroo smart frieze is valid to be used as the teaching media for the fourth grade students of elementary paired samples test -12,2857 11,7894 3,1508 -19,0927 -5,4787 -3,899 13 ,002pretest posttestpair 1 mean std. dev iation std. error mean lower upper 95% conf idence interv al of the dif f erence paired dif f erences t df sig. (2-tailed) sakilah bewafa / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 9 school, especially in terms of vocabulary as the main concern in this research and development. conclusion based on the analysis, the researcher makes some conclusions. firstly, there were some problems faced by the teacher and the fourth grade students of sd n 2 sekaran in the vocabulary teaching and learning process. the current vocabulary teaching media used by the fourth grade students of sd n 2 sekaran are somehow fragile and quite boring. hence, the research and development of new vocabulary teaching media is needed and appropriate to be used inside the classroom during the english teaching and learning process. secondly, there were some important steps to develop kangaroo smart frieze as a vocabulary teaching media. it started from analysing the purpose of english learning process until doing the product validation and revision, so that the product could be valid and credible to be used in the vocabulary teaching and learning for elementary school students. thirdly, to get the significant responses from the fourth grade students towards the use of kangaroo smart frieze in the vocabulary teaching and learning, the researcher held a limited testing in the form of try-out. besides, the assessment was given by the teacher and expert lecturers. therefore, it can be concluded that kangaroo smart frieze has a good prospect to be used in the vocabulary teaching and learning for elementary school students. from the result of the research, the researcher would like to offer some suggestions to be considered by the english teacher and future researchers. firstly, the english teachers should be able to choose appropriate vocabulary teaching media to be used in the english teaching and learning process. secondly, the future researchers should conduct the better research and development of vocabulary teaching media to enrich elementary school students’ vocabulary, especially for the higher level (fifth and sixth graders) by improving the games and expressions used in the vocabulary teaching and learning process. references borg, walter r. and gall, m.d. 1983. educational research: an introduction. new york & london: longman. cameron, lynne. 2001. teaching languages to young learners. united kingdom: cambridge university press. harmer, jeremy. 1991. the practice of english language teaching. harlow: longman limited. linse, t. caroline. 2006. practical english language teaching: young learners. singapore: mcgrow-hill companies, inc. mccarthy, michael. 1990. vocabulary. china: oxford university press. schmitt, norbert and mccarthy, michael. 1997. vocabulary: description, acquisition and pedagogy. united kingdom: cambridge university press. scott, a. wendy and ytreberg, h. lisbeth. 1990. teaching english to children. harlow: longman group uk limited. slattery, mary and willis, jane. 2001. english for primary teachers. china: oxford university press. sugiyono. 2001. metode penelitian pendidikan: pendekatan kuantitatif, kualitatif, dan r&d. bandung: penerbit alfabeta. 1 elt forum 5 (2) (2016) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the effectiveness of herringbone technique to teach reading of narrative text andi yusuf kurniawan dra. indrawati, m. hum. english department. faculty of languages and arts. state university of semarang. aticle info ________________ article history: received in april 2016 approved in april 2016 published in may 2016 ________________ keywords: herringbone technique, teach reading, narrative text. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this final project is based on the research which attempted to find out the effectiveness of herringbone technique to teach reading of narrative text. the design of this study was experimental study. there were two groups used in the research; the experimental group and the control group. the two groups were given different treatments. the experimental group was taught by using herringbone technique while the control group was taught using conventional technique. the population of this study was the eighth grade students of smp negeri 24 semarang in the academic year of 2015/2016. the number of the subjects was 64 students. the data were obtained by administering reading test to the viii a as control group and viii b as experimental group. the research was started by giving pre-test, treatments, and post-test to both experimental groups and control groups. the data of the test were analyzed by using t-test formula to know the difference of the students’ comprehension in reading narrative text between two groups. the data analysis in research ,some purpose can be drawn as follow. the first purpose of the study is to discuss the effectiveness of teaching reading using herringbone technique to improve students’ reading of narrative text. the use of herringbone technique in teaching reading makes the activity in class more interesting. the students are active and more enthusiastic following the teachers’ instruction and working in group. the second purpose of the study is to analyze the significant difference between teaching reading using herringbone technique and the one using conventional technique. the difference in score of both test can be drawn as follow. the average score of pre-test of the experimental group was 67.75 and the control group was 65.59. the average score of post-test of the experimental group was 71.31 while the control one was 69.71. the result of the t-test of mean difference was 8.94 and t-table was 2.00. it means that t-value is higher than t-table (8.94>2.00). it can be concluded that there is a significant difference between teaching reading using herringbone technique and the one using conventional technique. based on the research conducted, it proved that the use of herringbone technique is effective as a strategy to improve teaching reading comprehension of narrative text to the eighth year students of smp negeri 24 semarang. © 2016 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: andiurnia@gmail.com issn 2252-6706 andi yusuf kurniawan / journal of english language teaching 5 (2) (2016) 2 introduction background of the study english as a global language is used in almost all countries in the world as a means of international communication. because of its significant role, english has been included in indonesian educational curriculum. the english curriculum stipulates that english subject should include four skills, they are listening, speaking, reading, and writing. harris (1980: 53) states that reading is a form of communication. information and ideas are exchanged between writer and reader in the act of communicating. this information will be a new knowledge or as an entertainment which is needed by the reader. reading activity in english as a foreign language is not the same as reading activity in the students’ mother tongue such as javanese and indonesian, therefore reading causes students to face difficulties in vocabulary, structure, pronunciation, etc. in the process of learning english, especially reading a lot of students who are having difficulty. there are several kinds of difficulties experienced by students as a lack of material books, incomplete dictionary and a boring material. the students think that reading english is not interesting and boring since they do not know the meaning of the words and do not find an interesting book. the students need many kinds of interesting materials so that they will be more enthusiastic and active to learn english. based on the background above, the writer will introduce english reading activity to the students by using a technique that is herringbone technique. this technique is addressed to optimize teaching reading. in this study, the writer will apply technique using graphic organizer in fish diagram of herringbone technique to teach reading of narrative text for the eight grade of junior high school students. the problems stated in this study are: 1. how effective is teaching reading using herringbone technique to teach students’ reading of narrative text? 2. what is the significant difference between of the students’ achievement taught by herringbone technique and those who are taught by conventional technique? deegan (2006) states that the herringbone technique develops comprehension of the main idea by plotting the who, what, when, where, how, and why questions on a visual diagram of a fish skeleton. herringbone technique consists of a short graphic organizer and it is a concrete way of helping english learners to find the comprehensive idea in a paragraph or passage. the students can use this graphic organizer when taking notes for assigned reading as a way to organize and classify new information. the students answer the questions listed in the fish skeleton graphic organizer. this leads to the synthesis of all the information in one newly created sentence, which becomes the main idea statement. graphic organizer is important and effective pedagogical tools for organizing content, ideas, and facilitating learners’ comprehension of newly acquired information (mcknight, 2010: 1). it is an effective teaching and learning tool for all types of learners. edwards (2003:32) mentioned that the procedures of herringbone technique are: 1. select reading material at the students’ level. 2. construct the herringbone technique outline with the 5w+1h (who? when? where? why? what? how?) and the main idea. (see following diagram or graphic). 3. students read, brainstorm and write important information about the story in their book. 4. after discussion, the students write answers on the herringbone technique outline. 5. students discuss answers (5w+1h+main idea). 6. the herringbone technique outline is used for the revision of the story. method of study in this research, i used experimental study. arikunto (2010:207) stated that experimental research is a research which has a purpose to investigate whether there is an effect of something that is treated to the subject of research. in other words, an experimental research tends to observe whether there is the cause and effect relation or not. the research can be conducted by comparing andi yusuf kurniawan / journal of english language teaching 5 (2) (2016) 3 one or more experimental groups which are given treatment with one or more control groups which do not get any treatment. the population in this study was the eight grade students of smp negeri 24 semarang, kota semarang in the academic year 2015/2016. the eight grade in smp negeri 24 semarang consisted of eight classes. the samples were divided into two groups. the first group is the experimental group and the second one is the control group. the sample of this research was the students of eight graders of smp negeri 24 semarang in the academic year 2015/2016. the total sample is 64 students. the first group was class viii a as the experimental group consist of 32 students, and the second one was class viii b as the control group consist of 32 students. best (1981: 93) mentioned that independent variables are the conditions or characteristics that the experimenter manipulates, control, or observes. the independent variables are the conditions or characteristics that the experimenter manipulates in her attempt to ascertain their relationship to observed phenomena. the dependent variables are the conditions or characteristics that appear, disappear, or change as the experimenter introduces, removes, or changes independent variables (best, 1981: 66). from those definitions, it can be said that the independent variable of this study is herringbone technique and the dependent variable of this study is students’ achievement score in reading narrative texts. the writer conducted the research to find out the effectiveness of herringbone technique to teach reading of narrative text. the students’ reading result of pre-test, treatments and post-test were administered to know whether the use of herringbone technique is effective or not to improve students’ reading of narrative text. at the beginning of the research, the writer determines the experimental and control group. pre-test and post-test would given to both groups. pre-test would administered before giving the treatment in order to know the students’ prior knowledge. the herringbone technique as treatment would given to the experimental group, whereas the control group would taught by using conventional technique. at the end of the research, post-test would given to get the final result. discussion analysis of the try out test the analysis was to get a good instrument for investigation. the try out test was conducted on 12 january 2015. it was given to the eight grade students of smp negeri 24 semarang consisting of 32 respondents. the viii e was chosen as the try out group. the try out test is in form of multiple choices items which consist of 35 questions. the following are the data analysis of the try out test to know whether the instrument that used in the research fulfill the requirements a good instrument or not. validity a good test has to be valid. validity refers to the precise measurements of the test. the validity computation is consulted with the r table of product moment by determining the significant level of 5% and n which is according to the data. if the rxy > r table so the instrument is valid. for α = 5% and n = 32, r table = 0.349. in order to find the validity of the test, the writer used the following formula: 𝑟𝑥𝑦 = 32(732) − (28)(814) √{(32)(28) − 282}{(32)(21604) − (736)2} 𝑟𝑥𝑦 = 0.42 the item number 2 of the try out test was valid since its rxy = 0.42. after all the item numbers were analyzed, there were 27 valid items from 35 items and the test were 8 invalid. from the distribution above, it can be concluded that the try out instrument had 27 valid items and 8 invalid items. reliability reliability of the test shows the stability or consistency of the test scores when the test is used. the following is the computation of the reliability of the instrument. the formula is: 𝑟11 = ( 35 35 − 1 ) ( − 540.89 − 6.7 − 540.89 ) 𝑟11 = 1.04 andi yusuf kurniawan / journal of english language teaching 5 (2) (2016) 4 the result of computation reliability of the try out test instruments was 1.04. for α = 5% with n = 32, and r table = 0.349. since the result of r₁₁ was higher than r table, it was concluded that the try out test instrument was reliable and could be used as the instrument to get the data. discriminating power heaton (1975: 174) said that the discriminating power measured how well the test items arranged to identify the differences in the students’ competence. after the trial test was carried out, an analysis was made to find out the discriminating power of each item. to calculate the discriminating power of each item, the writer used the following formula: 𝐷 = 𝐵𝐴 𝐽𝐴 − 𝐵𝐵 𝐽𝐵 𝐷 = 16 16 − 12 16 = 0,25 the computation of discriminating power of the try out test instruments of item number 2: upper group lower group no. code score no. code score 1 r-16 1 1 r-29 1 2 r-1 1 2 r-2 1 3 r-14 1 3 r-6 1 4 r-19 1 4 r-12 1 5 r-25 1 5 r-24 1 6 r-32 1 6 r-27 0 7 r-3 1 7 r-31 1 8 r-4 1 8 r-20 1 9 r-7 1 9 r-21 0 10 r-8 1 10 r-26 1 11 r-28 1 11 r-13 1 12 r-30 1 12 r-15 1 13 r-9 1 13 r-5 0 14 r-10 1 14 r-11 1 15 r-18 1 15 r-17 1 16 r-22 1 16 r-23 0 sum 16 sum 12 according to the criteria, the item number 2 is satisfactory so this item can be used. from the table above, it was found that 8 items were said to be poor, 19 items were said to be satisfactory, 8 items were said to be good, and no item was said to be excellent. difficulty level a good test is a test which is not too easy and difficult. the formula that was used to count the difficulty level of each item was: 𝑃 = 𝐵 𝐽𝑆 𝑃 = 16 + 12 35 = 28 35 = 0.80 the computation of the difficulty level of the try out test instruments of item number 2 is easy. it means that the item was not too easy and too difficult for the students to do. after computing the overall 35 items of try out test, it was found that 21 items were classified to be easy, 13 items were classified to be medium and 1 item were classified to be difficult. the different result between students’ score in experimental and control group from the calculation of the students’ score, it showed the significant difference between students’ score in the experimental and control group. andi yusuf kurniawan / journal of english language teaching 5 (2) (2016) 5 the pre-test and post-test score of the experimental group no experimental group student code pre test post test 1 e-01 60 72 2 e-02 62 76 3 e-03 66 82 4 e-04 56 69 5 e-05 55 68 6 e-06 62 72 7 e-07 54 72 8 e-08 67 72 9 e-09 56 76 10 e-10 65 76 11 e-11 70 80 12 e-12 64 80 13 e-13 72 76 14 e-14 76 81 15 e-15 68 76 16 e-16 64 72 17 e-17 66 72 18 e-18 74 80 19 e-19 56 72 20 e-20 52 72 21 e-21 70 80 22 e-22 66 76 23 e-23 74 80 24 e-24 66 76 25 e-25 70 76 26 e-26 74 80 27 e-27 62 76 28 e-28 61 80 29 e-29 76 80 30 e-30 60 72 31 e-31 65 75 32 e-32 65 78 total 2168 2282 n 32 32 highest score 76 82 lowest score 52 69 mean 67.75 71.3125 varian 78.823 62.5471 andi yusuf kurniawan / journal of english language teaching 5 (2) (2016) 6 the pre-test and post-test score of the control group no control group student code pretest posttest 1 c-01 64 72 2 c-02 68 76 3 c-03 64 64 4 c-04 54 64 5 c-05 64 72 6 c-06 68 72 7 c-07 72 76 8 c-08 56 72 9 c-9 64 72 10 c-10 54 68 11 c-11 56 76 12 c-12 64 80 13 c-13 54 72 14 c-14 64 68 15 c-15 56 72 16 c-16 64 72 17 c-17 54 68 18 c-18 56 64 19 c-19 54 76 20 c-20 72 72 21 c-21 56 80 22 c-22 56 76 23 c-23 64 68 24 c-24 56 70 25 c-25 68 72 26 c-26 54 72 27 c-27 68 72 28 c-28 54 68 29 c-29 68 72 30 c-30 58 72 31 c-31 55 75 32 c-32 54 75 total 2099 2231 n 32 32 highest score 72 80 lowest score 54 64 mean 65.59 69.7187 varian 64.5851 29.9264 after analyzing the two results between the pre-test and post-test, it was found that the mean of the pre-test achieved by the students in experimental group using herringbone technique was 67.75. meanwhile, the mean of the post-test of the same group was 71.31. in a rather simpler observation, it can be concluded that there was a significant improvement between the pre-test and the posttest scores achieved by the students of experimental group. the control group using conventional technique showed the andi yusuf kurniawan / journal of english language teaching 5 (2) (2016) 7 improvement. the mean score of the control group was 65.59 for the pretest and 69.71 for the posttest. the average scores of the experimental and the control group after getting all the scores, the computation was made. the first way to know the significant difference between the experimental group and control group is to see through the difference of the means of the two groups. the following formula was used to get the means: a. the mean of the pretest of the experimental group: 𝑀𝑥 = 2168 32 𝑀 𝑥 = 67.75 b. the mean of the pretest of the control group: 𝑀𝑦 = 2099 32 𝑀𝑦 = 65.59 c. the mean of the posttest of the experimental group: 𝑀𝑥 = 2282 32 𝑀𝑥 = 71.31 d. the mean of the posttest of the control group: 𝑀𝑦 = 2108 32 𝑀𝑦 = 69.71 the average scores of students in the experimental group and control group before the treatment were almost the same. after the writer gave the treatment to the experimental group, the post-test result showed that the average score of the students improved until 71.31 from the previous average of pre-test 67.75. on the other hand, the control group got 69.71 as the average of post-test. in the pre-test the control group got 65.59. from the result, it can be concluded that the treatment which was given in experimental group achieved the better result. discussion of students’ mastery level in order to show the students’ mastery level in reading comprehension, the writer classified the students’ score in five grades, namely a, b, c, d, and e. the students’ score was transformed into percentage. the students’ level of achievement can be displayed as follows: the achievement of the experimental group grade frequency percentage pre-test post test pre-test post test a 1 2 3.3% 6.6% b 4 18 13.3% 60% c 14 8 46.6% 26.6% d 8 2 26.6% 6.6% e 3 0 10% 0% the table showed that the pre-test percentage of grade a was 3.3%. the following was the example of percentage computation for grade a, and the other items would use the same formula: percentage pre-test for grade a = (pretest frequency of grade a: total frequency pretest) x 100%. = (1 : 30) x 100% = 3.3 % the achievement level of the experimental group can be shown in the form of polygon below: andi yusuf kurniawan / journal of english language teaching 5 (2) (2016) 8 graphic 1 the polygon showed that the percentage of students’ achievement in grade a and b increased significantly for the post-test. it can be concluded that the students’ mastery level of the experimental group had been improved significantly after the treatment was given. analysis of the pre-test and post-test score the writer collected the data from the students’ scores achievement of the reading comprehension test. the students’ scores of pretest and post-test from the experimental and the control group were obtained. the followings are the simple table for the mean of pre-test and posttest of students’ scores: the mean of pre-test and post-test of students’ scores group the mean score of the pre-test the mean score of the post-test the experimental group 67.75 71.31 the control group 65.59 69.71 the table shows that the average of posttest scores in experimental group were higher than the average of post-test scores in control group. from the comparison, it can be conclude that the treatment was effective. homogeneity the homogeneity test was conducted to find out whether the groups’ were similar in their english reading achievement or not. homogeneity was to know that both two classes are homogeneous. it was important because the similarity of both objects would influence the test result. if both classes are not homogenous, the treatment also cannot be conducted because both classes do not have similar ability in reading narrative text achievement. in order to calculate the homogeneity of post-test from experimental and control group, the writer used the following formula: 𝐹 = 𝑉𝑒 𝑉𝑐 𝐹 = 78.823 64.5851 𝐹 = 1.2205 = 1.22 the result was consulted with the value of f table with dk numerator ve = n₁ 1 = 32 1 = 31, the dk numerator vc = n₂ 1 = 32 -1 =31, and α=5%, squared to ve= 32 and vc = 32 was 1.85. the result of the homogeneity test showed that there was homogeny. it was concluded based on 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% a b c d e post-test pre-test andi yusuf kurniawan / journal of english language teaching 5 (2) (2016) 9 the students’ reading ability between the experimental group and the control group on the pre-test where the f value was lower than the f table that was 1.22 compared to 1.85 as the f table. by knowing the result of homogeneity test the writer concluded that the two groups were homogeneity so that the research could be continued on those two groups as the objects of the study. normality the normality of the data was analyzed as well as the homogeneity. after finishing the process of the pre-test data gathering, the normality should be checked in order to know if the data could be analyzed. normality was counted to know that all scores are normal. normality of the experimental group based on the data of pre-test of the experimental group, the normality was analyzed. the computation, x²hitung was 3.08 and x²(α)(dk)=x2(5%)(2) = 5.99. the result showed that the data was normal because x²hitung 3.08< 5.99 then pre-test score for the experimental group was said to be normally distributed. normality of the control group based on the computation, x²hitung was 2.84. then, the pre-test results of the control group were consulted with critical value of x²(α)(dk) with α = 0.05 and dk=2, whose result was 7.82. since the value of x²(α)(dk) of pre-test of the control group were lower than 7.82, the data were considered to be normally distributed. test of significance after getting the pre-test and post-test scores of the experimental and control group, the results were formulated with t-test formula. the t-test formula is: the computation of t-test was: 𝑠 = √ (32 − 1)34.9655 + (32 − 1)79.8889 32 + 32 − 2 𝑠 = 7.59 and to find the t-value, i used the formula: 𝑡 = 𝑋1 ̅̅ ̅ − 𝑋2 ̅̅ ̅ √ 1 𝑛1 + 1 𝑛2 𝑠 𝑡 = 77.00 − 70.27 √ 1 32 + 1 32 7.578074 𝑡 = 3.44 the value of the t-table with dk = 32+32 2 = 62 and significant level (α) =5% was 2.00. as the value (3.44) > 2.00, it could be concluded that there was significant difference on post-test between experimental group and control group. t-t for reading achievement’s gain difference the result of the t-test became the quantitative proof whether the difference of the pretest and posttest means of both group was significant or not. from the known data, then we could calculate the gain of pretest and posttest from the experimental and control group was as follows: 𝑠 = √ [32 − 1][54.40] + [32 − 1][75.57] 32 + 32 − 2 = 8.03 𝑠 = 8.03 and to find the t-value, i used the formula t(0.95)(62) = 2 𝑡 = 24.80 − 6.27 8.03√ 1 32 + 1 32 = 8.94 the value of the t-table with dk = 32 + 32 2 = 62 and significance level (α) = 5% was 2.00. as the value (8.94) > 2.00. the result of pre-test and post test from the result of the pre-test, it can be found that the mean score of the pre-test of experimental group was 67.75 and the control group was 65.59. the result of post test of experimental group was 71.31 while the control group gained 69.71. based on the score, it can be seen that the score of experimental group was higher than the control group. the result of the t test of mean difference was 8.94 and ttable was 2.00. based on the computation above, it could be seen that tvalue > ttable. the hypothesis that “there is significant difference in the teaching andi yusuf kurniawan / journal of english language teaching 5 (2) (2016) 10 reading of narrative text using herringbone technique” was accepted. based on the tests conducted, it was proved that the use of herringbone technique is effective as a strategy in teaching narrative text to the eight grade students of smp negeri 24 semarang. the use of herringbone technique made the reading and learning activity more effective. the students of experimental group who were taught using herringbone technique looked more interested and enthusiastic during the treatment given by the writer than the control group which were taught using conventional technique. the result of their post-test was higher than their pre-test. finally, herringbone technique makes the students more interested in learning. it is easier to learn the lesson. it can be concluded that in this study, the use of herringbone technique as a strategy in teaching reading of narrative text was effective for the eighth grade students of smp negeri 24 semarang in the academic year of 2015/2016. conclusions the first purpose of the study is to discuss the effectiveness of teaching reading using herringbone technique to teach students’ reading of narrative text. the use of herringbone technique in teaching reading makes the activity in class more interesting. the students are active and very enthusiastic following the teachers’ instruction and working in group. this strategy allows students to explore ideas while they read the passage in group. finally, the herringbone technique makes the students more enthusiastic in learning and easier to understand the lesson. the second purpose of the study is to analyze the significant difference between of the students’ achievement taught by herringbone technique and those who are taught by conventional technique. the difference in score of the post-test test can be drawn as follow. in the score average between experimental group of 71.31 and control group of 69.71. it can be concluded that the experimental group got higher score than the control group. the result of t value > t table (3.44 >2.00) which means that there is a significant difference between teaching reading using herringbone technique and the one using conventional technique. references arikunto, suharsimi. 2010. manajemen penelitian (revised edition). jakarta: rineka cipta. best, john.w. 1981. research in education (revised ed.). new jersey: prentice-hall. deegan. j. 2006. herringbone technique. available at http://www.teacherweb.com/pa/nazaretha reamiddleschool/thespecialistteam/herring bonetechnique.doc. [accessed 2/8/2014] edwards, peter. 2003. literacy techniques: for teachers and parents (3rd edition). victoria: trafford. harris, k. 1980. reading in content areas .strategies for reading to learn. semantic maps. university of virginia. heaton, j. b. 1975. english language tests. england: longman. mcknight, katherine s. 2010. the teacher’s big book of graphic organizers: 100 reproducible organizers that help kids with reading, writing, and the content areas. san francisco: jossey-bass. 42 elt forum 3 (1) (2014) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the use of kung fu panda film serials to enhance students’ ability in writing narrative text tsalits muhammad nugroho english department, faculty of languages and arts, state university of semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in april 2014 approved in mei 2014 published in juni 2014 ________________ keywords: cooperatif model type talking stick , innovative lesson, folklore attentive, multimedia quiz creator. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this final project is about the use of films as learning media to improve the writing skill of narrative text at eleventh grade students of sma n 1 banjarnegara in the academic year of 2013/2014. this study aimed at knowing the difficulties faced by the students and the extent of the kung fu panda film serials implementation on the improvement of their writing skill in creating narrative text. to achieve the objectives, an action research was designed and carried out through preliminary observation, formative observation, and post observation. the subject of this research was 34 students of class xii social 2 of sma n 1 banjarnegara. i used writing tests, observation checklist, and questionnaire as the instruments for collecting the data. there were six meetings in this research. first meeting was used for conducting pre-test, second, third and fourth meeting were used to conduct cycle 1 and formative test, and fifth and sixth meeting were used to conduct cycle 2 and post-test. the results of the study, after analyzed and described qualitatively, showed a significant improvement of the students’ achievement. the students’ writing skill improved in all writing aspects: grammar, vocabulary, mechanic, relevance, and fluency. the result of the observation sheet showed that after learning narrative texts using kung fu panda film serials, the students became more cooperative, active, and the class become more joyful. the analysis of the questionnaire showed that the students gave positive responses towards the use of kung fu panda film serials as media in their learning. based on the results of those research instruments, it can be concluded that the use of kung fu panda film serials as learning media contributes to the improvement of students’ writing skill in narrative texts. © 2014 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: b3 building, fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: tsalitsnugroho@gmail.com issn 2252-6706 tsalits muhammad nugroho / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 43 introduction as an obligatory subject taught at school, english is sometimes seen as a difficult subject to teach and learn. students are supposed to master four language skills at the same time; listening, speaking, reading and writing. on the other hand, teachers also struggle with students’ reluctance to engage in english learning activities. one skill considered as a difficult task to teach is writing. heaton (1988:135) states that “writing skills are more complex and difficult to teach, requiring mastery not only of grammatical and rhetorical devices but also of conceptual and judgment elements.” in fact, although some students are happy to have a go at writing in english, other can be less keen. this unwillingness may derive from anxieties they have about their writing, their spelling, or their ability to construct sentences and paragraphs. this can also happen because they rarely write even in their own language, so the activity of writing feels alien for them. besides those reasons, another difficulty comes from various genres of text in english such as narrative, descriptive, recount, spoof and many more. each text has different purpose, characteristic, and structure or grammatical feature. harmer (2004:17) says that “without knowledge of genres, a communication would have a little chance of success.” in fact, students are usually difficult to differentiate genres. therefore, it will be a challenge for the teacher to find out the way to develop students’ ability of writing and seek for interesting method and media to teach writing. after collecting information through interview with the english teacher and some students in sma n 1 banjarnegara, i find that the difficulty of writing narrative exists in the students of eleventh grade of this school. from initial interviews with them, it is inferred that the students are confused when they are asked to write a narrative story. they say they do not know what and how to write. after checking their assignments in previous semester, i conclude that their writing are not satisfactory enough. the vocabulary used and the way they connect ideas still need to improve. another problem is the structure of narrative text that has not been understood by the students. they write down their own ideas but they fail to relate them well. this may be caused by their unfamiliarity with the structure of narrative text. as a result, their works are not easy to comprehend and make it less interesting, although actually their ideas are interesting enough to read. the english teacher in sma n 1 banjarnegara said that the problem emerged because of the students’ lack of confidence in writing. students said that they had ‘nothing to say’ when they were given a writing task. the teacher has tried to extend the writing activities but the students were unable to complete the tasks successfully. as a result, the student’s attitude to writing is likely to become more negative. considering these difficulties and facts, teacher needs an improvement in his writing class. the teacher should find a better method or medium to deliver the material of writing. the improvement should be initialized by analyzing the students’ needs. from the problems stated before, it seems that the students need something enjoyable, attractive, and worthwhile. in this study, i offer film as an alternative way that meet students’ needs to improve the learning process of writing. it offers enrichment of vocabulary, language use in contexts, and enjoyment to watch. film prevents students from the boredom of learning and set the class free of excessive explanation. therefore, in this final project proposal, the film that i propose as a medium in teaching narrative writing is kung fu panda film serials. the films talks about heroism, friendship and goodness. they last for about 25 minutes and contain rich vocabulary to learn as well as good example of language use. moreover, i explore narrative because it is an interesting genre for students to share their idea, imagination and their own experience. this medium will try to attract the students to be willing to invest the time and effort in writing narrative. the product of the study will be the students’ own story that will show how far they have understood the narrative text and measure their mastery of writing. tsalits muhammad nugroho / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 44 methods this study employed action research design. elliot (1991:69) says “action research is the study of a social situation with the view to improve the quality of the action in it.” because the study was conducted in the class, it could be called classroom action research. the total number of subjects involved in this research are 34 students, consists of 21 females and 13 males of xi social 2 class sma n 1 banjarnegara in the academic year of 2013/2014. the study started by giving pre-test followed by two cycles of treatments. pre-test was held on january 8th 2014 with the purpose to find out the students’ prior knowledge and ability of writing a narrative text. cycle 1 was conducted in three meetings, on january 11th, 15th and 18th 2014. cycle 2 was held on january 29th and 1st february 2014. there were three instruments used to collect the data: tests, observation checklist, and questionnaire. three assessment tests were given to measure students’ progress in writing narrative text: pretest, formative-test, and post-test. the tests were given three times (pre-test, formative test, and post-test) with the purpose of measuring students’ writing ability before and after the action research conducted. pre-test was held to measure the prior skill of the students before the treatment was implemented. it was given in the beginning of the study. formative-test was done after the students were given some treatments in cycle 1, whereas post-test was the last test given after students had been taught in cycle 2. after those three tests had been given, the results were compared to find out whether or not there was any improvement in their narrative writing skill. observation checklist in the form of behaviour recording functioned to observe the students’ behaviour progress during the teaching learning process. this observation checklist recorded four aspects; they were students’ enthusiasm during learning process, students’ participation in classroom activities, students’ cooperative attitude during the lesson, and students’ activities in group discussion. the questionnaire was distributed to the students before and after the treatments. it was used to collect the information about students’ opinion toward writing in english and their perception of using kung fu panda film serials as media in learning. by the use of questionnaire, the information about the students’ responses toward english subject, writing skill, and the use of kung fu panda film serials in teaching learning process were collected. results 3.1 the use of kung fu panda film serials in writing class here are the steps in implementing kung fu panda film serials as learning media in the writing class: a) the students were engaged to get deep information related to the topic of narrative text; b) the narrative material was explained, consisted of the purpose of the narrative text, its generic structures, and language features; c) the students were given vocabulary exercises before watching the film; d) the students watched the film attentively; e) the students and teacher discussed the film based on its generic structures and language features; f) the teacher gave examples of generic structures and language features taken from the film; g) the students were taught about using scaffold to construct a narrative text; h) the students were given a chance to discuss the films or material with their partner or in groups; i) the students wrote their narrative stories based on the films they had watched or they made their own stories; j) the students were given homework to enhance their understanding; k) the students were given feedback and reinforcement of their writing; l) the students were given opportunity to share their difficulties dealing with the activity during the treatments. the use of films in learning seems very flexible. teacher may use various methods and tsalits muhammad nugroho / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 45 additional instruments to support the learning. in this study, i accompanied the films with crossword and anagram as activities to prepare the students understanding the vocabulary in the films. i also used cooperative learning by giving some tasks to students to work in pair or in groups. to create a joyful situation and a competitive class, i conducted a group competition in the third meeting. it was also one of my efforts to check the students’ comprehension of narrative writing before i moved to the second cycle. 3.2 the improvement of students’ writing skill the improvement of students’ writing skill can be seen from the result of tests which consisted of pre-test, formative test, and post-test. the analysis of those tests showed that students’ writing skill improved in all aspects of writing: grammar, vocabulary, mechanic, relevance, and fluency. the analysis was done by describing the students’ works qualitative one by one. a rubric evaluation was also used, modified from heaton’ grid and categories. highlighting the analysis of each student’ writing in the pre-test, it could be drawn a conclusion that their ability in writing was still poor and far from satisfying. the aspect that still needed to improve was the grammar point. most students failed to use past tense properly and still used present form. therefore, this aspect, grammar, was given more attention and emphasis on the cycle one. meanwhile, the students of xi social 2 had improved their ability in writing, especially in grammar aspect in this first cycle. their vocabulary also became wider after being given the treatment in the first cycle. numerous errors in the previous writings seemed decrease and their stories started easy to enjoy and understand. however, the problem remained was the way students organized and developed their ideas. some students’ works showed lacks of organization and it made the communication impaired. students should write more well linked stories to engage the readers’ interest, so that their stories would find its goal; amusing the readers. therefore, the relevance aspect was the focus of the second cycle and the learning method and media were be re-adjusted to gain a better result. after reviewing the 34 texts produced by the students in the second cycle, it could be seen that students had successfully improve their writing ability by the assistance of kung fu panda film serials. their works were better than the first cycle and fewer mistakes were found in the cycle two. the relevance aspect, which was the concern in this cycle, showed a good progress after given the treatments. in short, it could be generalized that students’ writing ability had improved much better than the first time they wrote. the use of kung fu panda film serials had given a positive impact to their learning and mastery in writing narrative text. since the result was satisfying, i thought the media here had been appropriate to use in learning writing. there was no need to continue modifying the media and method due to these positive improvements. furthermore, the improvement of students’ writing skill was not only showed by the result of the tests but also by the analysis of observation sheet and questionnaire. in the observation checklist, i concentrated on four points during the two cycles. they were students’ enthusiasm during learning process, students’ participation in classroom activities, students’ cooperative attitude during the lesson, and students’ activities in doing individual and group assignments given. based on the observation checklists, it could be concluded that the students’ behavior improved positively. some students, who were passive in the first meeting, showed greater interest and enthusiasm after given the treatment. overall, students became more enthusiastic, active, and cooperative during the lesson. the first indicator was the students’ enthusiasm during teaching and learning process. in the first cycle most students had focused on my explanation and instruction. more than half of the class, there were 22 students, had shown medium and high enthusiasm. meanwhile, the rest of them seemed not really enthusiastic with the lesson. they still tried to give infrequent response and kept silent, and looked hardly paid tsalits muhammad nugroho / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 46 attention to the lesson. it might be because of their unfamiliarity with the method and media. in cycle two, students had shown an improvement in their focus to follow the lesson. some of the students even showed that they were really interested in the material. half of the class, 17 students, had high and very high enthusiasm, while another half was in a medium rank. everyone paid attention to me and no one looked reluctant to learn english at that time. the second indicator which was observed was the students’ participation. in cycle one, the students’ participation was still low. most of them were in the middle level of participation. there were 12 students in rank 2; meaning low participation, 18 students in rank 3; meaning middle participation; 4 students were in rank 4; meaning high participation, and no student was in rank 5 or very high participation. the condition changed in cycle two. there was no student in very low and low category; meaning that students’ participation in the classroom activities increased. 25 students in medium, 7 students in high, and 2 students in very high category. it indicated that the students had involved in the learning quite well, proved by they confidently asked and answer my questions during the learning. the third indicator was the students’ cooperative attitude during the lesson. based on the observation in cycle one, there were 8 students who hardly cooperated with me. most of the students, 19 people, were in medium level, meaning that they cooperated well enough during my teaching. meanwhile, only 7 students who showed their high cooperative attitude during the cycle one. the result of the cycle two showed that the number of students who could cooperate well increased. there was no student in low category and 19 students were still in medium level of cooperation. the improvement happened in high and very high category. 13 students were in the high level and 2 students had a very high level of cooperation. it proved that the treatment was useful develop their cooperative attitude toward the teacher and their classmate. the fourth indicator was the students’ activities in group discussion. in the first cycle, most students had actively involved in the discussion. 20 students were in medium level and 6 of them were in the high level. however, there were still 8 students who passively participated in the group. they kept silent and just did what his friends decided, without giving much contribution to the group. in the second cycle, students’ activities in their group had shown a good progress. there was no student in low level, meaning no one gave a low contribution in the groups. most of them, 21 students were in medium level, 12 students were in high level, and one students was very active contributing to his group. although only one person showed a high activity in group, overall most of the students had ran the group tasks well and actively contributed to the discussion. it meant the treatments i used could improve their willingness to cooperatively learning together in groups. first questionnaire was given to know the students’ opinion towards english lesson at school especially writing skill. this questionnaire was given on wednesday, 8th january 2014 after they had finished doing the pre-test. to help the students understand the statements, the questionnaire was written in indonesian and were presented in simple sentences consisted of 10 statements. each item of the statements provided four options for students to choose. the first item was given to know whether they thought english lesson was an important lesson or not. the result of questionnaire showed that 73.5% of the students strongly agreed that english is a very important subject to learn. 26.5% of the students thought it is important enough, and no one thought it is unimportant. it meant that basically all of them considered english as an important subject to learn and master. the second item found out the students’ opinion whether learning english gave many benefits or not for them. 58.8% of the students strongly agreed that english brought many benefits for them, while 41,2% also agreed with the statement. it showed that the students tsalits muhammad nugroho / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 47 realized that learning english would be beneficial for them. the next item, number three, sought the students’ interest in writing english. 11.8% of the students had a very high interest in it, 55.9% of the students belonged to high category, and 32.3% of the students had a low interest in english writing. it meant more than half of the class was interested in writing, but still several of them did not have a high interest in writing english. the fourth one questioned the students whether they considered writing in english was difficult or not. 35.3% of the students strongly agreed that writing was a difficult task, 58.8% fairly agreed, and 5,9% less agreed. it indicated that most of the students thought writing in english was not an easy job for them. only one student believe it was fairly easy task. the item number five asked the students’ opinion with the statement that learning writing in english should be made as interesting as possible. most of the students, 79.4% strongly agreed and 20.6% agreed with the statement, and no one disagreed. it clearly showed that they needed an interesting way in learning english, not just ordinary way or even a traditional one. the sixth item asked the students about their recent condition of their english class. one student (5,9%) thought the class did not run well. meanwhile most of the students thought the english class was in very good condition (11,8%) and good condition (32.3%). the next item asked the intensity of using audio video media by the english teacher. no one said that the teacher always used audio visual aid. 32.4% of the students said it was often used, 64.7% said sometimes used, and 2.9% said never used it. it showed that the teacher had not used the media maximally to provide students an alternative way of learning. most students admitted they had ever used audio video media in their english learning, but it was not too often. the item number eight found out the students’ interest in watching film. more than half of them, 61.8% told they had a very high interest, 35.3% had a high interest and only 2.9% said they were not really interested in watching film. it was a sign that the use of film as media would likely attract students’ motivation in learning, so that the purpose of the study could be achieved. the ninth item asked the students whether they agreed to learn english through film or not. 52.9% extremely agreed, 47.1% agreed, and no one disagreed to learn english by using film. it seemed they were willing to use film as a media to improve their english. the last statement in the first questionnaire asked them how if the film was used to study writing in english. 35.3% extremely agreed and 64.7% agreed to learn english writing by using film. it was a sign that film would be likely accepted by the students to be part of their learning about writing in english. from the result of the first questionnaire, i concluded that the students’ attitude toward the english learning, especially in writing, still needed to improve. they had realized the importance of learning english and its benefits. however, for writing, they still believed that it was a quite difficult task. meanwhile, they admitted that the teacher rarely used audio visual aid in english class although the class ran relatively good. therefore, an alternative way i proposed to improve their writing ability was using films as media. this first questionnaire also showed that the students had a high interest and willingness to study writing english through films as media. by this willingness and motivation, hopefully they could improve their ability in writing, especially in creating narrative story. the second questionnaire was held on 1 february 2014. after conducting the post-test, the questionnaires were given to the students to know their attitudes after given the media during the treatment. there were ten questions in the questionnaires with four options in each of it. the first item asked the students whether learning writing in english was easy or not. most of students had agreed that writing was easy to learn. 8.8% said it was very easy, 85.3% believed it was quite easy, and only 5.9% said it was quite difficult to learn. it showed that their perception about learning writing english had changed from the earlier before given treatments. most of tsalits muhammad nugroho / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 48 students did not consider writing as a difficult task anymore. the second item found out the students’ opinion toward the kung fu panda film used during the study. all of them liked the media used here. 94.1% extremely liked the film and 5.9% students fairly liked it. it meant the film could attract students’ interest and give a joyful stimulus to learn writing in english. furthermore, the third item asked whether they could easily understand the film or not. 70.6% students extremely agreed that the film was easy to understand. 29.4% agreed that it was quite easy to comprehend and no one said the film was difficult. it showed that the students did not have a problem with the film they used in improving their writing ability. the next item asked students’ opinion about the necessity of using film in learning writing english. 88.2% of students argued that film was really needed and 11.8% believed it was quite needed to use film as media in learning writing. this told us that students needed various media in learning english, and the film i used in this study was one of them. the fifth statement asked the students whether the kung fu panda film in the study was helpful in understanding narrative text or not. 76.5% of the students thought that the film was really helpful and the rest, 23.5% said it was quite helpful. no one thought the film was useless. it could be said that the film was beneficial and the students could get the benefits of it. item number six questioned the students whether their grammar and vocabulary were improved or not after the study. 70.6% of students really believed their grammar and vocabulary had been improved after given the treatments, while 29.4% believed their grammar and vocabulary was quite improved. it seemed the treatments had succeeded in improving the students’ grammar and vocabulary since no one felt his vocabulary was still the same as before having the treatments. item number seven found out students satisfaction of their writing after learning by using film as media. the students gave different answers for this question. 35.3% of the students was very satisfied with their work, 61.8% was satisfied, and only 2.9% was not satisfied with the writing result. it showed most of the students had satisfied with their own result of learning writing english. only a small part of the class who thought their writing was not satisfying. the next question, number 8, clarified that the study had improved the students’ general ability in english or not. 67.6% of the students believed that the study was very helpful in improving their general english ability, while 32.4% thought it was quite helpful. it meant the treatments i used during the study did not just help the students in improving their writing. it also helped them to increase their ability of english in general. then the statement number nine found out the students’ motivation to learn english after studying with film as media. all of them said they had high motivation after the study (67.6%) and even very high motivation after it (32.4%). it could be concluded that the treatments used during the study had successfully contributed to the increment of the students’ motivation to learn english in general. the last item asked whether the situation of the english class became more joyful when using film than before or not. 91.2% of the students felt the situation in the class was much more fun than before. meanwhile 8.8% of the students thought it was quite right that the class situation became more joyful. it meant the treatments and media had successfully created a more convenient situation in the class. in sum, the study and treatments changed students opinions toward writing, improve their ability, and create more joyful situation in class. the students admitted they had been satisfied with their work and thought their english had been improved. moreover, they also felt happy to have film as media in learning english, and considered the use of it was quite needed to help improving their ability in general english, especially in writing. conclusion based on the data findings of the tests, observation sheet, and questionnaire, it can be tsalits muhammad nugroho / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 49 concluded that the use of kung fu panda films serials as media in leaning narrative writing brought many benefits for students. the application of kung fu panda films serials could improve the students’ writing skill, particularly it could improve their writing skill in narrative text. not to mention, the class situation was more enjoyable and the students could write their ideas into paragraphs better. these improvements were supported by the results of the observation sheet, which showed they performed more positive behaviour during the learning, and the analysis of questionnaire that conluded they changed their opinion positively about writing in english. moreover, students’ writing ability improvement through the use of kung fu panda films serials as media can only happen if it is well prepared and carefully observed. teachers should design other supporting activities to ensure the learning goal is achieved. if teachers fail to do that, the use of films in the class may become a wasteful activity. therefore, it is advised to them to carefully plan their media and method of teaching. they can use many aids, not just film for writing class, but also other media in improving students’ other abilities; speaking, listening, or reading. references elliott, john. 1991. action research for educational change. buckingham: open university press. harmer, jeremy. 2004. how to teach writing. essex: pearson esl heaton, john brian. 1988. writing english language tests (longman handbooks for language teachers). new york: longman group. 1 elt forum 2 (1) (2013) english language teaching forum http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt using digital discussion through commenting blog to improve students’ ability in writing analytical exposition text widya arum wicaksani  department of english, faculty language and arts, semarang state university, indonesia info artikel ________________ sejarahartikel: diterimajanuari 2013 disetujuifebruari 2013 dipublikasikanjuni 2013 ________________ keywords: video, nursery rhymes, speaking, young learners, experimental ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ the aim of the study is to find out whether using video-typed nursery rhymes can enhance speaking ability of young learners of grade four of elementary school. the subject of the study were 19 students of class four al-khawaritzmi of sd islam bilingual an-nissa semarang. the research applied was experimental research and the research design was one group pretest-posttest. in the research, the students were taught using video-typed nursery rhymes. the result of this research was found by comparing the result of pretest and posttest. the researcher used t-test to find out the significance enhancement. based on the result of the study, there were some enhancement in students’ speaking ability after they were given the treatment using video-typed nursery rhymes. after getting the treatment, the students were able to absorb the lesson better by being taught using video-typed nursery rhymes than using the usual way of teaching. the colorful video and the cheerful melody of the nursery rhymes gave some fun and happy atmosphere inside the classroom. the students understood easily for they enjoyed the lesson. the conclusion taken from the study is that the video-typed nursery rhymes can enhance the students’ speaking ability and suitable for teaching speaking. © 2013universitasnegeri semarang alamatkorespondensi: gedungb3lantai3 fbsunnes kampussekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: arumsani666@yahoo.com issn 2252-6706 mailto:arumsani666@yahoo.com widya arum wicaksani / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 2 introduction speaking and listening has become a profile component of english within the national curriculum; it becomes as important as reading and writing (wray, 1994: 7). therefore, in few years, there has been an increasing interest in the spoken language of young learners. they started to learn how to communicate properly in english. the speaking ability becomes very important because it is useful for international communication. in the speaking activities, the ability to express feeling and opinion in an oral form is really needed. in indonesia, english has been taught since elementary school. in elementary school, the students should master four abilities of english. they are listening, speaking, reading and writing. among those abilities, the most essential one is speaking. it is because the students use the language mostly in spoken. bailey (2003:42) stated that speaking ability is more difficult than the other abilities. the speaking ability is different to the reading and writing abilities because speaking happens in real time. people prefer to speak right away everything they need to tell than write it down in a paper and read it to the others. besides, when people speak, they definitely cannot revise everything that they have spoken, as they can if they are writing. since people use spoken more intensely than written, they mostly convey their message to the others orally. that is why they should pay more attention to their speaking ability. teaching speaking for young learners is an uneasy task for the teachers. they need any appropriate and interesting media to deliver the materials so that the students do not get bored easily and understand the material well. there are some kinds of media which can be used in teaching. according to gerlach and elly (1980:297) the media to teach are classified in the six general categories, they are: 1. picture picture consists of photographs or any objects or events, which may be larger or smaller that the object or event represents it. 2. audio recording recording is made on magnetic tape, disc, motion picture, and soundtrack. there are reproductions of actual event or soundtrack. 3. motion picture a motion picture is a moving image in color or black and white produced from live action or from graphic representation. 4. television this category includes all types of audio video electronic distribution system, which eventually appear on tv monitor. 5. real things, simulation, and model. this category includes people, events, objects, and demonstration real things as constructed with their media, are not substituted for the actual objects or events. teaching speaking using media can help the teachers in delivering their lesson. colorful pictures can be a good option for, as we know, elementary school students are interested in colorful picture, but the colorful moving picture will be more interested for the students and will catch their attention. one of the media which has moving picture is video. video is about the display of photographic-style images, generally of realworld scenes and objects (symes, 2001: 17). even though video is generally about real-world scenes and object, there are also many videos of animation scenes and object, video-typed nursery rhymes. nursery rhymes itself are short tales, poems or songs made up of trivial or nonsensical musical verse. the origins of nursery rhymes can be traced to children‟s lullabies intended to help a child fall asleep (opie & opie taken from dunst, 2011: 1). nursery rhymes are trivial, poetical, and musical. some of them do not make sense. however, many of them have simple but meaningful lyrics, not to mention, a good moral value for children. contrary to songs, nursery rhymes have simple and easy lyrics. they can enjoy singing without having troubles in memorizing the lyric. the melody and easy lyric can build up children‟s enthusiasm. since young learners like to sing and are interested in colorful pictures, video-typed widya arum wicaksani / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 3 nursery rhymes can be applied in teaching speaking. it goes without saying that young learners get bored easily if the teacher teaches young learners only by “teaching” and reading the material, their concentration will not be lasting long. by using video of nursery rhymes, the teachers will not only “teaching” the students, but also “playing” with them. they watch the video together, sing the nursery rhymes together, and do the activities (including performance) together. as long as the students do fun activities in learning english, they will pay attention to the activities. they will not feel burdened in learning the material. the study this study was one group pretest-posttest. it was done in sd islam bilingual an-nissa semarang from may, 3rd until may, 11th 2012 in five meetings. the subject of this study was fourth grade students of sd islam bilingual annissa in the academic year 2011/2012. the aim of this study was to determine whether videotyped nursery rhymes can enhance students‟ speaking ability. there were two video-typed nursery rhymes which were used in this study, they are “where is thumbkin” and “good morning”. in this study, the students watched the video together. then, they memorized the lyric of the nursery rhymes. by memorizing and practice the video over and over again, they will be more fluent in speaking the words in the nursery rhymes. after memorizing, they sing the nursery rhymes on the video together. some of the students are asked to sing in front of the class one by one. then, the students should make groups of pair and each pair make a simple conversation about greetings. method this study was a kind of experimental study which concerned with the use of videotyped nursery rhymes to enhance students‟ speaking ability of young learners of grade four. this study tried to solve the problems faced by the students in speaking, especially in „greetings‟ section. this experimental study used videotyped nursery rhymes in mastering „greetings‟ section. first, the students were observed to find out the problems in „greetings‟ section they faced. then the students were given the pretest to measure their mastery in speaking „greetings‟. the pretest used „question and answer‟ test design (brown, 2004: 159)they were asked five questions related to „greetings‟. then, the students were given the treatment. the treatment was done in three meetings. the video-typed nursery rhymes was applied in the treatment. after that, on the fifth meeting, the student were done the posttest. the posttest used „discussions and conversations‟ test design (brown, 2004: 175). the students were asked to pairing. each pair was asked to make a simple conversation and they should perform the conversation in front of the class. the students‟ achievements before and after getting the treatment were analyzed based on harris (1969: 84). there were five aspects which were analyzed, they are pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension. every aspect had 5 maximum score, and the total of all the aspects were 25. even though harris‟ rubric assessment was used, some modifications were made in it, especially in scoring number 5 and 4 in each aspect. the modifications were made because harris‟s rubric assessment is unsuitable for indonesian young learners. the rubric is most likely made for assessing advanced students. in some of the assessments made by harris, it seems there are some possibilities that the students can speak as good as native speakers. in the scoring number 5 in pronunciation aspect, for example, it is stated that the students have few traces of foreign language. in addition, in vocabulary and fluency aspects, the students are able to use the vocabulary and speech as fluent as native speakers. in the scoring number 4 in pronunciation aspect, for example, it is stated that the students‟ pronunciation is always intelligible, and in comprehension aspect, the students understand nearly everything at normal speed. but in reality, young learners cannot widya arum wicaksani / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 4 pronounce every english word intelligibly all the time. there are still many words which are difficult to pronounce by them. moreover, they would find some difficulties in understanding english at normal speed; the speed that the native speaker uses. through the explanation above, the rubric is difficult to achieve by indonesian young learners, especially for the 8-10 year children. there are many indonesian young learners who are able to learn how to speak english in a proper way, but it is nearly impossible for them to speak as good as native speakers. they cannot speak using native accent and speak as fast as native speakers. therefore, the rubric was modified so that it would fit to assess young learners‟ speech. here is the rubric assessment of speaking which has been modivied. table 1. rubric assessment based on david p. harris components assessments score p ro n u n ci a ti o n the pronunciation is clear and quite understandable for elementary students 5 there are some pronunciation problems, but still quite understandable 4 pronunciation problem necessitate listening and occasionally lead a misunderstanding 3 very hard to understand because of pronunciation problem. must frequently be asked to repeat 2 pronunciation problem so severe as to make speech virtually unintelligible 1 g ra m m a r errors in grammar are quite rare 5 there are few grammatical errors but still intelligible 4 makes frequent errors grammar and word order occasionally obscure meaning 3 grammar and word order errors make comprehension difficult. must often rephrase sentences or restrict him to basic patterns 2 errors in grammar and word order so severe as to make speech virtually unintelligible 1 v o ca b u la ry almost all vocabularies used are in a proper use 5 frequently use inappropriate terms or must replace ideas but still intelligible 4 frequently uses the wrong word, conversation somewhat limited because of inadequate vocabulary 3 misuse up words and very limited vocabulary make comprehension quite difficult 2 vocabulary limitation so extreme as to make conversation virtually impossible 1 f lu e n cy able to use the language fluently, rare skip, and the speed of speech are at the normal rate 5 speed of speech seem to be slightly affected by language problem 4 speed and fluency are rather strongly affected by language problem 3 usually hesitant often forced into silent by language limitation 2 speech is so halting and fragmentary as to make conversation 1 widya arum wicaksani / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 5 virtually impossible c o m p re h e n si o n understand most of what is said at average speed 5 understand what is said at average speed, but occasional repetition may be necessary 4 understand what is said is at slower than average speed repetition 3 has great difficulty following what is said. can comprehend only, “social conversation” spoken slowly and with frequent repetition. 2 cannot be said to understand even simple conversational english 1 then, the percentage analysis was used to find the percentage of students‟ mastery. here is the formula of the percentage analysis: (arikunto, 2009: 236) in which: p : percentage of student‟s mastery n : number of scores obtained by the student n : total score to find out the significance of students‟ enhancement in speaking, the t-test was used. here is the formula of the t-test: √ ∑ (arikunto, 2010: 349) in which: md : mean of the difference between pretest and posttest (posttest – pretest) xd : deviation of each subject (d – md) ∑ : total number of quadrate deviation n : number of students this study succeeded if there is significance enhancement. students‟ enhancement in speaking is significant if t-value is bigger than t-table (t-count < t-table). the ttable is determined by looking at t distribution table based on the d.b. (n – 1) and α = 5%. findings and disscussions before doing the research, the the activities that would be done were arranged. the topic which was going to be used in the research was determined. the research instruments, including the questions for the pretest and posttest, lesson plan, and research assessment, were also arranged. based on the arrangement, it was decided that there were five meetings in this research; the first meeting was pretest, the second, third, and fourth meetings were treatments, and the fifth meeting was posttest. the total time allotment was 10x35 minutes. the first meeting, the pretest, was conducted on may, 3rd 2012. there were 19 students who followed the pretest. the students were asked to come to the teacher‟s desk one by one. there they were asked five questions related to the topic. the score was made based on the students‟ answers. the result of the pretest can be seen in the table below: widya arum wicaksani / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 6 table 2. pretest score no code score 1 r-01 36 2 r-02 32 3 r-03 20 4 r-04 72 5 r-05 20 6 r-06 28 7 r-07 40 8 r-08 52 9 r-09 72 10 r-10 36 11 r-11 32 12 r-12 56 13 r-13 60 14 r-14 60 15 r-15 36 16 r-16 36 17 r-17 20 18 r-18 28 19 r-19 44 based on the table, there were 5 students who got 20-30, 7 students who got 31-40, 1 student who got 41-50, 4 students who got 5160, and 2 students who got 71-80. the lowest score was 20 and the highest score was 72. there were only 2 students (10.5%) who could achieve score more than 60. the result showed that the students‟ speaking ability still low. the second meeting was the first day of the treatment. it was conducted on may, 4th 2012. in this meeting, the video-typed nursery rhyme entitled “where is thumbkin” was showed. then the students were given a sheet of lyric. the students were asked to memorize the lyric in 10 minutes. after the students finished memorizing, the video was showed again. this time, the students were asked to sing together. then they were told that there were some expressions of greetings in the lyric of “where is thumbkin” and they were asked to mention the expressions if they found them. the third meeting was the second day of the treatment. it was conducted on may, 7th 2012. in this meeting, the expressions of greetings were shown through a powerpoint presentation. the students were asked to take a note and memorize the expressions. after they finished taking a note and memorizing the expressions, the powerpoint presentation was closed and the students were also asked to close their book. the students should mention the expressions and they answered one by one. then, they were shown one more video-typed nursery rhyme entitled “good morning song”. “good morning song” has more greetings‟ vocabularies but also more difficulties than “where is thumbkin”. the students were given a sheet of lyric. the students were asked to memorize the lyric in 15 minutes. after the students finished memorizing, the video was shown again. the fourth meeting was the third day of the treatment. it was conducted on may, 10th 2012. in this meeting, some students were asked to come forward and sing “good morning song” together; the other students pay attention. there were some expressions of greetings in the lyric of “good morning song”, they were asked to mention the expressions. after that, another powerpoint presentation about conversations of widya arum wicaksani / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 7 greetings was shown. there were some examples of conversation in the powerpoint presentation. then, the student ahould make groups of pair. after given the example how to do the conversation, the students tried to practice with their pairs. after that, each pair should make a simple conversation of greeting, but they were not allowed to use words “good morning”, “how are you”, and “i am fine, thank you”. the fourth meeting, the posttest, was conducted on may, 11th 2012. in this meeting, the students came forward with their pair and do the conversation in front of the class. the score was made based on the students‟ conversation. the result of the posttest can be seen in the table below: table 3. posttest score no code score 1 r-01 68 2 r-02 52 3 r-03 44 4 r-04 72 5 r-05 44 6 r-06 64 7 r-07 68 8 r-08 56 9 r-09 84 10 r-10 68 11 r-11 48 12 r-12 76 13 r-13 72 14 r-14 72 15 r-15 60 16 r-16 52 17 r-17 36 18 r-18 44 19 r-19 52 based on the table, there were 1 student who got 31-40, 4 students who got 41-50, 5 students who got 51-60, 4 students who got 6170, 4 students who got 71-80, and 1 student who got 81-90. the lowest score was 36 and the highest score was 84. there were 9 students (47.4%) who could achieve score more than 60. the result showed that there were some enhancements in students‟ speaking ability. the comparison between the students‟ pretest and posttest score can be seen in the diagram below: widya arum wicaksani / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 8 image 1. comparison between the students‟ pretest and posttest score the diagram showed how much the students enhanced their speaking ability after they were taught using video-typed nursery rhymes. because there were five aspects which were assessed, the enhancements of those aspects were also being analyzed. the enhancement of speaking aspects can be seen in the comparison between the pretest and posttest aspects‟ result below. 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 r -0 1 r -0 2 r -0 3 r -0 4 r -0 5 r -0 6 r -0 7 r -0 8 r -0 9 r -1 0 r -1 1 r -1 2 r -1 3 r -1 4 r -1 5 r -1 6 r -1 7 r -1 8 r -1 9 pretest posttest widya arum wicaksani / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 9 table 4. pretest aspects‟ result no code aspect (%) p g f c v 1 r-01 40 40 20 40 40 2 r-02 20 40 20 40 40 3 r-03 20 20 20 20 20 4 r-04 60 80 60 80 80 5 r-05 20 20 20 20 20 6 r-06 20 20 20 40 40 7 r-07 40 40 20 40 60 8 r-08 40 40 60 60 60 9 r-09 80 60 60 80 80 10 r-10 20 40 20 40 60 11 r-11 20 40 20 40 40 12 r-12 60 60 40 60 60 13 r-13 40 80 40 80 60 14 r-14 60 40 60 80 60 15 r-15 20 40 40 40 40 16 r-16 40 20 20 40 60 17 r-17 20 20 20 20 20 18 r-18 20 40 20 20 40 19 r-19 40 40 40 40 60 mean 35.79 41.05 32.63 46.3 2 49.4 7 table 5. posttest aspects‟ result no code aspect (%) p g f c v 1 r-01 60 60 60 80 80 2 r-02 40 40 40 60 80 3 r-03 40 40 40 40 60 4 r-04 80 60 80 60 80 5 r-05 40 40 40 40 60 6 r-06 80 60 60 40 80 7 r-07 60 60 60 80 80 8 r-08 60 60 40 60 60 9 r-09 80 80 80 80 100 10 r-10 60 60 60 80 80 11 r-11 60 40 40 40 60 12 r-12 80 80 80 80 60 13 r-13 80 60 100 40 80 14 r-14 60 80 60 80 80 15 r-15 60 60 40 60 80 16 r-16 60 40 40 40 80 17 r-17 40 40 40 20 40 widya arum wicaksani / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 10 18 r-18 40 40 40 40 60 19 r-19 40 60 40 60 60 mean 58.95 55.79 54.74 56.84 71.58 based on the mean of the pretest and posttest aspects‟ result, the mean of the posttest aspects‟ result was higher that the pretest. the pronunciation aspect enhanced 23.16%, the grammar aspect enhanced 14.74%, the fluency aspect enhanced 22.11%, the comprehension aspect enhanced 10.52%, and the vocabulary aspect enhanced 22.11%. the comparison between the mean of the pretest and posttest can be seen clearly in the diagram below. image 4.2 comparison between the mean of the pretest and posttest the diagram showed that there were any enhancements in every aspect. it is proven that using video-typed nursery rhymes can enhance students‟ speaking aspects. after analyzing the pretest and the posttest, the significance of students‟ enhancement in speaking was analyzed using the t-test. the purpose of the t-test was to find out whether the enhancement of students‟ speaking ability was significant. the formula of t-test is as follows: √ ∑ in which: md : 18.53 ∑x2d : 1670.74 n (n – 1) : 342 the result of the t-test (t-value) was 8.38. based on the t distribution table, the t-table of 19 students is 1.73. the condition to state that the research is significant is by comparing the tvalue and the t-table. the t-value must be higher than t-table. from the definition above, it was concluded that the enhancement of the study was significant; the t-value (8.38) was higher than the t-table (1.73). mastering the speaking ability is not an easy task for the teachers and students. the teachers should use proper media in teaching speaking so that the students understand easily. this research used video-typed nursery rhymes as the media to teach speaking. the purpose of using this media was to find out whether the media could enhance students‟ speaking ability. 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 pretest posttest widya arum wicaksani / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 11 when the fourth grader students of an-nissa islamic bilingual school were taught by using this media, they found it was enjoyable. they felt a new atmosphere in learning speaking. they did not only sit and take notes, but they could express themselves by singing the nursery rhymes freely. the colorful appearance of the video also made the students interested in learning the lesson. the happy and cheerful atmosphere stimulated the students to increase their curiosity to participate in the activities. moreover, there were also group work and performance. the function of group work was to habituate the students to work together in solving the problem. they could discuss and decide how to make a good conversation together. beside the group work, the students also performed by singing together in front of the class. the performance could increase their confidence before doing the real performance in the posttest activity. the use of video-typed nursery rhymes were also enhance the five aspects which are assessed. the students‟ pronunciation aspect enhanced because they imitated the speaker when they were singing the nursery rhymes. they could remember how to pronounce the words because they had sung the nursery rhymes many times. the grammar aspect enhanced because there were utterances that they have learnt in the video. the utterances found in the nursery rhymes became examples for the students to make utterances on their own. the fluency aspect was assessed through the way the students speak. they were called fluent if they could speak in english without any meaningful skip. the fluency aspect enhanced because the students have listened to the nursery rhymes many times and they already knew how to speak fluently. the comprehension aspect enhanced after the students understand the meaning of the nursery rhymes. through the video-typed nursery rhymes, they understand how to greet people, how to answer the greeting, and how to make the conversation of greetings. the vocabulary aspect enhanced because the students memorized the nursery rhymes‟ lyrics. by memorizing the lyrics, they have memorized the vocabulary as well. the students could create the conversation because they have known the vocabularies of greetings. the enhancement of each aspect is a proven that using video-typed nursery rhymes as the media in teaching speaking can enhance the students‟ speaking ability. conclusion based on the discussions before, there are some conclusions of this study, they are as follow: first, video-typed nursery rhymes were implemented well in the treatment. the students were able to absorb the lesson better by being taught using video-typed nursery rhymes than using the usual way of teaching. video-typed nursery rhymes helped the students to speak up; even the shy students could speak. the colorful video and the cheerful melody of the nursery rhymes gave some fun and happy atmosphere inside the classroom. the students understood easily for they enjoyed the lesson; they did not feel they are forced to learn. second, video-typed nursery rhymes was successfully enhance the students‟ speaking ability, especially in „greetings‟ section. the enhancement was significant since the t-value (8.38) was higher than the t-table (1.73). the pronunciation aspect enhanced 23.16%, the grammar aspect enhanced 14.74%, the fluency aspect enhanced 22.11%, the comprehension aspect enhanced 10.52%, and the vocabulary aspect enhanced 22.11%. it can be concluded that vide-typed nursery rhymes can be a proper media in teaching speaking. references bailey, kathleen m. 2003. practical english language teaching. new york: mc graw hill. brown, h. d. 2004. language assessment (principles and classroom practices). new york: pearson education, inc. widya arum wicaksani / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 12 dunst, carl j. 2011. development of nursery rhymes knowledge in preschool children. cellpapers. 6/1: 1-7. gerlach, v.s and elly d.p. 1980. teaching media, a systematic approach. new jersey: prentice hall, inc. harris, david p. 1969. testing english as a second language. new york: mcgraw-hill. symes, peter. 2001. video compression demystified. singapore: mcgraw-hill book co. wray, david. and medwell, jane. 1994. teaching primary english: the state of the art. new york: routledge. oktober september 1 elt forum 2 (2) (2013) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the use of jigsaw ii technique and still pictures combination to improve students’ vocabulary mastery dilla silviana anggi putri department of english, faculty language and arts, semarang state university, indonesia info artikel ________________ sejarah artikel: diterima 2013 disetujui 2013 dipublikasikan november 2013 ________________ keywords: vocabulary, jigsaw ii technique, still pictures, action research. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this article is about the use of jigsaw ii technique and still pictures combination to improve students’ vocabulary mastery. in order to achieve the objectives of this research, the writer adopted an action research design. the subject of this research was class 7b of smp n 12 magelang, in the academic year of 2012/2013 which consisted of 32 students. there were two cycles in this research, and there were four phases in each cycle. they were planning, action, observation, and reflection. in order to collect data about students’ vocabulary mastery improvement and responses toward the use of this technique and media, the writer used observation sheet, questionnaire, interview, and test. the result of this study showed that the combination of jigsaw ii technique and still pictures can improve students’ vocabulary mastery. besides, the result of the observation sheet, questionnaire and interview revealed that the students gave very positive responses toward the use of this technique and media. based on the result of this research, the writer concluded that the use of jigsaw ii technique and still pictures gave a good contribution in english teaching and learning, especially in the area of vocabulary learning. © 2013 universitas negeri semarang  alamat korespondensi: gedung b3 lantai 3 fbs unnes kampus sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: silvianaanggiputri92@yahoo.com issn 2252-6706 mailto:silvianaanggiputri92@yahoo.com dilla silviana anggi putri / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 2 introduction learning english means learning four language skills and its components. the language skills are listening, speaking, reading, and writing, and the language components are grammar, vocabulary, and sound system. in learning all language skills and other language components, vocabulary takes important roles since it always takes part. mehta (2009) states that “vocabulary is the first and foremost important step in language acquisition.” it means that in learning foreign languages, students usually learn vocabulary first before they master more complex structure. the next roles of vocabulary are it brings meanings of what we think and want to say, and it is important for students to build academic journey. by using series of vocabulary, we can communicate with others and convey our meaning. john dewey (1910) in bintz (2011) states that “vocabulary is critically important because a word is an instrument for thinking about the meanings which it expresses.” in addition, bowman (2006) in ababneh (2013) suggests that “vocabulary is integrated into every content area and is addressed as part of the curriculum which means that the use of vocabulary is part of reading, writing as well as establishing the foundation of effective communication.” besides important for communicating, having high vocabulary mastery is also very important for people to obtain academic achievement. according to coles (2010), learning vocabulary builds children's literacy skills and prepares them for their academic journey. a child with high vocabulary mastery will be better able to follow instructions from an adult or teacher, be more confident in expressing themselves, and will possess the ability to communicate more effectively in a conversational setting. in fact, there are a lot of students who have low vocabulary mastery as proven from the following evidences. first, according to tschirner (2004), a study conducted by nurweni and read in 1999 with a large sample of first year students at one indonesian university found that their average english vocabulary knowledge consisted of 1126 words and that very few students came close to the threshold of 30005000 words. in addition to the evidence of the problem mentioned above, the writer also met this condition herself. during her observation and teaching training in one junior high school in magelang, the writer found that many students possessed low vocabulary mastery and memorization. although the students had been taught particular vocabulary many times, they were likely to forget it and failed to perform the vocabulary they were expected to know. the phenomena of students’ low vocabulary mastery and memorization might be caused by several factors. first, a lot of teachers use poor or monotonous teaching method which cannot challenge students to learn vocabulary. as a result, students will not be interested in learning vocabulary and will easily get bored in teaching and learning process. second, the absence of media used in teaching vocabulary makes students’ consciousness and motivation to learn vocabulary low. third, unsupportive classroom atmosphere makes vocabulary teaching and learning process cannot run optimally. it may be caused by teachers’ failure to manage his or her students. naturally, every student has his or her own characteristic which is different from others. there are students with high or low intelligence and ability, students with high or low learning motivation, students who are active or passive, etc. a teacher should not generalize his or her students’ characteristics. if a teacher fails to manage these diversities during his or her teaching, supportive classroom atmosphere cannot be reached. in order to solve the problems mentioned above, we need to find strategy which can manage students’ characteristics diversity and which is interesting to motivate students to learn vocabulary all at once. one strategy that can be used to solve this problem is by applying cooperative learning method and using media. there are many researches and theories prove that teaching using cooperative learning method dilla silviana anggi putri / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 3 and media is very beneficial. according to slavin (1995:3), “cooperative learning can help make diversity a resource rather than a problem.” it means that cooperative learning method helps teachers and students build supportive classroom atmosphere although there are many differences in students’ ability and characters. it is because cooperative learning method facilitates students not only to pay attention to teacher’s explanation as in classical learning, but also encourages them to learn more actively by keeping their attention to work cooperatively in teams, so there will not be any students who are busy with their own business and disturb other. besides, “in cooperative classrooms students are expected to help each other, to discuss and argue with each other, to assess each other’s current knowledge and fill in gaps in each other’s understanding” (slavin 1995:2). meanwhile, murcia (2001:461) states that “media are tools or physical things used by the teacher to motivate the students by bringing a slice of real life into the classroom and by presenting language in its more complete communication complex.” thus, combining cooperative learning and media would be very a good strategy to teach vocabulary to students. learning vocabulary through cooperative learning and media is interesting and learning vocabulary in an interesting way will be very effective because students will learn happily and enthusiastically. as a result, they will remember the vocabulary better. there are many cooperative learning techniques and media to teach vocabulary. among them, the writer chose to use jigsaw ii technique and still pictures. learning vocabulary using jigsaw ii technique helps students learn vocabulary better since they need to understand particular vocabulary well in order to be able to explain or describe it to their groups. in addition, still pictures can catch students’ attention and increase their motivation to learn vocabulary. moreover, they help students to understand difficult vocabulary in english because by seeing the picture of a particular word, they will easily discover its meaning in their native language and memorize it better than without any illustration at all. review of related literature teaching and learning vocabulary according to neuman and dawyer (2009) in bintz (2011), vocabulary can be defined as “the words we must know to communicate effectively: words in speaking (expressive vocabulary) and words in listening (receptive vocabulary).” while according to linse (2006:121), “vocabulary is the collection of words that an individual knows.” learning vocabulary is important as a part of learning english or other foreign languages since learners learn vocabulary first before they master more complex structure. richard and renandya (2002:255) suggest that “vocabulary is a core component of language proficiency and provides much of the basis for how well learners speak, listen, read and write.” in teaching vocabulary, a teacher needs to use proper technique in order to help his students have good understanding on new words being learned. nation (1990) in cameron (2001:85) lists some basic techniques by which teachers can explain the meanings of new words. they are by using demonstration or pictures (using object, a cut-out figure, gesture, performing an action, photographs, drawings or diagrams on the board, and pictures from books) and by using verbal explanation (using analytical definition, putting the new word in a defining context, and translating into another language). teaching vocabulary using still pictures media have important roles in teaching and learning process. the use of media can facilitate teachers and students to reach the objectives of the teaching and learning process since they can support teachers’ explanation and help students to have better understanding on the lesson being learned. besides, by using media, teachers can make their teaching more attractive and enjoyable. as a result, students’ motivation and interest in joining the lesson increase. therefore, it is hoped that teachers use dilla silviana anggi putri / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 4 variation of media to support their teaching as suggested by harmer (2001: 134) that “as a language teacher, we use variety of teaching aids to explain language meaning and construction, engage students in a topic or as the basis of a whole activity.” pictures can be used as media in vocabulary teaching and learning process. werf (2003) defines pictures as “illustrations that are cut from a magazine, newspapers or other sources. they are mostly photographs, but drawings, collages, maps or other illustrations can be used for certain activities.” he adds that pictures have many functions. with pictures we can : (1) teach, practice, or review new vocabulary; (2) do guided practice (drills); (3) practice grammatical structures; (4) practice listening comprehension; (5) do writing activities; (6) do semi-guided or free speaking practice such as problem solving activities, role plays, discussions, etc. based on the definitions above, the writer defines still pictures as static images or illustrations which describe or explain something and can be taken from many sources such as magazine, newspaper, textbooks, photographs, drawings, etc. cooperative learning method there are many methods in teaching. one of them is cooperative learning method. mccafferty, jacobs and dasilva iddings (2006:4) suggest that “cooperative learning represents the product of ongoing investigation based on theory, research, and practice as to how to maximize the benefits of student-student interaction.” in addition, gunter, estes and mintz (2007:263) state that “cooperative learning models are instructional sequences, a series of processes that structure pupil interactions in order to accomplish a specific, usually teacher-assigned goal.” based on the definitions about cooperative learning above, the writer comes up with the definition that cooperative learning is a method in teaching and learning process which allows students to learn, work, and help each other in small groups. in other words, cooperative learning is a method which maximizes the benefits of student-student interaction. thus, students can be more active in the learning process. teaching using jigsaw ii technique teaching using cooperative learning methods is very beneficial. slavin (1995:2) suggests that there are many reasons that cooperative learning is entering the mainstream of educational practice. one is the extraordinary research base supporting the use of cooperative learning to increase student achievement, as well as such other outcomes as improved intergroup relations, acceptance of academically handicapped classmates, and increased selfesteem. another reason is the growing realization that students need to learn to think, to solve problems, and to integrate and apply knowledge and skills, and that cooperative learning is an excellent means to that end. while cooperative learning works well in classes that are homogeneous, including classes for the gifted, special education classes, and even classes for the severely and profoundly average, it is especially needed in classes with a wide range of performance levels. in addition, slavin (1995:15) states that “the most important goal of cooperative learning is to provide students with the knowledge, concepts, skills, and understanding they need to become happy and contributing members of our society.” looking at the benefits and the goal of cooperative learning above, it is hoped that teachers can implement cooperative learning method in their teaching in order to make improvement in education. in this study, the writer used jigsaw ii technique. in this technique, students are divided into learning groups and expert groups. gunter, estes and mintz (2007:271) state: jigsaw lesson divides the class up into two different kinds of groups, expert groups and learning groups. the expert groups all read and study the same material-they become expert on the topic and prepare an outline and/or graphic that summarizes the critical information of their unit. as a group, they determine how this information will be shared with their peers. after the expert groups have completed their study, dilla silviana anggi putri / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 5 they meet with their learning group composed of a member of each expert group. each expert teaches his or her topic to the members of the learning group. according to gunter, estes and mintz (2007:271-274), the steps of jigsaw technique are: (1) introduce the jigsaw, (2) assign heterogeneously grouped students to expert and learning groups, (3) explain the task ad assemble expert group, (4) allow expert group to process information, (5) experts teach in their learning group, (6) hold individuals accountable, (7) evaluate the jigsaw process. jigsaw technique and jigsaw ii technique are similar, but there is a difference between them. according to mccafferty, jacobs and dasilva iddings (2006:186), basically the steps in jigsaw and jigsaw ii technique are the same, but in jigsaw ii technique students receive not only the material relevant to their part of the topic, but also the whole material of the topic being discussed. thus, the learning teams in jigsaw ii technique are more independent rather than the ones in jigsaw technique. methods this study was a classroom action research with class 7b of smp n 12 magelang as the subject of this study. in order to collect data about students’ vocabulary mastery improvement and responses toward the use of this technique and media, the writer used observation sheet, questionnaire, interview, and test. in this study, there were two cycles in which each cycle consisted four phases. they were planning, action, observation, and reflection. before beginning the cycle one, the writer conducted a preliminary observation to the students and gave them a pre test to measure their early vocabulary mastery. at the end of each action phase, the writer gave formative test to students, while the post test was given after all the meetings were done. in planning phase, the writer prepared everything needed in her research. in action phase, the writer taught vocabulary to students. since the lesson was about procedure text, in this research the writer focused on teaching noun and action verb related to recipe and other type of procedure text. during her teaching, the writer used jigsaw ii technique and still pictures to teach vocabulary to students. she facilitated the students to learn actively in their learning groups and expert groups by using still pictures related to the material. in observation phase the writer was helped by three observers to observe the vocabulary learning process using jigsaw ii technique and still pictures. the observers were asked to fill the observation sheets about students’ responses toward the use of jigsaw ii technique and still pictures. the responses being observed were: positive responses: a = the student acts actively during the learning process b = the student is able to work cooperatively in his or her group c = the student has bravery to convey his or her opinion to his or her group d = the student is able to explain the material he or she has mastered to his or her group e = the student is enthusiastic in interacting with his or her group negative responses: f = the student performs reluctance in his or her group g = the student is not able to work cooperatively with his or her group h = the student causes any chaos and disturbance i = the student does not pay attention to the lesson j = the student is careless to his or her group besides, the observers were also asked to observe the implementation of jigsaw ii technique and still pictures during the teaching and learning process, and the writer’s class management. in reflection phase, the writer analyzed all data collected. if in cycle one there was a weakness or problem in implementing the technique and media, the writer would make revision and improvement by conducting the dilla silviana anggi putri / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 6 next cycle until the problem was solved and the improvement of students’ vocabulary mastery was reached. result this study was conducted to investigate the improvement of the students’ vocabulary mastery after learning using jigsaw ii technique and still pictures. below re the research findings. looking at the data found in cycle one, it could be concluded that the implementation of jigsaw ii technique and still pictures to teach vocabulary in the first and second meeting of cycle one run well. the strengths of the first cycle were the students were very enthusiastic and active in learning vocabulary using this technique and media. besides, there was a significant improvement on the students’ vocabulary achievement. however, there were some points that should be revised and improved by the writer. first, there were some students who performed negative responses f (the student performs reluctance in his or her group) and h (the student causes any chaos and disturbance) toward the use of jigsaw ii technique and still pictures. the students might perform reluctance because he or she could not get along with his or her partners or did not understand the instruction given well. besides, the students might cause any chaos and disturbance because he or she was too enthusiastic in doing discussion, so he or she produced very loudly voiced. second, based on the discussion result conducted between the writer and the observers, the expert groups’ discussion time was too long. third, according to the first and second observer, the writer was not able to catch the students’ attention in the first meeting of cycle one. because there were found some weaknesses in the cycle one, the writer conducted cycle two to correct those weaknesses. the writer should give more attention and helps to the students who performed negative responses, limit the discussion time, and increase her classroom management strategy. after cycle two was conducted, it could be concluded that the implementation of jigsaw ii technique and still pictures to teach vocabulary in the first and second meeting of cycle two run better than in the cycle one. in this cycle the writer successfully solved the problems found in cycle one. first, the implementation of jigsaw ii technique was more effective because she gave time limitation in each activity during the teaching and learning process, so the learning time became more effective. second, by giving more attention and helps to the students who performed negative responses, the number of student who performed negative responses f (the student performs reluctance in his or her group) and h (the student causes any chaos and disturbance) decreased. third, by improving her teaching strategy, the writer could catch the students’ attention during the teaching and learning process. in addition, according to the observers, in this cycle the students’ and the writer’s performances during teaching and learning process improved. looking at the facts above, the writer concluded that this classroom action research successfully solved the problem of students’ vocabulary mastery, so the next cycle was not necessary to be conducted. the the improvement of students’ average score from pre test until post test can be seen on the graphic below: dilla silviana anggi putri / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 7 graphic 1 the improvement of students’ average score the graphic above shows that the students’ score on vocabulary test improved. at first, the students’ average score of the pre test was 72.4. it was lower than the passing assessment (kkm) of smp negeri 12 magelang, that was 73. after learning vocabulary using jigsaw ii technique and still pictures in cycle one, the students’ vocabulary improved. it was proved by the significant improvement on their score in the quiz one. the students’ average score of quiz one increased at 11.85 point (from 72.4 to 84.25). the improvement also happened in the quiz two and in the post test. in the quiz two, the students’ average score increased became 88.25 and in the post test their average score increased at 92.3. based on the explanation above, it can be concluded that after the students were taught using jigsaw ii technique and still pictures, their score improved significantly. besides showing the improvement in students’ vocabulary achievement, the writer would like to show the improvement in students’ responses toward the use of jigsaw ii technique and still pictures. the improvement can be seen in on the table and figure below: 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 pre test quiz one quiz two post test st u d e n ts ' a ve ra ge s co re dilla silviana anggi putri / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 8 graphic 2 students’ positive responses toward the use of jigsaw ii technique and still pictures graphic 3 students’ negative responses toward the use of jigsaw ii technique and still pictures based on the data above, the students’ responses toward the use of jigsaw ii technique and still pictures were good and improved. however, in the first meeting of cycle two, the students’ response toward aspect d (the student is able to explain the material he or she has mastered to his or her group) decreased from the second meeting of cycle one, but it increased again in the second meeting of cycle two. while the negative responses were relatively low. the students did not perform negative responses g (the student is not able to work cooperatively with his or her group), (the student does not pay attention to the lesson i), and j (the student is careless to his or her group). while the negative responses f (the student performs reluctance in his or her group) and h (the student causes any chaos and disturbance) decreased from meeting to meeting. discussion in this research, the writer implemented one of cooperative learning techniques, that was 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 a b c d e cycle one meeting 1 cycle one meeting 2 cycle two meeting 1 cycle two meeting 2 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 f g h i j cycle one meeting 1 cycle one meeting 2 cycle two meeting 1 cycle two meeting 2 dilla silviana anggi putri / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 9 jigsaw ii technique. there have been many previous researches and theories suggest that cooperative learning method has many advantages in teaching and learning process. a research conducted by kaptiningrum (2011) proved that cooperative learning method can improve students’ achievement. based on the result of her research, jigsaw technique could improve students’ show presenting skill. in addition, mccafferty, jacobs and dasilva iddings (2006:6) state that: cooperative learning has a strong foundation in research. many hundreds of studies across a wide range of subject areas and age group have been conducted. these studies suggest that when compared to other instructional approaches, cooperative learning activities are associated with gains in achievement, higher-level thinking, self-esteem, and interethnic relations. students in cooperative settings tend to like the subject matter and their school more. indeed, johnson (1997) claims that cooperative learning is one of the best-researched approaches in education, and that when the public ask educators what we know that works in education, cooperative learning is one of our surest answer. in fact, during her research, the writer also found that cooperative learning gives many benefits and can improve students’ achievement. based on her research, when students were taught using jigsaw ii technique, they could participate actively in the teaching and learning process and learned the given material independently and enthusiastically. besides, the result of questionnaire showed that most of the students were very happy and interested in learning using this technique, could improve their self esteem in speaking in front of their friends, and could build better solidarity with their classmates. moreover, the result of the students’ test score showed that their achievement in vocabulary improved significantly. on the other hand, besides having many advantages, cooperative learning also has some weaknesses. mccafferty, jacobs and dasilva iddings (2006:3) suggest that “however, despite the many advantages of group activities, problems also arise, problems that have led some teachers to give up on using group work. these problems include members not participating, groups not getting along, or learners unable to do the task.” different teachers might find different weaknesses and difficulties in implementing cooperative learning. thus, every teacher should have his or her own strategy to overcome the weaknesses or difficulties found. the writer herself also met some disadvantages of cooperative learning. in her research, the writer found that jigsaw ii technique was very time consuming and sometimes made the class became noisy. in order to overcome these weaknesses of this cooperative learning technique, the writer gave time limitation in every activity. besides, she improved her classroom management by increasing the discipline in the classroom. thus, the learning time became effective and the students became easier to be handled. besides using cooperative learning technique in teaching vocabulary, the writer also used still pictures as the media. there also have been many previous researches and theories suggest that pictures give many benefits in teaching and learning process. rohmah (2011) proved that pictures can enhance students’ achievement. the result of her study showed that the achievement of the students in learning vocabulary through internet picture dictionary improved. moreover, gerlach and donald (1980) in kalisa (2011:15) suggest that the advantages of using pictures are that they are inexpensive and widely available; they provide common experiences for an entire group; the visual detail make it possible to study subject, which would turn back to be impossible; they can help you to prevent and correct disconcertion; they offer a stimulus to further study, reading and research visual evidence is power tool; they help to focus attention and to develop critical judgment. during her teaching, the writer found that still pictures helped the students much in learning vocabulary. by having a discussion with their friends about the still dilla silviana anggi putri / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 10 pictures given, the students could discover the meaning of new words easily and independently. besides, pictures could improve their motivation and enthusiasm in learning vocabulary. fortunately, during her research, the writer did not found any difficulties in teaching vocabulary using this media. in order to collect data during this research, the writer used four instruments. they were observation sheets, questionnaire, interview, and test. the main instrument of the research was observation sheets, and supported by the other three instruments. the result of observation sheets, questionnaire and interview showed that the students and the teacher gave positive responses toward the use of jigsaw ii technique and still pictures. besides, the students’ ability in speaking in front of their classmates, their class solidarity and their vocabulary mastery improved. the result of the test proved the improvement in students’ vocabulary achievement. the average of the pre test score before the students were taught using this technique and media was 72.4. it was lower the than the passing assessment (kkm) of smp negeri 12 magelang, that was 73. then, after learning using this technique and media, the students’ average score increased become 84.25 in quiz one, 88.25 in quiz two, and 92.3 in the post test. based on the analysis of the overall activity in the action research cycles and result of each instrument, it could be concluded that the implementation of jigsaw ii technique and still pictures in class 7b of smp n 12 magelang run well and it could improve students’ vocabulary mastery. besides, the students’ and english teacher’s responses and attitude toward the use of this technique and media were good. conclusion looking at the result of this study, and the discussion above, it could be concluded that the use of jigsaw ii technique and still pictures combination can improve students’ vocabulary mastery. however, considering that cooperative learning also has weaknesses such as members not participating, groups not getting along, learners unable to do the task, time consuming, etc, so the writer suggest that cooperative learning is better not to be used in all learning activities or to teach all school material. it is better for teacher to combine cooperative learning with other teaching and learning technique. besides, in implementing particular cooperative learning technique, teachers also should implement good classroom management to handle the effect of cooperative learning such as the class becomes noisy and so on. references ababneh, s. 2013. strategies used by jordanian university students’ in dealing with new vocabulary in english. journal of education and practice. vol.4, no.4, 2013. available at 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http://www.helium.com/items/%201927657-vocabulary-learning-vocabulary%20%5baccessed%2005/02/13 http://www.helium.com/items/%201927657-vocabulary-learning-vocabulary%20%5baccessed%2005/02/13 rohmah, nur. 2011. the use of internet picture dilla silviana anggi putri / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 11 final project english department fbs unnes. kaptiningrum, pindha. 2011. the effectiveness of jigsaw method to improve the students’ show presenting skil. final project english department fbs unnes. linse, caroline t. 2006. practical english language teaching : young learners. new york: mcgraw hill. mc.cafferty, s. g., jacobs, g. m., iddings, a. c. d. 2006. cooperative learning and second language teaching. cambridge : cambridge university press. mehta, k.m. 2009. vocabulary teaching:effective methodologies. the internet tesl journal, vol. xv, no. 3, 2009. available at http://iteslj.org/techniques/mehtavocabulary.html. [accessed 19/5/13]. murcia, m.c. 2001. teaching english as a second or foreign language. usa: heinle and heinle. richards, j.c. and renandya, w.a. 2002. methodology in language teaching :an anthology of current practice. new york: cambridge university press. dictionary as media in teaching vocabulary. final project english department fbs unnes. slavin, r.e. 1995. cooperative learning. boston: allyn and bacon. tschirner, erwin. 2004. breadth of vocabulary and advanced english study: an empirical investigation. electronic journal of foreign language teaching. vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 27-39. available at http://eflt.nus.edu.sg/v1n12004/tschirner.pdf [accessed 19/02/13]. werff, j. 2003. using pictures from magazines. the internet tesl journal, vol. ix, no.7. available at http://iteslj.org/techniques/werffpictures.html. [accessed 19/5/13] http://e-flt.nus.edu.sg/v1n12004/tschirner.pdf http://e-flt.nus.edu.sg/v1n12004/tschirner.pdf 1 elt forum 5 (1) (2016) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt president joko widodo’s interpersonal strategies in his speech in the 2014 apec ceo summit putri apriliani arif suryo priyatmojo english department. faculty of languages and arts. state university of semarang. aticle info ________________ article history: received in april 2016 approved in april 2016 published in may 2016 ________________ keywords: speech, interpersonal meanings, appraisal, joko widodo, apec ceo summit 2014. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this study aims at describing the way president widodo used his interpersonal strategies in his speech in the 2014 apec ceo summit. in this study, the discussion was limited by finding out the interpersonal meaning of the speech which can be used to dig up speaker’s hidden meanings through what he is saying in the speech. this is a descriptive qualitative study. the concept of discourse analysis from the perspective of systemic functional linguistic (sfl) is employed as a tool to reveal the hidden motivations behind a text. the analysis reveals that in terms of context of situation, president widodo delivered persuasive speech. meanwhile, grammar analysis shows that president widodo was delivering speech in the name of indonesia and in the name of indonesian people who need a lot of economic capital in order to achieve the economic goals of indonesia. in delivering his speech, president widodo also strongly believed that he would be able to reach his goals. the appraisal analysis shows that appreciation is the most frequent appraisal devices used in the speech. in that sense, president widodo’s stance or attitude towards the goals he wants to achieve is strongly positive. it can be concluded that by the elaborate use of interpersonal strategies, president widodo successfully projects his ideas and messages to the audience and also build a persuasive speech. © 2016 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: peapriliani@gmail.com issn 2252-6706 putri apriliani / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 2 introduction president joko widodo’s speech at the summit had quality to gain world’s attention. he was in global spotlight since many world leaders praised his speech. many world leaders gave positive response to his speech. one of them was charles morrison, president of the non-profit east-west center. as cited by the wall street journal, november 10 2014, he wrote in his twitter account, “president widodo’s speech was excellent, simple english and his noticeable lack of notes”. although his heavy javanese accent could be heard clearly during his speech, the way of president widodo in delivering his speech at the summit was actually an eye-opener. his talk was clear and to the point, introducing indonesia as a country that is open and safe to invest. however, president widodo’s javanese accent and various errors that can be heard clearly in his english made indonesian people gave mixed reactions. some of them were proud and said that his speech was excellent, but many people also judged him because he did not speak english fluently. this controversy about the ability of president widodo in english had been debated since he became one of candidates of president. back then, some people believed if the president could not speak foreign language, especially english, he or she would be tricked, dumbed, and intimidated easily. they were also afraid if it would make our country easily harmed and embarrassed too. therefore, during the campaign before he became a president, those people tried to stop him by highlighting his english proficiency. it is true that foreign language skill is required for leaders to strengthen the international relations and to avoid duping action by external partners. however, foreign language proficiency does not determine that the leaders also have good communication skill since communication skill is also important to be required. a leader should have intelligence too to think and speak correctly as the main asset that must be possessed to make him or her to have great communication skill. therefore, the analysis about his speech is required to expose his strategies that are reflected from the speech. president widodo’s messages, expectations, and feelings will be revealed to gain as much as possible information of the subject matters. it is also needed to be analysed since there are some indonesian people who still underestimate his english. by knowing the analysis, they will not only focus on his javanese accent or his lack of english, but also will pay attention to the meaning of the speech. furthermore, it also gains information about studying text. for language learners, the study of text becomes important because it is the way in understanding language. a text represents the idea of the writer or speaker that can be either written or spoken. it means that we are constructing a text when we speak or write. when we create a text, we are also communicating because communication happens in a text. nevertheless, there are many language learners, especially english learners who still have difficulties in studying text, whereas they obviously must be able to create a good text in order to gain further understanding of language. since communication happens in a text, creating a good text is the important part in communication. in communicating or interacting with others, people need to establish relationship between them; between they who speak or write and they who listen or read. here, people are exchanging their idea or attitude about something. moreover, they are also exchanging meaning. people interact in order to make meaning and to make sense of each other. meaning here is created through what speaker or writer says and does to listener or reader. exchanging meaning can be done successfully by acquiring grammar. grammar is very important for english learners when they want to build a communication in english in order to exchange meaning. by having a good understanding of grammar, they will be able to combine words into a good sentence. when they can make sentences correctly, they also succeed to create a meaning. this study deals with analysing text with its functions to construct a meaning. every text as putri apriliani / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 3 a tool of communication contains three meanings – ideational, interpersonal and textual meaning. ideational meaning is meaning to represent experience to each other. interpersonal meaning deals with the meaning to enact relationship. meanwhile, textual meaning is used to organize text (eggins, 1994). this study only focuses on interpersonal meaning because i am interested in knowing president’s attitude, feeling and judgment through his speech that can also reveal his interpersonal strategies in his speech in apec forum. i will analyse how the clauses in the speech are structured to realize the interpersonal meaning. by analysing the interpersonal meaning of the speech we can find how the speech is structured to establish social relationship between speaker and audience. it is also important for the language students to study about interpersonal meaning so that they can express their attitudes and feelings to be able to communicate successfully. hopefully the result of this study can be used in english learning process especially deals with discourse analysis. it is also expected to give benefit for english department students who will be future teachers on studying functional grammar in foreign language context particularly dealing with analysing interpersonal meaning in speech or any kinds of text. hopefully, it will help them to choose the representative and good conversational texts for the students to practice in accordance with the appropriate situation given. thus, their future students will have good model of text to be performed in the real life. analysing meaning in a text, in this case is a speech, can be conducted by applying functional grammar approach. functional grammar is a way of looking at language based on its function. the main concern of functional grammar is not only in word by word but also on the meanings of the whole text which is realized whether by the speaker, writer, listener or reader. it means that the functional grammar views language as a resource for making meaning, not only words and sentences. therefore, it enables us to analyse and explain how meanings are realized in everyday linguistic interactions. interpersonal meanings focus on the interactivity of the language and concern on the ways in which we act upon one another through language. the interpersonal meanings are realized in the lexico-grammar through selections from the system of mood and modality. in this study, i would like to analyse the propositional structure of president widodo’s speech by looking deeply on the mood system of the clauses in the speech. in doing so, the speech is divided into clauses (clause-complexes), in which each is analysed interpersonally. the system of mood consists of two components. the first is what we call mood component of the clause which is indicated by the structure of the subject (is noun or noun phrase) and finite element (is a verb or part of verb phrase that it is affected by its surroundings). the other component is called residue. after analysing the clauses, then they are classified into different kinds of typical mood structure whether it is imperative, declarative or interrogative. modality refers to one of the most important systems in social communication. when we interact, we may communicate degrees of possibility, probability or certainty. for instance, in conveying utterance, there are times when it is not a yes or a total no. thus, modality fulfills the role of the intermediary that can show range of different way in which speakers can temper or qualify their messages. halliday (in martin and rose, 2003:42) describes “modality as a resource which sets up a semantic space between yes and no – a cline running between positive and negative poles”. modality is a complex area of english grammar which has to do with the different ways in which a language user’s can intrude on his message, expressing attitudes and judgments of various kinds. it indicates the speaker’s judgment of the probabilities or the obligations involved in what he is saying. eggins, (1994:180) states “modality can be classified according to the degree of certainty or usuality they expreess: i.e high (must, certainty, always), median (may, probably, usually) or low (might, possibly, sometimes)”. there are two general kinds of modality, one for negotiating services, and the putri apriliani / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 4 other for negotiating information. two part dimensions of modality are modalization and modulation. moreover, in order to gain further understanding about president widodo’s interpersonal strategies in the apec ceo summit, i would like to analyse appraisal system. since interpersonal meaning discusses meanings which express speaker’s attitudes and judgments, it also relates to the speaker’s stance in judging or evaluating someone or something. the indication of the speaker’s evaluation upon something or someone more familiarly recognized as the system of appraisal (system of evaluation). martin (2000) has developed this particular system into a clear framework to analyse someone’s attitude and judgment in the domain of interpersonal meanings. it is the further development theory of interpersonal meanings. “we use the resources of appraisal for negotiating our social relationships, by telling our listeners or readers how we feel about things and people (in word, what our attitudes are). ... attitudes have to do with evaluating things, people’s character and their feeling”, (martin and rose 2003:19). there are three main categories of attitudes: affect which is about expressing feeling, judgment about people’s characters, and appreciation about the value of things. based on the aspects above, grammar subject, finite, modality and appraisal system, and diction can be used to analyse the interpersonal meaning of presidents widodo’s speech. by analysing the interpersonal meaning of the speech using the above approach, the social relationship can be maintained, the judgment of the speakers throughout a speech can be found out and also the interpersonal strategies of president widodo can be revealed clearer. methods of investigation in conducting this investigation, the writer used a descriptive qualitative research since the purpose of this study is to find out how the interpersonal meaning works in a public speech. the qualitative research requires the investigation of the data which is in the form of words or picture and it presents the data and research in the form of description. the researcher presents the report of the investigation descriptively throughout the words employed. the report is needed to make the researcher be able to clearly convey the findings of the research. the writer attempts to use qualitative approach to analyse the data and the quantitative approach is also used to produce quantitative data to strengthen the qualitative analysis. by using this method, the researcher is expected to be able to find out, to identify and to explain the topic of the study. discourse analysis will able to reveal the hidden motivations behind a text or behind the choice of a particular method of research to interpret that text. hence, it is important to bring the concept of discourse analysis as one of qualitative data collection methods to analyse the object in this study in the next chapter. we reach this understanding by analysing the process through qualitative approach to understand how discourse is structured and how it can be analysed. in this study, the writer chooses joko widodo's speech in the 2014 apec ceo summit as the object of the study to be analysed. the speech was delivered at china national convention center in beijing on november 10, 2014. it was broadcasted via cable televisions and internet which could be watched by all people around the world. in this research, the role of the researcher is a data collector that gathers the necessary data as the object of the study. additionally, the researcher is also an analyst and interpreter that analyses and interprets the interpersonal meanings of the clause within the speech that are realized with the system of mood, modality and also appraisal system to answer the research problem. finally, the researcher works as a writer for conveying the research findings and arranging the conclusion and then completing the report in accordance with the findings. the data of the study is the script of president widodo‘s speech in the 2014 apec ceo summit that were downloaded from the official account of asia pacific economic cooperation (apec) on youtube site. the putri apriliani / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 5 duration of speech delivery approximately was 13 minutes. meanwhile, the speech transcription was obtained from republic of indonesia cabinet secretariat official website. the interpersonal meaning refers to the tenor of discourse which is then identifiable through four units of analysis; those are: (a) elements of context of situation (b) mood system (c) modality, and (d) appraisal system before the process of analysis of the speech, the writer divides the speech into smaller parts, which are into clauses. the clauses will be analyzed to find its interpersonal meaning. the process of analysis then will be classifying mood elements (subject and finite), modality and appraisal into each category in the table, and counting the frequency of each sub-element. in order to make it easy to understand, each element has its own table of the data. on this stage, the writer uses quantitative approach as a supporting data of the qualitative analysis. when those steps are completed, the next step is interpreting and elaborating the result of the data. result of the study analysis of context of situation context of situation is a useful term to cover the things going on in the world outside the text which makes the text what it is. the analysis of the context of situation influences the language used by president widodo. there are three variables within any context of situation which largely determine the language choices that are made in the construction of any language text. these variables function together and are responsible for the configuration of language features found in any text. according to gerot and wignell (1994:11), context of situation can be specified through use of register variables; field, tenor, and mode. after reading president widodo's speech transcription, then we can find out the context of situation analysis. field field answers the question “what is the topic of the text?” field can be divided into three areas; experiential domain or what the text is about, goal orientation or what the text is for, and social activity or what the text is doing. obviously, in terms of experiential domain, this text is about the speech which delivered by president widodo. president widodo had the opportunity to represent his country, indonesia, to deliver his speech in the 2014 apec ceo summit in beijing on november 10, 2014, at china national convention center. after reading the whole speech transcription, and examining the lexical choice, the writer found mostly the lexical words that president widodo used were intended to persuade the audience or investors to invest their money in indonesia. then in terms of goal orientation, the text was used to persuade the audience or investors to invest their money in indonesia. meanwhile, in terms of social activity, in apec summit forum which is attended by pacific-rim members that seek to promote free trade and economic cooperation throughout the asia-pacific region, the speech that is delivered by the leader or representative of a country could be a magnet for investors seeking places and opportunity to invest their money. therefore, from the field point of view it can be concluded that this text is about president widodo's ideas and messages to gain many investors to invest their money in indonesia in order to reach the economic goal of indonesia in the future. tenor tenor answers the question “who are involved?” what kind of person the speaker is, what kind of people the expected audience are and what the relationship between them is. when analysing a tenor of a text, it deals with the status of the speaker to each other. the subject of this study is president widodo who was one of speakers in the 2014 apec ceo summit. the agentive role that occurred in terms of tenor for this text is a president as the speaker – world leaders and ceos who attended the summit as the listeners. the status relations/power of the participants may have is unequal status. however, there is no superior–subordinate relation among the speaker and the audience. putri apriliani / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 6 this is proved by the choice of words that president widodo used mostly by formal statement. in terms of social distance or the amount or nature of contact the participants may have, the writer concludes that since physically president widodo rarely meets the audience directly, through his speech he build a formal relationship (maximal range) with the audience. it can be seen from the way he greets the audience, he tried to as formal as possible since the relationship between president widodo and the audience was temporary relationship. mode mode answers how the language is being used, written or spoken and formal or informal. in terms of language role or how important is the language in this context, it is constitutive (the central element in the context). the medium of the text is written, yet president widodo channels the text by speaking orally. in other words, president widodo used spoken mode when he delivered his speech in the 2014 apec ceo summit. it is context dependent and has dynamic structure which means that it is part of an interaction in which both participants are usually present, face-to-face, and the speaker has a particular addressee or addressees in mind. however, since this speech is classified as a monologue, the turn taking or feedback is not needed. grammar analysis subject analysis table below shows the use of subject choices, which are produced by president widodo in the 2014 apec ceo summit; subject i you we they it that who this others total 15 5 40 2 4 4 1 7 20 (%) 15,3% 5,1% 40,8% 2,04% 4,09% 4,09% 1,02% 7,1% 20,4% the most frequent subject choice that was used in the speech is ‘we’. subject ‘we’ gets the highest percentage for about 40,8%. subject ‘we’ here shows that president widodo was not delivering the speech as himself. he was delivering the speech in the name of indonesia and the people of indonesia. thus, he used subject ‘we’ instead of ‘i’. ‘we’ here refers to president widodo and also the whole people of indonesia. it means that there is a unity between the government of indonesia and all of the citizens in giving responsible to the country. it also symbolizes the unity of the people that are led by a leader. by mentioning 40 times of using ‘we’ in his speech, president widodo implicitly tries to invite the responsibility of his people to support the country and fight together to reach their economic goals. he also tried to show that he spoke at the summit was not for his own business but for his country and his people. by using subject ‘we’, president widodo implicitly involved his people and tried to convince the audience that his country needs a lot of economic capital to achieve the economic goals in order to achieve prosperity for the people of indonesia. besides that, it is also a symbol of possession which defines that indonesia belongs to all citizens of indonesia, not only an individual. therefore, all the goals to be achieved are for the sake of nation and state of indonesia. the use of the subject of ‘we’ is also a symbol of politeness. president widodo spoke in a formal forum as a representative of a country, so it is appropriate for him to use subject ‘we’ instead of ‘i’. subject ‘we’ here represents all of indonesian people, not only president widodo as an individual. it shows that president widodo tried to convey implicitly that the responsibility of a president is to represent the country in the name of their citizens in national or international level. in addition, subject ‘we’ also indicates an ownership of the people who participated in the 2014 apec ceo summit. the people who attended the event were discussing topics of common problems in economic and have several goals in terms of economic issues to be achieved in the future. therefore, subject ‘we’ here belongs to them who attended the summit. putri apriliani / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 7 finite analysis the next mood element is finite. the result of finite analysis can be seen as follows; finite simple present present continuous present perfect present perfect cont. simple past modal total 71 2 2 1 12 10 % 72,4% 2,04% 2,04% 1,02% 12,2% 10,2% to be easily understood, the writer summarizes the findings of finite verbal operators into primary tense. according to gerot and wignell (1994:27), primary tense means past, present or future at the moment of speaking. it indicates the different times at which action takes place. by analysing the tense of the text, we will gain the information about when the speech event is running. then, the finite modal operators are classified into different type. from the primary tense, we can summarize the result of finite analysis into; present past modal 76 12 10 77,5% 12,2% 10,2% from present tense point of view, president widodo tends to convey his economic goal of indonesia through the verbs. moreover, by using present tense, it also expresses president widodo's hopes and expectations to make a better life for indonesian people by developing the economic condition of indonesia. the finding also indicates that president widodo gave the general truth at the moment of the speaking. what president widodo shared was the real condition at the time of speaking. modality analysis from the previous data analysis of finite, the frequency of modality used in the speech for about 10,2%. modality high medium low total percentage (%) modalization probability 0 6 4 10 90,9 % usuality 1 0 0 1 9,1 % modulation obligation 0 0 0 0 0 inclination 0 0 0 0 0 ability 0 0 0 0 0 from the recapitulation above, it can be concluded that president widodo also used modality that reflected his certainty of probability towards the topic of the speech. some of the modalization in the speech indicates president widodo‘s attitude towards what he was saying. president widodo uses modalization to talk about the probability of the subject matter. the degree of certainty of what he said indicates president widodo‘s attitude which describe probabilities what he may do for a better future. then, modulation was not revealed in the speech. from the counting, there are 6 of 11 modalization elements used by president widodo which showed the medium intention which implied his scale of sureness of what will happen and what he does for indonesia in the future. putri apriliani / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 8 mood types speech function mood element quantity declarative interrogative imperative statement question command subject + finite finite + subject wh/subject + finite subject + finite, subject only, finite only, or no mood element at all 132 1 total clauses 133 mood types analysis these tables below are the result of analysis of mood type from the script; mood types speech function mood element quantit y percenta ge declarative statement subject + finite 95 96,9% interrogative question finite + subject 1 1,02% imperative command subject + finite, subject only, finite only, or no mood element at all 2 2,04% total from the data above, it showed that the majority of the mood type of the speech is declarative for about 95,9%. there are 95 declarative clauses found in the speech. by using declarative clause, a speaker may give some information and statement about something. gerot and wignell say that (1994:22) “if a speaker gives you some information, as we are trying to do now, he or she is inherently inviting you to receive that information.” thus, president widodo was inviting the listeners to receive his point of view through the speech about kinds of issues. in those examples, we could find some information given by president widodo about the recent situation of indonesia, the infrastructure development that president widodo will do in the future, and also invitation to the audience as the future investors to invest their money in indonesia. appraisal analysis in this study, a system called ‘appraisal system’ is used to determine the speaker stances towards the issue. since interpersonal meaning discusses meanings which express speaker’s attitudes and judgments, it also relates to the speaker’s stance in judging or evaluating someone or something. referring to the findings as an appraisal analysis, we can take a look at the result of the data as follows; appraisal affect judgment appreciation frequency 5 3 11 percentage 26,31% 15,78% 57,89% the most frequent appraisal used is appreciation. in the appreciation we come with aesthetics; assessment of the form, appearance, composition, impact, significance, etc. of human artefacts of natural objects as well as human individual. based on the appraisal analysis, it can be concluded that president widodo showed his positive appreciation, positive stance, and positive feeling toward the opportunity for him to speak in economic forum and also toward several things about indonesia. it shows that president widodo's speech mostly shares about the quality and potential of indonesia. president widodo also recounted about how he wants to develop efficient strategies and plans in order to make his people live prosperously. it can be concluded that the speech is simply a profound praise for indonesian quality and potential. the writer also concludes that the speaker’s stance or attitude towards the goals he wants to achieve is strongly positive. conclusions finally, from the analysis of findings and discussions above, the result found that the kind of speech acts used, grammar, and vocabulary define the strategies that president widodo used in conveying his speech. it could be summarized; from context of situation shows that the speech is kind of persuasive speech, because through his speech president widodo tried to persuade as many investors as possible to invest their money in indonesia. from grammar analysis, it can be putri apriliani / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 9 found that president widodo was delivering speech in the name of indonesia. in delivering his speech, president widodo also strongly believed that he would be able to reach his goals. it shows that president widodo was confident to give information to his audiences about the topic. president widodo also uses modalization to talk about the probability of the subject matter. in terms of appraisal analysis shows that president widodo’s stance or attitude towards the goals he wants to achieve is strongly positive. as the result, the meaning that president widodo wanted to deliver was conveyed successfully. it was proved by many attentions that he got after finishing his speech. many world leaders gave positive response and praised his speech that was different from others. based on the findings, it is worth presenting the pedagogical implications that can be considered as the contribution of the study of english education in a foreign language context. for language learners, studying interpersonal meaning of a speech means that we are trying to understand about the speaker’s intention in perceiving something by looking deeply on the mood and modality system of the clauses. the system of mood and modality are the keys in understanding the interpersonal relationship between interactants. in addition, by knowing the appraisal system, it will be easy for them to express their judgments or attitudes toward something. the study of analysing president widodo's speech can also be used as an example of how to make a good text or speech by focusing on what communicative purpose they want to achieve, 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metode penelitian pendidikan: pendekatan kuantitatif, kualitatif, dan r&d. bandung: alfabeta. suharso. 2006. qualitative research: a compilation of materials. jogjakarta: universitas negeri yogyakarta. ____________________ november oktober september 1 elt forum 2 (2) (2013) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the use of manual super text twist game to improve students’ english vocabulary mastery nurul saofa aulia department of english, faculty language and arts, semarang state university, indonesia info artikel ________________ sejarah artikel: diterima 2013 disetujui 2013 dipublikasikan 2013 ________________ keywords: super text twist game, vocabulary mastery, and action research abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this study concerns about the use of manual super text twist game to improve the students’ vocabulary mastery. therefore, the objective of this study is to obtain how well the game contributes for solving vocabulary problems of junior high school students. this study was conducted by using classroom action research design. the subjects of this study were viiib students chosen by using purposive sampling technique. there were two cycles in this study. the treatment was given in each cycle. in order to get data, she used several instruments. they were tests, questionnaires, and observation checklists. she gave several pre-tests and post-tests to obtain the improvement of the subjects’ vocabulary mastery. in order to carry out the subjects’ opinion and interest toward the learning process, she used the questionnaires. she also recorded the subjects’ behavior in an observation checklist. the result of this study showed that there was a significant improvement of the subjects’ vocabulary mastery. it was proved by the high increase between the subjects’ score of initial pre-test and final post-test. the average of the initial pre-test scores was 64, while the average of the final post-test was 80. in addition, the subjects gave positive perception, opinion, and interest toward the learning process by using the game. this fact was supported by the result of the questionnaires. moreover, participation of the subjects increased after the treatment was given. the subjects were more enthusiastic in participating the learning process. this condition was based on result of the observation checklist. according to the results above, it can be concluded that game gives positive contribution to the improvement of the subjects’ vocabulary mastery. the use of the game is recommended for english teachers as an alternative technique for teaching vocabulary. through this technique, teachers are able to enhance students’ interest and motivation in the learning english. © 2013 universitas negeri semarang  alamat korespondensi: gedung b3 lantai 3 fbs unnes kampus sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: uness_english@yahoo.com issn 2252-6706 review of related literature nurul saofa aulia / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 2 introduction mastering vocabulary is the most important thing in mastering english. english learning process faced many problems because students lacked vocabulary. vocabulary cases happened in english learning process in indonesian junior high school students. for instance, in the learning process in the classrooms, the meanings of common words were often asked by teacher to students, but they could not answer the questions correctly. moreover, there were still many spelling mistakes in students‟ writing. furthermore, if the students were asked about their opinions about moral value of a text, they were unable to express their ideas properly. those problems made the students unable to understand the material maximally. therefore, they still had to find out the meanings of the words in the dictionary whereas for students, it is a boring activity to always look up words in the dictionary. according to the english teacher in the school, the students were often lazy to look the words up in the dictionary so their vocabulary mastery improvement was very slow. after knowing the conditions above some possibilities of causal factors of those problems were drawn. the first is students‟ character. the students‟ laziness to find out the meanings of words in the dictionary can be a causal factor of lack of vocabulary mastery. the second is that students especially adolescents, like fun learning. they always want to learn vocabulary by doing interesting activities which are almost similar to playing games. the next is language teaching method. teachers always use traditional method. the last factor is that vocabulary teaching and learning does not have certain time allocation in learning process in the classrooms. based on the facts above, implementing one of alternative techniques for teaching vocabulary should be done. it is game technique. the application of game technique in learning process may make better learning process. many researchers said that vocabulary is very important in language learning. according to camerron (2001:73), “word is the key unit in building up skills and knowledge.” in addition, here are some quotations from several researchers about vocabulary. “no matter how well the student learn grammar, no matter how successfully the sounds of second language are mastered, without words to express a wider range of meanings, communication in an second language just cannot happen in any meaningful way” (mccarthy, 1990:viii). “vocabulary knowledge enables language use, language use enables the increase of vocabulary knowledge, knowledge of the world enables the increase of vocabulary knowledge and language use and so on” (nation, 1993). in order to make vocabulary learning process better at junior high school, the teacher also has to follow particular principles in teaching vocabulary. according to wallace (1982:27-30), they are as follows: (1). aims “the aims have to be clear for the teacher: how many of the things listed does the teacher expect the learner to be able to achieve the vocabulary? what kinds of words?” (page 27). (2). quantity “the teacher may have to decide on the number of vocabulary items to be learned” (page 28). (3). need “the students are put in a situation where they have to communicate and get the words they need, as they need them, using the teacher as an informant” (page 28). (4). frequent exposure and repetition “it is seldom, however, that we remember a new word simply by hearing at the first time. there has to be certain amount of repetition until there is evidence that students have learned the target word” (page 29). (5). meaningful presentation “the learner must have a clear and specific understanding of what it denotes or refers to. the word is presented in such a way nurul saofa aulia / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 3 that its denotation or reference is perfectly clear and ambiguous” (page 29). (6). situation of presentation “the choice of words can be very varied according to the situation in which we are speaking and according to how well we know the person, to whom we are speaking (from informal to formal)” (page 30). in fact, those purposes of language teaching cannot be reached if the students lack vocabulary. therefore, the teacher has to find out the most suitable teaching and learning technique for her students to solve those problems. according to nation (1990), there are three strategies in teaching vocabulary. they are presentation strategies, strategy training, practice strategies. moreover, wallace (1982:38) categorized application of the techniques in some ways. one of them is group-to-group competitive playing games which are enjoyable for students. games are fun and useful. people whether are young or not like to play games. by playing game, they not only attain fun but also some benefits. according to lewis and bedson (2010:5), games ensure that players interact with each other, and this interaction is usually played out in language. they involve both of cooperation and competition, rules, and unpredictability, enjoyment, and serious commitment. by playing games, people can employ their language skills strategically in cooperative way, where a group works together to achieve certain goals. one example of language games is super text twist game. the way of playing this game is by arranging some letters which are given by the teacher in order to form as many english words as possible within a certain period of time. the game is played in groups. the group which can arrange the most letters into english words, will be the winner. by doing this game, unconsciously the students will recall, write, and discuss to find out english words. moreover, the students will be more familiar with english words. in addition, they will unconsciously be motivated to look words up in dictionary. this study used an action research. according to anne burns (2010:2), “action research involves taking a self-reflective, critical, and systematic approach to exploring a teacher‟s own teaching contexts.” in action research, the teacher becomes an „investigator‟ or „explorer‟ of his or her personal teaching context, while at the same time she will be a participant in it. according to kemmis and mctaggart (1988:11), steps in doing action research are planning, action, observation, and reflection. methods of investigation the subjects of the study are the students were students of viiib class in academic year 2012/ 2013. this class had 39 students. in choosing the class as the subject of this study, i used purposive sampling technique. i chose the class which had the most vocabulary problems. this choice was based on the suggestion of an english teacher of the school. this fact was proved by the average of their english final test scores, low midterm test, and daily scores. based on the observation, there were several possible reasons of those conditions above. first, the schedule of english subject of the class was not in favorable time. second, most of their parents are farmers. therefore, awareness of the importance of education was very low. the third is language teaching method which was always used by their teachers. since the purpose of this study was to solve vocabulary problems, its object was the subjects‟ vocabulary improvement. in this study, i only focused on vocabulary in writing skill. vocabulary was used as data in this study. it was taken from the subjects‟ handout for one semester. there were 1424 words in the handout. since the number of the words was very big, the study only used a sample of the words. the number of the sampled words was 70 words. those sampled words were presented for two meetings. after the words as data was administered, the data began to be collected. the data would be collected in four ways. they are by using observation checklist, questionnaires, tests, and interview. the nurul saofa aulia / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 4 questionnaires and the tests would be analyzed quantitatively. the behavior checklist and the interview would be analyzed qualitatively. there were five aspects which were observed in this study. there were (1) subjects‟ enthusiasm, (2) subjects‟ attention to teacher‟s explanation, (3) subjects‟ interest in playing the game, (4) subjects‟ participation and confidence in all learning process, and (5) subjects‟ seriousness in doing vocabulary task in group. in this study, i gave the questionnaires to the subjects in order to obtain their opinions, beliefs, and interest after giving the treatment. in addition, the interview was in the form of guided or semi-structured interview. the tests contained the words which were taken randomly from the sampled words. the tests were in the form of a gap-fill. analysis should be done after the results were caught. in this study, the analysis was done quantitatively and qualitatively. the quantitative data were taken from the tests and the questionnaires. she used descriptive statistics in analyzing the data. measuring central tendency was used to analyze the tests. meanwhile, measuring dispersion was used to analyze the questionnaires. in analyzing results of the questionnaires, she used a range of the means. the results of the questionnaires can be classified into the range of the means. in this study, the qualitative data were obtained from the observation checklist and the interview. analyzing result of the observation checklist and the interview used categorizing technique. the results of the observation checklist for each cycle were compared to those of other cycles in order to obtain the improvement of the subjects‟ attitudes toward the learning process. since this study was an action research, this study was done based on the following steps. a. giving the initial pre-test before conducting the cycles, in order to know how far the subjects had mastered vocabulary which was supposed to learn, i gave the initial pre-test (ipt). furthermore, it was followed by two cycles. b. first cycle the steps of the first cycle were stated below. 1. planning in this step, some preparations for conducting the study were done. firstly, i made scenario of teaching learning process. secondly, i constructed a lesson plan. thirdly, after preparing learning material, i constructed the instruments of this study. finally, i prepared media for teaching learning process. after all of preparations were done, i began the action. 2. action before doing the action, i gave the 1st cycle pre-test. in beginning of the action, i reviewed narrative and recount texts material. after that, i asked the subjects to identify difficult words from the texts with their partner. then, the treatment was given. the treatment was playing super text twist game technique. the steps in giving the treatment were described as follows: (1) the subjects were divided into some groups; (2) the media of the game was distributed to the groups; each group got one media; (3) they were asked to fill in empty boxes on the media by using english words. (4) they should write as many english words as possible on the boxes; the number of letters for each word must be the same as numbers of the boxes on the media; and (5) vocabulary drill was done by checking the subjects‟ answers to the game. next, i gave the 1st cycle post-test. the post-test examined the first half of the sampled words which were taught in this cycle. at the end of the first cycle, i gave first cycle questionnaire to the subjects. 3. observing during the teaching and learning process, i observed the subjects‟ responses and attitude. nurul saofa aulia / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 5 those things were observed by using the observation checklist. 4. reflecting and assessment in this step, she assessed and analyzed results from the instruments. the results of all of the instruments were cross-check each other. this was done to know how far the goal had been achieved and what i should do in the next cycle. c. second cycle basically, the steps of the second cycle were similar to those in first cycle. although the steps were similar to those in the first cycle, there were several modified steps in the second cycle. the steps were elaborated below. 1. planning in this step, i prepared several things for conducting the second cycle. the first was teaching learning scenario. since there was a problem about time management in the first cycle, i changed the activities of teaching learning process. in order to minimize time for discussion, i applied think pair share technique. in addition, i tried to use cooperative learning technique with an award to the winner to make the learning process better. the second was a lesson plan. the lesson plan for the second cycle was constructed based on the second cycle scenario. the third was learning material and instruments. they were about narrative and recount texts which contained the second half of the sampled words. in the second cycle, she prepared two kinds of media. they were media for think pair share activity and media for super text twist game. 2. action in the beginning of the second cycle, i gave the 2nd cycle pre-test. in order to minimize time, i reviewed the previous material only for a while. after that, i .explained the role of think pair share technique. the subjects were asked to identify difficult words from the texts by using think pair share technique. then, the treatment was given. the treatment was the same as the first cycle. before giving the treatment, i said that there would be an award for the winner of the game. next, i gave the 2nd cycle post-test. the post-test examined the second half of the sampled words which were taught in this cycle. at the end of the second cycle, i gave the 2nd cycle questionnaire to the subjects. 3. observing in this step, i observed the subjects‟ responses and attitude toward the learning process of that day. 4. reflecting and assessment in this step, i assessed and analyzed results from the instruments. analysis of this cycle would be compared to the results from the first cycle. this comparison would show the result of this study, especially about the subjects‟ attitude. d. giving the final post-test at the end of this study, the fpt was given. this test obtained the improvement of the subjects‟ score in vocabulary test. the result of this test would be compared with the result of the ipt. this comparison was supposed to show significant improvement of the subjects‟ vocabulary mastery. data analysis and discussion a. result of initial pre-test in this study, the initial pre-test (ipt) was given on friday, june 7th 2013. this ipt consisted of 50 test items. the subjects had to finish this test in 40 minutes. the average of the subjects‟ score of the test was 64, whereas the criterion of mastery learning was 72. it showed that the average was lower than the criterion of mastery learning. it seems that the subjects were not familiar with the words which were frequently used in their handout. therefore, i concluded that the subjects really lacked vocabulary mastery. nurul saofa aulia / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 6 therefore, there should be a treatment to improve the subjects‟ achievement in vocabulary mastery. then, i continued the study by conducting the first cycle of this study. b. analysis of the first cycle the 1st cycle was conducted on saturday, 8th june 2013. before starting the learning process, i gave the 1st cycle pre-test. this was done to obtain how far the subjects have mastered the first half of the sampled words. the first half of the sampled words would be learned in this cycle. the average of scores of this test was 66. next, in order to know the subjects‟ feeling, interest, and opinion about the treatment and the learning process, i gave the 1st cycle questionnaire. based on the result of matching the mean to the criterion, it can be concluded that:  the subjects‟ interest in learning vocabulary was low;  the game could help the subjects in mastering vocabulary;  the use of the game motivated the subjects to learn english;  the use of the game for learning vocabulary was effective; and  the game was beneficial so that they wanted it to be done continually. at the end of the first cycle, i gave the first cycle post-test. the average of the subjects‟ score of this test was 74. after that i observed the subjects‟ attitude. it was elaborated in an observation checklist. based on the result of it, i knew several information of the subjects‟ behavior. firstly, in this cycle, only half of the subjects came to the class on time. this might be happen because they did not know that at that day, there would be a research. since that day was the first time for learning process of this study, almost all of the subjects showed their curiosity about the learning process. this condition was contrast with their spirit in learning process. at that day, only half of the subjects learned english with high spirit. based on the fact above, i concluded that their enthusiasm toward the english learning was still needed to be improved. secondly, only half of the subjects really paid attention to teachers‟ explanation. when i explained the material, there were only several subjects who listened seriously. moreover, when the learning process was being conducted, only several subjects who really understand role of each activity. since the others still had to ask to their friends, the class was noisy. thirdly, since the game was an interesting activity, there were 28 subjects who were interested vocabulary learning by playing the game. this fact was proved by their behavior. when she explained the role of the game, they listened to the explanation seriously. they also played the game enthusiastically and seriously. there was not any subjects who did other activity when the game was played. fourthly, at that day, there were only half of the subjects who actively participated in learning process. the subjects who followed all of activities in the learning process well were only 23 subjects. the 23 subjects were attractive in the learning process, while the others were really passive. moreover, there were only half of the subjects finished all of learning steps on time. fifthly, the subjects‟ seriousness toward learning process was only showed by 20 subjects. since the beginning of the learning process at that day, only half of the subjects who did and stay on vocabulary task by themselves. there were still many subjects who disturbed their friends in finishing the task. the noise of the unserious subjects disturbed the learning process. therefore, the learning process did not run well. the last, i evaluated everything which related to the first cycle activities. firstly, she evaluated the learning process. in the 1st cycle, she found a problem related to time management. each step of the learning process was done in a rush. secondly, i evaluated the results of the instruments. based on the result of the 1st cycle observation checklist, there were some weaknesses. the subjects‟ seriousness, enthusiasm, attention, and participation were shown by half of the subjects. moreover, from nurul saofa aulia / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 7 result of the 1st cycle questionnaire, she knew that the subjects‟ motivation and interest were very low. therefore, the subjects‟ desire in learning process still needed to be improved. in addition, from the tests, the average of result of 1st cycle pre-test was compared with the average of the 1st cycle post-test. from the comparison, i knew that there was an improvement of the subjects‟ vocabulary mastery after the treatment was given. this was due to the fact that the average of the post-test result was higher than that of the pre-test result. yet, the improvement of the subjects‟ scores was not significant because the increasing score was not too high. moreover, there were still several subjects whose scores were lower than the criterion of mastering learning. therefore, there should be a special treatment for them. consequently, for the second cycle, e made several modifications to solve those problems. c. analysis of the second cycle the second cycle of this study was conducted on monday, 17th june 2013. although the prepared things for 2nd cycle were almost similar to those 1st cycle, their content was different. this was due to the modifications for the 2nd cycle. because of the time management problem in the 1st cycle, she changed discussion technique to be think pair share technique. this was done to minimize time in teaching process. think pair share is one of cooperative learning types. the use of this cooperative learning technique was supposed to create more interesting learning process. for solving the subjects‟ lack of motivation and seriousness, i planned to give a present to the highest score and the winner of the game. after preparing the things for the 2nd cycle, i began the teaching process. the activities in these steps were to give the 2nd cycle pre-test, apply think pair share, play the game technique, and give 2nd cycle questionnaire and post-test. the average result of the 2nd cycle pre-test was 68. after conducting the learning process, i gave the 2nd cycle questionnaire (2nd cq). in 2nd cycle cq, i knew that the subjects‟ answers of all of the aspects of the questionnaires improved. there were many subjects changed their answers in the 2nd cq. in the 2nd cycle, the subjects‟ interest and motivation increased significantly. moreover, their opinion about the game also changed. in the 2nd cq, they argued that the game was very effective for learning vocabulary because the game had many advantages. therefore, they really suggested that the game would be used continually. the result of the 2nd cq was noted in the following table. at the end of the learning process, the 2nd cycle post-test was given. the average of the result of the test was 83. observation the subjects‟ attitude was reported in 2nd cycle observation checklist. improvement of the subjects‟ attitude was seen in the 2nd cycle learning process. almost all of the subjects were enthusiastic in 2nd cycle. in the 2nd cycle, they came to the class before the learning process begun. therefore, the learning process began on time. they also showed their curiosity about the learning process. their spirit for learning also improved. it was proved by their sound when they were asked by her. in addition, number of the subjects who paid attention to her explanation also increased. almost all of the subjects understood role of activities so useless noise was not heard. in the 2nd cycle, before they played the game, almost all of the subjects listened the role of the game well. they played the game enthusiastically and seriously since they knew that there was a present for the winner. moreover, the subjects‟ participation also improved. although not all of the subjects were attractive, they followed all of activities well. they also finished each activity on time. not only their participation, but also their seriousness increased. there were more than half of the subjects were serious in vocabulary learning at that day. they finished the vocabulary task by themselves. although not all of the subjects did not stay on the task, they did not disturb their task individually. since the learning process in the 2nd cycle well, i concluded that the atmosphere of the 2nd cycle was more interesting. the class was more alive. nurul saofa aulia / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 8 in this cycle, the problems which arose in the 1st cycle did not arise anymore. in the learning process, each step was finished on time. in addition, based on the result of the 2nd cycle observation checklist and questionnaire, there were the improvement in the subjects‟ behavior, interest, participation, and enthusiasm in the learning process. moreover, the subjects‟ vocabulary scores were also higher than before. in addition, there was a significant improvement of the subjects‟ vocabulary score. there was a 15 point increase. there was not any subject whose score was lower than criterion of mastering level. since the problems were solved, i ended this study. d. final post-test and interview i ended this study by giving the final posttest (fpt) and an interview. they were done on tuesday, 18th june 2013. the number, type, and time allocation of this test were the same as those in ipt. the average of the subjects‟ fpt scores was 80. moreover, there was not any subject whose score was lower than criterion of mastery learning. in order to strengthen result of the study, i did informal interview to the subjects. from the interview, i got a lot of information. firstly, almost all of the subjects did not like english subject. according to them, english subject is a boring subject since they must learn many texts in each meeting. in addition, since learning english cannot be done without mastering vocabulary, they feel difficult to learn it. secondly, english teachers always teach english subject by using traditional method, such as grammar translation method. moreover, the teachers also did not provide interesting media and teaching technique to make the subjects happy in learning english. therefore, the subjects still feel bored and difficult in learning english. thirdly, the subjects feel happy in learning english by using the game technique. it happened because they could play the game and learn english at the same time. fourthly, if the learning process was done interestingly, they were motivated to participate in the learning process. fifthly, according to them, the game technique should be used continually for teaching vocabulary. e. discussion in this step, i evaluated the result of this study over all. 1. improvement of the subjects’ vocabulary mastery in this study, there were three comparisons of the subjects‟ score in vocabulary test. the first was the comparison between the 1st cycle pre-test and the post-test scores. there was an improvement of the subjects‟ scores of the 1st cycle tests. the improvement was not significant because the increasing score was not really high. this fact was caused by several problems in the learning process. in this case, the problems related to time management. when the subjects had the 1st cycle pre-test, they were less serious in finishing it. they did not finish it on time. consequently, time allocation for the other activities in the 1st cycle was limited more. since time for finishing the first cycle post-test was very limited, they answered the test in rush. as a result, there were many wrong answers in result of the 1st cycle post-test. those facts caused several subjects got scores lower than criterion of mastering learning. therefore, the improvement of the subjects‟ scores between the 1st cycle pre-test and post-test was not significant. the second was the comparison between the 2nd cycle pre-test and post-test scores. when i conducted the 2nd cycle, i made several modifications. firstly, before starting the learning process, she explained role of the learning process clearly. this was done to make the subjects‟ understanding of the role of learning process clearer. secondly, i really applied all of activities based on time allocation. when time allocation for finishing the test was over, i directly took all of the answer sheets from the subjects. consequently, they had to finish the tests on time. thirdly, she changed discussion technique to be cooperative learning technique. according to her opinion, cooperative learning technique was more nurul saofa aulia / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 9 effective in minimizing time for learning process. the result of this change really affected positively toward the learning process. in the 2nd cycle, all of learning steps run on time. fourthly, in order to make the subjects more serious in finishing the tests, she told their scores of the 1st cycle tests. because of knowing their low scores, they did the 2nd cycle tests more seriously. since the modifications were used, i could make the learning process better. therefore, in the 2nd cycle, the improvement of the score was significant. in addition, there was not any subject whose score was lower than criterion of mastering learning. the last was the comparison between the ipt and the fpt scores. in the ipt, the average of the subjects‟ score was 64 while the average of the fpt score was 80. these averages showed that there was a significant improvement between the subjects‟ score. moreover, all of the subjects‟ score was higher than criterion of mastering learning. 2. improvement of the subjects’ behavior in the 1st cycle, the subjects‟ enthusiasm, attention, and interest were only shown by half of the subjects. in the first cycle, there were still subjects who did not come to the class on time. moreover, there were only half of the subjects who learned english with high spirit. their high enthusiasm toward the learning process was shown only by several subjects. those conditions contrasted to conditions in the second cycle. in the 2nd cycle, almost all of the subjects came to the class on time. therefore, learning process could be started on time. in addition, their enthusiasm also improved because there was a present for the best participant in the learning process. starting the learning process was begun by explaining the material. in the first cycle, there were only half of the subjects who listened to it seriously. as a result, when the learning process was being conducted, there were many subjects who had to ask to their friends because there were only several subjects who really understood role of each activity. therefore, the class was noisy. they also did not finish the task on time. there were only half of the subjects participated actively toward the learning process on that day. on the other hand, in the beginning of the lesson in the second cycle, i explained the material again. on that day, she did not start the explanation before all of the subjects really paid attention to her. therefore, all of the subjects listened the explanation seriously so they really understood the material and role of the learning process. consequently, in the 2nd cycle, the learning process ran better. they finished the task on time. almost all of the subjects participated actively toward the learning process. furthermore, there was not any subjects who made useless noisy. since the game was an interesting activity, the subjects played it enthusiastically. before playing the game, they listened role of the game seriously. in the 1st cycle, almost all of the subjects actively participated in playing the game. in the second cycle, participation of the subjects improved because there was a present for the winner of the game. therefore, in the 2nd cycle, all of the subjects contributed in playing the game. there was not any subjects who did another activity when the game was played. based on the facts above, she concluded that by doing several modified steps in the 2nd cycle, the learning process run better. all of the aspects in 2nd cycle observation checklist improved. c. improvement of the subjects opinion and interest the subjects‟ opinion and interest were known from result of the questionnaires and the interview. i compared results of 1st and 2nd cq. almost all of aspects in the questionnaires improved. the highest improvement was the improvement related to the subjects‟ interest toward vocabulary learning process. subjects‟ interest toward the vocabulary learning process improved in the second cycle. in the 1st cq, there was not any subject answered that they liked vocabulary learning process. according to them, learning vocabulary was difficult to be done because they had to remember thousands words. the subjects changed their mind after nurul saofa aulia / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 10 they had 2nd cycle learning process. therefore, there were several subjects who changed their answer to be interested in vocabulary learning process. the other aspects also improved, such as the subjects‟ opinion about the advantages of the game, effectiveness of the game, their motivation in vocabulary learning process, and sustainability of the game. their opinion and interest changed after conducting the 2nd cycle. in the first cycle, the subjects‟ interest and motivation in learning english were low. after having the 2nd cycle which was done by several modified activities, their interest and motivation improved. this fact was also supported by result of the interview. from the result of the instruments, it showed that teaching technique had a big influence in the success of a learning process. conclusions and suggestions based on the data analysis in previous chapter, conclusions and suggestions are offered. based on the detailed data analysis in previous chapter, several conclusions can be derived as follows. firstly, the subjects of this study really lacked vocabulary mastery. it was proved by their scores of the initial pre-test (ipt). the average of their ipt scores was 64. secondly, in order to solve the problem, the manual super text twist game technique was applied in the learning process. the game used the words which were learned in the learning process. as a result, the subjects could learn vocabulary and do an interesting activity at the same time. therefore, by playing the game, their vocabulary mastery improved. thirdly, the game technique was a good solution for improving vocabulary mastery. it was proved by the significant increase of the subjects‟ scores in vocabulary tests. the average of the initial pre-test score was 64, while the final post-test was 80. in addition, after learning vocabulary by using the technique, the subjects‟ interest and motivation were better. this fact supported by the answers from the questionnaires. moreover, there was an improvement of the subjects‟ behavior in participating in all steps of the learning process. referring to conclusions above, some suggestions are offered as follows. firstly, since the students really lack vocabulary, she suggested that they should learn vocabulary intensively by learning vocabulary continually. they can do it individually or classically. secondly, english teachers of junior high school are expected to give some vocabulary drills in every teaching learning process so that the students will be more familiar with the english words. thirdly, this study should inspire teachers to develop their teaching process. they should provide some interesting activities in order to increase the students‟ motivation and participation in the learning process. one of the interesting activities is playing the game. references anggorojati, a. 2007. the use of hangman on computer game to increase the students‟ vocabulary mastery. final project english department fbs unnes. burns, a. 2010. doing action research in english language teaching: a guide for practitioners. new york: routledge. burns, a. 1999. collaborative action research for english language teachers. cambrigde: cambridge university press. cahyono, b. y. and utami widiati. 2008. the teaching of efl vocabulary in indonesian context: the state of the art. teflin journal. 18/1. hlm. 1 – 17. cameron, l. 2001. teaching languages to young learners. united kingdom: cambridge university press. daller, h. , james m. , and jeanine t. 2007. modelling and assesing vocabulary knowledge. cambridge: cambridge university press. gass, s. m. and selinker. 1994. second language acquisition: an introductory course. amsterdam: john benjamins. nurul saofa aulia / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 11 heaton, j.b. 1979. writing english language test. london: longman. hirsh, d. and p. nation. 1992. what vocabulary size is needed to read unsimplified texts for pleasure? reading in a foreign language. 8/2. hlm. 689-696. kemmis, s. & mctaggart, r. 1988. the action research planner. geelong: deakin university press. khabibah. 2006. the use of pictured-boardgame as a vocabulary teaching technique. final project english department fbs unnes. lewis, g. and gunther, b. 2010. games for children. oxford: oxford university press. mccharty, m. j. 1990. vocabulary. oxford: oxford university press. nam, j. 2010. linking research and practice: effective strategies for teaching vocabulary in the esl classroom. tesl canada journal. 28/1. hlm. 127 – 135. nation, i.s.p. 1990. teaching and learning vocabulary. boston: heinle & heinle. nation, i. s. p. 1993. using dictionaries to estimate vocabulary size: essential but rarely followed procedures. language testing 10: 37-40. nunan, d. 1992. research methods in language learning. cambridge: cambridge university press. nuryati, s. 2007. the use of domino game pictures as a technique in teaching vocabulary related to simple noun phrases. final project english department fbs unnes. nurweni, a. 1997. how many words do senior high school students acquire per week. teflin journal, 8(1): 103-115. schmitt, n. and mccarthy, m. 1997. vocabulary: description, acquisition, and pedagogy. united kingdom: cambridge university press. sugiyono. 2010. metode penelitian pendidikan (pendekatan kuantitatif, kualitatif, dan r&d). bandung: alfabeta. syamsuddin and vismaia s. d. 2007. metode penelitian pendidikan bahasa. bandung: remaja rosdakarya. thornbury, s. 2004. how to teach vocabulary. london: longman. wallace, j. michael. 1982. teaching vocabulary. london: briddles. ltd 1 elt forum 5 (2) (2016) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt error analysis on the use of prepositions in students’ writing (a case study of the eleventh grade students of sma negeri 9 semarang in the academic year of 2014/2015) pindho anjayani drs. suprapto, m. hum. english department. faculty of languages and arts. state university of semarang. aticle info ________________ article history: received in april 2016 approved in april 2016 published in may 2016 ________________ keywords: error analysis, preposition, writing. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ the focus of this study is error analysis on the use of prepositions in students’ writing made by the eleventh grade students of sma negeri 9 semarang. this study was conducted to find out the students’ dominant errors on the use of prepositions in their writings and to explain how students use prepositions in their writings. this study was categorized into descriptive qualitative research. the population of this study was the eleventh grade students of sma negeri 9 semarang in the academic year of 2014/2015. the population was 252 students and the writer chose 72 students from two classes consist of class xi ipa 3 and xi ipa 5 as the subjects. the writer used purposed random sampling because the population was homogenous. the data was analyzed using error analysis method. the result of data analysis showed that from 1002 prepositions found in 72 students’ writing. there were 117 incorrect preposition usage or 11.68%. the dominant error was the use of preposition of place which was 66.67% or 78 errors. however, the students were able to use prepositions correctly because in general they could use the appropriate prepositions in their writing. the writer saw that some of students were still confused in choosing the appropriate prepositions. some of them knew the function of prepositions but they overgeneralized the information from target language in every structure of language they found. they also tried to combine information from their native language (indonesian) and second language they are learning (english). in general, those errors were mostly caused by interlingual transfer. the writer hopes that the teacher could be aware of the importance of media to transfer information about preposition effectively and efficiently. the writer also hopes the government and syllabus developer could understand the importance of preposition as the part of grammar in english. in addition, they could allocate more time and portion to include preposition as the important material for the students. © 2016 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: poojavanica@gmail.com issn 2252-6706 pindho anjayani / journal of english language teaching 5 (2) (2016) 2 introduction background of the study humans need to learn language to convey their intension or opinion to others in a community. their ability to communicate clearly and fluently to other refers to language performance. in order to use language well, we have to master the language competence. language competence covers some skills and components. in language learning, there are four skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. as stated by morrow in demirbaş (2013:108), receptive and productive skills are the combination of four skills – listening, reading, speaking, and writing skills. therefore, we can divide the language skills into two types. first is receptive skill. it is a term used for reading and listening skills where meaning is extracted from the discourse. according to harmer (2007:265), productive skill is the term for speaking and writing skills where students actually have to produce language themselves. as stated by tarigan in the article entitled the definition of writing according to some experts, writing as productive skills for writing an indirect communication and the nature of the character is very different from that expressed by speaking directly, therefore writing is included an ability. meanwhile according to wilga (1980) cited in ningsih (2004:35), writing or composition is the expression of ideas in a consecutive way, according to graphic convention of the language, the ultimate aims of a written at this stage to be able to express himself in a polished literary from which requires the utilization of a special vocabulary and a certain refinement of a structure. it can be concluded that writing is the activity of making a recording language in a piece of paper or any other areas to express the idea and message from the writer including the usage of vocabulary and structure of language. writing is also created by particular set of symbol, and letter for representing the wordings of particular language. the components in language include several things, such as: lexical, phonological, semantic, syntactic, pragmatic and grammar. all of those components should be mastered so that we can use language well and can be understood by others. grammar covers several important aspects in language such as, prepositions, articles, singular or plural form, irregular verbs, tenses, etc. some of them seem like a small aspect which do not have important role in language, for examples, prepositions and articles. they are as important as other aspects in language. these aspects also become a problem for the foreign language learners. they often make mistake in using preposition and article so that it influences their production of language. seaton and y.h. mew (2007:132) define preposition as a word that connects one thing with another, showing how they are related. it is usually followed by a noun or pronoun. meanwhile, brown (2004:958) defines preposition as a word used to express some relation of different things or thoughts to each other, and is generally placed before a noun or a pronoun. we could find several kinds of english prepositions with different functions which are usually used. there are preposition of place, preposition of time, preposition of movement, preposition to show a method, reason, accompaniment, etc. the foreign language learners will get confused if they do not understand the rules and the meaning of prepositions. if it happens, there will be misleading in conveying a message. one simple example is when a student uses preposition of place. the student says “the book is above the table” instead of “the book is on the table” to show that the book is located on surface of the table. the listener will think that the book is flying if the student says “the book is above the table”. another example is when the student says “the black box is below the white box” instead of “the white box is under the white box” to show that the white box is resting on the surface of black box. if the student says “the white box is below the black box”, it means that there is a space pindho anjayani / journal of english language teaching 5 (2) (2016) 3 between the white box and the black box. if those kinds of mistake are neglected and happen constantly, it might be an error and fossilized. lam (2009) as cited by lorincz and gordon (2012:1), states that the learners cannot depend on prepositional knowledge from their first language. if learners do make assumptions of semantic equivalence between the first and second languages, it often results in prepositional error. the second language learners often find difficulties in using english prepositions because there are differences in their first language and english prepositions. they have to learn the new form and master all the prepositions. it makes learners get confused between their first language rule and english. research problems the research questions of this study are as follows: 1. what is the dominant error on the use of prepositions found in the students’ writing? 2. how do students use prepositions in their writing? purposes of the study the purposes of the study are as follows: 1. to find out the students’ dominant errors on the use of prepositions in students’ writing; and 2. to explain how students use prepositions in their writing. research methodology the writer gathered the supporting data from the observation at the eleventh grade students of sma negeri 9 semarang as the population. as stated by sugiyono (2009:80) that the population is a generalization region consisting of: objects / subjects which have certain qualities and characteristics. they will be defined by the researchers to be studied and then drawn conclusions. in addition, sugiyono (2009:81) also defines sample as a part of the number and characteristics possessed by the population. samples that were taken from the population should be truly representative so that conclusions which drawn may be applied to all populations. in conducting this research, the writer used purposed random sampling because the population was homogenous. sugiyono (2009:82) explains that it is defined as simple random sampling because the members which are samples of the population is randomly without regarding to level that exists in the population. in this sampling, each subject has the same right and chance to be chosen as the sample. from the consideration above, the writer took two classes of the eleventh grade students of sma negeri 9 semarang as sample. those are class xi ipa 3 and xi ipa 5. she took those two classes because they were taught by the same teachers, have the same level of class, and they were not differentiated between upper class and lower class. as stated by sugiyono (2009:137) based on how or techniques of data collection, the data collection can be done with interviews, questionnaires, observation, and combination of them. the writer collected the data by conducting a writing test using a free writing test. by conducting the writing test, the writer got the product from each student. the writing products were analyzed according to focus of the research which is the english preposition. the writer used four steps of error analysis as stated by corder in ellis (1994:48) to explain how the prepositions were used in students’ writing. there are the following steps: 1. collecting the sample of language learners in this step, the writer collected the data from the students by conducting a writing test. 2. identifying the errors after collecting the data, the writer identified the errors. since the focus of the research was about the using of preposition, the writer identified the occurrence of errors in using prepositions. 3. describing the errors after identifying and classifying the errors made by the students, the writer described pindho anjayani / journal of english language teaching 5 (2) (2016) 4 the errors. the writer analyzed each error based on the four categories of errors such as omission, addition, misinformation, and misordering. 4. explaining the errors in this step, the writer explained how and why the errors made by the students could occur. it concerned with the source of errors. 5. evaluating the errors after knowing the source of errors, the writer evaluated the errors. she gave some explanation how prepositions used by the students in their writing product. their writing product and errors which occurred can show their comprehension in using prepositions. errors can be done by some sources and causes. in finding the sources of the errors made by the students, the writer used theory from brown (2000:223), who has explained the sources which influence second language learner in making error. 1. interlingual transfer in this stage, the system of the second language is familiar and the native language is the only previous linguistic system upon which the learner can draw. in the other word, the error is the result of transfer from the native language. the second language learners try to combine their information from their native language and second language they are learning. 2. intralingual transfer in this stage, the second language learners have learned target language. they overgeneralized the information from target language in every structure of language the find. 3. context of learning it refers to the situation in the case of untutored second language learning. the learners find different information from what they learn in class and the situation outside the class. it also can happen because of the incorrect information from the teacher. findings and discussions after collecting the data, the writer read and identified errors from the students’ worksheet. from 1002 prepositions found in 72 students’ writing, there were 869 correct usages of prepositions. in addition, the writer found 117 errors or 11.68% of preposition usage. from the 117 errors, they were classified into the following: table 4.1 classifications of error from the table above, we can see the frequency of each error and the percentages. the writer can also conclude that the dominant error is the using of preposition of place. there were 78 errors or 66.67%. from the findings, it can be said that the students find problems in using prepositions. the students are still confused in using every type of prepositions. they know some prepositions and the general function, but they are still confused to choose the appropriate preposition for the context. for examples, the students made sentences: (1) at solo we visited historic sites on solo. (2) on the second day, we spend the night at solo city. (3) the next day we went to salatiga city to my house at salatiga city, the examples above show that the student knew preposition at and on are used to show a place. however he did not know that the appropriate preposition to show a city is in. it no . types of error quantity percentages 1. preposition of place 78 66.67% 2. preposition of time 25 21.37% 3. preposition to show a partition 3 2.56% 4. preposition to show the origin of something 2 1.71% 5. preposition to show a possession 1 0.85% 6. preposition to show a method 3 2.56% 7. preposition to show an accompaniment 2 1.71% 8. preposition to show the source of something 2 1.71% 9. preposition to show the material of something 1 0.85% total 117 pindho anjayani / journal of english language teaching 5 (2) (2016) 5 made him use the prepositions of place randomly without knowing the correct rule for each preposition. in other case, the students also knew the function of preposition but they overgeneralized the information from target language in every structure of language they find, for example: i choose into ghost’s house by on foot. the example shows that the student knows that preposition by is used to show a method. he also knew that preposition on should be added before word foot, but he overgeneralized information that he should put preposition by in the prepositional phrase to show a method. he overgeneralized it and made a mistake in another structure. the writer also saw that the students are confused and try to combine their information from their native language (indonesian) and target language they are learning (english), for examples: (1) sragen is village from my mother. (2) we until selekta park at 15.00 am. from the examples above, the writer sees that the structure and the use of prepositions are familiar with the native language of the students. it seemed like the errors happened because of interlingual transfer. in this case, the students’ writings were influenced by their native language. in general, the students found difficulties in making english sentences directly. they sometimes make it in their native language first and then translated into target language. it becomes problem when they translated their works, they ignored the rule in the target language. the writer found that they translated it literary. that was the reason why their sentences felt unfamiliar and strange. in addition, it felt strange because the sentences were written in english, but the structure of the sentence was in indonesian. most of students made errors because of intralingual transfer. since english is their foreign language, it is hard for them to fully comprehend the types of preposition and each function. they also have to comprehend the rules in making prepositional phrase which is quite different from their native language’s rules. when they found the rule of one preposition, they often overgeneralized it. it was one of common errors made by the students. they ignored the rule and used the prepositions for inappropriate context of sentence. the dominant cause of those errors is interlingual transfer. as it stated before, interlingual transfer is influenced by native language. unfortunately, this interlingual transfer becomes a negative transfer in language acquisition. conclusions and suggestions the result of the study shows that from 1002 prepositions found in 72 students’ writing, there were 117 incorrect preposition usage or 11.68%. in other words, in general the students are able to use preposition correctly. the dominant errors made by the students are errors on the use of prepositions of place. there were 78 errors of preposition usage or 66.67%. in addition, the possible factor of errors is interlingual transfer. the students were influenced by their native language. they also overgeneralized the information from the target language. based on the conclusions above, the writer would like to present suggestions: the suggestions for the teachers are they should be aware of the importance of media used in the class. the teachers could use medium to transfer information about prepositions effectively and efficiently. they could give some practices in using prepositions so that the students will understand and comprehend the use of prepositions. the teachers should give assignment or homework to read more. by giving an assignment to the students so they will read a text or a book, the students will be familiar with the use of prepositions in a context. the writer hopes the government and syllabus developer could understand the importance of preposition as the part of grammar and the importance of grammar in learning english. moreover, those reasons can be the consideration for government to allocate more time and portion to include preposition as the important material for the students. pindho anjayani / journal of english language teaching 5 (2) (2016) 6 the suggestion for the students is they should give some time to read texts in english. it will make them familiar with english language, grammar, sentence structure also the use of small important material such as preposition. the students will find concrete examples of the use of preposition. they will see how to use prepositions in sentences and some types of preposition they can use. in addition, they will be able to use prepositions in their writings. references brown, h. douglas. 2000. principles of language learning and teaching. new york: longman. dermibas, m. n. 2013. performance differences between elt freshmen’s receptive and productive skills. the journal of language and linguistic studies, 9(1), 107-127. available at: http://www.jlls.org/vol9no1/107-127.pdf [accessed on 11/03/15] ellis, rod. 1994. the study of second language acquisition. new york: oxford university press. lorincz, kristen and rebekah gordon. 2012. difficulties in learning prepositions and possible solutions. linguistic portofolios: vol. 1, article 14. available at: http://repository.stcloudstate.edu/stcloud_lin g/vol1/iss1/14 [accessed on 17/04/13] ningsih, rahmawati. 2004. error analysis in the students’ writing (a case study with the second year students of sltpn 239 tanjung barat). final project: syarif hidayatullah state islamic university jakarta. pendidikan bahasa inggris: the definition of writing according to some experts. available at: http://www.pendidikanbahasainggris.com/20 13/06/the-definition-of-writing-accordingto.html. [accessed on 11/03/2015] seaton, anne and y.h. mew. 2007. basic english grammar for english language learner. united states: saddleback educational publishing. sugiyono. 2009. metode penelitian kuantitatif, kualitaif dan r&d. bandung: alfabeta. 1 elt forum 5 (1) (2016) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the effectiveness of journalist question technique to improve students’ writing skill in narrative text (an experimental study at eighth grade students of smp n 19 semarang in the academic year of 2014/2015) puspa dewi ayu kurniyasari english department. faculty of languages and arts. state university of semarang. aticle info ________________ article history: received in february 2016 approved in march 2016 published in april 2016 ________________ keywords: journalist questions technique, writing, narrative text, experimental research. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this research is about using journalist question technique for teaching writing in junior high school. journalist question technique is a technique that can help the students to explore their idea in writing to cover the content of the narrative text. this research that aims to investigate the effectiveness of journalist questions technique to improve students’ writing skill in narrative text. the research design used was an experimental research. tests were used as the instruments to collect the data and information. before conducting the experiment, try out was given to 33 students of viii-b to make sure that they were valid and reliable. the researcher used class viii-d as the experimental group and viii-c as the control group. both classes were in the same level, background, and competence. the result of this research showed that the average score of the pre-test in the experimental group was 54.78 and the post-test was 66.42. the improvement on the experimental group was 11.64. while, on the control group, the average score of the pre-test was 53.69 and the post-test was 60.48. the improvement on the control group was 6,73. from the t-test computation of the post-test score, the t-value was higher than t-table (t-value > t-table = 2.083 > 1.998). therefore, the null hypothesis was rejected and the working hypothesis was accepted. it means that there is a significant difference between the experimental group and the control group. the results indicate that journalist question technique technique is effective in improving the writing skill at the eighth graders of smp negeri 19 semarang in the academic year of 2014/2015. it is suggested that the findings of this study could be applied regularly and continously or developed by the english teachers to have a better teaching writing. © 2016 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: puspadewiayu@gmail.com issn 2252-6706 puspa dewi ayu kurniyasari / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 2 introduction in learning english, there are four skills that have to be mastered by students. those skills are listening, speaking, reading and writing skills. writing is considered as the most difficult skillif it is compared to the other skills. it becomes difficult because it needs many competencies including grammar, diction, cohesion, etc to express theideas or opinions. according to brown (2001:335), “the process of writing requires an entirely different set of competencies. written products are often the result of thinking, drafting, and revising procedures that requires specialized skills, skills that not every speaker develop naturally.” the result of observation that the researcher conducted in smp n 19 semarang showed that writing is also the most difficult skill for students in junior high school. the students sometimes face many problems in learning english, especially in writing. they will face with many difficulties like expressing their idea, mastering the competencies, through the steps of writing. based on school based curriculum in junior high school, there are three kinds of text taught in the eight grade of senior high school, they are: descriptive, recount, and narrative. narrative text is considered as the difficult text to create because there are difficult things like the foreign words and the complicated cotent that have to be learned by the eighth grade students. the other texts like descriptive and recount are not too difficult for the students because it uses a simple words and the content is easier to be learned. in order to enable students to express their ideas in writing, therefore, the teacher will help the students by using many kinds of techniques so that the students will enjoy the teaching learning process. in addition, they will easier to learn about the subject taught by the teacher. one of the alternatives techniques is using journalist question technique which is developed by charles et. al. (1985:129). in this technique, there are six key questions (journalist questions) that journalism students are taught to answer somewhere in their news articles to make sure that they have covered the whole story. the journalist question technique is used to help the students in writing to cover the whole story in narrative text. literature review there have been a number of researchers conducted some studies related to the use of journalist question technique to improve students’ writing skill in narrative text such as octaviani, santi (2009), rokhayani, atik(2006), nurdwiansyah, denni (2013), kurniati(2015), and zulfida (2012). from the above previous research findings, the researcher would like to use journalists question technique in writing narrative text with the eighth grade students of smp n 19 semarang in the academic year 2014/2015. the researcher would like to know whether it is an effective technique or not to use in teaching narrative text. the journalist question technique journalists question is one of the techniques to teach narrative text text. it consists of 6 words (who, what, where, when, why and how) which are use by reporters to ask interviewees. those words can stimulate the students to generate their ideas in writing narrative texts. based on urquhart and mciver (2005), "journalists' questions (who, what, where, when, why and how), or the questions that are referred to as the five ws and one h, have been the mainstay of newsrooms across the country. the first word is who. “who” is used to explore about the person in the news. the second word is what. “what” is used to explore about something happened in the news. the third word is when. “when” is used to explore about the time in the news. the fourth word is where. “where” is used to explore about the location of the news. the fifth word is why. “why” is used to explore about cause and result of the news. the sixth word is how. “how” is used to explore about how is something happened. the students can use that words to explore their idea in writing narrative text. it can help tem to explore their idea in covering the whole story of writing narrative text. puspa dewi ayu kurniyasari / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 3 the general concept of writing based on meyers (2005: 2), “writing is a way to produce language you do naturally when you speak. writing is speaking to other on a paper or on a computer screen. writing is also an action, a process of discovering and organizing your ideas, putting them on a paper and reshaping and revising them”. according to white and arndt(1991:5) in harmer (2003) “writing is re-writing that revision, seeing with new eyes, has central role to play in the act of creating text”. in their model, process writing is in interrelated set of recursive stages which includes : drafting structuring (ordering informatin, experimenting with arrangements, etc) reviewing (checking context, connections, assessing impact, editing) focusing (that is making sure you are getting the message across you want to get across) generating ideas and evaluation (assessing the draft) one of the disadvantages of getting students to concentrate on the process of writing is that it takes time : time to brainstorm their ideas, time to draft a piece of writing andf then, with the teacher’s help perhaps, review it and edit it in various ways before, perhaps, changing the focus, generating more ideas, redrafting, reediting and so on. this cannot be done in fifteen minutes. therefore, writing is not an easy process for the students. it has several steps to be done by the students guiding b y the teacher. the teacher has a significant section in students steps of writing. methods of investigation in this study, the researcher decides to use an experimental research design with the use of non-equivalent control group design. best (1981:73) states that “the pre-test post-test nonequivalent groups design is often used in classroom experiments when experimental and control groups are such naturally assembled groups as intact classes which maybe similar”. the design of the pre-test-post-test nonequivalent group design can be described as the following: the pre-test-post-test non-equivalent group design o1 x o2 o1 o3=pre-tests o3 c o4 o2 o4=post-tests (best, 1981:73) where; x : treatment using journalist questions technique c : treatment without using journalist questions technique o1 : pre-test for experimental group o2 : post-test for experimental group o3 : pre-test for control group o4 : post-test for control group the population was eight classes of eighth grade students of smp n 19 semarang. it consisted of 258 students. the sample was viii-c as the experimental group and viii-d as the control group. the instrument of this research was test. before the test is used to collect the data, the try-out test was conducted to measure the validity and reliability of the test. the researcher used t-test based on arikunto (2002) to measure the significance of the pre-test and post-test of the both groups, research findings tryout the tryout test was conducted on may 15th, 2015 in class viii b. the index validity of number 1 (grammar) was 0,7848, it was found by calculated using pearson product moment. then from the table of critical r-value, the significant level 5% for n = 33 is 0.344. based on the data, the index validity of the item number 1 (grammar) was considered to be valid because the result of the computation was higher than critical r-value. the index validity of number 2 (vocabulary) was 0,861802 , number 3 (mechanics (spelling)) was 0,769964 , number 4 (fluency) was 0,88024, and number 5 (relevance (content)) was 0,88024 , it is all higher than rvalue which considered to be valid. based on the puspa dewi ayu kurniyasari / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 4 result, the reliability of the test showed that the estimated r11 was 0.871772. then from the table of critical r-value with significant level 5% for n=32 is 0.349. it can be considered that the test was reliable because r11 was higher than r-value. pre-test a pre-test was given before doing the experiment. the pre-test of experimental group was conducted on may 18th, 2015 in class viiid and the pre-test of the control group was conducted on may 19th, 2015 in class viiic. the result of the pre-test find out that the average score of the experimental group was 54.78 and the control group was 53.69. the result of t-value was 0.374 and the result of t-table was 1.998. t-value was lower than t-table (0,374 < 1.998). it meant there is no significant difference between experimental and control groups, and it was relatively the same before the treatment was given. treatments in conducting the experiment, the treatment was given to the students after the pretest. the viii-c as the experimental group was taught by using journalist question technique as a technique to learn narrative text, meanwhile viiid as the control group was taught by discussion guided teaching. the first treatment for experimental group was done on may 20th, 2015 and the second meeting was on may 25th, 2015. on the other hand the treatments for control group were done on may 21st, 2015 and on may 26th, 2015. after doing the treatment, the researcher found that there were some advantages of using journalist question technique. the advantages of using journalist question technique are easy to learn and help the students in generating their ideas. besides the advantages of using journalist question technique, the researcher also found out the disadvantages of this technique. the teacher have to explain clearly about the key questions so that the students can understand well about the questions when they applied them to create a narrative text. post-test a post-test was given after doing the experiment. the post-test of experimental group was conducted on may 27th, 2015 in class viiid and the pre-test of the control group was conducted on may 28st, 2015 in class viiic. the result of the post-test find out that the average score of the experimental group was 66,42 and the control group was 60,48. the result of t-value was 2.49 and the result of t-table was 1.998. t-value was lower than t-table (2.49 < 1.998). it meant there is a significant difference between experimental and control groups. however, the improvement of students writing skill in experimental group was higher than in the control group. the significance difference of two tests the computation of the data was made after analyzing the sudents score. by comparing the difference means of those two groups is a way to identify the significant difference between the experimental and control groups. the data being compared were the difference between the two means of the pre-test and post-test because the data showed the result of the treatments. based on best (1981:225), the difference between the two means could be computed as follows : 𝑀 = ∑ 𝑋 𝑁 m1= ∑ 𝑋1 𝑁1 m2= ∑ 𝑋2 𝑁2 where; m = mean m1 = mean of experimental group m2 = mean of control group ∑= sum of x = scores in distribution n= number of scores the mean of the experimental group on the pre-test is: m1= ∑ 𝑋 𝑁 = 1808 33 = 54.78 the mean of the experimental group on the post-test is: m1= ∑ 𝑋 𝑁 = 2192 33 = 66.42 puspa dewi ayu kurniyasari / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 5 the mean of the control group on the pretest is: m2= ∑ 𝑋 𝑁 = 1772 33 = 53.69 the mean of the control group on the posttest is: m2= ∑ 𝑋 𝑁 = 1996 33 = 60.48 based on the calculation above, it can be seen that the mean of the pre-test in the experimental group was 54,78 and the post-test was 66,42. the different meanfrom those score between pre-test and post-test in the experimental group was 11,64. while,on the control group, the mean of the pre-test was 53.69 and the posttestwas 60.48. the different meanfrom those score between pre-test and post-test on the control group was 6.73. it can be concluded that the different mean from the average score of the students in the experimental group was higher than the control group. conclusions the purpose of this research is to find out the improvement and the effectiveness of using journalist question technique at the eighth grade students of smp n 19 semarang in the academic year 2014/2015. based on the research that has been done, the researcher drew some conclusions. firstly, the computation of the students improvement showed that in the experimental group, the average score of the pre-test was 54.78 and the post-test was 66.42. the difference between the pre-test and post-test score was 11.64. the post-test score was higher than the pretest score, it meant that there is an improvement of students skill in writing narrative text. in addition, the improvement of students skill in writing narrative text can be seen at the t-test of the gain score between the pre-test and post-test of the experimental and the control groups. the t-test was 2.29, it was higher than t-table (1.998). it meant that there is a significant improvement of students skill in writing narrative text. secondly, the effectiveness of using journalist questions technique could be drawn by looking at the significant differences between the experimental and the control groups. the average score of the pre-test in the experimental group was 54.78 and the post-test was 66.42. the improvement of the experimental group was 11.64. while, in the control groups, the average score of the pre-test was 53.69 and the post-test was 60.48. the improvement in the control group was 6.73. the means of both groups increased in the post-test but the mean of the post-test in the experimental group was higher than the control group. the computation showed that the t-test value of the difference means between experimental and control group (2.083) was higher than t-table (1.998). it means that there is significant difference mean between experimental and control group. it can be concluded that it is more effective to teach writing narrative text by using journalist questions technique to improve students’ skill compared to teach writing narrative text without using it. references arikunto, s. 2002. dasar-dasar evaluasi pendidikan. jakarta: bumi aksara best, j.w. 1981. research in education. london: prentice-hall. brown, h douglas. 2001. teaching by principles. new york: longman. charles, m. et.al. 1985. exploring american english. new york: macmillan publishing company. harmer, jeremy. 2003. the practice of english language teaching. malaysia: cpm, cambridge. kurniati. 2015. journal of the effect of peer editing technique toward writing skill in narrative text of the first year students at sman 3 rambah hilir in the academic year of 2014/2015. online at http://ejournal.upp.ac.id/index.php/binggrisfkip/arti cle/view/300 (accessed 02/02/2016). meyers a. 2005. gateways to academics writing: effective sentences, paragraph and essay. new york: pearson education. http://e-journal.upp.ac.id/index.php/binggrisfkip/article/view/300 http://e-journal.upp.ac.id/index.php/binggrisfkip/article/view/300 http://e-journal.upp.ac.id/index.php/binggrisfkip/article/view/300 puspa dewi ayu kurniyasari / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 6 nurdwiansyah, denni. (2013). journal of teaching reading comprehension on narrative text by using powerpoint animations in the second year students of sma negeri 1 kembayan in academic year 2012/2013. online at http://jurnal.untan.ac.id/index.php/jpdpb/ar ticle/view/9180 (accessed 02/02/2016). octaviani, santi. 2009. a descriptive study on students’ ability in writing narrative text (the case of the ninth grade students of smp n 1 cepu in the academic year of 2007/2008). semarang: unnes. rokhayani, atik. 2006. error analysis of simple past tense in narrative text made by the 8th grade students of smp 1 jekulo kudus in the academic year 2005/2006”. semarang: unnes. sari saragih, zulfida. 2012. journal of improving students’ achievement in writing narrative text through think-pair-share technique at smp n 1 teluk mengkudu in the academic year of 2012/2013. online at http://jurnal.unimed.ac.id/2012/index.php/j elt/article/view/364 (accessed 02/02/2016). urquhart and mciver. 2005. teaching writing in the content areas. available online at http://www.kilibro.com/books/97814166017 15/teaching-writing-in-the-content-areas (accessed 11/02/2015). http://jurnal.untan.ac.id/index.php/jpdpb/article/view/9180 http://jurnal.untan.ac.id/index.php/jpdpb/article/view/9180 http://jurnal.unimed.ac.id/2012/index.php/jelt/article/view/364 http://jurnal.unimed.ac.id/2012/index.php/jelt/article/view/364 http://www.kilibro.com/books/9781416601715/teaching-writing-in-the-content-areas http://www.kilibro.com/books/9781416601715/teaching-writing-in-the-content-areas 1 elt forum 5 (1) (2016) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the effectiveness of using two stay two stray as a technique in improving students speaking ability (a quasi experimental research at the tenth grade students of sma taruna nusantara magelang in the academic year of 2015/2016) octavia puspaning maharani english department. faculty of languages and arts. state university of semarang. aticle info ________________ article history: received in february 2016 approved in march 2016 published in april 2016 ________________ keywords: two stay two stray, speaking, experimental research. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this research is about using two stay two stray technique for teaching speaking in senior high school. two stay two stray is an interactive technique that encourages the participants to be more creative and active in group work. this research aimed to find out whether or not two stay two stray technique is effective to teach speaking at the tenth graders of sma taruna nusantara magelang in the academic year of 2015/2016. the research design used was quasi experimental research. tests and observation checklist were used as the instruments to collect the data and information. before conducting the experiment, try out was given to 30 students of x-7 to make sure that they were valid and reliable. the researcher used class x-1 as the experimental group and x-2 as the control group. both classes were in the same level, background, and competence. the result of the pre-test showed that the mean score of the experimental group was 62.27 and the mean score of the control group was 60.47. after the treatment, the mean score of experimental group was 83. 86 and the mean score of control group was 77.86. it could be seen that there was an improvement after the treatments dealing with their speaking ability. from the t-test computation of the post-test score, the t-value was higher than t-table (t-value > t-table = 4.167 > 2.750). therefore, the null hypothesis was rejected and the working hypothesis was accepted. it means that there is a significant difference between the experimental group and the control group. the results indicate that two stay two stray technique is effective in improving the speaking ability at the tenth graders of sma taruna nusantara magelang in the academic year of 2015/2016. it is suggested that the findings of this study could be applied regularly and continously or developed by the english teachers to have a better speaking teaching. © 2016 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: evergreenoctavia@gmail.com issn 2252-6706 octavia puspaning maharani / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 2 introduction english is getting more and more important in communication world. it is used as a medium for communication among people all over the world in both spoken and written forms. english is the first foreign language in indonesia. it is taught in all levels of school in indonesia, including elementary school, junior high school, and senior high school. in senior high school, english teachers have to make their class interesting with various methods, techniques, instrument and material in order to stimulate students to learn language skills effectively, especially in speaking. the result of observation that the researcher conducted in sma taruna nusantara showed that speaking is also the most frustrating for students in senior high school. the students sometimes face many problems in learning english, especially in speaking. the preliminary observation revealed that: (1) the students, sometimes, know what they want to say but they are shy to speak, (2) the students have low motivation in learning english, (3) the students are less confident because of their low motivation, (4) the students are afraid of making mistake, (5) many students who want to speak to other usually face some troubles such as cannot produce their ideas, argument or feeling communicatively, and (6) they sometimes can understand what other say but cannot be able to communicate it. in teaching english as a foreign language, teachers should teach four language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) particularly in order to make the students able to use english communicatively. teaching speaking is considered to be difficult among the four skills. chaney (1998) in kayi (2006) states that speaking is the process of building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety of contexts. learning to speak is obviously more difficult. it means that more effort is required by the students and various interesting activities are also required by the teacher. in order to enable students to express their ideas in speaking, teachers should apply creative methods and create various strategies. for example, in oral language class, the students should be taught with cooperative learning activity, so that, they can practice english communicatively. cooperative learning is a method of learning that involves students to work together in groups, obtain knowledge and enhance social skills. one of the alternatives techniques is using two stay two stray which is developed by kagan (1994). in this technique, there are four people in each group that will discuss a topic. then, two of them will stay as the expert and two others will stray to another group. the two stay two stray technique is used to encourage students to speak english communicatively. literature review there have been a number of researchers conducted some studies related to the use of two stay two stray technique in improving students’ speaking ability such as arsyanti (2014), fitriani (2014), zanwar (2014), tsou (2005), and temerova (2007). from the related of previous studies, i am inspired to do an experimental research on teaching speaking by using two stay two stray technique. however, this reseach is different from the studies above because this technique can give the students chances to express their ideas communicatively and creatively either in their own group or in the other group. they also should be active in teaching learning process and master the material they discussed because they have responsibility to deliver the material to the other group. general concept of two stay two stray technique there are many techniques in the cooperative learning. one of them is two stay two stray. two stay two stray is a teaching technique adopted from one stay three stray by spencer kagan (1994). the procedure of two stay two stray starts with forming groups of four. each group choose one topics or material that has been provided by the teacher. then, they discuss their topic. after that, they choose two members to octavia puspaning maharani / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 3 stay as the expert of the topic or material that they have. the other two members stray, they leave their group individually, not as the pair, and sit down next to the person as stayers to find out what the other groups have done, the two stay two stray technique is used. the stayers explain their group’s topic or material that they have discussed before. the class discusses, first in groups and then as the whole class, how two stay two stray involves components of cooperative learning and how it can be used in other contexts. the general concept of speaking speaking is expressing ideas, opinions, or feelings to others by using words or sounds of articulation in order to inform, to persuade, to entertain and that all can be learned by using some teaching learning methodologies. speaking skill in a second or foreign language is not easy to be learned. thornburry (2005:1) states that speaking is a part of daily life that we take it for granted. the average person produces tens of thousands of words a day, although some people, like auctioneers or politicians, may produce even more than that. so natural that we forget how we once struggled to achieve this ability until we have to learn how to do it all over again in a foreign language. it is because foreign language involves other language elements, such as grammar, rhythm, fluency, pronunciation and intonation. furthermore, a speaker has to think about how to deliver the message in order to convey the right meaning to audience or listener. methods of investigation in this research, i used quasi-experimental research design with the use of non-equivalent control group design. this study involved two groups: an experimental group and a control group. this research used pre-test and post-test to obtain the data. table 1 research design pre-test treatment post-test experimental group o1 x o2 control group o3 o4 the population in this study was the tenth grade students of sma taruna nusantara magelang in the academic year of 2015/2016. the number of the students was 360, which were divided into 12 classes. the sample was x-1 as the experimental group and x-2 as the control group. the instrument of this research was test and observation checklist. before the test is used to collect the data, the try-out test was conducted to measure the validity, reliability, discriminating power, and the difficulty level of the test. to measure the significance of the pre-test and posttest of the both groups, the researcher used t-test based on arikunto (2002). research findings tryout a try-out was given before doing the pretest because it was used to know the validity, reliability, difficulty level, and discriminating power of the rating aspects. the try-out was held on thursday, july 30th 2015. it was given to class x-7. the researcher did not use x-1 (the experimental group) or x-2 (the control group) as the subject in the try-out because the researcher wanted to know the quality of the rating scale that the researcher used before conducting the research. there were 30 students who did the test. the mean score was 60.99. the highest score was 86 and the lowest one was 34. the result showed that the items were valid and reliable. pre-test a pre-test was given before doing the experiment. it is aimed to measure their prior ability or knowledge before getting the treatments. the pre-test for x-1 as the experimental group was held on august 4th, 2015 and x-2 as the control group was held on august 5th, 2015. there were 60 students in both experimental and control groups who did the pretest. octavia puspaning maharani / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 4 from the pre-test result, the average scores of the students were analyzed. the average score of experimental group was 62.27, while the average score of control group was 60.47. although the result of pre-test showed the difference between the score average of control and experimental groups, but it was not very significant. it meant that the prior ability between experimental and control groups was relatively the same before the treatment was given. treatments in conducting the experiment, the treatment was given to the students after the pretest. the x-1 as the experimental group was taught by using two stay two stray as a technique to learn descriptive text, meanwhile x-2 as the control group was taught by classical guided teaching. the first treatment for experimental group was done on august 11th, 2015 and the second meeting was on august 18th, 2015. on the other hand the treatments for control group were done on august 12th, 2015 and on august 19th, 2015. after doing the treatment, the researcher found that there were some advantages of using two stay two stray technique. the advantages of using two stay two stray technique are easy to learn, building an active teaching and learning process, developing students’ cooperation, and building the students’ self-confidence. besides the advantages of using two stay two stray technique, the researcher also found out the disadvantages of this technique. firstly, this technique needs a lot of time. it needs more efforts and good preparation. secondly, this technique also makes the class noisy when they do the presentation in each group. it needs a class management skill from the teacher, especially in terms of the seat arrangement. post-test post-test was done after the treatment was given to the experimental class, in which the students of experimental class were taught descriptive text about places using two stay two stray, whereas students of control class were taught by classical guided teaching. post-test was given to both experimental and control groups. it is aimed to measure their ability or knowledge after getting the treatments. the post-tests for x-1 as the experimental group was held on august 25th, 2015 and x-2 as the control group was held on august 26th, 2015. there are 60 students in both experimental and control classes who did the post-test. from the post-test result, the average scores of the students were analyzed. the average score of experimental class was 83.86, while the average score of control class was 77.86. it can be concluded that the achievement of the experimental class who were taught using two stay two stray was higher than the control class who were taught using classical guided teaching. the significance difference of two tests to know the significant difference of the experiment, t-test formula was used in this research. it was done by comparing the t-value and t-table. the t-value was found from the score differences between pre-test and post-test both in experimental and control groups, while the t-table was found by consulting to the critical value on the table column. the difference of the means of the experimental and control groups was classified to be significant if the t-test was higher than the ttable. to measure the significance of the two groups, this formula was used: 𝑡 = 𝑀𝑥 − 𝑀𝑦 √( ∑ 𝑥2 + ∑ 𝑦2 𝑁𝑥 + 𝑁𝑦 − 2 ) ( 1 𝑁𝑥 + 1 𝑁𝑦 ) 𝑡 = 21.6 − 17.6 √( 227.2 + 579.2 30 + 30 − 2 ) ( 1 30 + 1 30 ) = 4.167 notes: t : t-value mx : difference gain of the experimental group students my : difference gain of the control group students ∑ 𝑥2 : total standard deviation of the experimental group ∑ 𝑦2 : total standard deviation of the control group octavia puspaning maharani / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 5 nx : the number of students of the experimental group ny : the number of students of the control group the t-table was 2.750. the obtained t-value was 4.167 so the t-value was higher than the critical value. it can be concluded that there is a significant difference between the experimental and control groups. this could reject the null hypothesis. therefore, based on the computation there was a significant difference between teaching speaking using two stay two stray and classical guided teaching. it could be seen from the result of the test, the students who were taught by two stay two stray got higher grades than the ones taught by classical guided teaching. conclusions the purpose of this research is to find out whether or not the use of two stay two stray is effective for teaching speaking at the tenth grade students of sma taruna nusantara in the academic year of 2015/2016. based on the research that has been done, the researcher drew some conclusions. firstly, there was a significant difference between the students taught by using two stay two stray technique and those who were taught by using classical guided teaching. it was proven by the calculation of the mean of the post-test (83.86) that was higher than the mean of pre-test (62.27). the obtained t-value (4.167) was higher than the t-table (2.750) which meant that there was a significant difference of the post-test result between experimental and control groups. besides tests, the researcher also conducted an observation to know the students’ improvement during the teaching and learning process using two stay two stray technique. the students showed positive responses in learning spoken descriptive text using two stay two stray technique. the improvement of the students during the teaching and learning process using two stay two stray technique was significant. secondly, the use of two stay two stray for teaching speaking at the tenth grade students of sma taruna nusantara in the academic year of 2015/2016 is effective because there was improvement of the students’ speaking achievement. it helps the students in learning english independently, especially speaking skill, and develops social skill among students of senior high school. two stay two stray can be used as a technique in teaching speaking because it is effective, simple, and this technique gives the students new experience in improving their speaking skill. by applying this technique, the students were encouraged to be active and creative. they need to work in group and compete with the other groups to solve the problem. it gave them more motivation during the learning process. in addition, teaching speaking using two stay two stray was very helpful for the improvement of the students’ speaking ability because in this technique, the students did not just listen to the teacher but also communicated with the others to discuss the material. references arikunto, s. 2002. dasar-dasar evaluasi pendidikan. jakarta: bumi aksara arikunto, s. 2006 prosedur penelitian suatu pendekatan praktik. (rev vi). jakarta: rineka cipta. arsyanti, y. 2014. talking chip technique to improve students’ speaking ability and motivation (classroom action research at the eighth grade of smp negeri 6 pekalongan in the academic year 2013/2014). final project. english department, faculty of languages and arts, semarang state university fitriani, y. 2014. the use of two-stay-two-stray technique to improve students’ motivation in learning reading comprehention (experimental research of eight grade students of smp negeri 01 petarukan in the academic year of 2013/2014). final project. english department. the faculty of languages and arts of semarang state university kagan, s. 1994. cooperative learning. san clamente, ca: kagan publishing octavia puspaning maharani / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 6 temerová, l. 2007. how to improve students’ communicative skills. thesis. department of english language and literature, faculty of education, masaryk university brno thornbury, s. 2005. how to teach speaking. new york: longman tsou, w. 2005. ‘improving speaking skill through oral classroom participation’ foreign language annals vol. 38 no. 1, pp. 46-55 zanwar, s. 2014. the use of jigsaw technique to improve student’s speaking ability in junior high school (the case of the eighth grade students of “smp n” 1 tembarak in the academic year of 2013/ 2014). final project. english department. faculty of languages and arts. semarang state university 1 elt forum 4 (1) (2015) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the comparison between the second mid-term english tests for the seventh gradersmade by the state and private school certified english teachers (the case of test items analysis of smp n 1 semarang and smp kesatrian 2 semarang in the academic year of 2013/2014) reza wisnu saputra english department. faculty of languages and arts. state university of semarang aticle info ________________ article history: received in juni 2015 approved in juli 2015 published in agustus 2015 ________________ keywords: english mid-term test, state and private certified english teachers, item analysis, validity, reliability, item facility, item discrimination power. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ one of the teacher’s competencies is the ability in designing a good test. designing a test is not an easy task to be done. even for a certified teacher who has already had lot of experiences in teaching and learning process. through this study, the writer wanted to find out the quality of the second mid-term english tests for the seventh graders made by state and private school certified english teachers. the objective of this study was to compare those tests in term of (1) the validity, (2) the reliability, (3) the item facility, and (4) the item discrimination power. the method used in this study was comparative quantitative research. the tests were takenfrom the teachers of smp n 1 semarang as the state school and smp kesatrian 2 semarang as the private school.from the result of the analysis, it was found that the quality of both tests were not good enough. there were 42 items out of 50 items from the mid-term test of smp n 1 semarang which did not meet the requirement as a good test. meanwhile, from the mid-term test of smp kesatrian 2 semarang, there were 38 items out of 50 items which did not meet the requirements as good test. however, from this result, the mid-term test of smp kesatrian 2 semarang was much better than the mid-term test of smp n 1 semarang. in conclusion, the qualities of the second mid-term english tests made by the state and private school certified english teachers still need to be revised carefully. especially, from the view of validity, reliability, item facility, and item discrimination. in addition, from the classification of the item which can be used from those tests, there was a little number of items which can be used.consequently, the certified english teachers need to improve their knowledge and ability in designing a good test for their students. © 2015 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: reza.wisnu@yahoo.com issn 2252-6706 reza wisnu saputra / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 2 introduction the quality of education can be seen through the teacher competencies. teachers have an important role in improving education quality. they transfer the knowledge to their students to be well-educated person. since 2007, government has striven for improving the quality of teacher by designing a program which is called certification. the aim of certification is also to improve teachers’ prosperity. the teacher and lecturer constitution article 16 states that through certification, it is expected that there will be also significant improvement in education. certification program will also guarantee the quality of teacher since there will be an examination to get this certification program. besides, the government believes that this program may eliminate the deceit in education world. in fact, some teachers may not transfer their knowledge to their students very well. the students find it difficult to perceive what teacher teaches. that problem may be related to the competency of the teacher. according to the government regulation no 19 in the year of 2005, there are four competencies which should be possessed by a teacher. they are pedagogic competency, personality competency, professionalism competency, and social competency. one of the teacher’s competencies which are very important is pedagogic competence. it deals with the teacher’s ability to organize teaching and learning process, comprehend students’ character, design assessment, and develop students’ potential (rifa’i: 2010). so, the competency of the teacher could be seen from the ability to design assessment. assessment is given by the teacher to find out whether the students understand what they have perceived during learning process. one kind of assessments which can be found in the school is test. the forms of test itself are many and various. one of them is multiple choice tests. the use of multiple choice tests is due to its ease of being administered. that is why many teachers use this kind of tests. although multiple choice tests are easy to be administered, this is also a kind of test which is difficult to be designed. the writer got experiences when he did the teaching practice in a certain school. he found that, in designing a mid-term test, the certified teacher only took the items from the internet whose quality were not clear enough. in fact, in designing a test, the teacher should consider the items very well. mid-term test is a test which is fully made by a teacher, not a group of teachers. it will test the ability of a teacher in designing a test individually. consequently, the writer wanted to find out the quality of mid-term test made by the other certified teachers. he also wanted to see the difference between the midterm test made by the teacher of private and state school. some people believe that the quality of private school is not good enough if it compares with the quality of state school. after doing consideration, the writer chose a private and a state school to be used as the subject of the research. method of investigation in this study, the writer used comparative method. nazir (2005: 58) states that comparative research is a kind of descriptive research whose aim is to find out the fundamental answer about cause and effect by analyzing the factors which causes the occurrence of the phenomenon. through this research, the writer wanted to compare the quality of the tests made by a state school certified english teacher and a private school certified english teacher by describing the result of the analysis.as the result, the writer used descriptive comparative research design. the writer conducted the research by taking a set of second mid-term english test and students’ answer sheets from a class of different schools in the academic year of 2013/2014. the schools which have been chosen by the writer are a state school and aprivate school. the first school is smp n 1 semarang as the state school. meanwhile, the second school is smp kesatrian 2 semarang as the state school. the purpose of this study is to analyze the quality of each second mid-term english test from two different schools; they are smp n 1 reza wisnu saputra / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 3 semarang and smp kesatrian 2 semarang; by analyzing the students’ answer sheet of second mid-term english test. then, the sample of this study is taken from one of seventh grade classes of each school. the writer observed the classes which were taught by those teachers. from those classes, he observed the average achievement of each class. then, he found 2 classes which had the same average achievement. by using simple random sampling technique, the writer decided to choose one of those two classes to be used as the sample. the writer took thirty students’ answer sheets from vii g class at smp n 1 semarang. as the comparison, the writer also took thirty students’ answer sheets from vii d class at smp kesatrian 2 semarang. the writer analyzed the test by finding out the validity, reliability, item facility, and item discrimination of both tests. he used some certain formula to analyze the tests, such as pearson’s product moment formula and kuder richardson 20 formula. analysis and discussion based on the analysis made by the writer, he found that there were some items from both mid-term tests which did not fulfill the requirements as a good test item. the result of analysis of both mid-term tests was presented in the table below: analysis of the english mid-term test of smp n 1 semarang table 1 the analysis of the english mid-term test of smp n 1 semarang result validity out of 50 items, 13 items were valid and 37 items were invalid. the valid items were number 4, 11, 15, 22, 25, 29, 31, 33, 40, 41, 42, 46, and 49. reliability all of the items had r11 values of 0.632. meanwhile, the r table was 0.361. after consulting to the r table, it was found that r 11 > r table. from the computation of reliability, it was found that all items were reliable. difficulty level 31 items were easy, 15 items were moderate, and 4 items were difficult. discriminating power 40 items were poor, 7 items were satisfactory, 3 items were good reza wisnu saputra / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 4 analysis of the english mid-term test of smp kesatrian 2 semarang table 2 the analysis of the english mid-term test of smp kesatrian 2 semarang by using the gronlund’s criteria, the writer has classified the items which still can be used, can be used with several revision, and be discarded. from the second mid-term english test of smp n 1 semarang, there were 3 items which still can be used, 5 items which still can be used with several revisions, and 42 items which should be discarded. meanwhile, from the second midterm english test of smp kesatrian 2 semarang, there were 8 items which still can be used, 4 items which still can be used with several revisions, and 38 items which should be discarded. conclusion and suggestion conclusion after doing the analysis, there were some conclusions the writer could draw from his research. those are: 1. from the second mid-term english test of smp n 1 semarang, in terms of the validity, there were only 13 valid test items. the mean of validity of this test was 0.266. 2. meanwhile, from the second mid-term english test of smp kesatrian 2 semarang, there were only 21 valid test items and the mean of validity was 0.309. 3. in term of the reliability, the second midterm english test of smp n 1 semarang had the coefficient of reliability of 0.632, while the second mid-term english test of smp kesatrian 2 semarang had the coefficient of reliability of 0.815 4. from the aspect of item facility of the test, the second mid-term english test of smp n 1 semarang had the mean of item facility of 0.775. by referring to the mean of item facility, this test was classified into an easy test. meanwhile, the second mid-term english test of smp kesatrian 2 semarang had the mean of item facility of 0.799. it could be said that this test was classified into an easy test. 5. in term of the item discrimination power, the second mid-term english test of smp n 1 semarang in the academic year of 2013/2014 had the mean of item discrimination power of 0.121. meanwhile, the second mid-term english test of smp kesatrian 2 semarang had the mean of item discrimination power of 0.181 result validity out of 50 items, 21 items were valid and 29 items were invalid. the valid items were number 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 20, 21, 23, 25, 33, 45, 47, and, 49. reliability all of the items had r11 values of 0.815. meanwhile, the r table was 0.361. after consulting to the r table, it was found that r 11 > r table. from the computation of reliability, it was found that all items were reliable. difficulty level 36 items were easy and 14 items were moderate. discriminating power 38 items were poor, 6 items were satisfactory, 4 items were good, and 2 items were excellent reza wisnu saputra / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 5 6. based on the classification made by the writer, from the second mid-term english test of smp n 1 semarang, there were 3 items which still can be used, 5 items which still can be used with several revisions, and 42 items which should be discarded. 7. meanwhile, from the second mid-term english test of smp kesatrian 2 semarang, there were 8 items which still can be used, 4 items which still can be used with several revisions, and 38 items which should be discarded. suggestion the writer will give some suggestions for the test maker, in this case is the teacher, to design a good test: 1. prepare the test well before it is used. 2. pay more attention to the item level of difficulty. 3. design the test based on the curriculum and the materials which wants to be measured. 4. minimize the use of obvious clues to avoid the ineffectiveness of an item or its option. 5. from the analysis done by the writer, the item which still can be used and revised should be saved by the test maker. they may be used in the next mid-term test. references azwar, ma, drs.saefudin, 1996.test prestasi.second edition. yogyakarta: pustakapelajar brown, h.d. 2004.language assessment: principles and classroom practices. london: longman pearson. gronlund, n. e. 1981. measurement and evaluation in teaching. new york: macmillan publishing co., inc. harris, p. 1969. testing english as a second language. new york: mcgraw hill. nuryulia, i.r. 2009. item analysis of achievement test for the seventh grade students of smp n 1moga, pemalang in the academic year 2008/2009. (final project semarang state university) parr, a.m. 2006. teacher made test reliability: a comparison of test score and student study habits from friday to monday in a high school biology class in monroe county ohio. thesis. ohio: marietta college. 1 elt forum 5 (1) (2016) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the effectiveness of using illustrated folktale “the princess farmer” to teach reading comprehension of narrative text a quasi experimental research at the tenth year students of smk diponegoro juwana in the academic year of 2015/2016 badharul nurtika sari english department. faculty of languages and arts. state university of semarang. aticle info ________________ article history: received in february 2016 approved in march 2016 published in april 2016 ________________ keywords: illustrated folktale, reading comprehension, narrative text. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this article is about the use of illustrated folktale “the princess farmer” as a strategy to develop the students’ reading comprehension. in order to achieve the objectives of this research, the writer adopted a quasi-experimental research design. the subjects of this research were class x-ak 1 and x-ak 2 of smk diponegoro juwana, in the academic year of 2015/2016 which consisted of 20 students in each class. in this study x-ak 2 was selected as the control group and x-ak 1 was selected as the experimental group. there were 5 meetings in this study. in the first meeting, there was pre-test, in the second, third, and fourth meetings there were treatments, and in the fifth meeting there was post-test. in order to collect data about students’ reading comprehension of narrative text, the writer used pre-test and post-test to know the students’ differences. besides used test, this study also used questionnaire. the result of this study showed that the use of illustrated folktale “the princess farmer” can measure students’ reading comprehension of narrative text well. based on the result of this study, the writer concluded that the use of illustrated folktale “the princess farmer” gave a good contribution in english teaching and learning, especially in the area reading comprehension of narrative text. © 2016 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: badharul73@gmail.com issn 2252-6706 badharul nurtika sari / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 2 introduction in this modern world, we are expected to have international education and we have to master english as an international language. language is one of the most important tools of communication among the nations all over the world. language plays as an essential role in thinking and interacting. it has an important role in the intelligence, social, and students’ emotional development. in indonesia, english is considered as the foreign language and taught formally from elementary school up to the university level. it is so important since we should encourage relationship with all people in the world. we have to learn it to go international; to have a job in an international company, to study in an international college, etc. so, english is taught as one of the compulsory subjects in elementary school, junior high school, and senior high school. in senior high school, english is taught as a compulsory subject which functions as a medium of student self-development in the area of knowledge, art, and culture. senior high school students are prepared to master english through the selected themes. according to departemen pendidikan nasional (2006: 277), the teaching and learning of english in senior high school is expected that the students be able to achieve the functional literacy level, which they can communicate in spoken and written form to solve the daily problem. in this literacy level, students are expected to be able to use language in simple communication, such as reading newspaper, signs, etc. in teaching reading, the students tend to use their own ways of reading. they read sentence by sentence to understand the meaning of a text. however, reading in english as a foreign language is not the same as reading in the students’ mother tongue that is javanese and indonesian. it makes the students encounter difficulties in vocabulary, structure, pronunciation, etc. those difficulties sometimes make them bored to read. so, reading should be enjoyable; otherwise, the exercise would not be worth teaching. for our students who study english as a foreign language, learning english is not easy. it needs more effort for the teachers and their students. the students see that english is completely different with their native language. in reading an english text, they have to know how to pronounce the words and what the text tells about. it is hard for the students to read a text or a book. they think that reading english is not interesting and boring since they do not know the meaning of the words and do not find an interesting book. ideally, the students also need to have individual time to read outside of the class besides studying in the class. they can do the activities of reading after school, and it will not disturb their school time because the allocation of time for english at school is very limited. so, the students should be active both in the classroom and at home. the students also need many kinds of interesting materials so that they feel happy to learn english. the teachers also need to use some interesting techniques to achieve the objectives of the study and to attract the students in teachinglearning process. the teachers as persons who know the problems of teaching have to choose an appropriate method to teach a theme to their students. in senior high school curriculum, senior high school students have to know various of text types or genres. one of them is narrative text. the teacher should introduce narrative text to their students in the tenth grades of senior high school. by reading folktales and other literary texts and passages regularly, it is expected that students will develop their understanding in narrative. in this study, the writer discussed reading skill by using an illustrated folktale book “the princess farmer”, since folktale is one of the interesting reading materials for the students. the writer chose this book because this book contains of pictures and it is also not difficult to get the book. it is hoped that the students will be more interested in reading english materials. considering the reason above, the writer would like to study the method of using 1 badharul nurtika sari / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 3 illustrated folktale “the princess farmer” in teaching reading of narrative text. it is expected that the use illustrated folktale will make the student easy to study english actually in reading, because the student can enjoy the video with its interested pictures, sounds, characters, and animations. based on the description above, the writer is interested in choosing the title “the effectiveness of using illustrated folktale “the princess farmer” to teach reading comprehension of narrative text at the tenth year students of smk diponegoro juwana in the academic year of 2015/2016”. review of related literature the study that i examine is a combination of some related studies that have been done before. the previous studies are concerned with the use of pictures, stories and songs as tools for constructing situational interest and finally helping them to understand english better. cathlena anna martin in her journal confirms that “most picture books follow a conventional, continuous narrative pattern presenting one strand of a tale in linear sequence with pictures illustrating the written text.” a handful of picture books deviate from the traditional narrative style to produce visually engaging multiple narratives. multiple narratives can be, as maria nikolajeva describes, either counterpointing with two or more mutually dependent narratives, or sylleptic with narratives independent of each other. so, when the narrative text is made by illustrated pictures, it can make the readers more interested to read and understand it. styasih (2009) in her study, the use of indonesian fables to develop students’ reading comprehension skills in junior high school: the case of the eighth grade students in smp n 1 prembun, kebumen in the academic year of 2009/2010. she held a research on eighth grade students of junior high school class viii-4. the result of her study is that after she conducted her study, she found out that her students became better after the use of fables upon them along the study. she stated that fable is an effective tool for mastering reading skill, because it is easy to be understood and it is quite interesting for anyone. the previous study concerned about the illustrated folktale was conducted by rahma mustikarini (2009) in her study, the use of illustrated folktale “the careless jaka tarub” to improve the students’ ability in understanding narrative reading text (an experimental research at the eight year students of mts abadiyah gabus-pati in the academic year of 2009/2010). the result of her study is she found out that the experimental group’s understanding of narrative text was better than the control group. the students were interested and understood the story easily from the illustrated picture, so it can make them enjoyed it. the other studies conducted by intan permatasari (2012), improving students’ reading skill of narrative text by using story mapping strategy in junior high school. she held a research on eighth grade students of smp n 1 undaan kudus. the result of her study is that after she conducted her study, she found out that her students became better after the use of story mapping upon them along the study. besides in another studies, there are interesting methods use to increase reading skills. according to harmer (1998:79), by far the most important reason for teaching reading, of course, is that it is a basic language skill. when students are doing the process of reading, they do not only have to keep their minds, but also develop their knowledge and feeling in understanding ideas and meanings in the text. the study concerned about the technique reading was conducted by fanny kartikasari (2011) who studied about improving students’ reading comprehension in narrative text through jumbled texts (an experimental research of the second grade students of sma n 3 pati in the academic year of 2010/2011). the objective of this study was to describe how to extend jumbled text can improve the students’ reading comprehension. the other was from journal article by rudi hermanto (2009) concerned in the use of cloze procedure in teaching reading narrative texts (an experiment research in the case of year tenth students’ of sma n 1 bangsri jepara. the objective of this study was to describe how the influence of cloze procedure in teaching reading narrative text. in addition, this study badharul nurtika sari / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 4 aims to see a separation social skills a group that has received special treatment by giving method of cloze procedure with who do not get treatment. in conclusion, he found out that there was significant different for those who taught using cloze procedure and those without cloze procedure. the experimental class got better development in increasing point whereas the control class. those researches also produced results in which pictures, games, and stories were effective media for attracting students’ interest in lesson. all of above researches used experimental research as the method for solving the problems. those materials are needed to help students in increasing their interest toward english. although the writers of those studies used different media, the result of the studies showed that the subjects of the researches were more motivated and they made better achievement because they engaged to the teaching process and did the tasks given by the teachers. methods this study was a classroom quasiexperimental research with two classes at tenth year students of smk diponegoro juwana as the subject of this study. in order to collect data about students’ reading comprehension of narrative text and responses toward the use of this technique and media, the writer used pre-test, post-test, and students’ response questionnaire as instruments. in this study, there were five meetings, the first meeting to deliver a pre-test, the second, third, and fourth meetings for giving treatments, and the fourth meeting to give post-test and questionnaire. result this study was conducted to investigate the students’ reading comprehension of narrative text after learning using illustrated folktale “the princess farmer”. below are the research findings. the average score of experimental group in post-test was 90.25, the average score of control group in post-test was 82.75. this implies that there was significance difference achievement between students who were taught using illustrated folktale “the princess farmer” and students who were taught using non-illustrated folktale “the princess farmer”. from the result enclosed that the mean of the experimental group was higher than the control group. it means that teaching narrative reading text applying illustrated folktale “the princess farmer” was better than teaching narrative reading text with non-illustrated folktale “the princess farmer”. discussion the aim of this study is to find out whether or not the use of illustrated folktale “the princess farmer” is effective to teach reading comprehension of narrative text at the tenth grade students of smk diponegoro juwana in the academic year 2015/2016. in conducting the research there were two classes, x-ak 1 as the experimental group and x-ak 2 as the control group. in order to collect data during this research, the writer used pretest and posttest. there were 20 items in both pretest and posttest. the difficulty level of pretest and posttest was equal. before the instrument of the study implemented in the two classes, the try-out test was held on september, 3rd 2015. the class that chosen was different from the object of the research itself. here, the writer chose x-av of smk diponegoro juwana., in the first meeting, pretest was given to both experimental and control group in order to measure students’ ability before treatment. the results of the tests showed that the average score of experimental and control group was equal although there is slight difference, but it is not significant. the treatment was given after pretest. there were three times of treatment given on both experiment and control class. the treatment of experimental class was held on september, 9th 2015, september, 14th 2015, and september, 21st 2015. the treatment of control group was held on september, 10th 2015, september, 17th 2015, and september, 22nd 2015. the control group was taught by non-illustrated folktale “the princess farmer”. badharul nurtika sari / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 5 in learning process, it can be seen that in experimental group the students were more active and enjoy the class than the control group. it means that the use of illustrated folktale “the princess farmer” successed in attracting students’ attention. after the treatment, the result of students’ reading comprehension of the experimental group was higher than the result of the control group. the difference result can be seen when the writer reviewed all the material given in the end of the class, they answered correctly. it showed that the use of illustrated folktale “the princess farmer” made materials easier to be understood. at the last meeting, the posttest was given. for both the experimental group and the control group were held on september, 25th 2015. the result of the posttest showed that the average score of experimental group was 90.25 and the average score of the control group was 82.75. it can be seen that the average score of experimental group was higher than the average score of control group. to determine the significance of score between two groups, t-test was done. the result of the t-value was 3.02 and the critical value of the t-table was 1.68 since the t-value was higher than the t-table, it showed that there was significant difference between the two means of pre-test and post-test. it means that the use of illustrated folktale “the princess farmer” to teach reading comprehension of narrative text was more effective. the result of the data analysis showed that illustrated folktale “the princess farmer” can be used as an alternative way in teaching narrative reading text for the tenth grade students of smk diponegoro juwana in the academic year of 2015/2016. teaching narrative reading text using illustrated folktale “the princess farmer” can make students easier to understand the story. it also makes students more active, even silly students. it was more effective than using non illustrated folktale “the princess farmer”. so, based on the result of data analysis, the writer concluded that there is significant effect of using illustrated folktale “the princess farmer” in teaching narrative reading text. conclusion the result of this study concluded that the use of illustrated folktale “the princess farmer” in teaching narrative reading text to tenth grade students of smk diponegoro juwana was very useful and effective. learning narrative reading text through illustrated folktale “the princess farmer” made learning process more interesting. students study with pleasure. it made students participate actively. since the students study with pleasure, it will be easier for them to understand and memorize the learning material. references departemen pendidikan nasional (depdiknas). 2006. kurikulum tingkat satuan pendidikan (ktsp). jakarta: depdiknas. harmer, j. 2001. the practice of english language teaching. london: pearson education lit. hermanto, rudi. 2009. the use of cloze procedure in teaching reading narrative texts: an experiment research in the case of year tenth students of sman 1 bangsri jepara in the academic year of 2008/2009. final project, english department. languages and arts faculty. semarang state university. kartikasari, fanny. 2011. improving students’ reading comprehension in narrative text through jumbled texts (an experimental research of the second grade students of sma n 3pati in the academic year of 2010/2011. final project, english department. languages and arts faculty. semarang state university. martin, cathlena anna. 2004. breaking narrative bounds. available at http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/tradmays.ht m [assessed in 11 march 2015] mustikarini, rahma. 2009. the use of illustrated folktale “the careless jaka tarub” to improve the students’ ability in understanding narrative reading text (an experimental research at the eighth year students of mts abadiyah gabus-pati in the academic year of 2009/2010). final project, badharul nurtika sari / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 6 english department. languages and arts faculty. semarang state university. permatasari, intan.2012.”improving students’ reading skill of narrative text by using story mapping strategy: a classroom action research at the eight grade students of smp n 1 undaan kudus in the academic year 2011/2012”. final project, english department. languages and arts faculty. semarang state university. styasih, ratnaning dewi. 2009. the use of indonesian fables to develop students’ reading comprehension skills in junior high school: the case of the eighth grade students in smp n 1 prembun, kebumen in the academic year of 2009/2010. final project english department fbs unnes. 1 elt forum 2 (1) (2013) english language teaching forum http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt character education values in reading section of eenglish textbook for senior high school students grade xi pratama lysa hapsari department of english, faculty language and arts, semarang state university, indonesia info artikel ________________ sejarahartikel: diterimajanuari 2013 disetujuifebruari 2013 dipublikasikanjuni 2013 ________________ keywords: character education, reading section, e-book ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ the main purpose of the study is to find out what character values are integrated in reading section of the english e-book of senior high school and in which part of the english e-book of senior high school the character values are realized. in order to obtain the objective of the study, i did several steps. i selected the e-book and then the reading section was selected. after selecting the reading section, the character education values integrated in the reading section were identified. then, i identified the character education values in the reading section components; whether they are integrated in reading texts or reading exercises. from the eighteen character values formulated by the indonesian ministry of national education 2010, there are only seventeen of them covered in reading section of the e-book. these seventeen values are honesty, tolerance, democracy, hard work, creativity, environmental caring, social caring, discipline, patriotism, nationalism, respect achievement, loving peace, reading habit, independence, religious, curiosity, and friendly/communicative. one character value that is not covered in reading sections is responsibility. all the character values found are covered in both components of the reading sections. after analyzing, i would like to suggest for the next researcher who attempts to do the similar research as i do. he/she should analyze the textbook which is recommended by the book centre (pusbuk) of the national education ministry (depdiknas) so that his/ her research will have a great possibility to be used as a consideration to select a good textbook for teaching and learning processes at schools. © 2013universitasnegeri semarang alamatkorespondensi: gedungb3lantai3 fbsunnes kampussekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: tamalee9@gmail.com issn 2252-6706 pratama lysa hapsari / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 2 introduction character development has long been one of the goals of national education. national education act, 2003, clause i states that one of the national education goals is to develop the learner’s potential, intelligence, personality, and noble character. in this case, education is intended not only to establish intelligence, but also to develop personality or character. adolescence is a transition phase that everybody has between the puberty and adulthood. in this phase, they try to find out who they truly are. it is the time for them to form their identities. with the right guide, adolescents can avoid drug use, irresponsible sexual encounters, and other psychological and behavioral disorders. it is important for teachers to help them to go through this phase which mostly happens in their school time because most of them spend more time at school and with their friends than what it takes to have a proper communication with their parents. character education can be applied in a variety of elements that exist in schools, for example in schools’ curriculum and syllabus in teachers’ lesson plans, materials, and media. in this curriculum, character building can be embodied into almost every subject. it is also can be embodied in lesson plan where there are indicators and measurement, the values of character building can be integrated and then it can be implemented into learning activities. character education can also be implemented in the learning materials so that when the teacher teaches the material to the students, it is not only the material itself that is conveyed, but also the character education values as well. in education, textbook holds important role. for students, the textbook is one of the sources of information and an effective tool to increase their experiences. for teachers, the material presented in textbooks may be used as consideration in teaching. for example, as the materials chosen and compiled with material from other sources. a few years ago, the government initiated to publish buku sekolah elektronik (bse) which is textbook in a form of electronic, hence the name e-book. this new step from the government aims at coping with the lacks of nationally standardized textbooks which are usually too expensive to afford by most schools. since then, these e-books have been widely used in schools because of the cheap price, if not free at all. the presence of e-books as a handbook of teachers and students in schools also determines the success of learning. e-book contains material as a source of learning, so that they also serve as a learning tool to support a program of learning. for that, as a medium that can be used to infuse character education to learners, e-books must also contain the values of character education. therefore, e-books are the most effective media into which we can integrate character education values. besides the materials, teachers can convey the character education values while they are teaching the students. in english textbook, there are four skills in which students are usually taught with. they are reading, listening, speaking, and writing. reading education in indonesia begins from the earliest level of education. besides getting the help from the teachers, most of the materials students get in schools come from reading their textbooks. reading is always a part of a textbook. more than a half of materials in textbooks usually even come from this reading part. in reading section of a textbook, students can find so much information. this condition makes reading an effective medium to embody character education values into. students will not only get information for their studies, but they can also learn good character values to help stirring them to the right path through their adolescence. the facts above lead my curiosity to conduct a research to observe character education integrated in reading part of english ebook for senior high school. in this case, i will pratama lysa hapsari / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 3 concern more on the reading part of the e-book of senior high school. method in this study, i chose reading texts and reading exercises of reading sections in developing english competencies as the object of the study. i wanted to find out what character education values are found in reading sections of the analyzed textbook. i also wanted to find out in what component character education values are incorporated, whether in the reading texts or in the student exercises. i applied some steps in collecting the data. a) selecting the textbook the textbook that i chose is an e-book published by pusat perbukuan departemen pendidikan nasional or the book center of national education ministry. it can be easily downloaded from internet through www.bsedepdiknas.co.id. i choose an english textbook for senior high school students grade xi entitled developing english competencies. b) selecting the reading section the next step was selecting some reading sections from the book. c) procedure of analyzing data there are several steps in the procedure of analyzing the data in this study, they are: (1) reading the first step is reading the e-book, especially the reading sections and the exercises. (2) identifying from the reading sections and the exercises in the e-book, the identified data will be put into a data card. result and discussion this sub chapter deals with the findings of the study. in other words, it deals with the result of the data analysis. there are fifty four data that has been collected and analyzed. to strengthen the data analysis, the percentage is counted by formula as stated below. x = the percentages of each type of character values in reading section n = the number of each type of character values in reading section σ n= the total number of character values in reading section the complete findings which answer the statements of the problems are as follows: 1. the character education values which are incorporated in reading sections after analyzing the data, i found that the reading sections of “developing english competencies” for grade xi covers only seventeen of eighteen character education values which are formulated by the indonesian ministry of national education 2010. the character education values which are covered in reading sections are tolerance, discipline, hard working, creativity, independence, patriotism, friendliness and communicativeness, pleasure for reading, environmental caring, democracy, religiousness, honesty, curiosity, nationalism, respecting achievement, and social caring. the character value which is not covered in reading sections is responsibility. the analyzed data are shown in the following table. by the table below, the character values which appear in reading sections of “developing english competencies” for grade xi will be obvious. table 1. percentage of character education values no character values percentage 1 honesty 24.79% 2 tolerance 24.79% 3 democracy 21.37% 4 hard working 4.27% 5 environmental caring 4.27% 6 social caring 3.42% 7 discipline 3.42% x = n x 100% ∑n http://www.bse-depdiknas.co.id/ http://www.bse-depdiknas.co.id/ pratama lysa hapsari / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 4 8 curiosity 1.71% 9 religiousness 1.71% 10 creativity 1.71% 11 respecting achievement 1.71% 12 loving peace 1.71% 13 pleasure for reading 1.71% 14 independence 0.85% 15 nationalism 0.85% 16 patriotism 0.85% 17 friendliness/comm unicativeness 0.85% 18 responsibility 0.00% three character values which are honesty, tolerance, and democracy dominate the chart by more than a half of the total sum of the character values found in the e-book. these three character values which are mostly found in the reading exercises are important values to learn by students while they are communicating with their friends, especially when they are doing some exercises together. in the fourth place, there is hard work which is good to prepare students to face the world where the one who works hard will survive. the early implementation of hard work in indonesian schools is currently still underestimated compared to those in developed countries. for instance, indonesian students are not used to working part time jobs during their holidays, and most students ask for money from their parents to pay their school fee. this value will teach them to respect the hard work of those around them and try to apply this value to their own lives. environmental caring which appears next is currently a currently phenomenal topic with all the global warming issues. students will learn to love nature and preserve it, which is an excellent idea considering indonesia is one of the countries who have large part of forests and seas. the next character value that appears is social caring. this value and discipline have both the same score in the chart. social caring, in relation with the way students communicate to and have the sensitivities for those around them that are not as lucky as they are, is an important value to be taught in schools where most of their social lives occur. while discipline is also so important considering the culture in our country in which discipline is undermined like that hard work value, it is not properly taught to children. most students used to the idea of being late in doing everything, from arriving at school to handing in their tasks. this value will teach them how to be disciplined in their lives. the next five values have the same score in the chart; they are curiosity, creativity, being religious, respecting achievement, and loving peace. the next values barely appear at all in the ebook. they are reading habit, independence, nationalism, patriotism, and friendliness/communicativeness. responsibility does not appear at all in the e-book which is most unfortunate considering this is a significant value. 2. the character education values’ appearance in reading sections components this sub chapter would like to answer the second problem statements, in what component of reading sections the character values are realized. the reading sections of “developing english competencies” for grade xi consist of two components. they are reading text and reading exercises. the analyzed data are shown in the following table. by the table below, the values which appear in certain component of reading section of “developing english competencies” for grade xi will be obvious. table 2. percentage of value appearance in reading section components no reading section components percentage 1 reading exercises 81.48% 2 reading texts 18.52% pratama lysa hapsari / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 5 the character education values appear forty four times or 81.48% in the e-book; this exceeds the amount of character education values that are found in the reading texts with ten or 18.52% appearances. one of the reasons why the character education values are found mostly in reading exercises is because that the three most frequently appearing character education values which are honesty, tolerance, and democracy, have tendencies to appear in the reading exercises. with all of the massive amounts of pair works, group works, club project and reviews, these characters surpass the other values, which increase the amount of character values found in this component of the reading section. another reason of this significant difference is because while there are approximately eight to ten activities in a chapter of the e-book, there are just two or three reading texts in a chapter out of ten chapters in the ebook. reading texts in the e-book with its ten times appearances of character education values range from narrative text, hortatory exposition text, analytical text to poem. character education values can be found both in the reading texts and in reading components, although the amount may be unbalanced. references anderson, r. c., et al. (1985). becoming a nation of readers. washington, dc: national institute of education. atkinson, mary and jeanne sturges. 2003. at turning point: the young adolescent learner. hampshire: center for collaborative education. berg, bruce l. 1989. qualitative research methods for the social science. undiana university of pennsylvania: allyn and bacon. berkowitz, marvin b, and melinda c. bier. 2005. what works in character education. missouri: character education partnership. clark, r., & ivanič, r. (1997). the politics of writing. london: routledge. cortazzi, m. and jin, l. (1999) cultural mirrors: materials and methods in the efl classroom. in e. hinkel (ed.), culture in second language teaching and learning (pp. 196-219) cambridge: cambridge university press. crawford, keith. .2003. international journal of historical learning, teaching and research. 3/2. deighton, l. c. 1971. encyclopedia of education. new york: crowell-collier educational corporation doddy, achmad, ahmad sugeng and effendy. 2008. developing english competencies. jakarta: pusat perbukuan, departemen pendidikan nasional glaze , avis e. 2008. finding common ground: character development in ontario schools. canada: ontario. haynes, charles c. and oliver thomas. 2001. finding common ground: a guide to religious liberty in public schools. nashville: first amendment center. ismawati, juliana. 2011. meningkatkan manfaat buku sekolah elektronik untuk pengguna. [accessed 03/12/13] available at: http://bse31.blogspot.com/2011/12/meningk atkan-manfaat-buku-sekolah.html langenbeach, william. 1997. textbook, the encyclopedia of american, vol 26.p.563.connecticut: grolier inc. lestari, ida puji. 2012. character building in junior high school english language textbooks: a content analysis. thesis. graduate program in english language education, state university of malang. lickona, thomas. 1993. the return of character education. character education. 51/3: 6-11 lickona, thomas. 2003. the content of our character: ten essential virtues. the fourth and fifth rs: respect and responsibility. 10/1: 13 miles, m.b., and huberdan, a.m. 1984. qualitative data analysis: a source book of new methods. newbury park, ca: sage. mujiyanto, yan. 2009. petunjuk penulisan skripsi. semarang: unnes press. pantic, natasa. 2006. moral education through literature. edinburg: university of edinburg. richard, jack c. 2001. the role of textbook in a language program. cambridge rose, a. j. f. 2012. an analysis of the values incorporated in the pratama lysa hapsari / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 6 english samachir kalvi text book at the secondary level. dissertation. reading (process). online at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/reading_(proce ss). [accesed 03/25/12] ryan, kevin and thomas lickona. 1992. character development in schools and beyond. washington: library of congress. samani, muchlas and hariyanto. pendidikan karakter: model dan konsep. bandung: rosda. stedje, lauree beth. 2010. nuts and bolts of character education. oklahoma: character first. tajima, m. (2011). ideological messages embedded in an efl textbook. in a. stewart (ed.).pp.329336 textbook. online at http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/textbook. [accessed 04/23/12] utomo, erry. 2011. the development of character education and its implementation at educational unit in indonesia. journal of educational research and policy. 3/1: 26-36 weddel, kathleen santopietro. 2009. how to choose good esl textbook. colorado: northern colorado professional development center what is character education? online at http://www.character.org/key-topics/whatis-character-education/. [accessed 05/13/12] what is reading skills? online at http://www01.sil.org/linguistics/glossaryoflinguisticter ms/whatisreadingskills.htm. [accessed 05/08/12] what is reading comprehension. online at http://www.k12reader.com/what-is-readingcomprehension/. [accessed 03/05/12] .2010. pengembangan pendidikan budaya dan karakter: pedoman sekolah. jakarta: kementrian pendidikan nasional. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/reading_(process) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/reading_(process) http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/textbook http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/textbook http://www.character.org/key-topics/what-is-character-education/ http://www.character.org/key-topics/what-is-character-education/ http://www-01.sil.org/linguistics/glossaryoflinguisticterms/whatisreadingskills.htm http://www-01.sil.org/linguistics/glossaryoflinguisticterms/whatisreadingskills.htm http://www-01.sil.org/linguistics/glossaryoflinguisticterms/whatisreadingskills.htm http://www.k12reader.com/what-is-reading-comprehension/ http://www.k12reader.com/what-is-reading-comprehension/ november oktober september 1 elt forum 2 (2) (2013) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt a correlation study between students’ listening skill and students’ pronunciation ability (a case of the eleventh grade students of smk muhammadiyah 1 semarang in the academic year of 2012/2013) rio luhung pribadi department of english, faculty language and arts, semarang state university, indonesia info artikel ________________ sejarah artikel: diterima 2013 disetujui 2013 dipublikasikan 2013 ________________ keywords: : listening skill, pronunciation ability ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this final project is about the correlation between the students’ listening skill and students’ pronunciation ability . the subject of the research was the eleventh grade students of smk muhammadiyah 1 semarang. the basic problem the writer wanted to discuss in this final project was the importance of listening skill and pronunciation ability of the eleventh grade students of smk muhammadiyah 1 semarang in order to develop their communication skill . the final project was aimed at finding out the level of listening skill of the eleventh grade students of smk muhammadiyah 1 semarang in the academic year of 2012/2013, examining their pronunciation ability, and finding out whether there is a correlation between students’ listening skill and students’ pronunciation ability. the population of this final project was the eleventh grade students of smk muhammadiyah 1 semarang in the academic year of 2012/2013 and it was 43 students. twenty students were taken as the representations in this research. after conducting the research, it was found that the average score of the students’ listening skill was 80.1, that was in good level. on the contrary, their pronunciation score was poor referring to their average score, which were 48.78. moreover, the result of data analysis using spss shows that the correlation coefficient between the two variables (listening skill and pronunciation ability) is 0.379, while t he critical value for 18 students and 95% confidence is 0.468. since the correlation coefficient obtained (0.379) is lower than the table value (0.468), it means that there is no significant positive correlation between the two variables and the correlation is considered to be low . based on the research findings, it is suggested that the teachers should find an effective way to develop the students’ listening skill and their pronunciation. furthermore, since pronunciation is not explicitly specified in the curriculum, the teachers have a duty to help their students in improving their pronunciation ability. © 2013 universitas negeri semarang  alamat korespondensi: gedung b3 lantai 3 fbs unnes kampus sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: rio.pribadi@yahoo.co.id issn 2252-6706 mailto:rio.pribadi@yahoo.co.id rio luhung pribadi / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 2 introduction the fact that english is now the main international language is indisputable. in all aspect of international life – trade, science, diplomacy, travel, and education – the common language is english and it has been used for decades. in indonesia, english is taught almost in all level of study from kindergarten (tk), elementary school (sd), smp (junior high school), smu (senior high school), in university, and many courses. knowing that english is quite significant for indonesia in the future, the government keep improving the quality of teachers and other components in educational process. there are four skills in english that should be mastered and they are stated in school curriculum. one of them is listening skill. it is a receptive skill that needs to be developed to help the students to understand what they hear or when they communicate with others. moreover, listening test is now included in students’ final exam. but in fact, there are still just a few efforts from the teacher to check or even to develop students’ listening skill if it compares with other skills. pronunciation refers to the production of sounds that we use to make meaning. the way we speak immediately conveys something about ourselves to the people around us. learners with good pronunciation in english are more likely to be understood even if they make errors in other areas, whereas learners whose pronunciation is difficult to understand will not be understood, even if their grammar is perfect. an investigation on correlation between students’ listening skill and students’ pronunciation ability of the second year students of senior high school is conducted to find out whether or not there is a significant correlation between students’ listening skill and students’ pronunciation ability. the problems that will be discussed in this study are: (1) what is the correlation between students’ listening skill and students’ pronunciation ability? (2) how significant is the correlation between students’ listening skill and students’ pronunciation ability? this study was aimed to find out the level of listening skill and pronunciation ability of the second year students of smk muhammadiyah 1 semarang, and also the correlation between them. the scope and the set of study were limited so that the problems do not wide. the listening skill and pronunciation ability stated in this study only focus on one syllable words. there are two meetings during the research. first, when the writer gives pre-test to examine the validity and the reliability. second, when the writer conducts listening and pronunciation test to collect the data. the procedures of collecting the data of this research involved several steps. the first step was constructing the listening test and pronunciation test. the second step was trying out the instrument to examine whether or not they needed improvement. the third one was collecting and analyzing the listening test and pronunciation test to measure their validity and reliability. the fourth one was conducting the research. the writer conducted the research for the listening test and pronunciation test. the last step was obtaining the scores of vocabulary test and translation test and then computing the data. discussion 2.1 instruments instrument is the important thing in an experiment in which the reliability of the instrument will automatically affect the reliability of the data obtained. in line with the purpose of the study, that is to find out the relationship between students’ listening skill and students’ pronunciation ability of the second year students of senior high rio luhung pribadi / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 3 school, two instruments were used in this study. they were listening test and pronunciation test. listening test in the level of intensive task was used to test students’ perception on phonemes through minimal pairs on one syllable words. while in the pronunciation test, the students were asked to record their answers with the appropriate pronunciation. 1.1.1 the condition of the test 1.1.1.1 reliability of the instrument reliability refers to the consistency of scores, that is, an instrument’s ability to produce “approximately” the same score for an individual over repeated testing or across different raters (lodico, 2006). according to speaks (2009), reliability is defined as the probability that a device will perform its required function under stated conditions for a spesific period of time. the following is the formula which is used to compute the reliability of listening and pronunciation test: ( ) ( ) in which: r11 : reliability p : the subjects who answer correctly q : the subjects who answer incorrectly (q = p 1) n : total of the item test s : standard deviation of the test (arikunto 2006:100) 1.1.1.2 validity of the instrument validity is the most important criteria in measuring an instrument. validity is that quality of a data-gathering instrument or procedure that enables it to determine what it was designed to determine (best, 1981:153). a test said to be valid when it can measure what is intended to be measured. product moment formula was used to measure the validity test. the formula is as follows:               2222{ yynxx yxxyn rxy where: rxy : correlation coefficient between x and y ∑xy : the result of multiplying scores between x and y for each respondent ∑x2 : the score of squared in x ∑y2 : the score of squared in y n : the number of student taking the test 2.2 research finding the research was conducted to find out whether there was a correlation between students’ listening skill and their pronunciation ability. two kinds of test were administered for measuring the second year students of smk muhammadiyah 1 semarang listening skill and pronunciation ability; they are listening and pronunciation tests. rio luhung pribadi / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 4 2.2.1 students’ listening skill there were 28 multiple-choice questions used in conducting the listening test. each question has four choices. the score of each item was 1. students’ marks are got by adding the total score by 2, dividing it by 3 and then multiplied by 100. to facilitate the measurement of student’s listening skill, the raw scores were converted into the standard score using the percentage correction formula. to judge the students’ grade and the level of the listening skill, there were seven levels of the classification of the students’ grade based on depdikbud as cited by novikasari (2011). table 4.1 the table of the grade classification score grade 96 to 100 excellent 86 to 95 very good 76 to 85 good 66 to 75 fairly good 56 to 65 very fair 36 to 55 poor 0 to 35 very poor (depdikbud as cited by novikasari, 2011) there were various scores, from high to low score. after computing the 28 items of test, 3 students got 100, 2 students got 96, 1 student got 93, 1 student got 90, 1 student got 86, 2 students got 83, 1 student got 80, 2 students got 76, and 1 student for each score of 63, 60, 56, 53, and 50. the complete data could be seen in appendix 7. the diagram below shows the percentage of the result of the test: diagram 1 percentage of students’ listening skill from the diagram above, we can see that 5 students got the excellent grade; 3 students got the very good grade; 5 students got the good grade; 3 students got the very fair grade; and 2 students got the poor grade. the complete data could be seen in appendix 8. after computing the data using spss, we could see that the average score (mean) of students’ listening test was 80,1. it can be said that the students’ vocabulary mastery of the eleventh grade students of smk 27.77% 27,77% 16.66% 16,66% listening test excellent very good good fairly good very fair poor very poor 11,11% rio luhung pribadi / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 5 muhammadiyah 1 semarang in the academic year of 2012/2013 was good. 2.2.2 students’ pronunciation ability there were 28 items used in conducting the pronunciation test , each of them consisted of one word to pronounce. the test was designed to test the learner’s ability to discriminate phonemes or groups of phonemes on one syllable words. the score of each item was 1. students’ marks are got by adding the total score by 2, dividing it by 3 and then multiplied by 100. there were less various scores in pronunciation test. after computing the test, 2 students got 66, 1 student got 60, 1 student got 56, 3 students got 53, 3 students got 50, 2 students got 46, 2 students got 43, 2 students got 40, and 1 student for each score of 33 and 30. the complete data could be seen in appendix 9. the diagram below shows the percentage of the result of the test: diagram 2 percentage of students’ pronunciation ability from the diagram above, we can see that 2 students got the fairly good grade; 2 students got the very fair grade; 12 students got the poor grade; and 2 students got very poor grade. none of the students got the excellent, very good, and good grade. the complete data could be seen in appendix 10. after computing the data using spss, we could see that the average score (mean) of students’ pronunciation score was 48.78. it can be said that the students’ pronunciation ability of the eleventh grade students of smk muhammadiyah 1 semarang in the academic year of 2012/2013 was poor. 2.3 results the main goal of this research was to find out what the correlation between students’ listening skill and their pronunciation ability of the eleventh grade students of smk muhammadiyah 1 semarang. after conducting the research to get the scores of the students’ listening test and their scores in pronunciation test, the data were statistically computed to find out the correlation between the variables using spss, where: x = the students’ listening skill (listening test test) y = the students’ pronunciation ability (pronunciation test) in correlating those two variables, a statistical analysis that was used was pearson’s product moment formula. the data, then, was calculated using spss. table 4.2 correlation coefficient result 11,11% 66,66% 11,11% pronunciation score excellent very good good fairly good very fair poor very poor 11,11% rio luhung pribadi / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 6 descriptive statistics n minimum maximum mean std. deviation x 18 50,00 100,00 80,0556 17,08275 y 18 30,00 66,00 48,7778 9,90280 valid n (listwise) 18 correlations x y x pearson correlation 1 ,379 sig. (2-tailed) ,121 n 18 18 y pearson correlation ,379 1 sig. (2-tailed) ,121 n 18 18 the correlation coefficient of the two variables was 0.379. to know whether this correlation coefficient (0.379) was significant or not, it was necessary to find out its significance. in psychological or educational research, the 5 percent alpha of significance (5 percent level of significance) is occasionally used as standard to judge the correlation between the two variables above. the correlation coefficient gained in this investigation was 0.379, whereas the figure on the table of critical values of the r product moment with 95% confidence level and the number of subjects 18 was 0.468. it means that the correlation coefficient between the students’ listening skill and their pronunciation ability was not significant because rxy < rtable (0.379 < 0.468). then, in order to know the extent of the influence of students’ listening skill in their pronunciation ability, the determinant index was measured as follow: determinant index = (rxy) 2 x 100% = (0.379) 2 x 100% = 14.36% the result showed that the extent of the influence of students’ listening skill in their pronunciation ability was only 14.36%. it showed that students’ listening skill only gave a small contribution to the students’ pronunciation ability. discussion after conducting the research, no significant correlation between the two variables was found. the result of the data analysis showed that the correlation coefficient between the two variables was 0.379, while the critical values of the r product moment with 95% confidence level and the number of subject 18 is 0.468. it means that there is still a positive correlation between the two variables (listening skill and pronunciation ability) altough it is not significant. in order to know the level of relationship of the correlation coefficient, it could be determined by using the correlation coefficient interpretation by best (1981) as follows: rio luhung pribadi / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 7 table 4.3 correlation coefficient interpretation coefficient relationship .00 to .20 negligible .20 to .40 low .40 to .60 moderate .60 to .80 substantial .80 to .100 high to very high (best, 1981) from the table above, the level of relationship of the correlation between the two variables was low because the correlation coefficient of the two variables was 0.379 while the determined criteria showed that the correlation coefficient between 0.20 and 0.40 considered low. in this case, the variable y (students’ pronunciation ability) was associated with the variable x (students’ listening skill) in a low value (not significant). in other words, the students’ listening skill of the eleventh years of smk muhammadiyah 1 semarang was not significantly correlated to their pronunciation ability. it implies that the students’ activity in listening only gives a small contribution to enlarge their pronunciation ability. there was no significant correlation between the students’ listening skill and pronunciation ability of the eleventh grade students of smk muhammadiyah 1 semarang in the academic year of 2012/2013. it could be interpreted that there is no guarantee the higher students’ listening skill is, the higher their ability in pronunciation will be. based on the data obtained, some facts were found in this study. first, the result of the listening test that indicates students’ listening skill was very high (mean 80,1) if it is compared with their pronunciation test result (mean 48,78). from this fact, we can barely see that there was a huge gap between their ability in listening and pronunciation. after analyzing the results, two types of difficulties can be generalized toward students’ listening skill. they were difficulties in discriminating certain consonants and vowels. the highest frequency of error dealing with consonants occured in item number 7 (see the appendix) in discriminating between sound /d/ and /t/ in the word hat. it was proven by the finding that 50% of respondents chosed the wrong answer which was had. this phenomena followed by item number 17 (see the appendix) which was dealing with the word but. only 42% of respondents chosed the right answer while the rest chosed the wrong options (bad, bat, bed). difficulties in discriminating certain vowels also occured in students’ listening test. it can be seen in item number 16 (see the appendix) in discriminating sound /i:/ with /i/ in the word seat. 50% of the respondents chosed the wrong answers like sit, set, and sheet. second, from the data gathered, there was no evidence that showed students with the high score in listening would also get a high score in pronunciation. pronunciation plays important roles in learning english. but, there was a fact when this study was conducted, students found themselves difficult even unable to pronounce almost all sounds used in the instrument. all of the them found difficulties in pronouncing vowels like /i/(big), /ǽ/(bad, bag, van, bat), and some consonants like /v/, /d/, /t/, /g/, /k/, /ʃ/, and /tʃ/ altough they could manage such vowels and consonants very well in their listening test. phenomena of difficulties in pronouncing some sounds occur in students pronunciation results. first, students find difficulties in pronouncing sound /ʃ/ like stated in item number 3 (see appendix 5) in the word she. this difficulty happens since this fricative sound is not found in neither indonesian nor javanese. rio luhung pribadi / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 8 they tend to substitute sound /s/ for /ʃ/ so that there is likely to be misunderstanding in their english speech for failure in making a distinction between the two sounds. it was proven by the fact that most of the students pronounce “she” and “see” in the same way. second difficulty in pronunciation occurs in item number 4 (see appendix 5) in the word van. based on the data, students find difficulty to produce sound /v/ appropriately. they tend to produce sound /f/ instead of /v/. it was proven that none of the students are able to pronounce the word van correctly, most of them pronounce this word as same as the word fan. this matter happens since both sounds /v/ and /f/ are found in english, so that the students must be aware to make the voiced-voiceless distinction between these two fricativesin order to avoid misunderstanding. third diffficulty can be seenin item number 5 (see appendix 5) in the word food. students find difficulty to produce sound /d/ as the final voice since in their language the corresponding voiced stop doesn’t occur in utterance final positions. it was proven that only 5 students who are able to pronounce it correctly. the other students pronounce this word as same as the word foot with the sound /t/ on the final position. another difficulty also appears in item number 6 (see appendix 5) in the word south. none of the students are able to pronounce the sound /ɵ/. they tend to substitute the sound /t/ instead of the sound /ɵ/. this is a mistake in manner of articulation, because the outgoing air meets with a complete closure instead of partialobstruction. difficulty in pronouncing certain sound also occurs in item number 7, 18, 19 (see appendix 5) in the words hat, bat, and bad. based on the data, it can be inferred that all of the students are unable to produce the sound /ǽ/ correctly since this type of vowel does not exist in their native language. they tend to replace it by a closer front vowel. in this case, all of the students substitute it with the sound /e/. another case of sound production difficulty appears in item number 15 (see appendix 5) in the word big. most of the students tend to replace the sound /i/ with the sound /i:/. it can be proven since there are only two students who are able to pronounce this word correctly. this matter happens because in bahasa indonesia the letter i always pronounced as the sound /i:/. the last problem occurs in item number 6 (see appendix 5) in the word front. only one student who is able to pronounce this word appropriately. the other students tend to replace the sound /ʌ/ with the sound /ͻ/. this problem appears since the letter o always pronounced as the sound /ͻ/ in bahasa indonesia. this whole facts show us that there is no guarantee for students who are able to listen a certain word correctly, will also able to pronounce the word appropriately. another finding showed that the patterns of students’ scores in both listening and pronunciation test were totally random. as said, there is no guarantee the higher students’ listening score is, the higher their pronunciation will be. it can be proven by examining the students’ scores. for example in student number 8 (see the appendix), she got the highest score in listening test, but her score in pronunciation test was as poor as the others. this fact also occured in student number 1(see the appendix). she got the lowest score in listening test, but her score in pronunciation test were not the lowest. in conclusion, mastering listening skill and pronunciation ability are very important in learning english. both of them play important roles in communication, so they have to be taught to improve students’ ability in english. a special attention should be given to their pronunciation ability since it never been taught in the class, so that the teacher should creatively integrate it with other materials or even create a special material to teach pronunciation. conclusion this research is proposed to answer whether or not there is a significant correlation rio luhung pribadi / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 9 between students’ listening skill and their pronunciation ability. in attempt to obtain the intended data, the researcher arranged the listening test to measure the students’ listening skill and pronunciation test to measure the students’ pronunciation ability. after conducting the research, the writer comes to some conclusions. first, the listening skill of the second year students of smk muhammadiyah 1 semarang is good. it can be seen from the computation in which the mean score of the students’ listening test is 80.1 when it is consulted to the table of category level scores by john w. best (1981:260); the score is categorized in good. second, the pronunciation ability of the second year students of smk muhammadiyah 1 semarang is poor. it can be seen from the computation in which the mean score of the students’ pronunciation ability is 48.78 when it is consulted to the table of category level scores by john w. best (1981:260); the score is categorized in poor. third, there is no significant positive correlation between the listening skill and pronunciation ability of the eleventh grade students of smk muhammadiyah 1 semarang in the academic year of 2010/2011. recalling the rxy observed value of the correlation between listening skill and pronunciation ability applied to the sample is 0.379, and consulting to the critical values of the r product moment with 95% confidence level and the number of subjects 18 was 0.468. it means that the result obtained from the computation is lower than its critical value. therefore, the writer concludes that there is no significant positive correlation between the listening skill (x) and pronunciation ability (y) of the second year students of smk muhammadiyah 1 semarang. references books : arikunto, s. 2002. prosedur penelitian suatu pendekatan praktek. jakarta: pt. rinekacipta. brown, h. d. 2005. principles of language learning and teaching: fourth edition. new york: pearson education, inc. cohen, l. 2000. research methods in education: fifth edition. new york: routledge falmer. lodico, m. g. 2006. method in educational research: from theory to practice. san fransisco: john wiley & sons, inc. saleh, m. 2001. pengantar praktik penelitian pengajaran bahasa. semarang: ikip semarang press. online articles : gilbert, j. b. 2008. teaching pronunciation. available at: www.cambridge.org/other_files/.../gilbe rt-teaching-pronunciation.pdf [accessed 27/01/13] lawson, k. 2007. the importance of listening. available at: www.growinggreatness.com/gg.../the_i mportance_of_listening.pdf [accessed 27/01/13] liubiniene, v. 2009. developing listening skills in clil. available at: www.kalbos.lt/zurnalai/15_numeris/14.p df [accessed 17/05/13] simon, m. and goes, j. 2011. correlational research. available at: dissertationrecipes.com/wpcontent/…/04/correlational researchx.pdf [accessed04/02/13] speaks, s. 2009. reliability and mtbf review. available at: www.vicorpower.com/documents/qualit y/real_mtbf.pdf [accessed 27/01/13] wolvin, a. d. 2009. listening, understanding, and misunderstanding. available at: www.sagepub.com/edwards/study/mater ials/reference/77593_5.1ref.pdf [accessed 28/01/13] http://www.growinggreatness.com/gg.../the_importance_of_listening.pdf http://www.growinggreatness.com/gg.../the_importance_of_listening.pdf 1 elt forum 4 (1) (2015) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt interlanguage: grammatical errors on students’ recount texts (a case study of first year of man 2 banjarnegara in the academic year 2014/2015) isti nurhayati english department. faculty of languages and arts. state university of semarang aticle info ________________ article history: received in juni 2015 approved in juli 2015 published in agustus 2015 ________________ keywords: grammatical errors, interlanguage, writing, and recount text. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ differences between indonesian and english language makes students often feel difficult in learning english especially in terms of grammar. those difficulties tend to lead students to make errors in building english sentences. however, errors are actually natural because they are regarded as developmental stage to gain english competence, and errors are result from the students’ efforts to find ways of solving their problems. those ways are called interlanguage. this study aims to find out the grammatical errors that students make in writing recount text and the interlanguage processes happen in it. the collecting data was done through writing recount text task to get kinds of errors data made by the students, and interview for getting interlanguage data happen to the students. the analysis steps started from identifying the errors, categorizing them into four categorizations of errors, and triangulating the errors with other supporting data. it reveals that students tend to make the errors omission, addition, misinformation, and misordering. the interlanguage processes happened are systematicity, permeability, fossilization consisting of language transfer, transfer of training, strategy of second language learning, and overgeneralization. © 2015 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: istinurhayati@gmail.com issn 2252-6706 isti nurhayati / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 2 introduction one of the challenges faced by indonesian students in learning english as a foreign language is ‘grammar’. flynn (1995), for example, states that language learners have some grammar, before they begin learning their second language which may not have any bearing on their prior linguistic knowledge. therefore, the learners will unconsciously apply their grammar while learning a new language. because of difference between indonesian and english grammar, many of the learners find it difficult to learn a new language, english. therefore, it makes them are afraid of making errors when they deal with grammar. nevertheless, making error is natural and actually necessary for language learners so that they achieve certain language competence (krashen, 1982: 74). therefore, errors are not regarded as a failure anymore, but it is considered as an important learning process that the students should experience for developing their competences. selinker (1972) calls this phenomenon as ‘interlanguage’. an il “can be defined as the language of the learner” (davies, 1989: 460), “a point on the way to a full natural language” (davies, 1989: 461); a development process involving the “learner’s systematic approximations toward the target language” “systematic approximations toward the target language” (davies, 1989: 448). wilkins as quoted by nunan (1991: 152) says that acquiring grammatical system of the target language is a central importance, because an inadequate knowledge of grammar would severely constrain linguistic creativity and limit the capacity for communication. for that statement, it is clear that when learners are not capable in acquiring grammatical system of language, they will not be able to achieve language competence. rajeev sinha (2003), states that there is a question asked “why is grammar so popular in certain schools and with certain teachers?” first, it is possible for a teacher to teach the grammar of a language although he has no real command over that language; second, grammar is so popular with examiner. it is difficult to test fluent speaking ability or writing ability grammar questions are easy to set and correct; third, directors of education demands grammar. they observe that the children in the schools speak and write ungrammatically and say, “therefore teach them more grammar”. the importance of grammar is not only for oral language, but also the writing language needs grammar. some linguists argue that fluency in writing is in paramount point that accuracy. writing skills is regarded as the highest level of language competence because it needs good performance of three other skills. writing is also known as a complex system because it needs more tools and skills. according to ramelan (1992: 42), writing is defined as a representative or symbol. it is not a usual symbol, but writing is a meaningful symbol. this study focuses on the discussion about grammatical errors made by students and the interlanguage process happens in it. interlanguage itself can be identified from the grammatical errors made by the students. as endang fauziati says in her journal entitled interlanguage and error fossilization: a study of indonesian students learning english as a foreign language, that the errors of the students become the source for studying the system of the learners’ l2 or interlanguage (il). furthermore, the writer will use the errors of the students especially the grammatical errors to find out the interlanguage process happens when the students learn english, especially in writing recount text. research methodology the writer aimed to find out the varieties of grammatical errors made by the students in order to be able to reveal the interlanguage happened behind the errors in that school. data used in this study were students” recount texts task, and interview. the task was given to 33 students of x7 of man 2 banjarnegara consisting of 16 boys and 17 girls. the interview was done to 16 students which represented the kinds of errors findings. the analysis technique of the data included isti nurhayati / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 3 identifying the grammatical errors, categorizing them into four categorizations, and analyzing the interview data to find out the interlanguage process happened. in conducting this study, the writer came to the subject class and explained the material about recount text to refresh the students’ memory about it. then, the writer gave the students time to choose the topics given and make a free recount text consist of seven until ten sentences of the topic they chose. after getting their written text, the writer analyzed and described the errors made by the students. then, after knowing the students who made more grammatical errors than others and discussed with the teacher to select the subject of interview, after that the writer interviewed the selected students to find out the interlanguage process happened and categorized it based on the matrix of interlanguage. result and discussion the kinds of errors that the students often made were omitting some elements, adding, using wrong form or misinformation, and misordering the sentence structure. it was like corder said that errors are typically produced by people who do not yet fully command some institutionalize language systems. it happened to the students who did not yet fully understood about recount text and english sentence rule. moreover, from the errors we knew that the interlanguage process actually happened in it like systematicity, permeability, language transfer transfer of training, second language learning strategy, and overgeneralization as selinker explained. those interlanguage processes happened to the students when they faced some tasks relating to the english material and elements and they tried to solve that problem like; a. task of grammar most of the students felt difficult in grammar because the rule of grammar in indonesian and english is quite different like the rules of ‘to be’, gerund, and tenses including past and present tense. in indonesia, there is no such kind of those rules. the errors that the subjects often made such as using ‘to be’ in the sentences that actually did not need that, and they also often forgot to change the tenses that should be used. it was because they had not been familiar with english rule. those differences made students often used indonesian grammar when they wrote english sentence especially when they found difficulties in deciding the grammar that should be used. even though they already knew about the differences and english grammar, when they rarely exercised writing english sentence they would often forget about english rule. moreover, when they used inappropriate learning strategy, they would still found difficult in writing english text like they learned english by reading only and never practice writing. furthermore, if such kind of situations happened continuously, the subjects would find ways to solve those difficulties like construct their own rule by mixing the indonesian grammar and english grammar that they already knew. even they used indonesian grammar in all of their sentences because what they knew and remembered was all about indonesian. then, the interlanguage process happened to the students when such kind of situation above happened. b. task of vocabulary different language must have different vocabularies. this rule is applied for indonesian and english languages. most of the subjects felt difficult in finding the words that they wanted to use in their text while they did not know those words in english. when they faced such kind of situations, some of the subjects preferred to open the dictionary and some others liked asking to somebody like friends and teacher. those strategies were not wrong as long as when the subjects knew how to use the dictionary and also they knew the rule of asking. it became inappropriate strategy because the subjects used the dictionary without knowledge of how to use dictionary. they wrote what was in the dictionary directly without thinking the correct one. for example, some subjects used a dictionary to find a word ‘bermain’, and in the dictionary it was written ‘to play’. because of this, isti nurhayati / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 4 those subjects directly wrote ‘to play’ in their texts and added word ‘to’ for all of the verbs in their texts like ‘to swim’. furthermore, asking to somebody also was not wrong as long as the subjects knew the rule. a case happened to the one of the subjects that preferred to ask to somebody when they did not know the english words. for example, one of subject wanted to say ‘jalan-jalan’, then, he asked to the teacher. the teacher said ‘go walk’ in which she pronounced /gəʊ wɔːk/, then without opening the dictionary he directly wrote what they already heard. actually what he wrote was not ‘go walk’ but ‘go wol’. this phenomenon happened when the subjects chose inappropriate learning strategy which became their habits, or when the subjects used a little thing about english and they thought that it was a correct thing and then they applied it in their texts. this situation showed us unconsciously that interlanguage was happening. other thing that happened relating to the difficulties in finding english words came to the condition of higher level confusion of the subjects that was the students used indonesian word in their texts. this happened to one of the subject that used the indonesian word ‘setelah itu’ in her text, it was because she did not know how to say it in english. the lack of knowledge relating to the english vocabularies which caused by lacking of reading habits made students came back to use indonesian words even when they had to produce english sentences. it was also how the interlanguage happened to the students. c. task of constructing sentences constructing sentences became the most difficult part that the students faced during the writing process. most of the students made misordering sentences in their recount texts. those errors more and less were because of the difference between indonesian and english structure especially in ordering its phrases and also an adjective used. for example, most of the students wrote ‘home grandmother’ instead of ‘grandmother’s home’. not only that, there were students who wrote ‘filed football’, ‘garden fruit’, and other phrases that had same constructions. based on the interview, the subjects who made that kind of errors did not know how to construct that phrases in english. because of that, they wrote it based on the indonesian structure, the structure that they already knew and were familiar with. besides, there were the subjects who actually already knew about the rule; however, when they made the text they forgot about it because they felt nervous. furthermore, there were the subjects who made sentences exactly same with indonesian structure that made the sentences was wrong. those subjects reasoned that they used indonesian structure because they felt confuse about the english structure. when such kind of situation happened, the interlanguage process happened to the students. they found a way in which they could resolve their problem in order to finish their texts. those ways they got from the knowledge that they already knew and made experiment with it. conclusions and suggestions conclusion based on the result and discussion related to the grammatical errors which the students of x7 man 2 banjarnegara made, it concluded that there were some conclusions: the kinds of errors made by the students in writing recount text were: a. omission in all of the grammatical features aspects of recount text include: 1) the omission of specific participant, the word that indicated the specific participant, and also the sign of plurality in the subject of specific participant. 2) the omission of verb that indicated material processes, the element of material processes like a morpheme, and the word that should complete a verb. 3) the omission of past verb, the morpheme of past tense –ed, ‘to be’ in past form, and the word that completed the past tense. 4) the omission of preposition in stating time and place, the article, and the sign of plurality. isti nurhayati / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 5 5) the omission of temporal sequence words, the word that completed the temporal sequence word, and the letter of the word. b. addition in all of the grammatical features aspects of recount text include: 1) the addition of ‘to be’ on the specific participant and the adverb after subject. 2) the addition of word ‘to’ in the verb of material processes and the word that had meaning with the material processes used. 3) the addition of word ‘to’ after past verb which was not necessary, the word that had same meaning but different form. 4) the addition of plurality, the double preposition, and double morpheme in stating time and place. 5) the addition of a word in the phrase of temporal of sequence, the preposition ‘to’, and unimportant morpheme. c. misinformation of all of the grammatical features aspects of recount text include: 1) misinformation of using letter ‘s’ as plurality sign and the writing of number as a rank number. d. misordeiring of all of the grammatical features aspects of recount text. 1. the interlanguage process happens to the student during writing recount text are: a. systematicity the students constructed a sentence and grammar based on coherent rules which students constructed and selected in predictable ways such as taking a rule from the example that they saw. b. permeability the students constructed a sentence and rule from the rules that they knew and worked with their feeling to combine it. c. language of transfer the students often used indonesian language structure sentence to construct their english sentence. d. transfer of training the students constructed the sentence based on what they already did before. e. strategy of second language learning the students laid on the dictionary and asking to the friends while they constructing a sentence. f. overgeneralization the students used the tense and verb form that they already knew without knowing the context of the sentence. suggestions based on the conclusions of the result of the study, the writer recommended some suggestions to solve the errors made by the students and the interlanguage process happened to the students, among others were: 1. for the teachers the errors are not a failure that the students might not do that, so the teacher should analyze the error made by the students to know what the students need. 2. for the students the students are hoped can really understand about the difference between indonesian and english language and the students should find their strategies in learning english that can develop the four skills of english. 3. for the school the school should provide the facility that supports the english learning process especially in developing the students’ english skill. 4. for future researchers for future researchers especially those who work in language program who wants to resolve the problems of kinds of grammatical errors and interlanguage can use the result of this study as the background to decide the best method in learning english. bibliography arikunto, suharsimi. 2002. prosedur penelitian, suatu pendekatan praktek. jakarta: rineka cipta .2006. dasar-dasar evaluasi pendidikan. jakarta: bumi aksara brown, h. douglas. 2002. principle of language learning and teaching. new jersey: prentice hall, inc. 2007. prinsip pembelajaran dan pengajaran bahasa. new york: pearson education, inc. isti nurhayati / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 6 creswell, john. w. 1994. research design 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4, pp. 1715-1719. university of southampton. 2012. multilingual theory and practice in applied linguistics. proceedings of the 45th annual meeting of the british association for applied linguistics. 1 elt forum 5 (1) (2016) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the effectiveness of using online newspaper in the learning of grammar an experimental study at eighth grade students of smp negeri 8 batang novita hartoyo; bambang purwanto english department. faculty of languages and arts. state university of semarang. aticle info ________________ article history: received in february 2016 approved in march 2016 published in april 2016 ________________ keywords: online newspaper, the learning media, grammar. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this research was conducted because there is a possibility to introduce online newspaper to the students to improve their ability in grammar mastery due to the rapidity of technology development. online newspaper and grammar were chosen because online newspaper contains grammar which was written straightly correct because it will be read by all of people. the problem of this research is how effective the use of online newspaper in the learning of grammar is, and the purpose of this research is to find out whether it is effective or not. the subject of this research is eighth grade students of smp negeri 8 batang. they were chosen because i had been experienced in teach them and know their grammar mastery is still low. the research design is quasi-experimental design, with posttest pre-test experimental and control group. the result of this research shows that the gain of experimental group score is not as high as control group. so, it can be concluded that using online newspaper in the learning of grammar is not effective because the score gain of experimental group is lower than control group. it was caused by the level of vocabularies used in online newspaper is not common in students’ daily language and they have different interests in topic of the online newspaper’s passage. © 2016 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: opinovita22@gmail.com issn 2252-6706 novita / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 2 introduction based on my observation for three months in smp negeri 8 batang, eighth grade students’ mastery of grammar is still poor. it was shown when i asked them about little bit part of grammar. they often did mistake in answering test because they did not understand the grammar. for example when i gave them questions and they have to answer it using right preposition, most of them failed to answer it correctly. some of them also have not understood the different use of article. in addition, they did not understand what adjective and adverb are. they only knew noun and verb. it may be caused by some factors, one of them is the materials used in the learning. the textbook used in the class do not contain grammar materials explicitly, so that students cannot learn grammar optimally. many of them felt that grammar is a difficult thing to be understood, because it was not familiar to them. so, when i explain some elements of grammar they were confused and bored. therefore, i made up my mind to teach grammar to them in a joyful way. then, i decided to use a media that can interest them and help them to improve and enhance their grammar knowledge, and hold a study to improve their mastery of grammar. in this case, grammar is selected because it is inserted in the curriculum of ktsp which is used there. the learning of grammar may be more interesting through media, so that online newspaper is selected to teach grammar. “newspaper is a regularly printed document consisting of large sheets of paper that are folded together, or a website, containing news reports, articles, photographs, and advertisements” (cambridge online dictionary 2008). it is commonly distributed daily, so it is very close to the society. moreover, people can get it by buying it per day or per month, it can be bought in a store or even at their house with delivery service. it spreads the information to the world by carrying them in it. people usually read newspaper with drink a cup of tea in the morning or evening. due to the cheapness of newspaper’s price, everyone can buy it, even read it on the wrapper of food or something else. although it is not as interesting as video because there is no animation, according to danim (2010: 28) “reading passage (books, journals, newspapers, manual instruction, brochure, etc.) have more advantages because they can be read again and again and can be the sources in writing”. moreover, people can still receive news when they are on their way going for work or at outdoor area, whereas they cannot receive any information from electronic media, i.e., television and radio. however, in indonesia the reading interest is still poor. the central bureau of statistics (bps) shows that in 2012 the percentage of people who read newspaper or magazine is only 17.66 that is decrease from year to year. this number is contrast with the percentage of those who watch television which is increase from 2003 to 2012. it is possibly happen because of the development of technology. people commenced to leave reading, especially newspaper, because they have their own modern gadgets which provide a lot of entertainments. therefore, the change is needed to increase reading interest in indonesia. one of the ways is by introducing the source of reading like newspaper to the people especially to the young generation. subasini and kokilavani (2013: 57) stated that writing is a complex challenging activity for many students, so teachers should focus on the grammatical concepts that are essential for the clear communication of meaning. in addition, they stated that grammar is the most important thing when someone comes to learn english and the importance of it cannot be neglected. people are getting familiar with internet nowadays, even children. they use internet in many ways. adults use it to access news, and children use it to play game on the web or other entertainment, for instance. based on the data of bps, in central java, people over 5 years old who access the internet are 24.49 (2012). in addition, hartoyo (2012: 31) stated that “extensive and profitable use of internet as a medium of language learning is now being made by many language teachers.” this study combines the interest of people in using internet by introducing online newspaper to students, so they can use internet novita / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 3 not only for entertainment but also for looking for information and news. in addition, students can learn grammar through the passage in the online newspaper. finally, this study introduces technology to the students through media which are available surround them to help them in the learning of grammar. method in this research, i use quasi-experimental design with pretest and posttest experimental control group. according to tuckman (1978: 136), it is not as adequate as the true experimental designs, but better than the pre-experimental designs, with regard to control of the treats to validity. quasi-experimental designs exist for situations in which complete experimental control is difficult or impossible.by this design, two groups are given a pretest, followed by treatments, and finally a posttest. pretest and posttest experimental control group design can be described as follows: 𝐸 01 𝑋 02 𝐶 03 𝑌 04 (arikunto, 2006: 86) in which: e : experimental group c : control group 01: pretest for the experimental group 02: posttest for the experimental group 03: pretest for the control group 04: posttest for the control group x : treatment using online newspaper y :treatment without using online newspaper (textbook) the research was conducted at smp negeri 8 batang located on jl. kyai sambong, batang. in this research, there was one group that was experimented and the other group was used to compare based on this design. therefore, i used three classes in collecting data, one class was for experiment, one class to compare, and the last class was used to measure the validity and reliability of the test that would be used in the class experimented. i chose class viii c for experimental group, viii d for comparison group, and viii e for try-out group. the population provided in this research is the eighth grade (academic year 2015/2016) students of smp negeri 8 batang located on jl. kyai sambong, batang. according to frankel (1993 in purwanto 2013) if the population is more than 100 persons, we may take 20-25 percent from the population. in this case, the number of eighth grade students of smp negeri 8 batang is 124 students. so, 20 percent of 124 are 24 students. i took one class as sample; it is class viii c which the number of students is 24. research finding the main goal of this research was to find out the effectiveness of using online newspaper in the learning of grammar of eighth grade students of smp negeri 8 batang. before collecting the data, the instruments were tried out to viii e at july 29th, 2015, and then they were analyzed to measure the validity and reliability. brown (1988: 101) said that “test validity is defined as the degree to which a test measures what it claims to be measuring.” i computed the item validity by using pearson product moment. the formula is as follows: on α = 5% with n= 25 it is obtained = 0,396. the item test is valid if rxy > rtabel. the total items were 40 items. after the validity was analyzed the 20 others item belong to be valid items, and the rests are invalid. the 20 invalid items could not be used in the pre-test. then, after eliminating 20 invalid items, the other 20 valid items which were used as pre-test consist of 15% easy items, 70% medium items, and 15% difficult items based on item facility. based on item discrimination, it consists of 65% moderate and 35% high discrimination items. tuckman (1978: 160) said that “test reliability means that a test is consistent.” before computing the reliability, the total variance must be computed first. })(}{()({( ))(( 2222 yynxxn yxxyn rxy    novita / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 4 the formula is as follows: 𝜎2 = ʃ𝑌2− (ʃ𝑌)2 𝑁 𝑁 = 9994− (464)2 25 25 = 55.2864 the total variance of the test is 55.2864. after knowing the total variance, the reliability can be computed. to check whether the test that i used was good or not, i used k-r20 formula. the formula is as follows: 𝑟𝐾−𝑅20 = ( 𝑛 𝑛 − 1 ) ( 𝑆2 − 𝛴𝑝𝑞 𝑆2 ) = ( 40 40−1 ) ( 55.2864−6.07 55.2864 ) = 0.913 the result of interrater reliability of the try out test was 0.913. the test is reliable if rvalue > rtable. then, the result was consulted with rtable for α = 5% with n = 25 was 0.396. rvalue vs rtable = 0.913 > 0.396 since the results of rvalue > rtable , it can be concluded that the try out test was reliable and could be used as the pre test. after that, pre-test was given to the students in the experimental and the control group. based on the pre-test score, both the students of experimental and control group’s scores are low averagely. then they were given treatments. the special treatments were given to the experimental group in form of applying english online newspaper as media in the learning of grammar by me. in addition, the control group was given treatments without english online newspaper by the teacher. they were taught by textbook instead. each group was given treatments for 8 x 40 minutes which consisted of four meetings. in each meeting, the learning process was divided into three main parts, they were opening, main activity, and closing. after they were given treatments, posttest was conducted. the data were obtained from the students’ scores of multiple choices test. they were pretest and posttest scores from the experimental and the control groups. the total score for the experimental group were 790 for the pretest and 875 for the posttest. therefore, the score difference between the pretest and posttest for the experimental group was 85. while the total scores for the control group were 980 for the pretest and 1200 for the posttest. therefore, the difference of the total scores between the pretest and the posttest for the control group was 200. the following is the simple table for the pretest and posttest students’ scores: table 1 different score between experimental and control group group total score of pretest total score of post-test difference between pre-test and post-test experimental group 790 875 85 control group 980 1200 220 most of students of both groups understand the use of article, preposition, and the difference between adjective and adverb. it was shown by the result of the test because there are gains between the score of pretest and posttest. unfortunately, the use of online newspaper did not affect the test result because the control group which did not learn grammar through online newspaper got the better improvement rather than the experimental group. the result of the average score in pre-test, post-test of experiment and control group were presented in the chart below. novita / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 5 figure 1 the result of the average score in pretest and post-test of the experimental and control group the average pre test’s score of control group was 37.69 and experimental group was 32.91. from the score, it can be concluded that the two groups were homogenous because there was only slight difference in the pre-test result between the experimental group and the control group. after both groups received different treatments, the score of the experimental group was lower than the score of the control group. the average post test’s score of control group was 45.38, and the average post test’s score of experimental group was 33.65. it can be concluded that using online newspaper is not effective in the learning of grammar because there is no significant difference of the post-test result between the experimental group and the control group, and the score of control group is higher. therefore, ho (null hypothesis) was accepted, which meant “using online newspaper is not effective to teach grammar”. then ha (using online newspaper is effective to teach grammar) was rejected. and finally, based on the research that has been conducted, it was not proved that using english online newspaper in the learning of grammar is effective. the use of english online newspaper in improving students’ grammar is not more effective than using textbook. the measurement showed that the posttest score of the grammar achievement of the experimental group was lower than the control group’s. from this statement, it can be said that english online newspaper is not effective enough to be used in improving students’ grammar. however, the grammar improvement of the experimental group is lower than the control group. it may be caused by some factors. the first is the language level of english online newspaper and textbook is quite different. the language used in english online newspaper is more sophisticated than textbook, so that the students got difficulties in understanding the passage. vocabularies used in english online newspaper are general, whereas textbook’s vocabularies are agreed with students’ ability. the second reason is the different interests of the students. it causes their willingness to read are different. it is also caused by the interestingness of textbook is higher than english online newspaper. the third reason is different interest of students. according to asgari (2013) students who are updated by the newest issue enjoy learning through what they have known, whereas student who are not updated are not interested in the issue that is discussed in the class. the forth factor is i did not do difficulty level analysis in selecting passages from online newspaper that i gave to the students, so that it was possible the passages were too difficult for them. the passages should be analyzed the difficulty level by particular formula to match the difficulty level to the students level. the last factor is the media that i chose is not suitable for junior high school students. i chose jakarta post which is adults reading, so it was too heavy for 0 10 20 30 40 50 cont exp 45 34 pre test post test novita / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 6 junior high school students. online newspaper for kids should be chosen because it was suitable for children. in addition, based on the interview the students were not familiar with the learning media. most of them usually read indonesian reading. few of them were interested in english because they do not understand some vocabularies, so there were difficulties in catching the massage. many of them like reading indonesian novels and teen magazines, and they do not like read newspapers. they read novellas and magazines just for fun and entertainment, whereas they read newspaper if only there were school assignments and it needed newspaper as the source to finish. however they said that reading online newspaper has advantages because it can improve their skill in translating the sentences in the passage of online newspaper into indonesian. some of them also said that they understand english sentences and utterances by reading online newspaper. conclusion based on the detailed analysis and research findings discussed in previous section, the conclusion can be derived as follows. there was no significant difference of students’ achievement in grammar ability between the students who were taught by using english online newspaper and those who were taught by using textbook for the eight year students of smp negeri 8 batang in the academic year of 2015/2016. references arikunto, s. (2006). prosedur penelitian suatu pendekatan praktik. jakarta: rineka cipta. asgari, majid. (2013). using current issues of interest in teaching grammar. international research journal of applied and basic sciences., (vol, 4 (2): 487-495), science explorer publications brown, d. h. (1988). understanding research in second language learning. cambridge: cup. brown, d. h. (2004). language assessment: priciples and classroom practices. new york: longman. danim, sudarman. 2010. media komunikasi pendidikan. jakarta: bumi aksara. devi, waikhom pinky. (july, 2013). inpui adverbs. international journal of english and education.volume 2, issue 3. halliday, m. a. k. (1994). an introduction of functional grammar. china: foreign language teaching and research press. hartoyo. (2012). ict in language learning. semarang: pelita insani semarang. murcia, m. c. (2007). rethinking the role of communicative competence. usa: university of california. purwanto, edy. (2013). metode penelitian kuantitatif. semarang: cv swadaya manunggal. subasini & kokilavani (2013, december). significance of grammar in technical english. academic research journals. vol. 1(3), 56-58 tuckman, b. w. (1978). conducting educational research. london: harcourt brace jacobovitz. 62 elt forum 3 (1) (2014) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the effectiveness of snakes and ladders game to improve students’ mastery of simple past tense in constructing recount texts (a quasi-experimental research of the eighth grade students of smp n 2 demak in the academic year of 2013/2014) ulil albab  english department, faculty of languages and arts, state university of semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in april 2014 approved in mei 2014 published in juni 2014 ________________ keywords: snakes and ladders game, students’ mastery of simple past tense, constructing recount texts, quasiexperimental research ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this study concerns with the use of snakes and ladders game as a medium to improve students’ mastery of simple past tense in constructing recount texts. the purposes of this study are to show whether snakes and ladders game gives contribution to improve the students’ mastery of simple past tense in constructing recount texts and to find out whether snakes and ladders game gives the significant difference or not. quasi-experimental research was used. the population of this study was the eighth grade students of smp n 2 demak. the experimental group consisted of 30 students and the control group also consisted of 30 students. there were four meetings during the experiment. before the experiment was conducted, a pre-test was given to both groups. a post-test was given after the experiment was done. to find out the significant difference statistically, t-test formula was used. before applying the formula, the data were checked by using normality and homogeneity. the result shows that the data have normal distribution and homogeneity. the result of t-test is 3.41, for α = 5% with df = 58, t-table = 2.002. it means that the t-value is higher than the t-table (3.41 > 2.002). the purposes of this study are achieved because the students’ mastery of simple past tense in constructing recount texts improve. then, the t-value of the post test is higher than the t-table; it means that the use of snakes and ladders gives the significant difference. in fact, based on this study the use of snakes and ladders game is effective and applicable enough as a teaching medium to be used in improving the students’ mastery of simple past tense in constructing recount texts. © 2014 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: b3 building, fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: uuliilalbab@gmail.com issn 2252-6706 ulil albab / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 63 introduction grammar is very important in spoken and written language. as a result, students are not supposed to understand only the theories and knowledge of grammar, but in practice, they also have to know how to apply it in both oral and written form. as a matter of fact, written communication is partly different from spoken. in written, students generate their ideas and thoughts into readable texts and they also have to pay attention to spelling, punctuation, word choice, and so on. however, in spoken, they express their ideas and thoughts orally. in the level of eighth grade students, there are text types or genres that have to be learnt by the students in english writing. two main categories of text types that have been learnt by them are literary and factual texts. for instance, narrative belongs to literary texts; whereas, factual texts include descriptive, recount, and procedure. each text has its own language features, such as tenses that are used in different texts. simple present tense is used in the form of descriptive and procedure text; on the other hand, simple past tense is used in recount and narrative text. in fact, students have already been familiar with writing text in learning english. however, they sometimes face some difficulties. they understand the generic structure in certain text types and have many ideas to express in written texts, but they feel difficult to write because their mastery of tenses in certain text types or genres is weak. in conventional teaching, teachers usually have explained the generic structures of the text and tenses of the language features before starting writing. in fact, there are still some errors that can be found from their result of writing practice, such as the grammar construction of the tenses in sentences. in order to solve the problems of the students’ grammar in writing, especially in constructing a text, the writer has an innovative and attractive method, especially for teachers in teaching english. harmer (2001:1) stated that “they should make their lessons interesting so you do not fall asleep students.” thus, teachers as the main actors in the classroom can look for other methods of teaching to design an interesting and attractive learning activity. as a result, the writer tries to combine teaching using some methods; they are pictures, videos, or games. by using one of those attractive media, students will be enthusiastic and they also will understand the lesson easily. in this research, the writer would like to focus in improving student’s mastery of simple past tense to construct recount texts by using snakes and ladders game. as we know, simple past tense belongs to language feature of recount text. in addition, snakes and ladders grammar game is used in this research through a quasiexperimental research to find out how effective it contributes in improving the students’ past tense competence. hopefully, their writing skill, especially in writing recount text will be improved. review related literature 2.1 snakes and ladders game in science and technology education book, the definition of “snakes and ladders is a popular game for children in many countries of the world. it is easy to make from basic materials and can be adapted to suit many learning situations.” this game also “can assist in developing basic arithmetic such as counting, addition and subtraction, communication, as well as the concept for which a game has been developed” (lowe, 1988:27). 2.2 simple past tense in modern english book, the definition of simple past tense is explained that “both forms (simple past tense and past progressive tense) of the past tense represent definite past. they refer to events that were completed before the statements is made. they are often accompanied by such expressions of definite past as yesterday, last year, two weeks ago” (frank, 1972:49). 2.3 recount text in text type in english 1 book, the definition of recount text “is a piece of text that retells past events, usually in the order in which ulil albab / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 64 they happened. the purpose of a recount is to give the audience a description of what occurred and when it occurred” (anderson and kathy, 1997:48). research discussion 3.1 research design the research design that was used in this study was an experimental research and it was conducted in the classroom. ross (2005:3) stated that “experimental research is used in settings where variables defining one or more ‘causes’ can be manipulated in a systematic fashion in order to discern ‘effects’ on other variables.” furthermore, specifically the writer chose quasiexperimental research in the form of nonequivalent control group design. this design is often used in classroom experiments when experimental and control groups are such naturally assembled groups as intact classes, which may be similar. best (1993:151) stated that “quasi-experimental design provides control of when and to whom the measurement is applied, but because random assignment to experimental and control treatments has not been applied, the equivalence of the groups is not assured.” the design of quasi-experimental research can be described as the following: 𝑂1 x 𝑂2 𝑂3 c 𝑂4 (best, 1993:151) in which: o1 = pre-test for the experimental group o2 = post-test for the experimental group o3 = pre-test for control group o4 = post-test for control group x. = exposure of a group to an experimental by giving treatment using snakes and ladders game c = exposure of a group to the control 3.2 theoretical framework in this study, the writer wants to find out how effective snakes and ladders game to improve students’ mastery of simple past tense in constructing recount texts. hence, the research design that is going to be used this study is a quasi-experimental research. the writer will use two classes from the population. one class will be the control group and the else will be the experimental group. before the treatments are conducted, first, the writer gives pre-test for the students. then, the treatments are given for the students. there are two meetings for each the control and experimental groups during the research. the experimental group is the group which is the treatment of snakes and ladders game will be delivered. after all the treatments were conducted, the writer gives post-test for the students. the last activity, he analyses the result of pre-test and post-test by comparing the mean using t-test formula to find out the significant different of the experimental and control groups. the scheme of the quasi-experiment can be described as the following diagram: diagram 2.1 scheme of quasi-experimental research 3.3 pre test after conducting the try-out test and revising the instrument, the writer gave the pretest for the experimental and the control groups for the next activity on march, 27th 2014. in the instrument of pre-test, there were 20 items of ulil albab / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 65 sentence constructions and picture-cued story sequences in constructing recount texts. in doing the test, the writer gave 40 minutes for the students. the following is the chart of the result from the pre-test of the control and the experimental groups: chart 4.1 pre-test comparison of experimental and control groups based on chart 4.1, there were 6 students who got 31-40 in the control group and in the experimental group was just 1 student. then, there were 2 students in the control group and 5 students in the experimental group who got 4150, 11 students in the control group and 9 students in the experimental group who got 5160, 14 students in the control group and 7 students in the experimental group who got 6170, 4 students in the both groups who got 71-80, and 4 students in the experimental group who got 81-90. as a result, there was no significant improvement between the scores of the students in the control and experimental groups. 3.4 post test after the treatment was done in the experimental and the control group, the writer gave a post-test for both groups on april, 19th 2014. the instrument was the same test item as the pre-test. this last activity was done to find out the result of the students’ achievement of simple past tense in constructing recount texts after they were given treatment of snakes and ladders game. the following is the chart of the result from the post-test of the control and the experimental groups: chart 4.2 post-test comparison of experimental and control groups based on the chart above, there were 4 students in the control group and there was 1 student in the experimental group who got 41-50. there were 5 students and in the experimental group was just 1 student who got 51-60. then, there were 10 students in the control group and 3 students in the experimental group who got 6170, 7 students in the control group and 11 students in the experimental group who got 7180, 4 students in the control group and 7 students in the experimental group who got 81-90. the last, there were 7 students in the experimental group who got 91-100. thus, based on the data of the result of the post-test in both groups, it can be concluded that the scores of the students of experimental group were higher than those of control group. 3.5 test of significance the following table is the mean scores of the pre-test and the post-test from the students: table 4.4 mean of pre-test and post-test based on the table above, it can be seen the means of pre-test and post-test for the experimental and the control groups. after that, the writer compared between the two means. the post-test of experimental group was higher than that of the control group. the difference between group the mean score of the pre test the mean score of the post test experimental group control group 63.08 56.75 81.25 67.83 ulil albab / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 66 the two mean is (81.25 – 67.83 = 13.42). it indicates that the treatment is effective because there is an improvement in the experimental group than in the control group. however, the writer could not conclude that the difference between the two means above were significant. thus, to make the analysis be more reliable; the writer proved it by using t-test formula to determine whether the difference between the two means was statistically significant. the writer analyzed the data using t-test. before applying the t-test formula, s had to be found out first. the step of the computation is as follows: 𝑆 = √ (𝑛1 − 1)𝑠1 2 + (𝑛2 − 1)𝑠2 2 𝑛1 + 𝑛2 − 2 = √ (30 −1) 119.90+ (30 −1) 36.97 30+30 −2 = √ 3477.1+1072.13 58 = √ 4549.23 58 = √78.44 = 8.86 after getting the standard deviation (s), the computation of t-test can be done as the following: 𝑡 = 𝑋1− 𝑋2 𝑆 √ 1 𝑛1 + 1 𝑛2 = 18.17 −10.33 8.86 √ 1 30 + 1 30 = 7.84 8.86 ×0.26 = 7.84 2.30 = 3.41 before the computation above was concluded by the writer, the final result of t-test would be compared to the critical value of t-table to prove whether the difference was significant or not. in this experiment, the writer used α = 5%. furthermore, the number of samples in this experiment for the experimental and the control group were 30 students with the degree of freedom (df) that was (n1 + n2 – 2 = 30 + 30 – 2 = 58). for α = 5% and df = 58, the writer checked the degree of freedom in the t-table. the result was 2.002. the t-value was 3.41 and the t-table was 2.002. thus, the t-value was higher than the critical value, (3.41 > 2.002). it can be concluded that the result of the test after getting the treatment between the experimental and the control group was significantly different. furthermore, teaching simple past tense by using snakes and ladders game in order to construct recount texts was more effective and got higher grades than the students who were taught without snakes and ladders game. conclusion according to the result of this research, the writer can conclude as the following: (1) there were improvement of scores after the students were taught by using snakes and ladders game. it is proven by the t-value which is higher than t-table, (3.41 > 2.002). (2) this game makes the students active in discussing simple past tense because there is an interaction and communication while they are playing the game. (3) snakes and ladders game is a new game for the students in learning simple past tense; thus, the students are enthusiastic to study grammar, especially simple past tense. (4) this game can ease the students to correct and find out some common errors in making simple past tense. (5) this game provides language practice in various skills – listening, speaking, reading, and writing. references anderson, m. and kathy a. 1997. text type in english 1. south yarra: macmillan education. best, j.w. and j.v. kahn. 1993. research in education. new delhi: prentice-hall of india. frank, m. 1972. modern english: exercises for native speakers. new jersey: prentice-hall, inc. harmer, j. 2001. how to teach english. edinburgh: longman. lowe, n. k. 1988. games and toys in the teaching of science and technology. paris: unesco. ulil albab / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 67 ross, k. n. 2005. educational research: some basic concepts and terminology. paris: unesco. 1 elt forum 5 (2) (2016) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the effectiveness of send a problem technique for teaching writing an analytical exposition text (a quasi-experimental study of the eleventh grade students of sma n 8 semarang in the academic year 2015/2016) intan kris amilia drs. amir sisbiyanto, m.hum. english department. faculty of languages and arts. state university of semarang. aticle info ________________ article history: received in april 2016 approved in april 2016 published in may 2016 ________________ keywords: send a problem, analytical exposition text, quasiexperimental.. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ the aim of the study is to find out whether teaching writing analytical exposition text by using send a problem technique is effective or not for senior high school students. in the working hypothesis (h1), “there is significant difference in students’ writing achievement between those who are taught using send a problem and those who are taught using conventional way.” meanwhile, in the null hypothesis (ho), “there is no significant difference in the students’ writing achievement between those who are taught using send a problem and those who are taught using conventional way.”the population of this study was the eleventh grade students of sma negeri 8 semarang in the academic year 2015/2016. the total number of the sample was 60 students that consisted of 30 students of class xi is 4 as the experiment group who were taught using send a problem technique and 30 students of class xi is 5 as the control group who were taught using conventional way. the design of this study was a quasi-experimental study. the data were collected through the writing test. in the pre-test, the mean score of the experimental group was 62.80 and the control group was 62.77. after the treatment, the result of post-test of the experimental group was 75.57 while the control group was 68.57. the independent sample t-test used by the writer showed that there was a significant difference between post-test of control group and experimental group. lastly, teaching writing analytical exposition text using send a problem technique is effective than conventional way. english teachers are suggested to concern better in their technique variety in teaching writing any kind of texts especially analytical exposition text. © 2016 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: amiliaintankris@gmail.com issn 2252-6706 intan kris amilia / journal of english language teaching 5 (2) (2016) 2 introduction background of the study nowadays, english is taught in any education level as foreign language in indonesia. it is line with globalization era on which english is mostly used in entire world as international language. students should be accustomed to take english in order to convey their ideas including information or messages especially in writing. so, the teachers have responsibilities to teach how to write in a good and appropriate ways to the students. teaching is actually not an easy task for teachers. teachers have to make their students understand what is taught in order to achieve the learning objectives. teaching comes from basic word “teach”, it is an activity to show somebody to do something so that they will able to do it themselves (oxford advance learner dictionary, 2010: 1531). teaching activities can cover many things, not only lesson in school but also everything around human beings. teachinglearning process itself is a means whereby society trains its young ones in selected environment (usually the school) as quickly a possible to adjust them to the world in which they live (al rahman : 2004). he says that there are four aspec influence teaching and learning, they are teacher, students, learning process and learning situation. the process is the interaction between the students and the teacher. teaching-learning process means through which the teacher, the learner, the curriculum and other variables are organized in a systematic manner to attain predetermined goals and objectives. the teachinglearning situations have to be brought into an intelligible whole. the teaching-learner activities are varied and complex have to be harmonized. for example the individual differences, the methods of teaching, the material tobe taught, classroom conditions, teaching devices,questioning and answering, assignments, thinking, creating, practical skills, discussion and many others. teaching-learning process is influenced by the totality of the situation. so, the teacher can play an important role in facilitating learning when they take account the needs of the learners. beside that the creativity of the teacher in conducting the teaching learning process also influences the student in acquiring the target language. for that reasons, the teacher must choose the best method in their teaching learning process. the system of teaching english in indonesia as a foreign language has changed from time to time based on the curriculum. the school used curriculum 2013 and now some schools go back to school based curriculum (ktsp). in senior high school, the students are required to master the four language skill: speaking, writing, reading, listening and they have to know the language components grammar, vocabulary and pronounciation. most of all, writing is the difficult one. writing is a process of thinking from planning or drafting to revising. according to nunan (1989:35), learning to write fluently and expressively is the most difficult of the macroskills for all language users. he also added, writing is an extremely complex cognitive activity in which the writer is required to demonstrate control of a number of variables simultaneously. tessema (2005:26) states that writing courses must focus on the specific writing purposes that are most relevant to students’ needs. the importance of writing can be seen in people daily activities when they need to write short text such as memos, invitation letters, sympathy notes, brochures, articles, business letters, application letters. it also goes to the genre text like recount text, narrative text, report text,analytical exposition and many others. most of them always feel difficult when students are asked to write them. they know the concept but less knowledge of good structure and the use of appropriate sentence. there are so many approaches of teaching. one of them which is effective according to some teachers is cooperative learning or called collaborative learning, is a teaching strategy in which the students work in small teams using a variety of learning activities to enhance their understanding of a lesson. by doing such activities, each student is expected to be responsible not only for his/her understanding but also for helping teammates. intan kris amilia / journal of english language teaching 5 (2) (2016) 3 there are some techniques which are developed based on the principles of cooperative learning. according to kagan (1989), one of techniques in cooperative language learning is to send a problem. he notes that “ this structure is particularly effective for problem solving”. it can also increase students’ creativity and get multi answer from the topic. here the rules of this technique. the students place in small group. there are several list of problem that attached in the envelope. then the students brainstorm the effective solutions/give the responses about the problem. the envelope is passed to the next group and this process is repeated. last, it gives back to the first group, they review all suggested and choose the best responses. therefore, send a problem may be a good technique to improve students’ writing skill. one of text types which is taught in the eleventh grade of senior high school is analytical exposition. in learning this material, students sometimes find difficulties in understanding the requirements of analytical exposition. they also sometimes find difficulty in writing their idea on the topic given, and choosing vocabulary they want to use to develop the text. therefore, the teacher needs to find a good method to teach analytical exposition. in this case, send a problem technique will be good to help students in creating an analytical exposition text. by designing this research, the writer hopes that by using send a problem technique, the teacher can teach collaboratively and it will improve the students’ achievement in writing an analytical exposition text. literature review writing hyland (2003: 3) said that writing is seen as a product constructed from the writer’s command of grammatical and lexical knowledge,and writing development is considered to be the result of imitating and manipulating models provided by the teacher. as we know that grammatical and lexical knowledge include to the language structure, as a basis for teaching writing. writing is not only arranging words into sentences but it is also arranging sentences or paragraphs. then, itis neither an easy nor spontaneous activity. in writing, students do not only have to keep the idea in mind and then write it, they need to have creativity to express and develop their idea as well. analytical exposition there are some experts that gave similar description of analytical exposition. djuharia (2007:13) defined analytical exposition as argumentative text because writer providing readers or listeners with point of view,ideas, or thoughts of topic or issue or problem needs to get attention or explanation with no appeared efforts to persuade readers. in addittion, priyana (2008:59) adds that “analytical exposition proposes or suggests a certain topic which may only be pro or contra, not both.” gerot and wignell (1994:197) also explain that the generic structure of analytical exposition is organized in three stages: a) thesis thesis consists of position and preview. position introduces topic and indicates writer’s position. on the other hand, preview is the outlines the main arguments to be presented. b) arguments this stage consists of point and elaboration. point restates main argument outlined in preview and elaboration develops and supports each point. c) reiteration reiteration is to restate writer’s position. according to gerot and wignell (1994:198), the lexicogrammatical features of analytical exposition are: (1) focus on generic human and non-human participants (car, pollution) (2) use of simple present tense (do, say, think) (3) use of relational processes (it is important) (4) use of internal conjunction to stage argument(firstly., secondly.., next.., finally...) intan kris amilia / journal of english language teaching 5 (2) (2016) 4 (5) use the causal and contrastive conjunction( the cause of an event.., because.., but.., nevertheless) cooperative learning cooperative learning is a successful teaching strategy in which small teams, each with students of different levels of ability, use a variety of learning activities to improve their understanding of a subject. according to brown (2001:47) cooperative learning is defined as students work together in pairs and groups, they share information and come to each others’ get helps. each member of a team is responsible not only for learning what is taught but also for helping teammates learn, thus creating an atmosphere of achievement. students work through the assignment until all group members successfully understand and complete it. send a problem technique this structure is particularly effective for problem solving. its exact source is unknown. the howard county maryland staff development centre developed a version of it inspired by kagan’s work (1989). the starting point is a list of problems/issues, or case studies, which can be generated by students or can be teacher-selected. the teams then brainstorm effective solutions or responses for these problems, issues,or case studies, recording them on a piece of paper. at a predetermined time, the ideas are placed in the folder or envelope and forwarded to another team. the members of the second team, without looking at the ideas already generated, compile their own list of solutions or responses. the folder with the two sets of ideas is forwarded to a third team which now looks at the suggestions or conclusion provided from the other teams, adds its own, and then synthesizes the ideas from all three teams. alternatively, if the problems generate a list of ideas, then the teams can select the best two or more responses or solutions. during this activity, students are engaged in thehighest levels of bloom’s taxonomy (1956)-evaluation and synthesis. procedures/steps: (1) place students in small groups. (2) ask each group to think of topic related situation and write this on a card or piece of paper (it can be from students or teacher will selected). the problem is attached to the outsideof a folder and swapped with another group. (3) give groups three to five minutes to consider the problem and brainstorm a range of solutions or give the responses to the problem. the solutions or responses are listed and enclosed inside the folder. (4) the folder is then passed to the next group and the process repeated. remind groups not to look in the folders or read the solutions or responses identified by previous groups. (5) repeat this process until groups have completed several problems. (6) groups should be given their original problem to review all the suggested ideas and develop a prioritized list of possible solutions or responses. this list is then presented to the class to discuss and decide which responses that they would feel confident to use. methods of investigation in this research, the writer used quasiexperimental research design in the form of nonequivalent control group design. this study involved two groups: an experimental group and a control group. this research used pre-test and post-test to obtain the data. pre-test treatment post-test experimental group o1 x o2 control group o3 o4 the population in this study was the eleventh grade students of sma n 8 semarang in the academic year of 2015/2016. the number of the students was 300, which were divided into 10 classes. the sample was xi-is-4 class as experimental group who are taught using cooperative learning send a problem and xi-is-5 as control group who are taught using intan kris amilia / journal of english language teaching 5 (2) (2016) 5 conventional way. each class consists of 30 students, so the sample in this study are 60 students. the instrument of this research was written test and questionnaire. before the test is used to collect the data, the try-out test was conducted to measure the validity and reliability of the test. to measure the significance of the post-test of the both groups, the researcher used independent sample t-test. research findings tryout to find out whether the instrument was good or not to be used in the real test, the writer held the try out test first . the writer held try out on 20 of october 2015. it was administered to the students of class xi is 2 of sma n 8 semarang in which there were 30 students took the try-out test. validity of the test the writer used content validity to find out whether the test valid or not, it can be checked by comparing the test with the materials dealing with the curriculum requirement. the school based curriculum states that the eleventh grade students are supposed to make an analytical exposition texts. so, the content of the test offered in this research is valid enough. reliability of test a test cannot measure anything well unless it measures consistently. the result of interrater reliability of the try out test was 0,74, for α = 5% with n = 30. the r-table = 0.361. since the result values (0,74) were higher than critical value (0.361), the instruments were reliable. pre-test a pre-test was given before doing the experiment. the pre-test for both group (xi-is-4 as experimental group and xi-is-5 as control group) was held on october, 29th 2015. there were 60 students in both group. from the pre-test results, the average pre-test’s score of control group was 62.77 and the average pretest’s score of experimental group was 62.80. it can be concluded that there is no significant difference between each aspect in both groups. in other words, the experimental group and the control group have the same quality in english subject, especially in writing analytical exposition text. treatments the study was conducted from november 4th to november 11th 2015 in sma negeri 8 semarang. there were two groups in this research, they were class xi is 4 as the experimental group and class xi is 5 as the control group. each group consisted of 30 students. in the implementation of this study, first, the writer gave pre-test to the students in the control and the experimental groups. then they were given treatments. the special treatments were given to the experimental group in form of applying send a problem technique in teaching writing analytical exposition texts. furthermore, the control group was given treatments without send a problem technique. the treatment was given 3 times, 6 x 45 minutes which consisted of three meeting. post-test a post-test was given after doing the experiment. the pre-test for both group (xi-is-4 as experimental group and xi-is-5 as control group) was held on november, 12th 2015. there were 60 students in both group. . after the experimental group and control group received different treatments, the average of the experimental group was higher than the control group’s. the average post-test’s score of control group was 68.9, and the average post-test’s score of experimental group was 75.57. significant differences of post-test between control and experimental group the writer calculated the normality and homogeneity of the test before conducting independent sample t-test to find the significant difference. intan kris amilia / journal of english language teaching 5 (2) (2016) 6 normality of the test post-test normality is presented in table below: tests of normality kolmogorov-smirnova shapiro-wilk statistic df sig. stati stic df s ig. post_test_cont rol_group .140 29 .153 .947 29 . 157 based on the table of spss result above, the sig shapiro-wilk value was 0.157. it meant that pvalue was higher than 0.05. the post-test in this study was normally distributed in this group. post-test normality is presented in table below. tests of normality kolmogorov-smirnova shapiro-wilk stati stic df sig. stati stic df sig. post_test_experime nt_group .132 29 .200 * .938 29 .088 based on the table of spss result above, the sig shapiro-wilk value was 0.088. it meant that pvalue was higher than 0.05. the post-test in this study was normally distributed. homogeneity of the test homogeneity tests were used to decide whether a test was homogeneous or not. it was important because the similarity of both groups would influence the result of test. moreover, homogeneity of a test was used as a requirement to calculate t-test. the following is the result of homogeneity test for both experimental and control group post-test: test of homogeneity of variances variance _001 levene statistic df1 df2 sig. 2.198 7 14 .099 according the table above, sig value was 0.099 which was higher than the level of significant (0.05). it could be concluded that the population between experimental and control intan kris amilia / journal of english language teaching 5 (2) (2016) 7 group were homogenous. by knowing the result of post-test homogeneity, the writer concluded that the population of the two groups was homogenous so the t-test could be counted. independent sample t-test analysis of posttest between experimental group and control group the writer calculated t-test by using spss program to find out if there was a significant difference or not. before calculating independent sample t-test, the data should have normal distribution and homogeneity. post-test of control group and experimental group were normally distributed and homogeneous. the writer conducted independent sample t-test calculation by using spss program. the result of the calculation is as follows: group statistics group n mea n std. deviation std. error mean s core experimental_ group 30 75.5 7 8.353 1.525 control_group 30 68.5 7 6.218 1.135 independent samples test levene's test for equality of variances t-test for equality of means f s ig. t df si g. (2tailed) m ean differe nce s td. error differe nce 95% confidence interval of the difference l ower u pper sc ore equ al variances assumed 3. 547 . 065 3. 682 58 .0 01 7 .000 1 .901 3 .194 1 0.806 equ al variances not assumed 3. 682 53 .591 .0 01 7 .000 1 .901 3 .188 1 0.812 to prove that there were significant differences between the result in control and experimental group, it was important to analyze independent sample t-test based on the calculation of spss program conducted by the writer. if sig. (2-tailed) was lower than 0.05 then intan kris amilia / journal of english language teaching 5 (2) (2016) 8 there were significant differences between the result of control and the experimental group. furthermore, the writer also calculate an effect size to determine the magnitude of this significant effect. based on the independent sample test result above, the test was significant, t(58)= 3.68 , p< .05 , d= .95. it means the tvalue from 58 degree of freedom was 3.68 . the probabilty of obtaining tvalue was 0.05 and the effect size was 0.95. the 95% confidence interval for the average precentage of post-test’ score ranged from 3.19 to 10.8. an examination of the group means indicate that post-test’ score of experimental group (m= 75.57, sd= 8.35) is significantly higher than post-test’ score of control group (m= 68.57, sd=6.22). null hypothesis (ho) was rejected and alternative hypothesis (h1) was accepted because the mean of experimental group is differ with the mean of control group. in conclusion, send a problem technique is effective for teaching writing analytical exposition because there was a significant difference in the students’ score after being taught using this technique. conclusions based on the result of the data analyses in the previous chapter in this study, there are several conclusions that can be drawn as following: firstly, teaching writing using send a problem technique is more effective than using a conventional way. the effectiveness of send a problem technique is supported by the average of the experimental group is improving higher (from 62.80 to 75.57) than the control group (from 62.77 to 68.57). furthermore, the test is significant, it can be seen from result of the independent sample t-test is t(58)= 3.68 , p< .05 , d= .95. it means the tvalue from 58 degree of freedom was 3.68 . the probabilty of obtaining tvalue was 0.05 and the effect size was 0.95. the 95% confidence interval for the average precentage of post-test’ score ranged from 3.19 to 10.8. secondly, the students are more motivated when they are taught using send a problem technique , they can shares new ideas and concepts through this technique. moreover, it helps the students solve the problems/issues through team work. with writing, directly the students find some vocabulary which never they heard before. in addition, they can construct a sentence with well – arrange and good grammar. finally, send a problem technique improves the students’ writing skills especially in writing analytical exposition text, it can be proven from the whole aspects (organization, content, grammar, punctuation, and style) of experimental group which has the higher improvement than control group. references al-rahman, zikr-ur. 2004. modern teaching methods and technic. new delhi: anmol publication pvt. ltd. anderson, m. and anderson, k.1997. text types in english. south yarra: macmillaneducation australia pty ltd. arikunto, s. 2006. prosedur penelitian: suatu 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teaching 5 (2) (2016) 10 degree of sarjana pendidikan semarang stateuniversity. sudjana. 2005. metoda statistika. bandung: tarsito. tessema, kedir assefa. 2005. stimulating writing trough project-based tasks.english teaching forum, 43/4. page 22-28. tinambunan, wilmar.1988. evaluation of student achievement. jakarta: p2lptk. winer, b.j, 1962. statistical principles in experimental design. new york: mcgraw-hill book company. wright, a. 1976. visual materials for the language teacher. london: longman group, ltd. zamel, v. 1982. writing: the process of discovering meaning. tesol quarterly, 16, 195-209. 32 elt forum 3 (1) (2014) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt teaching written announcement through gallery walk technique (an experimental study of eighth grade students at smp muhammadiyah 1 weleri, kabupaten kendal, in the academic year of 2013/2014) a’in ratna mulyani english department, faculty of languages and arts, state university of semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in april 2014 approved in mei 2014 published in juni 2014 ________________ keywords: writing skill, announcement text, gallery walk technique ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ the objective of this study was to find out whether there was significant difference in the achievement of writing announcement text between the eighth grade students of smp muhammadiyah 1 weleri in the academic year of 2013/2014 who were taught by using gallery walk technique and those who were taught by using conventional method. to meet this objective, an experimental research design called pretest-posttest control group design was applied. the research was carried out at smp muhammadiyah 1 weleri. the subjects of the research were two classes. the experimental group was the students of viii-a which consisted of 28 students and was taught by using gallery walk technique. the control group was the students of viii-b which consisted of 28 students and was taught by using conventional method. the data of the research were obtained from the writing test on pre-test and post-test. based on the pre-test analysis, the value of tvalue was 0.38, while the value of ttable was 1.67. since the value of tvalue was lower than the ttable, it meant that there was no significant difference in the students’ achievement of writing announcement text between experimental and control groups on pre-test. meanwhile, based on the post-test analysis, the value of tvalue was 1.76. compared with the value of ttable, 1.67, the tvalue was higher than the ttable. it meant that there was significant difference in the students’ achievement of writing announcement text after the treatment was given where the students’ achievement in experimental group was higher or better than the control group. the result above indicates that the use of gallery walk technique in teaching writing announcement text brought about significant improvement. © 2014 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: ainratnam123@yahoo.co.id issn 2252-6706 a’in ratna mulyani / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 33 introduction in educational system in indonesia, english is included in curriculum for both junior and senior high school levels. in the kurikulum tingkat satuan pendidikan (ktsp) for smp/mts which is also called 2006 competence-based curriculum, the teaching learning of english has the purpose to develop four language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. writing is a skill that is required in written communication. it requires complex thinking. a good writing is not always easy and may be a challenge even for the best students. palmer, hafner, and sharp (1994:7) state that “if the goal of writing is to communicate meaning to ourselves and others, thinking will occur as the writer (1) generates ideas, thoughts, and images; (2) creates an order to those thoughts; and (3) communicates this meaning to others through interesting text that, ideally, is well written.” if we take a look at the teaching learning process at schools, writing is difficult to be learned by students. like the researcher have ever experienced when she became a teacher trainee at a junior high school, many students got difficulty in writing english. at that time, the researcher explained about a short functional text especially announcements then the students were demanded to make them by their own, the researcher found that they faced some difficulties. usually, they got difficulties in choosing appropriate words, combining sentences, and communicating their ideas or thought into good sentences or text. beside that, several of them still got confused in using the grammar. in this case, the researcher realized that the students’ achievement is not only affected by their ability and skills in writing but also influenced by the method which is used. slameto (2010:65) says that “teacher usually teaches using classical way and the students feel bored, sleepy, passive, and only write down on their note. it is mentioned that a progressive teacher will try a new method which can be used to improve the teaching learning process and to motivate students to learn.” in this study, the researcher would like to use gallery walk technique to teach writing announcement text. based on the competence standard of the eighth grade of junior high school, in the sixth competence standard, it is stated that “mengungkapkan makna dalam teks tulis fungsional dan esei pendek sederhana berbentuk descriptive, dan recount untuk berinteraksi dengan lingkungan sekitar.” and in the point 6.1 of basic competence, it is stated that “mengungkapkan makna dalam bentuk teks tulis fungsional pendek sederhana dengan menggunakan ragam bahasa tulis secara akurat, lancar, dan berterima untuk berinteraksi dengan lingkungan sekitar.” it could be seen that the students of junior high school should master short functional texts. one kind of short functional texts that students have to master is announcement text. announcement is a statement in spoken or written form that makes something known publicly. it should be brief and could answer what, when, where, and who. often it includes why and how. it seems that it is easy to make announcement, but most of students always feel difficult when they are asked to make their own. in order to help students in writing announcement text, the researcher will try to use gallery walk technique. “gallery walk is a discussion technique that gets students out of their chair and actively involved in synthesizing important science concept, writing, and public speaking” (francek, 2006). the advantage of this technique is its flexibility. it can be organized for a simple 15minutes ice breaker or a week-long project involving graded oral or written reports. it can be used with introductory or advanced material and with a variety of class sizes. finally, a gallery walk gives chance to move around the classroom, directing students’ focus and interrupting the lethargy that sometimes results from being seated for long periods. francek (2006) further explains the common procedures in conducting a gallery walk. they are as follows: 1) create and post questions a’in ratna mulyani / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 34 2) group students, assign roles, and stress team building 3) assign stations and begin comments 4) rotation 5) begin oral presentation meanwhile, bowman (2005) suggests the general instructions for teaching using gallery walk as follows: 1) tape a number of large sheets of paper to the wall of the training room. space the chart pages so that learners can walk from one chart to another. 2) label each chart with question, statement, or issue related to the topic. 3) learners walk around the room writing their responses on the charts. 4) assign a direction to move or they can move randomly. they can do the activity as individuals or in groups. 5) after the learners have written on all the charts and jotted down their observation on a work sheet, learners then spend a short period of time in small groups discussing their observation. 6) finally they discuss the activity with the whole group. from this brief explanation, the researcher will modify a bit the steps in conducting the gallery walk technique in teaching writing announcement text. in this research, the researcher will divide the students into five groups. each group will rotate and answer some questions based on the announcement given. here, the group will practice as a small group discussion. after they have finished answering all questions, there will be a class discussion. by using gallery walk, each group also can leave a comment or feedback to other groups’ works. the aim of this study is to find out in whether there is significant difference in the achievement of writing announcement text between the eighth grade students of smp muhammadiyah 1 weleri in the academic year of 2013/2014 who are taught using gallery walk technique and those who are taught using conventional method. thus, to meet this objective, there are two hypotheses that are drawn. the first hypothesis is the working hypothesis (h1): there is significant difference in the achievement of writing announcement text between the eighth grade students of smp muhammadiyah 1 weleri in the academic year of 2013/2014 who are taught using gallery walk technique and those who are taught using conventional method. the second hypothesis is the null hypothesis (ho): there is no significant difference in the achievement of writing announcement text between the eighth grade students of smp muhammadiyah 1 weleri in the academic year of 2013/2014 who are taught using gallery walk technique and those who are taught using conventional method. in this study, the researcher hopes that using gallery walk technique can improve the students’ skill in writing announcement text. methods of investigation this study used pre-test post-test control group design which is included in true experimental design. the design of this study is presented as the following: e o1 x o2 c o3 y o4 (tuckman in saleh, 2011) where: e : experimental group c : control group o1 : pre-test for the experimental group o2 : post-test for the experimental group o3: pre-test for the control group o4: post-test for the control group x :treatment using gallery walk technique y :treatment without gallery walk technique this study consisted of pre-tests, treatments, and post-tests. pre-tests were given to measure the students’ skill in writing announcement text before the treatments were given. meanwhile, the post-tests were given after the treatments. both, the pre-tests and the posttests were in a form of writing test. the experimental group was taught by using gallery a’in ratna mulyani / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 35 walk technique, while the control group was taught by using conventional method. the population of this study was the eighth grade students of smp muhammadiyah 1 weleri in the academic year of 2013/2014 which was divided into three classes: viii-a, viii-b, and viii-c. every class consisted of 28 students, so the total of those three classes were 84 students. the samples were class viii-a as the experimental group and class viii-b as the control group. those two classes were chosen based on the english teacher’s recommendation because in smp muhammadiyah 1 weleri there is no stratification in dividing the population. furthermore, they were chosen in order to make it easy in labeling the group. the researcher took those two classes from the eighth grade students of smp muhammadiyah 1 weleri because announcement text material which is included in short functional text, as it is insisted in curriculum, is given in the first semester and is included in writing competence of the eighth grade in junior high school. the instrument used was writing test because it is the most appropriate instrument to measure the students’ mastery in writing announcement text. in collecting data, the researcher took the students’ scores in writing announcement text through pre-tests and posttests. there were five aspect of writing that were scored based on brown’s rubric assessment: (a) organization, (b) content, (c) grammar, (d) punctuation, spelling, mechanics, and (e) style and quality of expression (brown and bailey cited in brown 2004:244). after the data were obtained, then the data from pre-tests and post-tests were analyzed by using t-test formula. the t-test was used to find out whether there was significant difference in the achievement of writing announcement text between the eighth grade students of smp muhammadiyah 1 weleri in the academic year of 2013/2014 who were taught using gallery walk technique and those who were taught using conventional method. results of the study 3.1 pre-test analysis the aim of the pre-test was to know the basic or prior knowledge that the students had in writing announcement texts before they were given the treatments. the pre-test for experimental group was held on friday, 23rd of august 2013; while the pre-test for control group was held on saturday, 24th of august 2013. they were 28 students in each group. this pre-test was in a form of writing test. both the experimental and the control groups had the same writing test. the students were asked to make announcement texts by choosing one of the given themes. the time allotment in doing pre-test was 60 minutes. from the result of the pre-test scores, the highest score for the experimental group was 79 and the lowest score was 20. meanwhile, the highest score for the control group was 71 and the lowest score was 12. the next step was calculated the mean. the mean of the experimental group was 53.61, while the mean of the control group was 51.75. below was the figure of comparison between the mean of the experimental and the control groups on the pre-test. figure 3.1 the mean of the experimental and the control groups on pre-test 0 100 53,61 51,75 experimental group control group a’in ratna mulyani / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 36 the figure above showed that the students’ achievement of both groups were relatively the same before they were given the treatment. in order to prove that there were similarities in pretest data in the experimental and the control groups, t-test was needed. however, before the ttest was calculated, the normality and homogeneity of the pre-test scores were analyzed first. to test the normality of the pre-test scores, the chi square formula was used. the result of the calculation showed that the value of x2 data for the experimental group was 2.59, while the value of x2 data for the control group was 6.09. meanwhile, the value of x2 table with degrees of freedom (dk) = k – 3 = 6 – 3 = 3 and α = 5% is 7.81. since the value of x2 data for the experimental group (2.59) and the control group (6.09) were lower than the value of x2 table (7.81), it meant that the pre-test scores for both of groups were said to be normally distributed. to test the homogeneity of the pre-test scores, f test was used. from the calculation, the value of fdata for the pre-test scores was 1.82. meanwhile, the value of ftable with dk numerator v1 = n1 – 1 = 28 – 1 = 27, dk denominator v2 = n2 – 1 = 28 – 1 = 27 and α = 5%, squared to v1 = 28 and v2 = 28 is 1.87. since the value of fdata was lower than the ftable, it could be concluded that the variances of the pre-test scores in experimental and control groups fulfilled the condition of homogeneity. 3.2 t-test for pre-test in order to find out that there were similarities in pre-test data in the experimental and the control groups, t-test was used. here, the first step was to obtain the tvalue using the following formula (sudjana 2005:243): based on the formula above, the result of tvalue was: 𝑡 = 53.61 − 51.75 18.25 √ 1 28 − 1 28 𝑡 = 0.38 it could be seen from the calculation that the value of tvalue was 0.38. meanwhile, the value of ttable with level of significance (α) = 5% and degrees of freedom (dk) = 54 was 1.67. since the value of tvalue was lower than the ttable, thus we could conclude that the t-test was not significant, meaning that there were similarities in pre-test data in the experimental and the control groups. in other words, the null hypothesis (ho) was accepted. 3.3 treatment for experimental group the researcher was applying a gallery walk technique as a treatment to teach how to write announcement texts. the treatment was given to the experimental group, which consisted of 28 students, in four meetings. each meeting was done in 2 x 40 minutes. the following were the learning activities during the treatment for the experimental group: opening 1. the class was opened by praying together. 2. teacher checked the students’ attendance. main activities (1) meeting 1 (2x40’) it was divided into two activities, they were: pre-test and exploration.  pre-test (60’) 1. students were told that they would be given a pre-test on that day. the aim of the pre-test was to measure their ability in writing t : t-test 𝑋1 ̅̅ ̅ : the mean of the pre-test of the experimental group 𝑋2 ̅̅ ̅ : the mean of the pre-test of the control group 𝑛1 : the number of the experimental group 𝑛2 : the number of the control group 𝑆 : standard deviation 𝑆1 : standard deviation of the experimental group 𝑆2 : standard deviation of the control group 𝑡 = 𝑋1 ̅̅ ̅ − 𝑋2 ̅̅ ̅ 𝑆√ 1 𝑛1 + 1 𝑛2 a’in ratna mulyani / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 37 announcement texts before they were given the treatment. 2. students were given a piece of paper containing the instruction, the themes of announcement text that should be chosen to write, scoring rubric, and a piece of worksheet. 3. students submitted their work.  exploration (20’) 4. students were asked questions about announcement texts and the gallery walk technique that they would practice. 5. students and teacher discussed about announcement text and how to use gallery walk technique in writing activity. (2) meeting 2 (2x40’) – elaboration 1. students and teacher reviewed about the previous meeting, that was about announcement text and how to use the gallery walk technique in writing activity. 2. the class was divided into five groups. 3. in class there were five stations, each station was provided with example of announcement text and question. 4. each group was rotated from station one to five to answer all questions based on the example of announcement on the answer sheet in a given time. 5. after all groups had finished rotating and answering all questions based on the example announcements, there was class discussion. 6. the students were told that in the next meeting they would practice to make announcement texts. (3) meeting 3 (2x40’) – elaboration 1. students and teacher reviewed about the previous meeting. 2. the students were divided into five groups (the same groups with the previous meeting). 3. in groups, the students tried to make announcement texts. 4. after that, they attached their group work on the wall. 5. the students did gallery walk like the previous meeting, each group rotated visiting the other groups’ work. however, this time they did not answer the questions but they gave feedback or comment to the other groups’ work. 6. the students went back to their desks and did a class discussion. 7. the students were asked about difficulties they found. 8. the students were told that they would be given a post-test in the next meeting. (4) meeting 4 (2x40’) – confirmation it was divided into two activities, they were: review and post-test.  review (20’) the students and teacher reviewed about the all activities they had done before in the previous meetings.  post-test (60’) the students did the post-test (the instrument of the post-test were similar with those on the pre-test), then they submitted it to the teacher. closing 1. students told the teacher what they had learnt in class, the teacher gave some feedback. 2. teacher closed the lesson. 3.4 treatment for control group the control group, consisted of 28 students, was taught the same material as the experimental group. it was about announcement text. here, the researcher was applying conventional method. this method was the method that their teacher usually used. the learning activities for the control group were also conducted in four meetings. each meeting was done in 2 x 40 minutes. the following were the learning activities for the control group: opening 1. the class was opened by praying together. 2. teacher checked the students’ attendance. main activities (1) meeting 1 (2x40’) it was divided into two activities, they were: pre-test and exploration. a’in ratna mulyani / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 38  pre-test (60’) 1. students were told that they would be given a pre-test on that day. the aim of the pre-test was to measure their ability in writing announcement texts before they were taught using conventional method. 2. students were given a piece of paper containing the instruction, the themes of announcement text that should be chosen to write, scoring rubric, and a piece of worksheet. 3. students submitted their work.  exploration (20’) 4. students were asked some questions about announcement texts as an introduction. (2) meeting 2 (2x40’) – elaboration 1. teacher asked the students about announcement text as a building knowledge. 2. teacher explained about what announcement text was, its social function and its parts. 3. teacher gave some examples of announcement text then students tried to analyze it about its function and its parts. 4. students learnt new vocabularies, spelling, and punctuation. 5. students mentioned the content of announcement texts. 6. teacher explained about the grammar (simple future tense and simple past tense). 7. teacher gave some exercises. 8. students were told that in the next meeting they would practice to make announcement texts. (3) meeting 3 (2x40’) – elaboration 1. students and teacher reviewed about the previous meeting. 2. teacher gave other examples of announcement text and students tried to mention the content of announcement. 3. teacher gave some exercises in a form of fill in the blank. 4. students filled in the blank of some announcement texts. 5. students tried to make announcement texts with the given theme guided by the teacher. 6. students were told that they would be given a post-test in the next meeting. (4) meeting 4 (2x40’) it was divided into two activities, they were: review and post-test.  review (20’) the students and teacher reviewed about the all activities they had done before in the previous meetings.  post-test (60’) students did the post-test (the instrument of the post-test were similar with those on the pretest), then they submitted it to the teacher. closing 1. students told the teacher what they had learnt in class, the teacher gave some feedback. 2. teacher closed the lesson. 3.5 post-test analysis the aim of the post-test was to measure the students’ skill in writing announcement texts after the treatment was given. the post-test for experimental group was held on saturday, 31st of august 2013; while the post-test for control group was held on monday, 2nd of september 2013. they were 28 students in each group. the form of the post-test was exactly the same as the pretest. it was in a form of writing test. the students were asked to make announcement texts by choosing one of the given themes. the time allotment in doing post-test was 60 minutes. from the result of the post-test scores, the highest score for the experimental group was 96 and the lowest score was 34. meanwhile, the highest score for the control group was 88 and the lowest score was 30. the next step was calculating the mean. the mean of the experimental group was 71.32, while the mean of the control group was 63.89. below was the figure of comparison between the mean of the experimental and the control groups on the post-test. a’in ratna mulyani / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 39 figure 3.5 the mean of the experimental and the control groups on post-test the figure above showed that the students’ achievement in the experimental group was higher than the students’ achievement in the control group. however, the t-test was still needed. it was used to check whether the difference of the students’ data on post-test was significant or not. before the t-test was calculated, the normality and homogeneity of the post-test scores were analyzed first. to test the normality of the post-test scores, the chi square formula was used. the result of the calculation showed that the value of x2 data for the experimental group was 1.18, while the value of x2 data for the control group was 1.15. meanwhile, the value of x2 table with degrees of freedom (dk) = k – 3 = 6 – 3 = 3 and α = 5% is 7.81. since the value of x2 data for the experimental group (1.18) and the control group (1.15) were lower than the value of x2 table (7.81), it meant that the post-test scores for both of groups were said to be normally distributed. to test the homogeneity of the post-test scores, f test was used. from the calculation, the value of fdata for the post-test scores was 1.34. meanwhile, the value of ftable with dk numerator v1 = n1 – 1 = 28 – 1 = 27, dk denominator v2 = n2 – 1 = 28 – 1 = 27 and α = 5%, squared to v1 = 28 and v2 = 28 is 1.87. since the value of fdata was lower than the ftable, it could be concluded that the variances of the post-test scores in experimental and control groups fulfilled the condition of homogeneity. 3.6 t-test for post-test in order to find out that there was significant difference in post-test data in the experimental and the control groups, t-test was used. here, the first step was to obtain the tvalue using the following formula (sudjana 2005:243): based on the formula above, the result of tvalue was: 𝑡 = 71.32 − 63.89 15.86 √ 1 28 − 1 28 𝑡 = 1.76 0 20 40 60 80 100 71,32 63,89 experimental group control group t : t-test 𝑋1 ̅̅ ̅ : the mean of the pre-test of the experimental group 𝑋2 ̅̅ ̅ : the mean of the pre-test of the control group 𝑛1 : the number of the experimental group 𝑛2 : the number of the control group 𝑆 : standard deviation 𝑆1 : standard deviation of the experimental group 𝑆2 : standard deviation of the control group 𝑡 = 𝑋1 ̅̅ ̅ − 𝑋2 ̅̅ ̅ 𝑆√ 1 𝑛1 + 1 𝑛2 a’in ratna mulyani / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 40 it could be seen from the calculation that the value of tvalue was 1.76. meanwhile, the value of ttable with level of significance (α) = 5% and degrees of freedom (dk) = 54 was 1.67. since the value of tvalue was higher than the value of ttable, thus we could conclude that the t-test was significant, meaning that there were differences in post-test data in the experimental and the control groups. in other words, the null hypothesis (ho) was rejected and the working hypothesis (h1) was accepted. 3.7 discussion of the research findings based on the analysis of the pre-test data, the t-test result was not significant. it meant that there was no significant difference in the students’ achievement of writing announcement text before the treatment was given. in other words, there was similarity in pre-test data in the experimental and the control groups. thus, it was concluded that both of groups had the same initial condition. after that, the experimental group was given a treatment in a form of gallery walk technique to teach writing announcement texts. based on francek (2006), gallery walk technique was “a discussion technique that gets students out of their chairs and actively involved in synthesizing important science concept, writing, and public speaking.” after the treatments were given, the posttest data were analyzed. based on the analysis of the post-test data, the t-test result was significant. it meant that there was significant difference in post-test data in the experimental and the control groups where the students’ achievement in experimental group was higher or better than that in the control group. in other words, the application of gallery walk technique to the experimental group improved the students’ achievement in writing announcement texts. in this matter, it meant that the working hypothesis which stated that “there is significant difference in the achievement of writing announcement text between the eighth grade students of smp muhammadiyah 1 weleri in the academic year of 2013/2014 who are taught using gallery walk technique and those who are taught using conventional method” was accepted. conclusion based on the research findings and the analysis, the results of the research were: 1) there was significant difference in the achievement of writing announcement text between the eighth grade students of smp muhammadiyah 1 weleri in the academic year of 2013/2014 who were taught using gallery walk technique and those who were taught using conventional method. 2) the students’ achievement of writing announcement text who were taught by using gallery walk technique was higher or better than those who were taught by using conventional method. based on those results, it could be concluded that using gallery walk technique improved the students’ achievement in writing announcement texts for the eighth grade students of smp muhammadiyah 1 weleri in the academic year of 2013/2014. references bowman, sharon l. 2005. the gallery walk: an opening, closing, and review activity. available at http://www.bowperson.com/bowperson/galler ywalk.pdf [accessed april 2013] brown, h. douglas. 2004. language assessment. new york: longman. francek, mark. 2006. promoting discussion in the science classroom using gallery walks. journal of college science teaching, september. page 27-31 available at http://blog.stetson.edu/jrseminars/wpcontent/uploads/gallery-walk.pdf [accessed may 2013] palmer, c. barbara, mary l. hafner, and marylin f. sharp. 1994. developing cultural literacy through the writing process. massachusetts: allyn and bacon. saleh, m. 2011. linguistics and educational research. handout and assignment of semarang state university. a’in ratna mulyani / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 41 slameto. 2010. belajar dan faktor-faktor yang mempengaruhinya. jakarta: rineka cipta. sudjana. 2005. metoda statistika. bandung: tarsito. 1 elt forum 2 (2) (2013) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt analysis of character education aspects in narrative texts of the electronic textbook “developing english competencies” ratna widya iswara  department of english, faculty language and arts, semarang state university, indonesia info artikel ________________ sejarah artikel: diterima september 2013 disetujui oktober 2013 dipublikasikan november 2013 ________________ keywords: character education aspects, narrative texts, electronic textbook ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ the issue of character education has mushroomed recently as many as social problems in indonesia. thus, character education should be taken into consideration in teaching and learning activity. the aim of this study is to identify the character education aspects in narrative texts found in the electronic textbook used for senior high school students grade xi entitled developing english competencies based on the eighteen character education aspects mandated by the ministry of national education. this research applies descriptive qualitative method. in collecting the data, the writer used documentary method. the research instrument used in this study was documentation protocol and check list. the result of this research shows that there are 301 sentences from 605 sentences found in all the narrative texts which contain the character education aspects. so the percentage is 49,75 %. the sentences in the 17 narrative texts are relevant to the eighteen character education aspects. © 2013 universitas negeri semarang  alamat korespondensi: gedung b3 lantai 3 fbs unnes kampus sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: ratnawidyaiswara@gmail.com issn 2252-6706 ratna widya iswara / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 2 introduction down through history, in countries all over the world, education has had two great goals: to help young people become smart and to help them become good (lickona, 2007:1). the issues of character education has mushroomed recently as many as social problems in indonesia. character development in teaching is particularly important in today‟s society since globalization has globbed the whole world. students are bombarded with many more negative influences through the media and other external sources prevalent in today‟s culture. however, learning system is currently considered not effective in building morals and noble character of the nation for the students. this is shown by the occurring cases of moral degradation, such as drug abuse, student radicalism, criminal activities, pornography and porno-action, plagiarism, and the declining pride toward nation and state. even, junior and senior high school students have greater risk in character problems. it is proved by what the writer experienced while doing praktik pengalaman lapangan (ppl). at the school where doing the training to be a teacher, the writer found out that some of the students engaged in a gang fight. even, some of them from seventh graders until ninth graders used drugs. in order to tackle these problems, the 2010 2014 mone strategic plan (renstra) took policies to develop educational curriculum that provides soft skills to enhance noble moral and foster national character. one of the ways is by teaching character education at schools. as stated by battistich (n.d.), schools today face enormous challenges in educating all of the young people in their charge. in addition to provide youth with basic academic knowledge and skills, and promoting their character development, schools have increasingly been called upon to play a primary role in helping to solve a variety of social problems among youth. comprehensive and high quality character education is not only effective at promoting the development of good character, but is a promising approach to the prevention of a wide range of contemporary social problems. lickona (1991) stated that moral education is not a new idea. it is, in fact, as old as education itself. supporting this statement, berkowitz (2011) also added that the term character education is simply the current term for a millennia-old issue. in indonesia, it is not a new concept either. the pretension to becoming a country with noble character has been manifested since the country‟s independence. pancasila and 1945 national constitutions of the republic of indonesia (uud 1945) provide a philosophical foundation also various basic principles for building education. the latest one, as mandated in regulation of the president of the republic of indonesia number 5 of 2010 regarding the national medium-term development plan (rpjmn) 2010-2014 that applying education methodology is no longer in the form of education for the sake of passing „teaching to the test‟, but is oriented to a comprehensive education that takes into account social capability, character, morals, and appreciation for indonesia‟s culture and language. thus, character education is mentioned as a value and moral education that aims to develop students with good personality to be better. character education is not a quick process. good character is not formed automatically. it is developed over time through a sustained process of teaching, modelling, learning and practice. to be effective, character education must include the entire school community and must be infused throughout the entire school curriculum and culture. thus, inserting character values and traits in textbooks becomes a very effective way since books are used in every teaching and learning process. being interested in the phenomenon above, the writer decided to have research on the values contained in textbook. thus, it is the aim of this study to analyze and identify the materials of the electronic textbook developing english competencies for second grade students of ratna widya iswara / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 3 senior high school, especially the narrative texts based on the eighteen essential character education aspects mandated by the ministry of national education in 2010. review of related literature definition of character education character is a psychological construct (berkowitz and bier, 2005:4). the outcome of effective character education is the psychological development of students. the complex set of psychological characteristics that enable an individual to act as a moral agent. character is the composite of those psychological characteristics that impact the child‟s capacity and tendency to be an effective moral agent, to be socially and personally responsible, ethical, and self-managed. abourjilie (2012:2) defined character education as a national movement creating schools that foster ethical, responsible, and caring young people by modeling and teaching good character through an emphasis on universal values that we all share. it is the intentional, proactive effort by schools, districts, and states to instill in their students important core, ethical values such as respect for self and others, responsibility, integrity, and selfdiscipline. berkowitz and bier (2005:4) highlighted the importance of school in character education, they viewed character education as “a multifaceted approach that is best accomplished through comprehensive school reform”. character education in indonesia based on pancasila and 1945 national constitutions of the republic of indonesia (uud 1945), the national education system put the students as the highest form of creation made by almighty god with a task to lead a noble and dignified life also become well mannered, good hearted and kind human being. in 2010, the centre board of curriculum research and development under the supervision of ministry of education has conducted an empirical study on character education. the study revealed the development of character education by means of operational unit from every educational institution. thus, since year of education 2011, all educational units and institutions in indonesia should insert and apply the character education in each teaching and learning process. eighteen aspects have been identified based on master plan of character education by ministry of education as follows: no aspect description 1. religiousness having attitudes and behaviors reflecting religious practices that one believes in, showing tolerance towards the practice of others and living harmoniously in a society. 2. honesty being truthful in words and actions and able to be trusted. 3. tolerance having respect and appreciation for different opinions, beliefs, ethinicities, attitudes and actions of others. 4. discipline demonstrating self-control, even in difficult situations and obeying rules. 5. perseverance continuing to work towards a goal, no matter what the obstacles and challenges are. 6. creativity involving and using imagination to develop new ideas. 7. independence capable of acting for oneself or on one's own without being influenced or controlled by others in matters of opinion and conduct. 8. democracy belief in political freedom and equality. ratna widya iswara / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 4 9. curiosity showing a marked desire and eagerness to learn more about knowledge or information. 10. citizenship prioritizing the country‟s interest above personal interest. 11. patriotism attempting to profess loyalty and care about the social, economic and political condition of a country. 12. achievement respect obtaining thing successfully by exertion, effort, courage and skill, and being happy for other‟s success. 13. friendship being gentle and generous towards others; having a relationship between two or more people who enjoy being together. 14. peacefulness helping maintain peace and preventing violence. 15. reading interest highly educated; knowledgeable through having read extensively. 16. environmental care protecting natural environment from loss and pollution; saving the earth's resources for the future. 17. compassion show kindness and concern for others in distress by offering help whenever possible. 18. responsibility taking care of duties, being dependable and accountable when having things to do to god, self, and society. (source: ministry of national education, 2010) definition of textbook there are some definitions of textbooks. one of those definitions given by goslin (2012) in permatasari (2012:30) who viewed a textbook as a printed and bound artifact for each year or course of study. textbooks contain facts and ideas around a certain subject. from this definition we know that textbook is commonly used in schools. textbooks are not only published in printed format, many are now available as electronic books. the institution of the development of educational materials (2011) in permatasari (2012:31) stated that textbook is a teaching tool (material) which presents the subject matter defined by the curriculum”. this definition shows a comprehensive understanding of textbook that textbooks are written based on the curriculum. it‟s quite challenging in today‟s world to choose a good textbook, where there are numbers of textbooks. good teacher has to know how to choose a good textbook. a good textbook is a book that is appropriate with the curriculum and students‟ level. function of textbook textbook is very important to teachers and students. it is hard to do teaching learning without textbook. the function of textbook stated by lier (1996:208) that textbooks tend to severely hamper the ability to engage in innovative and exploratory teaching. for teachers, textbook is an objective sequencing device which provides support and shows the way. in such textbooks, all the material that is supposed to be covered during a specific period of time is included. modern textbooks aim to be not just comprehensive but also interesting, varied, inviting, and so on. they are full of photographs and drawings, and allusions to the types of things the authors imagine the target audience is interested in. at the same time, to be commercially viable, they must appeal to as broad a population as possible, and this requirement tends to lead to a certain blandness, and, in certain cases, to the uncritical presentation of an official point of view. (lier, 1996:208) ratna widya iswara / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 5 general concept of narrative texts a narrative is a piece of text which tells a story and, in doing so, entertains or informs the reader or listener (anderson and anderson, 1997:8). it can also be stated to stimulate the readers‟ emotion or to teach the readers. thus, the purpose of a narrative text is to construct a view of the world that entertains or informs the reader or listener. the following are types of narrative text: humor, romance, crime, real-life action, adventure, historical fiction, mystery, fantasy, science fiction, and diary-novels. generic structure of narrative texts anderson and anderson (1997:8) stated that the generic structures of a narrative text are an orientation, a complication, a sequence of events, a resolution, and a coda. an orientation can be in the form a paragraph, a picture, or opening chapter in which the narrator tells the audience about who is in the story, when the story is taking place, and where the action is happening. a complication sets off a chain of events that influences what will happen in the story. these events will affect one or more characters. while a sequence of events is where the characters react to the complication. then, a resolution is in which the characters finally sort out the complication. in this part, the crises are solved, for better or worse. the last part constructing a narrative text is a coda. it is an optional step that provides a comment or moral based on what has been learned from the story. language features of narrative texts there are some required elements dealing with the language features of narrative text. in the book text types in english 2, anderson and anderson (1997:8) defined the language features which usually found in a narrative text: specific characters, time words that connect events to tell when they occur, verbs to show the actions that occur in the story, and descriptive words to portray the characters and settings. research design many traditional researchers speak of the design of a study as the product of the planning stage of research. the design is then implemented, the data collected and analyzed, and then the writing is done. in this study, the writer is going to use a qualitative research since the main purpose of the study is to analyze the character education aspects in narrative texts of the electronic textbook developing english competencies. qualitative research expresses something comprehensively about the context through data collection taken by the researcher as the key instrument (mujiyanto, 2007:19). in a qualitative research, the data and the results of the study are presented in the form of description. the writer is going to analyze the data and interpret the findings obtained by means of words. source of data arikunto (2010:172) defined source of data as subject in which the research data obtained. if the researcher uses documentation, so the document and note are the source of data, while content of the document or note is the subject of study or research variable. in order to make light of identifying the source of data, he classified into three levels of p: person, place and paper. person is the source of data who can give data in the form of spoken interview or written questionnaire. place is the source of data which provide the persence of stationary or moving situation. while paper is the source of data which provides signs in the forms of letters, numbers, pictures or other symbols. the source of this study is paper, particularly document, electronic textbook entitled developing english competencies. it is an english eldectronic textbook for senior high school (sma/ma) grade xi. it was written by achmad doddy, ahmad sugeng, and effendi and published by the book centre of the ministry of national education. ratna widya iswara / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 6 research findings as it has been stated before, this study was a qualitative reserach since the main purpose of the study is to analyze the character education aspects in narrative texts of the electronic textbook developing english competencies. qualitative research expresses something comprehensively about the context through data collection taken by the researcher as the key instrument (mujiyanto, 2007:19). there are 17 narrative texts which were analyzed and presented in the table below. no title page number of sentences 1 liu-always-in-a-hurry 232 30 2 cookie dolls 232 13 3 ali baba and the forty thieves 33 32 4 why does the cock eat the millipede 35 16 5 miss mole catches a ghost 38 25 6 teddy bear time 40 17 7 little peachling 42 28 8 the wolf and the lamb 235 19 9 tom thumb 236 10 10 the mystery of the sphinx 236 4 11 money isn‟t everything 118 25 12 the jealous crow 121 37 13 the golden reed pipe 125 88 14 the magic moneybag 129 61 15 the necklace 209 170 16 the kind duck and the poor frog 216 13 17 nai manggale 218 17 total 605 after selecting, numbering and presenting the data, the researcher came to the next step, analyzing the data. this subchapter analyzed the calculation finding of character education aspects and related it to eighteen character education aspects mandated by the ministry of national education. the number of eighteen character education aspects in each narrative text is shown in the following table. no text character education aspect 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 1. 1 0 0 0 0 4 1 0 0 1 0 0 3 0 0 0 0 2 0 2. 2 0 2 0 0 3 2 1 0 1 0 0 2 4 3 0 0 0 0 3. 3 0 0 0 0 1 2 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 4. 4 1 0 2 0 4 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 3 5. 5 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 3 0 0 0 4 0 0 0 4 1 6. 6 0 3 0 1 0 3 0 0 2 0 0 1 4 0 0 0 2 4 7. 7 1 5 0 0 7 0 0 0 4 1 0 0 3 0 0 0 5 6 8. 8 0 3 1 0 1 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 9. 9 0 0 1 0 3 2 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 3 10. 10 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 11. 11 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 5 0 ratna widya iswara / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 7 12. 12 0 2 2 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 2 4 2 0 1 1 0 13. 13 0 3 1 1 9 2 1 0 3 0 0 4 3 1 0 2 1 5 14. 14 0 1 4 5 7 1 3 0 2 0 0 1 2 1 0 0 1 1 15. 15 0 7 1 1 20 3 0 0 0 0 0 1 3 0 0 0 3 9 16. 16 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 0 17. 17 2 1 0 0 0 2 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 3 2 total 4 29 13 9 62 25 1 0 2 19 1 1 14 29 9 0 5 31 38 note: character education aspect 1 = religiousness; 2 = honesty; 3 = tolerance; 4 = discipline; 5 = perseverance; 6 = creativity; 7 = independence; 8 = democracy; 9 = curiosity; 10 = citizenship; 11 = patriotism; 12 = achievement respect; 13 = friendship; 14 = peacefulness; 15 = reading interest; 16 = environmental care; 17 = compassion; 18 = responsibility. from the previous table of the number of each character education aspect in the narrative texts, it could be classified into the amount of each character education aspect from all the narratives and make the percentage of them. here, the data were classified into each character education aspect in the narrative texts. the table below shows the number of sentence which contains each character education aspect and the percentage against the total number of sentences found in the texts. no character education aspect number of sentence percentage 1. religiousness 4 0,66 % 2. honesty 29 4,79 % 3. tolerance 13 2,15 % 4. discipline 9 1,49 % 5. perseverance 62 10,25 % 6. creativity 25 4,13 % 7. independence 10 1,65 % 8. democracy 2 0,33 % 9. curiosity 19 3,14 % 10. citizenship 1 0,17 % 11. patriotism 1 0,17 % 12. achievement respect 14 2,31 % 13. friendship 29 4,79 % 14. peacefulness 9 1,49 % 15. reading interest 0 0,00 % 16. environmental care 5 0,83 % 17. compassion 31 5,12 % 18. responsibility 38 6,28 % total 301 49,75 % perseverance became the most appeared value because student from very early age should be taught and prepared to be a tough, diligent and keen person. it reached 10,25% of the total sentences and appeared most, 20 times in the text 15, the necklace. ratna widya iswara / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 8 besides perseverance, responsibility also had high rank among all. it took 38 sentences or 6,28% which also appeared most also in text 15. this short story by guy de maupassant told a story of madame loisel and her husband who lived simply. however, their lives became worse when she borrowed a magnificent diamond necklace from her bestfriend, madame forestier, and lost it. then, she had to borrow much money, got the new necklace and began the long path of her financial struggles. it showed a great responsibility of madame loisel to take risk of thing she had done. even it meant that she had to work very hard. compassion, like responsibility, was also considered important. there was 5,12% calculation of sentences which contained this value of showing kindness and concerning for others in distress. character value of honesty and friendship had similar total number, which was 29 sentences. both of them had percentage of 4,79%. other aspects of character education like tolerance, independence, curiosity and achievement respect reached the number of 1020 sentences. while religiousness, discipline, democracy, citizenship, patriotism, peacefulness, and environmental care was less than 1,65% or less than 10 sentences in all the narrative texts. furthermore, there was one value of the aspects, reading interest, which did not appear at all in those narrative texts. reading interest itself means being knowledgeable through having read extensively. considering the importance of this aspect, it was very regrettable that it did not exist in the narrative texts. from the above explanation, it is clear that the 17 narrative texts of the electronic textbook contain the character education aspects mandated by the ministry of national education, but there was still one character education aspect which did not appear in all the narrative texts. conclusion first, all the 17 narrative texts found in the electronic textbook contain at least three aspects of character education which were compatible and relevant to the eighteen character education aspects identified as the core values of cultural and character education in indonesia. they are including religiousness, honesty, tolerance, discipline, perseverance, creativity, independence, democracy, curiosity, citizenship, patriotism, achievement respect, friendship, peacefulness, environmental care, compassion and responsibility. second, the percentage of sentences which contain the character building aspects by the ministry of national education was adequate. there were 301 sentences from all 605 sentences appeared in 17 narrative texts. thus, there was 49,75 % sentences which contain the character building aspects mandated by the government. the most character education aspect was found in perseverance, which reached 10,25%. besides, responsibility and compassion were also highly ranked and mostly found. in contrast, there was one aspect of character education, reading interest, which did not appear in the narrative texts at all. ratna widya iswara / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 9 references abourjilie, charlie. 2002. character education informational handbook and guide. public schools of north carolina. available at: www.ncpublicschools.org [accessed 06/01/13] anderson, mark and kathy anderson. 1997. text types in english 2. south yarra: macmillan education australia pty ltd. arikunto, suharsimi. 2010. prosedur penelitian : suatu pendekatan praktik. jakarta: pt. rineka cipta. battistich, victor. (n.d.) character education, prevention, and positive youth development. st. louis: university of missouri. available at: www.character.org [accessed 06/01/13] berkowitz, marvin w. 2011. understanding effective character education. st. louis: csee connections the center for spiritual and ethical education. berkowitz, marvin w. and melinda c. bier. 2005. what works in character education: a researchdriven guide for educators. missouri: character education partnership. lier, leo van. 1996. interaction in the language curriculum; awareness, autonomy, and authenticity. england: longman. lickona, thomas. 1991. educating for character: how our schools can teach respect and responsibility. new york: bantam books. lickona, thomas. 2007. smart and good schools. in education week volume 27 issue 12 pages 3140. new york: lawrence erlbaum associates. ministry of national development planning. 2010. the national medium-term development plan (rpjmn) 2010-2014. jakarta: ministry of national development planning. mujiyanto, yanuarius. 2007. petunjuk penulisan skripsi. semarang: unnes press. permatasari, riana. 2012. the critical thinking tasks displayed in the textbooks for eleventh grade students of senior high school. final project. english department fbs unnes. http://www.ncpublicschools.org/ http://www.character.org/uploads/pdfs/white_papers/white_paper_battistich.pdf putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 10 elt forum 6 (1) (2017) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt teaching vocabulary by using word baseball graphic organizer to the eleventh graders of senior high school dian nirwana, sri wahyuni english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in june 2017 approved in july 2017 published in august 2017 ________________ keywords: word baseball graphic organizer, vocabulary, quasiexperimental study ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this paper is based on a research which examined the eleventh graders’ achievement in vocabulary mastery. the study aimed to find out the significant difference of students’ vocabulary achievement between the students who were taught by using word baseball graphic organizer and those who were not and to investigate the effectiveness of using word baseball graphic organizer to teach vocabulary. the study adopted quasi-experimental non-equivalent control group design. the data were gained through pre-test and post-test scores and participants’ responses of the questionnaire. the results of the study showed that the mean score of the pre-test in the experimental group was 74.35, while in the control group was 74.62. in the post-test, the mean score of the experimental group was 83.09, and the control group was 79.29. the result of post-test increased. in addition, the t-test result was 1.990, and t-table was 1.787. it can be clearly seen that tvalue is higher than ttable. it means that the hypothesis of h1 was accepted and h0 was refused. according to the proven hypotheses, i can conclude that teaching vocabulary using word baseball graphic organizer was proven to be effective for the eleventh grade students of senior high school. © 2017 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: unnes_english@yahoo.com d. nirwana & s. wahyuni / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 11 introduction this research investigated the effectiveness of using word baseball graphic organizer to teach students vocabulary to the eleventh graders in one of the state senior high schools in semarang. in our daily life we need to communicate with others in order to deliver or gain some information or just for the sake of courtesy with surrounding. in this case, language plays an important role in succeeding the communication. the communication will not run smoothly if we do not know the meaning of the words. rubin and thompson (1994: 79) points out that “one cannot speak, understand, read or write a foreign language without knowing a lot of words”. according to hatch and brown (1995: 24), “vocabulary is a list or set of words particular language or a list or set or words individual speakers of language might use”. from those definitions, it can be concluded that vocabulary is an essential aspect in learning a language. vocabulary learning is at the heart of mastering a foreign language whether it is a spoken or written language. thus, vocabulary is important to be learned in order to master english as the international language since vocabulary is the basic aspect of a language. it seems not easy for students to learn english vocabulary as a foreign language, since it is absolutely different from indonesian language. they find difficulties in enriching their vocabulary knowledge and memorizing new words because of the complexity of the words themselves. in fact, people who have low vocabulary mastery will have problem in learning english whether in gaining information or creating information. therefore, they cannot use language accurately. in addition, it is difficult for students to learn and memorize english vocabularies. i found the reason why the students have low vocabulary proficiency. it is because the teacher still uses the conventional method or grammar translation method in teaching vocabulary. the students are asked to write down some words from the textbook to their individual book. they get of learn english without any media. they just wait for the teacher to inform them about the meaning of the words they have just written. in fact, learning english can be fun if we apply attractive and appropriate techniques and media. besides, it will motivate the students in learning english. when we learn english vocabularies, we meet various words which have different part of speech, such as noun, verb, adjective and adverb. those words are not only formed by a base word but also composed with other smaller elements, such as prefixes and suffixes. a prefix is a group of letters placed before the root of a word, while suffix is a group of letters placed after the root of a word. we can discover other words by adding a base word with prefix and/or suffix. this process is called affixation. the students can memorize the meaning of those words because the words are still in one family. it means that the meaning of the words is nearly the same but they absolutely have different function in a sentence. for example, the word “beauty” is added by suffix “-ful” so that it becomes a new word “beautiful”. both of them have relatively different meaning, but they completely belong to the different part of speech. the words “beauty” and “beautiful” are related to the quality of being pleasing, “beauty” is something that gives a great pleasure and belongs to “noun”; however, “beautiful” belongs to “adjective” which means the state of being attractive or pleasant. because of that problem, i investigated whether or not the use of word baseball graphic organizer is effective in teaching vocabulary. according to bromley et. al., 1995 (as d. nirwana & s. wahyuni / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 12 cited in judit bauer stamper, 2006), graphic organizer is a visual and graphic representation of relationships among ideas and concepts. this instructional tool comes in a variety of formats – from loose webs to structured grids that help students in processing information they’ve gathered and organizing their ideas. to my knowledge, there has not been very much studies about it. word baseball graphic organizer can be stated as a medium to teach students vocabulary by adding prefixes and suffixes in a base word. therefore, the students learn vocabulary based on the same family. it makes them easier to memorize because the words are still in the same family. schmitt (2000: 148) argues that “we can maximize vocabulary learning by teaching word families instead of individual word forms. teachers can make it a habit when introducing a new word to mention the other members of its word family”. besides helping the students to enrich the vocabularies, word baseball graphic organizer gives more understanding about the function of the words or the words’ part of speech. this research needs to be carried out because first, vocabulary mastery is the essential aspect in learning language. according to ellis (1997) as cited in schmitt (2000:143) “the main reason for believing that vocabulary knowledge can help grammar acquisition is that knowing the words in a text or conversation permits learners to understand the meaning of the discourse, which in turn allows the grammatical patterning to become more transparent”. second, interesting technique tends to be needed for teaching vocabulary in the classroom to boost students’ interest. the last, knowing the various words in the same family which has the same root is a powerful way of building vocabulary. therefore, based on the explanation above, hopefully word baseball graphic organizer can be a successful way to solve those problems. it is in line with my objectives in conducting this study that by using word baseball graphic organizer can be an appropriate medium to teach vocabulary. methodology of the research to achieve the goal, i applied a quasi-experimental study with non-equivalent control group design. this study was conducted in one of the senior high schools in semarang in the academic year of 2015/2016. the second grade students were chosen as the population. there were ten classes of eleventh grade students in that school. in determining the sample, i chose the existing class of eleventh grade by using purposive sampling or non-probability sampling. i applied this sampling technique because in the non-equivalent control group design, the experimental and control groups have not been equated by randomization. both groups were tested in pre-test and post-test. the difference of these groups was treatment given in experimental group. the experimental group used word baseball graphic organizer while the control group used grammar translation method without using word baseball graphic organizer. in selecting the sample, i was helped by the leader of english teacher organization in that school. the classes were class xi ipa 2 as the control group and class xi ipa 3 as the experimental group. those classes were chosen because of some considerations. first, both classes are given the same english materials by the same english teacher. second, according to the score’s record, the students of those classes equals in level of english achievement in that school. in this research, the independent variable was the use of word baseball graphic organizer in teaching vocabulary. while the dependent variable was the students’ d. nirwana & s. wahyuni / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 13 achievement of vocabulary in the test score. there were two hypotheses in this study which were alternative hypothesis and null hypothesis. the alternative (h1) was the use of word baseball graphic organizer was effective to teach vocabulary to the eleventh grade students in one of the state senior high schools in semarang; while the null hypothesis (h0) was the use of word baseball graphic organizer was not effective in teaching vocabulary. the instruments used in this study were test and questionnaire. i conducted two kinds of test. they were pre-test and post-test. pre-test and post-test were held in the beginning and the end of the research. the objective of using pre-test and post-test was to find out the students’ vocabulary mastery before and after the treatment. there were 30 items in this test. the type of items used was multiple-choice items. the test itself consisted of some sentences which allowed the students to choose the proper word in order to complete the sentences given. the options consisted of some words that belonged to the same family. they consisted of derivational prefixes and derivational suffixes. the derivational suffixes chosen in this instrument were the derivational suffixes which occurred more often or in the other words, the derivational suffixes which had relatively greater number of their usage frequency. this process of selection dealt with the students’ familiarity toward those derivational suffixes. almost all the chosen derivational suffixes occurred often in the students’ books. they had relatively a great number of their usage frequency. beside the consideration of the frequency of derivational suffixes occurred in the students’ books especially in the hortatory text, the process of selecting the derivational suffixes going to be used in this instrument was also based on the parts of speech they belonged to. after i read the hortatory texts in the student’s book, i found that the nominal suffixes occurred more often than the other suffixes. meanwhile, the adverbial suffixes occurred less frequently than the other suffixes. considering the aspects above, i decided to make the items that consist of 60% of nominal suffixes, 20% of verbal suffixes, 20% of adjectival suffixes, and 10% of adverbial suffixes. before the test was used as an instrument to collect the data, it was tried out first to the class in neither experimental nor control groups. after the data was obtained, i calculated the normality and homogeneity of the test. then, if the data was normal and homogenous, i continued to analyze the data to see whether there is a significant diferrence between the students taught by using word baseball graphic organizer and those who were not by using t-test. if the tvalue is higher than ttable, and sig (2-tailed) is lower than level of significance 0.05 then there is a significant difference between the control and the experimental groups. on the other hand, if tvalue is lower than ttable, and sig (2-tailed) is higher than level of significance 0.05, it means that there is no a significant difference between two means. besides using test as the instrument, i also used questionnaire in the form of close format question to support the data. it was the type of questionnaire which allowed the students to choose the optional answers given. the purpose of giving questionnaire in this research was to gain the description about students’ interest, the advantage of using word baseball graphic organizer, the the students’ achievement, the relevancy, and sustainability in teaching and learning vocabulary by using word baseball graphic organizer. the questionnaire was given to the experimental group after they finished doing the post-test. there were several steps in analyzing questionnaire. first, i graded the items, 3 for the answer yes, 2 for the answer doubt, and 1 for the answer no. second, i tabulated the data and calculated the mean. the formula used to calculate the mean could be seen below: d. nirwana & s. wahyuni / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 14 third, i matched the mean to criterion according to heaton (1975: 172). the criterion can be seen on the next page: table 2.1 mean criterion of questionnaire by heaton result and analysis results of the test i conducted try out on thursday, march 3rd, 2016. thirty four students of xi ipa 1 were asked to complete the 45 multiple-choice items of vocabulary test in 40 minutes. the test scored 1 point for each right answer and 0 for the wrong answer. then, i found out the validity, reliability, item facility, and item discrimination of the items. from the overall 45 items, 31 items were valid and reliable. in designing a test, i considered not only validity, reliability, item facility, and item discrimination, but also practicallity of the test. according to brown (2004: 19), “an effective test is practical. this means that is not excessively expensive, stays within appropriate time constraints, is relatively easy to administer, and has a scoring or evaluation procedure that is specific and time-efficient”. therefore, to make the test is easy to administer i took only 30 items as the pre-test and post-test from 31 items that were classified as good items. after tried out the test, i conducted pre-test for both groups. the pre-test for the control group was conducted on wednesday, march 23rd, 2016 to the students of xi ipa 2. while for the experimental group was held on thursday, march 24th, 2016 to the students of xi ipa 3. the pre-test was scored 1 point for each correct answer and 0 point for the wrong answers. the mean score of pre-test for experimental and control groups were 74.4 and 74.6. to find out if those groups were at the same level of proficiency, i calculated the independent sample t-test. i calculated the normality and homogeneity first before calculating the independent sample t-test. based on the normality test by using kolmogrov test for pre-test in the control group, the sig (2-tailed) was 0.695. since the sig value was higher than level of significance (0.069 > 0.05) it was concluded that the pre-test data in the control group was distributed normally. then, in the experimental group, it was found the sig (2-tailed) value was 0.818. for it range of mean students’ interest the advantage students; achievement the relevancy sustainability 0,00 – 1,00 low not helpful low not relevant not necessary 1,01 – 2,00 medium helpful medium relevant necessary 2,01 – 3,00 high very helpful high very relevant very necessary m = d. nirwana & s. wahyuni / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 15 showed that sig value was higher than level of significance (0.818 > 0.05), the pre-test of experimental group was also distributed normally. after calculating the normality of pre-test, i computed the homogeneity of pre-test. based on the homogeneity test by using spss 21.0 for windows, the sig value was 0.336. since the sig value was higher than level of significance (0.336 > 0.05), it was concluded that the experimental and control groups had the same variance or the population of both groups was homogenous. the data of pre-test were said to be normal and homogenous. then, i calculated the independent sample t-test to know if both groups were at the same level of proficiency before given the treatments. levene's test for equality of variances t-test for equality of means f sig. t df sig. (2tailed) mean difference std.error difference 95% confidence interval of the difference lower upper pretest equal variances assumed .598 .442 -.145 66 .885 -.265 1.822 -3.903 3.374 equal variances not assumed -.145 65.435 .885 -.265 1.822 -3.904 3.374 table 3.1 the independent sample t-test of the pre-test from the t-test, the sig (2-tailed) was 0.885. since it was more than the level of significance (0.05), it meant that there was no a significant difference between the students pre-test score in experimental and control groups. it can be concluded that the initial vocabulary mastery of the two groups were at the same level. the post-test for the control group was conducted on wednesday, march 13th, 2016, while for the experimental group was on thursday, march 14th, 2016. the purpose of giving post-test was to measure students’ vocabulary achievement after they were given the treatment. the test was the same as in the pre-test. the table below shows the mean scores for pre-test and post-test for both groups. d. nirwana & s. wahyuni / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 16 pre-test post-test the mean difference control group 74.62 79.29 4.67 experimental group 74.35 83.09 8.74 table 3.2 mean scores comparison the mean of pre-test of the control group was 74.62, and the mean of post-test was 79.29. in the experimental group, the mean of pre-test was 74.35, and the mean of post-test was 83.09. the difference between pre-test and post-test of control group was 4.67 and the difference between the pre-test and post-test of experimental group was 8.74. the result of post-test on both groups increased, but there was higher improvement in the experimental group than the control group. before calculating the independent sample of t-test by using spss, i found out the normality and homogeneity of the post-test. the post-test normality computation of the control group showed the sig (2-tailed) was 0.060. since the sig value was higher than level of significance (0.060 > 0.05) it was concluded that the post-test data in the control group was distributed normally. besides that, the sig (2-tailed) of experimental group was 0.274. since the sig value was higher than level of significance (0.274 > 0.05), it was concluded that the post-test data in the experimental group were also distributed normally. based on the homogeneity test by using spss 21.0 for windows, the sig value of post-test for experimental and control groups was 0.131. since the sig value was higher than level of significance (0.131 > 0.05), it was concluded that the population of both groups was homogenous. to know whether there is a significant difference between the two groups, i calculated the independent sample t-test by using spss 21.0 for windows. levene's test for equality of variances t-test for equality of means f sig. t df sig.(2tailed) mean difference std. error difference 95% confidence interval of the difference lower upper posttest equal variances assumed 3.119 .082 1.990 66 .050 3.794 1.906 -.012 7.600 equal variances not assumed 1.990 58.823 .050 3.794 1.906 -.021 7.609 table 3.3 the independent sample t-test of the post-test d. nirwana & s. wahyuni / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 17 from the table above, it could be seen that the sig (2-tailed) value was 0.050. since it equals to the level of significance (0.05) and the tvalue was higher than ttable with the df 66 (1.990 > 1.787), it meant that there was a significant difference between the students who were taught by using word baseball graphic organizer and those who were not. thus, the null hypothesis (h0) is rejected and the alternative hypothesis (h1) that the use of word baseball graphic organizer was effective to teach vocabulary, is accepted. after analyzing the mean score and the t-test results, i also analyzed the result of questionnaire. the conclusion of the questionnaire result can be seen on the following table. number of question students’ opinion result 1,2,3,4,5,6 students’ interest high 7,8,9,10,11,12 the advantage very helpful 13,14,15 the students’ achievement high 16,17,18 the relevancy very relevant 19,20 sustainability very necessary table 3.4 result of analyzing questionnaire conclusions due to the research finding and discussion, i would give some conclusions about this study. the first conclusion, there is a significant difference between the vocabulary achievement of the eleventh grade students in one of the state senior high schools in semarang in the academic year of 2015/2016 who were taught by using word baseball graphic organizer and those who were not. according to the analysis of t-test result, it was obtained that the t-value was higher than t-table. it means that there is a significant difference between the vocabulary achievement of the students who were taught by using word baseball graphic organizer and those who were not. in addition, the research findings revealed that the result of the research was in line with my alternative hypothesis (h1) that “the use of word baseball graphic organizer is effective to teach vocabulary to the eleventh grade students.” thus, this hypothesis is accepted and the null hypothesis is rejected. second, by considering the different average scores on both groups, i am able to conclude that the use of word baseball graphic organizer as a medium in teaching and learning vocabulary gave contribution to improve students’ competence of vocabulary. the mean scores difference between pre-test and post-test of the control group was lower than the experimental group. moreover based on the questionnaire analysis, it showed that the students attracted with the medium that i used. this medium helped the students to enrich the vocabulary. the students’ response towards the teaching and learning was good. the students’ positive attitude toward the lesson was also good. the students were interested in the materials given during the teaching learning process. thus, i come to the conclusion that the use of word baseball graphic organizer is effective to teach vocabulary at the eleventh grade students of senior high school references d. nirwana & s. wahyuni / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 18 brown, h. douglas. 2004. language assessment: principles and classroom practices. new york: pearson education. ellis, n. c. 1997. vocabulary acquisition: word structure, collocation, wordclass,and meaning. in n. schmitt, vocabulary in language teaching (pp.143). cambridge: cambridge university press. enchanted learning. online. www.enchantedlearning.com [accessed 12/27/15]. hatch, e., & brown, c. 1995. vocabulary, semantics and language education. cambridge: cambridge university press. heaton, j.b. 1975. writing english language test. london: longman group ltd. rubin, j. & thompson, i. 1994. how to be succesful language learner. boston, massachusetts: heinle & heinle. schmitt, norbert. 2000. vocabulary in language teaching. cambridge: cambridge university press. stamper, j.b. 2006. vocabulary-building graphic organizers and minilessons. online. available at: http://www.google.co.id/url?q=http s://michelleleba.wikispaces.com/fil e/view/graphic%2borganizers%2 bthat%2bbuild%2bvocabulary.pdf &sa=u&ei=0seqvikqkmfmuqs w3ic4da&ved=0ccqqfjad&us g=afqjc nf4vjsqu_zlms1x7tvla20po1 tg4q [accessed 12/27/15]. 1 elt forum 5 (1) (2016) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the effectiveness of instagram writing compared to teacher centered writing to teach recount text to students with high and low motivation (the case of eight grade students in smp kesatrian 1 semarang in the academic year of 2015/2016) gisty listiani english department. faculty of languages and arts. state university of semarang. aticle info ________________ article history: received in february 2016 approved in march 2016 published in april 2016 ________________ keywords: instagram writing, recount text, students with high and low motivation. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this final project is based on a study which attempts to examine the effectiveness of instagram writing compared to teacher centered writing to teach recount text to students with high and low motivation of smp kesatrian 1 semarang in the academic year of 2015/2016. this final project has several objectives; to measure how effective instagram writing is to teach recount text to students with high motivation, to measure how effective instagram writing is to teach recount text to students with low motivation, to measure how effective teacher centered writing is to teach recount text to students with high motivation, to measure how effective teacher centered writing is to teach recount text to students with low motivation and to measure how effective instagram writing is compared to teacher centered writing to teach recount text to students with high and low motivation. this study was conducted by using experimental research with 40 students participated. those students were divided into experimental and control group. the experimental group was taught writing recount text by using instagram as a teaching technique, whereas the control was taught by using teacher centered writing. results indicated that the final average score of experimental group was 73. meanwhile, the control group got a lower average score with 67.15. after calculating the significance of the test, the result of the t-value was 2.210 and ttable was 2.002. with regard to the previous results, it can be concluded that teaching recount text using instagram resulted a better achievement. besides, the t-value of the post test was higher than the critical value which meant that the difference was statistically significant. thus, the higher achievement of experimental group indicated that the use of instagram promoted a better understanding for students with high and low motivation which improved the quality of their writing. © 2016 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: unnes_english@yahoo.com issn 2252-6706 gisty listiani / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 2 introduction language has four skills to be mastered. the four skills are listening, speaking, reading, and writing. those four skills are linked to each other, but many students argue that writing is the most difficult skill to be mastered because of its complexity. however, students must realize the essential role of writing skill. writing is used when the spoken communication cannot be done in a certain situation. writing communicates our thought or ideas to be understood by someone else. thus, in order to get others’ understanding, students must convey their ideas in a good concept and arrangement. it includes the combination of grammar, diction, vocabulary, and also the imagination of the students to make a good writing. in line with this, heaton (1975: 127) stated that “writing is a task which involves the writers in manipulating words in grammatical correct sentences, those sentences in form of writing which successfully communicates the writer’s thoughts and ideas on certain topic.” in classroom practice, students tend to be unenthusiastic when they are given a command to write and many of them neglect the important role of writing skill due to its complexity. therefore, as a future teacher, i realize that the problem above must be solved immediately. i got some experiences related to the evaluation of writing skills when i took language administration assessment course in the sixth semester. that subject required me to observe how the teacher compose a test and how students did the test. in this case, my concern is how the students did the test in writing skill. when students were asked to do the multiple choice, there was no problem because they just chose one of the provided options that was right. however, the problem rose when students were asked to answer the essay by making a text that tells about their past experiences. when students were working on their writing, they seemed not understand the structure and the language feature of the recount text. in addition, students also lack of knowledge in using correct grammar and the way of arranging a good recount text. the experience showed that writing skill is still ignored. the reality of this present situation is that writing is not a main aspect in a test. a test tends to use multiple choice form than essay form to measure deep comprehension on the lesson. perhaps, this is one of the reasons why students are not trained to develop their thought, to express their ideas, or even to practice using correct grammar. thus, writing should be a habit. students sould be taught to write something. they can open up their mind by writing, convey their opinion about something, or just tell the readers what they have experienced. the medium must be able to create fun situation in writing class. the point is, if teachers can develop writing as students’ habitual activity, students can find many interesting things inside their writing. to support this goal, i will use social media as a medium because it will provide several supporting aspects to enhance student’s writing ability. students need such a technology to mantain their attention during the lesson. according to mcgraw-hill, president of higher education, brian kibby, "studying effectively – and with the right type of technology – is one of the best ways to ensure that students succeed in class; however, focus is the key!” (belardi, 2013). therefore, instagram can be the solution to help students working on recount text. instagram is a social network based on sharing pictures and fifteen-second videos which can be posted to other social media sites. students can upload a picture, fill the caption (a description of the picture) in unlimited provided spaces, and give comment to others’ pictures. in addition, there will be a written communication between one student and the others in a limited topic based on the picture uploaded. starting from this point hopefully the combination between instagram and a good atmosphere of teaching learning process can lead students to the development of their motivation and their ability in writing recount text. gisty listiani / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 3 review of related literature there are a number of researchers who conducted the study concerned the method of teaching recount text. the first belongs to giyatno (2011) who conducted a study entitled improving students’ writing skill on recount text using questioning technique and facebook media. the objectives of the study are to identify to what extent questioning technique and facebook media improve the students’ writing skill on recount text and to describe the impovement of classroom situation of the students’ activities in the process of teaching and learning on recount text. the findings showed that the program of improving students’ writing skill using questioning technique and facebook media was successfull viewed from some dimensions: (1) the improvement of structure and vocabulary, (2) the improvement of organizing ideas, and (3) the improvement of using punctuation. then, the findings revealed that the classroom situation was also getting improved. then, a study was conducted by helmi (2012) entitled improving students skill in writing recount text by using personal letter. the objective of the study described the improvement of students’ writing skill after being taught by using a personal letter. the result showed that there was a significance differences between the test result during pre-cycle, cycle i, and cycle ii. students’ score in the pre-cycle test was 55.5, in the cycle i test was 65.7 and in the cycle ii test was 72.2. in line with this, the researcher concluded that the medium was very effective and useful to improve students’ skill in writing recount text. furthermore, the personal letter was also in good design and good theme, so students are more motivated and enjoyed in the learning process. another literature related to the use of instagram writing to teach recount text is a study conducted by indah (2010) in her thesis entitled improving writing recount text by using photographs. the findings of this study explained that photographs were able to improve the students’ ability in writing recount text because students got more motivation to develop their ideas, feeling, and opinion. besides, students were more interested in teaching learning process using photographs than using a conventional method, so that it affected the situation of the classroom to be more fun. some statements related to the use of teacher centered learning in language class were added by zohrabi, ali, and baybourdiani (2012) in their journal entitled teacher-centered and/or student-centered learning: english language in iran. the findings obtained in their research supported the implementation of teacher-centered process for the purpose of developing grammar learning in iranian efl learners. the data generated by this study suggested that implementing studentcentered activities within a communicative domain would be interesting to both teachers and learners, but could not fulfill the learners’ needs on english education in both communicative and traditional learning. tcl’s results in pre-test were low in comparison to scl, but there was a steady increase in post-test. motivation in learning english learning a new language is not an easy thing. it is necessary for students to have such motivation to maintain their interest in the process of understanding. the role of their family and school teacher will be so important to keep students’ motivation high. based on some researchers’ definition, there are some factors which affect the motivation of students in learning english as a foreign language such as parental involvement, teachers, classroom environment, and peers. in discussing the relation of motivation to second-language learning, nida (1956:16) argued that “motivation” should be conceptualized in terms of an interest in learning particular linguistic skills for specific purposes. he concluded that there are “two fundamental types of motivation which when present to any considerable degree tend to guarantee a high measure of success in language learning”, the first is desire to communicate and the second is sensitivity to the out-group. therefore, in gaining a good result of learning english, students must have a motivation to communicate in order to do an exchange of any ideas that will broaden their gisty listiani / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 4 knowledge. in addition, a sensitivity is needed to aware the social situation in which the students are able to keep up with the social standard. teacher-centered learning huba and freed (2000) described teachercentered learning as students passively receive information, emphasis is on acquisition of knowledge, and teacher’s role is to be primary information giver and primary and evaluator. there is no room for student’s personal growth. in teacher-centered classrooms, control is primary importance and “authority is transmitted hierarchically”, meaning the teacher exerts control over the students (dollard & christensen, 1996, p. 3). to help teachers maintain control over students, instructional methods that promote a focus on the teacher are frequently used, such as lectures, guided discussions, and demonstrations. these forms of instruction lead themselves to have the teacher stands in the front of the classroom while all students work on the same task. boston (1991) stated that the physical design of the classroom often promotes a focus on the teacher and limits student activity that disrupts that focus. in other words, rooms are often organized so that desks face toward the primary focal point, the teacher. in addition, teachers exert their control through a system of clearly defined rules, routines and punishments that are mandated rather than developed with the students. finally, in teacher-centered classrooms, teachers may rely on extrinsic motivation to influence student behavior. chance (1993) mentioned that completion of a task is seen as a prerequisite for obtaining something desirable such as social rewards (e.g. praise), activity rewards (e.g. free time, computer time) and tangible rewards (e.g. candy and stickers). to sum up, teacher-centered learning is the teaching technique where the teacher is a sole leader. teacher makes rule and takes responsibility for all paperwork and organization. this teaching technique can be applied in conducting a research of teacher centered writing to help students comprehend the recount text. therefore, in doing the research, teacher centered writing will use the teacher’s role in managing the class and teacher will be the centre of students’ attention during the lesson. in teacher centered writing, all instruction comes from the teacher including discussion and evaluation on students’ work. social media instagram instagram is a fun and quick way to share one’s life with his or her friends through a series of pictures, snap a photo with a mobile phone, then choose a filter to transform the image into a memory to keep around forever. instagram was created by kevin systrom and mike krieger, and was launched in october 2010. the service rapidly gained popularity, with over 100 million active users as of april 2012 and over 300 million as of december 2014. instagram is impressive with its amazing features to support people’s purposes related to daily needs and education. moreover, instagram can be used as learning media due to its supporting features, such as: (1) photo sharing instagram allows the user to take pictures within the application or use photos that already exist in user’s camera roll. users can give their photo a title, which is helpful and fun. the title itself can make people curious about what is actually going on. (2) social instagram, like any other social network, is based on having friends or followers. on instagram, users ‘follow’ people. at the top of the profile (or anyone’s profile) the user will see the username, profile pic, how many photos have been uploaded, how many followers the account has, and how many they are following. when users follow someone, their photos show up in their stream. the other things people can do here are ‘like‘ photos and comment on them. both are appreciated. people ask questions in the comments, like “where was this taken” or “what app did you use for that?” it’s currently a very friendly community. (3) the community people’s experience on instagram has been extremely enjoyable. instagram connects people gisty listiani / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 5 around the world. it’s a very global community and has many advantages for students to express their feeling by writing something. it means when students are involved in a community they will try to make better move, in this case is their product in writing recount text. (4) an education on our shared humanity. those features of instagram are great opportunity to teach students writing skill. students involve in a good atmosphere of writing recount text because when working on their project they will get better insight from the picture uploaded. pictures make them think wider and will support them in arranging a text in provided space because what they write is based on their personal life’s experience. methods in this study the writer used the form of quasi experimental research. in this method the writer divided one group as the experimental group and another as the control group. both of experimental and control group consist of students with high and low motivation. the subject of the research were 40 students of eight graders of smp kesatrian 1 semarang in the academic year 2015/2016 randomly. twenty students as control group and 20 others as experimental group. in this research, the independent variable were instagram writing and teacher-centered writing. then the dependent variable was the ability in writing recount text of the students with high and low motivation. then, the writer used questionnaires and a writing test as an instrument. the questionnaire was used to collect data from students’ interest, relevance, advantage, students’ achievement, and sustainability during the teaching learning process. besides, the writer gave students a writing test so that the writer could observe the students’ writing ability in telling their past experience. the test consisted of two parts, pretest and post-test. pre-test and post-test were conducted in the beginning and end of the research by using writing test. meanwhile, the treatments were given given to the students before the post-test was conducted. the experimental group utilized instagram writing as the teaching technique and the control group taught using teacher-centered writing. both groups consist of students with high and low motivation. in the experimental group, students were asked to upload many pictures and then fill the caption or description related to the picture uploaded then they were required to give comment on their friends’ picture. after conducting treatment, post-test was given. i used spss program to calculate the data. findings and discussion the course of this study is to answer the research problems. generally, this reserach explains how effective instagram writing is to teach recount text to students with high and low motivation. the second is to find out how effective teacher centered writing is to teach recount text to students with high and low motivation. and the last is the comparison between instagram writing and teacher centered writing to teach recount text to high and low motivated students in the eight grade of smp kesatrian 1 semarang. in this study, questionnaire was used to group students into the category of students with high motivation and students with low motivation. the validity and reliability of questionnaire have been tested to students in another class. from the data tabulation, it was known that in the control group the high motivation level of students range from 67% up to 80%, and the rest of it had low motivation level that range from 48% up to 61.25%. meanwhile, in experimental group the range of high motivation level of students was between 67.5% and 90%, and the low motivation level took position between 51.25% and 61.25%. based on the questionnaire result, in general, it could be summarized that students with high motivation level were enthusiastic in learning english not only because english is an obligatory subject at school, but also due to its importance. they think that english will be an essential factor in getting a good job. they try any ways to improve their english skills, such as listen to the english song, try to use english in several gisty listiani / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 6 social media, even they feel worse when their score is not as good as their firends’. besides, in order to support their passion in learning english, they are open to any feedback of their works to have a better understanding. on the contrary, students with low motivation level assume that english is a difficult subject. thus, they find it hard to focus on the lesson during the english class. worse than that, they had no enthusiasm in doing their english assignments. many of them have the same thought with high motivated students that english is an important subject, but they had no enough effort to prove it. furthermore, pre-test as the first test that was conducted became a guidance to know how deep of students’ understanding in learning recount text. the time of doing pre-test was 80 minutes for each group. in pre-test, students were asked to compose a recount text based on their own experience in a student’s sheet. the scoring coloumn had also been provided at the back of it to make assessment easier. after finishing pretest, each of students’ work was collected to be assessed. it was corrected by using the rubric of brown and bailey. each aspect had range score between 5 to 20 and also had score category. from the scoring result, students in both groups had similarity in grammar errors and mechanism. the most mistake was produced from the use of grammar and followed by writing mechanism. in grammar aspect, students were not consistent in using past tense. meanwhile, in writing mechanism aspect, students made errors in spelling and punctuation. however, their ideas were well-developed eventhough the way they organize the text needed to be improved. the data tabulation showed that the students’ mean score in writing recount text either in control or experimental group was almost similar. the average score of control group was 62.6 and experimental group was 62.8. hence, there was no significant difference in students’ grade of achievement. after that, treatments were conducted both in control group and experimental group. control group taught using teacher centered writing, while experimental group used got treatment using instagram writing. after conducting the research, the writer found that students in experimental group seemd excited and interested in the use of instagram writing. consequently, they followed the teaching learning process enthusiastically. after conducting some treatments, both groups were tested once more to know how far their progress in understanding recount text after getting some treatments. the results of the test between control group and experimental group were compared to measure which one the most effective way to teach recount text to students with high motivation and low motivation. after calculating the score, it was indicated that the average score of both groups and both categories (high and low motivated students) were sharply increased, in which the control group got 67.15 and the experimental group got 73. the improvement of both groups were made by the progress of their writing. in post-test, students seemed more confidence in writing recount text. their ideas developed well, with good grammar using and also diction. however, there were several differences between the control group’s product and experimental group’s product. students in experimental group produced a better writing than students in control group. they were able to use uncommon phrases and succeed in developing their story to be more attractive. they also had many different topics and followed the right generic structure of recount text. meanwhile, in control group, students seemed too monotone in writing recount text. too many students wrote about holiday and still had several grammar errors. the use of expression was not as good as the experimental group. hence, from those results, it can be analyzed that after getting some treatments using instagram writing, the experimental group achieved better result than the control group which was taught using teacher centered writing. conclusion the main objective of this study was to determine whether there is any significant difference in improvement of students’ progress gisty listiani / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 7 in writing recount text between students who were taught using instagram writing and those who were taught using teacher centered writing. the progress can be proved by the sharp improvement of students’ ability which was explained by the scoring system of rubric brown and bailey. it includes the organization, ideas development, grammar, mechanism, and style of writing. in addition, their mastery in choosing appropriate words was better than before, so that it improved the quality of their writing. regarding to the final result, the comparation of the average score of post-test in experimental group and control group were significant different. the experimental group achieved higher mean score with 73, meanwhile, the control group only got 67.15. it meant that instagram writing was more effective than teacher centered writing to teach recount text to students with high and low motivation. furthermore, the t-test measurement obtained 3.251, for α = 5%, with dk = 20 + 20 – 2 = 38. the ttable score obtained 2.002. this meant that the t-test score was higher than the ttable score. since the t-test measurement was higher than ttable, it was indicated that the experimental group’s achievement in writing recount text was better than the control group’s achievement. suggestions based on the conclusions, the writer would like to offer some suggestions. first, english teachers have to be able to create new atmosphere during the teaching learning process in the classroom, so that students will be interested in learning english. english teachers have to be able to combine the materials with various media to attract students’ attention and to maintain their focus during the lesson. therefore, they will not get bored during teaching learning process. second, in order to improve students’ language mastery and writing skill, english teachers should encourage students to practice writing intensively. then, teachers should provide feedback on every students’ work so that students will have a better understanding on the lesson. thus, english teachers optionally could use instagram writing or another interesting media in order to make students more motivated and enthusiastic in learning english. third, for future researchers, they can use this study as a reference to guide them in conducting the next similar project. hopefully, the result of this study can help them to find out a new strategy about teaching recount to students with high and low motivation by using interesting strategies. references al-ali, s. 2014. embracing the selfie craze: exploring the possible use of instagram as a language learning tool. issues and trends in educational technology, volume 2 number 2. anvar m, m. k., fereidouni z, m., & ebrahimi a, m. 2006. teacher centered and student centered educational method. journal of medical education. bram, b. 1995. write well improving writing skills. yogyakarta: penerbit kanisius. brown, h. d. 2001. teaching by principles: an interactive approach to language pedagogy. new york: pearson education. brown, h. d. 2004. language assessment: principle and classroom practice. new york: pearson education. brown, j. 1984. categorical instrument for scoring second language writing skills. language learning reasearch club: university of michigan. creswell, j. w. 2012. educational research (planning, conducting and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research). boston: pearson education. davis, l., & yin, l. r. 2011. the use of social networking tool twitter to improve college students' business writing class. issues in information system, 401-406. dewi, s. p. 2013. kemampuan menulis recount text dengan menggunakan teknik picture series pada kelas viii di smp angkasa kuta badung . denpasar: program pascasarjana universitas udayana. gisty listiani / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 8 ellwand, o. 2015. instagram account shines a positive light on edmonton inner-city students. edmonton journal. giyatno. 2011. improving students’ writing skill on recount text using questionning technique and facebook media. tesis: universitas sebelas maret surakarta. harmer, j. 2004. how to teach writing. england: longman. hartono, r. 2005. genres of text. semarang : unnes. heaton, j. 1975. writing english langugae tests. london: longman. helmi, f. 2012. improving students skill in writing recount text by using personal letter. thesis: bachelor program of english language education of state institute for islamic studies walisongo (iain walisongo). hyland, k. 2004. genre and second language writing. the united state of america: the university of michigan press. indah, d. n. 2010. improving writing recount text by using photographs. semarang: ikip pgri semarang. larson-hall, j. 2010. a guide to doing statistics in second language research using spss. new york: routledge. lenneberg, e. 1967. biological foundations of language. wiley. m.a.k. halliday, &. r. 1984. language, context, and text: aspects of language in social-semiotic perspective . hongkong: oxford university press. mujiyanto, y. 2011. petunjuk penulisan skripsi. semarang: unnes press. nugraha, b. 2015. perilaku komunikasi pengguna aktif instagram. cisral. o’malley, j. m. 1996. authentic assessment for english language learners: practical approaches for teachers. ny: addison-wesley. rani, d. a., dewi rochsantiningsih, a., & pudjobroto, h. 2012. the use of facebook notes to improve students' skill in recount text writing. english education department. risa blair, tina m.serafini. 2014. integration of education: using social media networks to engage students. systemics. cybernetics, and informatics, volume 6 number 12. sushikaran. 2015. the use of multimedia in english language teaching. journal of technology for elt. zohrabi, m., torabi, m. a., & baybourdiani, p. 2012. teacher-centered and/or student-centered learning: english language in iran. canadian center of science and education, vol 2, no 3. http://ahmadyaniskm.blogspot.co.id/2013/07/carapenentuan-kriteria-obyektif.html [accessed on january 2th, 2016] 1 elt forum 5 (1) (2016) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt word level equivalence in the indonesian translation of the dialogues in “the lightning thief” (a descriptive qualitative study in the novel “the lightning thief”) dewi maulud diati english department. faculty of languages and arts. state university of semarang. aticle info ________________ article history: received in february 2016 approved in march 2016 published in april 2016 ________________ keywords: word level equivalence, dialogues, utterances, the lightning thief. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this descriptive qualitative study mainly describes the word level equivalence found in the translated dialogues in the lightning thief. the final project mainly aims at identifying the word level equivalence strategy in translating the dialogues of the lightning thief from english into indonesian and identifying its word level equivalence meaning. the study focuses on the classification of word level equivalence offered by mona baker in her book in other words. the data obtained were analyzed by comparing both english and indonesian versions. words or phrases which contained any word level non-equivalence were analyzed further to find out the context in which it occured. then the data analyzed were evaluated its word level equivalent meaning. the evaluation involved some raters who are expert in their field.the finding show that: the strategies used by the translator to overcome the problems in translating the dialogue are translation by paraphrase using related word (24.11%), translation by a more specific word (18.43%), translation by paraphrase using unrelated word (14.89%), translation by a more general word (14.19%), translation by omission (13.48%),translation by more expressive or less neutral word (8.51%) and translation by using loan word or loan word plus explanation (6.39%). word level equivalence meaning in the strategies: translation by using loan word (92.59%) was the strategy whose data were got higher result of score 3 (meaning is sufficiently renderred) by three raters, translation by a more general word (36.67%) was the strategy whose data were got higher result of score 2 (meaning is insufficiently), and translation by omission was the strategy whose data were got higher result of score 1 (59.65%). suggestion drawn from this study is that to transfer meaning of the source text into the target text accurately, the translator should decide to make choices in each word or phrases, and choose the most suitable strategies that can overcome problems and difficulties of translation, especially problems of non-equivalence at word level. © 2016 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: mauludiadewi@ymail.com issn 2252-6706 dewi maulud diati / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 2 introduction reading is one of interesting activity for some people, indeed some of them assume that reading is a need and hobby. many kinds of reading we can find in our daily life through several media, such as news paper, magazine, television, internet, and the book itself. people read something to get information. for some people who has a hobby of reading, they will read something because they are interested in reading. from various kind of reading, novel is one of the media of reading which has fascination for some people. novel is a long prose narrative that is normally in prose, which describes frictional characters and events, usually in the form of a sequential story. many of story in novel have been filmed and watched by people. besides the plot of the story or the content of the story, one of the interesting thing is the dialogue in the novel. some of best popular novel are originally available in english, and to adapt it, the novel were translated into different languages, such as bahasa indonesia. translating the novel especially the dialogue of the novel from source language (english) into the target language (indonesian) is not an easy task. the translator must consider not only the word selection but also the message delivery. in this point, a question come up: does the target language (indonesian) novel, especially dialogues of the novel, deliver the same message as the source language (english) dialogue of the novel? therefore, it is interesting to find out whether the target language dialogues of the novel have delivered the same message as the source language dialogues of the novel or not. ultimately, the message transfers from source language to target language can be accomplished by several strategies and making sure of the word level equivalence between the two languages. from this reason, i conducted the research of translation equivalence in the dialogues of the novel entitled “the lightning thief” particularly in terms of word level equivalence. in this research, i use word level equivalence classification by baker (1992). discussion translation has various definitions which can be a broad or narrow one. the broad definition of translation is a change from one form to another, for exampletransforming a feeling into a poem or lyrics. it is also revealed by larson (1984:3) that translation consist of transferring meaning of source language into the receptor language. it means that the act of translation involves the change of form from the first language to the form of the second language; but the meaning is still constant. the form from which the translation is made will be called source language (sl) and the form into it is to be changed will be called the receptor language or target language (tl). translation contains a large number of values such as, culture, language, and so on. further, translation has a large of experts who reveal, research, and define all it one. catford (1965:1) explains that, ‘translation is the replacement of textual material in one language (sl) by equivalent textual in another language (tl)”. next, nida (1969:12) defines that, translation consists in reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the sourcelanguage message, first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style”. according to newmark (1988:7), on the other hand, “translation is a craft consisting in the attempt to replace a written message and/or statement in one language by the same message and/or statement in another dewi maulud diati / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 3 language”. it is also revealed by bell (1991:1) that, ‘translation is an art or craft and therefore not amenable to objective, scientific description, ex[lanation. as quoted by hewson and martin (1991:38) steiner states that, “the role of the ranslation is determining in this process cultural cross-determination, since in translating the dialectic of unison and plurality is dramatically at work. from those definitions i can conclude that: (a) translation involves two languages, the source language (sl) and the target or recptor language (tl); (b) to translate means to reproduce or to replace the message of the sl text into that of the tl text; (c) every translator must find the equivalent of the tl; (d) translation is an art process of replacing the sl into another language (tl), involving cultural values. types of translation catford (1965:21-26) divides translation based on three criteria: the extent of translation (full translation vs. partial translation), the levels of language involved in translation (total translation vs. restricted translation), and the grammatical rankat which the translation equivalence is established (rank-bounded translation vs. unbounded translation). in a full translation, every part of the source language text is replaced by the target language text material, whereas in a partial translation, some part of parts of the source-language text are, left untranslated. in a total translation, the grammar, lexis, phonology or graphology of the sl are replaced by their equivalence in the tl. in contrast, a restricted translation only replaces limited textual materials of the sl with its equivalence in the tl, e.g. grammar and lexis. rank-bounded translation is normal total translation in which the selection of the target language equivalence is bounded or limited to a low rank or only a few ranks in the hierarchy of grammatical units, e.g. words or morphemes. in contrast, unbounded translation is normal total translation in which equivalence shift-freely up and down the rank scale the experts of translation mention the types of translation differently based on some points of view. generally, it is divided into literal translation and nonliteral translation. larson as quoted by simatupang (1999:6) divides the kinds of translation into two categories. one is meaning – based translation and yhe other is form – based translation. form – based translation attempts to folloe the form of the source language and is known as literal translation. on the other hand, meaning based translation is translation that emphasizes on meaning. nida and taber as cited by simatupang (1999) support this type of translation by dividing translation into literal translation and dynamic translation. basically, dynamic translation has the same characters with the meaning – based translation, taht is emphasis on the meaning rather than on the form. litearal translation is translation that emphasizes on the form. for example, ‘you must study alone here’ ‘anda harus belajar sendirian disini’. in the example, we can see that english and indonesian are related, which means that the general grammatical form may similar, so the literal translation can be understood. however, in some cases, we can find that literal translation will produce an unnatural, because the indonesian language uses different expression. equivalence in translation it discusses about the definition of equivalence by some professionals and experts. dewi maulud diati / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 4 definitions of equivalence catford (1965:21) notes that “the central problem of translation practice is that finding tl translation equivalence. a central task of translation theory is taht of defining the nature and condition of translation equivalence”. equivalence is the most appropriate meaning of source language in the target langauge. bell (1991:70) defines the term equivalence as the replacement of stretch of a source langauge (particularly idioms, cliches, provrb, greetings, etc,) and the like by its functional equivalent. baker (1992) acknowledges that equivalence can usually be obtained to some extent, but it is influenced by variety of linguistics and cultural factors and is therefore always relative. she outlines five types of translation equivalence; they are equivalence at word level, equivalence above word level, grammatical equivalence, textual equivalence and pragmatic equivalence. problems of non-equivalence at word level based on types of lexical meaning above, there are some of the more common types of non-equivalence which often pose difficulties for the translator. nonequivalence at word level means that the target language has no direct equivalent for a word which occurs in the sourrce a) culture-specific concept in culture specific concepts, the problems emerges as a result of sourcelanguage that expresses a concept of word which is totally unknown in the target language culture. the concept may be abstract or concrete, for example: an english concept is the word privacy, which is understood by people from other culture. b) the source-language concepts is not lexicalized in the target language in this type of non-equivalence, the source-language expresses a word which easily understood by people from other culture but it is not lexicalized. for example, the word savoury has no equivalent in many languages, although its meaning is easy to understand. c) the source-language word is semantically complex in this type of non-equivalence, the source-language word is semantically complex, as quoted by bolinger and sears, baker (1992:22) stated that words do not have to be morphologically complex to be semantically complex. a single word which consists of a single morpheme can sometimes express a more complex set of meanings than a whole sentence. for example, a word arruacao, a brazilian word which means ‘clearing the ground under coffee trees and piling it in the middle of the row in order to aid in the recovery of beans dropped during harvesting’. d) the source and the target languages make different distinctions in meaning. in this type of non-equivalence, the target language may make more or fewer different distinctions in meaning than the source language. for example, the word going out in the rain makes two meaning in mindonesia (kehujanan dan hujan-hujanan), which are different in terms of going out in the rain without knowledge (kehujanan) and going out in the rain with the knowledge (hujan-hujanan) while english does not make this distinction. e) the target langauge lacks a superordinate in this type of non-equivalent, the target langauge may have specific words (hyponym) but no the general word. for example, russian has no equivalent for facilities, but it has several words which can be thought as types of facilities. dewi maulud diati / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 5 f) the target language lacks a specific term (hyphonym) usually, langauges tend to have general words (superordinate), but lack the specific ones (hyphonyms). engalish has a variety of hyphonyms which have equivalent in other languages. for example, english has many hyphonyms under the word house, such as cottage, hut villa, lodge, bungalow,etc. g) differences in physical or interpersonal perspective in this type of non-equivalence, physical or interpersonal perspective that has to do with where things or people are in relation to another or to a place may be more important in one language than in another. for example, japanese has six equivalence for give, depending on who gives to whom: yaru, ageru, morau, kureru, itadaku, and kudasaru (mc creary , 1986). h) differences in expressive meaning baker (1992:24) said that differences in expressive meaning are usually more difficult to handle when the target-language equivalent is more emotionally loaded than the source-langauge item. for example, the english word batter (as in child/wife battering) was rendered by the more neutral japanese word tataku, means ‘to beat’, plus an equivalent modifier such as ‘savagely’ or ‘ruthlessly’. i) differences in form in this type of non-equivalence, there is often no equivalent in the targetlanguage for a particular form in the source text. english has many couplets consist of such noun and suffixes or prefixes such as imployer/employee, trainer/trainee, steward/stewardess. arabic, has no ready mechanism for producing such forms and so they are often replaced by an appropriate paraphrase, depending on the meaning they convey. j) differences in frequency and purpose of using specific forms in this type of non-equivalence, english, for example, uses the continuous –ing form for binding clauses much more frequently than other languages. as a result, rendering every –ing from english to target langauge would make unnatural style. k) the use of loan words in ghe source text once a word is loaned into a particular langauge, we cannot control its development or its additional meaning. for example, average japanese translator is not likely to confuse an english feminist with a japanese feminist (feminist in japanese means a man who excessively soft with woman). strategies in non-equivalence problems of translation baker (1992:26) suggests some strategies to overcome the problems arising in the process of translation related to various types of non-equivalence. as this study is focused on word level equivalence, the strategies discussed are limited on that level of equivalence: a) translation by a more general word (superordinate) this strategy means that the translator may go up one level in a given semantic field to find a more general word that covers the core proportional meaning of the missing hyphonym in the receptor language. b) translation by a more neutral / less expressive word in this strategy, the translators may use the more / less expressive word if the source langauge has diffrences in expressive meaning which is more difficult to handle because the target language equivalent is more emotionally or less emotionally than the source-language item. c) translation by cultural subtitution dewi maulud diati / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 6 this strategy involves replacing a culture-specific item or expression with the target langauge item which does not have the same prportiona meaning but is likely to have a similar impact on the target reader. the advantages is the readers can identify a concept which familiar to the readers. d) translation using a loan word or loan word plus explanation this strategy is particularly common in dealing with non-equivalent on culture specific concepts. one item may be not exist in the particular langauge because it depends on the environment culture. once explained, the loan word continually can be used on its own, the reader can undertsand without further lengthy explanation, because it is explained formerly. e) translation by paraphrase using a related word this strategy tends to be used when the concept expressed by the source item is lexicalized in the target lanaguge but in different form, and when the frequency which a certain form is used, the source text is significantly higher than would be natural in the target langauge (baker 1992: 37). f) translation by paraphrase using unrelated words in this strategy, the translators still can use the paraphrase strategy although the source text word is not lexicalized at all in the target langauge and it is semantically complex. the step is by modifying a superordinate or simply unpacking the meaning of the source item. the disadvantage of using this strategy is that it is awkward to use because it involves filling a one-item slot with an explanation consisting of several items. g) translation by omission in this strategy, the translators sometimes can simply omit translating the word from the source text because it is not vital enough to the development of the text. it does no harm compared to distract the reader with a lengthy insignificant explanation. h) translation by illustration this strategy offers an easy choice and it can be a useful option if the word which has no equivalent in the receptor langauge refers to a physical item which can be illustrated. i) translation by a more specific word (hyphonym) in addition, a strategy that is not mentioned by baker that is translation by a more specific word (hyphonym). in this strategy, the translator may go down one level in a given semantic field to find a more specific word that covers the core proportional meaning of the word in the source language. in other words, this strategy may be used to overcome a relative lack of superordinate in the target language. from the description above, the writer can conclude that there are many problems that may arise when one translates one word from one language to another language. the scholars found that the lack of non-equivalence words across languages may ignite the problems in translating one word across languages. therefore; the one who does translating must know the strategies to solve the problems. baker (1992) offers strategies to deal some problems of word level equivalence. in this study, the writer observes that the translator’s problem of non-equivalence at word level is a challenging problem to be solved. the writer decided to do the same research about word level equivalence in the indonesian translation dialogue in the lightning thief novel by using baker’s strategies. dewi maulud diati / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 7 from the explanation above, the problems of translating emerge because of some factors, such as: the culture specific concepts, the source language is not lexicalized in the target language, the source language word is semantically complex, the source and target languages make different distinction in meaning, the target language lacks a super ordinate, the target language lacks specific term (hyponym), teh differences in physical or interpersonal perspective, differences in expressive meaning, differences in frequency and purpose of using specific forms, and the use of loan words in thhe source text. most of them also become a real obstacle in translating the dialogue, especially at word level. as well as the problem of nonequivalence, the translators also have to give attention to the strategies to gain them. in dealing with this, baker (1992) proposed some strategies, such as: translation by a more general word, translation by a more/less expressive word, translation by cultural subtitution, translation using a loan word or loan word plus explanation, translation by paraphrase using related word, translation by paraphrase using unrelated word translation by omission, and translation by illustration. as have been stated above, several strategies have been suggested by baker (1992) to gain the word level equivalence problems; translators sould be able to produce an acceptable translation. from this point, the writer intends to find out the strategies used by the translators of the dialogue to overcome non-lequivalence at word level and the equivalence meaning of the dialogue. findings there are two result of the studies according to the objective of the studies; results of the strategies used by the translator deal with the problems of nonequivalence at word level in the indonesian translation of the dialogues in rick riordan’s the lightning thief viewed from baker’s word level equivalence classification and result of the rating of word level equivalence meaning in the translated dialogues. strategies for word level equivalence table 4.1.1 strategies for word level equivalence as shown in the result above, there are seven baker’s (1992) translation strategies being applied in the indonesian translation of dialogues in the rick riordan’s the lightning thief. the most frequently used strategy was translation by paraphrase using related word and the least used strategies was translation using a loan n o . translation strategies freq uenc y perc enta ge 1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 5 . 6 . 7 . 8 . 9 . translation by paraphrase using a related word translation by a more specific word (subordinate) translation by paraphrase using unrelated word translation by a more general word (super ordinate) translation by omission translation by a more neutral/less expressive word translation by using a loan word or loan word plus explanation translation by illustration translation by cultural subtitution 34 26 21 20 19 12 9 24.1 1 % 18.4 3 % 14.8 9 % 14.1 9 % 13.4 8 % 8.51 % 6.39 % total 141 100 % dewi maulud diati / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 8 word or loan word plus explanation. the strategy of translation by illustration and cultural substitution were not found in this study. word level equivalence in the translated dialogues the further result is the rating of word level equivalence meaning of translated dialogues as shown in table below: table 4.1.2 recapitulation of word level equivalence rating of translated dialogues dewi maulud diati / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 9 note: no strategy total data score 3 percenta ge score 2 percenta ge score1 percenta ge 1st rater 2nd rater 3rd rater 1st rater 2nd rater 3rd rater 1st rater 2nd rater 3rd rater 1 translation by paraphrase using related word 34 14 30 29 71.57 % 10 4 5 18.63 % 10 9.80 % 2 translation by a more speficic word 26 14 17 15 58.98 % 5 7 8 25.64 % 7 2 3 15.38 % 3 translation by paraphrase using unrelated word 21 13 16 15 69.84 % 6 3 4 20.64 % 2 2 2 9.52 % 4 translation by a more general word 20 10 12 9 51.68 % 8 6 8 36.67 % 2 2 3 11.67% 5 translation by omission 19 14 3 2 33.33 % 4 7.02 % 1 16 17 59.65 % 6 translation by less neutral or more expressive word 12 1 7 8 44.45 % 4 4 3 30.56 % 7 1 1 24.99 % 7 translation using loan word or loan word plus explanation 9 7 9 9 92.59 % 2 7.41 % total 141 dewi maulud diati / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 10 score (3): meaning is sufficiently rendered (equivalent) score (2): meaning is insufficiently rendered (some loss of meaning) score (1): meaning is distorted (non-equivalent) dewi maulud diati / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 26 the table above shows the percentages of the results of the averages of rating of each scores by each raters. translation by paraphrase using related word is the highest strategy whose data reached 34 of 141 data, with percentage of average of the reslut of score 3 is 71.57 %, percentage of average of score 2 is 18.63 %, and score 1 is 9.80 %. the second highest strategy is translation by a more specific word which has 26 of 141 data with 58.98 % of the average of result of score 3, then, 25.64 % of score 2, and 15.38 % of score 1. there are 21 data were found in the translation by paraphrase using unrelated word which percentage of the average of score 3 reached 69.84%, 20.64 % of score 2, and 9.52 % of score 1. translation by a more general word has 20 of 141 data whose average of score 3 reached51.68 %, score 2 reached 36.67 %, and 11.67 % of score 1. translation by omisson is in the forth position which has 19 of total data with 33.33 % of the average of score 3, 7.02 % of score 2, and 59.65 % of score 1. translation by less neutral or more expressive word is under the translation by omission strategy with 12 of total data and 44.45 % of average of score 3, 30.56 % of score 2, and score 1 reached 24.99%. the last lowest strategy is translation by using loan word or loan word plus explanation which total data reached 9 of 141 data with 92.59 % of the average of score 3, 7.41% of score 2, and 0 % of score 1. translation by paraphrase using related word this strategy tends to be used when the concept expressed by the source item is lexicalized in the target language but in different form, and when the frequency with certain form is used in the source text is significantly higher than would be natural in the target language. datum 1 st: "not a scratch on this car, brain boy," tt: “jangan sampai tergores sedikitpun, anak jenius,” bt: “not a scratch on this car, genius boy," from the datum above, the word brain was translated to jenius. brain means the organ inside the head that controls thought, memory, feelings and activity (cambridge dictionary). if the translator used the phrase anak otak, it will be correct but the translation work would be very ordinary and flat. therefore, translation by paraphrase using related word was used in this case. translation by a more specific word in this strategy, the translator may go down one level in a given semantic field to find a more specific word that covers the core propositional meaning of the word in the source language. datum 2 st: "your dad, actually. don't you remember? medusa was poseidon's girlfriend. they decided to meet in my mother's temple. that's why athena turned her into a monster. medusa and her two sisters who had helped her get into the temple, they became the three gorgons. that's why medusa wanted to slice me up, but she wanted to preserve you as a nice statue. she's still sweet on your dad. you probably reminded her of him." tt: “sebenernya, berkat ayahmu. kau lupa ya?medusa itu pacar poseidon. mereka memutuskan untuk bertemu di kuil ibuku. itu sebabnya athena mengubahnya menjadi monster. medusa dan kedua saudarinya yang membantunya masuk ke kuil, mereka menjadi ketiga gorgon. itu sebabnya medusa ingin mencincangku, tetapi dia ingin mengabadikanmu sebagai patung yang bagus. dia masih naksir ayahmu. kau mungkin mengingatkan dia pada ayahmu.” bt: "your dad, actually. don't you remember? medusa was poseidon's girlfriend. they decided to meet in my mother's temple. that's why athena turned her into a monster. medusa and her two sisters who had helped her get into the temple, they became the three gorgons. that's why medusa wanted to slice me up, but she wanted to preserve you as a nice dewi maulud diati / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 27 statue. she's still like your dad. you probably reminded her of him." from the datum above, the word sweet was translated to naksir (back translation: like). if an emotion or event is sweet, it is very pleasant and satisfying (cambridge dictionary) that is the word sweet is described as. in this sample, the translator used the word naksir instead of manis since it sounds more natural. therefore, the translator try to specify the word manis to naksir. translation by paraphrase using unrelated word the paraphrase may based on modifying a super ordinate or simply on unpacking the meaning of the source item, particularly if the particular item or expression is not vital enough to the development of the text to justify distracting the reader with lenghty explanation, translators can and often do simply omit translating in question. datum 3 st: "he will drive you into the city, and, er, well, keep an eye on things." tt: “dia akan mengantarmu ke kota dan, eh, yah, pasang mata dengan keadaan sekitar.” bt: "he will drive you into the city, and, er, well, keep an eye on the condition around from the datum above, the word things was translated to keadaan sekitar (back translation: the condition around). thing is used to refer in an approximate way to an object or to avoid naming it (cambridge dictionary). the translator used the phrase keadaan sekitar since it is more suitable than the proper language. translation by a more general word in translation by a more general word, the translator may go up one level in a given semantic to find a more general word that covers the core propositional meaning of the missing hyponym in the receptor language. datum 4 st: “and gave kronos a rock to eat instead.” tt: dan menggantinya dengan batu untuk dimakan kronos.” bt: “and change kronos a rock to eat instead.” from datum above, the word gave was translated to menggantinya. the word gave is past form of the word give. cambridge dictionary defines this word as offering something to someone, or to provide them with it. the translator used the word menggantinya which is a more general according to the context of the dialogue. translation by omission if the meaning conveyed by particular item or expression is not vital enough to the development of the text to justify distracting the reader with lengthy explanation, translators can and often do simply omit translating the word or expression in question. datum 5 st: "like we're going to use this in real life.” tt: “memangnya pelajaran ini bakal kita pakai.” bt: “memangnya pelajaran ini bakal kita pakai dalam kehidupan nyata.” in the datum above, there are some words omitted in the target-language. in real life (back translation: dalam kehidupan nyata) was omitted by the translator. translation by less neutral/more expressive word translation by a more neutral/less expressive word means that the translator may use the more neutral/less expressive word if the source language has differences in expressive meaning, which is more difficult to handle because the target language equivalence is more emotionally or less emotionally than the source language item. datum 6 dewi maulud diati / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 28 st: "i should have seen her for what she was. now let's just worry about keeping percy alive until next fall-" tt: “semestinya saya menyadari apa sebenarnya bu dods itu. sekarang, kita berkosentrasi saja soal menjaga percy tetap hidup hingga musim gugur depan.” bt: "i should have seen her for what she was. now let's just concentrate about keeping percy alive until next fall-" from the datum above, the word worry was translated to berkosentrasi. worry means to think about problems or unpleasant things that might happen in a way that makes you feel unhappy and afraid (cambridge dictionary). it is possible to explain that the translator used the word berkosentrasi in the target language because it is most suitable. the proper translation of the word worry will be weird; therefore, the translator used a more neutral and communicable word. translation using a loan word or loan word plus explanation in translation using loan word plus explanation, one item may not be exist in the particular language because it depends on the environment culture. once explained, the loan word continually can be used on its own; the reader can understand without further explanation. datum 7 st: "your dad, actually. don't you remember? medusa was poseidon's girlfriend. they decided to meet in my mother's temple. that's why athena turned her into a monster. medusa and her two sisters who had helped her get into the temple, they became the three gorgons. that's why medusa wanted to slice me up, but she wanted to preserve you as a nice statue. she's still sweet on your dad. you probably reminded her of him." tt: “sebenernya, berkat ayahmu. kau lupa ya?medusa itu pacar poseidon. mereka memutuskan untuk bertemu di kuil ibuku. itu sebabnya athena mengubahnya menjadi monster. medusa dan kedua saudarinya yang membantunya masuk ke kuil, mereka menjadi ketiga gorgon. itu sebabnya medusa ingin mencincangku, tetapi dia ingin mengabadikanmu sebagai patung yang bagus. dia masih naksir ayahmu. kau mungkin mengingatkan dia pada ayahmu.” bt: your dad, actually. don't you remember? medusa was poseidon's girlfriend. they decided to meet in my mother's temple. that's why athena turned her into a monster. medusa and her two sisters who had helped her get into the temple, they became the three gorgons. that's why medusa wanted to slice me up, but she wanted to preserve you as a nice statue. she's still sweet on your dad. you probably reminded her of him." from the datum above, the word gorgon was translated to the same word. according to cambridge dictionary, gorgon means a woman whose appearance and behavior causes fear. the translator used the same word as its target text since that word does not exist in the targetlanguage. therefore the translator used this strategy. conclusion out of the nine strategies proposed by baker , seven strategies were uesd. the most dominant was translation by paraphrase using related word which has 34 data (24.11%). this strategy got 71.57% of score 3, 18.63% of score 2, and 9.80% of score 1. the second dominant was translation by a more specific word which has 26 data (18.43%). this strategy got 58.98% of score 3, 25.64% of score 2, and 15.38% of score 1. translation by paraphrase using unrelated word which has 21 data (14.89%) was in third position with 69.84% of score 3, 20.64% of score 2, and 9.52% of score 1. the fourth position was translation by a more general word which has 20 data (14.19%) with the average of the result of score 3 was 51.68%, 36.67% of score 2, and 11.67% of score 1. translation by omission which has 19 data (13.48%) was in fifth position with 33.33% of score 3, 7.02% of score 2, and 59.65% of score 1. the next followed by translation by less dewi maulud diati / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 29 neutral or more expressive word which has 12 data (8.51%). this strategy got 44.45% of score 3, 30.56% of score 2, and 24.99% of score 1. the least strategy was translation using loan word or loan word plus explanation which has 9 data (6.39%). this strategy got 92.59% of score 3, 7.41% of score 2, and 0% of score 1. regarding the result of each strategy above, word level equivalence meaning of the data in the strategies: translation by using loan word (92.59%) was the strategy whose data were got higher result of score 3 (meaning is sufficiently renderred) by three raters, translation by a more general word (36.67%) was the strategy whose data were got higher result of score 2 (meaning is insufficiently), and translation by omission was the strategy whose data were got higher result of score 1 (59.65%). suggestions translating work is not an easy task. the product of translation must be able to render the meaning sufficiently to the reader. therefore, good and natural translation must be made. the analysis of the study shows that there were problems related to meaning equivalence. there were some data in some strategies which meaning equivalence is insufficiently renderred even distorted or non-equivalence. it is important for the translator to know the strategies to overcome the problems of non-equivalence especially at word level equivalence; therefore, the messages and the meanings of the source language can be transferred proportionally and appropriately into the target langauge. regarding the points above, it is suggested that to transfer meaning of the source text into the target text accurately, the translator should decide to make choices in each word or phrases, and choose the most suitable strategies that can overcome problems and difficulties of translation, especially problems of non-equivalence at word level. it is also offered a suggestion for the students, translating work needs an accuracy and carefulness, by reading source text and target text intensively, it will enrich vocabulary and understanding about translation, so it will helps students to find suitable translation strategy to solve the problems of word level equivalence. references baker, mona. 1992. in other words: a coursebook on translation. new york: routledge. bassnett, susan. 1991. translation studies. london and new york:routledge. bell, r.t. 1991. translation and translating: theory and practice. new york: longman. catford, j.c. 1965. a linguistic theory of translation. london: oxford, university press. hewson, l. dan j.martin. 1991. redefining translation : the variational approach. london:routledge larson, l.m 1984. meaning-based translation. a guide to cross language equivalence. lanham: uniersity press of america. machali, r. 1998. redefining textual equivalence in translation with special reference to indonesian-english. jakarta: the translation center. _________. 2000. pedoman bagi penerjemah. jakarta: pt grasindo. newmark, p 1998. a text book of translation. new york: prentice hall international english language teaching. nida, eugene. a. dan charles .r. taber. 1982. the theory and practice of translation. leiden: e.j. brill. simatupang, m.d.s. 1999. pengantar teori terjemahan. jakarta: direktorat jenderal pendidikan tinggi departemen pendidikan nasional dewi maulud diati / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 30 1 elt forum 4 (1) (2015) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt improving students’ mastery of the simple past tense by using chinese whispers and group grid technique yenny dwi nugraheni english department. faculty of languages and arts. state university of semarang aticle info ________________ article history: received in juni 2015 approved in juli 2015 published in agustus 2015 ________________ keywords: teaching the simple past tense, chinese whispers, cooperative learning, group grid technique, action research. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ the eleventh graders of pgri 2 private vocational school salatiga were obliged to master the simple past tense since one of the basic competences in school-based curriculum was about telling activities or works in the past and future work plans. unfortunately, they still possessed low mastery of grammar and experienced difficulties in learning it. a classroom action research about the use of chinese whispers and group grid technique aimed to resolve those emerging problems with the foci of the study to investigate how this method could be used in teaching the simple past tense, and how the use of it improved students’ mastery of the simple past tense. specifically, the subject of this study was 34 students of class xi d at pgri 2 private vocational school salatiga in the academic year of 2014/2015. this study was conducted in two cycles in a total of seven meetings. the instruments for obtaining the data were tests, observation sheet, and questionnaire. the observation sheet results showed that students’ behaviors and responses during the learning processes improved and became relatively good. furthermore, the questionnaire results indicated that students tended to show good judgment on the implementation of this teaching method. the final result of the study revealed that there was a significant improvement in students’ achievement. their average score in pre-test was 58.65, in formative test 1 was 76.97, in formative test 2 was 79.06, and in post-test was 83.56. referring to the overall results of the study, the combination of chinese whispers and group grid technique could be considered as one of alternative and effective teaching methods to improve students’ mastery of the simple past tense. © 2015 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: yenny.2201411073@gmail.com issn 2252-6706 yenny dwi nugraheni / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 2 introduction “the word language is applied to natural language as a system of human communication” (srijono, 2001:1). this can be interpreted that language is used to communicate with others, to convey thoughts, information, ideas, concepts, or feelings from person to person both in written or spoken form. it certainly consists of sounds, words, and grammatical structures. english as a dominant language of international communication is used around the world. it becomes a global language over time. this is in line with what crystal says (2003:4-5): the socio-cultural explanation looks at the way people all over the world, in many walks of life, have come to depend on english for their economic and social well-being. the language has penetrated deeply into the international domains of political life, business, safety, communication, entertainment, the media and education. given the importance of english, education in indonesia under the responsibility of the ministry of education and culture is obliged to contain english subject as a foreign language in the implementation of the school-based curriculum or the 2006 curriculum (ktsp). based on the applied curriculum, english language teaching in indonesia aims at mastering four basic language skills; those are listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills. students are expected to master the four language skills so that they can use english effectively. language components such as grammar, vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciation also have an important role in developing those four language skills. gerot and wignell (1994:3) state: why do we need to know about grammar? we need a theory of grammar or language which helps us understand how texts work. as teachers we need to know how texts work so we can explicitly help learners learn how to understand and produce texts—spoken and written in various contexts for various purposes. here, the existence of grammatical rules is very important in spoken and written language. students should be able to understand the theories of english grammar, as well as in practice, they also have to understand how to apply them either in oral or in written form. based on the writer’s observations during the teaching practicum (ppl) at pgri 2 private vocational school salatiga, it was found that many students faced difficulties in mastering several types of tenses, one of them is the simple past tense which is essential to be used for describing actions which happened before the present time and is no longer happening. they experienced difficulties in applying the correct form of this tense. sometimes, most of them were confused about when to use the simple past tense and when to use the simple present tense. in addition, they also made mistakes when changing some verbs into the past form of the verbs. moreover, english grammar over there is frequently taught in a conventional way, such as explaining it orally, and then giving students some exercises about the materials. this certainly will make them feel sick and tired of learning english grammar. it will be good if the english teachers could create alternative games, techniques, or media in teaching so that they are interested in what they are going to learn and to get rid of boredom. hence, the writer will focus on improving students’ mastery of the simple past tense by combining chinese whispers game with one of cooperative learning techniques called group yenny dwi nugraheni / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 3 grid in their learning processes, so a good team work with active students’ participation is needed here. “chinese whispers (or telephone in the united states) is a game played around the world, in which one person whispers a message to another, which is passed through a line of people until the last player announces the message to the entire group” (http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/chinese_whispers). chinese whispers is chosen because when this game takes place in the classroom, all students will be assisted in mastering the simple past tense because they will be indirectly challenged to memorize the form of regular and irregular verbs, and learn about the formula of the simple past tense from the given sentences in this game. whereas, the group grid technique will be used as a means of carrying out the group tasks in order to check students’ understanding of the simple past tense. according to barkley, cross, and major (2005:211), “group grid is probably most useful in introductory-level courses where students are building basic schema, learning a large number of new terms, and trying to understand the categorization rules of the discipline”. hopefully, by ordering them to work collectively in groups, categorize any scrambled items, and play chinese whispers in the classroom, their mastery of the simple past tense will be improved. research methodology in an effort to resolve the emerging research problems, the researcher conducted a classroom action research as the research design in class xi d-ap at pgri 2 private vocational school salatiga which consisted of 34 students who still possessed low mastery of grammar. research design according to pollard and triggs (1997:65) “action research involves researchers, with teachers or other practitioners, in a cyclical process of planning, action, observation, and reflection before beginning the whole process all over again”. such cyclical process has become a noticeable characteristic of action research all this time. below is a model of stages in doing the action research by kemmis and mctaggart (burns, 1999:33). figure 1. action research spiral by kemmis and mctaggart in this research, the researcher applied the spiral of cycles of self-reflection illustrated by kemmis and mctaggart above which include planning, acting, observing, and yenny dwi nugraheni / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 4 reflecting, also played important roles as a teacher who patiently taught the materials to the students and checked their mastery of the simple past tense through tests; as a data collector who collected all research data; and as a data analyzer who then analyzed the collected data in order to be able to draw any conclusions based on the end results. planning at this phase, the researcher planned a detailed set of decisions about how to take the action in the future and how to improve an action. what is the actual problem arises in the class? who will do the action? when will it happen? what are the proposed changes to the learning process? how does the researcher intend to apply my revised teaching methods? this is because it is so much important to find out if the plans are able to be done and to consider how students’ reactions to the implementation are. acting at this phase, the researcher implemented the arranged plan in the class. after answering questions at planning phase, the researcher tried to give the treatments to the students in the hope of improving their learning achievements. the researcher also had to make sure that any deviations from the plans had been recorded since reality sometimes could be unpredictable. observing observing phase ran along with acting phase. there was a detailed observation, monitoring, and recording during the treatments were given in the classroom. this was used by the researcher to assess how much the improvement of the action was. reflecting at this phase, the researcher reflected the overall learning process considering the results of the observations. by reflecting, the researcher could make a strong decision whether a replan for the next meetings or cycles was truly needed or not. procedures of analyzing data all instruments’ data were analyzed after being gathered. the researcher then was able to draw any conclusions of the study based on the outcomes of the analyzed data. the following were the methods for analyzing the research data. test (pre-test, formative-tests and post-test) the results of the pre-test, quiz 1, quiz 2, and the post-test were calculated by using specific formulas as follow: formula of the student’s score table 1. formula of student’s score student’s score = the number of right answers the number of questions x 100% formula of the mean of students’ scores table 2. formula of the mean of students’ scores = mean ∑ = summation sign x = student’s score n = number of scores yenny dwi nugraheni / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 5 observation the observers of this study were the english teacher and three other observers. the researcher used the data from their observation sheets to determine how chinese whispers and group grid technique improve students’ learning behaviours and mastery of the simple past tense. questionnaire as soon as all questionnaires were filled in by the students, the researcher analyzed their answers to gather more information from the outcomes of the questionnaires. the data were used to infer the success or failure of the implemented method. chinese whispers tasks for chinese whispers task 1 and chinese whispers task 2, the scores were in the form of points which were added with extra points (5 pts, 10 pts, 15 pts, 20 pts, 25 pts, and 30 pts) based on the time they spent to complete each chinese whispers task. so, the final point was obtained from the obtained points of each task which had been added with the extra points. the formulas of chinese whispers’ scores could be seen in the following table. table 3. formula of chinese whispers’ scores task 1 of chinese whispers task 2 of chinese whispers final points = obtained points + extra points final points = obtained points + extra points yenny dwi nugraheni / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 6 group grid task for group grid task 1, group grid task 2a, and group grid task 2b, the points obtained by each group were converted into scores. the formulas of group grid’s scores could be seen in the following table. table 4. formula of group grid’s scores task total points formula of group grid’s scores task 1 60 points group’s score = the obtained points the total points (60) x 100% task 2a 56 points group’s score = the obtained points the total points (56) x 100% task 2b 36 points group’s score = the obtained points the total points (36) x 100% mean of group grid’s score = mean ∑ = summation sign x = group grid’s score including task 1, task 2a, and task 2b n = number of scores (3 scores per group in each cycle) results and discussion test results the test results included the results of students’ pre-test, formative test 1, formative test 2, and post-test during the research from the date of march 18th, 2015 up to april 8th, 2015. those were presented as follows: pre-test before starting research activities in cycle 1, the pre-test which was used to measure students’ basic knowledge of the simple past tense was given to a total of thirty four students in class xi-d ap on march 18th, 2015. after collecting students’ pre-test score, the researcher calculated students’ average score by using the following formula: x ̅ = ∑x n = 1994 34 = 58.65 the result showed that the average of students’ pre-test score was only 58.65. it was obviously still unsatisfactory and hereafter needed to be improved in the next meetings. yenny dwi nugraheni / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 7 formative test 1 the formative test 1 or quiz 1 was given in the last day of the first cycle of the research on march 31st, 2015 to monitor students’ progress in mastering the simple past tense after the treatments were given in cycle 1 and to recognize which students who needed extra assistance in learning simple past tense. students’ average score in formative test 1 was 76.97. it was gained from the calculation of the formula below: x ̅ = ∑x n = 2617 34 = 76.97 compared to the average of students’ pre-test score (58.65), the increasing point was 18.32. it was quite good. although this score improvement showed the success of the learning method to improve student mastery of the material simple past tense, the second cycle was needed for a better learning outcome since there were several unsatisfactory scores of chinese whispers tasks and group grid tasks gained by certain groups in cycle 1. formative test 2 the formative test 2 or quiz 2 was given sequentially with the post-test in the last day of the second cycle of the research on april 8th, 2015 to monitor students’ progress in mastering the simple past tense after all treatments had been given. the researcher calculated students’ average score in formative test 2 shortly thereafter using the following formula: x ̅ = ∑x n = 2688 34 = 79.06 the average of students’ formative test 2 score was 79.06. it increased by 20.41 point from the average of students’ pre-test score which was 58.65. post-test the final session of this classroom action research was to conduct a post-test for a total of 34 students immediately after correcting the formative test 2 with the students. this test was used to measure students’ learning achievement as a result of the given treatments. below was the formula for calculating the average of students’ posttest score: x ̅ = ∑x n = 2841 34 = 83.56 the result showed that the average of students’ post-test score was 83.56. it increased by 4.5 point from the average of students’ formative test 2 score which was 79.06. if it was compared to the average of students’ pretest score which was 58.65, the increasing point was very significant. it was 24.91 point. from those data, it was very satisfying to know that the learning method using a combination of chinese whispers game and group grid technique was a success and very useful to improve students’ mastery of the simple past tense. up to the seventh meeting of the study, the writer decided not to continue the study in cycle 3 due to a satisfactory learning outcome acquired up to the second cycle. analysis of the improvement of students’ score the whole test results of this study ranging from cycle 1 to cycle 2 indicated the success of this method in achieving the learning objective to improve students’ mastery of the simple past tense. for more details, the test results during the research could be seen in table below: yenny dwi nugraheni / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 8 table 5. the test results during the research the following chart clearly showed the average scores of all kind of students’ tests that had increased periodically during the research. it flushed the students with pleasure as they can prove to themselves and others that they were able to develop themselves to be better both in the field of achievement as well as attitude before and after the treatments were given. no. students’ code students’ scores pre-test quiz 1 quiz 2 post-test s-01 63 67 70 80 s-02 57 67 70 80 s-03 57 53 60 73 s-04 63 80 77 90 s-05 63 67 83 90 s-06 63 80 77 90 s-07 53 67 77 83 s-08 67 87 90 90 s-09 57 80 83 87 s-10 57 73 80 83 s-11 53 73 80 83 s-12 53 80 87 80 s-13 50 77 80 77 s-14 60 83 83 93 s-15 60 63 73 77 s-16 57 87 83 83 s-17 60 80 73 73 s-18 67 87 83 90 s-19 57 83 77 87 s-20 57 83 83 83 s-21 63 87 80 90 s-22 60 83 87 90 s-23 57 67 80 83 s-24 60 83 83 87 s-25 57 83 83 83 s-26 60 80 77 83 s-27 53 73 77 80 s-28 57 83 83 83 s-29 57 67 73 80 s-30 63 80 83 80 s-31 60 80 80 83 s-32 63 77 80 87 s-33 57 80 80 80 s-34 53 77 73 80 total 1994 2617 2688 2841 average 58.65 76.97 79.06 83.56 yenny dwi nugraheni / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 9 figure 1. the improvement of students’ score observation sheet results the observation of the learning process in the classroom during the treatments was carried out by 4 observers; they were mr. yunus as the english teacher of class xi d-ap and three friends of mine. based on the observation data of students’ behaviors in cycle 1 from item number 1 to 6, items number 2 and 5 or 33.33% of all items were categorized into low, while items number 1, 3, 4, and 6 or 66.67% of all items were categorized into medium. no items belonged in high category. therefore, students’ behaviors during the treatments still needed to be improved in order to be even better in the next cycle as well as in the future, especially in terms of giving comments or questions about the teacher’s explanation and helping motivate their friends either when they did the group tasks or learned the materials together. henceforth, the writer had to be able to stimulate students to be more active in the classroom. in cycle 2, it could be viewed clearly on the following table that there were improvements in all items of students’ behaviors except for item number 3 about being enthusiastic with the teacher’s instructions which still categorized into medium, but this categorization was good enough to be achieved. all students strived to follow the instructions step by step because if they did not do that, they could not apply this learning method properly. the whole observation data of students’ behaviors in cycle 2 from item number 1 to 6 showed that no items belonged in low category. in addition, items number 2, 3, and 5 or 50% of all items were categorized into medium, while items number 1, 4, and 6 or 50% of all items were categorized into high. the percentage of both was balanced. their behaviors were socially acceptable so far. until the learning processes in cycle 2, the writer was able to teach them to behave in a better controlled way, and stimulate them to be more active and focused on their study. the final results of the classroom observation in cycle 1 and cycle 2 could be seen in the following table. 50 53 60 73 58,65 76,97 79,06 83,56 67 87 90 93 pre-test formative test 1 formative test 2 post-test the improvement of students’ score lowest score mean highest score yenny dwi nugraheni / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 10 table 6. students’ behaviors during the learning process by using chinese whispers and group grid technique in cycle 1 and cycle 2 n no. number of items cycle 1 cycle 2 final category criteria final category criteria 1. giving attention to teacher’s explanation. medium almost (or) a half of the whole students pay attention to the teacher’s explanation about the lesson. high almost all students pay attention to the teacher’s explanation about the lesson. 2. giving comments or questions about the teacher’s explanation. low only several students give comments or questions about the teacher’s explanation. medium almost (or) a half of the whole students give comments or questions about the teacher’s explanation. 3. being enthusiastic with the teacher’s instructions. medium almost (or) a half of the whole students pays attention to the teacher’s instructions. medium almost (or) a half of the whole students pays attention to the teacher’s instructions. 4. doing their work according to the instruction. medium almost (or) a half of the whole students do their work according to the instruction. high almost all students do their work according to the instruction. 5. helping motivate their friends. low there are only few students who motivate their friends. medium there are some students who motivate their friends. 6. being enthusiastic with chinese whispers and group grid technique. medium almost (or) a half of the whole students enjoy doing chinese whispers and group grid technique. high almost all students enjoy doing chinese whispers and group grid technique. going to the next observation data of students’ responses during the treatments in cycle 1, it was proved that from item number 1 to 8, item number 2 or 12.5% of all items were categorized into low, items number 3, 4, 6, 7 and 8 or 62.5% of all items were categorized into medium with one negative item in number 4 about making the classroom become noisy during chinese whispers game, while items number 1 and 5 or 25% of all items were categorized into high. the writer inferred that their responses in learning were less unsatisfactory as expected before. for the next cycle, the students should be better controlled to cultivate enthusiastic responses in any learning situations. in accomplishing chinese whispers tasks, everyone in each group truly helped each other because if it was not so, the game would not run smoothly and they could not get a lot of points. however, the writer should discipline them during the game in order to make the class become quieter and make the students become more serious in memorizing the words and sentences. the final results of the classroom observation in cycle 1 and cycle 2 could be seen in the table below. yenny dwi nugraheni / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 11 table 7. students’ responses during the learning process by using chinese whispers and group grid technique in cycle 1 no. number of items cycle 1 cycle 2 final category criteria final category criteria 1. being enthusiastic in making a group for doing chinese whispers game and group grid technique. high all students have been in group of four less than three minutes. high all students have been in group of four less than three minutes. 2. being serious in memorizing the words and sentences during chinese whispers. low only several students seriously memorizing the words and sentences. medium almost (or) a half of students seriously memorizing the words and sentences. 3. interested in whispering the words and sentences. medium almost (or) a half of students are interested in whispering the words and sentences. high almost all students are interested in whispering the words and sentences 4. making the classroom become noisy during chinese whispers game. medium almost (or) a half of students make the classroom become noisy. low only several students make the classroom become noisy. 5. in group, helping each other to accomplish chinese whispers task. high all group members help each other to accomplish chinese whispers task. high all group members help each other to accomplish chinese whispers task. 6. in group, helping each other to accomplish group grid task. medium almost (or) a half of group members help each other to accomplish group grid task. high all group members help each other to accomplish group grid task. 7. filling in the blank cells of the grid cooperatively as a group project. medium almost (or) a half of group members fill in the blank cells of the grid cooperatively. high all group members fill in the blank cells of the grid cooperatively. 8. being active in discussing how the items should be sorted. medium almost (or) a half of group members actively discuss how the items should be sorted actively. medium almost (or) a half of group members actively discuss how the items should be sorted actively. yenny dwi nugraheni / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 12 whereas, based on the observation data of students’ responses in cycle 2, only 1 item which was item number 4 about making the classroom become noisy during the game was categorized into low. it proved that the writer successfully disciplined them during the game so that they became more serious in memorizing the words or sentences and the class became quieter too. items number 2 and 8 or 25% of all items were categorized into medium, while items number 1, 3, 5, 6, and 7 or 62.5% of all items were categorized into high. in cycle 2 with the exception of item number 4 of students’ responses, there was no improvement for items number 1 and 8, but the rest of the items of students’ responses showed the improvements as expected. overall, these results were better than those in cycle questionnaire result after completing all research activities up to cycle 2, the researcher distributed the questionnaires to students on april 8th, 2015 and asked them to submit it no more than april 29th, 2015. the questionnaires were anonymous, given in indonesian to facilitate students in filling in all questions, and combined closed and open-ended items which would show how successful the implementation of chinese whispers game and group grid technique in improving students’ mastery of the simple past tense. there were 25 closed items in the section a of the questionnaire. the following was the percentage result of the section a: figure 2. the percentage result of the section a of the questionnaire based on the biggest percentage of each question in the section a of the questionnaire, it could be inferred that (1) 70.59% of students liked english, (2) 88.24% of students felt that english subject was important, (3) 67.65% of students felt uncertain whether or not english lesson all this time was easy to be understood, (4) 61.76% of students felt that english learning processes all this time were fun, (5) 58.82% of students felt that english learning processes all this time were not boring, (6) 64.71% of students felt uncertain whether or not they knew the meaning of the term ‘grammar’ in english, (7) 67.65% of students felt uncertain whether or not they knew the various forms of the english verbs, tenses, or sentence patterns, (8) 47.06% of students felt uncertain whether or not they were pleased to study the various forms of the english verbs, tenses, or sentence patterns, (9) 47.06% of students felt uncertain whether or not studying the various forms of the english verbs, tenses, or sentence patterns was difficult. furthermore, the result of the questions about chinese whispers game proved that (10) 41.18% of students did not know anything about chinese whispers game before, (11) 100% of students had already understood the procedures of playing chinese whispers game, (12) 35.29% of students experienced difficulties in playing chinese whispers with their friends in the classroom, (13) 85.29% of students felt that chinese whispers game was suitable to be applied in english learning q1 q2 q3 q4 q5 q6 q7 q8 q9 q10 q11 q12 q13 q14 q15 q16 q17 q18 q19 q20 q21 q22 q23 q24 q25 no 5,88 2,94 26,5 0 58,8 8,82 0 14,7 8,82 41,2 0 32,4 0 29,4 0 26,5 0 0 0 5,88 0 0 0 0 0 uncertain 23,5 8,82 67,7 38,2 41,2 64,7 67,7 47,1 47,1 20,6 0 32,4 14,7 47,1 20,6 35,3 5,88 20,6 14,7 73,5 0 0 0 41,2 0 yes 70,6 88,2 5,88 61,8 0 26,5 32,4 38,2 44,1 38,2 100 35,3 85,3 23,5 79,4 38,2 94,1 79,4 85,3 20,6 100 100 100 58,8 100 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% p er ce n ta g e the percentage result of the section a yenny dwi nugraheni / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 13 processes. next, the result of the questions about group grid technique proved that (14) 47.06% of students felt uncertain whether or not they had already known anything about one of cooperative learning techniques called group grid technique before, (15) 79.41% of students had already understood the procedures of implementing group grid technique in english learning in the classroom, (16) 38.24% of students felt uncertain whether or not they experienced difficulties in implementing group grid technique in english learning in the classroom, (17) 94.12% of students felt that group grid technique was suitable to be applied in english learning processes. at last, the result of the questions regarding to the use of the learning method using a combination of chinese whispers game and group grid technique in english learning processes proved that (18) 79.41% of students felt that the learning method using a combination of chinese whispers game and group grid technique was suitable to be applied in english learning processes, (19) 85.29% of students enjoyed learning the simple past tense by using a combination of chinese whispers game and group grid technique, (20) 73.53% of students felt uncertain whether or not they experienced difficulties during learning the simple past tense by using a combination of chinese whispers game and group grid technique, (21) 100% of students felt that the learning method using a combination of chinese whispers game and group grid technique helped them learning the grammatical structures of the simple past tense, (22) 100% of students felt that learning the simple past tense became more fun when the learning method using a combination of chinese whispers game and group grid technique was applied in the classroom, (23) 100% of students felt that there was an improvement in understanding and using the simple past tense before and after applying the learning method in the classroom, (24) 58.82% of students felt that the learning method using a combination of chinese whispers game and group grid technique should be applied in every english learning process, especially in learning english grammar, and (25) 100% of students felt that there were some benefits that they got during learning the simple past tense by using a combination of chinese whispers game and group grid technique. conclusion based on the analysis and discussion of the results of the whole research data in chapter four, the researcher eventually drew several conclusions. the first purpose of conducting this classroom action research in two cycles to the eleventh graders of pgri 2 private vocational school salatiga was to investigate how chinese whispers and group grid technique was integrated and then applied as an alternative method in teaching the simple past tense in the classroom. during the research, the combination of those was able to grab students’ attention, promote their engagement, and relieve their boredom and drowsiness in the learning processes. furthermore, this teaching method enhanced students’ spirit of learning english grammar since a good team work with active students’ participation was required during the treatments. indeed, teaching the students in unconventional way made them become interested in what they were going to learn and were motivated to achieve optimal academic performance. by reading, memorizing, whispering, and then writing the word, phrases, or sentences related to the simple past tense down on the provided paper in a fun learning experience; the students were indirectly encouraged to practice and internalize two types of past forms in english, the verbal and nominal sentence patterns of the simple past tense, and the use of the simple past tense. moreover, chinese whispers game trained students’ basic language skills; those are listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills, including the internalization of english language components such as grammar, vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciation which yenny dwi nugraheni / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 14 were considered as essential components for developing their language skills. the implementation of group grid technique also offered the opportunity to learn actively based on group cooperation and developed students’ analytic and organizing skills when they analyzed the correct categorization of the scrambled items which covered all sub topics of the simple past tense. learning two types of past forms in english, nominal and verbal sentences, and the use of the simple past tense became more explicit when it was taught repeatedly through grids than just monotonously memorizing a list of regular and irregular verbs and the formula of nominal and verbal sentences. the second purpose of conducting this research was to investigate the improvement of students’ mastery of the simple past tense by using chinese whispers and group grid technique as well as students’ learning behaviors. as discussed in the previous chapter, this teaching method successfully improved students’ mastery of the simple past tense. it was proved by the improvement in students’ achievement after the treatments were given. students’ average score in pre-test was 58.65, in formative test 1 was 76.97, in formative test 2 was 79.06, and while in posttest was 83.56. moreover, the results of chinese whispers and group grid tasks which were ever-increasing from cycle 1 to cycle 2 indicated that they understood the lessons well through this method. referring to the questionnaire results, the students tended to agree that this method facilitated them to learn the lesson better and effectively improved their mastery of the simple past tense. in addition, the observation sheet results showed that students’ positive behaviors and responses during the learning processes improved to be relatively good. they were more active, attentive, enthusiastic, and more able to control themselves not to be noisy in certain situations in the classroom during the learning process. acknowledgments alhamdulillahirabbil’alamin, first and foremost, i would like to express my deepest gratitude to allah swt the almighty for the endless blessings and mercy, the health and the power given to me, so that i could maximally complete this final project and get my graduation this year. i would like to address my heartfelt gratitude to sri wahyuni, s.pd., m.pd., my one and only advisor, for her incredible advice, encouragement, guidance, patience, and suggestions so that i was able to finish this final project; prof. dr. dwi rukmini, m.pd. as the first examiner; and seful bahri, s.pd., m.pd. as the second examiner for their constructive advice which enhanced the completeness of this final project contents. i also take this opportunity to express my thankfulness profusely to the head of the english department and all lecturers of the english department of semarang state university for equipping me with lots of priceless knowledge and experiences since i entered this study program. i sincerely expressed my profound gratitude to the headmaster of pgri 2 private vocational school salatiga, heriyanta, s.pd., for his permission to conduct the research there; the english teacher of smk pgri 2 salatiga, mahmud yunus, s.pd., for his guidance and support during the research; and the students of class xi d-ap in the academic year of 2014/2015 for their great cooperation during the research. my special gratefulness beyond all disputes goes to my dearest father and mother, yudianto and samini; my beloved brother and sister, sandi apridiasto and yumna oktaviana; and wisnu adi nugroho for their extra patience, prayers, support, and unconditional love during my ups and downs all this time. finally, i am so grateful to all of my best and exceptional friends at the english department 2011; at kanaya house especially khuswatun, mawar, uchaida, dea, kamla, kholida, sayli, and resya; at home especially yenny dwi nugraheni / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 15 hera, lusi, alda, cahyani, resiana, andro, jerry, monica, maesya, and kharisma; my ppl team at pgri 2 private vocational school salatiga; and my kkn team at karangmalang, mijen, semarang, for all of their assistance, jokes, laughs, motivation, support, tears, and togetherness up to this point. you are all extremely amazing. i realize that a lot of shortcomings might be found in this final project. therefore, any suggestions and criticisms are always needed for betterment. at last, i really hope this final project will provide much benefit to all readers. references barkley, e. f., k. p. cross, and c. h. major. 2005. collaborative learning techniques: a handbook for college faculty. san francisco: jossey-bass. burns, a. 1999. collaborative action research for english language teachers. cambridge: cambridge university press. crystal, d. 2003. english as a global language (2nd ed.). cambridge: cambridge university press. depdiknas. 2006. kurikulum tingkat satuan pendidikan (ktsp) untuk smk. jakarta: depdiknas. gerot, l. and p. wignell. 1994. making sense of functional grammar. sydney: gerd stabler antipodean educational enterprises. pollard, a. and p. triggs. 1997. reflective teaching in secondary education: a handbook for schools and colleges. london: cassell. srijono, d. 2001. an introductory course of linguistics. surakarta: muhammadiyah university press. http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/chinese_whispers [accessed on march 24, 2015] 1 elt forum 2 (1) (2013) english language teaching forum http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt digital storytelling to improve students’ mastery in writing narrative dillyan anugrah joko saputro department of english, faculty language and arts, semarang state university, indonesia info artikel ________________ sejarahartikel: diterimajanuari 2013 disetujuifebruari 2013 dipublikasikanjuni 2013 ________________ keywords: digital storytelling, writing narrative text, experimental study ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this study is an experimental study. it aims to find out whether teaching narrative text using digital storytelling is effective to enhance students’ mastery in writing. this research also reveal the significant difference in the achievement between students who are taught using digital storytelling and those who are taught using conventional technique. in order to achieve those objectives, i conducted an experimental study. the population of this study was the eighth graders of smpn 1 grobogan. the experimental group was viii-1 and the control group was viii-2. the experimental group was taught using digital storytelling and the control group was taught using conventional technique. the result after a treatment was given shows that the mean of experimental group was higher than the control group. therefore, there is a significant difference in students’ achievement that was taught using digital storytelling and using conventional technique. it is concluded the use of digital storytelling as visual aid can improve students’ mastery in writing narrative. © 2013universitasnegeri semarang alamatkorespondensi: gedungb3lantai3 fbsunnes kampussekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: dillyananugrah@gmail.com issn 2252-6706 mailto:dillyananugrah@gmail.com dillyan anugrah joko saputro / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 2 introduction the achievement of students in english is still insufficient even though they have been learning english since they were in elementary school. students are still poor in mastering the four language skill (listening, speaking, reading, and writing). they find it is very difficult to improve their language skill. in this final project, i focus on students‟ writing achievement. writing skill is needed in written communication. in writing, students have to convey their ideas, put them into paper, and also revise them. however, writing is not an easy skill to master. brown (2000:335) states “writing needs a process of thinking, drafting, and revising that requires specialized skills, skills that not every speaker develop naturally”. it means that students need a lot of practices in mastering writing skill in order to produce a good text. there are some difficulties which are faced by the students in mastering writing skill. the most common difficulty which is faced by students is to build an idea. building an idea is an essential thing to start writing. if the students have found an idea, they will know what they are going to write. the other difficulties students face is the lack of vocabulary. the lack of vocabulary limits them in creating a good writing composition. if they have lack of vocabulary, they will use the same terms in their writing frequently. it will make their writing monotonoues. besides the lack of vocabulary and difficulties in building ideas, the problem which students face is that they do not understand the organization of the text they are going to write. therefore, one of the solutions is to introducing text types or genre to the students. anderson and anderson (1997:17) say that “a genre can be defined as a culturally specific texttype which results from using language (written or spoken) to (help) accomplish something”. thus, the teaching learning material should be centered on genre. in the 1994 curriculum of english for junior high school, reading skill should be given more attention from both teachers and students. it means that reading is a more important skill than the other skills. now we use 2004 curriculum of english for junior high school which is stressed on the ability to communicate both in the spoken and written ways. english is taught as a compulsory subject from junior high school up to senior high school and for some semesters at university level. in addition, many english courses have been run in almost every town in our country to facilitate those who want to learn english. it becomes the teacher‟s job to help the students to solve their problem in improving their writing abilities. harmer (2001:257) explains “in teaching of writing we can focus on the product of that writing or on the writing process itself”. it means that teacher has a choice on how he/she will improve the students‟ ability in writing. if teacher chooses to concentrate in the process of writing, it means that the teacher needs to provide clear guideline on how to construct different kinds of text they have to write. hyland (2003:10) states that “…the process approach to writing teaching to address the issue of what teachers should do to help learners perform a writing task”. in this case, the existence of learning media is important. it helps both of teacher and students. media support teacher to provide an interesting learning material. on the other hand, through the use of media the students can learn the material easily. games, song, film, pictures, and photos can be a good medium because they are easy to find and also to use. digital storytelling is one of the media that can be used in teaching activities. it can be a motivating medium in teaching writing especially in teaching narrative text. anderson and anderson (1997, p. 6) explain that “the narrative text type is a text that tells a story whose purpose is to present a view of the world that entertains or informs the reader or listener”. in teaching narrative text, digital storytelling helps teacher to gain students‟ interest and involve them in the learning process because of its moving and interesting animations. it also contains subtitle of the story which can make the students understand about the story it self. the students‟ interest will make them feel dillyan anugrah joko saputro / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 3 comfortable in joining the learning process. it is expected that the use of digital story as teaching media can help the students‟ mastery in writing narrative text. discussion digital storytelling bull and kajder (2004: 47) states that “a digital story consists of a series of still images combined with a narrated soundtrack to tell a story”. the another definition comes from porter (2009: 7). he explains “the digital storytelling process helps to transform isolated facts into illuminated, enduring understandings. by „living in the story‟, we makes the information come emotionally alive. by exploring „lessons learned‟, we go beyond telling about content to find its deeper meaning”. from the definitions above, the writer can conclude that digital story combines the art of telling stories with a variety of digital multimedia such as images, audio, and video. using digital story can help teachers to build the students‟ understanding about the delivered material; in this case is narrative text. as stated above, narrative is a text which retell past events in a chronological order. it means that using digital story can help students to understand the story of narrative text. writing is one way to deliver what it is on our mind. writing is one of four skills of language. writing is not an easy skill to master. before writing, we must have something in mind about what we are going to write. writing means that we convey our ideas put them into a paper and also revise them. we need to consider several things when we are writing so that people can understand our writing. it means that before writing something we have to know and decide what kinds of text or genre we are going to write. writing writing requires some skills. in producing a good piece of writing someone must have a good skill in spelling, punctuation, and grammar. harris (2003: 22) states “… that writing is a tool for communication that comprises a series of predetermined skills in spelling, punctuation, and grammar”. in general, writing is a complex process that involves many skills. students also have to master some learning concepts such as the rule of constructing paragraph. in teaching writing, teacher should clearly explain what kinds of text he or she is going to develop. teacher also needs to develop what material and/or media he/she uses to facilitate teaching learning activities. one of the independence of teaching english is to facilitate students with writing ability. unfortunately, many students find that writing is the most difficult skill to master. they get difficulty to produce an english text. to solve the problem, i try to use pictures in chronological order in teaching writing, especially in teaching narrative text. narrative narrative text is used to amuse, entertains and to deal with an actual or vicarious experience in different ways; narratives deal with problematic events which lead to a crisis or turning point of some kind, which in turn finds a resolution. anderson, m and anderson, k explain that narrative text used to tells a story and, in doing so, entertains or informs the readers or listeners. in writing a narrative text we use past tense and it also uses specific participant. method this study uses quasi experimental design designed by collecting data with a treatment using pre-test and post-test. the design of the experiment can be described as the following: table 3.1 design of the experiment e 01 x1 02 c 03 x2 04 dillyan anugrah joko saputro / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 4 source: (arikunto, 2006:86) in which: e : experimental group c : control group 01 : pre-test for the experimental group 02 : post-test for the experimental group 03 : pre-test for the control group 04 : post-test for the control group x1 : treatment using digital storytelling x2 : treatment using conventional method there are two groups in this study. the first group is the experimental group which is given a new treatment or in this case is taught by digital storytelling, while the second group is the control group which is taught by conventional method. in conducting this research, the writer used several appropriate techniques and methods to gather the information. in order to collect the data in this study, the writer used pre-test, and posttest. the pretest is used to check the quality of the subject of the study before they get the treatment. the post-test is employed to know whether there is an improvement on their writing ability after they get the treatment. the result of the test will be computed statistically. subject of the study population the population of this study is the eight grade students of smp negeri 1 grobogan in the academic year 2012/2013. sample based on the random sampling i took the eight grade students of smp negeri 1 grobogan as subject of the study. the writer took class viii-1 and viii-2 as the samples of the study. instrument for collecting the data in a research program, instrument is an important device to collect data. the instrument used in this experiment is to measure the students‟ ability in constructing narrative text. therefore, the writer used a test as the instrument in collecting data. in this study, the writer used written test as the instrument for collecting data. since writing is a productive skill which means this activity shows someone ability to produce (write) something on a paper. so, the written test is the most suitable instrument to use. pretest a pretest is a test given before the treatment. the function of pre-test is to find out the prior knowledge or ability of the test takers before the treatment given. treatment i use digital storytelling to teach narrative text. the treatment was given to the students before the posttest conducted. digital storytelling was used as the media in teaching writing narrative text in this study. post-test after the treatment, a post-test was given. the function of the posttest was to measure students‟ ability after they got the treatment. the posttest was the same with the pretest. scoring technique i use an analytical method to give the score to the paper test. i use the analytical scale for rating composition tasks suggested by brown & bailey as cited by h. douglas brown. this formula adapted by brown‟s scoring rubric. the adaptation was based on the need of the study with the criterion in every component. it covered content, organization, grammar, vocabulary and mechanism. the score 3xc+2xo+2xg+1.5xv+1.5xm x 10 4 dillyan anugrah joko saputro / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 5 of every aspect was different. the maximum content aspect was 12; the organization was 8; the grammar was 8; the vocabulary was 6; and the mechanism was 6. the total score would be divided by 4 and equal by 10. therefore, the maximum score of student‟s writing was 100 and minimum score was 25. method of data analysis in analyzing the research data, i took the following step as below: 1. tabulation of the data it includes scoring the test items of each students and arranging the scores into the rank order. 2. applying the appropriate formula for analyzing the data. the obtained data were analyzed to get the final result. ttest formula was used in this research to analyze the data. it showed the final result from both experimental and control groups given different treatments. figure 3.1 t-test formula source: (arikunto, 2006:311) where: mx : the mean score of the experimental group my :the mean score of the controlled group nx :the number of students of the experimental group ny :the number of students of the controlled group x2 :the total of the square deviation of the experimental group y2 :the total of square deviation of the controlled group result computation between two means after getting all the test scores, the computation was made. the first way to know the significant difference of the experimental and control group‟s score could be seen through the difference of the means. the following formula was used to get the means: mean = the mean score of pretest a pretest was conducted at the beginning of the research. the purpose of this test was to check the students‟ ability inwriting a narrative text. there were 26 students took the test. they had to re-write the story given. in order to know further on the students‟ achievement in detail, i used the following formula to find out the average of the students‟ achievement. the formula was: mean score of experimental group: m = =860 26 = 33.08 mean score of control group: m= n = 771 26 = 29.65 from the analysis above, we can see that the mean score of the students of experimental group was 33.08 and the students of control group was 29.65. thus, based on the scoring categories the means score of both groups were categorized as very poor. iconcluded that the students had difficulties in constructing the sentences and they were confused in choosing the right vocabulary based on the result of pretest. therefore, teaching narrative with a new technique in each activity was important to improve the students‟ achievement. the mean score of posttest the students were given posttest after they got the treatment. in this activity, the                     nynxnynx yx mymx t 11 2 22 dillyan anugrah joko saputro / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 6 students had to do the same test as the pre-test given. then, i calculated the means score of the posttest of experimental and control group. it can be computed as follows: mean score of experimental group: m = =1696 26 = 65.23 mean score of control group: m= n = 1320 26 = 50.77 the achievement of the posttest of experimental group students was 65.23, and control group students was 50.77. based on the result of the final test, it could be concluded that there was an improvement of the students‟ achievement inimproving their mastery in writing narrative text for both group. after computing the mean score, i calculated the sum for both group‟s score. the sum of experimental group‟s score is: σx= ∑ = 28898 = 28898 – 26880.62 = 2017.38 the sum of control group‟s score is: σy= ∑ = 14335 – = 14335 – 11529.35 = 2742.65 test of significance as stated earlier, the mean of control group was lower than the mean of the experimental group. however, we still cannot conclude that the difference between the both means was significant. therefore, in this analysis t-test was applied. this formula was used to check whether the two means were statistically significant. as i mentioned before, in analyzing the data, i used t-test formula in order to strengthen the result of analysis. here is the formula: √* + * + where: σx= ∑ = 28898 = 28898 – 26880.62 = 2017.38 and: σy= ∑ = 14335 – = 14335 – 11529.35 = 2742.65 so the t value could be computed as follow: √( ) ( ) √( ) ( ) = √ = 4.08 after i got t-test result, the critical value of the t-table was consulted to check whether the dillyan anugrah joko saputro / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 7 difference was significant or not. for = 5%, and the number of the students, 26 + 26 – 2 = 50, from the formula: i found that t-table = 1.68. based on the computation i found that t-value (4.08) was higher than the critical value on the t-table (1.68). it could be inferred that there was significant difference between experimental group and control group. as i conducted my experimental research in smpn 1 grobogan, i noticed that the students who were taught using digital storytelling were so interested and enthusiastic during the lesson. in constructing the sentences in writing narrative text, the students need imagination to understand what the story about. they need an illustration to illustrate the plot in the story; they need to have a visual illustration to make their understanding clearer than only by reading the story in their books. during my experimental research, the experimental group showed their improvement in understanding it, while the control group students had difficulties in constructing their sentences in writing narrative text and did not show improvement. although using digital storytelling, was proven effective enough in improving their understanding in writing narrative text, it does not mean that teaching and learning process without using digital storytelling was not effective. the use of digital storytelling also faced some obstacles. first, the blank out electricity might happen during the lesson. therefore, teachers who are using technology and electricity in teaching should anticipate this condition. second, the hysteria of students knowing that they will be taught using digital storytelling was another obstacle in applying this method. students sometimes got too excited in the classroom so that they could not hear the explanation well. however, those obstacles were not serious problems, so that the teaching and learning process could still be done well until the experiment was completed. conclusion digital storytelling is one of the media that can be used in teaching activities. it can be a motivating medium in teaching writing especially in teaching narrative text. digital storytelling helps teacher to gain students‟ interest and involve them in the learning process because of its moving and interesting animations. it also contains subtitle of the story which can make the students understand about the story it self. the students‟ interest will make them feel comfortable in joining the learning process. it is expected that the use of digital story as teaching media can help the students‟ mastery in writing narrative text. after doing an analysis and discussion, i have several conclusions. the study aimed to find out whether teaching narrative text using digital storytelling is effective to enhance students‟ mastery in writing. this research also reveal the significant difference in the achievement between students who are taught using digital storytelling and those who are taught using conventional technique. the result of the study showed that the differences between the two means (of experimental and control group) was significant. this can be proved with the test of significant (t-test). the t-test result was 4.08. when the result of t-value is compared to ttable on the level significance of 5% and the number of degree freedom was 50, which the result was 1.68, the comparison shows that the result of t-value was higher than the critical value on the t-table. based on the result of the study, i would like to offer some suggestions to be considered to improve the teaching of writing. the students should practice their english especially writing ability in their daily lives because it will make them get used to writing in english and it will improve their writing ability. teachers should be able to use the appropriate teaching media. it is very important for them to use various methods in teaching writing to the students. through various methods, the teaching and learning process can be more enjoyable, so that the students will not  2 yx nn dillyan anugrah joko saputro / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 8 get bored in learning. therefore, digital storytelling can be an appropriate method in teaching since it is an interesting medium which gives students illustration through audio and animated picture. i hope other researchers can use it as one of the references in conducting their researches on the same field of study. besides, it could be applied for teaching writing to solve students‟ difficulties in constructing narrative text. there is also a possibility to find another more effective way in teaching writing narrative text. references anderson, m. and anderson, k. 1997. text type in english 1. south yarra: macmillan. ______________________________. 1997. text type in english 2. south yarra: macmillan. arikunto, s. 2002. prosedur penelitian suatu pendekatan praktek. jakarta: pt rineka cipta. brown, h. d. 2000. principles of language learning and teaching (4 th ed). london: longman. _____, ____. 2004. language assessment principle and classroom practice. new york: pearson education, inc. bull, g. and kadjer, s. 2004. digital storytelling in the language arts classroom. retrieved december 29, 2010, from http://www.digitalstoryteller.org/docs/digitalstoryt elling.pdf. harmer, j. 2001. the practice of english language teaching. cambridge: longman. harris, p. 2003. writing in the primary school years. south melbourne: social science press. hyland, k. 2002. teaching and researching writing. london: longman. tendero, a. 2006. facing versions of the self: the effects of digital storytelling on english education. contemporary issues in technology and teacher education, 6(2), 174-194. retrieved february, 13, 2013, from http://www.citejournal.org/articles/v6i2languagearts 2.pdf. http://www.digitalstoryteller.org/docs/digitalstorytelling.pdf http://www.digitalstoryteller.org/docs/digitalstorytelling.pdf 57 elt forum 3 (1) (2014) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the effectiveness of animation video entitled “the boy who cried wolf” to improve students’ listening skill of narrative (an experimental research of eighth year students of smpn 1 kejobong in the academic year of 2013/2014) annisa mustikanthi  english department, faculty of languages and arts, state university of semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in april 2014 approved in mei 2014 published in juni 2014 ________________ keywords: video, narrative, listening skill ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ english is not an easy subject to learn. the reason is the quality of human resources or the teacher is still low. they have to teach and deliver their knowledge to the students, but they cannot deliver it well if they do not master english. they also have to be creative. teaching will be more attractive if the teacher can deliver the materials in fun ways. this final project mainly aims at determining the effectiveness of using a video with texts in teaching listening for the eighth grade of junior high school students. the subject of this study was the eighth grade students of smp negeri 1 kejobong in the academic year of 2013/2014. the number of the subject was 60 students. the design of this study was experimental study. the data were gained by administering pre-test and post-test of listening test. by using cluster random sampling, students of viii e were taken as the samples of the experimental group and the samples of control group were the students of viii g. in the pre-test, the mean score of the experimental group was 58.60, while the control group was 57.30. the result of post-test of the experimental group was 67.30 and the control one was 60.90. there was an improvement between the results of pre-test and post-test’s score. that meant that the medium was effective enough to be used in teaching listening of narrative. from the calculation of t-test, the result was 1.84 while the t-table with degree of freedom (df) 58, rounded up to 60 at 5% significance level was 1.67. because the t-test was higher than the t-table (1.84>1.67), it can be concluded that using video with english texts was effective for teaching listening of narrative. an animation video can be made as a medium in teaching listening. the students will not get bored in the learning process because video is such an interesting medium which provides audio and visual that can grab the students’ interest. the teacher should consider animation videos in teaching listening because it is easy to understand the story by watching the animation videos which provides audio and visual. © 2014 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: b3 building, fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: annisanotonegoro13@gmail.com issn 2252-6706 annisa mustikanthi / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 58 introduction as a foreign language, english has four skills that have to be mastered by the learners. there are listening, speaking, reading, and writing skill. their time in learning is full of learning reading and writing. in reality, english teachers in school do not give attention to listening. based on the observation in school and while doing ppl, the teachers rarely give material about listening. teachers tend to teach reading and writing because they find it difficult to teach listening. whereas, listening skill is important because we cannot communicate well with other people if our listening skill is bad. listening plays a vital role in daily lives. people listen to different purposes such as entertainment, academic purposes or obtaining necessary information (hien: 2003). without listening skill, no communication can be achieved. as a result, language learners especially those who learn english as a foreign language in non-native setting, find it difficult to acquire good listening skill. students in schools begin to learn english by doing reading, instead of listening. reading is different from listening and writing is different from speech. the biggest difference is that speech consists of sounds. listeners have to know the sound system. moreover, when we are going to write something in english, the sentences should be correct and neat, while speech does not (fadlij: 2008). english-speaking people usually speak english speedily. it is too fast for the students to follow. sometimes they have not even got the meaning of the first sentence when the second sentence started. as a result, they miss the whole story. an alternative way in teaching listening is by watching video. video can be made as listening teaching medium. it provides not only audio but also visual. it is easier for the students to understand the content of the video. in this research, the video entitled “the boy who cried wolf” was chosen to be a medium in teaching listening. the reason why “the boy who cried wolf” was chosen is the content of the story is easy to understand. in this research, teaching listening using a video with texts compared to teaching listening using a video without texts. there are 2 groups of students which become the subject. group 1 was the experimental group and group 2 was the control group. the experimental group was taught by using a video with texts and the control group was taught by using a video without texts. this research reveal whether a video with texts is better than a video without texts as a medium in teaching listening. literature review kvitnes (2013) conducted a research in teaching listening by using a same video clip for both of experimental groups and control groups. the difference is in the subtitles, english, norwegian, and without subtitles. the study found that subtitles aided comprehension of plot in the initial round of testing, and this was established through a simple questionnaire. rokni and ataee also administered a study in listening. however, they conducted their research in speaking skill. they done their study in 8 sessions and then they held a posttest. the result showed that students’ who is taught by using movie is better in speaking than those who is taught by using movie without any subtitle. 2.1 definition of listening howatt and dakin in rahmawati (2010) states that listening is an active process because we have to identify and understand what other people saying. this involves understanding a speaker’s accent or pronunciation, his grammar and vocabulary and grasping his meaning. according to saricoban in stivani and hayati (2011), listening is one of the fundamental language skills. it’s a medium through which children, young people, and adults gain a large portion of their education—their information, their understanding of the world and of human affairs, their ideals, sense of values, and their appreciation. annisa mustikanthi / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 59 2.1 listening skill listening is one of language skills that must be mastered by the learners. it is an important language skill. a listener will catch the words or sentences said by the speaker in order to communicate to each other. “in reality, listening is used far more than any other single language skill in normal daily life. on average, we can expect to listen twice as much as we speak, four times more than we read, and five times more than we write” (rivers & weaver in murcia 2001: 70). rivers and weaver’s statement shows that it is difficult to communicate if listeners do not comprehend what is said by the speaker. research methodology experimental research was applied in this research. in this study, cluster random sampling was chosen. the selection of groups, or clusters, of subjects rather than individuals is known as cluster random sampling (cohen, manion & marrison 2007: 95). in this study, viii e was chosen as experimental group and viii g was chosen as control group. this selection was suggested by the english teacher of smp n 1 kejobong. 3.1 research design according to best in rahayu (2012) the design of the experiment can be described as follows: experimental group o1 x1 o2 control group o1 x2 o2 where: o1 : pre-test x1 : treatment of experimental group (watching video with texts) x2 : treatment of control group (watching video without texts) o2 : post-test findings and discussion in the pre-test, the mean score of the experimental group was 58.60 and the control group was 57.30. it showed that the score were slightly equal. it meant that there was no significant difference of the score between experimental group and control group. the mean score of the post-test of experimental group was 67.30 and the control group was 60.90. the posttest score of the experimental group was higher than the control group’s post-test score. this diagram below showed the difference of pre-test and post-test of experimental group and control group. diagram 1. diagram of pre-test and post-test between experimental group and control group the working hypothesis that “there is a significant difference in students’ listening achievement between students who were taught listening by using a video with texts and those who were taught listening by using a video without texts” was accepted. and finally, based on the research that have conducted, it was proved that listening to narrative stories by using video with texts for the eighth grade students of smp negeri 1 kejobong in the academic year of 2013/2014 was effective. conclusion due to the research finding and discussion in the previous chapter, it could be concluded that teaching listening using video with text was effective. 30 40 50 60 70 pretest posttest 58,6 67,3 57,33 60,9 experimental control annisa mustikanthi / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 60 there was a significant difference in the achievement between the students who were taught by using video with texts and the students who were taught by using video without texts. it could be seen from the improvement of means between two groups. the pre-test mean score of the experimental group was 58.60, whereas the pre-test mean score of the control group was 57.33. meanwhile, the post-test mean score of the experimental group was 67.30 and the post-test mean of the control group was 60.90. from the result, it can be concluded that the treatments which were used by the experimental group gave positive effect in improving students’ achievement in listening. teaching listening by using video with texts was more effective than teaching listening by using video without texts. it was proved by the result of the t-test and the t-table with the degree of freedom (df) 58 at 5% significance level and the result showed that t-test (1.98) was higher than the t-table (1.67). it meant that there was significant difference between teaching listening by using video with text and teaching listening by using video without texts. therefore, the null hypothesis (h0) that stated there is no significant difference on students’ listening achievement between students who were taught listening by using a video with texts and those who were taught listening by using a video without texts was rejected. whereas, the working hypothesis (ha) that stated there is a significant difference on students’ listening achievement between students who were taught listening by using a video with texts and those who were taught listening by using a video without texts is accepted. a new way of teaching listening should be applied in order to make teaching and learning process more interesting. teachers should vary their ways in teaching listening because sometimes the students get bored with just sitting on their chair and listen to the tape recorder. an animation video can be made as a medium in teaching listening. the students will not get bored in the learning process because video is such an interesting medium which provides audio and visual that can grab the students’ interest. the teacher should consider animation videos in teaching listening because it is easy to understand the story by watching the animation videos which provides audio and visual. hopefully the result of this research will be useful for the readers, especially for teachers of english. this research also can be a reference for the next researcher in conducting research by using other kinds of animation videos. references celce, m, m. 2001. teaching english as a second or foreign language. boston: heinle & heinle. cohen, l., manion, l., and morrison, k. 2007. research methods in education. new york: routledge. fadlij, m. 2008. improving students’ listening skill by using songs (an action research at the second year students of ma pancasila bengkulu 2008. available at http://ammashumam.blogspot.com/2010/03/impro ving-students-listening-skill-by.html [accesed 24/02/14] hien. difficulties and strategies in listening comprehension. available at http://www.lhu.edu.vn/139/662/difficult ies-and-strategies-in-listeningcomprehension-trinh-vinh-hien03av4-.html [accessed at 24/02/14] kvitnes, i. e. n. 2013. subtitles in the second language classroom. available at http://www.ntnu.edu/documents/38274309/ 40279009/ingrid+ elisabeth+nufsfjord+kvitnes+master.pdf/5d0bb5feb010-479e-90e2-5939766aa2ac [accessed 25/05/14] rahayu, i. s. 2012. a comperative study of cooperative learning method type threestep interview and group discussion to improve students’ achievement in spoken procedure (an experimental study of the seventh graders of smp negeri 1 trangkil – pati in the academic year 2011/2012). final project. english deparment, language and art faculty. semarang state university. rahmawati, a.e. 2010. the use of “coca-cola advertisement” video in teaching listening comprehension for senior high school (an experimental study of the first year of “tuna annisa mustikanthi / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 61 daksa” students at ypac (yayasan pembinaan anak cacat) tlogorejo). final project. english department, faculty of languages and arts, semarang state university. rokni, s. j. a. and ataee, a. j. n.d. the effect of movie subtitles on efl learner’s oral performance.online at ijellh.com. [accessed 13/05/14] stiviani, r. and hayati, n. 2011. using animation clips to improve the listening ability of the eight graders of smp negeri 21 malang. available at online.um.ac.id%2fdata%2fartikel%2fartikel bc3fb08453722e29e147c9a08f00fec8.pd f&ei=khxxue1ooxo8aw6qylyaq&usg=afqjcnh08 u-ckxx4946j1ex2hzdz_1c2g&bvm=bv.66330100,d. dgc [accessed 27/02/14]. elt forum 1 (1) (2012) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the influence of using voice blog on students’ speaking ability of analytical exposition ratih laily nurjanah department of english, faculty language and arts, semarang state university, indonesia abstrak tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk mengamati bagaimana blog suara digunakan untuk mengajar eksposisi analitis lisan dan untuk mengamati apakah blog suara memberikan perbedaan yang signifikan dalam meningkatkan kemampuan siswa berbicara tentang analisis eksposisi.desain penelitian adalah eksperimental kuantitatif.teknik pengumpulan data menggunakan tes lisan, dan rubrik evaluasi.data dianalisis menggunakan formula uji-t, untuk mengetahui apakah ada perbedaan yang signifikan antara skor rata-rata kelompok eksperimen dan kelompok kontrol. hasil penelitian menunujkkan skor rata-rata post test kelompok eksperimen lebih tinggi kelompok kontrol. oleh karena nilai t hitung lebih tinggi dari t tabel-, maka itu berarti ada perbedaan yang signifikan antara kemampuan analitis siswa yang diajarkan menggunakan blog suara dibanding mereka yang diajarkan tanpa blog suara. abstract the objectives of the study was to observe how voice blog is used to teach spoken analytical exposition and to observe whether or not voice blog gives significant difference in improving students’ speaking ability of analytical exposition.to achieve the objectives of the study, an experimental quantitative research was conducted. spoken test, and rubric of evaluation were used to collect the data. the technique to analyze the data was t-test formula. it was used as a technique to determine whether there was any significant difference between the means of the score of the experimental and the control group or not. the mean score of the post-test of the experimental group was higher than the mean of post-test of the control group. and the t obtained value (4.703) was higher than the t critical table (1.67). since the t-test was higher than the t-table, then it means that there was a significant difference of the spoken analytical exposition text score of the students who were taught using voice blog to the score of those who were taught without voice blog. © 2012 universitas negeri semarang issn 2252-6706 info artikel sejarah artikel: diterima januari 2012 disetujui februari 2012 dipublikasikan agustus 2012 keywords: voice blog spoken analytical exposition  alamat korespondensi: gedung b3 kampus sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: ratihfbs@unnes.ac.id ratih laily nurjanah/ journal of english language teaching 1 (1) (2012) 2 introduction using blog for english teaching and learning process can be so interesting for students because they tend to like using and taking part in acitvities familiar to them. the technology, for them, represents a fun activity. by blogging, teacher feedback can be given instantly in the form of comments or as a response to what the students has produced or poted on their blogs. each student is free to demonstrate what they have been learning and their thoughts on a given topic, ideas, or concepts. galien (2010), on her journal, pointed out the advantageous of using blog in esl/ efl classroom; they are: (a) increased peer interaction among students, (b) increased teacher interaction with the students, (c) students exhibiting more positive emotions about learning, and (d) an increased sharing of ideas among students and with the teacher. the use of voice blog was firstly introduced by yu chih sun in his study voice blog: an exploratory study of language learning. voice blog as a medium for students to improve speaking skill helps students to have a lot of chance to practice their speaking skills. first, teacher will give them a model how to produce good spoken text. the page on voice blog will help teacher to show to students. it starts from making an outline and draft. second, the students will learn how to select words and sentences which are appropriate for them by using mini dictionary provided in the blog. this mini dictionary helps students to choose some words which may be suitable for their thesis.. third, they will be guided by teacher to conceptualize their thoughts about an issue by doing a brainstroming. fourth, students are guided to write their concepts into an outline or a draft and then post them to the voice blog. fifth, they will be helped by teacher to organize the outline into meaningful and logical sequence, in this case is analytical exposition text. sixth, they ‘memorize’ what they have organized and produce it in form of spoken language to be recorded and uploaded to the voice blog to complete the outline/ draft they have posted before. teacher can evaluate or assess the students speaking skill by visiting the pages and giving feedback in form of comments. methods i used experimental study to observe the improvement of students’ speaking skill in spoken analytical exposition. arikunto (2006) says that an experiment is the way in which a researcher created a situation or an event which was then analyzed in order to find out the effect that it made. each control and experimental group involves 18 students of eleventh grade of sma n 1 tuntang as the objects of the study. this study took 5 meetings which were held on november 19th to november 28th 2011. in this study, there a two type of test, pretest and posttest, which were conducted at the first and last meeting. the score of the test is based on the some categories. they are grammar, vocabulary, fluency, pronunciation and content. on each category, there are five items that have different score. the score are 1 up to 5 to each item in each category, so the total of all items are 25. here, i modified my own rubric of evaluation which is suitable for english as foreign language students. the mean score of each test reached by control and experimental group was the result of the statistics: m = ∑x/n where : m = mean ∑x= the sum of students’ scores n= the sum of students and then the mean was used to get t-obtained value by using this formula: voice blog was used during the treatment, second to fourth meeting, given to experimental group as a medium to improve the students’ speaking ability. i used t-test method to observe whether or not voice blog gives significant difference (brown, 2004) result and discussion i conducted the pre-test on november 19th 2011. the students of experimental and control group were introduced to analytical exposition and taught about generic structure, lexico grammatical features, etc. students were given models how to read an analytical exposition text. later, they were given an issue and were asked to discuss the issue in pairs. the issue for this pre-test was ‘cigarette and students’ last, they had to deliver their opinion about an issue orally individually. while students delivered their opinions, i recorded their performances. and from each record, i wrote the transcript so i could actually catch the mistakes or errors made by students by matching the record with the transcript and then assessed the performances one by one. i assessed the per21 n 1 n 1 s xx t 21 + − = 3 ratih laily nurjanah/ journal of english language teaching 1 (1) (2012) formances based on the certain chriteria made before. from this pre-test, the result was unsatisfying, since students made errors and mistakes in pronouncing familiar/ common words; such as: students, school, etc. they couldn’t perform the good spoken texts because they had limited vocabularies so they were not able to expand their main ideas. the mean score gained by experimental group was 64,7 and control group gained 67,5. from the scores, found that t-obtained value of pre-test was -1.478. the first treatment was done on november 23rd 2011. the activities in this treatment were using voice blog to help students arranging outline and draft for their spoken analytical exposition text. the issue for the treatment was “free sex among students”. first, students were reviewed the pre-test material about analytical exposition in sub-page ‘what to do’. and then, from this page they learned how to prepare a good spoken text. it was start by making an outline. in this page, they could find an example of outline so they could learn how to make it as the example given. this page provided vocabularies to help students decide which words were suitable for their thesis, whether agree or disagree. next, students did the second step of preparing a good spoken text, it was making a draft. this page gave an example of draft which was developed from the outline. the drafts they have made were uploaded to the blog to “students’ works” page to be viewed by teacher and commented as the feedback. students could view the comments at home and revise the drafts for the next performance so the process of teaching and learning didn’t stop at school. in this activity, students are helped by voice blog in choosing words and improving vocabularies into an outline and arranging sentences with correct tense into a draft by providing mini dictionary and examples of outline and draft. so, students’ difficulties which was found in previous session (pre-test) may be solved. the second treatment was done on friday, november 25th 2011. in this meeting, students are helped by voice blog to perform spoken analytical exposition well by observing the script and examples given on the blog. students performed the speech based on draft they had revised before. the performance of students were recorded and uploded to the blog so the teacher could listen to them and left comment as feedback. at home, students can view the comments and prepare themselves to perform the revised version. in this session, teacher tried to solve students’ difficulties by correcting pronounciation with voice blog as the medium. students still did some mistakes and errors even in pronouncing common words such ‘students’, ‘parents’, and spelling ‘hiv’. the third treatment was the last treatment. it was done on saturday, november 26th 2011. in this meeting, the students performed the revised version of their last records and recorded by teacher. they compared the last records with the recent ones. from this acitivity, i concluded that students can accept the comments well since most of the records showed improvement in pronounciation and fluency. teacher left comment again to motivate students in performing the best spoken analytical exposition. the post-test of the both groups were conducted on november 28th 2011. the students were asked to perform the spoken analytical text and recorded by teacher. the issue for this post test was “social networks and students”. from the result, students’ score showed improvement and the records sound better compared with pretest. the step and the chriteria used in this posttest were same as the pre-test ones. first, students were given the issue. and then, they applied the steps taught in the treatments. last, they performed one by one and teacher recorded their performances. teacher wrote the script of each performance and matched the script with the record. from the analysis found that students of experimental group suceeded in improving their speaking ability by gaining higher score than the previous pre-test. they are able to solve their difficulties in making some errors and mistakes in pronouncing words, expanding their ideas and arranging their ideas into proper generic structure of analytical exposition text. the mean score of experimental group in this test was 90. on the other hand, the control group did not show satisfying improvement since they kept repeating the same mistakes and are not able to arrange a good analytical exposition texts. the control group reached 80 as the mean score of post-test. from the mean scores of those two groups, the t-obtained value of post-test was 4.594. this improvement can caused by the use of voice blog of spoken analytical exposition in teaching spoken analytical exposition in experimental group. this blog helps students to solve their difficulties in 5 aspects of scoring speaking skill. the difficulty in vocabulary aspect was solved because voice blog provides mini dictionary which helps students to get their words easily but still motivates students to enrich their vocabulary knowledge by not providing the meaning of words. in this case, students still have to look up their dictionary to find the meanng of the words. the students were helped to solve their gramratih laily nurjanah/ journal of english language teaching 1 (1) (2012) 4 mar difficulties because voice blog provides clear example of how to arrange the words into a good analytical exposition. the example was in the form of draft not in the form of tenses formula so students were motivated to conclude from what they read. moreover; they have learned simple present tense before. so the draft was purposed to keep them in the right track of arranging words into simple present tense. the improvement on pronunciation was caused by the chance given by teacher via voice blog for students to have a guide in practicing their performance at home. this chance happened through the comments from the teacher left as the feedback on each student’s work in every meeting. this thing also happened to the improvement on fluency aspect. students have more time to keep on practicing perform their spoken analytical exposition at home because they were motivated to perform the best for the blog since the blog is also visited by other students. teacher’s comments also causes the improvement on content aspect. by noticing the guideline from teacher in developing ideas, students were helped to arrange their spoken text script with good and relevant content without ignoring their own opinion of the topic. the effectiveness of using voice blog is also caused by the blog itself. students nowadays are really close to internet and working with internet becomes one of their interests. this blog actually supports the process of non-stop teaching-learning by giving chance to students and teacher to communicate outside the classroom and school hours. teacher can view the works carefully and give suitable feedback, while students are motivated to prepare the best performance at home. and this blog also gives students complete examples and guides for students. conclusions voice blog can be used to teach spoken analytical exposition by guiding students to follow the steps to perform good spoken analytical exposition. voice blog leads students to make an outline, draft, and gives students chance to practice at home so it helps students to solve their difficulties in spoken analytical exposition. voice blog is used by teacher as a medium to observe students’ improvement by viewing their works on the blog and giving them comments as feedback for students. voice blog can improve students’ speaking ability by giving sinificant difference in students’ scores. it was proven by the t-obtained value of post-test (4.594) which was higher than t-critical value (1.67) which means that there was significant difference between the score of post teas of experimental group and control group’s. references arikunto. 2006. prosedur penelitian: suatu pendekatan praktek. jakarta: p.t. melton putra brown, h. d. 2004. language assessment: principles and classroom practices. new york: longman galien, p. and w.l. bowcher. 2010. using blogs in esl/efl teaching and teacher-training. asian efl journal. professional teaching articles, 42/2: 4 – 23. online at www.asian-efljournal.com/pta-february-2010.pdf [acessed 04/05/11] 1 elt forum 2 (1) (2013) english language teaching forum http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt using sequenced pictures on the flickr social network in teaching writing news item for the tenth grade students of sma 3 purwokerto rufiah ning asrianti department of english, faculty language and arts, semarang state university, indonesia info artikel ________________ sejarahartikel: diterimajanuari 2013 disetujuifebruari 2013 dipublikasikanjuni 2013 ________________ keywords: flickr social network, written news item text, writing ability ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this study mainly aims at determining the effectiveness of using flickr social network in teaching written news item text to improve students’ writing ability and also to find out the significant difference between the students who are taught using flickr social network and the students who are taught using conventional method (a sequence of pictures). the subject of my research was 64 students of x7 and x8 class of sma n 3 purwokerto. the research applied was experimental research. by using purposive sampling, the students of x8 were taken as the samples of the experimental group and the samples of control group were students of x7. in this research, the students were taught using flickr social network. the result of this research was found by comparing the result of pretest and posttest. i used t-test to find out the significance enhancement. based on the result of the research, the result of the observed t-value is higher than the critical tvalue; observed t-value 3.24 and the critical t-value is 2.04, the result of the writing aspects in the posttest is higher than the pretest, and the percentage of the students who got the score more than 60 in the posttest was 53% while in the pretest was only 16%. therefore, it can conclude that using flickr social network can effectively enhance students’ writing ability. © 2013universitasnegeri semarang alamatkorespondensi: gedungb3lantai3 fbsunnes kampussekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: hanien1423@gmail.com issn 2252-6706 mailto:arumsani666@yahoo.com rufiah ning asrianti / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 2 introduction in this global era, we learn language in many ways. as we can see english is taught in all levels of school, including elemantary school, junior high school, senior high school and vocational school as an optional subject or usually called local content. based on the present curriculum, namely ktsp (kurikulum tingkat satuan pendidikan), one of the competence standards for the ten grade students of senior high school is that they are demanded to be able to write the news items test by using sequence picture in flickr social network. from the statement above, we know that news item text is one of the essay forms that must be taught in senior high school. for the students, it is one of the difficult texts to understand and create orally. therefore, the teacher should provide interesting media so that students can create written news item text. one of the way that can be used to teach written news item text is sequenced pictures on flickr social network. it can make the process of teaching written news item text easier and more exciting than teaching without any media. news item text is infact rather similar with the reported of sequenches pictures. in writing news item text using sequenced pictures on flickr social network, the students are expected to give an analysis about the pictures. they can give their report analysis based on the picture they uploaded before in flickr social network. therefore, i want to know whether flickr social network is effective to be used as a media in teaching writing the news items text. method the study was carried out through three activities. in this research, sequenced picture and flickr social network are used in the teaching and learning process. its objectives were to prove that the use of sequenced pictures on the flickr social network to improve students' ability to master the technique of writing news item text is more effective than conventional technique; and discuss the reason of why using sequenced pictures on flickr social network is effective to improve students’ ability in producing writing news item text for ten grade students. the result of this research will show that the post test is better than the pretest; the statement “using sequenced pictures on the flickr social network in teaching writing news item for the tenth grade students of sma 3 purwokerto” was accurate. pretest was given before the treatment. pretest was an observation that was done before an experiment or treatment. i had the same pretest between experimental group and control group. first, the writer came to the class and explained what they were going to do. then, the answer sheets of pretest were distributed to the students and they were asked to do the pretest. in this research, the experimental group and the control group was asked to make a news item text to know the students ability in writing news item text. for the treatment in the experimental group, the students were introducing to used sequenced picture on the flickr social network to make news item text. they were introduced to the news item, started from its structures, function, and also its features. in this section, researcher also introduces about flickr social network in the experimental group and makes the students understand how to use it as a fun media to write news item text. but for control group, i used the conventional method to teach news item text. then, it was continue with the session of question-answer to make sure that they had understood about the material. in the control group, pictures were provided to teach news item. post test was given after conducting the pretest and the treatments. posttest was an observation that was done after an experiment of treatment. posttest in this study had a purpose to measure the students writing ability improvement getting treatments. before the students had their posttest, they were asked to understand how to used sequenced picture on the flickr social network in writing news item text and pictures for the control group. then, they were asked to submit the post test. then, rufiah ning asrianti / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 3 the data were collected and analyzed. the score of the test is based on four categories; coherence, grammar, vocabulary, and content. the total sore of each category is 20. here is the formula about how to make the sample of the oral english rating based on j.b heaton (1975: 109-111). in this study, scoring guidance taken from heaton’s grid and categories was chosen to analyze the students’ test in writing news item text. according to heaton (1975:109) “there are five areas on a marking composition suggested by heaton’s grid and categories: coherence, grammar, vocabulary, and content.” some procedures were used to analyze the data. for the first step, the writer adds the scores of writing components to get the total number. here is the formula: total number = c+g+v+ct in which: c : coherence g : grammar v : vocabulary ct : content (j.b heaton) after conducting the research, the students’ works were analyzed and given score based on the quality of their works and the next step was analyzed the data using spss 16.0 (statistical package for the social science). to ensure the calculation, the researcher analyzes deeper using the descriptive statistics analysis and the inferential statistics analysis. result and discussion before doing the research, the the activities that would be done were arranged. the topic which was going to be used in the research was determined. the research instruments, including the questions for the pretest and posttest, lesson plan, and research assessment, were also arranged. based on the arrangement, it was decided that there were four meetings in this research; the first meeting was pretest, the second and the third meetings were treatments, and the fourth meeting was posttest. the total time allotment was 8x35 minutes. in analyzing the data, i used statistical analysis and interpretation analysis. in collecting the data, firstly i conducted a pre-test in writing of news item text from the newspaper to both experimental and control group of the tenth grade students of sma negeri 3 purwokerto, kabupaten banyumas in the academic year 2011/2012. for the post-test i used a little bit more difficult test to see whether any significance difference between experimental and control group or not. since the research had been conducted, data gathered could be processed. before calculating the ttest, i calculated the pre-test and post-test. and this is the result of the comparison between experimental group and control group. from the tables 4.1, it can be seen that there is no far difference between the experimental group and the control group. the similarity of the two test results obtained average yield of 0,986 from sig. (2-tailed) equal variances assumed. the value was greater than the significance level of 0,05. it means that there was no significance difference. having the result of the pre-test, i then applied the next step of the collecting data procedure. it was administering a teaching learning process on writing news item text using sequences of pictures in flickr social network to the experimental group and using the sequences of pictures in text book to the control group. the process took four meetings or eight lesson-hours. it was hoped that by using flickr social network, the students of the experimental group were able to understand and to improve their writing ability better than the students of the control group who were taught using text book. after giving treatments, the next step was giving post-test to both the experimental and the control group. the test was the same for both of the groups. it was almost the same as pre-test, but a little bit more difficult. the result of the post-test would be analyzed to answer the research question. here is the result of the posttest (table 4.2). rufiah ning asrianti / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 4 based on the table, sig (2-tailed) equal variances assumed = 0,002 less than significance level = 0,05 then h0 is rejected. the result of the test showed that the average score of post-test score of the students who were taught using flickr social network was higher than those who were taught using a sequence of pictures. the average of the experimental group before treatment was 44.22, and after treatment were 78.12. it means that there was a significance difference after doing treatment. so, it can be concluded that in this study, the use of flickr social network was more effective than a sequence of pictures in teaching writing news item text. we can see that the experimental group had higher values than control group. the media was one of the factors which made the students understand about the material. the media that i used was sequenced picture of flickr social network. besides, the computer labs and internet network in the school was quite adequate. due to the fact that there was significant difference in writing skill in the news item text achievement between two groups, the null hypothesis saying that “there is no significant difference in achievement between students who are taught written news item text by using flickr social network and those who are taught without flickr social network” is rejected. on the contrary, the working hypothesis is accepted. therefore, it can be concluded that using flickr social network in teaching written news item text to the tenth grade students of sma n 3 purwokerto in the academic year 2011/2012 is effective. table.1 the scoring guidance taken from heaton grid and categories with some modifications (1975: 109-111) components score characteristics coherence 5 4 3 2 1 the writing style is very easy to understand; both complex and simple sentences very used effectively. the writing style is quite easy to understand; a few complex sentences very used effectively. the writing style is reasonably smooth; not too hard to understand mostly (but not all); simple sentences used are fairly effective. rough writing style; an effort is needed to understand; some complex sentences are confusing; although most simple sentences are used fairly effective. very rough writing; hard to understand; almost all sentences used are simple sentences and redundant. grammar 5 4 3 2 1 use present tense, other grammars are used well and everything uses present tense; only 1-2 minor mistakes. use mostly present tense, only a few minor mistakes found (preposition, articles, etc.) use present tense in some parts, only 1 or 2 major mistakes with a few minor ones. use present tense in some parts; major mistakes lead to difficulty in understanding lack of mastery of sentence construction. numerous serious mistake; including not using present tense properly and horrible sentence construction; almost illegible. vocabulary 5 use of wide range of vocabulary. rufiah ning asrianti / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 5 4 3 2 1 good use of new words acquired; fairly appropriate words used in context, less redundancy. attempts to use broad range of words; fairly appropriate vocabulary in context still found redundancy. narrow range of vocabulary; uses some inappropriate words for some context. very narrow range of vocabulary, inappropriate use of words such as slang for indirect sentences, etc. content 5 4 3 2 1 all sentences support the main story; highly organized and clear progression of ideas. ideas are well organized and quite organized with some minor errors. ideas seem to be well thought but not organized quite well. little or no attempt to give new ideas or organizing the sentences to look interesting. lack of ideas and do not relate to the main story at all. independent samples test nilai equal variances assumed equal variances not assumed levene's test for equality of variances f .049 sig. .826 t-test for equality of means t .131 .131 df 62 61.998 sig. (2-tailed) .896 .896 mean difference .312 .312 std. error difference 2.385 2.385 95% confidence interval of the difference lower -4.455 -4.455 upper 5.080 5.080 table 4.1 the distribution of pre-test rufiah ning asrianti / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 6 table 4.2 the distribution of post-test nilai equal variances assumed equal variances not assumed levene's test for equality of variances f .476 sig. .493 t-test for equality of means t 3.240 3.240 df 62 61.952 sig. (2-tailed) .002 .002 mean difference 9.062 9.062 std. error difference 2.797 2.797 95% confidence interval of the difference lower 3.472 3.472 upper 14.653 14.653 rufiah ning asrianti / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 7 references anderson, m. and anderson, k. 1997. text types in english. south yarra: macmillan education australia pty ltd. arikunto, s. 2006. prosedur penelitian: suatu pendekatan praktik. jakarta: pt asdi mahasatya. astuti, puji. 2011. kurikulum bahasa inggris sma 2006. available: http://pujiastutiunnesfiles.wordpress.com/20 11/04/sajian-kurikulum-sma.ppt. (may 11, 2011). brown, h. 2004. language assessment: principles and classroom practices. new york: longman.com websites: http://flickr.com (accessed on january 21, 2011) http://pujiastutiunnesfiles.wordpress.com/2011/04/sajian-kurikulum-sma.ppt http://pujiastutiunnesfiles.wordpress.com/2011/04/sajian-kurikulum-sma.ppt http://flickr.com/ 1 elt forum 2 (2) (2013) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt improving students’ speaking ability through story board game meta nur utaminingsih  department of english, faculty language and arts, semarang state university, indonesia info artikel ________________ sejarah artikel: diterima september 2013 disetujui oktober 2013 dipublikasikan november 2013 ________________ keywords: story board game, students’ speaking ability ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this journal is made based on the action research in order to improve students’ speaking ability by using story board game. this action research was conducted in sma negeri 1 grabag. the action research was carried out in some steps. those steps were pre-elimination test, conducting the cycle starting with planning and action, observing and reflecting. as data source, observation sheets and questionnaire are used in this research. the implementation of the game was reflected on the classroom activity and the result of observation sheets. while, he score was gotten from the scoring system. by using this game, the students’ speaking ability increased. some aspects in speaking assessment were also increased. the analysis of observation sheets and questionnaire give more description about the implementation of this game. according to the study, it can be concluded that by using this game in speaking class, students’ speaking ability can be improved. this game is good media to help the students in speaking english in more enjoyable way. © 2013 universitas negeri semarang  alamat korespondensi: gedung b3 lantai 3 fbs unnes kampus sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: metanurutaminingsih@yahoo.co.id issn 2252-6706 mailto:metanurutaminingsih@yahoo.co.id meta nur utaminingsih / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 2 introduction one of the language skills which is important is speaking. speaking as one of language skill which is being taught in school, has become the main concern for teacher. teacher of english should be able to find some methods to develop students‟ skills, especially in speaking. teachers mostly spend much time to find an appropriate method to encourage the students so that their speaking ability will be significantly improved. speaking english as foreign language may not be too useful for the students; it will not affect their daily life. it will affect students‟ performance in front of foreigners when they cannot construct good speaking. lack of confidence and vocabulary to speak can be the main factor in speaking difficulties. vocabulary and grammar also affected speaking. awareness of vocabulary and grammar helps the students to practice speaking. here, the problem that faced by students is they were lack of knowledge in using an appropriate vocabulary and construct it grammatically. the concern of this study is to improve speaking ability of intermediate students. intermediate students can be described as someone who have progressed beyond the novice stages to an ability to sustain basic communicative tasks, to establish some minimal fluency, to deal with few unrehearsed situations, to self correct on occasion, to few compensatory strategies and generally to „get along‟ in the language beyond mere survival (brown 2001 :103-108). here, tenth grade students were chosen. after knowing the problems in improving students‟ speaking ability i conduct the research for intermediate students to apply a technique, in order to improve their speaking ability. one of the techniques is by using games, and games can be the alternative technique to teach. the game which is used is board game. board game itself is a game which is played by moving the counter according to the number from the thrown dice. there are many kind of board games. and the game which is chosen called story board game. it is the modification of board game. literature review speaking in foreign language is not as easy as speaking in our mother tongue. it is obvious that in order to be able to speak in foreign language, it is necessary to know a certain amount of grammar and vocabulary (martyn bygate 1987:3). according to bygate (1987:5-8), speaking can be seen as skill based on these basics: motor perceptive skills and interaction skills. speakers know how they can speak well because of their linguistic knowledge. there are some linguistics knowledge like; genre knowledge, discourse knowledge, pragmatic knowledge, grammar, vocabulary and phonology (thornbury,2000:11). this research mostly concern on grammar and vocabulary. speaking is always related to vocabulary and also grammar. vocabulary in order to convince the meaning and the context, then grammar affects in how speaker construct the spokensentence. grammar also helps the students to derive meaning from some instructions or contexts. the teacher can assess their ability to discriminate one form meaning (celce murcia, 2001:260). from the definition about speaking, it can be concluded that speaking is one of language skill which construct the meaning and need certain grammar and vocabulary used to make communication with other. classroom circumstances or classrooms hours may be the only part for efl learners to expose their english. as teacher those circumstances should have something for students need to accomplish. brown (2001:117) gives some guidelines to help the teacher compensate for the lack of ready communicative situations outside the classroom. those are: a) use class time for optimal authentic language input and interaction b) don‟t waste class time on work that can be done as homework c) provide regular motivation-stimulating activities meta nur utaminingsih / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 3 d) help students to see genuine uses for english in their own life e) play down the role of tests and emphasize more intrinsic factors f) provide plenty of extra-class learning opportunities g) encourage the use of learning strategies outside the class h) form a language club and schedule regular activities an important concept for teachers to understand is that while students are at the beginning or intermediate levels of language learning, that is, while they are still developing their fluency, accuracy and also proficiency often work against each other (bailey,2005:5). according to gerlach and elly (1980: 254), to select the appropriate media, the teacher must take note of the characteristics of students which directly relate to the learning process such as verbal abilities, visual and audio perception skill, experience, intelligence, motivation, personality and social skills. because of the important role of media, teacher must be able to choose appropriate media and use the good method in teaching and learning process in order to get satisfactory results. chen and i-jung (2005) state that game offer students fun filled and relaxing learning atmosphere. in teaching and learning process it can be denied that relaxing and enjoyable situation of the class plays important rule. according to http://www.storytreeonline.com/storyboards.html story board game, is defined as another way to explore narrative possibilities or to rehearse a performance. a good story board can help you learn an unfamiliar story or facilitate the development of an original story. while, in conducting the research the writer used classroom action research. according to chamot and friends, (2011:2) action research is classroom based research conducted by teachers in order to reflect upon and evolve their teaching. the purpose of the research is to gain understanding of teaching and learning within one‟s classroom and to use that knowledge to increase teaching efficacy and student learning. chamot also gives some steps in doing action research. the steps is similar with another experts did such as; choosing the research questions, deciding the information needed, analyzing the data, organizing and writing up the data, and the final step is incorporating the results. research method in this research, the method which is used was classroom action research. the writer conducted 2 cycles and a preliminary test. the subject of the study was the tenth grade students of sma negeri 1 grabag class x.3. twenty five students were following the cycles. in this research, the writer used observation sheets and questionnaire to collect the data from different sources. scoring system was used to assess the students in their speaking performances. to avoid the bias and subjectivity, the researcher used data source triangulation. it means that the description of the result was not only from the writer‟s side but also from students and teacher class side. in analyzing pre-elimination test, cycle 1 test, cycle 2 test, the researcher asked the students to perform in front of the class to retell the story (narrative). then the researcher assessed the students‟ performance based on the scoring system. the research used the mean of the results to be compared whether there was some significant improvement or not. the observation sheet was analyzed by the result of the criteria on the observation sheet. the result described about the students‟ interest and students‟ response about the conducting of the story board games in the class. besides, it also described about students‟ activity, students‟ attendance and student‟s participation during the teaching and learning process. the researcher used some blank papers to take note of the observation and anything happened during the implementation of the game. since the questionnaire was given to the students after the last cycle, the result of the questionnaire reflected student‟s interest based on their own answer. because the questionnaire was closed questionnaire, the procedure of http://www.storytreeonline.com/storyboards.html meta nur utaminingsih / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 4 analyzing the questionnaire was based on the most answers made by the students. the result described student‟s interest, like and dislike, and also their impression in english speaking class from their point of view. result and discussion before conducting the research, the writer conducted the preliminary test in order to know about students‟ difficulties in speaking. the score of preliminary test were not good enough. here, the researcher what aspect that would be improved. the researcher was conducting the cycle 1 by using the first story board game. the teacher class observed the students and filled in the observation sheet. the writer then assessed the students‟ speaking performance. table below, shows the result of cycle 1 test result of cycle 1 test speaking aspects mean of cycle 1 test pronunciation 1.92 interaction 1.60 vocabulary and grammar 2.04 fluency and coherence 1.60 intonation 1.52 stress 1.24 mean 1.65 after cycle 1 test, the researcher reflected the result with the game. cycle 2 was conducted because there was some aspect which needed improvement. story board game type 2 was used in this cycle. the result of cycle 2 test was better, and the improvement was significant. table below shows the result of cycle 2 test result of cycle 2 test speaking aspects mean of cycle 2 test pronunciation 2.72 interaction 2.20 vocabulary and grammar 2.60 fluency and coherence 2.32 intonation 2.16 stress 2.12 mean 14.12 based on the result from preliminary test, cycle 1 test and cycle 2 test, table below shows the summary result and the improvement of each aspect summary result speaking aspects mean of the score improvement preliminary cycle 1 test cycle 2 test pronunciation 1.56 1.92 2.72 1.16 interaction 1.16 1.60 2.20 1.04 vocabulary&grammar 1.72 2.04 2.60 0.88 fluency&coherences 1.20 1.60 2.32 1.12 meta nur utaminingsih / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 5 intonation 1.24 1.52 2.16 0.92 stress 1.16 1.24 2.12 0.96 mean 1.34 1.65 2.35 1.01 from the table above it can be concluded that the improvement in students‟ speaking ability was good. here is some of description of the improvement in each aspects: a) pronunciation in this aspect, the result shows that there was improvement in students‟ pronunciation. the students start to make a clear pronunciation. they understand how to pronounce the word correctly. they could make a clear distinction in pronouncing some word (e.g in preliminary test some of them still pronounced “handsome” with [hʌnsɔm]. but after the first action was conducted, their pronunciation improve. they can pronounce the word “handsome” correctly [hænsəm]. the average score of pronunciation showed the improvement. the mean of preliminary was 1.56 and cycle 2 test was 2.72. since they got difficulties in pronouncing some words, in cycle 1 and cycle 2 there was some correction, so they could pronounce the words better than before. though the improvement was only 1.16 from preliminary and cycle 2 test, it could be said that the improvement was good enough. b) interaction in telling the story, an aspect of speaking which was assessed was interaction. in preliminary, students did not be able to make good interaction, but by doing cycle 1 and 2 these aspects increased. in preliminary the mean was1.16 and the cycle 2 test was 2.20. it improved 1.04 for this aspect. it was good enough for the improvement. the students were able to make good interaction after getting the action. they could make good interaction with the audience while telling the story. inside their group, they were also be able to make good interaction. not only in retelling the story but also gave the response to their friends. c) vocabulary and grammar this aspect was the aspect which has better improvement than other. the students were able to use and construct the sentence in good order and grammatically correct. for example in cycle 1 they made sentences such as “one day live a handsome boy named malin kundang”, in cycle 2 they could make a correct sentence to “one day lived a handsome boy named malin kundang.” it could be seen from the improvement of average score of this aspect. the average score of preliminary was 1.72 and the average score of cycle 2 test was 2.60. it was different from pronunciation and interaction, those aspects got the improvement with the value 1.44 and 1.04, and this aspect only got 0.88. but at least, the result was higher than other aspects. d) fluency and coherences these aspects were the aspect which became the problem for the students. some of the students were fluent in telling the story but they did not comprehend the story. some others comprehended the story but got difficulties in telling it. however, by doing the action, those two aspects could be improved, not only fluency but also the comprehension. the students could increase these two aspects in the same way. the average score was 1.20 in pre elimination test and in the cycle 2 was 2.32. the improvement for this aspect was 1.12. this improvement gave the best result for the students, since they were be able to comprehend the story and fluent in telling the story. e) intonation this aspect was the important aspect in assessing speaking. it could give the meaning when we are speaking. the mean score of intonation on preliminary was 1.24 and in the cycle 2 test was 2.16. though the improvement was 0.92, the students could make better intonation, so when they were telling the story; it sounded well and did not flat, the feel and meaning of the tone of story was getting better. by the improvement of this aspect, it was hoped meta nur utaminingsih / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 6 that the students would always pay attention in this aspect. f) stress from the comparison between preliminary average score and cycle two test score, there was improvement in this aspect. the students were able to make clear difference in spelling the words. it sounded clearer than before. they could make good harmonization in pronunciation, intonation and stress. though it was difficult for the students, there was some improvement. the improvement was 0.96, from 1.16 in preliminary and 2.12 in cycle 2 test. the students and the audience could recognize the word and the meaning of the sentence. from all of the result and the comparison, there was improvement in students‟ speaking ability by using story board game. the students felt easier and also confident in speaking. here is the figure of the result: beside the result, the description about students‟ activity and students‟ response were delivered by analyzing the observation sheets and questionnaire. from the result of observation analysis, students‟ activities in the classroom were getting better, students‟ responses about the game also high. based on the result of the analysis from the implementation of story board game, observation sheet, and the questionnaire, the purpose of this study that is to find out how the story board game being applied to improve students‟ speaking ability was accomplished. the second purpose of this study was to find out the students‟ achievement of speaking ability after being taught with this game. it could be drawn in the changes of students‟ behavior (observation sheet) and the improvement of the result (preliminary test, cycle 1 test and cycle 2 test). the result of each aspect showed the improvement. by the improvement of the result of the test, it can be concluded that the students‟ achievement in speaking improved after being taught with story board game. conclusion in addition, by using story board games, students enjoyed the teaching and learning process and they also had motivation in learning speaking with this game. it can be seen from the questionnaire result that the students liked this game to be applied in the classroom. the students also felt different when they were taught with this game. 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 pre-elimination cycle 1 cycle 2 meta nur utaminingsih / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 7 by using this game in the classroom activities students‟ achievement in speaking improved. the use of this game can be applied in the classroom to help the students improving their speaking ability especially in spoken narrative (telling story). references brown, douglas. 2001. teaching by principles: an interactive approach to language paedagogy. new york:longman bygate, martyn. 1987. language teaching: speaking.new york:oxford university press celce, marianne and murcia. 2001. teaching english as a second or foreign language. usa: heinle&heinle thornbury, scott. 2000. how to teach speaking. new york:longman. chen and i-jung. 2005. using games to promote communicative skills in language learning. in the internet tesl journal.x12. gerlach, v.s and d.p elly. 1980. teaching and media “systematic approach”. new jersey:prenctice hall. bailey m, kathleen.2005. practical english language teaching:speaking. new york: mc graw hill chamot, annah uhl and sarah barnhardt et al. 1998. conducting action research in the foreign classroom. new york: national capital languge resource centre. 1 elt forum 5 (1) (2016) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the use of charade game to teach vocabulary (an experimental study of the seventh graders of mts. miftahul khoirot branjang in the academic year of 2014/2015) nur rohmah hidayati english department. faculty of languages and arts. state university of semarang. aticle info ________________ article history: received in february 2016 approved in march 2016 published in april 2016 ________________ keywords: charade game, vocabulary, experimental research. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this article is about the use of charade game to teach vocabulary in the seventh graders of mts. miftahul khoirot branjang in the academic year of 2014/2015. this research is conducted by using quasi-experimental design. the population is all seventh graders of mts. miftahul khoirot branjang in the academic year of 2014/2015. the researcher chooses 54 students from two classes as the sample of the study, 27 students as experimental groups and 27 students as control group. in the pre-test, the average score of experimental group is 59.70 and the average score of control group is 57.63. then, the experimental group is taught by using charade game whereas the control group is taught by using conventional method. the results from post-tests show that the average score of experimental group is 87.26 whereas the average score of the control group is 79.26. after calculating by t-test, the result of the t-value is 3.05 and t-table is 2.006. the t-value of the post test is higher than the critical value means that statistically there is significant difference between two groups. since the experimental group gets higher average scores (87.26 > 79.26), it can be concluded that teaching vocabulary using charade game results better achievement. © 2016 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: nuro3333@yahoo.com issn 2252-6706 nur rohmah hidayati / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 2 introduction in learning foreign language that must be focused first is learning vocabulary. david wilkins in thornbury (2002) stated that “without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed... you can say very little with grammar, but you can say almost anything with words”. mccarthy (1990:8) said, “no matter how well the students learns grammar, no matter how successfully the sounds of l2 are mastered, without words to express a wide range of meanings, communication in an l2 just cannot happen in any meaningful way”. from the statement, it is clear that vocabulary takes very important role in language. then, learning vocabulary in the beginning of english learning is a must. vocabulary keeps growing and learning it is challenging. what teacher should do to help learners in developing learners’ vocabulary is developing their love for vocabulary learning. teachers must be creative in teaching vocabulary because students often have no interest in learning english especially vocabulary. one of the techniques for teaching vocabulary is using media. one of the functions of teaching using media is to increase the students’ motivation. by using media during teaching-learning process, it is hoped that the teacher will be able to motivate the students to learn and pay attention to the material the teacher presents. changing the feeling that english is difficult and boring should be directed. so, teachers have to apply the appropriate method or media in teaching vocabulary based on students’ level. students should enjoy and have fun in learning vocabulary. besides game as a media that can provide context in learning vocabulary, it is also challenging and provides enjoyment in teaching and learning process. based on the writer’s experience in practice teaching, the writer’s students tend to have insufficient vocabulary mastery. they are also reluctant to learn english, let alone to develop vocabulary mastery. although students realize the importance of vocabulary when learning english, most of them learn it passively because of several factors. first, the students are difficult to understand teacher’s explanation. second, the students usually only acquire new vocabulary through new words in their textbooks or when given by teachers during the lesson. third, the students are reluctant to memorize words. it can be said that the students do not have motivation to learn new vocabulary. conversely, they are motivated when they are invited to learn english in a game. games can catch their attention and increase their motivation with the spirits of competition. therefore, here, the writer does an experiment to help students to improve their vocabulary mastery through charade game. review of related literature definition of vocabulary because the research is related with vocabulary, it is important to know what is meant by vocabulary. there are many definitions of what vocabulary is. according to linse (2006:121) “vocabulary is the collection of words that an individual knows”. it refers to all the words in a language, the entire vocabulary of a language (barcroft, 2011: 571). in oxford advanced learners’dictionary (1995:1331), vocabulary is defined as “all the words that a person knows or uses, or a list of words with their meanings, especially in a book for learning a foreign language”. in addition, rafinggi (2013: 2) stated that “vocabulary is a collection of words used in the language to communicate”. from the definition above, it comes to a conclusion that vocabulary is all of words used to communicate in a language that not all of them are known by everyone because everyone’s vocabulary is some of all words that he or she knows in a language. in addition, when an individual has his or her vocabulary, he or she has collection of words that the amount of words is different from every individual. teaching vocabulary teaching is guiding, facilitating learning, enabling the learner to learn, and setting the condition for learning (brown, 2000:7). as stated before that learning vocabulary is the basic of learning english, teachers’ role is as a bridge to help their students to learn vocabulary. wilga nur rohmah hidayati / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 3 rivers in thornburry (2002: 144) offers ways to teach vocabulary. vocabulary cannot be taught. it can be presented, explained, included in all kinds of activities, and experienced in all manner of associations … but ultimately it is learned by the individual. as language teachers, we must arouse interest in words and a certain excitement in personal development in this area … we can help our students by giving them ideas on how to learn, but each will finally learn a very personal selection of items, organized into relationships in an individual way. it tells that to teach vocabulary for students, teachers only can help direct them how to learn and find the meaning of vocabulary either by presenting, explaining, or including in all kinds of activities, or by experiencing in all manner of associations to it. the thing is to make them interested in learning vocabulary. then, teaching is a process of helping learners how to learn themselves. as teachers, what must be done in teaching vocabularies is motivating learners to be interested in words. charade game and conventional method charade game is a kind of game in which words are represented in pantomime. the idea is using physical rather than verbal language to convey meaning. physical language like mime and gestures will be able to facilitate communication, understanding, and participation. students will be more engaged and more likely to retain what they are taught in the classroom. excitement and enthuasiasm that are resulted in playing charade game can drive lesson content and lesson delivery at the same time. teare in rafinggi (2006:76) states that “charade game is a technique miming the individual parts of a word”. it means that this game uses mime to know the meaning of words. charade game can be conducted in pair or in groups. when charade game is applied in groups, students are encouraged to think cooperatively, it makes them more comfortable in conducting activities in the classroom and outside. in other words, charade game can facilitate students to learn vocabulary. they can learn and play simultaneously so that they are easy to remember the word. the procedures of charade game are as follows: 1) the teacher explains the rules and demonstrates how charade game works. 2) the teacher finds one of the students to select one of cards provided by the teacher. the card contains vocabulary and its meaning or its picture. 3) the student as the one player acts out something specific, such as pretending or describing to be doing a certain activity such as washing, cutting, folding, and so on. 4) the other students try to guess what the acting player is doing. 5) then, the teacher groups the class into three. in turn, each members of groups as one player move forward in front of the class to act or mime what the vocabulary he or she gets in order to be guessed by the others. 6) each members in teams try to guess what the player acts. 7) the quickest one guessing correctly the vocabulary collects a point for his or her group. 8) the group with the most points is the winner. conventional teaching is the common teaching method used by the teachers for carrying out the teaching learning process in the classroom situations. according to chhabra (2013:4), “in this method, the teacher talk more or less continuously to deliver the facts and ideas worth remembering but the class does not converse with the teacher. this implies that it is one of the autocratic teaching strategies”. in conventional method, teaching vocabulary focuses on teaching rules and practicing it in translating. the activity in classroom are routines such as lecturing, translating activities, drills, memorizing rules, and isolating item or lexis. the activity lacks of context and practise similar to real life situation. nur rohmah hidayati / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 4 methods of investigation in conducting this study the writer uses quasi experimental research. quasi experiment is experimental situations in which the researcher assigns, but not randomly, participants to groups because the experimenter cannot artificially create groups for the experiment (cresswell, 2012: 626). the procedures of the research are as follows; the researcher assigns intact groups of experimental and control treatments, administers a pre-test for both groups, conducts experimental treatment ( charade game) to the experimental group only, and then administers a post-test to assess the differences between the two groups. the treatment, charade game is only given to the experimental class while the control class is taught conventionally. the pre-test and post-test result of each group is calculated so that the researcher finds the means of the results. the means of scores are then compared and analyzed by using t-test formula in order to know whether or not there is significant difference between both groups. discussion the research problems of the study are: “how is the difference of achievement between students taught by using charade game and students taught by conventional method?”, and “how is the effectiveness of using charade game to teach vocabulary”. the research problems were answered by using quantitative approach. before continuing the research, the try out test as the instrument of the research is checked whether it has validity and reliability or not. the result showed that 26 items of the try out test were said to be valid because rxy > r-table, and 4 items were said to be invalid. for example, item 1 was valid because its rxy was 0.544 greater than r-table 0.388. the computation of reliability also showed that the test is reliable because it obtained 0.876 greater than r-table 0.388. the pre-test is then conducted. on the pre-test, the experimental group achieved 59.70 averages, and the control groups achieved 57.63 averages. the averages of the two groups did not have significant differences proved by the calculation of normality, homogeneity, and t-test. the pre-test scores of the experimental groups is said to be normally distributed since x2 obtained 3.81 < 7.82 as in the chi square table, and the control class pre-test is said to be normal since x2 obtained 3.19 < 7.82 the pre-test result of the two groups is homogen since f obtained 1.008< 1.453 as in f-tabel. the t-test calculation showed that there was no significance difference since t obtained is 0.854 < t-tabel 2.006. after conducting the treatment, there was a significant difference between the experimental group result and the control group result. the average score of the experimental group was 87.26 higher than the result of the control group 79.26. the variance of experimental group was 98.83 higher than the control group 86.62. the post-test of the experimental group was normally distributed (6.28 < 7. 82) and so the post-test of the control class (7.46 < 7.82). the result of the two groups’ post test was homogen (1.14 < 1.42) so that t-test can be computed. the t-test computation indicated that after getting the treatment, there is significance difference (t obtained =3.05< 2.006 = t-table) between the experimental group achievement and the control group achievement. the first research problem about the difference of the two groups was answered, students taught by using charade game got better vocabulary mastery than those who were taught by conventional method. the second research problems about the effectiveness of using charade game to teach vocabulary was answered by the statement that charade game is effective to be used to teach vocabulary. it is based on the result that before treatment, the experimental group got score averages of 59.70 and after treatment they got average scores 87.26 compared to control group that got average scores 57.63 in pre-test and got 79.26 in post-test. it showed that charade game is effective to be used to teach vocabulary to the seventh graders of mts. miftahul khoirot branjang. conclusion there is a different result between students taught by using charade game and students taught by using conventional method. in pre-test, there nur rohmah hidayati / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 5 is no significant difference between the two groups. after treatments, post-test is conducted. there is a significant difference of the post test results, the experimental group achieves 87.26 on the average and the control group achieves 73.26 on the average. from the results, the experimental group achieves higher score than the control group. the use of charade game is effective to improve vocabulary mastery of the students. the t-test measurement for α = 5 % with dk = 27 + 27 – 2 = 52 obtains 3.05 whereas the t-table obtains 2.006. since the t-test measurement is higher than t-table, it is found that the experimental group taught by using charade game achieved vocabulary mastery better than the control group. there are some factors that support the effectiveness of charade game in teaching vocabulary to the students. charade game is new in english class for them because their teacher has not used it before. the game is attractive so that they can easily activate their memorization of new vocabularies they have got in playing this game. they feel free to be creative in acting new vocabularies. the game helps them learning vocabulary better and easier, it is proven to be one of the effective ways in teaching vocabulary to the seventh graders students. references barcroft, j., schmitt, n. and sunderman, g. 2011. lexis. in j. simpson (ed)., the routledge handbook of applied linguists (pp.571-583). abingdon: routledge. brown, h. douglas. 2001. teaching by principles (an interactive approach to language pedagogy). new york: pearson education. chhabra, s. and neelam d. comparative study of computer assisted instruction and conventional teaching on the achievement of pupil teachers in method of teaching english language. in mier journal of educational studies, trends, and practices. may 2013, vol.3, no. 1 pp. 107-118. available at www.mierjs.in [accessed 4/1/2016) creswell, j. w. 2012. educational research (planning, conducting and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research). boston: pearson education. linse, c.t. 2006.practical english language teaching young learners. new york: mcgraw-hill book company. mccarthy. 1990. vocabulary. oxford: oxford university press. rafinggi, d.l. and ikhsan, m.k. 2013. teaching vocabulary by using charades techniques for young learners. available at ejournals1.stkip-pgri-sumbar.ac.id [accesssed 2/2/15] thornbury, s. 2002. how to teach vocabulary. edinburgh: pearson education limited. http://www.mierjs.in/ http://www.ejournal-s1.stkip-pgri-sumbar.ac.id/ http://www.ejournal-s1.stkip-pgri-sumbar.ac.id/ 1 elt forum 2 (1) (2013) english language teaching forum http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt gambits found in the conversations of look ahead 2 (an english textbook for senior high school students year xi published by erlangga) siti maesaroh department of english, faculty language and arts, semarang state university, indonesia info artikel ________________ sejarahartikel: diterimajanuari 2013 disetujuifebruari 2013 dipublikasikanjuni 2013 ________________ keywords: gambits, speech act, conversation, textbook, look ahead 2 ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this is a descriptive qualitative study aiming at finding out what speech acts and gambits found in the conversation models of look ahead 2 (an english textbook for senior high school grade xi published by erlangga). this study was conducted in line with the important roles of gambits in spoken communication.searle (1969) classified speech acts into five: directives, commissives, representatives, declaratives and expressive with further sub-classified by van ek (1998) into six functions and 132 sub-functions. these speech act functions have become the basis of english curriculum in indonesia. the speech acts realizations in utterances are usually hedged by gambits or discourse markers aiming at downgrading, upgrading, intensifying or avoiding a face threatening act. the data were collected from the textbook look ahead 2 written by th. m. sudarwati and eudia grace. the study was focused only on five speech acts: asking for an opinion, giving opinion, agreeing to an opinion, disagreeing to an opinion, and giving suggestion/advice. therefore, the data taken were only the sentences which indicate those five speech acts.16 conversations were taken as the data. there were 38 clauses belonging to 11 speech act functions specified for xi grade students. the speech acts found were: asking for an opinion, giving opinion, expressing satisfaction, dissatisfaction, giving suggestion, warning, expressing relief, pain, sorrow, anger, and annoyance. there were 34 gambits found in five speech acts: four gambits were found in asking for an opinion, six in giving opinion, five in agreeing to an opinion, ten in disagreeing to an opinion, nine in giving suggestion/advice. of the five speech acts understudy, there were three types of gambits namely opening, linking, and responding gambits. there were nine gambits belong to opening gambit, three gambits belong to linking gambit, and 22 data for responding gambit.the finding indicated that among 14 speech acts required by the curriculum, 11 speech acts were found but the other three were not. they are expressing pleasure, expressing love and expressing embarrassment. the gambits found in five specific speech acts were used appropriately based on both keller’s and dörnyei’s classifications. among three types of gambits, opening gambit was the most frequently used (52.9%). responding gambit was the second frequently used (38.2%), and the least frequently used gambit was the linking gambit (8.8%). © 2013universitasnegeri semarang alamatkorespondensi: gedungb3lantai3 fbsunnes kampussekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: smilemae26@yahoo.com issn 2252-6706 siti maesaroh / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 2 introduction english is the most influential language. it is taught all over the world under many different circumstances. it is the most frequently used language in international communication. almost all important international affairs use it as a medium to communicate. as many other languages, english has four skills which have to be learned by students. they are listening, speaking, reading and writing. according to brown (2004:186), listening and reading belong to receptive skills in which learners are receiving stimuli to make them understand the language, while speaking and writing are productive skills in which learners are expected to produce spoken and written texts. speaking is generally considered as a difficult skill to master in a language. halliday (1994:76) says it is because speaking is spontaneous. the time to process a language input and to process how to respond it is very limited. according to nunan (2003:48), many people feel that speaking in a new language is harder than reading, writing, and listening for two reasons. first, unlike reading, speaking happens in real time: usually the person you are talking to is waiting for you to speak right then. second, when you are speaking, you cannot edit or revise what you wish to say, as you can do if you are writing. along with this, dӧrnyei and thurrell (1992:ix) say that “… even the best language learners often complain that they feel at a loss when meeting and native speakers and engaging in real-life conversation”. since english is the first international language which is spoken by most of people all over the world, students are better to learn it more than theoretically. as in the school-based curriculum, the learners must learn english for communication. this is along with jones (1993:3) says that for students to acquire this communicative competence, they must learn more than just grammar and vocabulary. they must learn which structures are appropriate to the situation they are in and the people they are with. when we speak, we produce stretches of utterances. a stretch of utterance usually has a head-act (which function to reveal the communication purpose or the speaker‟s intend) and hedges (in the form of gambits to smooth the conversation). therefore, to make students speaking flows more natural, they need to learn gambits. in line with this, hughes (2002:37) says that gambits oil the wheels of talk, and conversation without them will seem very „cranky‟. school-based curriculum divides english speaking materials for senior high school into some speech acts. grade xi students are to learn fourteen speech acts: asking for an opinion, giving opinion, expressing satisfaction, expressing dissatisfaction, giving suggestion/advice, warning, expressing relief, expressing pain, expressing pleasure, expressing love, expressing sorrow, expressing embarrassment, expressing anger and expressing annoyance. based on the curriculum setting of speaking material into those speech acts and by seeing the fact that english natives include gambits in their speaking, it is important to provide gambits for all the speech acts specified by the curriculum. realizing the importance of gambits in conversations, and textbooks as the media in english teaching and learning, i choose the topic “gambits found in look ahead 2 (an english textbook for senior high school students year xi published by erlangga)” that hopefully can give a description of the importance of gambits to be provided in textbooks. since my study is targeted to an english textbook of xi graders, i focused my study on analyzing speech acts as given by the schoolbased curriculum for grade xi students. further, i focused only on gambits in five speech acts: asking for an opinion, giving opinion, disagreeing to an opinion, agreeing to an opinion, and giving advice/suggestion. siti maesaroh / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 3 method in this study, i chose conversation models given in the look ahead 2 (an english textbook for senior high school students year xi published by erlangga) as the object of the study. i wanted to find out what speech acts are found in the conversations of look ahead 2 which are compatible with the curriculum. i also wanted to find out what gambits were found in the five specific speech acts (asking for an opinion, giving opinion, agreeing to an opinion, disagreeing to an opinion and giving suggestion/advice). i applied some steps in collecting the data. (1) reading i read all the conversations given in look ahead 2 normally as general readers do to comprehend the information of the texts. (2) retyping the conversations were printed in the book separately. thus, to make the research go easier, i retyped all of the conversation models complete with their information (the chapter, page, and the purpose of each conversation). for the techniques of analyzing the data, i took two steps of analyzing. those are as follows: (1) identifying and coding conversations i identified the conversations contain all the speech acts specified in the school-based curriculum for xi grade students and gave them codes (c1, c2, c3 and so on). (2) identifying and numbering clauses i identified the clauses belonging to speech acts compatible with the curriculum and gave numbers in front of each clause. (3) identifying gambits i identified the gambits found in five speech acts: asking for an opinion, giving opinion, agreeing to an opinion, disagreeing to an opinion and giving suggestion/advice. (4) analyzing the appropriateness of the gambits i analyzed whether the gambits found in the five speech acts under the study are used appropriately according to the theories of dörnyei and thurrell (1992) and howe and burton (in kurniawan and artiningsih, 2008). (5) classifying gambits i classified the gambits based on their type according to the classification from keller and warner (1988). result and discussion the data of this study were collected from sixteen conversation models of look ahead 2. i found speech acts compatible with the schoolbased curriculum. i also found gambits in the five specific speech acts i concerned. there were 38 clauses belonging to 11 speech act functions specified for xi grade students. the speech acts found were: asking for an opinion, giving opinion, expressing satisfaction, dissatisfaction, giving suggestion, warning, expressing relief, pain, sorrow, anger, and annoyance. three speech acts specified by the curriculum are expressing pleasure, expressing love and expressing embarrassment. the following table gives details of the speech acts found. from the speech acts listed above, i can see that there are thirty eight clauses belonging to the speech acts specified for senior high school grade xi. the speech act of giving suggestion/advice found in the most conversations (eight data found). the second most frequently found speech act is giving opinion (seven data found). since this study is concerned in finding gambits in only five speech acts: asking for an opinion, giving opinion, agreeing to an opinion, disagreeing to an opinion and giving suggestion/advice, i identified the gambits in those speech acts. there were 34 gambits found in five speech acts: four gambits were found in asking for an opinion, six in giving opinion, five in agreeing to an opinion, ten in disagreeing to an opinion, nine in giving suggestion/advice. gambits of asking for an opinion can be found in c1, c2 and c7; gambits of giving an opinion were found in c7, c9, c10 and c15; gambits of agreeing to an opinion are found in c4, c7 and c15; gambits of disagreeing to an opinion in c1, c7, c8, c9 and c10; and gambits of giving siti maesaroh / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 4 suggestion/advice are found in c1, c2, c3, c7, c12, c14 and c15. the following table gives the detail of the gambits found and their classification according to keller and warner classification of conversation gambits (1988). there are four gambits found belonging to gambits of asking for an opinion. they are found in conversation no. one, two and seven. i can see that the gambits used the same phrase what do you think… and don’t you think… three of the four gambits belong to opening gambits and one belongs to linking gambit. five gambits found belong to gambits of agreeing to an opinion. they are found in conversation no. 4, 7 and 15. all the gambits found in agreeing to an opinion are responding gambits (according to keller and warner classification). gambits in disagreeing to an opinion are found more than in any other speech acts. there are ten gambits found, eight belong to responding gambits and two belong to linking gambits. gambits of disagreeing to an opinion are found in conversation no. 1, 7, 8, 9 and 10. the last speech act being analyzed in this study is giving suggestion/advice. as given in the table 4.1 before, speech act of giving suggestion/advice is found in the conversation no. 1, 2, 3, 7, 12, 14 and 15. the following table gives the detail of the finding gambits and their classification based on keller and warner (1988). there are nine data found belonging to gambits of giving suggestion/advice. based on their functions, all of the gambits found in giving suggestion/advice are opening gambits. according to the theory of dörnyei and thurrel (1992), the gambits found in the five speech acts under this study are used appropriately. the chart below shows their percentages according to their classification based on keller and warner (1988). there are four gambits found in asking for an opinion. three of them belong to opening gambit (8.82%) and another one belongs to linking gambit (2.94%). the opening gambits are what do you think…? (in c1); mrs. alison, what do you think…? (in c2); don’t you think…? (in c7). while the linking gambit is … don’t you think…? (in c1). according to keller and warner (1988), speech act functions of asking for an opinion can be opening gambit or linking gambit. from the conversations being analyzed, i can see that the opening gambits are placed in the front of sentences to signal that the speakers are expecting the listeners‟ opinion about certain cases. linking gambit is found to link between the speaker‟s opinion and the question to the listener‟s opinion. in giving opinion, all the gambits found are opening gambit (17.65% of all gambits found). this is in line with keller‟s theory which classifies giving opinion into opening gambits. it is because when we are giving our opinion, we are giving new ideas, new discourse in our conversation. as given in the figure 4.2, there are 14.71% gambits in agreeing to an opinion. all of the gambits belong to responding gambit. their uses are appropriate since after we listen to other‟s opinion, they expect our response. they are wondering if we agree or disagree with their opinion. thus, agreeing means that we are responding other‟s opinion. disagreeing to an opinion is found in ten clauses. each clause contains of each gambit of disagreeing to an opinion. eight of the gambits belong to responding gambit (by 23.53%) and the other two belong to linking gambit (5.88%). gambits of giving suggestion/advice are found more than other gambits (26.47%). all of the gambits function to give suggestion belongs to opening gambits. this is in line with keller‟s classifications of gambits says giving suggestion means giving new idea to solve a problem. in c1, a husband is giving suggestion to his wife; in c2, mrs. wilson is giving her advice to her student; in c3, eve is giving her opinion to her friend; in c12, a shopkeeper is giving his suggestion to a customer; and in c14 and c15, there are also suggestions to the speakers‟ spouse. siti maesaroh / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 5 table 4.1 speech acts of look ahead 2 no. speech acts conversations no. data no. sum 1 asking for an opinion c1, c2, c7 (1), (3), (4), (24) 4 2 giving opinion c7, c8, c9, c10, c15 (20), (21), (23), (29), (31), (32), (34), (46) 7 3 expressing satisfaction c11 (36), (37) 2 4 expressing dissatisfaction c12 (38) 1 5 giving suggestion/advice c1, c2, c3, c7, c12, c14, c15 (2), (5), (6), (7), (27), (39), (42), (45) 8 6 warning c14 (43) 1 7 expressing relief c5 (15) 1 8 expressing pain c5 (10), (12) 2 9 expressing pleasure 0 10 expressing love 0 11 expressing sorrow c5, c13, c16 (11), (13), (16), (41), (48) 5 12 expressing embarrassment 0 13 expressing anger c5, c6, c12, c16 (14), (16), (19), (40), (49) 5 14 expressing annoyance c6 (17), (18) 2 sum 38 table 4.2 gambits found in the five speech acts speech act conversation no. data no. gambits used kind of gambit asking for an opinion 1 (1) what do you think…? opening (3) … don’t you think…? linking 2 (4) mrs. alison, what do you think…? opening 7 (24) don’t you think…? opening giving opinion 7 (21) i think … opening (23) in my opinion, ... opening 9 (31) i don’t think that … opening (32) well, i personally believe that… opening 10 (34) i believe that … opening 15 (46) i think … opening agreeing to an opinion 4 (8) okay, deal. responding (9) deal. responding 7 (28) yes, i suppose you’re right. responding 15 (45) yes. responding (47) i agree with you because … responding disagreeing to an opinion 1 (3) well, i was thinking of that, but… responding 7 (21) i don’t think so. responding (22) maybe so, but… linking (24) yes, that’s true, but… linking (25) not at all. responding siti maesaroh / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 6 figure 4.1 kinds of gambits in five speech acts 0,00% 5,00% 10,00% 15,00% 20,00% 25,00% 30,00% ask for an opinion give opinion agree to an opinion disagree to an opinion give suggestion opening linking responding (26) sure, i agree, but… responding 8 (30) not at all. responding 9 (33) i see your point, but… responding 10 (34) i don’t think so, … responding (35) i can see your point, komar, but can’t you see… responding giving suggestion/advice 1 (2) why don’t you … opening 2 (5) i think it would be a great idea for you to… opening (5) try …ing opening 3 (7) i think you shouldn’t… opening (7) you can… opening 7 (27) it should opening 12 (39) why don’t you … opening 14 (42) let’s… opening 15 (45) let’s… opening siti maesaroh / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 7 references brown, h. douglas. 2004. language assessment. usa: longman. celce-murcia, marianne and elite olshtain. 2000. discourse and context in language teaching. cambridge: cambridge university press. cook, guy. 1989. discourse. london: oxford university press. coulthard, malcolm. 1977. an introduction to discourse analysis. london: longman. cunningsworth, a. 1995. choosing your coursebook. great britain: the bath press. dӧrnyei, zoltan and sarah thurrell. 1992. conversation and dialogues in action. uk:prentice hall international ltd. eggins, suzanne and diana slade. 1997. analyzing casual conversation. london and washington: casell. elizabeth, m. m. ed. 2003. painless speaking. new york: barron‟s educational serties, inc. hartoyo. 2011. linguistic and educational research (course outline and course material).semarang: unnes press. halliday, m.a.k. 1994. spoken and written language. victoria: deakin university press. hatch, evelyn. 1992. discourse and language education. cambridge: cambridge university press. hornby, a.s. 1995. oxford advanced learner‟s dictionary. oxford: oxford university press. hughes, rebecca. 2002. teaching and researching speaking. united kingdom: pearson education limited. van ek, j.a. and j.l.m. trim. 1998. threshold 1990. united kingdom: cambridge university press. jones, leo. 1993. functions of english (teacher's book). cambridge: cambridge university press. joyce, helen d silva. ed. 2000. teachers’ voices 6: teaching casual conversation. sydney: mcquire university. keller, eric and sylvia t. warner. 1988. conversation gambits real english conversation practices. ottawa: language teaching publication. kurniawan, lanny and siti n. artiningsih. 2008. english today 2. jakarta: quadra. lee, beryl c. et al. “discourse marker teaching in college conversation classrooms: focus on well, you know, i mean” 通識 教 育 年 刊 第 六 期. china: ceps, 2004. pp. 177-199 longman. 1992. dictionary of english language culture. new york: longman group ltd. matei, mădălina. 2010. discourse markers as functional elements. bulletin of the transilvania university of brasov . vol. 3 (52). series iv: philology and cultural studies. mujiyanto,yan. 2011. petunjuk penulisan skripsi. semarang: semarang state university press. mukhoyyaroh, siti. 2010. a final project: an analysis of conversation gambits produced by the participants (broadcaster and caller) of english interactive program “pro 2 english time” on rri semarang. semarang: unpublished. nunan, d. 2003. practical english language teaching. new york: the mcgraw-hill companies. nurmawati, dwi. 2008. a final project: the speech functions found on ten conversational texts displayed 0n “new snapshot pre-intermediate” published by longman. semarang: unpublished. richards, jack c. and richards w. schmidt. 1983. language and communication. london: longman. schiffrin, deborah. 1987. discourse markers. cambridge: cambridge university press. ________________, 2001. discourse markers: language, meaning and context. in: schiffrin, d., tannen, d., hamilton, h.e. (eds.), the handbook of discourse analysis. blackwell, malden, ma, pp. 54–75. sudarwati. th.m. and e. grace. 2007. look ahead: an english course for senior high school students year xi. jakarta: erlangga. tarigan, drs. djago and prof. h.g. tarigan. 1986. telaah buku teks smta. jakarta: departemen pendidikan dan kebudayaan. universitas terbuka. 84 1 elt forum 4 (1) (2015) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt improving students’ mastery of english synonyms and antonyms using bingo and domino games (a classroom action research on the eighth grade students of smp negeri 3 maos in the academic year 2013/2014) bitha pracandra ramadhani susanto english department. faculty of languages and arts. state university of semarang aticle info ________________ article history: received in juni 2015 approved in juli 2015 published in agustus 2015 ________________ keywords: synonym, antonym, games, bingo, domino. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this final project is concerned with the use of bingo and domino games in improving students’ mastery of synonyms and antonyms. the objective of this research is to investigate to what extent bingo and domino games give their influence in teaching synonyms and antonyms to the junior high school students. this study used action research design. there were two cycles of action in this study. this research was started with an initial pre-test and ended with a final post-test. in each cycle there were pre-test, treatment, and post-test. tests were used to collect the quantitative data. meanwhile, observation checklist and questionnaire were used to gather the qualitative data. the students of class viiia of smp negeri 3 maos were chosen as the subjects of this study. the study showed that the games could give a great help to the students in improving their mastery of synonyms and antonyms. by comparing the mean score of initial pre-test and final post-test, a significant improvement could be seen. the students’ mean score of the final post-test (86.95) was higher than that of the initial pre-test (33.09). this improvement was also supported by the results of observation checklists and questionnaire. based on the observation checklists, the students’ attitude improved. the students’ participation in cycle 2 was better than that of cycle 1. moreover, the result of questionnaire showed that the students gave positive perception towards the use of bingo domino games. by referring to the results, it can be concluded that bingo domino games gave good contribution to the improvement of the students’ ability in mastering english synonym and antonym. therefore, the use of those games as an alternative way to teach synonyms and antonyms is recommended. through this technique, teachers are expected to be able to increase students’ interest and motivation in learning synonym and antonym. © 2015 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: bitha.susanto@gmail.com issn 2252-6706 bitha pracandra ramadhani susanto / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 2 introduction when we talk about vocabulary, we usually mean words. however, there are multiple aspects of vocabulary knowledge that learners must master. two of them are synonym and antonym. more specifically talking about two aspects of vocabulary; synonym and antonym, they become one of the most favorite subjects in reading comprehension test in indonesia. however, based on my experiences, teachers tended to teach vocabulary in general. they did not teach its parts such as synonym and antonym specifically. commonly, they only gave their students the translation of a difficult word. they slightly gave the synonym or antonym of a word after it appeared in the test. moreover, they did not use any special medium or technique to teach synonym and antonym. in line with this, webb (2007: 120) states, . . . students tend to learn the majority of synonyms in the later stages of vocabulary learning, and researchers are more focused on the earlier stages of vocabulary learning, which are critical to language acquisition. moreover, in the classroom, teachers and learners might be more motivated to teach and learn words that convey new information rather than teaching and learning forms that convey information similar to what learners already know. based on the statement above, there is a consideration that vocabulary is more important than synonym and antonym. therefore, it is not surprising if the media and techniques in teaching synonym and antonym are not as many as those in teaching vocabulary. whereas, effective techniques and media are also needed in teaching synonym and antonym since they are parts of vocabulary. therefore, i would like to find out an alternative and interesting way to teach synonym and antonym to students by conducting a research. in this research, i choose bingo domino games as the techniques. games can become initial learning and reinforcement of materials. by using games, students are expected to get immersed in a lesson without realizing they are learning something. in brief, i intend to conduct a classroom action research in order to prove that bingo domino games can improve students’ mastery of english synonym and antonym. i hope bingo domino games will give positive effect to students’ mastery of english synonym and antonym. method of investigation the subjects of this study were the students of class viiia of smp negeri 3 maos in the academic year 2013/2014. class viiia is one of the six first grade classes in smp negeri 3 maos. it consists of 22 female and 18 male students. therefore, there are 40 students in this class. the purpose of this research is to measure students’ mastery of synonyms and antonyms by using bingo and domino games in the teaching and learning process. therefore, the object of this study was english words. specifically, the words which were used were those that have synonym and antonym pairs. to collect those data, three instruments were used. the first was tests; they were be used to record the students’ mastery of synonyms and antonyms. the second was observation checklists; they were used to record the students’ participation during the treatments. the last instrument was questionnaire; it was used to record the students’ opinion toward the treatments. the first step before conducting a research was identifying a problem. there were four main activities which were conducted in this study; initial pre-test, cycle 1, cycle 2, and final post-test. in addition, based on burns (2010: 8) there were also four steps in this study. those activities and steps are explained as follows: problem identification the students’ behavior in their english class was observed to find their synonym and antonym problem. their english teacher was also interviewed and some additional information bitha pracandra ramadhani susanto / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 3 about them such as their previous english scores was collected. to find out whether the students really had problem in synonym and antonym mastery, initial pre-test was given to them. the findings of the observation and ipt were the foundation in conducting the treatment. initial pre-test (ipt) the first activity in this action research was giving the students ipt. this test was conducted before starting any cycle. in this test, the students had to give the appropriate synonym and antonym of the 32 selected words. cycle 1 planning at this stage, all the preparations of teaching activities, such as organizing the material, preparing the games, making the instruments, and making the lesson plan, were planned and arranged. acting after the planning was done, the next activity was acting. it consisted of three steps. they were pre-test, treatment, and post-test. those steps are described in the next sub-chapter below: giving cycle 1 pre-test the pre-test was given at the beginning of each cycle. the students were asked to answer a half of questions in the ipt. the aim of this test was to measure students’ initial ability mastering synonym and antonym. giving treatment a treatment was conducted after the pretest was given. the treatment followed these steps: (1) the students were given a text in order to make them aware of synonym and antonym; (2) some words were taken from the text, then the students were asked to mention the synonym or the antonym of the words; (3) the students paid attention to the teacher’s explanation about the synonym and antonym; (4) the teacher gave more examples of synonym and antonym; (5) the students were introduced to the bingo domino games; (6) the rules of bingo domino games were explained; and (7) the teacher conducted the games. giving cycle 1 post-test the post-test was held after the treatment was given. it was used to find out the students’ improvement after they experienced the treatment. the students were asked to answer the same questions as those in the pre-test. observing at the observing stage, students’ attitudes during the teaching and learning process were observed by giving the check mark () in the prepared checklist. reflecting reflecting was the last stage in cycle 1. at this stage, the students’ achievement was evaluated by analyzing the pre-test, the post-test, and the observation checklist. the next cycle would not be conducted if the result of this cycle was satisfying and no additional treatment was needed. cycle 2 cycle 1 and cycle 2 were almost similar. cycle 2 would have four stages as the cycle 1 had. the difference between them was in the material. the material which was taught and tested in the cycle 2 was the other half of the total words in the ipt. in addition, at the observation stage of the cycle 2, the questionnaire would be given in order to find out the students’ opinions towards the learning process. bitha pracandra ramadhani susanto / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 4 final post-test (fpt) fpt was given after the first and the second cycle were done. all the materials that were given in both cycles were being tested. the result of fpt and ipt were compared in order to observe students’ improvement. then, the tests comparison, and the observation of the students’ attitude were considered as the complementary evaluation of the research. discussion initial pre-test (ipt) the students’ mean of ipt was 33.09. meanwhile, the english mastery learning score in the school was 70. it means that there was no student who achieved the passing grade. this result answers the first research question which was ‘do students have difficulty in finding synonym and antonym of a word?’ the students have difficulty in finding synonym and antonym of a word. therefore, an action research was needed to improve the students’ mastery in synonyms and antonyms. cycle 1 pre-test cycle 1 post-test recorded the ability of the students in mastering the synonyms and antonyms of the first half of ipt. the result of this test was not satisfying. their mean score (40.55) was low. the low result of cycle 1 pre-test supported the finding in ipt. the students’ mastery of synonym and antonym was poor. because of that, the first treatment was given to the students. cycle 1 post-test the mean score after the first treatment was 86.09. if we compare this result with that of cycle 1 pre-test, we can see a significant improvement. the mean score in cycle 1 post-test (86.09) is higher than that of cycle 1 pre-test (40.55). however, although the result was quite good and 85% of the students passed the passing grade, there were six students who failed in this test. they were s-9, s-10, s-18, s-23, s-28, and s40. because of their failure, they were given an additional treatment before cycle 2 was conducted. in the additional treatment, those students were divided into two groups and conducted the games once again. after the additional treatment was given, the remedial test was held by re-testing the cycle 1 post-test. the samples of students’ worksheets and their scoring table are provided in appendix 15 and 16. meanwhile, the comparison of their scores before and after the additional treatment is presented in the following table: the comparison of the students’ score students’ code cycle 1 post-test remedial test achieved point score achieved point score s-9 21 65.63 30 93.75 s-10 19 59.38 28 87.50 s-18 20 62.50 29 90.63 s-23 20 62.50 32 100.00 s-28 18 56.25 32 100.00 s-40 22 68.75 30 93.75 total 98 375.00 181 565.63 mean 62.50 94.27 bitha pracandra ramadhani susanto / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 5 the average score of those six students in cycle 1 post-test was 62.50. meanwhile in the remedial test, their mean score increased to 94.27. none of their scores was lower than 70. by referring to the result, all of the students were considered to have mastered the synonym and antonym of the words in cycle 1. therefore, the next cycle could be conducted. cycle 2 pre-test the mean score of this test was 25.63. it means that the students’ initial ability in mastering the synonym and antonym of the words in cycle 2 did not meet the mastery learning score. this result was even lower than that of cycle 1 pre-test (33.09). it might be because the material in the cycle 2 was considered more difficult that that of cycle 1. based on this result, the second treatment was needed to be conducted. cycle 2 post-test there was an improvement after the second treatment was given. the students’ mean score increased from 25.63 in pre-test to 87.34 in the post-test. the mean score in cycle 2 post-test indicates that there was no student who got lower than 70. therefore, the additional treatment was not needed to be conducted because all students had passed the mastery learning score. final post-test (fpt) because all students were considered successful in the cycle 2 post-test, i decided to end the cycles and conduct the final post-test (fpt). in fpt, their mean score was 86.95. this mean score was higher than that of ipt (33.09). the result proved that all of the students successfully passed the test since their scores were above the mastery learning score. cycle 1 observation checklist the results of cycle 1 observation checklist will be discussed in the following paragraphs. the first aspect of the checklist showed that all of the students attended the class. thus, the mean of this aspect was one and categorized into very high. then, in the second aspect, there were more than a half of the students who were motivated in the teaching and learning process. therefore, that aspect was categorized into high. the next three aspects were categorized into low. they were students’ activeness, obedience, and attention. those results might be because the students were still at the adaptation stage of the new teaching and learning process. however, in the sixth aspect, they showed high interest towards the games. the mean of this aspect was 0.75. it was quite normal since children basically love games. lastly, in the seventh aspect, they showed that they could cooperate well with their friends in group activities. it was proven by the mean of the seventh aspect which was 0.55. cycle 2 observation checklist the result of cycle 2 observation checklist was better than that of cycle 1 observation checklist. the improvement of each category in cycle 2 observation checklist will be described in the following chart: bitha pracandra ramadhani susanto / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 6 the comparison of cycle 1 and cycle 2 observation checklist 0 0,25 0,5 0,75 1 1 0,63 0,38 0,45 0,5 0,75 0,55 1 0,83 0,65 0,73 0,6 0,88 0,68 m ea n s co re cycle 1 cycle 2 bitha pracandra ramadhani susanto / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 7 from the chart above, we can see that in the first aspect, the students’ attendance was perfect. all students attended the class. next, the students’ mean score in the motivation aspect increased from 0.63 to 0.83. in the activeness aspect, the mean score had increased to 0.65, while that of the attention aspect had increased to 0.73. then, students’ obedience improved from 0.5 to 0.6. for the students’ interest aspect, the mean score in cycle 2 observation checklist (0.88) is higher than that of cycle 1 observation checklist (0.75). in the last aspect, students’ cooperation ability increased from 0.55 to 0.68. based on comparison of the students’ attitude in the two cycles, the students’ attitude improved positively. the results indicate that the use of bingo domino games was favorable in improving their mastery of english synonym and antonym. questionnaire there were five questions that represented the indicators in the questionnaire. the discussion of each indicator is presented in the following paragraphs. the first indicator shows the very high level of students’ interest towards bingo domino games in teaching and learning process. it was proven by 11 students who chose very like and 29 students who chose like. moreover, there was no student who chose the option d and e which represent less like and did not like. the second indicator was aimed to find out how often the students heard the words which were used in the material. mostly, the students chose option c which represents ever. the mean of this indicator was 2.43. thus, the relevancy of the material was high. the students’ opinions towards the level of difficulty of the material were measured in the third indicator. according to the table, 1 student chose very difficult, 6 students chose difficult, 26 students chose difficult enough, and 7 students chose not difficult at all. the average of this indicator is 2.03. it means that the material was difficult enough for the students. the next indicator was intended to find out students’ responses of whether or not the use of bingo domino games could help their synonym and antonym mastery. from the table, we can see that half of the students chose very helpful, sixteen of them chose helpful, three of them chose rather helpful, and only one student who said not helpful at all. the mean of this indicator is 3.38. it means that the games could give a great help to the students to improve their synonym and antonym mastery. the last indicator was to measure the sustainability of the technique. the students were asked whether or not this technique is needed to be applied in the future. in the result, 9 students chose very necessary, 28 students chose necessary, 2 students chose less necessary, and 1 student chose not necessary. the mean of this indicator is 3.13. by referring to this result, it is necessary for the game to be applied in learning synonym and antonym. conclusions and suggestions conclusions the subjects of the study had problem in mastering english synonym and antonym. it was proven by their low results in the ipt. they could only answer 847 words from the total 2560 words. thus, their mean score was 33.09. after the study was conducted, the students showed significant improvement. bitha pracandra ramadhani susanto / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 8 the students mean score increased from 33.09 in the ipt to 86.95 in the fpt. the use of bingo domino games was favorable in teaching synonym and antonym. based on the observation checklist, the students’ attitude was positive. moreover, as recorded in the questionnaire, the students expressed that the technique was helpful for them in mastering synonym and antonym and had high possibility to be conducted in the near future. suggestions first, teachers are expected to give their students words in synonym and antonym relation during the teaching and learning process. the mastery of synonym and antonym will enrich their vocabulary and improve their language skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing). second, this study is expected to be an alternative and proper way for teachers to teach synonym and antonym. in this case, teachers may use bingo domino games so that the students will enjoy the learning process. third, for the researchers, this study can be a good reference for those who want to conduct a similar kind of research. references burns, anne. 2010. doing action research in english language teaching: a guide for practitioners. new york: routledge. webb, stuart. 2007. the effects of synonymy on second-language vocabulary learning. reading in a foreign language.19/2:120-136. available at http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/rfl/october2007/web b/webb.html [accessed on 17/02/2014]. bailey. 2005. practical english language teaching speaking. new york: mc. graw hill. design of classroom action research (adapted from kemmis and mctaggart in arikunto, 2006) suprijono.2009. cooperative learning. yogyakarta: pustaka bealajar. hopkins, d. 1985. a teachers guide to classroom research. philadelpia: open university press. brown, h. douglas. 2004. language assessment: principles and classroom practices. united states of america: pearson education, inc. celce, m dan murcia. 2001. teaching english as a second or foreign language (3rd ed). united states of america: heinle & heinle, a division of thomson, inc. http://pubs.cde.ca.gov/tcsii/documentlibrary/ characteristicsmg.aspx (accessed on 10 september 2014) http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/cooperative /techniques.html (accessed on 11 september 2014) http://area.dgidc.minedu.pt/gramatica/whatspeakingis.ht m (accessed on 11 september 2014) http://www.cal.org/caela/esl_resources/diges ts/speak.html (accessed on 11 september 2014) florez.1999. improving adult english language learners’ speaking skill. eric diget.in http://www.ericdigests.org/20003/adult.htmf (accessed on 11 september 2014) normayulita, a.n. 2011. the use of puppets as media in teaching transactional and interpersonal conversation ( an action research at the eight graders of smp negeri 1 slawi in the academic year of 2010 / 2011 ). bitha pracandra ramadhani susanto / journal of english language teaching 4 (1) (2015) 9 maharani, lutfiana tyas. 2014. improving students’ skill in writing descriptive text by using four square writing method (a classroom action research at grade viii students of smp negeri 1 alian in the academic year of 2014/2015). 1 elt forum 5 (2) (2016) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt english digital talking books as media to teach narrative writing ainul hufron novia trisanti, s.pd., m.pd english department. faculty of languages and arts. state university of semarang. aticle info ________________ article history: received in april 2016 approved in april 2016 published in may 2016 ________________ keywords: english digital talking books; simple brochure; writing; narrative text; experimental study. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ there are many studies have been conducted to investigate the use of talking book, but not with the digital talking book. in other words, the use of digital talking book has not been widely prevalent among the efl learners. this study investigated whether there is any significant differences on the students’ writing achievement between those who are taught by using english digital talking books and those who are taught by using simple brochure as media. the population of the study was the twelfth grade students of sma n 1 comal, pemalang, in the academic year of 2014/2015). there were 80 students, divided into two groups of 40, participated in this quasi experimental study as experimental and control group. the result of t-test showed that the difference between the students who were taught using english digital talking books and those who were taught using simple brochures can’t be seen significantly. it also showed that in this study, english digital talking books were more effective than simple brochures to improve students’ ability in writing a narrative text. © 2016 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: ainoel20@gmail.com issn 2252-6706 ainul hufron / journal of english language teaching 5 (2) (2016) 2 introduction background of the study as one of the four language skills that should be mastered by english language learners, writing is a very different skill because it is needed to choose the words and phrases, and then somehow put them all in a good order. one of the common problems faced by students is the question about what things to write. it happens even when they are about to start their writing. therefore, media are needed in teaching and learning process to make students easier in writing. media are important thing to attract the students’ attention and motivation that can help them develop their creativity and imagination in expressing their idea. related to media, arsyad (2004: 4) states that learning medium, in general is a component of learning resources or a physical vehicle containing instructional material in the students’ environment, which is able to stimulate the students to learn. dealing with the use of audiovisual aid as media in teaching, stemplesky (1990:3-4) states about the importance of a moving picture component as a language teaching aid which is able to increase the students’ motivation. children and adults feel their interest quicken when language is experienced in a lively way through television and video. furthermore, berk (2009) stated that video materials can draw on the learners’ multiple intelligences and learning styles to maximize their understanding. when videos and multimedia learning are combined, an empirical basis is provided for the use of videos in teaching languages. this study investigated the use and the effectiveness of english digital talking books as media to teach english writing, especially narrative text. there are some previous studies which are relevant to teaching english using audiovisual media: hanik (2009) studied the use of an animated film entitled “garfield the movie” to improve the students’ ability in writing narrative texts. this final project is an experimental study to answer the question of how an animated film entitled “garfield the movie” is used in teaching writing narrative text. the result of the research showed that the use of the animated film entitled “garfield the movie” in teaching writing narrative text was effective. besides, the film can attract the students’ attention in learning process. mathew and alidmat (2013) investigated the usefulness of audio-visual aids in efl classroom at undergraduate level at aljouf university, saudi arabia. the findings of this investigation suggest that using audio-visuals as a teaching method stimulates thinking and improves learning environment in a classroom. shahani and tahriri (2015) investigated the effect of silent and freeze-frame viewing techniques of video materials on the intermediate english as a foreign language (efl) learners’ listening comprehension. the results of this quasi-experimental study revealed that there was a statistically significant difference between the experimental groups (using two types of viewing techniques) and the control group (using written materials). nurani (2012) studied the effectiveness of using video to improve students’ writing skill of news item text. the result showed that there was a significant difference on students’ writing achievement between students who were taught news item text using video and those who are taught news item text using pictures. another study was conducted by olivianti (2011). it was an action research that aimed to find an interesting and effective way in learning narrative. she used written story in the first cycle and a film in the second cycle. the result showed that there was a significant difference in the achievement of students’ writing before and after using the audio-visual aid. it was proven by the significant difference between the average score of the pre-test (60.68) and the average score of the post-test (78.54). dealing with the media, digital talking book is an audiovisual aid developed from conventional talking book. according to cambridge advanced learner’s dictionary, talking book is a spoken recording of a book, used especially by blind people. the english digital talking books used in this research are published by appuseries. it’s a ainul hufron / journal of english language teaching 5 (2) (2016) 3 weblog managed by media fusion. the appuseries has a wealth of content for kids that not only helps them learn about the world around them but also helps in better retention of these lessons by mixing learning with multimedia entertainment. method of the study the writer used quasi-experimental method with the design “pre-test post-test nonequivalent groups”. according to hartoyo (2002), with this design, both a control and an experimental group are compared. however, the groups are chosen and assigned out of convenience rather than through randomization. this might be the method of choice for our study on work experience as it would be difficult to choose students in a school setting at random and place them in specific group and classes. those students who participated would be our treatment group; those who did not would be our control group. the design of the experiment can be described as the following: e non r 01 x 02 c non r 03 y 04 it involved an experimental group, a control group, and treatments in collecting data. the two groups were taught with the same topic but using different media. the experimental group was taught using english digital talking book. meanwhile, the control group was taught using simple brochure or leaflet. the study involved 80 students, divided into two groups of 40, at the twelfth grade of sma negeri 1 comal, pemalang, in the academic year of 2014/2015. i took xii ipa 1 as the experimental group and xii ipa 2 as the control group. in collecting data, two kinds of instruments were used. the first was writing test consisted of try-out test, pre-test and post-test. it was used as an instrument to collect data because writing is a productive skill. the other instrument was questionnaire. it was used to find out the effectiveness of the media dealing with the students’ motivation and attitude to english teaching learning. questionnaire design used in this research was closed-ended questions. there were two questionnaires given only to students of experimental group. the first one was given in the beginning of the study, before introducing the strategies (pre-test) and the second questionnaire was carried out in the end of the study (post-test). some steps which are done in a chronologic order are always required in conducting an experiment. in collecting data, the writer firstly chose the twelfth grade students of sma n 1 comal as the population based on the following consideration: (1) after i checked the average scores of the population on english subject, xii ipa 1 and xii ipa 2 were in the same level or quality in english achievement. there was no significant difference between their scores. (2) in addition, after i consulted to the english teacher, he approved it and also recommended those two classes as the samples of the experiment. the next step was taking two groups which had the same characters consisting of 40 students for each group from the population as the sample of the experiment. i chose xii science 1 as the experimental group and xii science 2 as the control group. the third step was conducting try out test and the first questionnaire with the purpose of finding out the appropriateness and the reliability of the instrument. it was followed by giving the pre-test to measure the dependent variable before the treatment. after scoring the result of the pre-test and analyzing them, the writer applying the experiment by giving the treatments for both groups. the students of two groups were given the same material about narrative text but the students in the control group were taught without using english digital talking book as a media. the ainul hufron / journal of english language teaching 5 (2) (2016) 4 next step was giving the post-test and the second questionnaire, scoring the result of the post-test and analyzing them followed by calculating the means of the result (pre-test post test) of the two groups, comparing the difference between the result of the pre-test and the post-test, and applying the t-test to analyze whether the difference was significant or not. finally, the writer drew the conclusion from the result. research finding and discussion in this part, the result and the analyses of the pre-test, post-test, first and second questionnaire will be presented. pre-test finding pre-test is the test that is held before giving the treatments. it was conducted on thursday, november 20, 2014. the average score of the control group was 61.30 and the experimental group was 62.10. it meant that the students’ achievement of the control and the experimental groups was relatively the same before the treatments were given. it was proven by the t-test formula. the number of subjects in this study for the control and the experimental groups were 80 with the degree of freedom (df) = 78, that was nx + ny 2 = 78. at the 5% (0.05) alpha level of significance, t-value for the pre-test that was obtained was 0.277. the t-test for equality of means yielded sig. (2-tailed) value of 0.782 which was higher than α level of 0.05 (0.782 > 0.05). therefore, it could be concluded that there was no significant difference between the mean score of the two groups in the pre-test at 5% significance level with 78 degrees of freedom. below is the chart of the students’ average score which covers five components of writing. the average scores result of the pre-test post-test finding the post-test was conducted on tuesday, december 02, 2014. the purpose of this test was to find out the students’ ability in writing narrative text after the treatments were given. the post-test average score of the control group was 70.70 and the experimental group was 74.90. it showed that the achievement of the experimental group was higher than the control group in the post-test. however, there was no significant difference between those two groups’ achievement. it was proven by the t-test formula. the number of subjects was 80 with the degree of freedom (df) = 78, that was nx + ny 2 = 78. at the 5% (0.05) alpha level of significance, and t-value that was obtained was 0.943. the t-test for equality of means yielded sig. (2-tailed) value of 0.068 which was higher than α level of 0.05 (0.068 > 0.05). it meant that ho (there was no significant difference between mean score of control and experimental group in 0 0,5 1 1,5 2 2,5 3 3,5 4 control group experimental group ainul hufron / journal of english language teaching 5 (2) (2016) 5 the pre-test) should be accepted. therefore, it could be concluded that there was no significant difference between the mean score of the two groups in the post-test at 5% significance level with 78 degrees of freedom. below is the chart of the students’ average score which covers five components of writing. the average score of the post-test difference between the two means it was hypothesized that the difference occurs. to measure the significance of the pre-test and the post-test, the t-test was used. in this case, the researcher used manual statistical computation. the number of subjects in this study for the control and experimental groups were 80 with the degree of freedom (df) = 78, that was nx + ny 2 = 78. at the 5% (0.05) alpha level of significance, the obtained t-value was 0.94 and t-table was 2.00, so the t-value is lower than t-table. it means that there is no significant difference between the two means. it meant that ho (there was no significant difference between mean score of control and experimental group in the pre-test) should also be accepted. therefore, it could be concluded that there the difference between the mean score of the two groups in the post-test at 5% significance level with 78 degrees of freedom can’t be seen significantly. analysis of the first questionnaire the result of the first questionnaire revealed that the students’ attitude toward the english narrative writing still needed improvement. they had realized the importance of learning english narrative writing. however, they felt that it was a difficult task to do writing. it can be seen from their responses to the forth question. they thought that their writing ability was not the same with their expectation. although the class ran relatively well, there was still something can be done to improve the quality of the learning process. since more than half of the class was not so interested in learning english narrative writing, an interesting technique or medium is needed to draw their interest and attention in learning process. from the next questions, it can be concluded that the students had a high interest to learn english narrative writing through audiovisual media. therefore, it was expected that they could improve their ability in writing, especially in producing narrative text. analysis of the second questionnaire the result of the second questionnaire showed that the implementation of the treatments had made the students changed their perception toward writing, improve their ability, and create more comfortable and enjoyable learning activities. the students had also felt the benefit of learning by using audiovisual media as they 0 0,5 1 1,5 2 2,5 3 3,5 4 control group experimental group ainul hufron / journal of english language teaching 5 (2) (2016) 6 admitted they had been satisfied with their writing result. moreover, they also considered the use of it was quite needed to help improving their ability in learning english, especially in writing narrative. the other thing to be considered is the process in choosing and applying audiovisual media which should be done creatively, carefully, and effectively to make them helpful in the learning process. discussion of the research findings the aim of the test is to investigate whether there is any significant difference of the students’ achievement in writing narrative text taught using simple brochure in control group and english digital talking book in experimental group as media at the twelfth grade students of sma negeri 1 comal, pemalang in the academic year of 2014/2015. in the pre-test, the average scores of the control and the experimental groups were 61.30 and 62.10. from the pre-test, it can be said that the ability of the two groups was relatively the same. from the scores, it can be concluded that the two groups were homogenous, because there was only slight difference in the pre-test result between the control group and the second one (experimental group). after receiving the treatment, the average score of the experimental group was higher than the control group. the experimental group got 74.90 and the control group got 70.70. providing students with english digital talking book made an upgrading in their writing ability more than just giving them simple brochure. it can be seen in the average of each aspect both in the pre-test and the post-test section below. average of each aspect both in pre-test and post-test of the control group aspect pre-test post-test grammar 3.10 3.45 vocabulary 3.23 3.48 mechanic 3.08 3.38 relevance 2.95 3.70 fluency 2.98 3.68 average of each aspect both in pre and post-test of the experimental group aspect pre-test post-test grammar 3.13 3.58 vocabulary 3.20 3.58 mechanic 3.30 3.90 relevance 3.00 3.90 fluency 2.90 3.78 from both of the tables above, it can be seen that the students’ writing narrative ability which were taught using english digital talking book and simple brochure showed an improvement. however, mean the post-test score of the experimental group of each aspect was higher than the post-test score of the control group. the increasing ability involving the whole aspects of the components of writing: grammar, vocabulary, mechanic, relevance and fluency. from the pre-test finding, the students’ grammar was still weak, most of them (in both groups), translated words from indonesian into english. they did not understand how to produce some english sentences into a good structure. it was revealed that they forgot about simple past tense and passive voice. they did not change verb 1 into verb 2. although they have been xii grade senior high school students, most of them did not use the form of “to be” for past tense properly. they also forgot about plural forms, and other small grammar errors. after getting treatments using english digital talking book as the media, on average, students’ grammar ability of the experimental group (3.58) improved more than the students’ which were taught using simple brochure (3.45). the second writing aspect is vocabulary. in the pre-test, the students in both groups used some inappropriate words for showing ideas in their writing and as stated above, most of them translated words from indonesian into english. they sometimes looked up in their dictionary (most of them used alfalink – an electronic dictionary) then use the translation inappropriately to the context. in the post-test, for students of the two groups, their vocabulary improved because they had been taught more about narrative stories and vocabularies. ainul hufron / journal of english language teaching 5 (2) (2016) 7 the next aspect is mechanic. the students’ spelling ability was also weak. most students, in both groups, typed some english words incorrectly, for example: they wrote hapily or happyli instead of happily. another word was beautiful which was written as beautifull or beautiful. dealing with the grammar problem, many students typed verbs in the participle or past-participle incorrectly. the next problem was the use of articles “a” and “the” where many students did it inappropriately. i.e, “once upon a time, there lived the clever deer in the very thick forrest”. article “the” in “the clever deer” should be article of “a” because it was the beginning (introduction) stage. after they were explained the way how to spell those words and some others, they could write them correctly in the treatments and post-test. the last two writing aspects were the worst compared to the other aspects. the students’ ability in relevance aspect was so poor in the pretest. they lacked of understanding of how to give appropriate title, to make effective introductory paragraph, lead to body, or give supporting evidence for generalizations. some of them, even, did not give the title for their texts. after providing them with english digital talking book completed with the help of explanation from the teacher, the students of the experimental group were better in organizing their ideas compared to the control group. talking about the fluency (content), there was a significant difference between the content of students’ writing in the pretest and the posttest for both of control and experimental group. in the pretest, they did not have any sources what they have to write, except their own prior knowledge about the topic. so, they only produced very simple sentences. it made the writing rather confusing to be understood. after getting treatment, the content of students’ writing was improved. the english digital talking book provided them much more needed information related to the topic than the simple brochure did. therefore, they produced more sentences. based on the statistical computation from the writing test result, it can be seen that there was no significant difference on the students’ achievement between those who were taught writing narrative using english digital talking books and those who were taught using simple brochure as the media. the computation result also told us that there was strong evidence that the teaching using english digital talking book improved the students’ marks on writing narrative text. in the computation, it improved marks, on average, by approximately 12.80 points. it can be concluded that english digital talking book was effective to be used as a medium in teaching narrative writing, although it was not significant. from the questionnaire, we could see that the implementation of the treatments had made the students changed their perception toward writing, improve their ability, and create more comfortable and enjoyable learning activities. the students had also felt the benefit of learning by using audiovisual media as they admitted they had been satisfied with their writing result. moreover, they also considered the use of it was quite needed to help improving their ability in learning english, especially in writing narrative. the other thing to be considered is the process in choosing and applying audiovisual media which should be done creatively, carefully, and effectively to make them helpful in the learning process. conclusion as the result indicated, the difference on students’ writing narrative text achievement between those who were taught using english digital talking book and those who were taught using simple brochure as media can’t be seen significantly. however, based on the mean of pretest and post-test score of each group, the use of both english digital talking book and simple brochure improved the students’ achievements in writing narrative text. the result also revealed that the experimental group performed better than the control group in their post-test. thus, the writer come to the conclusion that even though it can’t be seen significantly, the use of english digital talking book still yielded a better improvement of the students’ writing narrative ainul hufron / journal of english language teaching 5 (2) (2016) 8 text ability and was more effective to be used in teaching writing narrative text. english digital talking books could be suggested as an interesting media in teaching writing narrative text because they are able to attract not only the students’ attention but also their willingness to learn writing. next, the use of english digital talking books could also help teachers to find another way in teaching especially in writing narrative text and will trigger them to improve their teaching methods so that they can make their students more motivated to write english text since they need enjoyable and not monotonous teaching-learning activities and finally improve the students’ achievements in their writing ability. then, using short text is suggested because students sometimes feel bored listening to teacher’s explanation. also, the text should be easy to be understood by the students so they can easily make the reconstruction text. finally, it is hoped that the result of this research will be useful for readers. this research also can be used as one of the references for the next researchers who want to conduct deeper research by using all various kinds of media including english digital talking book. they are also expected to be able to cover the limitation in this study and provide more detailed information about this study. references arsyad, a. 2004. media pembelajaran. jakarta: pt. raja grafindo persada berk, i. a. (2009). multimedia teaching with video clips: tv, movies, and mtvu in the college classroom. international journal of technology in teaching and learning, 5, 1-21. hanik, s. u. 2009. the use of an animated film entitled “garfield the movie” to improve the students’ ability in writing narrative texts. final project english department fbs unnes. hartoyo. 2009. introduction to linguistics research. semarang. mathew, n. g., & alidmat, a. o. h. 2013. a study on the usefulness of audio-visual aids in efl classroom: implications for effective instruction. international journal of higher education, (online), vol. 2, no. 2. http://www.sciedu.ca/journal/index.php/ijh e/article/viewfile/2737/1607, [accessed on 7 august 2014] nurani, a. d. k. s. 2012. the effectiveness of using video to improve students’ writing skill of news item text. final project english department fbs unnes. olivianti, t. z. 2011. using camp rock film as a medium in teaching writing narrative text an action research at eleventh grade of sma negeri 1 pegandon in the academic year of 2010/2011. final project english department fbs unnes. shahani, s., & tahriri, a. 2015. the impact of silent and freeze-frame viewing techniques of video materials on the intermediate efl learners’ listening comprehension. online. available at http://sgo.sagepub.com/content/spsgo/5/2/ 2158244015585999.full.pdf [accessed on 9 september, 2015] stemplesky, s., & tomalin, b. 1990. video in action. new york: prentice hall. http://www.sciedu.ca/journal/index.php/ijhe/article/viewfile/2737/1607 http://www.sciedu.ca/journal/index.php/ijhe/article/viewfile/2737/1607 http://sgo.sagepub.com/content/spsgo/5/2/2158244015585999.full.pdf http://sgo.sagepub.com/content/spsgo/5/2/2158244015585999.full.pdf 1 elt forum 5 (2) (2016) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt errors made in google translate in the indonesian to english translations of news item texts adam ismail dr. rudi hartono, s.s., m.pd. english department. faculty of languages and arts. state university of semarang. aticle info ________________ article history: received in april 2016 approved in april 2016 published in may 2016 ________________ keywords: translation errors, google translate, news item texts ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ the objective of this study was to describe the errors made in the indonesian to english google translate translations of news item texts. this study employed five english translations of indonesian news item texts taken from (1) bbc.com, (2) kompas.com, (3) liputan6.com, (4) tempo.co, and (5) viva.co.id made by using google translate. those samples were taken by using purposive sampling technique. the categorization of translation errors were adapted from dewi’s indonesian-english translation error typology. the errors can occur in the words, phrases, clauses, and sentences of the texts. the data gathered were analyzed descriptively by using qualitative approach. the findings of the analysis showed that there were 13 categories of translation errors obtained from 278 data. ranking from the most common to the least common errors found in the data, they were grammatical errors (24.46%), terminology errors (15.47%), omission errors (14.03%), syntax errors (12.23%), mistranslation/misunderstanding errors (6.47%), literalness/faithfulness errors (6.47%), usage errors (6.12%), punctuation errors (3.60%), addition errors (2.88%), ambiguity errors (2.52%), word form errors (2.52%), capitalization errors (2.16%), and spelling errors (1.08%). the data findings also showed that statistical method of google translate, the inability of google translate to understand the contexts of the texts beyond sentence, and errors in the source texts that carried into translation errors in the target texts were the causes of translation errors found in the data. © 2016 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: adamfrenzy@gmail.com issn 2252-6706 adam ismail / journal of english language teaching 5 (2) (2016) 2 introduction background of the study nowadays, english is considered as international language due to the impact of globalization. in the process of understanding english, translation is needed. according to catford (1965:20), translation is the replacement of textual material in one language (sl) by equivalent textual material in another language (tl). its uses can be found in the translation of textbooks, state documents, literary works, bilingual books, business documents, journals or scientific works, and so forth. hence, because of its vital role, translation can offer a solution to overcome language gap in communication. indonesian people often use internet in their daily life. one of the tools on the internet that can help them in the translation process is google translate service. google translate is a convenient tool that offers free instant translation service on the web. it can be utilized to translate words, clauses, sentences, paragraphs, and even a web page between any pairs of supported languages. moreover, it can also be utilized to minimize time and effort to do translation tasks because the translation results are instantly generated. the translator is also helped with the easiness and availability of google translate, which are online and accessible to anyone and anytime for free with internet connection. meanwhile, the use of google translate to translate has brought some issues. some translators might use google translate blatantly without any revising effort on its translation, which leads to some underwhelming translation results. google translate itself also has limitation, that when translating complex sentences, it would sometimes resulted in inaccurate translation. there is an opinion that using google translate to do the translation work is too narrow-minded and easy because anyone can copy the text to the google translate, choose the language, and press the translate button. even, anyone who does not have any proficiency in both source and target language is able to do it. despite of those issues, the use of google translate to do the translation works is indeed fast and can bring an instant overview of translation result. from those issues, there comes an idea of analyzing the errors in translation results of certain type of text by using google translate. one type of text, which is very familiar in daily life, is news item text. news item texts can be found in newspapers, magazines, blogs, news websites, etc. utilizing google translate to translate news item texts is also popular due to the need of fast information updates in the society in a form of translating foreign news into local language that can be understood by local people and vice versa. thus, this research was employed to find and explain errors in google translate’s translation results of news item texts from indonesia to english. research metodology this study was a descriptive qualitative research, and it presented the data with a content analysis method. according to moleong (2010: 6), qualitative study is a study which has the goal to understand the subject of the study in the descriptive way. according to mujiyanto (2011: 23), qualitative approach tried to reveal the phenomenon comprehensively and appropriately with the context trough the natural data collection, employing the researcher as key instrument of the study. in line with mujiyanto, according to sutopo (2002:39) qualitative study employs the inductive analysis which is not meant to support or to reject the hypothesis, unlike in quantitative study. moreover, according to arikunto (2006: 343), drawing a conclusion in qualitative study can be done by comparing data with the certain given criteria such as equal, less equal and unequal. in addition, the data of qualitative study can also be analyzed trough simple statistical analysis in the form of ratio. purposive sampling technique was used to select the sample of news item texts. purposive sampling techniques involve selecting certain unit or cases based on a specific purpose rather than randomly (tashakkori & teddlie, 2003: 713). 180-240 words was decided as the total words range for news items texts used in this study. it was decided so that the sample texts would not be adam ismail / journal of english language teaching 5 (2) (2016) 3 very short or very long to analyze. a total of five texts, each with 180-240 total words, were chosen among five indonesian news websites. they were taken from (1) bbc.com, (2) kompas.com, (3) liputan6.com, (4) tempo.co, and (5) viva.co.id. the texts were labeled from text a to text e. the decision of taking five news item texts as the sample size was taken because of the limited time and resources of the study. the five news item texts were then translated into english by using google translate. i inputted the content of each text as a whole, instead of partially inputted the sentences one by one into google translate. it was done in order to make sure that google translate translated the content of the text cohesively and coherently. after google translate translation proccess was done, five indonesian news item texts and their english translations counterpart were obtained. the first step in data analysis was comparing the source and target texts to identify some translation errors based on the indonesianenglish translation error typology. translation error typology from dewi (2015) is chosen to be used in this study. dewi’s translation error typology is used in this study because it is based on her adjustment of american translation associaton (ata) framework for specific indonesia-english language pair (2002). the errors include terminology, usage, syntax, mistranslation/misunderstanding, literalness/faithfulness, ambiguity, omission, addition, capitalization, punctuation, grammatical, and word form errors. translation errors can occur in the words, phrases, clauses, or sentences of the target texts. to list the errors, translation errors tables were used. the format of the table can be seen below: table 1. format of translation errors table no. source text target text categories of errors comments 1. ... ... ... ... 2. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... the sentences from source and target texts were inputted into source text and target text columns. words, phrases, clauses, and sentences that contained the errors were bold marked for the clear presentation of the errors occurrences. each sentence from the source and target texts could be inputted more than once, because multiple errors could be occured in a single sentence. the researcher decided not to just input words/phrases/clauses into the tables because the errors could be understood clearer when they were written on their respective contexts. the categories of errors occurred were inputted on the categories of errors column. brief explanations of the errors were inputted on the comments column. as there were five source texts and their target texts counterpart, five translation errors tables were made. the whole tables were used as the means to help in the data analysis and interpretation. findings and discussion after going through data investigation process, 278 data containing translation errors based on the translation error typology were obtained from text a, b, c, d, and e. the general findings are shown in the following table below. adam ismail / journal of english language teaching 5 (2) (2016) 4 table 2. general findings no. categories of errors frequency of errors total errors (%) a b c d e 1. terminology errors 7 4 18 6 8 43 15.47% 2. usage errors 2 5 4 4 2 17 6.12% 3. syntax errors 8 5 12 8 1 34 12.23% 4. mistranslation /misunderstanding errors 2 4 5 7 18 6.47% 5. literalness /faithfulness errors 5 6 7 18 6.47% 6. ambiguity errors 3 1 2 1 7 2.52% 7. omission errors 12 7 10 5 5 39 14.03% 8. addition errors 2 4 2 8 2.88% 9. capitalization errors 1 1 2 1 1 6 2.16% 10. punctuation errors 4 1 4 1 10 3.60% 11. spelling errors 3 3 1.08% 12. grammatical errors 22 5 17 15 9 68 24.46% 13. word form errors 3 1 3 7 2.52% the most notable errors from grammatical errors were singular-plural errors (35.29% of grammatical errors), incorrect tenses (35.29% of grammatical errors), and incorrect cases of pronoun (10.29% of grammatical errors). terminology errors happened frequently for 43 times, spreading in every sample of news item texts used in this study. the distribution of omission errors was spreaded almost evenly in the data. the distribution of syntax errors was skewed to unnatural word orders, which occured 26 times (76.47% of syntax errors). mistranslation/ misunderstanding and literalness/faithfulness errors resulted in a tie, with each occured 18 times. usage errors occured 17 times, spreading in every sample of news item texts. the rest of the errors only occured less than 11 times, so they rarely occured in the data. the distribution of punctuation errors was spreaded almost evenly across the data. addition errors occurred 8 times, but only occurred in three of five texts used in the study. capitalization only occured in the context of title sentence writing and first letter capitalization in the data. spelling errors were varied across the wrong spelling of number, proper noun, and date. however they only occured three times, and not spread evenly among the five samples of news item texts. talking about the subcategories of grammatical errors, singular-plural errors in the whole data occured because of google translate inability to identify the nouns in the source texts contexts, whether in the form of singular or plural. google translate also could not understand that the texts in this study were news item texts, in which past tenses were used. google translate for several times used present tenses in the target texts, that should be corrected to past tenses in order to match the tense used in news item texts. when google translate used articles in the target texts of the data, most of them were correct. on the other hand, in the data, google translate could not differentiate the word ‘namun’ which functioned as a connector to connect sentences, or as a conjunction to connect clauses in a sentence. problems with subject-verb agreement in the data occured because google translate adam ismail / journal of english language teaching 5 (2) (2016) 5 translated the plural nouns from the source texts into singular nouns in the target texts. the verbs following those incorrect translations would be incorrect as well, which resulted in grammatical errors. since active-passive voice errors resulted in very different meaning of target texts compared to their source texts, this subcategory of grammatical error was important to consider. google translate also unable to identify some pronouns in accordance to the context of the target texts in the data, especially in identifying pronouns that were related to the previous sentences in the texts. moreover, the whole terminology errors in the data were caused by word-to-word translations of phrases’ elements, and the inability of google translate in translating some words which have specific meanings out of the general equivalences of those words in the target texts to match the contexts. omission errors found in the data were mostly caused by google translate, which for several times translate the source texts literally, ignoring the overall meaning of the target texts. the technical errors of google translate itself that omitted parts of the source texts were also the cause of these problems. talking about the subcategories of syntax errors, the whole sentence fragments errors in the data were caused by the inability of google translate to identify and form complete sentence from the source texts. even though the source texts had problems of sentence fragments, google translate could not correct them in the target texts just like what human who has sufficient knowledge of translating indonesia to english would do. it was because google translate used statistical method in translating the source texts, which did not involve any linguistic rule at all. it would also made several usage errors when google translate encountered new cases of texts which it had not ever translated before. when encountering complex sentences in the data, google translate for several times failed to identify the phrases properly which resulted to improper modifications and bad translation results. moreover, lack of linguistic rules employed in google translate also resulted in unnatural word orders in the target texts in the data. mistranslation/misunderstanding errors in the data were caused by the inability of machine, in this case was google translate, to understand the contexts of source texts as a whole. moreover, literalness/faithfulness errors made the arrangement of words in the translation results strange for the target language users. usage errors were caused by the inability of google translate to form correct wordings in the target texts. meanwhile, when punctuations in the source texts were correct, google translate did not make any punctuation error at all. in contrast, when the source texts had punctuation errors, google translate would also made punctuation errors in the target texts. in the data, google translate only added minor additions. meanwhile, ambiguity errors found were mostly caused by redundancy and wrong choice of words. so, addition and terminology errors indirectly affected the occurences of these errors in the data. the researcher did not encounter any difficulty in identifying the word form of each word in the source texts. therefore, it can be concluded that word form errors found in the data were caused purely by the incompetence of google translate in deciding the correct word form used in the target texts. there were only two basic cases of capitalization errors found in the data: in the title sentence writing of news item texts, and in the first letter writing of sentences. spelling errors in the data only occured in spelling of number, proper noun, and date. since these errors only happened in 3 of 278 total data, and did not alter the meanings of the source texts, these translation errors can be conluded as not significant compared to the other translation errors mentioned before. finally, there were 3 sub-categories of errors from the translation error typology that did not occur at all in the data. they were countableuncountable errors (grammatical errors), adam ismail / journal of english language teaching 5 (2) (2016) 6 incorrect conjunctions (grammatical errors), and lack of parallelism (syntax errors). conclusions the findings of the analysis showed that there were 13 categories of translation errors obtained from 278 data. ranking from the most common to the least common errors found in the data, they were grammatical errors (24.46%), terminology errors (15.47%), omission errors (14.03%), syntax errors (12.23%), mistranslation/misunderstanding errors (6.47%), literalness/faithfulness errors (6.47%), usage errors (6.12%), punctuation errors (3.60%), addition errors (2.88%), ambiguity errors (2.52%), word form errors (2.52%), capitalization errors (2.16%), and spelling errors (1.08%). the data findings also showed that statistical method of google translate, the inability of google translate to understand the contexts of the texts beyond sentence, and errors in the source texts that carried into translation errors in the target texts were the causes of translation errors found in the data. references american translator association. 2002. framework for standard error marking, an explanation. web. january 21, 2016. retrieved from http://www.atanet.org/bin/view.pl/12438.ht ml arikunto, suharsimi. 2006. prosedur penelitian, suatu pendekatan praktik (edisi revisi vi). jakarta: pt. rineka cipta catford, j.c. 1965. a linguistic theory of translation: an essay in applied linguistics. london: oxford university press. dewi, h. d. 2015. comparing two translation assessment models: correlating student revisions and perspectives. ohio: kent state university. moleong, l. j. 2010. metode penelitian kualitatif. bandung: pt. remaja rosdakarya. mujianto, yan. 2011. petunjuk penulisan skripsi. semarang: unnes press. sutopo, h. b. 2002. metodologi penelitian kualitatif dasar teori dan terapannya dalam penelitian. surakarta: sebelas maret university. tashakkori, a., & teddlie, c. 2003. handbook of mixed methods in social & behavioral research. thousand oaks, ca: sage. 68 elt forum 3 (1) (2014) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt error analysis on the use of to be as auxiliary and linking verb in the students’ recount text (a case of the 8th grade students of smp n 19 semarang in the academic year of 2013/2014) danik cahyaningrum  english department, faculty of languages and arts, state university of semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in april 2014 approved in mei 2014 published in juni 2014 ________________ keywords: to be as auxiliary verb, to be as linking verb, recount text, error analysis. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this final project was conducted to analyze the students’ errors on the use of to be as auxiliary and linking verb on the students’ recount text that made by eight grade students of smp n 19 semarang in the academic year of 2013/2014. this study has three objectives; i.e. to identify errors, to find out the most frequent errors and how to avoid errors on the use of to be as auxiliary and linking verb. the population of this study was eighth grade students of smp n 19 semarang. this study used purposive random sampling and one class had been taken as the sample under the consideration that the number of the sample was about 10% 15% from the population. i chose class 8b which consist 31 students, but only 28 students could participate on the research. this study used qualitative research method in analyzing the data since the aim of the study is to identify errors, to find out the error, type and how to avoiding error on the use of to be as auxiliary and linking verb. in gathering the data, i conducted the instructions for the students’ free writing using some topics that had been prepared before the research on 10 may 2013. to find out the errors, i used the error taxonomy according dulay, burt and krashen (1980:50). i classified the errors into 4 types that are omission, addition, misinformation and misordering. the result showed that 11.3 % from the total findings belongs to errors on the use of auxiliary verb which consisted of 8.1 % in misinformation types and 3.2 % in omission types and 88.7 % from the total findings belongs to errors on the use of linking verb which consisted of 45.2 % in misinformation types, 20.9 % in omission types, 19.4 % in addition types and 3.3 % in misordering types. after analyzing and counting the data, i found out that the most frequent errors were errors on the use of linking verb which were dominated by misinformation types. © 2014 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: b3 building, fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: cahya.luphvice@gmail.com issn 2252-6706 danik cahyaningrum / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 69 introduction every country has its own languages including grammatical rules, speech and sound systems, but english is selected as the lingua franca (common communicative language) in the world. english is the first foreign language in most countries which do not use english as their mother tongue. similar with other countries, indonesia chooses english as the first foreign language. ramelan (2001:1) states that “english has been taught in this country as the first foreign language since the proclamation of independence on the august, 17th 1945”. it means that english has an important role in indonesian education and becomes one of the important subjects since the elementary school to university level. since english is the first foreign language, indonesian learners need time and more process in order to master all skills in english includes listening, speaking, reading and writing. moreover, learning english is very useful in order to take part in globalization as the consideration that english is the common communicative language in the world. it can not be denied that understanding the grammatical structure of english becomes the priority to the indonesian leaners who learn english in order to master english skills as stated by douglas (1980:264) that “in learning a language we must know the grammar rules for forming correct sentence”. it also happens on teaching learning process in indonesia that grammar becomes the basic rule in order to improve students’ ability in mastering english. cook and sutter (1980: 1) also stated that grammar is a set of rules by which people speak and write. it means that grammar is rule how words and their components are combined to make sentences both of spoken or written. grammar is also seen as a handy tool in a language. since it is one of the important aspects in learning english, indonesian learners assessed grammar to be one of the most difficult parts to learn. moreover some indonesian learners also stated that the most difficult part of grammar was applied in the writing form. basically writing is one of basic major that has the most difficulties, for example: using inappropriate grammatical structure that is going to affect reader or listener understanding about what message is going to be delivered. indonesian learners either in junior high school or senior high school also often have problems deal with the grammatical structure both in spoken or written forms. particularly, when it comes to written form, understanding the grammatical structures include sentence pattern, sentence structure and also functions of the sentences are very important part in creating a good paragraph. mainly when it comes to the patterns of to be uses in english and indonesian mother tongue are exactly different. sometimes, it makes them find it as one of the difficulties in writing. to illustrate the differences in grammatical structure, the following is an example between english and indonesian sentences. ind : murid – murid smp n 19 semarang sangat rajin dan cerdas. eng : the students of smp n 19 semarang are very diligent and smart. the comparison of the two sentences above can be stated that there are differences in grammatical structure between indonesian and english language. the difference is in the use of to be as a linking verb. the use of to be is a must, because it links the subject with the complement that follows regarding the example above. it means that the sentence is not gong to be acceptable according to the grammatical, if there is no to be in the sentence. to be itself split up into some forms: is, am, are, was, were, be, being, and been depends on the type of subject and tenses. truthfully, writing is one the most difficult language skills to be learned by all of students who learn english especially for junior high school students. using the appropriate grammatical structure makes the meaning of the sentences are going to be accurate, easily understood and acceptable. the other significant part is some aspects in writing such as logical thinking, paragraph development, diction, spelling, punctuation and word order that are required students to fulfil. danik cahyaningrum / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 70 students often make errors on the use of grammatical structure in english because english grammar is more complicated than indonesian. errors in language learning are natural. many aspects are caused by the students to make errors especially english as the first foreign language. sometimes, mother tongue interference also becomes one of the causes. errors are regarded as substantive things to both students and teachers since errors are important part of learning process in order to get information. corder, in ellis and barkhuizan (in adi jaya putra 2008;13), stated that there are three functions of learner’s errors which are as follows: (1) they serve a pedagogic purpose by showing teachers what learners have learnt and what they have not yet mastered; (2) they serve a research purpose by providing evidence about how languages are learnt; and (3) they serve a learning purpose by acting devices by which learners can discover the rules of the target language. it means that errors contain a lot of information’s about which part of the students difficulties that are hard to produce correctly. errors are unavoidable; it happened in all components of english grammatical structure such as errors on using to be, using verb, using conditional sentences, etc. this study is going to highlight about errors on the use of to be for junior high school students in eighth grades. actually to be it self has two grammatical functions and various forms. to be also has the important role to create a sentence because to be is the part of verb. to overcome students problem in errors on the use of to be using genre based approach becomes one of the ways that was chosen by the researcher. basically genre based approach is used in the process of teaching and learning english, especially in junior high school on the eighth grade students. in this approach, teaching and learning process focuses on the understanding and production of selected genres of texts. the focuses are on the content information and the language of the genre of the text that is going to be used. it also focuses on relevant vocabularies and grammatical patterns. this study is going to use recount text as the students writing tasks. students often make some errors on the use of to be in their recount text such as, choose the wrong to be, put double to be, put to be after verb and displacement of to be .some problems usually happen because of the students’ understanding. they know the theory about to be, where and when to be should be put, but they get confused when apply it in sentences, paragraphs and also texts. for example i’m so happy there. the right sentence is i was so happy there, because it tells about something in the past. the others problem is displacement of to be. they sometimes put to be in the wrong position, for example where your house is? it should be where is your house? the differences in writing english from indonesian mother tongue often make it more difficult. therefore, it is going to make some grammatical errors. it causes ambiguity and even changes the meaning of the sentences. based on the explanation above, the researcher decided to analyze the error analysis on the use of to be as auxiliary and linking verb in the students’ recount text; a case of the 8th grade students of smp n 19 semarang in the academic year of 2013/2014. method of investigation the objectives of this study are to identify and find out the students’ errors on the use of to be as auxiliary verb and linking verb in students’ recount text by analyzing their errors. this study used qualitative research with descriptive method to analyze the errors that was made by students in writing recount text. i use descriptive method because it focuses on identification, classification, description and explanation based on the data collected from the students’ writing of a recount text. descriptive method is method that used to describe hypothesis based on the fact because it uses an explanation to describe the research. this research used purposive random sampling to pick up the sample. so, the researcher could choose a specific group of people or object on the population to analyse and the population danik cahyaningrum / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 71 also had an equal chance of being included in the sample. it often chooses a group that deserve the most information that the researchers need as stated by patton (1990:79), that purposive random sampling will substantially increase the credibility of the results even of small samples. in this study, i chose class 8b from smp n 19 semarang in the academic year of 2013/2014 because the students have been studied about this material in the second semester. they also have done some exercises and writing about recount text. the teachers suggested doing my research in this class. there were 28 students that participate in this study. i picked up one class of 8th grade students of smp n 19 semarang in the academic year of 2013/2014 was class 8b which consists of 28 students. the reasons for selecting them were they have taken material about recount text and also about to be. so they knew about the material that the researcher examined in the area and some problem on the use of to be as auxiliary and linking verb possibly happened in junior high school students. the data collected by students’ free writing. it can be said that the students were free to choose the topic of their writing. the topics have been prepared before, so the students could choose one of the topics. students wrote recount text based on the topic that was chose and their own idea, for example about their past experience. i used their writing to analyze as the data the topic of my study are to identify and find out the errors analysis on the use of to be as auxiliary verb and linking verb in students’ recount text written by 8th grade students of smp n 19 semarang in the academic year of 2013/2014, i collected the data by coming directly to the school for one meeting in the class. they wrote the text in 40 minutes and the students should write 10 sentences to 20 sentences in their writing. after conducted the data, i collected the data and analysed the errors in the use of to be as auxiliary and linking verb that they made. results of analysis 3.1 results of error analysis on the use of to be as auxiliary and linking verb in the students’ recount text i divided the analysis of errors into two parts. first, i analyzed errors on the use of to be as auxiliary verb in the students’ recount text. second, i analyzed errors on the use of to be as linking verb in the students’ recount text. as previously stated in chapter iii, researcher divided 4 types of errors according dulay, burt and krashen (in carl james 1998:106) as follows: omissions, additions misinformation and misordering. each sentence had been analyzed using 4 types of errors above to determine the errors on the use of to be as auxiliary verb and linking verb on the students’ recount text. total errors that occurred are 62 items that divided into 2 part (errors on the use of to be as auxiliary verb and linking verb). here, i counted the frequency of errors based on the tables using the formula below: where: % error is the percentage of error at one field ∑n is the sum of error at one field n is the whole error that students make the errors on the use of to be as auxiliary verb in the students’ recount text can be calculated as follows: danik cahyaningrum / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 72 table 3.1 the frequency of error on the use of to be as auxiliary verb no category of error frequency % of error 1. 2. 3. 4. omission additions misinformation misordering 2 5 3.2 % 8.1 % total 7 11.3 % in the table above, it can be concluded that the errors on the use of to be as auxiliary verbs happen on 2 types of errors that are omission and misinformation. the incorrect forms on the use of to be as auxiliary verbs happened because the students missed the important part in creating a clause that is the progressive form of to be in the students’ recount text. it means that to be as auxiliary verb is needed before ving because of the period of time. the detail explanation as follows: (a) omission [230]. while … lunch we saw bird, beach, and coconut tree there are 2 clauses in this sentence. the first clause is the dependent and the second clause is the independent clause. in this sentence, “while” comes at the beginning of the sentence as the dependent clause. based on the situation, it can use past progressive tense because the action was happening over time. it means, the verb in the first clause will be form of to be as auxiliary verb (in the form of past) + main verb (v-ing). the correct sentence: while we were having lunch, we saw bird, beach, and coconut tree. (b) misinformation [58]. friday, 09 may 2014, that time i while walk to lesson schedule the sentence happens in period of time based on the next sentences “[59] in speat of, in middle trip i meet by for a dog was very horrible”. the student wants to say that “while i was walking to my lesson place, i met a dog that was very horrible on last friday”. it means that there is no to be in the form of past. it should be to be as auxiliary verb + the main verb (v-ing). the correct sentence: while i was walking to my lesson place, i met a dog that was very horrible on last friday. the errors on the use of to be as auxiliary verb in the students’ recount text can be calculated as follows: table 3.2 the frequency of error on the use of to be as auxiliary verb in the table above, it can be concluded that error on the use of to be as linking verb happens in all of types of errors. the incorrect form on the use of to be as linking verb mostly happens because the students’ missed the important part in forming a clause that is past form of to be (was /were). student should be aware about nominal clauses which need was / were to connect the subject to its complement. the detail explanation as follows: no category of error frequency % of error 1. 2. 3. 4. omissions additions misinformation misordering 13 12 28 2 20.9 % 19.36 % 45.2 % 3.2 % total 55 88.7 % danik cahyaningrum / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 73 (a) omission [130]. i …. confused with what she say the omission appears in this sentence because it includes in nominal sentence. in nominal sentence, to be needs to connect the subject and the complement. the complement here is “confused” that explains the subject situation. so, the function of to be is as linking verb. this sentence happens in the past because it tells about past story, it means to be is in the past form (was/were). the correct sentence: i was confused with what she say. (b) addition [119]. in there we are plant a paddy field the sentence (119) is incorrect because of the addition in the verb (predicate). the sentence above is an active sentence. it means that the verb is an activity (plant is menanam). the student added to be as linking verb in a sentence which contained verb in the past form. so, to be as linking verb in this sentence isn’t needed. the correct sentence: in there we planted a paddy field. (c) misinformation [106]. this is my horrible experience the sentence above [106] shows that the student missed the information they needed in forming a sentence in the past form. misinformation appears in this sentence because the use of to be as linking verb in the form of present, whereas it should be in the form of past. the correct to be is was/ were depends on the subject. the correct sentence: this was my horrible experience. (d) misordering [144]. because i are tired and my friends, i was not so cycling up at five intersections. misordering is deal with the correct placement of words in the sentences, but i just focus on the wrong placement of to be as a linking verb. the sentence above [144] shows that there is an incorrect placement of to be with the subject. the students want to say “ karena saya dan teman saya capek”. the form of to be is also incorrect. it should be “because my friends and i were tired”. the correct sentence: because my friends and i were tired, i was not so cycling up at five intersections. conclusion based on the findings on chapter iv, the conclusions could be drawn as the result of identifying the students’ errors on dulay, brut and krashen theory that there were 2 types of errors, it was misinformation and omission, occurred on the use of to be as auxiliary verb and 4 types of errors, it were omission, addition, misinformation, and misordering, occurred on the use of to be as linking verb. total errors that occurred are 62 items with 7 items errors on the use of to be as auxiliary verb and 55 items errors on the use of to be as linking verb. after conducting the research, it can be concluded that the most frequent errors occurred is on the use of linking verb with 88.7 % and mostly happened in the misinformation types with 45.2%. it can be seen from the result that error on the use of to be as auxiliary verb is 11.3 % and error on the use of linking verb is 88.7 %. the detail percentage in each types are 8.1 % error on the use of to be as auxiliary verb in misinformation type and 3.2 % in omission type, whereas 45.2 % error on the use of to be as linking verb in misinformation type, 20,9 % in omission type, 19.4 % in addition type and the last is misordering type with 3.3%. references anderson, mark and anderson, kathy. 1997. text types in english. australia : macmillan. arikunto, suharsimi. 2006. prosedur penelitian: suatu pendekatan praktik. jakarta: 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http://www.educ.ualberta.ca/staff/olenka.bilas h/best%20of%20bilash/grammar.html access on 7 june 2014 http://www.englishtenses.com/tenses/past_con tinuous access on 20 may 2014 danik cahyaningrum / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 75 1 elt forum 2 (1) (2013) english language teaching forum http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the use of video as a medium to improve students’ ability in writing narrative texts dewi permatasari department of english, faculty language and arts, semarang state university, indonesia info artikel ________________ sejarahartikel: diterimajanuari 2013 disetujuifebruari 2013 dipublikasikanjuni 2013 ________________ keywords: video, writing, narrative texts, action research ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ the aims of this study were to explain and describe how video was used in teaching writing narrative texts and to find out the result of the teaching writing and learning process after the students were taught by using video. the subject of this study was viiia students of smp n 24 semarang. in this research, i used tests and questionnaires to collect the data. i designed an action research that consisted of pretest and two cycles of the treatment. the first meeting was for pretest, the second until the fourth meeting were for treatments using video in teaching writing in narrative texts and the fifth meeting was for posttest. the result of the study showed that there was an improvement of the students’ writing after the students were taught by using video. it could be seen from the average of the pretest was 59.8, the first cycle was 68.55, the second cycle was 79.03, and the posttest was 84.82. in conclusion, the use of fairy tail video as a medium worked well in writing class, especially for the viiia of smp n 24 semarang. the students also said that they were not bored during the teaching and learning process. they felt fun and their motivation to write the narrative texts increased after using video. based on the results above, video can be an interesting and appropriate medium to teach writing. © 2013universitasnegeri semarang alamatkorespondensi: gedungb3lantai3 fbsunnes kampussekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: dewi88niez@yahoo.co.id issn 2252-6706 dewi permatasari / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 2 introduction in teaching english, teachers must have four language skills, namely listening, speaking, reading and writing. those skills are very useful in communication process. it has to be supported by language components, namely grammar, vocabulary, spelling, cohesion and coherent. among those skills, writing is considered as the most difficult skill for mastering a language. based on ktsp curriculum for junior high school students, they are demanded to make a simple text in the spoken and written form. furthermore, the objective of teaching english at junior high school does not only teach vocabulary, grammar or introduce a new dialog with a certain topic but also impresses on the discourse level. for this level education, the students should learn writing based on the certain texts. furthermore ktsp mentions the students of junior high school are demanded to master written five text types. they are descriptive, narrative, recount, procedure, and report. teaching the students of junior high school is not the same as teaching adults. those students can be categorized as young learners who are not concerned with jobs or university degrees that require knowledge of language. their world is not as serious as adults’. therefore, it is possible that the young learners’ motivation is lower than adults’. brown (2001:160-166) states that, “a cognitive view of motivation includes factors such as the need for exploration, activity, stimulation, new knowledge, and ego enhancement. the motivation can be built from many ways. besides introducing the interesting text type, the motivation can be increased by using media in teaching”. brown adds that using a variety of media will increase the probability that the students will learn more and retain better what they learn in improving the performance of the skills they are expected to develop. a video is one of the visual aids that can be used in a writing class. it makes lesson more fun. “video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion” (harmer, 2001:283). “when a class is working on an area of language, whether grammatical, functional, or lexical – or a mixture of all three – the lesson can be greatly enhanced by a video extract which shows that language in operation. short video sequences of between one and four minutes can yield a number of exercises, demonstrate a satisfying range of language, are easier to manipulate, and can be highly motivating” (harmer, 2001:283). stempleski in richards and renandya (2002:362) also adds that “television and video are so closely associated with leisure and entertainment that many, if not most, students watching video in the classroom expect only to be entertained”. teachers need to led students to an appreciation of video as a valuable tool for language learning and help them to develop viewing skills which they can apply to their video and television viewing experiences outside the classroom. the video will still remain entertaining, but the students will also come to recognition of how the medium can be used for learning. since writing still becomes a difficult skill for students, teachers should know the suitable method to teach writing. using insufficient media and method makes the students not interested in learning writing. for example when teachers are teaching writing, they often use monotonous media. the monotonous teaching style such as explaining orally or writing down all the materials is a boring learning. a narrative text is the most interesting genre because it tells something imaginative. in addition, it involves imaginative thoughts and fictive stories to present an amusing and fascinating story. it tells a story to entertain or inform the reader or listener. in order to make students interested in narrative, i use video as the teaching media. i use video as a medium because it is easy to find, it is also sophisticated technology and easy to be understood. those dewi permatasari / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 3 videos can motivate and attract them in learning the lesson. data and method of analysis this study is an action research which is concerned with the use of video in teaching narrative texts in improving students’ writing ability. an action research is a form of educational inquiry that uses real action of the teachers in response to a certain problem encountered during the teaching and learning process through cycles of action. a research method used in this study is an action research. according to kurt in “pedoman teknis pelaksanaan classroom action research” depdiknas (2003:4), there are four components in one cycle for doing classroom action research: planning, acting, observing, and reflecting. in planning activity, i began with arranging the lesson plan, the students’ attendance list, the teaching media (the teacher’s video), classroom observation, questionnaires, and the pretest. acting is the implementation of the planning, which is already made. the acting was done with the teaching narrative texts and learning process using video. this third step was about trying to get the information of the students’ achievement after given the treatment. it was done by the teacher and me. the teacher observed the implementation of the teaching writing narrative texts and learning process using video. reflecting was about trying to analyze the students’ study result whether or not the teaching and learning process was successful. the result of the discussion, here, would be a foundation to determine the next plan. subject of study the subject of this study was the the viii year students 24 junior high school semarang of class viiia with mrs. siti zulaekah s.pd as the english teacher. instruments of the study saleh (2001:31) states that “the word instrument refers to research tools for data collecting”. it’s therefore, a fundamental thing to be well through out by a researcher before she conducts an experiment. an instrument could be in the form of questionnaire, observation list, interview and test. i used writing test and questionnaire as instruments to collect the data for my research. here i applied an achievement test to measure the students’ mastery of writing after they were given process approach in their english learning process. related to the achievement test, there are many types of achievement test such as essay test, completion test, multiple choice tests, cloze test, and so on. in this research, i used essay test. in this research, the tests that i would conduct were pretest, test in each cycle, and posttest. the pretest was conducted for checking whether or not the students could produce the narrative text well. the assessment tests were used for knowing whether there was achievement of the students in producing a narrative text. the posttest was used for knowing whether or not students could really produce a good narrative text. first questionnaire was delivered in the end of pretest. it was used to know the students’ attitude toward the teaching learning process before the treatment by using video as a medium in writing class. after conducting the posttest, the second questionnaires were given to the students to know their interests in video which was used during the treatment. brown and paul (1998:66) state that “questionnaire is a number of question for the researcher who wishes to collect information from a large number of people but has limited time and resources”. considering the statements above, i conclude that questionnaire is a number of questions to get information from the respondents. the purpose of giving questionnaire in this research was to gather information from the students about the factors that may affect their improvement in writing. a questionnaire was given to gather information from the students based on their needs, interest, like and dislike, about teaching and learning process and about the students’ dewi permatasari / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 4 opinion on the writing class using process approach. the questionnaires were used to find out:  the ability and problem faced by the students in writing activities.  the sustainability of the program conducted during the action research.  the advantages gained through the action research. scoring criteria i used rating scale to score or evaluate the students’ achievement in writing. in giving the score to the students’ writing, i used the analytical scoring guidance taken from heaton’s grid and categories (1974:137). there were five aspects which were used as the consideration in giving scores. those are: grammar, vocabulary, mechanics, relevance and fluency. in classifying the score, i used the measurement of students’ achievement suggested by harris (1969:134) as interpreted in table 3.3 below: table 3.3 scoring criteria by harris grade criteria of mastery level a b c d 80 – 100 60 – 79 50 – 59 0 – 49 good to excellent average to good good fair pretest a pretest was conducted on 12 march 2012. this activity was done to measure the students’ achievement in writing narrative texts. by conducting this activity, i knew whether the students understood narrative texts or not. table 4.1 the result of pretest no students’ code writing assessment components score total score g v m r f 1. s-01 2 3 3 4 3 15 60 2. s-02 2 3 3 3 2 13 52 3. s-03 4 3 4 4 4 19 76 4. s-04 3 2 3 4 3 15 60 5. s-05 2 2 3 3 2 12 48 6. s-06 2 3 4 3 3 15 60 7. s-07 2 2 3 3 2 12 48 8. s-08 3 3 4 4 4 18 72 9. s-09 4 3 4 4 3 18 72 10. s-10 2 2 3 3 3 13 52 11. s-11 2 3 3 3 2 13 52 12. s-12 3 2 3 4 2 14 56 13. s-13 2 2 3 3 3 13 52 14. s-14 2 3 4 4 3 16 64 15. s-15 2 2 3 3 3 13 52 16. s-16 2 4 4 3 3 16 64 17. s-17 2 3 3 3 3 14 56 18. s-18 4 4 3 4 3 18 72 19. s-19 2 2 4 4 3 15 60 20. s-20 2 3 3 3 3 14 56 dewi permatasari / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 5 21. s-21 2 3 4 3 3 15 60 22. s-22 3 2 4 4 3 16 64 23. s-23 2 3 3 3 3 14 56 24. s-24 2 3 3 3 4 15 60 25. s-25 4 3 4 4 4 19 76 26. s-26 2 2 3 4 3 14 56 27. s-27 2 3 3 3 3 14 56 28. s-28 3 3 4 3 3 16 64 29. s-29 2 3 3 4 3 15 60 ∑ 29 71 79 98 100 86 434 1736 based on the table and the chart above, there were 16 students or 55.1% who were good in writing narrative texts. however, there were 11 students or 38% who were in the average category and 2 students or 6.9% in the poor category. furthermore, the average of students’ pretest was 59.86%. in this pretest, i found that the students were poor on the content of their writing. it was because i had not explained in detail about narrative texts yet, so they had not known narrative text was. based on the result above, i prepared some treatments. the treatments were hoped to improve the students’ ability in writing, especially in writing narrative text. result of cycle 1 in this activity i had two meetings; one meeting was used to treat the students with video for teaching them about narrative texts. it was conducted on march 19th 2012. the first meeting was aimed for improving the students’ writing ability and also solving their difficulties that were found in the previous activity. in the first meeting, i explained the general knowledge of narrative texts such as the social functions and generic structure of narrative text by using video “cinderella” in teaching writing narrative text. the students paid attention to the explanation. i opened question and answer sessions after explaining the material. then, i showed them another story and asked them to identify the social functions and generic structure of the text. in this stage i started by asking them whether they had ever watched fairy tail video or not. many of the students said they had ever watched the fairy tail video from the cd. giving the direction before the students watched the video actually would become the direction what they had to do during i played the video “cinderella”. then i played the video once in the class. i saw that the students were still confused what the cinderella said. the students of my subjects had difficulties in catching the ideas of the video by using their listening ability. after playing the video once, i explained them about what exactly narrative text is, the social function and the generic structure of narrative text are. after implementing video in cycle 1, i conducted cycle 1 test to know the improvement of the students’ writing narrative text. the students made a paragraph of narrative text based on the video shown the screen individually. they had to write the story of “cinderella“. the length of the story is not more than 250 words and the time allotment was 40 minutes. dewi permatasari / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 6 table 4.3 the result of cycle 1 no students’ code writing assessment components score total score g v m r f 1. s-01 3 3 4 4 3 17 68 2. s-02 3 3 4 4 4 18 72 3. s-03 3 3 4 4 4 18 72 4. s-04 3 3 3 4 3 16 64 5. s-05 2 3 3 4 3 15 60 6. s-06 3 4 4 4 4 19 76 7. s-07 3 3 3 4 3 16 64 8. s-08 3 3 4 4 4 18 72 9. s-09 4 4 4 4 4 20 80 10. s-10 3 3 4 4 4 18 72 11. s-11 3 3 4 4 3 17 68 12. s-12 3 4 3 3 4 17 68 13. s-13 3 3 4 3 3 16 64 14. s-14 3 3 4 3 3 16 64 15. s-15 3 4 4 4 3 18 72 16. s-16 4 3 3 4 4 18 72 17. s-17 4 4 3 4 3 18 72 18. s-18 3 4 3 4 4 18 72 19. s-19 3 4 4 4 3 18 72 20. s-20 3 3 4 3 3 16 64 21. s-21 3 3 4 4 3 17 68 22. s-22 3 4 3 4 3 17 68 23. s-23 3 3 3 3 3 15 60 24. s-24 4 4 4 3 4 19 76 25. s-25 4 3 3 4 3 17 68 26. s-26 3 3 3 3 4 16 64 27. s-27 3 3 4 4 4 18 72 28. s-28 3 3 3 3 3 15 60 29. s-29 3 4 3 3 3 16 64 ∑ 29 91 97 103 107 99 497 1988 the students’ achievement after doing the first cycle seemed improved. it could be seen from the average score of cycle 1 was 68.55%. it increased than the pretest result with the margin 8.7. after being treated with video, 28 students or 96.5% got the good score and one student or 3.4% got the excellent score. result of cycle 2 this cycle was conducted because the first cycle of this research had not been able to reach the research target yet. therefore in this cycle, i had prepared some teaching improvement in order to help the students reach the target. first, before i played the video i gave the instructions as the guide during the students watched the video. then i asked the students to list as much as information that found in “mount tangkuban perahu“. dewi permatasari / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 7 after watching the video, i asked the students how much information they could list from the video they watched. some students were still confused with the vocabulary in video. therefore, i played the video again in order to give more information to the students. after i played the video twice, i asked about the information they gained from the video. i asked the students to write a narrative text individually with the theme “mount tangkuban perahu“. in this stage they were to use their own sentences and arranged the information they got from the video. they should use the information that had been listed in the previous meeting to compose their own narrative text. after giving the instruction to the students about this writing activity, i distributed the paper and asked them to write their name, student number, and their class in the place existed on the paper. during the writing activity for about 40 minutes, i helped them as i could and also observed the students’ activity. after waiting for about 40 minutes, the students submitted their work and arranged their writing based on their student number. this arrangement had a purpose to make the scoring process easier. table 4.5 the result of cycle 2 no students’ code writing assessment components score total score g v m r f 1. s-01 4 4 4 4 4 20 80 2. s-02 4 5 4 4 4 21 84 3. s-03 3 4 4 4 4 19 76 4. s-04 4 4 4 4 4 20 80 5. s-05 3 3 4 4 3 17 68 6. s-06 3 4 4 5 4 20 80 7. s-07 4 4 4 4 4 20 80 8. s-08 3 4 4 4 4 19 76 9. s-09 4 5 5 5 4 23 92 10. s-10 4 3 4 4 4 19 76 11. s-11 4 4 3 4 4 19 76 12. s-12 4 4 4 4 4 20 80 13. s-13 4 3 4 4 4 19 76 14. s-14 4 5 4 5 4 22 88 15. s-15 4 3 4 4 4 19 76 16. s-16 4 4 4 4 4 20 80 17. s-17 4 3 4 4 4 19 76 18. s-18 4 4 4 5 4 21 84 19. s-19 3 4 4 4 3 18 72 20. s-20 4 4 5 4 4 21 84 21. s-21 4 3 4 4 4 19 76 22. s-22 4 4 4 4 4 20 80 23. s-23 4 4 4 4 4 20 80 24. s-24 4 4 4 4 5 21 84 25. s-25 4 4 5 4 4 21 84 dewi permatasari / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 8 26. s-26 4 3 4 4 4 19 76 27. s-27 4 4 4 4 3 19 76 28. s-28 3 4 3 4 4 18 72 29. s-29 4 4 4 4 4 20 80 ∑ 29 110 112 117 120 114 573 2292 the average of students’ score percentage was then calculated by using this formula; the average of the student result = x 100% = x 100% = 79.03 % result of posttest after giving the treatment for each group, i conducted a posttest. the posttest which was conducted on 2 april 2012 was aimed to measure whether there were differences on students’ score before and after getting the treatment. in this stage, i reviewed briefly about the lesson which had been given. the procedure of the posttest was the same as the pretest. the students had to write the story based on the components of writing and the generic structure of a narrative text. in this stage, i reviewed briefly about the lesson which had been given. the procedure of the posttest was the same as the pretest. the students had to write the story based on the components of writing and the generic structure of a narrative text. in pretest, the score of grammar was 71, it improved 91 in formative test 1, the formative test 2 was 110, and finally, it became 115 in the last test which was posttest. it was a good progress, gradually the students improved their grammar. narrative text uses simple past tense, so it was not a big problem for them to learn that genre, it was very simple. most of the students knew and mastered the tense. table 4.7 the result of posttest no students’ code writing assessment components score total score g v m r f 1. s-01 4 4 5 5 4 22 88 2. s-02 4 4 5 4 5 22 88 3. s-03 4 5 4 4 4 21 84 4. s-04 4 4 4 4 3 19 76 5. s-05 4 3 4 5 4 20 80 6. s-06 4 4 5 5 4 22 88 7. s-07 4 4 4 5 5 22 88 8. s-08 4 4 4 5 4 21 84 9. s-09 4 4 5 5 5 23 92 10. s-10 4 5 4 4 4 21 84 11. s-11 4 4 5 4 5 22 88 12. s-12 4 4 4 5 4 21 84 13. s-13 4 4 4 4 4 20 80 14. s-14 4 4 4 5 5 22 88 15. s-15 4 5 4 4 4 21 84 16. s-16 4 4 5 5 4 22 88 17. s-17 4 3 4 5 4 20 80 dewi permatasari / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 9 18. s-18 4 4 4 5 5 22 88 19. s-19 5 4 4 5 4 22 88 20. s-20 4 4 5 4 4 21 84 21. s-21 3 4 5 4 3 19 76 22. s-22 4 4 4 5 5 22 88 23. s-23 4 5 4 4 4 21 84 24. s-24 4 4 4 5 5 22 88 25. s-25 4 4 5 4 4 21 84 26. s-26 4 4 5 4 5 22 88 27. s-27 4 4 5 5 4 22 88 28. s-28 3 4 4 5 3 19 76 29. s-29 4 4 5 4 4 21 84 ∑ 29 115 118 128 132 122 615 2460 the improvement of students’ test result the result was shown in the chart as follows: chart 4.9 the improvement of students test result the average score of pretest was 59.86. the average of students’ score percentage in cycle 1 test was 68.55. the average score of cycle 2 was 79.03. the average score of posttest was 84.82. analysis of first questionnaire first questionnaire was delivered in the end of pretest. it was used to know the students’ attitude toward the teaching learning process before the treatment by using video as a medium in writing class. 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 pretest cycle 1 cycle 2 post test dewi permatasari / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 10 table 4.9 the result of the first questionnaires no. questions answers yes no 1. do you like english lesson? 83% 17% 2. do you like writing in english? 69% 31% 3. do you think that writing a narrative is difficult? 72% 28% 4. do you feel bored with your teacher’s method in teaching writing? 93% 7% 5. do you like watching fairy tail video? 76% 24% 6. do you agree if video is used as one of teaching methods? 93% 7% 7. do you think that the teacher had used the media? 0% 100% 8. are you willing to learn writing narrative by using video? 96% 4% 4.2.6 analysis of second questionnaire after conducting the posttest, the questionnaires were given to the students to know their interests in video which was used during the treatment. there were eight questions in the questionnaires. then the students should answer them with “yes” or “no”. the questions were written in english. in order to make the students understand my questionnaires, i translated the questions to indonesian. table 4.10 the result of the second questionnaires no. questions answers yes no 1. do you think that writing english is difficult to learn? 79% 21% 2. do you like learning english with video? 90% 10% 3. do you think that the use of video as a medium to teach writing narrative is necessary? 93% 7% 4. video is available everywhere, so i can get it easily and use it anytime. 96% 4% 5. does this treatment help you in answering the questions related to the texts? 76% 24% 6. does this treatment help you in mastering vocabularies and grammar? 83% 17% 7. can this medium improve your motivation in learning english? 93% 7% 8. does the situation of the class become enjoyable after using media? 96% 4% the advantages of using video in teaching writing narrative texts using video in teaching writing narrative texts has some advantages as follows: (1) teaching using video can increase the students’ motivation in writing the texts because the writing activities are not monotonous and more alive. (2) using video makes the students enjoy and interested in english teaching and learning activities. therefore, they are not bored with the classroom activity. the disadvantages of using video in teaching writing narrative texts dewi permatasari / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 11 the first was when the students were asked to write the text; some students did not understand the vocabulary. to overcome this problem, the teacher asked the students to open their dictionary. the second was when the teacher was using video. i need some well preparations in order not to spend a lot of time to use this medium in the class. conclusion based on the data analysis and the discussion about the use of video in teaching narrative texts for junior high school students especially for the eighth-year students of smp n 24 semarang, the most difficulty that the students had in writing narrative texts was grammar, because they had difficulty in using verb past. most of them had the same mistake. the students got difficulty in writing narrative texts because they had less motivation. the reason was the teacher did not use any media that could make the students enjoy and relaxed in teaching and learning process.the action research on developing the students’ writing ability especially in writing a narrative text by using videos was successful. the computation result on pretest was 59.86%; 68.55% on formative test 1, 79.03% on formative test 2, and on posttest was 84.82%. it shows that the students’ ability in writing is influenced by a teacher’s way of teaching method. teaching narrative writing by using video can give contribution to the success of teaching writing. based on the research, the students showed the improvement in writing narrative texts by using video as a medium. it is because video has many advantages. teaching using video can increase the students’ motivation in writing narrative texts because the writing activities are not monotonous and more alive. using video as a medium makes the students fun and interested in english teaching and learning activities. therefore, they are not bored with the classroom activity. based on the research, the students showed the improvement in writing narrative texts by using video as a medium. it is because video has many advantages. teaching using video can increase the students’ motivation in writing narrative texts because the writing activities are not monotonous and more alive. using video as a medium makes the students fun and interested in english teaching and learning activities. therefore, they are not bored with the classroom activity. references brown, d. 2001. teaching by principles: an interactive approach to language pedagogy. san fransisco: longman. depdiknas 2003. pedoman teknis pelaksanaan classroom action research (car). jakarta : departemen pendidikan nasional. harmer.j. 2001. the practice of english language teaching. essex: longman. heaton, j.b.1974. writing english language test. essex: longman. harris, d. 1969. testing english as a second language. new york: mc. graw hill book company richards, j. and w. renandya. 2002. methodology in language teaching. new york. cambridge university press. robinson, a. 2003. the origins of writing. in david crowley and paul heyer (eds). pp.3536 saleh, m. 2001. pengantar praktek penelitian pengajaran bahasa. semarang: ikip semarang press. . november oktober september 1 elt forum 2 (2) (2013) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the ideational meaning in the u.s. presidential debate between barack obama and mitt romney concerning china’s threat ghea kyat priyanka department of english, faculty language and arts, semarang state university, indonesia info artikel ________________ sejarah artikel: diterima 2013 disetujui 2013 dipublikasikan 2013 ________________ keywords: ideational meaning, transitivity, speech function, debate, context of situation ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this article deals with ideational meaning realized in transcript of the u.s. presidential debate between barack obama and mitt romney concerning china’s threat. ideational meaning talks about subject matter. it relates to information about objects or to what the utterances are about. in realizing the subject matter of the debate transcript, three analyses are conducted; transitivity, speech function, and also analysis on context of situation. the result based on those analyses shows two points of conclusion. firstly, obama through material and relational processes stated his past actions and recent u.s. condition to show his success and through mental process he certainly stated his hopes for the future. meanwhile, romney through material and relational processes certainly stated the unfortunate condition experienced by the u.s. as a result of obama’s policies and through mental process stated his wish to the u.s economy. both speakers invited the audiences to accept the information concerning those solutions. secondly, context of situation influences the debate transcript in its language use. some terminologies in the area of economy and trade emerge as the influence of field. those terminologies make the conversation focuses on the subject matter being analyzed, that is china as a threat to the u.s. © 2013 universitas negeri semarang  alamat korespondensi: gedung b3 lantai 3 fbs unnes kampus sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: ghekapekape@yahoo.com issn 2252-6706 mailto:ghekapekape@yahoo.com ghea kyat priyanka / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 2 introduction human beings are social creature that cannot live alone without doing any communication with their surroundings. by communicating, human beings deliver their ideas and wishes to others. the communication among them can be realized through a tool called language. ramelan (1999:1) states that “man speaks language; he uses language as means of communication with other people, as tool to express his ideas and wishes”. thus, language is a tool for human beings to do the communication in achieving their needs as social creature. debate is an example of communication. “it is the process by which opinions are advanced, supported, disputed, and defended” (branham, 1991:1). it is a kind of public speaking where people communicate their ideas and hold on to it by giving supporting logically reasons. in a debate, there will be two sides or persons who interact with contrary arguments concerning issues that are floored by the neutral side, the host of the debate. these two sides propose their arguments based on their own ideology or the way they put their point of view towards the issues. they give feedback to each other‟s arguments. presidential debate is a debate between president‟s candidates from different parties. it is led by a moderator as the neutral side. the moderator floors the issue of the debate which will be responded by the speakers of the debate based on their point of view towards it. there is no direct scoring system in this kind of debate for the judges in presidential debate are the audience. the audience will regard the candidates‟ arguments towards the issue as their consideration in choosing their future leader. in every ideology that lies behind their arguments, there is message in it. the intention of the message is what could be called meaning of the message. as presidential debate is one of the ways to generate public‟s opinion, the arguments are delivered in order to make the audience agree with them. thus, the candidates are to keep their end up in delivering the intended meaning in order to be accepted well by the audience. understanding meaning cannot be taken for granted, otherwise it will lead to misinterpretation. a study which deals with it is called systemic functional linguistics. this study reveals how meaning is constructed by analyzing not only the sentence but also the whole texts. according to gerot and wignell (1994:10) “all meaning is situated in a context of culture and situation.” context of culture is the total cultural background, while context of situation is the environment of the text. halliday in jenny hammond et al. (1992:2) suggests that “there are three variables within any context of situation that largely determine the language choices that are made in the construction of any language text.” those are field, mode, and tenor. field is the social activity taking place; mode is the channel of linguistic communication, while tenor is the relationship between participants. in this study, the writer will choose one of the variables of context of situation, that is field. field exists in all language. there will always be certain focus of a topic that is discussed in a language, including in a debate. as debate is a discussion where each side holds on to their ideologies and arguments towards issue, thus, the issue must be something debatable, something interesting that challenges both critical point of view of the speakers towards it. in short, the issue in a debate, moreover in a presidential debate, must be something crucial for the life of people in general and for those taking part in the debate in particular. thus, the writer finds it interesting to analyze one of the variables of context of situation, that is field. the writer will analyze the ideational meaning which shows the subject matter through transitivity used in the transcript of the u.s. presidential debate between barack obama and mitt romney, particularly in the issue concerning china‟s threat. the u.s.‟ involvement in cold war had made the relation, in whatever aspects of life, between the u.s. and ghea kyat priyanka / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 3 communist countries such as china were impossible to come true. the first u.s. and china relationship was started soon after richard nixon began to implement a new approach to international relations. he encouraged the united nations to recognize the communist chinese government. formal diplomatic relations between these two countries keep on going despite some interpositions that happened many times. in 2000, bill clinton granted china permanent normal trade relations with the u.s. and paved the way for china to join the world trade organization in 2001. by 2010, china has become world‟s second largest economy after the u.s. china‟s track record in doing international trade is seen by the u.s. as not playing by the rules. china‟s economic policy which is labor-intensive causes its ability in producing low-cost goods yet it has not met the international quality standard. it is regarded as a threat, particularly economic threat, to the u.s. take a look from their long history, the u.s. and china relations are very dynamic. thus, the writer finds it interesting to find out the content in the sense of what is going on at the time (the ideational meaning) that lies in the issue of the debate. text halliday and hasan (1985:10) state that “text in the simplest way is language that is functional. by functional, we simply mean language that is doing some job in some context.” furthermore, it is stated that text may be either spoken or written, or indeed in any other medium of expression that we like to think of. text is functional in the sense that it represents meaning in a context. a text can be spoken or written. so, when we speak or write, we are actually constructing a text and trying to construct meaning through it. in reverse, when we read a book or listen to a song, we are trying to catch the meaning that the text represents. however, according to hammond et al. (1994:5), “there‟s no clear dividing line between spoken and written language. some spoken texts have features typically associated with written language, such as spoken argument in defense of a point of view…” hence, debate then could be defined as an example of spoken text. context according to halliday and hasan (1985:5), “there is text and there is other text that accompanies it; text that is „with‟, namely the con-text. this notion of what is „with the text‟, however, goes beyond what is said and written; it includes other non-verbal goings-on the total environment in which a text unfolds.” in interpreting the meaning in a text, there are some aspects that are to be considered. those aspects are what could be called as context. gerot and wignell (1994:10) claim that “all meaning is situated in a context of situation and culture.” context of culture “context of culture determines what we can mean through being „who we are‟, doing „what we do‟, and saying „what we say‟” (gerot and wignell, 1994:10). furthermore, gerot and wignell give an example of context of culture as follow: suppose, like one of us, you grew up in mid-western united states, the eldest daughter in a large farming family. being the eldest daughter in this circumstances automatically casts one in the role of „momma‟s little helper‟. that‟s who you are in the family. this in turn determines what you do within the family and what you say. it could be inferred, then, that context of culture controls and limits the utterances and sentences of the speakers and the writers in order not to swerve from the appropriate path of the existing culture surrounds them. in relation to context of culture and text, context of culture gives value to the text and constrain its interpretation. context of situation “take the utterance: „just put it beside those other ones‟. the meaning remains obscure until we know that it was said to a removalist ghea kyat priyanka / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 4 who had just lugged in another carton of household goods during moving one of us to brisbane. knowing the context of situation makes the utterances” (gerot and wignell, 1994:10). the above example shows that it would be hard to interpret the sentence if we do not know exactly who actually the speaker is and to whom the sentence is delivered. without knowing what actually the words „it‟ and „those‟ in the example above refer to, we cannot either precisely interpret the intention of the speaker. there are three aspects of context in any situation that have linguistic consequences. these are called the register variables. gerot and wignell (1994:11) state that: field refers to what is going on, including activity focus (nature of social activity) and object focus (subject matter); mode refers to how language is being used, whether the channel of communication is spoken or written or language is being used as a model of action or reflection; tenor refers to the social relationships between those taking parts. these are specifiable in terms of status of power, affect, and contact. metafunction meaning which is carried out by language is not limited into only one meaning. based on halliday‟s systemic functional linguistic, there are three types of meanings: a meaning about the interaction (an interpersonal meaning); a meaning about reality (an ideational meaning), and a meaning about the message (a textual meaning). these three types of meaning are known as the metafunctions (eggins, 1994:225). the three functions or constituents of interpersonal, ideational, and textual are also differentiated into three roles of subject, actor, and theme. each of those roles makes up a separate strand in the overall meaning of the clause. halliday (2004:58-59) states that: a clause has meaning as an exchange, a transaction between speaker and listener. the subject is the warranty of the exchange; a clause has meaning as a representation of some process in ongoing human experience. the actor is the active participant in that process. meanwhile, theme is the point of departure for the message. it is the element the speaker selects for „grounding‟ what he is going on to say. despite having different roles in realizing meaning, those three functions can exist at the same time in one clause. therefore, the three strands of meaning can be analyzed in a clause only. for the sake of a clearer explanation, below is the example. kate, i read your new book yesterday. kate i read your new book yesterday interpersonal adjunct: vocative subject finite predicate complement adjunct: adverbial residue mood residue ideational actor process: material goal circ.: time textual theme rheme constituent of interpersonal will be discussed first. in analyzing the clause, it uses mood system which consists of subject and finite. finite functions in negotiating meanings. based on the analysis above, the subject is placed by „i‟, while the finite lies in the word „read‟ in which it is fused with predicate. in this case, the word „read‟ negotiates that the speaker did something to kate‟s new book; that is reading it. thus, an interaction happens in this scope. it could be described that the speaker told kate that he had read her new book the day before. later, it opened chance for kate to give responses to what the speaker had told her. thus, it is clear that interpersonal constituent reveals a meaning of interaction. the second is constituent of ideational. it is about encoding people experiences of the world around them. from the analysis above, it is clear that the process attempts to represent an experience of the actor. in this case, the speaker gave information to kate that he had read her ghea kyat priyanka / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 5 new book the day before. then, the content of what the speaker delivered which is expressed from what the actor represents is what can be called as the ideational meaning of the clause. the last is constituent of textual. it reveals meaning about message. in constituents of textual, the system of theme are broken down into two functional components; theme as given information and rheme as new information. the term given here means that the information has existed before the new one appears. in this case, it could be informed that „kate‟ and „i‟ already existed before the conversation happened. meanwhile, „read your new book yesterday‟ has just created because of the existence of kate and i. thus, there is a causal relationship between theme and rheme in the sense that theme as given information produces rheme as new information. ideational meaning according to derewianka (2011:13), “one important function of language is to enable us to represent what is going on in the world; to talk about our experience, to reflect on our observations, to share knowledge and ideas.” it concerns with how language functions to represent different kinds of experience. halliday refers to this as the „experiential‟ or „ideational‟ function of language. it is centrally influenced by field of discourse. as ideational meaning talks about experience, then it relates to information about objects or to what the utterances are about. ideational meaning provides answers to questions such as „what is happening?‟, „who or what is taking part?‟, and „what gives us more information about the activity? when? where? how?‟ the system of transitivity “when we look at the ideational metafunction, we are looking at the grammar of the clause as representation. as with the clause as exchange, we find there is one major system of grammatical choice involved in this kind of meaning. this is the system of transitivity, or process type” (eggins, 1994:228). transitivity is a tool by which we can achieve ideational meaning of discourse. processes, participants, and circumstances are included in it. each plays its own role in realizing the ideational meaning. processes are the central one in transitivity for it determines the order of meaning in a clause. different processes make different order of meaning in the clause, for instance the words „she listens to a song‟, „she writes a song‟, and „she sings a song‟. the processes in those three clauses determine different order of meaning. however, participants and circumstances also plays great role in creating a precise interpretation of ideational meaning. processes a process is realized in grammar by means of a verbal group. according to halliday (2004:170-171), there are six types of processes in the english transitivity system. those are material, mental, relational, behavioral, verbal, and existential process. butt et al. (1996:47) explain that material process is about doing. it could answer the question „what did x do?‟ or „what happened to x?‟ the participants of this process could be actor, goal, range or beneficiary. meanwhile, mental process provides answer to question „what do you think/ feel/ know about x?‟ furthermore, there are four types of mental process; affective or perceptive (perceiving through the five senses), cognitive (thinking), desiderative, and emotive (feeling). the participants in mental process are senser and phenomenon. other process type is relational process. it is often described as process of being. there are two types of relational processes. those are one that identifies which is called identifying and one that describes something in clause which is named attributive. as these two types are different since the beginning, the participants in both types are also different from one another. participants in identifying are token and value, while in attributive are carrier and attribute. in relation to behavioral process, halliday (2004:248-249) explains that ghea kyat priyanka / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 6 “behavioral processes are processes of (typically human) physiological and psychological behavior, like breathing, coughing, smiling, dreaming, and staring. the participant who is „behaving‟ labeled behaver. the process is grammatically more like one of „doing‟.” meanwhile, concerning verbal process contains of verbal action, saying and all its many synonyms, including symbolic exchanges of meaning. it contains three participants: sayer, receiver, and verbiage. the last type is existential process. it is process of existence. gerot and wignell (1994:72) state that "existential processes are expressed by verbs of existing: „be‟, „exist‟, „arise‟, and the existent can be a phenomenon of any kind.” participants butt et al. (1996:52) claim that “a participant can be a person, a place, or an object, and in the grammar of a clause the participant is realized by a nominal group, typically a noun or pronoun.” there are many different kinds of process. hence, there are also many different kinds of participant, following the kinds of process. circumstances derewianka (2011:66) states that “the circumstances tell us about such matters as time, place, manner, accompaniment, matter, cause, contingency, role, and angle. these details are obviously important in comprehending and expressing aspects of their experience.” it functions to illuminate the clause. speech function “making an utterance is an interactive event inherently involving a speaker or a writer and an addressee. a speaker, in uttering, selects a speech role (giving or demanding) for her or himself, and, simultaneously and thereby, allocates a speech role to the addressee” (gerot and wignell, 1994:22). speech role and speech function (gerot and wignell, 1994:23) by analyzing the speech function (offer, statement, command, and question) in a text, every speech role produced by the speakers will be able to be revealed. furthermore, the speakers‟ purposes will also be able to be described. their purposes in uttering their sentences will help in completing the analysis of ideational meaning of the debate transcript. descriptive qualitative approach denzin and lincoln (1994:2) contend that: qualitative research is multimethod in focus, involving an interpretive, naturalistic approach to its subject matter. this means that qualitative researchers study things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of, or interpret, phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them. combinations of options: give: goods and services = offer give: information = statement demand: goods and services = command demand: information = question of course, the addressee has some discretion: + offer accept reject statement acknowledge contradict command undertake refuse question answer disclaim ghea kyat priyanka / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 7 it can be inferred that a qualitative researcher is to interpret the meanings in the data which is carried out descriptively to draw a conclusion. in this research, the descriptions about the ideational meaning are elaborated through the knife of the analysis, the system of transitivity. the research report is written descriptively in accordance with the research findings of the ideational meaning in the debate transcript of concerning china‟s threat. findings on process types analysis from the identification of the process types found in each clause of the debate transcript, the result produced is presented in the table below. text process types sum of analyzed items percentage (%) transcript of the u.s. presidential debate between barack obama and mitt romney concerning china‟s threat material 170 36.6 mental 63 13.5 relational: identifying 46 9.9 attributive 147 31.6 behavioral 14 3.0 verbal 21 4.5 existential 4 0.9 total 465 100 both speakers, through material process, stated the actions of the past, present, and future. their past actions were aimed at showing their success or disapproving other, while the actions of present and future showed their visions coping with the issue. obama was describing his actions of setting up a trade task force to go after cheaters and determining the policy of auto industry and tax code. meanwhile romney explained unemployment condition experienced by the u.s. citizen. in other case, by using mental process, obama certainly stated his wish of having a relationship with china, while romney, with a high certainty, described his wants as making the u.s. as the most attractive place in the world to grow businesses. compared to relational and material process as the top-two most frequent process, this one has a wide discrepancy in number and percentage with them by occupying only 13.5% of the whole clauses. it indicates that the speakers were indeed using personal feelings or inner experience in supporting their solutions, yet they put their focus more in the factual evidences than in personal feelings. furthermore, from the result of relational process analysis, two points of conclusion could be drawn. firstly, the speakers attempted to describe the u.s. trade and economic condition. obama stated the u.s. condition in the past and present to show his success, while romney aimed at showing obama‟s failure in his leadership. secondly, obama and romney stated and emphasized their internal and external solutions coping with the issue. obama stated that his internal solution was making investments in education and research, and his external one was insisting china to play by the rules. meanwhile, romney stated that his internal and external solutions were making the u.s. as the most attractive place to grow businesses and labeling china as currency manipulator. in addition, through behavioral process, romney stated china‟s and someone reactions to the u.s. unfortunate condition. romney dominated the usage of behavioral process. however, occupying 3.0% of 465 clauses, it indicates that both speakers were rarely showed someone‟s reaction coping with the issue of the debate compared to showing relations, actions, inner experience, and also someone‟s saying. ghea kyat priyanka / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 8 both speakers, through verbal process, restated their interlocutor‟s and also their own statements. it is aimed at refusing other‟s disapproval. verbal process indeed has a quite wide discrepancy with top three most frequent process types; however, it shows another side of delivering speaker‟s statements and solution towards the issue of the debate. existential process represents romney‟s descriptions regarding the u.s. trade condition related to china. having the smallest percentage, it indicates that he did not put his top priority in giving information concerning it explicitly. he indeed stated the u.s.-china trade condition, yet he mostly inserted it within his statements. findings on speech function analysis from the identification of each clause in the debate transcript, the result of speech function analysis gained is presented in the table below. text initiating speech function sum % responding speech function sum % transcript of the u.s. presidential debate between barack obama and mitt romney concerning china‟s threat give offer 5 2.4 accept 1 0.5 reject 1 0.5 statement 108 50.9 acknowledge 47 22.2 contradict 25 11.8 demand command 13 6.1 undertake 0 0 refuse 0 0 question 6 2.8 answer 6 2.8 disclaim 0 0 total 132 62.2 80 37.8 offer being in the sixth place indicates that the participants very rarely directed the topic of the debate. they tended to let it flowed flexibly according to the speakers‟ responses. the fact that the limitation of time to explore solutions existed more than the limitation of the topic indicates that the moderator put his priority in giving equal chance for the speakers to speak than to keep the topic of the debate focus. furthermore, the percentage of only 0.5% of accept and reject proves that most of the offer did not need any verbal responses. through speech function of statement, the participants gave information regarding the topic, the speakers‟ solution, the u.s. economic and trade condition, and the action that was taken by china in doing trade. particularly, having the highest percentage, it indicates that the speakers were focusing their attention in letting the audiences realized their solutions. they were also letting the audiences aware of trading condition between the u.s. and china. related to its responding speech function, the higher percentage of acknowledge than ghea kyat priyanka / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 9 contradict shows that the speakers tended to give positive responses to their statements more than to their interlocutor‟s, remembering the occasion is a debate. hence, those positive responses were used for their own benefit. in relation to command, its percentage of 6.1% of all clauses indicates that the participants aimed to give limitation to the speaker who overtime exploring his solutions. this result shows that even though the speakers were given chances to maximally explore their solutions and opinions, there was still limitation of time to keep the debate flowing fairly and well. the responding speech function of command, undertake and refuse, did not contribute any percentage in the transcript. this result proves that the commands did not need any verbal responses in responding the goods and services demanded by the initiator. speech function of question was only initiated by romney and schieffer. the questions which were answered were only those coming from schieffer. meanwhile, romney‟s questions did not need any answer for it was stated for the purpose of emphasizing. being in the fifth place, it indicates that the moderator rarely initiated questions to be discussed. he rather let the flow of the debate be filled with speakers‟ solutions. meanwhile, disclaim was not contributing at all in the debate transcript. this result shows that none of the question was responded negatively. even though not all of the questions were answered, none of them were contradicted by the addressees either. it indicates whether the questions were feasible to be answered or aimed at supporting the speakers‟ statements. context of situation related to ideational meaning of the debate transcript field influences the language use in the debate transcript. some everyday terminologies in the area of economy and trade emerge in the debate process remembering the purpose of the debate is to give information concerning the speakers‟ solution towards the issue to all of the u.s. citizens. those terminologies make the conversation focuses on the subject matter being analyzed, that is china as a threat to the u.s. concerning tenor of the text, the participants in the u.s. presidential debate have equal power, infrequent contact, and low affective involvement. it leads the language use to the using of vocatives. however, there exists politeness formula among all participants in this debate. furthermore, mode of the debate transcript related to its ideational meaning shows that the channel of communication of the text is spoken. this fact influences the language use in the debate in the case that the speakers used complicated grammar and spontaneous phenomena in delivering their statements. moreover, their conversation is also context dependent which caused them to use pronoun to refer to something which supported their opinions. conclusion first, the writer concludes that obama, through material process, was describing his actions of setting up a trade task force to go after cheaters and determining the policy of auto industry and tax code, and through 41.5% of relational processes, was showing recent u.s. condition as his success in which jobs were saved and exports have doubled. furthermore, through mental process, in a high certainty, he stated his hopes of having a relationship with china. in doing so, he prepared the u.s. by making investment in education and research so they would not lose the lead in things. while through verbal process, he disapproved romney‟s idea in the liquidity of auto industry. meanwhile, through material, relational, and existential processes, romney, by using high modality, certainly stated the unfortunate conditions during obama‟s leadership such as unemployment, companies‟ bankruptcy, and the increase of debt. furthermore, through 3.0% of behavioral process, he described china‟s doubt in having relation with the u.s. as their reaction to u.s. condition. for that reason, through 13.5% of mental process, he stated his wish of ghea kyat priyanka / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 10 making the u.s. as the most attractive place in the world to grow businesses. meanwhile, in refusing obama‟s disapproval of auto industry‟s liquidation, romney used verbal process. as 50.9% of the whole clauses of speech function belong to statement, it shows that both speakers were inviting the audiences to accept that information. second, context of situation influences the debate transcript in its language use. some terminologies in the area of economy and trade emerge as the influences of field. those terminologies make the conversation focuses on the subject matter being analyzed, that is china as a threat to the u.s. references branham, j.r. 1991. debate and critical analysis: the harmony of conflict. retrieved from http://debate.uvm.edu/dcpdf/branham_de bate&criticalanalysis.pdf on february 12, 2013. butt, david. et al. 1996. using functional grammar: an explorer’s guide. sydney: macquarie university denzin, n.k and yvonna s. lincoln. 1994. introduction: entering the field of qualitative research. california: sage publications, inc. derewianka, beverly. 2011. a new grammar companion. sydney: primary english teaching association eggins, suzzane. 1994. an introduction to systemic functional linguistics. london: pinter publishers gerot, l. and p. wignell. 1994. making sense of functional grammar. sydney: gerd stabler halliday, m.a.k. and christian m.i.m matthiessen (ed). 2004. an introduction to functional grammar (3 rd ed). london: oxford university press inc. halliday, m.a.k. and ruqaiya hasan. 1985. language, context, and text: aspects of language in a social-semiotic perspective. melbourne: deakin university press hammond, jenny. et al. 1992. english for social purposes. sydney: macquarie university parla. kristen. 2010. democratic versus republican perspectives. retrieved from http://usa5.org/d/democratic-versusrepublican-perspectives-by-kristen-parlae3777 on february 20, 2013. ramelan. 1999. english phonetics. semarang: ikip semarang press wattles, isidora and b. radic-bojanic. 2007. the analysis of an online debate. facta universitatis series: linguistics and literature. vol. 5, pp. 47-58. retrieved from http://facta.junis.ni.ac.rs/lal/lal2007/lal20 07-05.pdf on february 19, 2013 http://debate.uvm.edu/dcpdf/branham_debate&criticalanalysis.pdf http://debate.uvm.edu/dcpdf/branham_debate&criticalanalysis.pdf http://usa5.org/d/democratic-versus-republican-perspectives-by-kristen-parla-e3777 http://usa5.org/d/democratic-versus-republican-perspectives-by-kristen-parla-e3777 http://usa5.org/d/democratic-versus-republican-perspectives-by-kristen-parla-e3777 http://facta.junis.ni.ac.rs/lal/lal2007/lal2007-05.pdf http://facta.junis.ni.ac.rs/lal/lal2007/lal2007-05.pdf september 1 elt forum 2 (2) (2013) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt translation techniques of the complex sentences in bilingual textbook biology 1 for senior high school year x published by yudhistira ikma qurrota a’yun  department of english, faculty language and arts, semarang state university, indonesia info artikel ________________ sejarah artikel: diterima 2013 disetujui oktober 2013 dipublikasikan november 2013 ________________ keywords: translation techniques, bilingual textbook, biology ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this final project was a study which analyzed the use of translation techniques in the bilingual textbook biology 1 for senior high school year x published by yudhistira. the study was done qualitatively. the data were collected by selecting the complex sentences found in chapter five and six. after that, i analyzed and classified the translation techniques used based on molina and albir’s classification (2002). next, the data were counted in order to find the dominant translation techniques. at last, based on the experts, the rendering of meaning from each complex sentence were counted. the result of the study showed that there were 113 complex sentences found in chapter five and six. there were only nine translation techniques, they were literal translation, borrowing, adaptation, reduction, particularization, amplification, generalization, transposition, and description. the rendering of meaning of the 113 sentences was mostly good. 90 sentences (79.64 %) were categorized as good by both experts. from the result, it can be concluded that literal translation dominated the translation techniques used by the translator. although only 90 sentences (79.64 %) were categorized as good by both experts, the whole sentences can be understood easily because there were no deviated meaning. © 2013 universitas negeri semarang  alamat korespondensi: gedung b3 lantai 3 fbs unnes kampus sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: yuna_rief@yahoo.com issn 2252-6706 mailto:yuna_rief@yahoo.com ikma qurrota a’yun / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 2 introduction in this era, the role of international language becomes very important, especially english. people’s need of english ability is growing bigger since english is used to access knowledge and information which are more easily accessible now through the internet. indonesia, which in fact is a developing country, in this case, does not want to miss any chance to go forward and actively participate in this era. therefore, the government has done several things to improve our educational quality. one of them is by establishing the bilingual program for a number of educational institutions in indonesia. due to facilitate the bilingual program, the learning resources which can support bilingual instruction programs must be provided. establishing textbooks which use two languages in delivering the materials is necessary. thus, the bilingual textbooks have been made. the books are designed in two languages, indonesian-english. those books are supposed to make the students easier to understand the materials and master the english at the same time. those books are biology, geography, history, mathematics, physics, chemistry, etc. it is interesting to discover whether the book which is written in two language versions is translated properly or not. in this study i focus on analyzing a book entitled biology 1 for senior high school year x published by yudhishtira. i limit my focus on the use of translation techniques used in the book. to assess the translation technique, i use the translation techniques classification introduced by molina and albir. bilingual textbook biology 1 for senior high school year x published by yudhistira used english and indonesian language to deliver the materials. explanation in the book present description of a certain object which is contains many words, phrases, sentences and paragraphs. moreover, biology deals with many specialized terminologies which relatively much more difficult to be translated because the target language sometimes does not have the equivalence of those terminologies. the appearance of the complex sentences also make biology text more complicated to be translated. thus, the editor of this bilingual textbook should use certain techniques in their translating process. bilingual textbook biology 1 for senior high school year x published by yudhistira was chosen because it is relevant and has been used in some senior high schools in magelang. this research is concerned with the translation techniques which are used in bilingual textbook biology 1 for senior high school year x published by yudhistira. the analysis of translation techniques is based on molina and albir’s classification. not all of the materials or components in the book become the object of analysis. this study is aimed:to discuss the translation techniques used in bilingual textbook biology 1 for senior high school year x published by yudhistira in delivering the materials and to analyze how the complex sentences render the meaning. the analysis in this research only focuses on the complex sentences found in core materials in the book, especially in chapter five and six. while definition of a complex sentence is sentence that contains an independent clause and at least one dependent clause (http://grammar.about.com/od/c/g/complexse ntence.htm). therefore, other components of the material such as introduction picture and its note, learning objectives, concept map, keywords, info, task, investigation, summary, and competence test are not analyzed . translation there are many definitions of translation that are proposed by linguists, ranging from the simplest and growing in complexity by widening their focus. larson (1984: 3) states that “translation is basically a change of form”. in translation, the form of the source language is replaced by the form of the target language. larson (1984:3) also defines “translation consists of transferring meaning of the source language into the target language. this is done http://grammar.about.com/od/c/g/complexsentence.htm http://grammar.about.com/od/c/g/complexsentence.htm ikma qurrota a’yun / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 3 by going from the form of the first language to the form of second language by way of semantic structure. it is meaning which is being transferred and must be held constant.” newmark (1988:5) explains “it is rendering the meaning of a text into other language in the way that author intended the text”. the temptation is to transfer as many sl (source language) words to the tl (target language) as possible. hartono (2009:6), otherwise, defines “translation is reading the author’s will and purpose in the form of message which contains both denotative and connotative meanings that exists in the source text that must be reproduced by translators into the target’s language. this process runs in a simultaneous cycle. the basic purpose of translation is to reproduce various types of texts, comprising literary, religious, scientific, philosophical texts etc. in another language. thus, it makes them available to wider readers to a greater number of target audiences and to bring the world closer. from those definitions of translation, it can be concluded that translation is an activity of finding out the equivalent words of sl in tl so that the tl text contains the closest natural and accurate message to the sl text. from the definitions of translation above, it is obvious that every translator should be able to convey the message of source text accurately in the target text. translation method translation method refers to the way a particular translation process is carried out in terms of the translator’s objective, i.e., a global option that affects the whole text (molina and albir, 2002: 507). each solution the translator chooses when translating a text responds to the global option that affects the whole text (the translation method) and depends on the aim of the translation. thus, translation method influences the translation product. it means that the translation product depends on the translation method chosen by the translator because his purposes and/or desires will have an effect on the whole translation product. translation techniques the difference between translation method and translation technique is that translation method affects the whole text; meanwhile translation technique affects microunits of the text. molina and albir (2002: 509) define translation techniques as procedures to analyze and classify how translation equivalence works. they have five basic characteristics: 1) they affect the result of the translation 2) they are classified by comparison with the original 3) they affect micro-units of text 4) they are by nature discursive and contextual 5) they are functional obviously, translation techniques are not the only categories available to analyze a translated text. coherence, cohesion, thematic progression and contextual dimensions also intervene in the analysis. according to them, there are eighteen translation techniques as follows: 1. adaptation. to replace a st cultural element with one from the target culture, e.g., to change baseball, for fútbol in a translation into spanish. 2. amplification. to introduce details that are not formulated in the st: information, explicative paraphrasing, e.g., when translating from arabic (to spanish) to add the muslim month of fasting to the noun ramadan. footnotes are a type of amplification. amplification is in opposition to reduction. 3. borrowing. to take a word or expression straight from another language. it can be pure(without any change), e.g., to use the english word lobby in a spanish text, or it can be naturalized (to fit the spelling rules in the tl), e.g., gol, fútbol, líder, mitin. 4. calque. literal translation of a foreign word or phrase; it can be lexical or structural, e.g., the english translation normal school for the french écolenormale. 5. compensation. to introduce a st element of information or stylistic effect in another ikma qurrota a’yun / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 4 place in the tt because it cannot be reflected in the same place as in the st. 6. description. to replace a term or expression with a description of its form or/and function, e.g., to translate the italian panettone as traditional italian cake eaten on new year’s eve. 7. discursive creation. to establish a temporary equivalence that is totally unpredictable out of context, e.g., the spanish translation of the film rumble fish as la ley de la calle. 8. established equivalent. to use a term or expression recognized (by dictionaries or language in use) as an equivalent in the tl, e.g., to translate the english expression they are as like as two peas as se parecencomo dos gotas de aguain spanish. 9. generalization. to use a more general or neutral term, e.g., to translate the french guichet, fenêtreor devanture, as window in english. it is in opposition to particularization. 10. linguistic amplification. to add linguistic elements. this is often used in consecutive interpreting and dubbing, e.g., to translate the english expression no way into spanish as de ninguna de lasmaneras instead of using an expression with the same number of words, en absoluto. it is in opposition to linguistic compression. 11. linguistic compression. to synthesize linguistic elements in the tt. this is often used in simultaneous interpreting and in sub-titling, e.g., to translate the english question yes, so what? with ¿y?, in spanish, instead of using a phrase with the same number of words, ¿sí, y qué?. it is in opposition to linguistic amplification. 12. literal translation. to translate a word or an expression word for word, e.g., they are as like as two peas as se parecencomo dos guisante, or, she is reading as ella estáleyendo. 13. modulation. to change the point of view, focus or cognitive category in relation to the st; it can be lexical or structural, e.g., to translate as you are going to have a child, instead of, you are going to be a father. 14. particularization. to use a more precise or concrete term, e.g., to translate window in english as guichet in french. it is in opposition to generalization. 15. reduction. to suppress a st information item in the tt, e.g., the month of fasting in opposition to ramadan when translating into arabic. it is in opposition to amplification. 16. substitution (linguistic, paralinguistic). to change linguistic elements for paralinguistic elements (intonation, gestures) or vice versa, e.g., to translate the arab gesture of putting your hand on your heart as thank you. it is used above all in interpreting. 17. transposition. to change a grammatical category, e.g., he will soon be back translated into spanish as no tardará en venir, changing the adverb soon for the verb tardar, instead of keeping the adverb and writing: estará de vuelta pronto. 18. variation. to change linguistic or paralinguistic elements (intonation, gestures) that affect aspects of linguistic variation: changes of textual tone, style, social dialect, geographical dialect, etc., e.g., to introduce or change dialectal indicators for characters when translating for the theater, changes in tone when adapting novels for children, etc. the analysis on this study was focused on the complex sentences found in the core materials. there were 113 complex sentences found in this study. they became the object of the study and had been analyzed qualitatively based on molina and albir classification (2002). the theory suggested by molina and albir (2002) comprises the eighten translation techniques which are usually used by the translator/s. those are adaptation, amplification, borrowing, calque, compensation, description, discursive creation, established equivalent, generalization, linguistic amplification, linguistic compression, literal translation, modulation, particularization, reduction, substitution (linguistic, paralinguistic), transposition, and variation. the study found that the translators of the book used ikma qurrota a’yun / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 5 some of those translation techniques in delivering the materials. from those translation techniques, there were nine translation techniques found in the analysis. the findings were summed up in the following table. the table was formulated to make the readers easier to get information about the results of the study. table 4.1 data tabulation no translation techniques frequency percentage 1. literal translation 109 42.25 % 2. borrowing 94 36.43 % 3. adaptation 22 8.53 % 4. reduction 10 3.87 % 5. particularization 9 3.49 % 6. amplification 8 3.10 % 7. generalization 3 1.16 % 8. transposition 2 0.78 % 9. description 1 0.39 % total 258 100.00 % there were 113 sentences analyzed and based on the table 4.1, there were nine translation techniques were found with the total frequency is 258 times because most of the sentences used not only one translation technique, but the combination between two until four techniques. from those data tabulation table, the most occurrence was literal translation with the frequency 109 times (42.25 %). another translation techniques occurred; those were borrowing as the second with the frequency 94 times (36.43 %), the third was adaptation with the frequency 22 times (8.53 %), the fourth was reduction with the frequency 10 times (3.87 %), the fifth was particularization with the frequency 9 times (3.49 %), the sixth was amplification with the frequency 8 times (3.10 %), the seventh was generalization with the frequency 3 times (1.16 %), the next was transposition with the frequency 2 times (0.78 %), and the smallest number was description with the frequency 1 times (0.39 %). literal translation literal translation were the most used translation technique in bilingual textbook biology 1 for senior high school year x published by yudhistira. the frequency of this technique was 109 times (42.25 %). literal translation is a technique where translate a word or an expression word for word based on the function and meaning in the sentence. it does not mean translating one word for another. some examples of this translation technique are presented as follows: (1) no. 34 page 164 st: di daerah beriklim sedang, batang biasanya berada di dalam tanah sehingga yang tampak dominan adalah daunnya yang tipis dan lebar. tt: in the temperate zone, stem is usually underground, so that its dominant appearance is a thin and large leaf. (2) no. 40 page 168 st: bentuk daunnya bermacammacam, biasanya kaku dan selalu berwarna hijau sepanjang tahun. tt: the shape of its leaf is various, usually stiff and evergreen throughout the year. borrowing from the data analyzed, borrowing occurred for 94 times (36.43 %). borrowing is a technique where take a word or expression straight from another language. it can be pure (without any change), or it can be naturalized (to fit the spelling rules in the tl). usually, this ikma qurrota a’yun / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 6 technique used when translating word or phrase. here the examples of this technique: (3) no. 1 page 154 st: tumbuhan (kingdom plantae) merupakan eukariota multiseluler yang memiliki kemampuan untuk membuat makanan sendiri (autotrof). bt: the kingdom plantae is a multicelluler eukaryote which has the ability to produce their own food (autotrophic). tt: the kingdom plantae is a multicelluler eukaryote which are able to produce their own food (autotrophic). beside used borrowing technique on the words which were typed in bold font in those sentence, the translator/s also used another two translation techniques, they were reduction and transposition. (4) no. 2 page 154 st: tumbuhan memiliki kloroplas yang mengandung pigmen klorofil. bt: plant has chloroplast which contains chlorophyll pigment. tt: plant has chloroplast, which contains chlorophyll pigment. the translator/s also used literal translation beside borrowing technique on the words which were typed in bold font in those sentence,. adaptation among 113 data (sentences), this kind of technique occurred for 22 times (8.53 %). this technique replace a st cultural element with one from the target culture. here are some examples for this technique: (5) no. 19 page 160 st: tumbuhan paku juga disebut tumbuhan berkomus, yaitu tumbuhan yang memiliki akar, batang, dan daun sebenarnya. bt: ferns are also called as cormophyta, the plant which have true root, stem, and leaf. tt: ferns are also called as cormophyta, the plant which have true root, stem, and leaf. beside used adaptation technique on the words which were typed in bold font in those sentence, the translator/s also used particularization, and literal translation. (6) no. 20 page 160 st: berbeda dengan tumbuhan lumut, tumbuhan paku dikenali melalui generasi sporofit. bt: different from moss, fern is recognized through the sporophyte generation. tt: different from moss, fern is recognized as sporophyte generation. the translator/s also used borrowing and literal translation beside used adaptation technique on the words which were typed in bold font. reduction reduction is a technique which suppress a st information item in tt. in a simple way, this technique omit the unimportant words. this technique occurred for 10 times (3.87 %). the examples of this technique are elaborated as follows: (7) no. 1 page 154 st: tumbuhan (kingdom plantae) merupakan eukariota multiseluler yang memiliki kemampuan untuk membuat makanan sendiri (autotrof). bt: plant (the kingdom plantae) is a multicelluler eukaryote which has the ability to produce their own food (autotrophic). tt: the kingdom plantae is a multicelluler eukaryote which are able to produce their own food (autotrophic). instead of translated into the word plant, the word tumbuhan was omitted; thus, the translation technique used in those sentence was reduction. beside used reduction technique on the phrase which was typed in bold font in those sentence, the translator/s also used another two translation techniques, they were borrowing and transposition. (8) no. 6 page 156 st: reproduksi secara seksual dapat terjadi melalui peleburan gamet jantan dan betina, ikma qurrota a’yun / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 7 sedangkan aseksualnya antara lain melalui fragmentasi dan pembentukan gema (kuncup tunas). bt: sexual reproduction occurs by fertilization of male and female gametes, whereas asexual reproduction occurs by fragmentation and gemmae (sprout bud) formation. tt: sexual reproduction occurs by fertilization of male and female gametes, whereas asexual reproduction occurs by fragmentation and gemmae formation. the phrase kuncup tunas was omitted; this was the evidence that reduction was applied in those sentence. the translator/s also used borrowing and literal translation. particularization this translation technique was found in the data analysis with the frequency 9 of 258 times (3.49 %). this technique try to use a more precise or concrete term. there were some examples of sentences using this kind of technique. those examples are provided as follow: (9) no. 7 page 156 st: pada beberapa spesies lainnya, anteridium dan arkegonium ditemukan pada tumbuhan yang terpisah, disebut lumut berumah dua atau heterotalus. bt: in some other species, the antheridium and archegonium are found at different plants, they are called dioecious or heterothallus. tt: in some other species, the antheridium and archegonium are found at different plants, they are called dioecious or heterothallus. the phrase berumah dua was translated into the word dioecious; so this sentenced used particularization since dioecious was the precise term for berumah dua. beside used particularization technique on the phrase which was typed in bold font in those sentence, the translator/s also used literal translation and borrowing technique. (10) no. 15 page 158 st: jika spora jatuh di tempat yang sesuai, maka akan tumbuh menjadi protonema. bt: if the spore falls into an appropriate place, it will grow into a protonema. tt: if the spore falls into an appropriate place, it will germinate into a protonema. the word tumbuh was translated into the germinate; thus this sentenced used particularization since germinate was more precise term for tumbuh. in those sentence, the translator/s also used literal translation and borrowing technique. amplification occurred for 8 times (3.10 %), amplification is a technique which introduces details that are not formulated in st: information, explicative paraphrasing. this is the opposite of reduction technique. the examples can be seen clearly as follows: (11) no. 16 page 158 st: jika anteridium telah matang, maka sel sperma akan berenang menuju ke arkegonium sehingga terjadi fertilisasi, menyebabkan pembentukan zigot. bt: if antheridium has matured, sperm cell will swim to the archegonium so that fertilization occurs, leading to the production of zygote. tt: if antheridium has matured, in the presence of water or dew, sperm cell will swim to the archegonium so that fertilization occurs, leading to the production of zygote. there is an additional information in the target text about the condition that is in the presence of water or dew; it indicate that this sentence used amplification technique. beside used amplification technique on the phrase which was typed in bold font in those sentence, the translator/s also used literal translation and borrowing technique. (12) no. 24 page 162 st: jika sporangium sudah matang, maka annulus akan mengering dan mengerut sehingga menyebabkan sporangium pecah. ikma qurrota a’yun / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 8 bt: if sporangium has already matured, annulus will dry and shrink, so that causes sporangium to brake. tt: if sporangium has already matured, annulus or a row of specific cells at the side of sporangium will dry and shrink, so that causes sporangium to brake. there is an additional information in the target text about annulus, that is a row of specific cells at the side of sporangium; this was the evidence that this sentence applied amplification technique. the translator/s also used literal translation and borrowing technique beside used amplification technique on the phrase which was typed in bold font in those sentence. generalization from 113 sentences, this technique only occurred for 3 times (1,15%). this technique uses a more general or neutral term. it is the opposite of particularization. the following sentences are the examples of this technique. (13) no. 21 page 160 st: pada umumnya, daun yang telah tua akan membentuk alat reproduksi berupa sorus yang biasanya terletak pada sisi bagian bawah daun. bt: generally, old leaf will form reproduction organ, sorus which are usually located on the underside of the fronds. tt: generally, mature leaf will form reproduction organ, sorus which are usually located on the underside of the fronds. the word tua was translated into mature; not old; this is a generalization technique. the word mature here is more general than the world old. beside used generalization technique on the phrase which was typed in bold font in those sentence, the translator/s also used literal translation, borrowing, and particularization technique. (14) no. 73 page 196 st: pada tentakel terdapat knidoblas dan mengandung nematosista yang dapat dijulurkan dan mengeluarkan racun. bt: in the tentacle, there is cnidoblast and it contains nematocyst, which can be sticked out and released toxin. tt: in the tentacle, there is cnidoblast and it contains nematocyst, which can be moved and released toxin. the word dijulurkan was translated into be moved, it used generalization technique. the phrase be moved here is more general than the word sticked out; this was the evidence that generalization technique was applied in those sentence. the translator/s also used literal translation and borrowing beside generalization technique on the phrase which was typed in bold font in those sentence, transposition this technique changes a grammatical category. noun into verb, adverb to noun, etc. occurred for 2 times (0.78%), here the three examples of this technique: (15) no. 1 page 154 st: tumbuhan (kingdom plantae) merupakan eukariota multiseluler yang memiliki kemampuan untuk membuat makanan sendiri (autotrof). bt: the kingdom plantae is a multicelluler eukaryote which has the ability to produce their own food (autotrophic). tt: the kingdom plantae is a multicelluler eukaryote which are able to produce their own food (autotrophic). the phrase yang memiliki kemampuan untuk membuat makanan sendiri was translated into which are able to produce their own food; it indicated that this sentence used transposition technique since there is a change of grammatical category that is noun (kemampuan) was translated into adjective (able). beside used transposition technique on the phrase which was typed in bold font in those sentence, the translator/s also used reduction and borrowing technique. (16) no. 28 page 162 st: generasi sporofit umumnya memiliki ukuran tubuh yang besar dan dapat hidup ikma qurrota a’yun / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 9 menahun, sedangkan, generasi gametofitnya berukuran kecil dan berumur pendek. bt: the sporophyte generation, in general, usually has larger body size and perennial, whereas the gametophyte generation has smaller size and short-lived. tt: in general, the sporophyte generation is usually larger in body size and perennial, whereas the gametophyte generation is smaller in size and short-lived. the word memiliki was translated into is; it indicated that this sentence used transposition technique since there is a change of grammatical category that is verb (memiliki) was translated into to be (is). the translator/s also used literal translation and borrowing beside transposition technique on the phrase which was typed in bold font in those sentence. description from the 113 sentences analyzed, this technique only occurred for one time (0.39 %). it means the technique which replace a term or expression with a description of its form or/and function, has the smallest number after all. based on the analysis, i found one sentence used description technique. it can be seen as follow: (17) no. 64 page 192 st: porosit, yaitu sel berlubang yang di dalamnya terdapat ostia. bt: porocytes, cells which make up the pores of ostia tt: porocytes, tubular cells which make up the pores of ostia. the word sel was translated into tubular cells; it is used description technique since the word tubular is used to describe the shape of the cell itself. beside used description technique on the phrase which was typed in bold font in those sentence, the translator/s also used borrowing technique. rendering of meaning based on the two experts, dr. ahmad sofwan, ph.d. and bambang purwanto, s.s., m.hum. the rendering of meaning from 113 complex sentences found in bilingual textbook biology 1 for senior high school year x published by yudhistira were good. the disagreement between the two experts showed that the weakness from the rest of the complex sentences (20.36 %) was located on the translation techniques chosen by the translator/s. they should find the proper translation techniques and the most equivalence words for some special technical terms. however, the rendering of meaning of the bilingual textbook entitled biology 1 for senior high school year x published by yudhistira was categorized as good since there was no distorted meaning at all. both experts were agreed that 90 sentences (79.64 %) got rate 3, which indicated that the rendering of meaning from each sentence was good. although the translator/s used a lot of translation techniques in each sentence, the whole meaning of the st was rendered in the tt. conclusion the analysis towards the bilingual textbook biology 1 for senior high school year x published by yudhistira showed that from 113 data, there were nine translation techniques were used to translate the materials from indonesian (sl) into english (tl). those were adaptation, amplification, borrowing, description, generalization, literal translation, particularization, reduction, and transposition. from the data result, literal translation occurred in a great number with the frequency 109 times (42.25 %). the second was borrowing with the frequency 94 times (36.43 %), the third was adaptation with the frequency 22 times (8.53 %), the fourth was reduction with the frequency 10 times (3.87 %), the fifth was particularization with the frequency 9 times (3.49 %), the sixth was amplification with the frequency 8 times (3.10 %), the seventh was generalization with ikma qurrota a’yun / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 10 the frequency 3 times (1.16 %), the next was transposition with the frequency 2 times (0.78 %), and the smallest number was description with the frequency 1 times (0.39 %). based on the two experts, the rendering of meaning of the 113 sentences was mostly good. 90 sentences (79.64 %) were categorized as good by both experts. the two experts disagreed about the rendering of meaning of the 23 sentences left. the first expert rated 10 sentences (8.85 %) as sufficient meanwhile the second expert rated them as good. the second expert rated 13 sentences (11.50 %) as sufficient, whereas the first expert rated them as good. however, the whole sentences can be understood by the readers easily because there were no deviated meaning. references baker, mona. 1991. in other words: a course book on translation. london and new york: routledge. bielsa, esperanca. 2005. a paper: globalisation as translation: an approximation to the key but invisible role of translation in globalisation. available at http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/1956/1/wr ap_bielsa_wp16305.pdf [accessed 01/16/13] burns, anne.1999. collaborative action research for english language teachers. cambridge: cambridge university press. hartono, r. 2009. teori penerjemahan (a handbook for translators). semarang: cipta prima nusantara. hurtado albir, a. and molina l. 2002. translation techniques revisited: a dynamic and functionalist approach. meta, xlvii, 4. spain, barcelona: universitat autònoma de barcelona. houbert, frederic. 1998. translation as a communication process. retrieved from http://translationjournal.net/journal/05t heory.htm on july 2, 2013. larson, mildred l. 1984. meaning-based translation: a guide to cross-language equivalence. london: university press of america. munday, jeremy (ed). 2009. the routledge companion to translation studies. london and new york: routledge. newmark, peter. 1988. a textbook of translation. oxford: longman venuti, lawrence. 1998. the scandals of translation (towards an ethics of difference). london and new york: routledge. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/1956/1/wrap_bielsa_wp16305.pdf http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/1956/1/wrap_bielsa_wp16305.pdf http://translationjournal.net/journal/05theory.htm%20on%20july%202 http://translationjournal.net/journal/05theory.htm%20on%20july%202 22 elt forum 3 (1) (2014) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the maintenance of implicatures in the english translation of dialogues in the novel “the land of five towers” (a descriptive qualitative study) fatimah english department, faculty of languages and arts, state university of semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in april 2014 approved in mei 2014 published in juni 2014 ________________ keywords: translation, implicatures, novel, “negeri lima menara”, “the land of five towers” ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this final project is about the implicatures found in the source novel entitled “negeri lima menara” written by ahmad fuadi that are translated into english by angie kilbane entitled “the land of five towers”. in understanding the novel, implicature seems harder to be understood since implicature means something beyond what is stated; it may emerge many interpretations. besides, the implicatures in this novel actually contain the point or message of the novel. so, it is essentially needed for the readers to understand those implicatures for understanding the novel. the objectives of this project are to describe the maintenance of implicatures in the english translation of dialogues in the novel “the land of five towers” and to explain the achievement of the equivalence in meaning. this project was designed as descriptive qualitative. it means that descriptive interpretation was used for examining the data on this research so that the conclusions were based on that interpretation. the object of this project is the utterances containing implicatures that were found in both the indonesian text as the source text and english text as its translation. documentation method was used to collect the data in this research. the data was in the form of printed text in the novel, both indonesian and english versions. in analyzing the data, observation method was done in six steps; they were listing, identifying, classifying, tabulating, interpreting, and drawing conclusion. the findings of this project are from 780 utterances that are stated in these novels, 40 of them are found as utterances containing implicatures. those utterances flout one of the maxims that grice stated, whether it flouts maxim of quality, quantity, relevance, or manner. the percentages of them are as follows: there are 11 (27.5%) utterances flouting maxim of quality, 7 (17.5%) utterances flouting maxim of quantity. in addition, there are 6 (15%) utterances flouting maxim of relevance and 16 (40%) utterances flouting maxim of manner. moreover, for keep maintaining the implicatures, they are mostly translated literally and the translator keeps using some cultural and religious terminologies for keep showing the cultural and religious situation in the translated novel. furthermore, the meaning equivalence is mostly achieved since the original and the translated novels have the same meaning of the implicatures. by considering them, it can be concluded that the implicatures are mostly maintained when they are translated into english because the meanings and conditions of those implicatures can be similarly understood like what are stated in the st. © 2014 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: fatimah_tamy@yahoo.com issn 2252-6706 fatimah / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 23 introduction translation plays an important role in communication since it is the medium for changing information and ideas among people from different languages and cultures. a good translation needs to paid attention in both semantic and pragmatic aspects since they determine the understanding of the hearers or readers. the differences between them are “semantics relates meaning to logic and truth (linguistic meaning), pragmatics relates meaning to context of utterance (speaker meaning)” (hassan, 2011: 21). this paper is going to analyze one part of pragmatic aspects; it is what is called implicature. baker (1992: 250) said that “implicature is the question of how it is that we come to understand more than is actually said.” in other words, implicature is the hearer’s/reader’s understanding of what the speaker/writer said even it is not stated directly; the hearer/reader knows what the speaker’s/writer’s intentions of saying that. it rarely happens for indonesian novel being translated into english and “the land of five towers” or in indonesian version is known as “negeri lima menara” is one of them. the novel contains many dialogues to describe the plot of the story; however, some of them contain implicatures. this becomes a problem since implicature means something beyond what is stated; it is harder to be understood since the utterances that contain implicatures may emerge many interpretations. besides, the implicatures in this novel actually contain the point or message of the novel. so, it is essentially needed for the readers to understand those implicatures for understanding the novel. in the process of translating this novel, it is needed for the translator to maintain the implicatures since s/he is the mediator for presenting the writer’s intention of stating the implicatures for the target readers that come from different languages and cultures. newmark (1988: 5) argues that “it is rendering the meaning of a text into another language in the way that the author intended the text.” from that definition, it can be seen that the translator needs to deliver the author’s intention in all parts of the text, including in implicature’s parts. then, it is also an issue of meaning equivalence achievement; this is the job of translator to find the appropriate equivalence of meaning from the source text to the target text to make the implicatures translation become smooth and easier to be understood by the target readers. by observing some problems above, this study is trying to investigate the maintenance of implicatures in the english translation of dialogues in the novel “the land of five towers”. this topic was chosen since impicature is one of important aspects for understanding the translated novel since it deals with the meaning that the writer wants to share implicitly. it is needed to check the maintenance of the implicatures and the achievement of meaning equivalence to see how the writer’s intention of stating the implicatures is delivered by the translator to the target readers. so, the objectives of this research are to describe the maintenance of implicatures in the english translation of dialogues in the novel “the land of five towers” and to explain the achievement of the equivalence in meaning. grice theory of cooperative principles will be used in conducting this research. this theory is used to find which utterances that contain implicatures. cooperative principles means “make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged (grice, 1975: 45). this cooperative principles has four maxim, they are: maxim of quantity, quality, relevance (relation), and manner. the description of them is the following: 1. quantity (a) make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the exchange). (b) do not make your contribution more informative than is required. 2. quality 'try to make your contribution one that is true', specifically: fatimah / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 24 (a) do not say what you believe to be false. (b) do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence. 3. relevance make your contributions relevant to the current exchange. 4. manner be perspicuous, specifically: (a) avoid obscurity of expression. (b) avoid ambiguity. (c) be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity). (d) be orderly. (grice, 1975: 45-46) hopefully, this research can give more information in translation study dealing with implicature and can be a reference for those who want to conduct the similar studies. furthermore, this will also help the target readers to understand the content of this novel, especially in the implicatures’ part. method of investigation this is a descriptive qualitative research that investigated the maintenance of implicatures found in the translation of dialogues from the novel “negeri lima menara” written by ahmad fuadi as the source text comparing with the english version entitled “the land of five towers” that is translated by angie kilbane as the target text. the objects of this study were only the utterances containing implicatures that were found in both the indonesian text as the source text and english text as its translation. as a researcher, i became the reader of the two novels, research designer, data collector, data analyst, and also reporter to analyze how the implicatures were maintained in the english translation of dialogues in the novel “the land of five towers”. then, i also analyzed the achievement of meaning equivalence in the implicatures in both of the novels. documentation method was used to collect the data in this research. the data was in the form of printed text in the novel, both indonesian and english versions. this novel has 46 chapters and i analyzed the whole chapters to get sufficient data of implicatures from these novels. i analyzed the utterances containing implicatures from the whole chapters of these novels that i found through their translation maintenance and meaning equivalence achievement. i followed some steps for collecting the data. first, i began the research by reading both the indonesian version entitled “negeri lima menara” novel and also the english version entitled “the land of five towers”. next, i highlighted relevant utterances from those novels. then, i quoted the source and target dialogues from the novels and put them into table. after that, i grouped them from the source and target text. i wrote the table side by side so that it would be easier for me to compare the original to the translation text. next, i classified the data by examining them and counted the amount of implicatures in the novels. in analyzing the data, observation method was done in six steps; they were listing, identifying, classifying, tabulating, interpreting, and drawing conclusion. the explanations of each are as follows: 1. listing while reading both of the novels, i highlighted all dialogues that were stated in the novels. after finishing reading the novels, i listed those dialogues and put them into table. the table contained two sides; it was for the dialogues from indonesian and english versions. those dialogues were grouped in each chapter. there were 780 dialogues that were found in these novels from the 46 chapters they contain. every chapter contained different numbers of dialogues. 2. identifying in this step, i identified which utterances that contain implicatures from the dialogues of the novels and also analyzed the maxim that was flouted from each utterance containing implicature. at last, i found 40 utterances that flouted those maxims. 3. classifying after identifying, i classified the utterances that contain implicatures based on the maxim they were flouted. i grouped them into four parts, utterances containing implicature that flout maxim of quality, quantity, relevance, and manner. i put those implicatures in the fourth different tables based on the maxim they have fatimah / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 25 flouted and analyzed their literal meaning, implicit meaning, and context. i also put some utterances before and after the utterance containing implicature to check the context of it. after classifying them, i checked the meaning interpretation to see the achievement of meaning equivalence 4. tabulating then, after classifying those utterances in each of the maxim it flouted, i made some tables for further analysis of this study. i made 2 tables, first was the table about the implicatures translation, so i gave number, maxim that it was flouted, data number, indonesian and english version of the text, the literal meaning, implicit meaning, context, and also gave comment. i also put some utterances before and after the utterance containing implicature to make the context easier to be understood. furthermore, the second table drawn was dealing with the meaning equivalence achievement of the novel. i drew the table for comparing the indonesian meaning of the implicature to the english version; then, checked its equivalence. i also asked two raters to see the accuracy of the implicatures’ translation. 5. interpreting here, i gave further explanation about what i have understood from the implicatures of the source novel and compared it to the target novel. i also checked the way the translator maintained in translating those implicatures. moreover, i also tried to interpret the particular meaning of implicatures there and understood it in specific ways to see the achievement of meaning equivalence. 6. drawing conclusion in this step, i have found a number of implicatures and the most style that was used by the translator to maintain when translating them. so, i could draw the conclusion of how the implicatures in the dialogues from indonesian into english in the novel “the land of five towers” were maintained. last but not least, i also got the conclusion how the equivalence in meaning can be achieved. result of the study there are 780 utterances founded in the novel. there are 40 utterances that have implicit meaning. those utterances are flouting some maxims; they are maxim of quality, quantity, relevance, and manner. the percentage of each can be seen in the table below: table 3. percentage of utterances containing implicatures for presenting an efficient and effective data, only some implicatures found in the novel will be presented here as the data representative. to do so, it will be divided into two sections to discuss about the data findings. first is about the classification of data from each maxim and the reason why it flouts the maxim and the way the translator maintains in translating the implicatures. second, it will also be presented the achievement of the translation equivalence in meaning when the implicatures flout the maxims. the data representative for both analyses will be the same. the utterances that are analyzed will be put into table to make it easier and more effective to be read. then, the analysis will be in the form of paragraph so that it will be more clearly. the order of maxim analysis will quality, quantity, relevance, and manner for all data presented. no. maxim amount of implicatures in the maxim percentage quality 11 27.5% quantity 7 17.5% relevance 6 15% manner 16 40% total 40 100% fatimah / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 26 3.1 utterances containing implicatures that flout maxim of quality sl tl man: “bapak mau menuju ke mana?” ayah: “saya mau mengantar anak. mau masuk sekolah di pondok madani di jawa timur.” man: “maksudnya, pondok tempat orang belajar agama itu, kan?” ayah: “iya betul, pak.” man: “wah, bagus lah itu,” “semoga berhasil pak. saya dengar, pondok di jawa itu memang bagusbagus mutu pendidikannya. anak teman saya, cuma setahun di pondok langsung berubah menjadi anak baik. padahal dulunya, sangat mantiko. nakal. tidak diterima di sekolah mana pun karena kerjanya ngobat, minum dan suka berkelahi. anak begitu saja bisa berubah baik.” ayah: pak… anak ambo kelakuannya baik dan nem-nya termasuk paling tinggi di agam. kami kirim ke pondok untuk mendalami agama.” man: “wah lebih bagus lagi itu,” man: “where are you headed?” father: “i want to escort my son. he wants to go to school at madani pesantren in east java.” man: “you mean the pesantren where people study the religion, right?” ayah: “yes, that’s right.” man: “wow, that’s wonderful,” “hopefully he succeeds. i hear the pesantren in java offers a very high-quality education. after just a year at the pesantren, my friend’s son turned into a good kid. before, he was very mantiko. bad. not accepted in any school because he took drugs, drank, and liked to fight. even that kind of child can be made good.” father: “sir… my son is well behaved and his gpa is among the highest in agam regency. we are sending him to the pesantren to learn religion more deeply.” man: “wow, even better yet,” this dialogue takes place in a bus when father escorts alif to madani pesantren in java for continuing his study there. then, they meet a man in that bus. they are engaged in a conversation. then, when the man knows father’s destination and reason, he starts to encourage father for entering alif in pesantren. the speaker thinks that alif is a naughty boy and it is good to enter him to pesantren in java. he thinks that alif is like his friend’s son. he compares between them without knowing alif’s behavior first. he just thinks that everyone who enters pesantren is bad person and pesantren is the only place that can make them better. he flouts maxim of quality since he says about which he has lack adequate evidence about alif. the utterance that should be highlighted is: lelaki: “semoga berhasil pak.” man:”hopefully he succeeds.” in this utterance, it can be seen that the implicature in the translation novel begins with the man’s praying for father’s son directly; the speaker directly prayed for alif’s success in pesantren. it is a little bit different with what the writer has stated. it is about whishing father’s luck for entering his son in pesantren. because of this, the translation of the implicatures does not maintain here. 3.2 utterances containing implicatures that flout maxim of quantity sl tl kak sofyan: “ayyuha thalabah. para siswa semua. penerima wesel hari ini harap segera datang ke bagian sekretariat. nama-namanya adalah…,” “panggilan ke mahkamah keamanan pusat.” “nama-nama ini diharap segera menghadap ke bagian keamanan segera…” kak sofyan: “ayyuha thalabah. all students. would this week’s money order recipients please go to the secretariat. the names are…” “summons to the central security court.” “the names are expected to soon face the security section.” fatimah / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 27 “dari kelas satu, namanya adalah: alif fikri, said jufri, dulmajid, raja lubis, baso salahuddin dan atang yunus.” said: “masya allah, padahal aku tadi hanya berdoa dapat wesel,” “from year one, the names are: alif fikri, said jufri, dulmajid, raja lubis, baso salahudin and atang yunus.” said: “masya allah, i only prayed for a money order,” this dialogue happens when alif fikri, said jufri, dulmajid, raja lubis, baso salahudin and atang yunus get two calls. first, they have to get their money order. second, they have to go to security section that they are not expected. said, as the speaker here, is shocked since he and his friends have to face two great things at the same time, one is good news; however, the other is not. this implicature is stated to express that the speaker feels sorry about the condition. this utterance flouts maxim of quantity because the speaker says something less informative than it is needed. he just says that he hopes to get the money order only. only here means there is something unexpected also happens but he does not mention it. the utterance that should be highlighted is: sl: “masya allah, padahal aku tadi hanya berdoa dapat wesel,” tl: “masya allah, i only prayed for a money order,” in this utterance, it can be seen that the translator still uses the phrase masya allah instead of good heavens! in this utterance to maintain the same religious situation to her target readers. 3.3 utterances containing implicatures that flout maxim of relevance sl tl kurdi: “saya baru dapat info kalau kita akan punya warga baruyang istimewa di sini. seorang gadis caaaantik.” “nah, kalau cantik aku bilang, baru kalian tertarikmendengar,” “keluarga ustad khalid baru pulang dari mesir, dan merekaakan tinggal di rumah dosen, tidak jauh dari sini.” alif: “lalu, apa hebatnya!” kurdi: “nah, ini yang kalian tak tahu. telah jadi legenda dikalangan kakak kelas bahwa ustad ini punya anak gadis cantik yang tidak jauh umurnya dengan kita.” alif, said, raja, baso, dul: “wah!” kurdi: “iya, jadi gosipnya kita akan punya “putri” di sini.” kurdi: “i just got information that we are going to have a special new citizen here. a beaaauutiful young lady.” “hah, only when i say ‘beautiful’ do you guys want to listen.” “ustad khalid’s family just got home from egypt, and they are going to stay at faculty house, not far from here.” alif: what’s so great about that? kurdi: “now, this is what do you don’t know. legend among the upperclassmen is that ustad has a beautiful daughter around our age.” alif, said, raja, baso, dul: wow! kurdi: “yeah, so rumor has is that we’re going to have a ‘princess’ here.” this dialogue happens when some of the mp’s students get engaged in a conversation. one of the students shares what he has just known about the newest issue in mp. it is that there will be a new beautiful member in mp. it seldom happens in mp for having a girl that lives there because it is known that mp is only for boys. so, this is very surprising news and because she is the only girl there, she is called as a princess. this implicature flouts maxim of relevant because it is known that there is no king in mp. so, choosing the term “princess” is irrelevant with the now time and mp’s condition. it can be seen from this utterance that the translator translates the word gosip into rumor has it instead of gossip that is already existed in english. the rest, it is literally translated. in fact, the translation of implicature gives the same sensation like in the st. fatimah / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 28 3.4 utterances containing implicatures that flout maxim of manner sl tl said:” bagaimana mungkin pm bisa membangun pemimpin umat yang sehat jiwa dan raganya kalau tidak menghargai pertandingan bersejarah seperti ini. kalau menghargai, kita harus menonton siaran langsung.” “tapi sudahlah, kita kan bias baca beritanya nanti!” alif: “iya, tapi kan tidak bias lihat liem swie king melakukan smes lompatnya.” dul:“siapa bilang kita tidak bisa nonton?” atang: “lalu… usulmu apa?” dul: “kita dekati siapa yang berkuasa di sini.” said: “how can mp develop community leaders of sound mind and body if they don’t appreciate a historical match like this? we have to match it live.” “but whatever, we can read about it later.” alif: yeah, but we can’t see liem swie king do his jump smash.” dul: “who said we can’t watch?” atang: “so… what do you suggest?” dul: “we approach who’s in charge here.” there will be an international badminton match that will be broadcasted on tv soon. indonesia will also play on this match. there are a group of students in mp are talking about this match. they want to watch this match live; in contrast, mp does not allow the students for watching tv. some of the students are showing their disapoinment about this condition. on the other hand, one of the students named dul gets brilliant idea so that they can watch the match live legally. he plans to persuade person who is in charge in mp to make watching that badminton match legally in mp. it flouts maxim of manner because it is very unclear. he does not mention a name/institution that he means to be persuaded to do what he wants. the utterance that should be highlighted is: sl: “kita dekati siapa yang berkuasa di sini.” tl: “we approach who’s in charge here.” in this utterance, it can be seen that the implicature is literally translated since the translator wants to build the same mysterious feeling about this utterance like in st. 3.4.1 the achievement of meaning equivalence for utterances that flout maxim of quality sl tl rater 1 rater 2 equivalence or non equivalence semoga berhasil pak. means supporting what father will do. hopefully he succeeds. means praying for one’s success. less accurate less accurate non equivalence it can be seen the above table shows that the translation of the implicatures is not equivalence since the speaker does not mean the same intention. in the st, the writer gives a support to father, on the other hand, in its translation, the translator shows a wish for father’s son. so, it gives different meaning. rater 1 says that the translation’s accuracy is less accurate; in addition, rater 2 has the same opinion. so, it can be said that the equivalence of this implicatures in its translation cannot be achieved. fatimah / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 29 3.4.2 the achievement of meaning equivalence for utterances that flout maxim of quantity sl tl rater 1 rater 2 equivalence or non equivalence masya allah, padahal aku tadi hanya berdoa dapat wesel. means the speaker does not hope to get something else except a money order. masya allah, i only prayed for a money order. means the speaker does not hope to get something else except a money order. very accurate accurate equivalence the table above tells about the implicature of an unexpected situation that happens. the st and the tt have the same meaning in this implicature. rater 1 says that this utterance is very accurately translated and rater 2 says that the translation of this implicit meaning is accurate. so, the meaning equivalence is achieved and the accuracy level is also high. 3.4.3 the achievement of meaning equivalence for utterances that flout maxim of relevance sl tl rater 1 rater 2 equivalence or non equivalence iya, jadi gosipnya kita akan punya “putri” di sini. means very surprising news that there will be a beautiful girl lives here and it will make those boys feel so happy. yeah, so rumor has is that we’re going to have a ‘princess’ here.” means very surprising news that there will be a beautiful girl lives here and it will make those boys feel so happy. less accurate less accurate equivalence the implicature in st of the table above has the same meaning in its translation version. it means news of the new mp’s beautiful creature that will live near them and this news really makes them happy. the equivalence of meaning is achieved. however, the two raters give a less accurate point for this implicature’s translation. it is because the word “gosip” in bahasa is translated into “rumor has it” instead of “gossip” that is also existed in english. fatimah / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 30 3.4.4 the achievement of meaning equivalence for utterances that flout maxim of manner sl tl rater 1 rater 2 equivalence or non equivalence kita dekati siapa yang berkuasa di sini. means approaching someone that is in charge in mp for some missions. we approach who’s in charge here. means approaching someone that is in charge in mp for some missions. less accurate accurate equivalence the original novel means this implicature as a plan to approach someone that is in charge in mp for some missions and the translation’s novel does the same. the meaning equivalence is achieved here. moreover, there are two raters that score the accuracy of the implicature. rater 1 says that the translation’s implicature is less accurate; however, rater 2 says that this is an accurate one. conclusion firstly, the implicatures are mostly translated literally from indonesian into english in the dialogues of the novel “the land of five towers.” moreover, since the original novel uses some cultural and religious terminologies, such as: amak, ustad, masya allah, etc, those terms are not translated into english; the translator keeps using those words for keep showing the cultural and religious situation in the translated novel. by considering them, the meanings and conditions of those implicatures can be similarly understood like what are stated in the st. as a result, it can be said that the implicatures are mostly maintained when they are translated into english. secondly, the meaning equivalence of the implicatures is mostly achieved. the equivalence in meaning can be reached when the original and the translated novels have the same meaning of the implicatures. it can be seen by comparing and understanding the situation between the utterances in the two novels. if the implicatures in the source novel and the target novels have the same meaning and situation, it is said that they have reached the meaning equivalence. besides, after doing the tallying, it is found that the mean of accuracy from the two raters that are asked to rate the translation is accurate. so, these implicatures have good accuracy points in translation as well as the meaning equivalence of them is achieved. references baker, mona.1992.in other words. london: routledge fuadi, ahmad. 2011. negeri lima menar. jakarta: pt gramedia pustaka utama and its translation by kilbane, angie. 2011. the land of five tower. jakarta: pt gramedia pustaka utama grice, h.p. 1975. logic and conversation. in cole et al(eds)syntax and semantics 3: speech acts (pp. 41-58). university college london for the pragmatics theory online course. online. available at: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j &q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=r ja&uact=8&ved=0cc0qfjaa&url=http %3a%2f%2fwww.ucl.ac.uk%2fls%2fst udypacks%2fgricelogic.pdf&ei=kbb0ux_cig9ugsiwig4ag&usg=afqjcneta aphwt1wpq8botyhzzwpa38gkw&si g2=pfllp7ff2jhxrmux30qew&bvm=bv.669174 71,bs.1,d.bmk [access on 17 october 2013] hassan, bahaa-eddinabulhassan . 2011. literary translation: aspects of pragmatic meaning. newcastle: cambridge scholars publishing. online. available at https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j fatimah / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 31 &q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=r ja&ved=0ccmqfjaa&url=https%3a% 2f%2fwww.c-s-p.org%2fflyers%2f9781-4438-3358-5-sample.pdf&ei=rl0buore8mjrqfn_4dwbw&usg=afqjcn g8txfofst3jrfq0qgestrtoe4hcg&bv m=bv.61535280,d.bmk [accessed 17/02/14] newmark, peter. 1988. a textbook of translation. hertfordshire: shanghai foreign language education press. 1 elt forum 5 (1) (2016) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt an error analysis on the use of english articles in students’ written descriptive texts a case of class x mia 1 of sma n 1 binangun, cilacap in the academic year 2014/2015 sekar bayu swasti english department. faculty of languages and arts. state university of semarang. aticle info ________________ article history: received in february 2016 approved in march 2016 published in april 2016 ________________ keywords: error analysis, english articles, descriptive text. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this study is a case study which investigates errors on the use of english articles. it is focused on the errors made by tenth grade students of sma n 1 binangun, cilacap in their written descriptive texts. the total of 32 students of class x mia 1 became the subjects of this study and they were asked to write descriptive texts. the object of this study was errors in using english articles which occurred in their texts. the data were analyzed based on ellis’s error analysis procedure and normalization formula by pica. the result of this study from the highest to the lowest exposed errors are: indefinite a/an-for-zero errors (61.51%), zero-for-indefinite a/an errors (22.19%), definite the-for-indefinite a/an substitution error (5%), definite the-forzero substitution error (4.65%), zero-for-definite the substitution error (4.41%), and indefinite a/an-for-definite the substitution error (2.23%). based on the result gained from this study, the dominant error exposed by the students is grammatical error (indefinite a/an-for-zero). this condition shows that the students find difficulties to differentiate between countable and non-countable nouns. it is suggested that the teacher give more attention to this problem and start to improve his attitude in teaching grammar. © 2016 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: unnes_english@yahoo.com issn 2252-6706 sekar bayu swasti / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 2 introduction background of the study as a prospective teacher of english, i have many experiences regarding english teaching. one of the experiences was the moment i did my ppl (praktik pengalaman lapangan) in one of vocational schools in ungaran, semarang. based on the 2013 curriculum, the students are required to master listening, speaking, reading, and writing aspects using scientific approach. besides that, the students also have to learn grammar in order to construct a good sentence. the curriculum, which requires students to solve their own problems while teachers most likely serve as an advisor, makes the students get difficulties in learning grammar. it is because the students do not get explicit explanation about grammar. in addition, based on my observation in classes, the students also tend to get anxious when it comes to learning grammar. it is supported by mekhlafi and nagartman’s research about students’ attitude towards grammar. they said that ‘within the classroom, any mention of grammar causes the student moments of discomfort and sometimes even terror’ (mekhlafi and nagartman, 2011:69). their being anxious is mostly caused by their teachers who teach grammar strictly and the material which are commonly about memorizing rules. talking about grammar, the common specific problem faced by the students is applying english articles. english articles are based on definiteness and indefiniteness evidently on the texts in the use of ‘the’ as definite article, ‘a/an’ as indefinite article, and zero or no article. on the other hand, the article system of indonesian does not classify into definite and indefinite articles. it is only similar with english in the function of use as determiners (koesnosoebroto, in kusumaningrum 2011: 1). hence, the students easily make errors in applying english articles. the condition in which the students easily make errors in applying english articles is limited on my experience as a ppl teacher. therefore, i am interested in doing a research about analyzing english articles errors in different school. i would like to know whether the problem faced by my students in ppl school is also become a problem for the students from different school. reasons for choosing the topic the reason why i choose this topic is that english article system is one of the important parts of english grammar. it is mostly seen as a trivial aspect. yet, it is very important to learn. barret and chen (2011:2) conclude that the use of articles supports an understanding between the writer and reader; enabling the reader to locate where a noun or noun phrase is as well as identify if it is already understood. furthermore, they also mention that ‘english article involves the integration of semantic, pragmatic, and grammatical functions, as no one-to-one formfunction mapping exists for each article, creating a large number of rules for students to be mastered’ (barret and chen 2011:3). the are many proofs showing that article system of standard english is considered to be one of the most difficult aspects of the grammar to acquire, especially by learners whose language does not have articles (butler 2002; geng 2010; han, chodorow & leacock 2006; huebner 1985; ko et al. 2008; master 1997; parish 1987; robertson, 2000; robinson 2010; thomas 1989; whitman 1974; and others can be found in guillemin 2013:1). however, the allocation of its teaching is limited. in fact, in textbooks, english article system is not explained clearly. mostly, english teachers in indonesia more focus on teaching certain english material to prepare their students facing the final examination rather than prepare them to master english communicatively. meanwhile, english articles are important in the matter of communication. thus, english articles are not taught clearly by the teacher so the students may not acquire it well and make errors on its application. moreover, i am afraid that this condition will lead them to the fossilization which is even more difficult for them to make correction. the perspectives which see english articles as unimportant aspects to be taught make me encouraged to do this research. i expect to change teachers’ attitude towards english articles. i believe by holding an error analysis on the use of sekar bayu swasti / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 3 english articles will open up the fact that students do not acquire english article system completely. thus, the teachers will aware of it and make changes in their teaching techniques. methodology of the research to meet the objectives of the study, i apply the following methodology which is partitioned into seven sections: (1) subject of the study, (2) object of the study, (3) instruments for collecting data, (4) procedures of collecting data, (5) procedures of analyzing data, (6) triangulation, and (7) research design. the descriptions of them can be seen as follows: subject of the study the subjects of this study are 32 students of class x mia 1 of sma n 1 binangun, cilacap. this class was chosen based on the english teacher’s suggestion. he considered the students of class x mia 1 to be the most motivated students in learning english. as this study is a case study, the result is only applicable to the students of class x mia 1 and cannot be generalized to the other classes. object of the study this study focuses on the english articles errors. thus, the object of this study is errors in using english articles which occurred in the students’ written descriptive texts. instrument for collecting the data the instrument of this study is a writing test. students will work individually to write a descriptive text during the given time. in order to trigger the students’ idea, i suggested some topics. the students can choose one of the topics and start writing. procedures of collecting the data in order to collect the data efficiently, i firstly did an observation at the school. before holding the writing test, i met the students of class x mia 1 to explain about my research and their role as the subjects of it. i also discussed the proper time to do the writing tests. the writing test was held for 90 minutes and the students were given certain topics to ease them. they were ordered to write 15 sentences at minimum so there will be wider range to collect the data (english article error identification). procedures of analyzing the data the data gained were analyzed to eventually determine the article distribution as has been done by barrett and chen in their research toward taiwanese college students’ efl writing. in analyzing the data, i use the procedures of error analysis by ellis as follows: 1. identifying errors counting english articles errors in each of students’ composition. 2. describing errors after the total of english articles errors in each of students’ composition are identified, they are classified into their types of error. 3. explaining errors in this step, the identified english articles errors are analyzed based on their source of error. 4. evaluating errors the identified english articles errors gained from previous steps are put into table to show their distribution and analyzed to know what students’ difficulties based on the most exposed errors. triangulation in order to ensure the validity of the result, i use triangulation for checking my data analysis. triangulation is ‘a kind of checking technique of the validity which uses something else out of the data’ (moeloeng, 2004:330). there are four kinds of triangulation: 1. data triangulation is the use of a variety of data sources in a study. 2. investigator triangulation is the use of several different researchers or evaluators. 3. theory triangulation is the use of multiple perspectives to interpret a single set of data. methodological triangulation is the use of multiple methods to study a single problem. (denzin in kusumaningrum 2008:28) sekar bayu swasti / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 4 in this research, i use the investigator triangulation for checking the error identification. thus, there will be a second investigator to identify errors made by the students. then, the identified english articles errors by the second investigator are compared with my identification as the first investigator. research design in order to eventually gain the data of students’ error in using english articles, a case study is conducted as it enables me focusing on the case deeply. this has been emphasized by yin (2009:56) that ‘case study investigates a contemporary phenomenon in depth and within its real-life context, especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident.’ a case study proposing that there is a ‘case’ which is an object of this study and should be ‘a complex functioning unit, investigated in its natural context with a multitude of methods, and contemporary’ (johansson, 2003:2). therefore, i am conducting this error analysis study by using a case study to get an exact result of the case (errors in using english articles). different important aspect of case study methodology is validation. it is important that the data gained is valid by triangulation. triangulation provides an important way of ensuring the validity of case study research. normally, data collection methods are triangulated (many methods are combined), but in addition to this, data sources, theory, or investigators might also be triangulated (denzin in johansson 2003:8). a case study will be the research method of this study. the problem being investigated is errors made by the students in using english article system. data analysis this chapter covers the analysis and the presentation of the data. they are divided into three subchapters (description of the data, analysis of the data, and triangulation) which are elaborated as follows: description of the data the data analyzed in this study were the english article errors found in the students’ descriptive texts. there were 32 texts from 32 students as the subjects of the research. after the data were identified, it was found that all of the subjects made errors in the use of english articles in their texts. the examples of their errors are as follows: 1. ade roswikasari (my friend) 2. ari okti n. (destry, my best friend) sentences correction destry is (…) good person. destry is a good person. she always becomes (…) number one in the class. she always becomes the number one in the class. she also has (…) pet. she also has a pet. the pet is (…) goat. the pet is a goat. and she has (…) hobby, the hobby is eating. and she has a hobby, the hobby is eating. she likes a violet color. she likes violet color. she has (…) favorite drink that is orange juice. she has a favorite drink that is orange juice. 3. gilar wildan a. (my house) sentences correction sentences correction my friend is a beautiful. my friend is beautiful. she is (…) student in one of smp she is a student in one of smp. she is the clever children. she is a clever student. and like annoying the some friends. and like annoying some friends. sekar bayu swasti / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 5 i have (…) small house but comfortable. i have a small house but comfortable. my house has two bathrooms, four bedrooms, and two kitchens which one of it has (…) hanging cupboard. my house has two bathrooms, four bedrooms, and two kitchens which one of it has a hanging cupboard. my bathroom has (…) shower, (…) closet, and (…) bathtub. my bathroom has a shower, a closet, and a bathtub. the room that i very like is my bedroom and (…) garage. the room that i very like is my bedroom and the garage. 4. lenny riyanti (my idol) 5. tri r. (my sweet bird) sentences correction i have (…) sweet bird. i have a sweaty bird. it is (…) beautiful bird. it is a beautiful bird. it has green fur with the small motif in its wings. it has green fur with a small motif in its wings. it has small legs with (…) ring in it legs. it has small legs with a ring in it legs. it lives in (…) wonderful bird cage with the yellow color. it lives in a wonderful bird cage with yellow color. sometimes, i put the new food to it. sometimes, i put new food in it. note: in the sentences column, the ‘(…)’ symbol means that the students missed one article, and the italicized article means the student made error by applying that article. analysis of the data based on the procedure of data analysis by ellis as described in the previous chapters, the data which had been identified then were classified into the types of error. there are seven types of error found in the subjects’ composition as follows: indefinite ‘a/an’ for zero substitution: 90 errors this error was identified when the students used zero article instead of indefinite article ‘a/an’ as the correct form in their sentences. for example: in the sentence destry is good person, the student made an error by using zero article proceeding ‘good person’. the correct form should have been destry is a good person because destry is a name of a person and indicates a singular noun. therefore, in this case, the students who made this kind of error show a lack of understanding in grammatical aspect (differentiating singular and plural or countable and non-countable nouns). zero for indefinite ‘a/an’ substitution: 27 errors this error was identified when the students used indefinite ‘a/an’ article instead of zero article as the correct form in their sentences. sentences correction i have a idol, his name is justin drew bieber. i have an idol. his name is justin drew bieber. he has straight hair, white skin, and (…) tattoo in his back. he has straight hair, white skin, and a tattoo on his back. he is a idol for all people with such a beautiful voice. he is an idol for all people with such a beautiful voice. he has a idol which name is usher he has an idol whose name is usher. he was inspired to be (…) singer from usher. he was inspired to be a singer by usher. he thinks usher is a best singer in the world. he thinks usher is the best singer in the world. he has (…) favorite color, it is violet. he has a favorite color, it is violet. sekar bayu swasti / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 6 for example: in the sentence my yard has a two big tree, the student made an error by using indefinite article ‘a’ proceeding two big tree. the correct form of this sentence should have been my yard has two big trees because ‘two big trees’ is a plural noun phrase and cannot be proceeded by indefinite article ‘a/an’. therefore, the students who commited this kind of error actually have the same problem as the students showing the first type of error (problem in differentiating singular and plural or count and non-count nouns). zero for definite ‘the’ substitution: 7 errors this error identified when the students used definite ‘the’ article instead of zero article as the correct form in their sentences. for example: in the sentence and like annoying the some friends, the student made an error by using definite article ‘the’ before the noun phrase ‘some friends’. the correct form of it should have been and like annoying some friends. this sentence is found in the text written by ade roswikasari (see description of the data) and classified as new information. thus, the use of definite article ‘the’ is wrong and the students who made the same error have semantic issue of specificity as they overuse the definite article ‘the’ in the specific environment. definite ‘the’ for zero substitution: 6 errors this error was identified when students used zero article instead of definite ‘the’ article as the correct form in their sentences. for example: in the sentence the room that i very like is my bedroom and garage, the student made an error by not using any articles proceeding ‘garage’. the correct form of the sentence should have been the room that i very like is my bedroom and the garage. this sentence is found in the text by gilar wildan a. (see description of the data) and ‘garage’ is classified as a specific information according to his references about his house which he had already talked about. thus, he had to use definite article ‘the’ before the word ‘garage’. the students who showed the same error have problem in pragmatic aspect as they cannot identify clearly the hearer knowledge of the np. definite ‘the’ for indefinite ‘a/an’ substitution: 4 errors this error was identified when students used indefinite ‘a/an’ article instead of definite ‘the’ article as the correct form in their sentences. for example: in the sentence he thinks usher is a best singer in the world, the student made error by using indefinite article ‘a’ before the noun phrase ‘best singer’ instead of definite article ‘the’. the correct form of this sentence should have been he thinks usher is the best singer in the world. this sentence is found in the text written by lenny riyanti (see description of the data) and np ‘best singer’ is considered as specific information and should be preceded by definite article ‘the’. the students showing the same error have semantic problem as they have difficulties to identify the specific reference of the np. indefinite ‘a/an’ for definite ‘the’ substitution: 3 errors this error was identified when students used definite ‘the’ article instead of indefinite ‘a/an’ article as the correct form in their sentences. for example: in the sentence it has green fur with the small motif in its wings, the student made an error by using definite article ‘the’ to modify the np ‘small motif’ instead of indefinite article ‘a’. the correct form should have been it has green fur with a small motif on its wing. this sentence is found in the text written by tri r. (see description of the data) and the np small motif is considered as new information in form of a singular noun. thus, she had to use indefinite article ‘a’. the students who commited the same error show a pragmatic difficulty of understanding the hearer knowledge aspect in the sentence. indefinite ‘a’ for indefinite ‘an’ substitution: 3 errors this error was identified when students used indefinite ‘an’ article instead of indefinite ‘a’ article as the correct form in their sentences. for example: in the sentence i have a idol, the student made an error by using indefinite article ‘a’ instead of indefinite article ’an’. the correct form should have been i have an idol. this sekar bayu swasti / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 7 sentence is found in the text written by lenny riyanti (see description of the data) and included into the grammatical error. based on the types of error explained above, the result can be drawn into a diagram as follows: after the data were classified, i used a formula proposed by pica in order to accurately analyze the error distribution. in order to be accurate, the data identified from the students’ written descriptive texts, which obviously various in lengths, need to be normalized. according to pica (in barret and chen 2011:11) ‘in a longer text, there are more opportunities for errors to occur, so ‘normalization’ is a formula that adjusts the raw frequency counts so texts of different lengths can be compared.’ before the application of the normalization formula, the mean of the text length had to be counted first. mean = 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑑𝑠 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑡𝑒𝑥𝑡𝑠 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑡𝑒𝑥𝑡𝑠 the total words of the students’ descriptive texts were 3484 words from the total of 32 texts. based on the formula previously explained, the mean can be determined as follow: mean = 3484 32 thus, the mean of the text length is 109 words per text then, i analyzed the error distribution by using pica’s normalization formula as follows: n= 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑟𝑎𝑤 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑐𝑒𝑟𝑡𝑎𝑖𝑛 𝑡𝑦𝑝𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑒𝑟𝑟𝑜𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑑𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑡𝑒𝑥𝑡 𝑥𝑚𝑒𝑎𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑡𝑒𝑥𝑡 𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑔𝑡ℎ (pica, in barret and chen 2011:12). finally, the accurate error distribution for the average of 109 words per text can be explained as follows: article the zero indefinite ‘a/an’ fre q % fre q % freq % the 6.3 4. 65 6.78 5 indefi nite ‘a/an’ 3.0 2 2. 2 3 83. 32 61 .5 1 zero 5.9 7 4. 4 1 30.0 7 22.1 9 the table above is read from left to right. the vertical axis indicates the article being substituted while the horizontal one shows the article substitution. for example, reading the table from left to right indicates 4.65% the-for-zero substitution errors occurred. the highest errors which were exposed by the students are indefinite a/an-for-zero substitution (61.51%). the number of zero-for-the errors and a-for-the errors are low at 5.97% and 2.23%, respectively, indicating that the frequency of definite article overuse is low. however, it seemed that the students underuse definite article for the result of the-for-zero and thefor-a are 4.65% and 5% showing lack of understanding in term of specificity in using english articles. the result shows 61.51% indefinite a/an-for-zero errors, and 22.19% zero-forindefinite a/an errors as the highest exposed error in the students’ compositions. based on the result, the students exposed more grammatical errors than pragmatic and semantic ones. grammatical errors are due to noun countability in which the students must assign the indefinite article to singular nouns and zero article for plural or non-countable nouns. triangulation the result shown in this research had already been triangulated to ensure the validity of the data analysis. in this case, i used investigator triangulation in order to check the validity of the error identification in the students’ compositions. at first, i identified the english articles errors 0 20 40 60 80 100 a/an for zero zero for a/an zero for the the for zero the for a/an a/an for the a for an sekar bayu swasti / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 8 found in the students’ compositions. then, the second investigator who was the english teacher of class x mia 1 (sunaryo, s.pd) also identified the english articles errors found in the texts. lastly, i compared my errors identification result to his result. the data which had been compared then discussed as there were some differences between mine and the second investigator. however, they cannot be shown in the appendices for they do not affect the data analysis. the exact data result shown in the data analysis and the appendices were yielded after the discussion between me and the second investigator about the differences in our findings. conclusions and suggestions conclusions the main objective of this study is to determine the students’ acquisition of the use of english article system in their written descriptive text. based on the data in chapter iv, it is clearly defined that the students of class x mia 1 did make errors on the use of english articles in their texts. based on the result, the dominant error, indefinite a/an-for-zero substitution error, indicates that the students are apt to make errors in using english articles grammatically because they cannot differentiate appropriately between count/non-count nouns. besides that, the students also made errors in using definite article which could be classified as errors regarding to the acquisition of pragmatic and semantic function of english article. although the percentages of the errors are low, it is still concerned the errors might be led to the fossilization. the dominant error which shows the low mastery in understanding the differences between count/non-count nouns could affect the students’ learning in other aspects besides english article system. as we know, count/non-count is one of basic grammar features which the students have to master. therefore, if they do not clearly understand it, they might find difficulties in learning other english features such as composing sentences referring to singular or plural nouns, unable to catch the meaning of noun with two meanings (count and uncountable), etc. suggestions after conducting the research and measuring the students’ capability on using english article system in written descriptive texts, i suggest they pay more attention to the teaching and learning activities especially regarding to grammar. it is also best for them to increase their study towards english article system. for the teacher, i suggest that he should give more explicit explanation about the use of english article system. the teacher has to note that there is no rule such count/non-count in bahasa indonesia as the students’ first language that might become their difficulty in properly using english article system based on its noun countability. furthermore, in order to follow up the teaching, the teacher should give more exercises to the students to improve their acquisition of english article system and give extra attention to the students who get low scores in their exercises and give them remedial teaching. the population of this study is limited to the tenth grade students of class x mia 1 of sma n 1 binangun, cilacap in the academic year 2014/2015. thus, it is suggested that an error analysis in the use of other english features can be conducted at other instutions. in the end, we can see how the acquisition level of the students in indonesia and give the best treatment to overcome their difficulties. hopefully, the suggestions can help the students, the teachers, and the researchers to minimize the errors in using english articles and the teaching learning process will show a better result than before. references arikunto, s. 2002. prosedur penelitian: suatu pendekatan praktis edisi revisi v. yogyakarta: rineka cipta. barret, edward neil & chen, li-mei. 2011. english articles errors in taiwanese college students’ efl writing. computational linguistics and sekar 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http://www.academia.edu/6884946/pedagog ical_grammar_in_second_foreign_language_te aching_studying_learners_perceptions_and_be liefs_about_grammar (march, 5 2015) tambunan, debora & gusti astika. the use of articles in sma textbooks. 2012. english edu vol. 10, no. 2 pp. 167-181. widayani, tutik. 2008. error analysis on students’ punctuation in writing dialogue (a case study on the second year students of sltp n 1 duplang, blora in 2007/2008 academic year). skripsi. semarang: fakultas bahasa dan seni unnes. yin, robert. 2009. case study research: design and methods. london: thousand oaks. website source: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/error+analy sis (april, 15 2015) 1 elt forum 2 (1) (2013) english language teaching forum http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the use of blog as a medium to improve students` skill in writing hortatory exposition a classroom action research at the eleventh grade students of sman 12 semarang maulina nur chikmahwati department of english, faculty language and arts, semarang state university, indonesia info artikel ________________ sejarahartikel: diterimajanuari 2013 disetujuifebruari 2013 dipublikasikanjuni 2013 ________________ keywords: blog, hortatory exposition, writing skill ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ the purposes of this study are to investigate students’ problems in writing hortatory exposition, to explain why students have problems in writing hortatory exposition, and to find out how well does blog contribute in improving students’ mastery of writing hortatory exposition in constructing this study, the writer collected data using a classroom action research, which was carried out through four activities. the activities consisted of planning, acting, observing and reflecting. the subjects of this study were 37 students of year eleven of sma negeri 12 semarang in the academic year of 2011/2012. the action was done through teaching learning process. all of the teaching learning processes were presented by the help of blog.the data was analyzed qualitatively, to find the answers. based on the data analysis from each activity, it can be seen that the students’ problems in writing hortatory exposition text were the difficulty in drawing contents, organizing text, using the language and vocabulary, and mastering the mechanics. they were caused by the lack of students’ attention, enthusiasm, activeness in asking answering questions and activeness in doing the task given by the teacher. it was found that there was a significant difference of the students’ skill in writing hortatory exposition from the pre-test, first cycle and second cycle. after the treatments, the students’ achievement in writing hortatory exposition text was improved. therefore, using blog as a medium was effective to improve the students’ writing skill in hortatory exposition text and very beneficial for the students in order to facilitate them in learning english.to explore the advantages of using blog in teaching learning process, in the future study, not only the teachers, but also the students are also recommended to possess blog accounts. by possessing their own blog accounts, students are supposed to compose the blog posts and explore the references of their writings by themselves. it also abridges the students to share their writings and testimonials to the others’ blogs. in this way, the frequency of the communication practice and word building gradually increases that is expected to be able to improve students’ writing skill, especially in hortatory exposition text, and generally in all other text types. © 2013universitasnegeri semarang alamatkorespondensi: gedungb3lantai3 fbsunnes kampussekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: maulina101@gmail.com issn 2252-6706 maulina nur chikmahwati / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 2 introduction since english has been determined as the international language of communication by the united nations in 1948, every nations including indonesia, took the language into the school curriculum. in indonesia, english has begun to be taught in junior high school, even in some elementary school english has been taught as a local subject. the condition shows that indonesia takes english seriously to be learnt. from time to time, english is taught in classical method using classical media as books, while in fact there exists other innovative possible effective media that the technology offers. according to maddux and johnson (2005:121), using technology to foster innovative teaching and learning, or type ii technology applications, should be a priority for all educators. nowadays, children have started to be acquainted with technology, in this matter is internet, since their childhood. as the indonesian students’ internet access has improved significantly, it is the time for the teachers to keep in balance themselves with the students’ interest and ability in accessing the internet. one of the most famous internet’s features is blog. blog has been well received in education owing to its multimedia features, interactivity, and ability to support cooperative and autonomous learning. the strong interconnectedness between bloggers and readers makes blog a powerful tool for global conversation. bloggers can read other blogs, link to them, and reference them in their own blogs. the worldwide blog audience enables students to interact with and have their work viewed by others outside the classroom. blog can benefit students to improve their mastery in learning english. in addition, it will also be a good initiative for the teachers to enrich their teaching variations. in teaching-learning of english, the skills that have to be mastered are listening, speaking, reading and writing. the fact proves that writing is one of the language skills that is a little bit harder to be mastered than the other skills. it needs the combination of ideas that is gotten from listening, reading, thinking and imagining. in this study, writing is more emphasized than the others. the result of the writing can be classified into book, novel, journal, short story, poem, short text, etc. short text is a kind of text type that is used in indonesia curriculum, textbased curriculum. there are many genres of short texts, among others are narrative, recount, news item, anecdote, spoof, hortatory exposition, and analytical exposition. hortatory exposition is one of text type which is taught in senior high school. the writer chooses hortatory exposition as the writing material because as stated in school curriculum, it is one of the genres that must be learnt by students in senior high school. in addition, hortatory exposition is considered as a hard subject since it is the newest in english text genres. not to mention, the various fitures of blog support the character of the medium that can be used to teach writing hortatory exposition text. nowadays ict (information and communication technology) has significantly improved, as technology has a crucial role in people’s life. therefore, making use of the technology, in this case is blog, to improve students’ writing skill in hortatory exposition is very suggestable. thus, blogs with all their comprehensiveness are easy to be accessed by people, especially high school students who have advanced skill in it (information and technology). the comprehensiveness of blog facilities can be a good point for the teacher to make the lesson as creative as possible. specifically the research questions posed in this study are what are the students’ problems in writing hortatory exposition?, why do the students have problems in writing hortatory exposition?, how well does blog contribute in improving students’ skill in writing hortatory exposition? therefore, the main purposes of this research are to investigate students’ problems in writing hortatory exposition, to explain why students have problems in writing hortatory exposition, to find out how well does blog contribute in improving students’ skill in writing hortatory exposition. maulina nur chikmahwati / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 3 by conducting this research, the writer expects that the result of this study will theoretically provide the reader, especially english department students, with a new understanding about using blog in improving the students’ skill in writing hortatory exposition and practically give the english teacher some kinds of understanding or reflection that can be used as the basic idea in designing the teaching and learning process. method in this study, the writer chose the eleventh grade students of sma negeri 12 semarang in the academic year of 2011/2012 as the subject of the study. the writer chose the eleventh grade because based on the curriculum, hortatory exposition is taught to this grade. in sma negeri 12 semarang, there were seven classes of the eleventh grade, three science classes, three social classes and one language class. firstly, the writer wrote the entire eleventh grade classes in some pieces of paper. then, randomly, the writer took a piece of paper that determined as the sample. the students of xi social 3 were chosen. this action research was conducted in collaboration between the teacher and the researcher. the researcher created the lesson plan and pre-test items to give to the students in the pre-test. then the researcher assessed the students’ pre-test works then analyzed them. afterwards, the researcher created the lesson plans, the blog medium, test items, and observation note, for the first cycle. after analyzing the first cycle results, the researcher created the next lesson plan, blog medium, test-items, observation note, and questionnaire to conduct the second cycle. in doing the research, the researcher gave the treatments by herself with the help of the classroom english teacher and her colleague. in this study, to collect the data, the researcher used three instruments. the instruments were tests, questionnaires, and observation notes. result and discussion pre-test the pre-test was conducted by the researcher at the beginning of the study. the purpose of giving the pre-test was to check the students’ skill in writing hortatory exposition based on five categories given. those were: content, organization, vocabulary, language use and mechanics. on april 25th 2012, the pre-test was taken by 37 students of xi social 3 class. in this activity the researcher at first asked the students whether they have ever made a speech text and/ or given a speech or not. the students replied, “no, we haven’t/ we only ever listened to speeches!” the researcher then showed the students a hortatory exposition text entitled “watch your students while watching television” and asked whether they were familiar with the text or not and then the students replied, “yes.” therefore, the researcher gave a brief review about hortatory exposition to the students using the earlier text as the example. afterwards, the researcher showed four topics entitled: 1) “sex education course should be taught in high school”, 2) “dying hair should/should not be banned in high school”, 3) “stop eating junk food”, and 4) “study tour is/is not important for high school students”. after they finished writing the hortatory exposition text, the students submitted their works. the result of the students’ works can be seen in table 4.1 below. from the pre-test result, it was found that the students problems were all the five competences, those were: content, organization, vocabulary, language use, and mechanics. in term of content, the students’ average pre-test was “fair to poor”. it was shown by the fact that most of the students’ work contents were still too general and/or incoherent. the students’ work showed that they had limited subject knowledge and had not enough development of the topic. maulina nur chikmahwati / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 4 in term of organization, the students’ average pre-test was “fair to poor” too. it was shown by the fact that the students’ ideas were not clear and/or disconnected though they had followed the generic structure and logical order of hortatory exposition text. in term of vocabulary, the students’ average pre-test was considered as “fair to poor” too. it was shown by the fact that the students made frequent errors in words choice and/or usage. some of the words’ meanings were confused though they had enough range of words and used varied adjectives. in term of language use, it was also considered as “fair to poor”. the students’ made frequent errors and the meanings were often confusing. though their language was effective but the construction was still simple. in term of mechanics, the average pre-test score was considered as “fair to poor” since the students made numerous mistakes that make sentences choppy. for this reason, the writer analyzed the observation note of the pre-test first to find the causes of the students’ problems before conducting the action to improve students’ skill in writing hortatory exposition using blog as the medium. pre-test observation note the observation notes were analyzed to explain why students have problems in writing hortatory exposition. the notes were made in the pre-test, first cycle and second cycle to explain why the students had the problem in writing hortatory exposition. during the pre-test the writer and colleague did the observation. the result of observation in the pre-test can be seen in table 4.2 below. based on the result, it was found that the causes of the students having problem in writing hortatory exposition were the students’ lack of: 1) attention based on the item number 1, more students didn’t pay attention to the learning process than those who paid attention. they were not concentrating in the class, for example: they often looked outside of class, got sleepy and talked to his/her friends. 2) enthusiasm item number 2 also showed that most students were not enthusiastic during the research conducted, almost half of the students were not enough enthusiastic and busy with themselves. 3) activeness in asking and answering questions item number 3 and 4 showed that most of the students weren’t active in asking and answering questions. they were still shy to ask or answer questions. 4) activeness in doing the tasks given by the teacher item number 5 showed that the students’ activeness in doing the tasks given by teacher was not good enough. not enough questions they asked to the teacher that made their tasks done not satisfying. using the findings of the pre-test and observation note, the researcher then prepared the first cycle. first cycle the first cycle was conducted in two meetings, which were identified as the first and second activity. the first activity was conducted on april 26th 2012 by 37 students. since weblog or blog is an online learning method, the activity was conducted in a computer laboratory with internet connection. the writer used a computer that linked to an lcd screen so the students could see each step that the writer explained. moreover, each student sat at his/her own computer. all of the computers had direct access to the internet. the writer introduced the blog method to the students as a start. the writer asked whether they had heard of blog or familiar with blog before. most of the students only knew the basic idea of what blog is. they read blogs yet they hadn’t ever found one that is used to learn english. the writer then introduced the blog to the students. at first, the writer asked the students to connect to the internet and open a blank web page in the internet. each step was shown clearly from the lcd screen. after the maulina nur chikmahwati / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 5 students were on the blank page, the writer asked them to type a web address namely “osctoenglish.blogspot.com”. students were then on the blog’s front page. afterwards, the writer told the students to explore the blog for about ten minutes in order to help them become familiar with this new medium of learning/teaching. then the writer asked the students to click on a blog thread entitled “learning hortatory exposition: cycle 1”. following the introduction, the writer then asked them to scroll down the page, which led them to the link of the pre-activity. in the pre-activity, the students were recalled to the basic definition of hortatory exposition, still using the one-on-one communication-like method so the students would feel closed to the blogger. the writer gave the students about 25 minutes to read and understand the explanation of hortatory exposition that could be found in pre-activity. the writer then walked around the class and observed what the students were doing. while observing the class, the writer noticed that some students were reading the explanation very carefully but some others were trying to open twitter, facebook and games online. then the writer reminded every student not to play on facebook or any other site during the class. it was continued to part two or the whilst activity which consists of two parts. the first one was whilst activity part 1. in this part, students were asked to understand a hortatory exposition text although to answer the questions following the text, the writer needed to guide them to the expected answers. students also found it hard to understand the meaning of some words or phrases so the teacher suggested them to open “www.translate.google.com” to help them figure out the meaning of the words or phrases. after given the example of hortatory exposition text, in the whilst activity part 1, the students were asked to read a short dialogue as an implementation of simple present tense and present perfect tense. then, they were asked to understand the explanation about simple present tense and present perfect tense following the dialogue independently. afterwards, the students were asked to analyze the dialogue about which of sentences use simple present tense and present perfect tense. the activity then continued to the second activity. in this activity, the writer continued giving the treatment. the writer asked the students to open the blog the same way that they did in the previous meeting. afterwards, the writer asked them to continue to the last activity that they did in the previous meeting. the students gave positive responses and showed that they have understood well what they should do. it was the whilst activity 2 of the treatment. in this activity, the students were showed a persuasive text and the analysis of it. to emphasize the understanding, students were given another example of persuasive text that is created based on an article in some newspaper. the last activity was the post-activity in which the students were asked to make a group of 6 to 7 so there would be 6 groups in the class. then each group was given a case based on a newspaper’s article. after reading the article, the members of group discussed about it and shared their arguments about the topic/case. since there were 6 groups, there would be 6 different topics/cases to for each group. for the group number one, the case is an article entitled “ipads replacing textbooks and notebooks in local school”. the members should share their opinions whether they support the idea of replacing textbooks and notebooks to ipads in local school or not. group two got an article from chicagotribune.com entitled “city plans free wi-fi in all parks, public spaces”. the members should discuss their arguments whether they agree or disagree with the plan of providing free wifi in public parks. close to the students’ life, the group number three got a case entitled “philadelphia's juvenile curfew is extended through labor day”. thus they could share their opinion about teenager curfew policy. an article entitled “britain's fattest woman dies of heart attack after junk food binge in hospital bed” was given to group number four. therefore they could think whether they would make persuasive speeches supporting or maulina nur chikmahwati / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 6 opposing the consuming of junk food. the group number five got an article entitled “a child expelled from school because parents are gay”. by understanding this article, students should make persuasive speeches about the gay and lesbian discrimination among public, whether they against the discrimination or else they agree with the discrimination. the last but not the least, group number six got an article from abcnews.go.com entitled “new jersey woman sues, can't fully blink after eyelid surgery”. the students needed to give their opinion and arguments about plastic surgery that is being more popular in society lately. in this activity, the students were allowed to open other supporting websites such as google translate, wikipedia and any other sites. students were trying hard to make their best work since they said it was their first time working on the internet. those who finished writing their persuasive speech were asked to do the peer editing. they were asked to do peer editing their friend’s first cycle test. in peer editing, the students needed to answer these questions. 1) is there any thesis paragraph? 2) what information does your friend need to add in his/her thesis? 3) is there any argument paragraph? 4) what information does your friend need to add in his/her argument paragraph? 5) pay attention to the vocabulary. does the vocabulary vary enough? 6) give some suggestions to make it better. 7) is there any sentence that confuses you? 8) write down the confusing sentence. 9) is the content clear enough for you? any suggestions? 10) is there any grammatical error? mention! 11) what is your general impression of his/her persuasive speech? 12) a. strength (what do you like most about the speech?) 13) b. weaknesses (give some suggestion for your friend’s improvement!) the students had to submit their peer editing worksheet in the comment box below the instruction post. following the peer editing worksheet, the writer graded the students’ hortatory exposition text and analyzed their errors. afterwards, the writer cumulated the students’ errors and analyzes their errors. the result of the students’ achievement during the first cycle-test can be seen in table 4.3. from the first cycle result, it was found that the students’ problems were getting better. in term of content, the students’ average score was “good to average”. it was shown by the fact that most of the students’ works showed some knowledge of the subject although they still had limited development of the topic and lacks depth of detail contents. in term of organization, the students’ work was “good to average”. the finding showed that they students had followed the generic structure of hortatory exposition text; though their works were still loosely organized but the main ideas were clear. the students had followed the logical order but it was not completed. in term of vocabulary, the students’ average score was considered as “good to average”. the students had had enough range of words, used some adjectives and verbs; made occasional errors in word usage; but the meaning is clear. in term of language use, it was also considered as “good to average”. it was shown that the students’ use of language had been effective although the construction was still simple. the errors in agreement and tense were seldom too. in term of mechanics, the average score was considered as “good to average” too. it was shown by the finding that the students made minor mistakes in mechanic. for the findings in pre-test result, the researcher the design a better plan for the second cycle. second cycle in the second cycle, the writer considered the weaknesses that the writer did in the first cycle. then, the writer did some maulina nur chikmahwati / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 7 reflections and evaluations to improve the teaching learning performance; especially to manage the students’ behavior in order to make them pay more attention to the lesson’s instructions. the writer’s evaluations that had been practiced in the second cycle included: spoke more clearly and slowly in order to make the students understand the instructions. after that was the shut down access to the online social networks such as facebook, twitter and yahoo messenger. so, the second cycle was conducted based on those evaluations. furthermore, the writer gave deeper explanation of some materials regarding students’ error and mistakes in writing the hortatory exposition texts. the second cycle also was conducted in two meetings, which was the third activity and fourth activity. the third activity was conducted on thursday may 3rd 2012. the writer prepared some materials to be discussed. following the peer editing worksheet, the writer graded the students’ hortatory exposition text and analyzed their errors. moreover, the writer created materials related to the students’ common mistakes in order to minimalist their mistakes. the material was posted in the blog. the writer explained the students’ common mistakes and gave some advice in order to make their work better. the students were then given a chance to ask questions. after the question-answer session was finished, the writer asked the students to repair their persuasive text based on that day’s explanation and peer editing. the writer told the students to finish their work today. unfortunately some of the students could not finish their work on the day. then the teacher held the fourth activity to give the students additional time to finish their works. the fourth activity was an extended activity for the students who had not posted their persuasive speech. the result of students’ achievement in the second cycle can be seen in the table 4.5. from the second cycle result, it was found that the students’ problems got significant improvement. in term of content, the students’ average score was “good to average”. it was shown by the fact that most of the students’ works showed some knowledge of the subject although they still had limited development of the topic and lack depth of detail contents. in term of organization, the students’ work was “good to average”. the finding showed that they students had followed the generic structure of hortatory exposition text; though their works were still loosely organized but the main ideas were clear. the students had followed the logical order and it was completed. in term of vocabulary, the students’ average score was considered as “good to average”. the students had had enough range of words, used a lot of adjectives and verbs, the meaning is clear but made occasional errors in word usage. in term of language use, it was also considered as “good to average”. it was shown that the students’ use of language had been effective and some of them used complex sentence construction. the errors in agreement and tense were seldom too. in term of mechanics, the average score was considered as “good to average” too. it was shown by the finding that only the students made minor mistakes in mechanic. considering the finding on cycle two, the researcher then decided to end the research. questionnaire the questionnaire which consisted of 10 questions was analyzed to find out how well blog had contributed to improve students writing skill in hortatory exposition. it had to be answered by choosing “yes” or “no” answer. the percentage result of the questionnaire can be seen in the table 4.7. the questionnaire number one showed that most of the students (29) had difficulty in learning hortatory exposition text before the treatment given. based on the questionnaire number two, there were 28 students also had the difficulty in determining the elements of hortatory exposition text. the questionnaire number three showed that there were 32 students thought that writing hortatory maulina nur chikmahwati / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 8 exposition was hard. questionnaire number four showed that before the treatments given, most of the students (22) hadn’t known blog. questionnaire number five showed that 32 students thought that there was a difference in mastering hortatory exposition text writing. based on questionnaire number six, there were 36 students liked to learn hortatory exposition through blog. also in questionnaire number seven, 36 students thought that blog was more attractive than the conventional teaching. questionnaire number eight showed that there were 30 students were more motivated learning hortatory exposition text using blog as the medium. questionnaire number 9 showed that the teacher had never used any special techniques to teach hortatory exposition text. in addition, questionnaire number ten showed that 34 students wanted this kind of activity to be continued. table 4.1 the students’ pre-test result no. students' code component of writing score score c o v lu m 1 a – 01 22 10 11 17 1 61 2 a – 02 22 14 12 18 2 68 3 a – 03 22 10 11 17 1 61 4 a – 04 22 13 11 12 1 59 5 a – 05 22 14 11 17 1 65 6 a 06 15 14 11 12 1 53 7 a 07 22 15 12 19 2 70 8 a 08 15 14 11 18 2 60 9 a 09 16 10 17 18 1 62 10 a 10 22 15 12 18 2 69 11 a 11 22 15 11 17 2 67 12 a 12 16 10 11 17 1 55 13 a 13 22 13 17 16 2 70 14 a 14 17 11 9 16 1 54 15 a 15 22 15 15 19 2 73 16 a 16 21 14 12 20 1 68 17 a 17 22 15 12 18 2 69 18 a 18 22 15 11 17 2 67 19 a 19 22 16 16 18 2 74 20 a 20 22 14 12 15 2 65 21 a 21 16 9 11 17 1 54 22 a 22 22 15 11 17 2 67 23 a 23 22 15 12 18 2 69 24 a 24 21 14 12 15 2 64 25 a 25 22 15 11 17 2 67 26 a 26 22 14 17 17 2 72 27 a 27 22 14 12 21 2 71 28 a 28 22 10 11 21 2 66 29 a – 29 16 9 11 17 1 54 30 a – 30 16 13 7 12 1 49 31 a – 31 22 14 12 18 2 68 32 a – 32 22 15 12 18 2 69 33 a – 33 16 14 7 15 1 53 34 a – 34 22 15 11 17 2 67 35 a – 35 22 15 11 17 2 67 36 a – 36 22 15 11 17 2 67 37 a – 37 17 14 11 18 2 62 ∑ 752 497 435 631 61 2376 mean 20.32 13.43 11.76 17.05 1.65 64.22 maulina nur chikmahwati / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 9 where : c = content o = organization v = vocabulary lu = language use m = mechanics table 4.2 the pre-test observation note no . students’ activities scale (number of student) total good fair poor 1. students’ attention to the teacher 10 (27%) 12 (32%) 15 (40%) 37 (100%) 2. students’ enthusiasm 10 (27%) 10 (27%) 17 (46%) 37 (100%) 3. students’ activeness in asking questions 2 (1%) 10 (27%) 25 (68%) 37 (100%) 4. students’ activeness in answering teacher’s questions 2 (1%) 10 (27%) 25 (68%) 37 (100%) 5. students’ activeness in doing the tasks given by teacher 10 (27%) 10 (27%) 17 (46%) 37 (100%) table 4.3 the first cycle test result no. students' code component of writing score score c o v lu m 1 a – 01 22 14 12 22 4 74 2 a – 02 22 18 18 22 4 84 3 a – 03 26 18 18 23 4 89 4 a – 04 17 14 12 18 3 64 5 a – 05 22 14 14 22 2 74 6 a – 06 22 20 17 22 4 85 7 a – 07 26 18 18 23 4 89 8 a – 08 22 17 15 18 3 75 9 a – 09 22 17 12 20 1 72 10 a – 10 26 18 17 23 4 88 11 a – 11 22 17 12 20 4 75 12 a – 12 20 13 21 14 3 71 13 a – 13 21 17 15 21 3 77 14 a – 14 22 16 17 18 1 74 15 a – 15 26 18 18 23 3 88 16 a – 16 22 15 18 18 2 75 17 a – 17 25 13 11 17 1 67 18 a – 18 19 16 17 18 2 72 19 a – 19 26 18 18 23 3 88 20 a – 20 24 17 15 17 3 76 21 a – 21 22 17 17 21 1 78 maulina nur chikmahwati / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 10 22 a – 22 22 18 17 21 1 79 23 a – 23 22 17 17 18 1 75 24 a – 24 24 18 15 17 1 75 25 a – 25 24 17 17 17 2 77 26 a – 26 27 18 18 23 5 91 27 a – 27 24 19 17 22 4 86 28 a – 28 26 17 17 18 3 81 29 a – 29 24 17 19 17 3 80 30 a – 30 23 17 11 17 3 71 31 a – 31 24 18 17 23 4 86 32 a – 32 24 18 18 23 4 87 33 a – 33 24 17 15 17 3 76 34 a – 34 24 17 17 17 2 77 35 a – 35 24 17 17 17 3 78 36 a – 36 24 17 15 17 3 76 37 a – 37 26 18 18 23 3 88 ∑ 862 625 597 730 104 2918 mean 23.29 16.89 16.13 19.72 2.81 78.86 table 4.5 the second cycle result no. students' code component of writing score score c o v lu m 1 a – 01 24 18 12 22 4 80 2 a – 02 26 18 18 23 4 89 3 a 03 27 18 18 23 5 91 4 a 04 22 17 15 18 3 75 5 a 05 21 17 15 21 3 77 6 a 06 26 18 18 23 4 89 7 a 07 27 18 19 22 5 91 8 a 08 21 17 15 21 3 77 9 a 09 22 17 15 18 3 75 10 a 10 27 18 18 23 4 90 11 a 11 21 17 15 22 4 79 12 a 12 24 17 15 17 3 76 13 a 13 24 18 12 22 4 80 14 a 14 24 18 12 22 4 80 15 a 15 27 18 18 23 4 90 16 a 16 21 17 15 22 4 79 17 a 17 22 15 18 18 2 75 18 a 18 24 17 15 17 3 76 19 a 19 27 18 18 23 5 91 20 a 20 24 18 12 22 4 80 21 a 21 22 20 17 22 4 85 22 a 22 24 20 17 22 4 87 23 a 23 22 17 15 22 4 80 24 a 24 24 17 15 22 4 82 maulina nur chikmahwati / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 11 25 a 25 22 18 17 22 4 83 26 a 26 27 20 18 23 5 93 27 a 27 27 18 18 23 5 91 28 a 28 24 19 17 22 4 86 29 a 29 22 20 17 22 4 85 30 a 30 24 17 14 17 3 75 31 a 31 27 18 18 23 4 90 32 a 32 25 18 18 23 4 88 33 a 33 22 18 17 22 4 83 34 a – 34 22 18 17 22 4 83 35 a – 35 24 19 17 22 4 86 36 a – 36 22 18 18 22 4 84 37 a – 37 27 18 18 23 5 91 ∑ 888 662 601 796 145 3092 mean 24 17.89 16.24 21.51 3.91 83.56 where : c = content o = organization v = vocabulary lu = language use m = mechanics table 4.7 the questionnaire result pertanyaan ya tidak total 1. apakah anda mengalami kesulitan dalam mempelajari teks yang berbentuk hortatory exposition? 29 (78%) 8 (22%) 37 (100%) 2. apakah anda mengalami kesulitan dalam menentukan elemenelemen dalam teks hortatory exposition? 28 (76%) 9 (24%) 37 (100%) 3. apakah menulis teks hortatory exposition itu sulit? 32 (86%) 5 (14%) 37 (100%) 4. apakah sebelum diadakan kegiatan ini anda telah mengenal blog? 22 (59%) 15 (41%) 37 (100%) 5. apakah ada perbedaan penguasaan penulisan teks hortatory exposition sebelum dan sesudah penggunaan medium blog? 34 (92%) 3 (8%) 37 (100%) 6. apakah anda senang mempelajari hortatory exposition menggunakan blog? 36 (97%) 1 (3%) 37 (100%) 7. apakah penggunaan blog dalam mempelajari hortatory exposition lebih menarik dibanding pengajaran konvensional (menggunakan buku pelajaran)? 36 (97%) 1 (3%) 37 (100%) 8. apakah pengajaran dengan medium blog membantu anda untuk lebih termotivasi mempelajari hortatory exposition? 30 (81%) 7 (19%) 37 (100%) 9. apakah guru anda pernah menggunakan teknik khusus dalam pengajaran teks hortatory exposition? 0 (0%) 37 (100%) 37 (100%) 10. menurut pendapat anda, apakah kegiatan semacam ini perlu dilanjutkan atau tidak? 34 (92%) 3 (8%) 37 (100%) maulina nur chikmahwati / journal of english language teaching 2 (1) (2013) 12 references arikunto, s., 1996, prosedur penelitian: suatu pendekatan praktek, jakarta: rineka cipta. best, j. w. 1981. research and education. new jersey: prentice hall. inc. brown, h. d. 2004. language assessment principles and classroom practices. new york: pearson education limited. brown, 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through blogs in an efl class. spain: white rose language school. white, r. and a. maley. 1987. writing: advanced. new york: oxford university press. 1 elt forum 5 (1) (2016) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt improving the students’ mastery in pronouncing consonants /f/ and /v/ nunung setiyo rini english department. faculty of languages and arts. state university of semarang. aticle info ________________ article history: received in february 2016 approved in march 2016 published in april 2016 ________________ keywords: cambridge advanced learner’s dictionary, pronunciation, action research. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this final project is concerned with the use of cambridge advanced learner’s dictionary toward the students’ pronunciation of consonants [f] and [v]. the objective of this study is to improve the students’ pronunciation by using cambridge advanced learner’s dictionary. this study used action research design. there were two cycles of action in this study. this research started with an initial pre-test and ended with a final post-test. in each cycle there were pre-test, treatment, and post-test. the tests were used to collect the quantitative data. meanwhile, observation checklist and questionnaire were used to gather the qualitative data. thirty one students of class viii h of smp n 22 semarang were chosen as the subjects of this study. based on the data analyses, there was a significant improvement of the students’ achievement after the implementation of cambridge advanced learner’s dictionary was given. this improvement was proved by the comparison between the result of initial pre-test and final post-test. this improvement was also supported by the results of observation checklists and questionnaire. based on the observation checklists, the students’ attendance and engagement in cycle 2 was better than their attendance and engagement in cycle 1. moreover, the result of questionnaire showed that the students gave positive perception towards the use of cambridge advanced learner’s dictionary. with regard to the above results, it can be concluded that the use of cambridge advanced learner’s dictionary successfully improves the students’ pronunciation of consonants [f] and [v]. therefore, the use of cambridge advanced learner’s dictionary in the teaching pronunciation, especially pronunciation of english words containing consonants [f] and [v] is recommended. © 2016 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: nunungsetiyorini@gmail.com issn 2252-6706 nunung setiyo rini / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 2 introduction during my observation on the teaching process in smp n 22 semarang three months ago, i found that the teacher gave less pronunciation practice to the students. during eighty minutes of teaching and learning process, the teacher only gave pronunciation practice for five to ten minutes. the rest of the time was spent on reading and writing practice, and also doing some tasks. in the beginning, the teacher pronounced a list of vocabulary and then she asked the students to pronounce those words. then, she randomly asked the students to pronounce those words. pronunciation error correction would come up when any of the students mispronounced any of those words. however, in daily interaction with the teacher during the teaching and learning process, the students often mispronounced other english words but the mispronunciation was not corrected. it seemed that the teacher gave less attention to the students’ pronunciation. the most interesting pronunciation problem i found during my observation was the failure of the students in pronouncing the words containing the sounds /f/ and /v/. they always pronounced the sound /v/ with /f/ but the teacher did not correct such a mistake. for example, the students pronounced the word love as [lɑːf ]. the students’ failure in pronouncing the words containing sounds /v/ might be caused by some possibilities. firstly, the teacher did not teach how to pronounce that sound explicitly. secondly, the teacher pronounced that sound correctly but the students failed to copy it correctly. based on my observation on the teaching process, the teacher still used conventional method in teaching pronunciation. her pronunciation became the sole model of pronunciation that should be followed by the students because there is no pronunciation model from media. therefore, the students was not interested in the learning process. as a matter of fact, there are many media that can be used in teaching pronunciation. they do not only make the pronunciation teaching and learning more interesting, but also become a good model of pronunciation. those teaching media are video, internet, flashcard, and dictionary. any of those media can be applied in smp n 22 semarang because the facilities in that school enable the teacher to use media in teaching pronounciation. the fact that the use of media in teaching pronunciation is still ignored may occur in the other classes of smp n 22 semarang. therefore, there is also a possibility that the students in those classes of that school mispronounce english sounds, especially the sound /v/ because they do not get a good model of pronunciation. in an effort to answer the problem above, i decided to conduct a research in that school. i decided to use cambridge advanced learner’s dictionary in my teaching to prove whether or not it successfully improves the students’ pronunciation of english consonants [f] and [v]. cambridge advanced learner’s dictionary was choosen since it was practical and gave the audio form of pronunciation of english words. hopefully, with this research, the students will be more interested in learning pronunciation and they will have a good model of pronunciation of english words. review of related literature pronunciation dalton and seidholfer (1994:3) write their idea about pronunciation in general terms, as follows: pronunciation is the production of significant sounds in two senses. first, sound is significant because it is used as part of a code of a particular language. therefore, we can talk about the distinctive sounds of english, french, thai, and other languages. in this sense, we can talk about pronunciation as the production and reception of sounds of speech. second, sound is significant because it is used to achieve meaning in context of use. here the code combines with other factors to make communication possible. in this sense, we can talk about pronunciation with reference to acts of speaking. according to ramelan (2003: 22), there are two features that can be distinguished when a speaker produces an utterance. they are as follows. nunung setiyo rini / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 3 1. segmental features, or just segmental which refer to sound unit arranged in a segmental order; and 2. suprasegmental features, or just suprasegmental which refer to such features as stress, pitch, length, intonation, and other features that always accompany that production of segmental. in this study, the main feature of pronunciation which will be focused is the segmental one. the segmental features are vowels, diphthongs, and consonants. according to ramelan (2003: 99-108), there are twenty five kinds of consonants; they are [p], [t], [k], [?], [b], [d], [ɡ], [f], [v], [θ], [ð], [s], [z], [ʃ], [ʒ], [r], [h], [tʃ], [dʒ], [m], [n], [ŋ], [l], [w], and [y]. among those consonants, there are only two that will be discussed. they are consonants [f] and [v]. therefore, the next sub-chapter will review pronunciation of english consonants [f] and [v]. pronunciation of english consonants [f] and [v] in producing [f], kelly (2000: 50) says, ‘the lower lip makes light contact with the upper teeth. the soft palate is raised. /f/ is unvoiced and fortis.’ meanwhile, in producing [v], kelly (2000: 50) states that ‘the lower lip makes light contact with the upper teeth. the soft palate is raised. /v/ is voiced and lenis. /v/ is devoiced at the end of a word.’ reasons for pronunciation problems since english is a foreign language in indonesia, there will be some pronunciation problems faced by indonesian students when they learn english. according to ramelan (2003: 5-7), pronunciation problems are caused by some reasons. they are: 1. transfer of linguistic habit; 2. different elements between native language and the target language; 3. the same phonetic feature in both language but differ in their distributions; 4. similar sounds in the two languages, which have different variants or allophones; and, 5. similar sounds in two languages which differ only slightly in their phonetic features. then, according to dalton (1997: 1), the main problem in learning a foreign language is learner’s reception. he states that ‘if the "english" sound is not clearly received, the brain of the learner converts it into the closest sound in their own language.’ from the statements above, it can be concluded that there are many reasons that cause the students’ failure in producing proper pronunciation of certain sounds. therefore, the teacher should include pronunciation in her teaching material in order to help the student able to pronounce the english sounds correctly. the next sub-section will explain further about teaching pronunciation. teaching pronunciation in mastering english as a foreign language, the students should learn english both in written form and oral form. in the spoken form, pronunciation is important because having bad pronunciation may lead to misunderstanding in communication although a speaker has a good command of grammar. therefore, teaching pronunciation to the students is considered important. the idea is in line with kelly (2000: 11) who states that it is important to include pronunciation teaching in the classroom because learners’ errors can cause misunderstanding and inhibit successful communication. from the statements above, it is obvious that the teacher should teach pronunciation to the students. however, non-native teacher may feel that his/her pronunciation will not meet the standard of the native english speaker, so he/she does not feel confident to teach pronunciation. in this case, teaching pronunciation by using media could be the solution to this problem. the medium which was used in this study was cambridge advanced learner’s dictionary. it will be discussed in the subchapter below. electronic dictionary in this modern era, teachers can use many technologies as tools in teaching english to achieve effectiveness in the class. one of the nunung setiyo rini / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 4 media that can be used by means of technology in class is an electronic dictionary. there are several definitons of electronic dictionary. webster online dictionary (http://websteronlinedictionary.org/definitions /electronic%20dictionary) defines electronic dictionary as follows: an electronic dictionary is either a small handheld computer with integrated reference materials, or a pda or a smartphone with a dictionary program. electronic dictionaries are also programs that can be downloaded from the internet or purchased on a cd-rom or dvd and installed on a desktop computer or on a laptop. other electronic dictionaries can be searched and consulted online on the internet. the computer-installed dictionaries can often be consulted directly from within any application that uses editable text. the term may be used in a broader sense to refer to the features of a machine-readable dictionary or spell checker. based on the webster online dictionary’s definition above, there are several kinds of electronic dictionaries. they are: 1. a small handheld computer with integrated reference materials; 2. a smartphone with a dictionary program; 3. a program that can be downloaded from the internet or purchased on a cd-rom and should be installed on a computer; 4. online dictionaries; and, 5. spelling checker. in this study, i used cambridge advanced learner’s dictionary as a medium in teaching pronunciation. it belongs to the kind of electronic dictionaries in the third form. it provides meanings, phonetic transcriptions, and the audio of english word pronunciation. it can be easily downloaded from the internet and installed in a laptop/computer. action research since the research design that i used in this study was an action research, this sub-chapter would discuss action research according to some experts. there are several definitions of action research. harmer (2001: 344-345) states that ‘action research is the name given to a series of procedures teachers can engage in, either because they wish to improve aspects of their teaching, or because they wish to evaluate the success and/appropriacy of certain activities and procedures’. according to coats (2005:4) action research can be described as ‘any research into practice undertaken by those involved in that practice, with an aim to change and improve it. it is therefore, a process of enquiry by you as a practitioner into the effectiveness of your own teaching and your students’ learning.’ steps in action research burns (2010:8) states that there are four steps in action research. those steps are planning, acting, observing, and reflecting. they would be explained below. 1. planning in this step, a problem is identified and a plan of action is developed in order to bring improvements in the research. 2. action it is a step where the plan which has been arranged is put into action in a period of time. 3. observation in the observing step, the data are collected and the effects of the action are observed. 4. reflection it is a step of evaluating and describing the effects of the action in order to make sense of what has happened and to understand the issue which have been explored. method this study was an action research with the students of viii h of smp n 22 semarang in the academic year of 2015/2016 as the subjects. this action research consisted of two cycles of four steps: planning, action, observation, and reflection. the object of the study was the students’ improvement of the students’ pronunciation of english words containing consonants [f] and [v]. therefore, the material of this study was the english words containing consonants [f] and [v] that were available in the students’ handout. nunung setiyo rini / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 5 to collect those data, three instruments were used. the first was tests; they were used to record the students’ pronunciation. the second was questionnaires; they were used to record the students’ impression to the use of cambridge advance learner’s dictionary. the last was observation checklists; they were used to record the students’ attendance and engagement during the treatments. data analysis and reflection of findings result of the students’ pronunciation test scores initial pretest cycle 1 cycle 2 final post-test c1 pre-test c1 post-test c2 pre-test c2 post-test 42.39 70.05 85.64 14.24 48.70 66.45 the result of cycle 1 observation checklist the result of cycle 2 observation checklist indicators total point mean point criteria attendance 118 3.80 very good engagement 101.5 3.27 very engaged the result of questionnaire no. question number yes no  p  p 1. 1 31 100% 2. 2 29 93.54% 2 6.46% 3. 3 31 100% 4. 4 31 100% 5. 5 31 100% reflection of the research findings initial pre-test the classical mean score of the initial pretest (42.39) indicated that the students’ pronunciation was below the standard of mastery of learning score (75) set up by the school. in addition, individually, none of the students got score above the mastery of learning. therefore, i decided to give some treatments to the students in order to improve their pronunciation score. indicators total point mean point criteria attendance 95 3.06 good engagement 88.25 2.84 engaged nunung setiyo rini / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 6 cycle 1 pre-test the result of cycle 1 pre-test showed that the students did not have difficulty in pronouncing the sound /f/. they were able to pronounce the sound /f/ correctly because this sound also existed in their mother tongue. however, both classical and individual mean score were still below the mastery of learning (75). in addition, the students had poor performance in pronouncing the other english sounds. this problem needed to be investigated by other researchers in order to know the cause of it because cycle 1 pre-test only focused on the students’ pronunciation of the sound /f/. since the classical and the individual mean score were still below the mastery of learning, the students needed to get a treatment in order to make their pronunciation reach the mastery of learning score. cycle 1 post-test the mean score of cycle 1 post-test (85.64) was higher than the mean score of cycle 1 pretest (70.05). according to the criteria of success that had been explained in chapter 3 (see page 32), this mean score fulfilled the first criteria. both classical and individual mean score reached the mastery of learning score. however, if we referred to the second criteria, the classical mean score did not fulfill it. the improvement of classical mean score did not reach 20 points. meanwhile, individually, there were only some students that made significant improvement. since both classical and individual mean score fulfilled the first criteria, cycle 2 could be conducted. cycle 2 pre-test by looking at the mean score of cycle 2 pre-test (14.24), both classical and individual mean score was below the mastery of learning score (75). i conclude that the students had difficulty in pronouncing the sound /v/ in the context of english words. they always pronounced the sound /v/ with /f/, for example the word leave was pronounced as [li:f]. therefore, the students needed to get a treatment in order to make their performance in pronouncing the sound /v/ in the context of english words better. cycle 2 post-test by looking at the first criteria of success, the classical mean of cycle 2 pos-test (48.70) did not fulfill the criteria. it was still below the mastery of learning score. meanwhile, individually, there were only some students whose the individual mean score fulfilled the first criteria. however, if we referred to the second criteria, both classical and individual mean score fulfilled the criteria. the improvement of classical mean score and individual mean score reached 20 points. since the objective of the second treatment had been reached, i decided to give the students final post-test. final post-test by looking at the first criteria of success, both classical and individual mean score did not fulfill the criteria. the classical and individual mean score were still below the mastery of learning score (75). however, by looking at the second criteria, the improvement of classical mean reached 24.06 point. meanwhile, the improvement of individual mean score reached about 24.05 points. it meant that the second criteria had been fulfilled. cycle 1 observation checklist the students’ attendance mean score (3.06) was classified as good. meanwhile, the students’ engagement mean score (2.84) was classified as being engaged. it indicated that they were interested to have a new way in learning pronunciation, so that they gave full attention to the teacher’s explanation, immediately responded to the teacher’s instruction, and actively asked and discussed the medium and the teaching material. those positive reactions might be caused by the fact that they had never been taught a pronunciation practice by using a medium. cycle 2 observation checklist in cycle 2 observation checklist, the students’ attendance mean score increased from nunung setiyo rini / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 7 3.06 in the first treatment to 3.80 in the second treatment. meanwhile, the students’ engagement mean score increased from 2.84 to 3.27. by looking at the criterion of observation checklist assessment, the students’ attendance mean score was classified as very good. meanwhile, the students’ engagement mean score was classified as being very engaged. questionnaire the questionnaire was given to the students in order to find out the students’ interest in the use of media in pronunciation teaching, the relevancy of the materials to the curriculum, the level of the materials difficulty, the advantage of the use of media, and the sustainability of the use of media in pronunciation teaching. the result of this questionnaire showed that all of the students liked the use of cambridge advanced learner’s dictionary in pronunciation learning. they also agreed that the use of medium helped them pronounce the english words containing the sound /f/ and /v/. none of them had difficulty in pronouncing the english words containing the sound /f/ and /v/. they also said that the medium was very much needed to be employed in the pronunciation teaching and learning. there were only 2 students who said that the materials in this research were not appropriate with the curriculum. conclusion first, this study showed that the subjects of the study had problems in pronouncing the sound /v/ in the context of english words. it was proved by their poor mean score in the pre-test. second, the use of cambridge advanced learner’s dictionary in pronunciation teaching was able to improve the students’ performance in pronouncing the sound /v/ in the context of english words. it was proved by the significant improvement of both classical and individual mean score. third, the students showed positive reactions towards the use of cambridge advanced learner’s dictionary in pronunciation teaching. it was proved by the improvement of students’ attendance and engagement. moreover, based on the result of the questionnaire, the use of cambridge advanced learner’s dictionary in pronunciation teaching and learning was necessary. references ahmad, jameel. 2012. english language teaching (elt) and integration of media technology. online at www.sciencedirect.com [accessed on 17/09/2015]. burns, anne. 2010. doing action research in english language teaching: a guide for practitioners. new york: routledge. coats, maggie. 2005. action research: a guide for associate lecturers. london: cobe. costello, patrick j. m. 2003. action research. new york: continuum. dalton, christiane and barbara seidlhofer. 1994. pronunciation. oxford: oxford university press. dalton, d.f. 1997. some techniques for teaching pronunciation. internet tesl journal, vol iii, no. 1. harmer, jeremy. 2001. the practice of english language teaching. london: longman. hornby, a.s. 2005. oxford advanced learners dictionary. oxford: oxford university press. indriana, heni. 2014. the use of bbc vodcast as a medium to improve the students pronunciation of vowels [ɛ] and [æ]. unpublished final project of unnes. jam, bashir., domakani, masood rahimi., and kasegari, zahra asghari. 2014. an intralingual analysis of iranian efl learner’s difficulties caused by the inconsistency between spelling and pronunciation. international journal of educational investigations, vol.1 no.1. kelly, gerald. 2000. how to teach pronunciation. malaysia: longman. motallebi, saeedeh and pourgharib, behzad. 2013. the impact of audio-stories (listening skills) on nunung setiyo rini / journal of english language teaching 5 (1) (2016) 8 pronunciation of efl learners. journal of language sciences & linguistics, vol.1 no.1. nunan, david. 1992. research methods in language learning. cambridge: press syndicate of the university of cambridge. puspito, novinda dian. 2014. the application of audiovideo folk tale animation in pronunciation class. unpublished final project of unnes. ramelan. 2003. english phonetics. semarang: ikip press. setiadi, ag. bambang. 2006. teaching english as a foreign language. yogyakarta: graha ilmu. websites: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/electronic+dictio nary [accessed on 28/09/2015]. http://www.webstersonlinedictionary.org/definitions /electronic%20dictionary [accessed on 28/09/2015]. 76 elt forum 3 (1) (2014) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the effectiveness of semantic mapping strategy to improve students` vocabulary mastery indriarti  english department, faculty of languages and arts, state university of semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in april 2014 approved in mei 2014 published in juni 2014 ________________ keywords: semantic mapping strategy, vocabulary, quasiexperimental study ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ the purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of semantic mapping strategy to improve students` vocabulary mastery. the research design of this study was a quasi experimental design. the population was the seventh grade students of smp negeri 4 batang in the academic year of 2013/2014. the samples consisted of 72 students, which divided into two groups, they were experimental group and control group. in order to collect data about students’ vocabulary mastery improvement and responses toward the implementation of semantic mapping strategy, the writer used vocabulary test and questionnaire. during the treatment, students in experimental group used semantic mapping strategy, while students in control group used wordlists strategy. in the pre test results, the mean score of the experimental group was 62,91 and the control group was 63,19. however, there was improvement in post test results. the analysis of the test result showed that the students` improvement of experimental group was higher than control group. in the post test, the mean score of the experimental group was 82,08 while the control group got 76,38. based on statistical analysis by using t-test formula, indicated that the t-test was 3,29 and t-table was 1,99. it means that t-value was higher than t-table (3,29 >1,99). as a result, there is a significant difference in vocabulary achievement between the students who are taught by using semantic mapping strategy and those who are taught by using wordlists strategy. based on the result of this study, the writer concluded that semantic mapping strategy is more effective to be implemented in teaching vocabulary to improve students` vocabulary mastery than wordlists strategy. © 2014 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: b3 building, fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: arti.indri@yahoo.com issn 2252-6706 indriarti / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 77 introduction vocabulary is one of the major components of a language learning which has to be mastered by the learners. vocabulary itself is words in a specific language which have meaning in which label objects, actions and ideas that conveys information. it will be impossible to learn a language without having vocabulary mastery because learners cannot deliver a certain meaning to communicate with others in a particular language, such as english. laufer (1997:140) states that learning vocabulary is one of the most important elements without which neither comprehension nor production of language is possible. on the other word, it means that learning vocabulary cannot be separated from other language skills, such as listening, speaking, reading and writing. the more words the learners know, they will be more better to understand what they hear or read. and, the more words they have, they will be more accurate to express their ideas in spoken or written form . as a foreign language, learning english vocabulary seems difficult for some indonesian students to master as it is completely different from indonesian language itself. they find difficulty to memorize new words and to enlarge their vocabulary knowledge. in fact, having low vocabulary proficiency will cause an obstacle for the students in learning english. while they have limited vocabulary in their minds, they are not able to use language accurately. it means that if the students are lack of vocabulary, it will circumscribe them to use language skillfully to express their ideas. one of the reasons for the students’ low vocabulary mastery and memorization can be influenced by teacher`s strategy in teaching vocabulary. some teachers might still use conventional strategy which cannot challenge the students to learn vocabulary independently such as wordlits strategy. they let the students depend more on the meaning of wordlists in textbook. as a result, the students cannot explore their vocabulary knowledge which they have known before, and they accustomed to learn vocabulary passively. wordlists strategy as one of the conventional strategies in teaching vocabulary, is a strategy which delivers list of some difficult words and their meanings. through this strategy, the teachers usually offer the meaning of the words only. they directly show the target words to the students, then ask them to read and memorize the vocabulary items. it is helpful for the students to remember new words but in a short time. hence, this strategy less help the students to master the target vocabulary better. the lack of vocabulary knowledge creates a barrier that discourages the students in learning english. thus, it is a big challenge for the teachers to find effective and efficient strategy in teaching vocabulary so that they can help the students to memorize words better to improve their vocabulary achievement. nevertheless, the aim of teaching vocabulary should provide the students with the ability to distinguish the meaning of words and to enhance the words mastering usage instead of knowing the meaning only. therefore, the teachers should vary their strategy in teaching vocabulary and motivate the students to learn english vocabulary actively and independently. one of the strategies that can be used to teach vocabulary is a semantic mapping. according to graves (2008:56), semantic mapping is one of the most powerful approaches to teach vocabulary because it engages students in thinking about word relationships. this strategy increases students’ active exploration of word relationships, therefore, it leads them to a deeper understanding of word meanings by developing their conceptual knowledge related to word. hence, this strategy can help the students to memorize some new words easily and effectively. review of related literature 2.1 definition of semantic mapping semantic mapping strategy allows the students to explore their knowledge of vocabulary by creating a map of word. it consists of a diagram which displays a single word or phrase, indriarti / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 78 placed in the centre as topic and another associated words are added in the form of branches. according to graves (2008:56) semantic mapping is one of the most powerful approaches to teach vocabulary because it engages students in thinking about word relationships. the strategy promotes students’ active exploration of word relationships to a deeper understanding of word meanings by developing their conceptual knowledge related to words. in addition, winters (2001:87) asserts that semantic mapping represent a graphic teaching strategy which has been devised to help learners build the conceptual connections they need to decipher any word completely. in short, semantic mapping is a strategy for representing word concepts graphically. it helps the students to develop their vocabulary through a deeper understanding conceptual knowledge by displaying words into categories to show how they are related to each other. 2.2 advantages of using semantic mapping semantic mapping is a visual display that demonstrates relationships between one word to another. there are seven advantages of using semantic mapping in teaching-learning process: 1. representing ideas or views from a large group of participants or stakeholders in an easy-to-interpret format. 2. helping students brainstorm and generate new ideas. 3. encouraging students to discover new concepts and the propositions that connect them. 4. allowing students to more clearly communicate ideas, thoughts and information. 5. identifying complex relationships between issues, factors, and so on in a tangible or graphic format. 6. participating focused, everybody can have his or her ideas represented. 7. promoting active participation, therefore ensures that participants stay on task. 2.3 definition of vocabulary vocabulary is all the words in a language which has meaning that produced by human beings to express their mind. they use words in communication to convey meaning so that others can understand them. hatch and brown (1995:24) state that vocabulary is a list or set of words particular language or a list or set or words individual speakers of language might use. according to kamil and hiebert (2005:3), generically, vocabulary is the knowledge of meanings of words. besides, another definition of vocabulary is stated by mccarthy (1990:32). he states that vocabulary is defined as words in a specific language or freestanding items of language that have meaning. based on some theories, the writer defines that vocabulary is a word or list of words which have meanings and used by individual or group to communicate with others either in verbal or written communication. 2.4 vocabulary mastery vocabulary is an important element which has to be mastered in learning a language. hornby (1995:207) stated that mastery means great knowledge about understanding of a particular thing. in addition, fries (1945:22) stated: we never separate from mastery of vocabulary, because whenever we think of language learning, we usually think of mastering the vocabulary or learning the word. the words one knows actually depend on the experience one has got, for example a child’s experience is very limited in its range, and therefore, his vocabulary is limited too. hence, vocabulary mastery is someone’s ability to understand or to use words in a language. if the learners want to learn a particular language, such as english, they should develop their vocabulary mastery first because it will influence every step of the process in learning language itself. 2.5 the importance of learning vocabulary learning vocabulary becomes essential aspect in learning a language. the mastery of indriarti / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 79 vocabulary will determine the mastery of others language skills. it is impossible to use language skillfully when the students have limited vocabulary in their minds. according to laufer (1997:142), learning vocabulary is one of the most important elements without which neither comprehension nor production of language is possible. it would be impossible to learn a language without having vocabulary mastery because people need several words to convey the intended meaning to communicate with others. thus, learning vocabulary is a central component of language learning. vocabulary itself is a core component of language proficiency and becomes the basis for how well the learners listen, speak, read, and write. without having vocabulary mastery, it is difficult for learners to convey the information which they want to express. meanwhile, with a good knowledge of vocabulary, learners may feel confident in communication either spoken or written. 2.6 the strengths of using semantic mapping in teaching vocabulary there are some advantages in teaching vocabulary using semantic mapping: 1. helping students to remember the words easily because it organized in some categories of word. 2. decreasing students’ boredom in learning vocabulary. 3. helping students become active participants in the class because they can have their ideas represented. 4. increasing the students’ motivation to learn new vocabulary because of the attractiveness of semantic mapping strategy in teaching vocabulary. research method the present study conducted a quasiexperimental study as the research design. according to creswell (2009: 154), quasiexperimental is a form of experimental research in which individuals are not randomly assigned to groups. in this study, non-equivalent control group design was used. a non-equivalent groups design includes an existing group of participants who receive a treatment and another existing group of participants to serve as a control group. the subject of this study was students of smp negeri 4 batang in the academic year 2013/2014. the writer divided the subject of the study into two groups, vii a assigned to experimental group and vii b as control group. during the treatment, students in experimental group used semantic mapping strategy in teaching vocabulary, while students in control group used wordlists strategy. in order to collect data about students’ vocabulary mastery improvement between the two groups and to compare the effectiveness of two strategies in improving students` vocabulary mastery, the writer used vocabulary test as a main instrument. besides, to get more additional information on the students’ perceptions and interests of the implementation of semantic mapping strategy that could not be noted by the tests, questionnaire was used. the research design of the study can be described as follows: r 01 x 02 r 03 y 04 in which, r : respondents, 01 : pre-test for the experimental group 02 : post-test for the experimental group 03 : pre-test for the control group 04 : post-test for control group x : treatment using semantic mapping strategy y : treatment using wordlists strategy (conventional strategy) indriarti / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 80 in this study, the writer divided the subject of the study into two groups, an experimental group and a control group. before and after the experiment, both groups were given pre-test and post-test of vocabulary knowledge. both groups took pre-test (01) and (03) to measure their early vocabulary mastery before getting the experiment. during the experiment, the experimental group was taught by using semantic mapping strategy (x), while the wordlists (y), as a conventional strategy was performed to the control group. after the experiment, the same post-tests (02) and (04) were administrated to investigate whether any significant differences in learning vocabulary between the two groups. in addition, to support the primary data and to get more additional information on students’ perceptions and interests of the implementation of semantic mapping strategy that could not be noted by the tests, the writer used questionnaire. it was carried out after the treatment for experimental group only. the result of test was analyzed using t-test formula to make sure whether there was a significant difference between pre-test and post test between experimental and control groups or not and to know which strategy was more effective to improve students` vocabulary mastery. however, the standard deviation should be computed before counting the t-test. the formula of standard deviation is as follows: in which, s = standard deviation of both groups n1 = students amount of experimental group s1 = standard deviation of experimental group n2 = students amount of control group s2 = standard deviation of control group to find out the t-value of the significant difference between the two means of the pre-test and post-test, the formula is as follows: in which, t = t-value s = standard deviation of both groups x1 = mean of experimental group n1 = students amount of experimental group x2 = mean of control group n2 = students amount of control group result and analysis 4.1 pre test findings a pre-test was held at the beginning of the study. it had a purpose to know the early condition of the students’ vocabulary mastery before getting treatments. it was conducted on wednesday, february 19th 2014 for control group and on thursday, february 20th 2014 for experimental group. in the pre test, the students had to answer 20 multiple-choice items in 35 minutes. the result of pre-test in experimental and control group could be seen in the following tables: t = x1̅̅̅̅ − x2̅̅̅̅ 𝑠√ 1 𝑛1 + 1 𝑛2 s =√ (𝑛1−1)𝑠1 2+(𝑛2−1)𝑠2 2 𝑛1 + 𝑛2− 2 indriarti / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 81 experimental group pre test score σ (the total score) 2265 n 36 maximum score 80 minimum score 35 mean 62,91 the table shows that the experimental group got total scores 2265 in doing pre test. next, the mean score of this group was 62,91. different from the table above, the students’ scores of the pre-test in the control group is presented in the following table. control group pre test score σ (the total score) 2275 n 36 maximum score 85 minimum score 45 mean 63,19 based on the table above, it can be seen that the total scores of pre test in control group was 2275 and the mean score of the students’ result in this group was 63,19. the result of pre test in control group was slightly different from the experimental group. so, the writer concluded that two groups had equal level vocabulary mastery before getting the treatment. 4.2 implementation of the experiment in the present study, semantic mapping strategy was applied as a treatment to improve students` vocabulary mastery. the treatment form of this study was teaching-learning process using semantic mapping strategy in the classroom. the process of giving treatment to make sure that the semantic mapping strategy definitely gave effect to improve students’ vocabulary achievement and to know whether semantic mapping strategy was more effective to teach vocabulary compared to wordlists strategy as conventional one. after pre test was given, the treatment of teaching vocabulary by semantic mapping strategy was given to the students in experimental group. the treatment was conducted for 4 meetings. each meeting needed 80 minutes and had different materials about vocabularies. there were four themes of vocabularies related to procedure text that the teacher gave to the students. those were vocabulary about how to make a cup of tea, vocabulary about how to tie a neck tie, vocabulary about how to make cheese noodle omelette, and vocabulary about how to plant a flower. the process of giving treatment in teaching vocabulary through semantic mapping strategy in experimental group as follows:  first treatment in the first meeting, the students learnt new vocabulary about how to make a cup of tea through semantic mapping strategy. in the beginning of lesson, the teacher played a video about procedure text how to make a cup of tea to stimulate the students` vocabularies knowledge. then, she wrote a phrase of how to make a cup of tea as a main topic on the center of board. next, she invited the students to generate as many words as possible related to the topic. the students did brainstorming and classified the words into their categories. next, they constructed a map of words and also elaborated on their map with the meanings those vocabularies. individual assisgnment was given in the end of the lesson related to semantic mapping. indriarti / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 82  second treatment in the second meeting, the students learnt new vocabulary about how to tie a neck tie through semantic mapping strategy. teacher asked the students to guess what was in the box. she showed a real thing of tie. she applied semantic mapping strategy to brainstrom their vocabulary related to the topic. the students did exercises related to the topic. teacher asked one of the students to come forward and demostrated how to tie a neck tie in front of the class. teacher asked the students to make a group and played a game related to semantic mapping by number head together.  third treatment in the third meeting, the students learnt new vocabulary about how to make cheese noodle omelette through semantic mapping strategy. the teacher showed a real cheese omelette to the students. she wrote the topic of how to make cheese noodle omelette on the board. the students did brainstorming and generate as many words as possible related to the topic. next, they classified the words into their categories and constructed a map of words related procedure of how to make a cheese noodle omelette. teacher showed some words related to cooking on the slides. in the end of the lesson, the teacher gave assignment related to the material in group and individually.  fourth treatment in the fourth meeting, the students learnt new vocabulary about how to plant a flower through semantic mapping strategy. teacher showed the students some picture related to plant flower. teacher asked the students to make a group and gave them assignment related to semantic mapping. the students did a group discussion to match pictures and rearrange correct sentences related to how to plant a flower by semantic mapping strategy . next, the students presented the results of group discussion in front of the class. in the end of lesson, they stuck their works related to semantic mapping on the sticky wall. different from the experimental group, in control group, the conventional strategy by using wordlists was conducted in teaching procedure text. the process of giving materials in control group was the same with experimental group. the treatment in control group was also conducted for four meetings which needed 80 minutes and each meeting had different materials of vocabularies related to procedure text. the themes of vocabularies were similiar to experimental group. in short, the process of conducting treatment between experimental group and control group was the same, the difference only appeared on teaching strategy. during the learning process, the experimental group was taught by using semantic mapping strategy while the control group by using wordlists strategy. in the last activity of the experiment, the writer gave post test to both groups. in addition, questionaire was given to experimental group to know the students` interests and perceptions towards the implemetation of semantic mapping strategy in teaching vocabulary. 4.3 post test findings the post test was used to measure the students’ vocabulary achievement after getting the treatment. the students were asked to answer 20 questions as similar as the pre-test but the positions of question numbers were reshuffled. the time allocation was also 35 minutes. the post test was given on wednesday, march 13th 2014 for control group and on thursday, march 14th 2014. the post test results of each group are shown by the tables below: control group post-test score σ (the total score) 2750 n 36 maximum score 95 minimum score 65 mean 76,38 indriarti / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 83 based on the post test result, the control group got total score 2750. the mean score of this group was also increased, it was 76,38. so, the result showed that there was an improvement in post test result than pre-test. the results of experimental group post test score can be seen as follows: experimental group post test score σ (the total score) 2955 n 36 maximum score 95 minimum score 65 mean 82,08 based on the tables above, the total score of experimental group was 2955. this group got mean score 82,08. it meant the students` improvement of experimental group was more higher than control group. in rather simple observation, there was a significant difference in vocabualry mastery between students of experimental group and control group after getting the treatment by using semantic mapping strategy. based on the post test results, it can be concluded that semantic mapping was more effective to improve students` vocabulary mastery than wordlists strategy. 4.4 mean scores differences between pre test and post test of experimental group and control group the significant difference of the experiment could be seen through the difference of means scores in two groups. a. the mean score of pre test of experimental group 𝑀𝑥 = 2265 36 = 62,91 b. the mean score of pre test of control group 𝑀𝑦 = 2275 36 = 63,19 c. the mean score of post test of experimental group 𝑀𝑥 = 2955 36 = 82,08 d. the mean score of post test of control group 𝑀y = 2750 36 = 76,38 the following graph presented the mean scores result of pre test and post test between the two groups: figure 4.4 mean scores between experimental and control group 63,19 62,91 76,38 82,08 control group experimental group mean score between two groups in the test post test pre test indriarti / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 84 the graph above showed that the mean score of the pre test in the experimental group was 62,91. meanwhile, the mean score of the post test was 82,08. the percentage of the students’ improvement of this group was 19,17%. therefore, there was a significant improvement between the pre-test and the post-test scores achieved by the students of the experimental group. on the other hand, the mean scores of control group also showed an improvement. it was 63,19 in the pre test and 76,38 in the post test. in this group, there was less improvement than the experimental group. the improvement was only 13,19%. it means that the difference mean score on the experimental group was higher than in the control group. in short, the writer concluded that there was better improvement of the experimental group’s achievement after they received the treatment by using semantic mapping strategy in teaching vocabulary to improve students` vocabulary mastery. the clear comparison of mean scores between two groups can be seen in the following table: table 4.4 mean scores comparison group pre-test post-test progress experimental 62,91 82,08 19,17% control 63,19 76,38 13,19% the table above demonstrated that there were improvements in both groups. however, the progress of the experimental group which taught by semantic mapping strategy was higher than the control group which taught by wordlists strategy. to prove the significant improvement of both groups, the results need to be tested by using ttest. 4.5 t-test statistical analysis in order to prove the significance improvement of both groups, the writer used ttest formula to examine the hypotheses of this study. the result of the t-test becomes the quantitative proof whether there is a significant difference of the pre-test and post-test between two groups or not. the following is the result score of post test between both groups: experimental group control group σ (the total score) 2955 2750 n 36 36 mean 82,08 76,38 variance (s2) 61,96 49,44 standard deviation (s) 7,87 7,03 indriarti / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 85 the computation of standard deviation of post test scores was as follows: 𝑆 = √ (36 − 1)61,96 + (36 − 1)49,44 36 + 36 − 2 = √ 2018,6 + 1730,4 70 = √ 3899 70 = √55,7 = 7,463 the computation of tvalue by using t-test formula was as follows: 𝑡𝑣𝑎𝑙𝑢𝑒 = �̅�1 − �̅�2 𝑆√ 1 𝑁1 + 1 𝑁2 𝑡𝑣𝑎𝑙𝑢𝑒 = 82,08 − 76,38 7,463√ 1 36 + 1 36 𝑡𝑣𝑎𝑙𝑢𝑒 = 5,7 7,463√0.027 + 0.027 𝑡𝑣𝑎𝑙𝑢𝑒 = 5,7 7,463√0.054 𝑡𝑣𝑎𝑙𝑢𝑒 = 5,7 7,463𝑥 0,232 𝑡𝑣𝑎𝑙𝑢𝑒 = 5,7 1,731 𝑡𝑣𝑎𝑙𝑢𝑒 = 3,292 2 = 70, t(0.95)(70) = 1,994 3,29 1,994 based on the computation above, it showed that there was a significant difference on posttest result between experimental and control groups because tvalue exceeds ttable (3,292 > 1,994). therefore, there is a significant difference in vocabulary achievement between the students who are taught by using semantic mapping strategy and those who are taught by using wordlists strategy. it means, teaching vocabulary by using semantic mapping strategy is more efffetive to improve students` vocabulary mastery of the seventh grade of smp n 4 batang in the academic year of 2013/2014 than wordlists strategy. 4.6 discussion of research findings 4.6.1 statistical interpretation the objective of this study was to investigate whether there was an effect of using semantic mapping strategy in teaching vocabulary to improve students` vocabulary mastery of the seventh grade students of smp n 4 batang in the academic year of 2013/2014 or not. the mean scores difference between pre test and post test of the experimental and the control group were computed to know the improvement of students` vocabulary mastery before and after getting the treatment. based on the result of pretest, the mean scores of the experimental group was 62,91 and control group was 63,19. from the pretest, it could be said that the basic vocabulary ability of the two groups was relatively the same before getting the treatment. from the scores, it can be concluded that the two groups were homogenous, because there was only slight difference in the pretest result between the experimental group and the control one. after the students received the treatment, the mean scores of both groups were gradually increased. meanwhile, the mean of post test score of the experimental group was higher than the control group. the experimental group got 82,08 and the control group got 76,38. the percentage of the students’ improvement in experimental group was 19,17%. however, there was less improvement in control group, the percentage was only 13,19%. based on the score, it indicates that after getting treatment, the experimental group achieved a better result than the control group. another result of the computation showed that the t-value obtained 3,29 and t-table was 1,994. it meant t-value > t-table (3,29 > 1,994). therefore, it could be concluded that there was a significant difference between the students’ vocabulary achievement between two groups after getting the treatment. thus, the ho accepted area indriarti / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 86 hypothesis which stated that “there is a significant difference in vocabulary achievement between the students who are taught by using semantic mapping strategy and those who are taught by using wordlists strategy” was accepted. 4.6.2analysis of the experiment memorizing english vocabularies is not an easy task for students. they need a strategy to help them to memorize vocabulary easily and effectively. this study introduced semantic mapping strategy as an alternative strategy in learning, memorizing, and organizing vocabularies in interactive way. the aim of using this strategy was to find out whether it could improve the students’ vocabulary mastery or not. during the teaching learning process, the students became active and independent learners and they looked interested in learning vocabulary through semantic mapping strategy. also, the students seemed to be enthusiastic to follow the lesson while the writer used semantic mapping strategy. this strategy motivated the students to increase their ability in memorizing vocabularies. moreover, the implementation of semantic mapping strategy in teaching vocabulary was more helpful to improve students` vocabulary mastery than wordlists strategy because of its visual form. the students were not only learning the meaning words but also they could draw a graphic in some categories of word and added some pictures, curved branches and colors, so it could help them to remember new words easily. although using semantic mapping strategy was proven effective in improving the students’ vocabulary mastery, this strategy also faced some obstacles. first, the teacher needs more time to explain the vocabulary by using semantic mapping. second, the teacher should rewrite the vocabulary trees on the blackboard and it will be more difficult when applied the semantic mapping by using pictures. it needs many copies and spends a lot of money. last, the students sometimes got too excited during the activity in making semantic mapping so that they could not hear the explanation well. however, those obstacles were not serious problems. the writer tried to handle the problems by doing some solutions. first, she prepared well the materials which will be delivered to the students and gave a time limitation in every activity during teaching-learning process. second, she used power point slide to help her to show the pictures so that it could decrease the copy of papers. next, to overcome the students` less attention while they were exciting in doing semantic mapping exercises, she gave clear explanation first before the students start to do the exercises. in the end, the teaching and learning process could still be done well until the experiment was completed. 4.6.3 analysis of questionnaire after analysing the result of questionnaire, it showed that 95 % students were interested in learning vocabulary by using semantic mapping strategy and agreed that semantic mapping gave positive advantages to improve vocabulary mastery. 85 % students were motivated in learning english vocabulary by semantic mapping strategy. 80 % students suggested that semantic mapping strategy should be given to continue the english materials. 89 % students stated that semantic mapping strategy was effective to help the students to improve their vocabulary mastery. based on the result of questionnare, the writer concludes that the students make a good improvement and positive progress in vocabulary mastery after being taught by semantic mapping strategy. this strategy could help the students to improve their vocabulary mastery during teaching learning process. conclusion and suggestion 5.1 conclusion based on the results of the data analysis and research findings, the writer concludes that there is a significant difference in vocabulary achievement between the students who are taught by using semantic mapping strategy and those who are taught by using wordlists strategy. the conclusion is drawn by analyzing the average scores of both experimental and control groups by using t-test formula, t-value ishigher than t-table indriarti / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 87 (3,29>1,994). the results show that the use of semantic mapping strategy is more effective than wordlists strategy to improve students` vocabulary mastery. therefore, it answered the research problem how effective is the use of semantic mapping strategy in teaching vocabulary to improve students` vocabulary mastery compared to wordlists strategy 5.2 suggestion based on the conclusions, some suggestions are offered. firstly, for english teachers, it is highly recommended for the teachers to use semantic mapping as an alternative strategy in teaching vocabulary because of its effectiveness to help the students to improve their vocabulary mastery. it aids the students to develop their vocabulary through a deeper understanding conceptual knowledge. therefore, the teachers are expected to use semantic mapping strategy because it is effective to improve students’ vocabulary mastery and it is promising to vocabulary teaching and learning process. secondly, for the students, they are suggested to apply semantic mapping strategy in organizing and memorizing vocabulary. thirdly, for future researcher, they can use this study as a reference to guide them to conduct similar research. hopefully, the result of this study can help further researcher to find out new strategy about teaching vocabulary by using interesting strategies. references arikunto, suharsimi. 2006. prosedur penelitian suatu pendekatan praktik. jakarta: pt. rineka cipta. barcroft, j. 2004. second language vocabulary acquisition: a lexical input processing approach. foreign language annals, 37, 2, 200-208. bateman, t.s. and zeithamai, c.p. 1990. management: function and strategy. homewood, ill: irwin. brown, h. douglas. 2004. language assessment: principles and classroom practices. new york: pearson education. creswell, john w. 2009. research design 3rd edition: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. usa: sage publications, inc. graves, m. 2008. instruction on individual words: one size does not fit all. in a. e. farstrup & s. j. samuels (eds.), what research has to say about vocabulary instruction (pp. 56–79). newark, de: international reading association. hatch, e., & brown, c. 1995. vocabulary, semantics and language education. cambridge: cambridge university press. homby, as. 1995. oxford advanced learner dictionary. new york: oxford university press. kamil, michael l. and elfrieda h. hiebert. 2005. teaching and learning vocabulary: bringing research to practice. new jersey: lawrence erlbaum associates, inc., publishers. laufer, b. 1997. what’s in a word that makes it hard or easy: some intralexical factors that affect the learning with words. in n. schmitt & m, michael (eds.) (1997). vocabulary: description, acquisition and pedagogy (pp. 140-155). cambridge: cambridge university press. oxford, r. 2001. research on language learning strategies: purpose, methods, issues. presentation. hokkaido university. seiler, marcia ford & et al. 2013. indicators of efficiency and effectiveness in elementary and secondary education spending. frankfort : legislative research commission. wintergrest, a. c. decapua, a., & itzen, r. c. 2001. the construct validity of one learning instrument. system , 29, 385403. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 133 elt forum 6 (2) (2017) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the use of photographs on instagram in teaching descriptive text to improve students’ writing skill mustika purwandari  english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in october 2017 approved in november 2017 published in december 2017 ________________ keywords: photograph, instagram, writing descriptive, experimental study. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this research was an experimental study to find out whether there is any learning achievement of students who are taught writing descriptive text using photographs as media which is significantly different from those who are taught without photographs. the subjects of the study were the 8th year students of smp negeri 1 ungaran. in order to achieve the objective, the researcher conducted an experimental research. there were two groups involved in this research, the experimental and the control group. the experimental group was taught using photographs in instagram and the control group was taught without using photographs in instagram. after both groups were given the treatment, the result of the study shows that the mean score of experimental group was 74.80 and the control group was 72.63. it means that the score of the experimental group was higher than the score of the control group. the t-test result showed that tvalue was 2.056 and t-table was 2.002, which means that the t-value is higher than the t-table. it proves that there is a significant different achievement between the groups which taught using photographs in instagram and using conventional teaching. based on the result of this study, it is concluded the application of photographs in instagram can improve students’ writing skill in writing descriptive text. it was effective and recommended for the english teacher as one of references in teaching and learning process. © 2017 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: unnes_english@yahoo.com m. purwandari / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 134 introduction english in a language of globalization is used in almost all of countries in the world as a means of international communication. because of its significance role, english has been included to indonesian educational system curriculum. it is a compulsory subject in elementary school, junior high school, senior high school, and at the university level. the english curriculum stipulates that english subject should include four skills, there are listening, speaking, reading, and writing. one of the skills in english subject is writing. writing is one of the important skills which has to be mastered by the students of junior high school in learning english. writing has always taken part of the syllabus in teaching english, (harmer 2004: 31). writing is a combination of a process and product so it is assumed as the most difficult skill. the process is a stage in which the students are about to make a product (text) and when they start to write. the product is the text as a result of the process of writing. before producing a text, students need a long process starting from planning until producing. it is important to master language components such as grammar, vocabulary, and etc. in the process of writing. in the reality, there are many problems in writing especially in writing descriptive text. the students face difficulty in figuring out the objects that will be described. djuharie (2007: 24) explained “descriptive text aims to describe someone or something specifically both visible things that can be seen and invisible things for example characteristics and attitudes.” however, there are many students write descriptive texts only the visible things, they forget to write the invisible things, one of them is characteristic of the objects even they are important to be described. instead of it, the students either think or say that they cannot, or do not want to write. their perceptions occur because they lack of confidence in making writing based on the processes and the theories that are exist. they also think that writing is boring and they have „nothing to say‟. the boring of the subjects will lead the students become lazy and ignore to have the important knowledge and experience around the world (harmer 2007: 113). for overviewing the problems, the teachers have to be more creative. they should use some media, methods, and techniques in order to the effectiveness of teaching writing a descriptive text. in this study, the researcher conducts research in utilising photograph in instagram as media. the research aimed to investigate whether there is positive significant difference achievement of writing descriptive text gained by experimental group taught using photograph in instagram and comparison group taught without using photograph in instagram at smp negeri 1 ungaran in the academic year of 2016/2017 or not. it was hoped that the photograph in instagram could develop students' skill in writing descrptive texts. literature review writing boardman and frydenberg (2001) say that writing is a continuous process of thinking and organizing, rethinking and reorganizing. so, writing can be said clearly as the representative of thoughts and ideas of someone in written way. the goal of all writing, as stated by palmer et. al. (1994), is to construct meaning for ourselves and to communicate that meaning to others. it means to write we should generate the ideas then deliver to the reader. descriptive text descriptive is one genre which must be learned by students of a junior high school. according to anderson and anderson (1997:48), “descriptive text is a text which says what a person or thing is like”. descriptive text is like painting pictures with words. by reading a descriptive text, readers feel that they see the description just like they see pictures. another definition of descriptive text comes from broadman (2002:6), he states that descriptive text is kind of paragraph which is used to m. purwandari / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 135 describe what something looks like. it means descriptive text can be formed into two types; they are speaking and writing description. thus, descriptive text is a kind of genre which is used to describe a particular person, place, activity, idea or thing which is drawn in word form both speaking and writing. in line with broadman, oshima and hogue (1997: 50) state that “descriptive writing appeals to the sense, so it tells how something looks, feels, smells, tastes, and/ or sounds”. in other words it can be said that descriptive text captures one experience of a person, place or thing into words by appealing to the five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. photograph photograph is one of the visual aids that can be used in writing. it makes something clearer. it also can be used to create situation for writing classes more clearly. one kind is that it tells us a simple and obvious story. sudjana and rivai (2007:71) state that “photograph is a kind of flat opaque picture including picture and printed painting”. the photograph belongs to graphical media or two-dimensional media, which can also be transferred into a transparent picture by using an opaque projector. minor as quoted by hikmah (2007:6) states that photograph is a two-dimensional visual representation of person, place, and things. photograph may not only be worth a thousand words but it may also be worth a thousand years and a thousand miles. a photograph is also simple in that it can be drawn, printed, or photographically processed and it can also be mounted for preservation for the use in future. instagram instagram is a mobile, desktop, and internet-based photo-sharing application and service that allows users to share pictures and videos either publicly or privately. instagram allows users to edit and upload photos and short videos through a mobile app. users can add a caption to each of their posts and use hashtags and location-based geotags to index these posts and make them searchable by other users within the app. each post by a user appears on their followers' instagram feeds and can also be viewed by the public when tagged using hashtags or geotags. users also have the option of making their profile private so that only their followers can view their posts. methodology of the research this study was conducted in smp n 1 ungaran with the eighth grade students in the academic year of 2016/2017 as the population. the entire number of the students in this grade is 240 students in eight classes. the sample of the research were the viii f and viii h students of smp n 1 ungaran in the academic year of 2016/2017.the total number of subjects involved in this research were 60 students. the viii f was given a treatment by using photograph in instagram as a medium and the viii h was taught by conventional method. the classes were given same materials and assignments each other with different tools. there were four meeting for both classes consisted of pre-test, treatments, and post-test. first, conducting a pre-test with the same test to know normality and homogeneity scores of experimental group (class viii h) and control group (class viii f). second, treating experimental group with photograph in instagram and control group with conventional media (text book). third, conducting a post-test for both groups with similar test to know the significant difference achievement between two groups. the design of the experiment can be described as follows: m. purwandari / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 136 e 01 x 02 c 03 04 where: e : experimental group (eg) c : control group (cg) 01 : pre-test for the experimental group 02 : posttest for the experimental group 03 : pre-test for the control group 04 : posttest for the control group x : treatment with photographs in instagram (arikunto, 2006) the pre-test were aimed to measure students' basic writing ability. moreover, students were asked to write a descriptive text in 10-15 sentences for 80 minutes. the post-test purpose was to measure students' improvement of descriptive text writing which method was similar with the pre test. the obtained data were analyzed to get the normality, homogenity, and t-test result. the use of statistical package for the social science (spss) application, microsoft excel, and manual were combined to compute the data. result and discussion pre-test the pre-test was conducted on saturday, march 4th, 2017 for both control group and experimental group. it was held in the first meeting. there were 30 students of experimental group and control group joined this test. diagram 3.1 the pre-test result of experimental and control group from the pre-test result, the average scores of the students were analyzed. the average score of experimental group was 62.90, while the average score of control group was 60.23. although the result of pre-test showed the difference between the score average of control and experimental groups, but it was not very significant. it means that the prior ability between experimental and control groups was relatively the same before the treatment was given. homogeneity 58.5 59 59.5 60 60.5 61 61.5 62 62.5 63 63.5 control group experimental group the pre-test result of experimental and control group control group experimental group m. purwandari / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 137 if both classes are not homogenous, the treatment also cannot be conducted because both classes do not have same ability in narrative text achievement. the homogeneity of pre-test of both the experimental and the control groups was computed as follows: (sudjana, 2005) which the statistics hypothesis and research hypothesis are: : (both of samples have the similar varians) : (both of samples have difference variance) the criteria h0 accepted if with the real degree 5%, dknumerator = and dkdenumerator = . so it can be computed: = 1.22 since fvalue(1.22) < ftable (1.860), it could be concluded that the population between the experimental and control group were homogenous. it means that the study could be continued because the two groups were homogenous. 2. normality of the pre-test in experimental and control group i could implement the treatment when the data of the study was normally distributed. normality test was used to check whether both groups was proper to be tested. the normality test result of pre-test could be seen in the following table: tests of normality kolmogorov-smirnova shapiro-wilk statistic df sig. statistic df sig. pretest_experimental control .099 .097 30 30 .200* .200* .969 .959 30 30 .514 .293 a. lilliefors significance correction *. this is a lower bound of the true significance. table 3.1 normality test result of experimental and control pre-test the data were stated in normal distribution if p-value (sig.) was higher than 0.05. from the calculation of kolmogorov-smirnov, the p-value of control group (0.200) was higher than 0.05. it showed that the pretest data of control group was normally distributed. and the p-value of experimental group (0.200) was also higher than 0.05. it could be stated that the pretest data of experimental group was normally distributed. moreover, from the calculation of shapiro-wilk the pvalue of control group also 0.293 was higher than 0.05. it showed that the pre-test data of control group was normally distributed. the p-value of experimental group was 0.514 also higher than 0.05. it could be concluded that the pre-test data of experimental group was also normally distributed. as a result, it could be concluded that the pre-test data of experimental group and control group was normally distributed, so that the experiment could be continued. post-test m. purwandari / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 138 the post-tests for viii h as the experimental group was held on march 25th 2017 and viii f as the control group was held on march 18th, 2017. there were 30 students in both experimental and control classes who did the post-test. the result of the post-test can be seen as the chart below. diagram 3.2 the post-test result of experimental and control group from the post-test result, the average scores of the students were analyzed. the average score of experimental group was 74.80, while the average score of control group was 72.63. it can be concluded that the achievement of the experimental group who were taught using photographs in instagram was higher than the control group who were taught using the existing technique that used in that school. normality of control group and experimental group to compute the normality of the post test, the researcher using statistical package for the social science (spss) method. below was the table of the students‟ distribution score on the post test: tests of normality kolmogorov-smirnova shapiro-wilk statistic df sig. statistic df sig. posttest_experimental control .089 .126 30 30 .200* .200* .979 .973 30 30 .811 .624 a. lilliefors significance correction *. this is a lower bound of the true significance. table 3.2 the normality of control and experimental group the data were stated in normal distribution if p-value (sig.) was higher than 0.05. from the calculation of kolmogorov-smirnov, the p-value both of experimental and control group (0.200) was higher than 0.05. in addition, the calculation of shapiro-wilk, the p-value of control group (0.624) was higher than 0.05. and the p-value of experimental group (0.811) was also higher than 0.05. as a result, i concluded that the post-test data of both groups were normally distributed, so the t-test could be counted. t-test statistical analysis 71.5 72 72.5 73 73.5 74 74.5 75 control group experimental group the post-test result of experimental and control group control group experimental group m. purwandari / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 139 the researcher used the following formula to calculate the difference gain of the pretest and posttest of the experimental group: where: ∑ : the sum of the difference gain of the pretest and posttest of the experimental group. : the difference gain of the pretest and posttest of the experimental group. : the number of the experimental group students ∑ = = 12.1 so, the difference gain of the pretest and posttest of experimental group was 12.1. and the researcher used the following formula to calculate the difference gain of the pretest and posttest of the control group: where: ∑ : the sum of the difference gain of the pretest and posttest of the control group. : the difference gain of the pretest and posttest of the control group. : the number of the control group students ∑ = = 12.4 so, the difference gain of the pretest and posttest of control group was 12.4. group average of pretest average of posttest the difference between pretest and posttest experimental 62.90 74.80 11.9 control 60.23 72.63 12.4 the difference between experimental and control group 2.67 2.17 table 3.3 the result of pre-test and post-test average scores of both groups ∑ ∑ m. purwandari / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 140 after finding the different gain of the pre-test and post-test, i calculated the t-test to know the significant difference between the post-test of the experimental and control groups. it was done by comparing the t-value and t-table. the t-value was found from the score differences between the post-test of experimental and control groups, while the t-table was found by consulting to the critical value on the table column. the result of t-test can be seen in the table as follow, independent samples test score equal variances assumed equal variances not assumed levene's test for equality of variances f .470 sig. .496 t-test for equality of means t 2.056 2.056 df 58 57.563 sig. (2-tailed) .044 .044 mean difference 2.167 2.167 std. error difference 1.054 1.054 95% confidence interval of the difference lower .058 .057 upper 4.276 4.276 table 3.4 the t-test post-test of experimental and control group from the calculation above, the result showed that the t-value was 2.056. for = 5% and df = 30 + 30 2 = 58, t(0.05)(58) = 2.002. the t-table was 2.018, so the t-value was higher than the ttable. based on the computation above, it showed that there was a significant difference on post test result between experimental and control groups because t-value exceeds ttable (2.056 > 2.002). the use of calculating t-test in post-test was to prove that there were significant differences between the result in control and experimental group. in this part, if sig. (-2 tailed) was lower than 0.05 then there were significant differences between control and experimental group in achieving the result of post-test. from the result in tables of post-test t-test was shown that sig. (2-tailed) was 0.01 and t-test was 2.056. if the result of t-test in post-test was positive, and sig. (2-tailed) was lower than 0.05. it indicated that there were significant difference between control and experimental group in achieving the result of post-test. null hypothesis (ho) was rejected and alternative hypothesis ha) was accepted because t-value was higher than t-table (t value > t table). in conclusion, teaching writing descriptive text by using photographs in instagram was more effective to improve students` speaking skill of the eighth grade students of smp n 1 ungaran in academic year of 2016/2017 than the existing technique that used in that school. conclusions there was significant difference in the achievement in understanding in writing descriptive text for both experimental and control group. it can be seen from the final score of the each group. at the first, the average of pretest between the experimental and control groups were 62.90 and 60.23. then after the students got the treatments, the score for experimental group became 74.80 and m. purwandari / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 141 72.63 for the control group. and another result can be seen from the t-test result. the t-test result showed that t-value was 2.056 and t-table for α = 5% was 2.002. it means that t-value is higher than the critical value. from the result, finally, the researcher concluded that there was a significant difference between experimental and control group. by applying photograph, the students were encouraged to be active and creative. it gave them more motivation during the learning process. photograph in instagram helps the students in learning english independently, especially writing skill. furthermore, most of the students said that they were interested using photograph in instagram during learning writing descriptive text. they stated that photograph in instagram was effective to help them to improve their writing skill. references anderson, m. and k. anderson. 1997. text type in english. south yarra: macmillan education australia pty lid. arikunto, s. 2006. prosedur penelitian: suatu pendekatan praktek. jakarta: pt rineka cipta. boardman, c. a., frydenberg, j. 2001. writing to communicate: paragraph and essays, second edition. new york: pearson education. djuharie ,otong s. 2007. genre. bandung: cv. yrama widya. page 24. harmer, jeremy. 2007. how to teach english. england: longman. harmer, j. 2004. how to teach writing. essex: longman. hikmah. 2007. pictures as a means of teaching writing to the second year students of sma n 1 weleri kabupaten kendal in the academic year of 2006/2007. a final project: english depatment of unnes: unpublished. oshima, a, and hogue, a.1997. introduction to academic writing, second edition. new york: addison wesley longman. palmer, b.c. et. al. 1994. developing cultural literacy through the writing process. usa: allyn and bacon. sudjana, nana and ahmad rivai. 2007. media pengajaran. bandung: sinar baru algesindo. ika oktavianti / journal of economic education 1 (2) (2012) elt forum 7 (1) (2018) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt students’ difficulties in changing active voice into passive voice in simple present tense and simple past tense vicky fawzah, rohani  putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) vicky fawzah, rohani / journal of english language teaching 7 (1) (2018) english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia 32 39 article info ________________ article history: received in april 2017 approved in may 2017 published in july 2017 ________________ keywords error analysis, active voice, passive voice, students difficulties, cause of students difficulties. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this study attempted to identify the kind of students’ difficulties in changing active voice into passive voice in simple present tense and simple past tense, and the cause of difficulties in changing active voice into passive voice in simple past tense and simple present tense. descriptive qualitative study was used and the subject of this study was the ninth grade students of smp n 2 pemalang in the academic year of 2016/2017. the sampling process was administered by applying a random sampling technique. i collected the data by giving try out test in ix h and real test in ix g of smp negeri 2 pemalang. the result of this research showed that in changing active voice into passive voice in simple present tense and simple past tense students faced difficulties in determining: pronoun (57 errors or 7.41%), to be (385 errors or 50.06%), past participle (177 errors or 23.01%), misordering (12.09%), passive order but active form (37 errors or 4.81%), and active order but passive form (20 errors or 2.60%). based on the interview with the students, the cause of errors can be categorized into interlingual and intralingual. interlingual errors happened because the interference of a native language into a target language, while intralingual error happened because of the complexity of the target language. © 2018 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: vickyfawzah94@gmail.com introduction english is a global language that is used in indonesia as a foreign language. it means that we used english not for daily speaking. we, indonesian have learnt english as a subject in our school since junior high school until university level. in fact, some elementary schools also teach english as an additional subject. learning a foreign language means learning its sound, grammar, lexical and cultural systems. the meaning of any utterance of language is the combination of those systems reflected in it. rivers (1981) said that among those systems, grammar was the most important one because it was the core of language. thus, in learning language, which covers the skills of listening, reading, speaking, and writing, grammars lessons should be given the greatest attention. good grammar is needed to make a correct form of a sentence. by mastering grammar, the students will know how to make meaningful utterances using the right pattern and rules. one of the pattern the students should know about is passive voice. azar (1989) stated that in the passive, the object of an active verb became the subject of the passive verb. in active voice the subject is the doer, while in the passive voice the subject receives the action. in addition only transitive verbs are used in the passive. furthermore, riyanto (2007) persuaded that passive voice was used when we want to say that the subject (i, we, they, you, he, she, and it) was not the doer, but receives an action. therefore, we can summarize that passive voice is a sentence where the subject receives the action, and only a sentence which has transitive verb that can be changed into passive voice. basically, passive voice is formed with the pattern is: be + past participle (verb3). passive voice in junior high school is taught in ix graders. based on the preliminary interview with the english teacher of smp n 2 pemalang, it showed that her students have difficulties in changing active voice into passive voice because the students’ grammar mastery is low. in addition, the students were confused of changing past participle (verb 3) and the position of subject and object in a sentence. they cannot differentiate some words belonging to regular verb or irregular verb. dullay, et.al. (1982) stated that the error in passive voice were error in misformation of passive verb, active order but passive form, absent or wrong position before agent, passive order but active form. these could happen because mastering grammar can be said complicated for indonesia learner. they find many differences in grammar, sound system and culture concepts between english and indonesian language. in english grammar, we are acquainted with many tenses, and several tenses need to be adjusted with the past verb, such as in simple past tense. these differences can cause learning problems such as an error. errors happens when the learner lack of knowledge and they do not recognize their mistakes, so it cannot to be self-corrected. james (1998) identify a language error as an unsuccessful bit of language. he added that language learners cannot correct their errors until they have additional knowledge on the topic. error can be classified into some category. according to corder (1973), there are four classification of errors, such as: omission (means that learners often leave out the third person singular morpheme –s, the vplural marker -s, and the past tense inflectional –ed), addition (learners not only commit elements which they regard as redundant but also add redundant element), selection (learners commit errors in pronunciation, morphology, syntax and vocabulary, due to the selection of the wrong phoneme, structure vocabulary item), and ordering (can occur in morphological level miss ordering of bound morpheme in english is perhaps less frequent, given their limited number). the causes of error can be divided into interlingual errors and intralingual errors. brown (2000) says “interlingual errors happened because the interference of a mother tongue into a target language. while, intralingual error are those that reflect the general characteristics of rule learning such as faulty generalization, incomplete application of rules, and failure to learn conditions under rules apply.” according to somphong (2013), conducting error analysis is therefore one of the best ways to describe and explain errors committed by the second language learners. nzama (2010) argued that error analysis was useful in second language learning because it revealed to the teachers, syllabus designers or textbook writers of what the problem areas were. so we could design remedial exercises and focus more attention on the ‘trouble shooting’ areas, as it were. furthermore, shridhar (1981) explained about the step of error analysis such as: collection of data (either from a, free composition by students on given them or from examination answer), identification of errors, collection into error types, statement of relative frequency of error types, identification of the areas of difficulty in the target language and therapy (remedial, drill. lesson). methodology of the research this study which belongs to qualitative case study research was conducted in smp negeri 2 pemalang in the academic year 2016/2017. in this qualitative method, descriptive approach was applied to explain and gives detail view of the real condition and situation about phenomena being observed without mannered. in this case, i only reveal what i try to find out from the object related to the primary aim of this study besides, tryout test was conducted before the real test. it was used to measure if the test items were suitable or not to use in this research. the tryout itself was conducted on thursday, 7th october 2016. there were 80 items about changing active voice into passive voice in simple present tense and simple past tense which were divided into 2 different instructions. the tryout test was taken by 29 students of ixh. furthermore, product moment formula was used to calculate the validity of the try out. from the calculation, there were 50 item numbers which were valid. while, the reliability was calculated by using kuder richardson 20. in order to gain good instrument for research, the test should be measured the index of reliability. if r11 > rtable, it could be considered that the instrument was reliable. from the computation of the formula, it was found that the instrument was reliable because the calculation showed that value of r11 (0.944) was higher than the value of rtable where the rtable was 0.374. after the validity and reliability of the tryout were found, the real test was conducted. the items which was not valid in tryout test was omitted and the real test was only used the items that fulfilled the criteria. the real test was conducted on thursday, 11 october 2016. the subject of the real test was ixg which consists of 28 students. the real test used 50 questions which were divided into 2 parts of the test. besides using a test, i also conducted an interview to the students and the teacher. the interview conducted after they have done the real test. i interview the teacher around her experience in english teaching and her difficulty in teaching especially in passive voice. there were 8 open-ended interview questions for teacher and 8 open-ended questions for students. the interview was taken only by 30% students as a representative of the research. result and discussion the real test was conducted on thursday, 11 october 2016. the subject of the real test was ixg which consists of 29 students. after collecting and analyzing the data, some errors were found which were classified into 6 classifications. those 6 classifications were errors in based on the errors that the students made, we can conclude that the students faced a difficulties in: using proper pronoun, using proper to be, using the proper past participle (include omission, addition, regular, and irregular verb), using the word order (misordering), students difficulties in passive order but active form, and students difficulties in active form but passive order. then, i found 769 errors made by the students with the most happened in determining proper to be. here were the brief explanation about the students difficulties in changing active into passive voice in simple present and simple past tenses in smp negeri 2 pemalang. a. students difficulties in changing active voice into passive voice in simple present tense and simple past tense a. students difficulties in determining pronoun in active voice, the pattern is subject plus verb plus object. while in changing active voice into passive voice, the object preceded the verb and subject is moved after verb. it should change the active into passive sentence. the object of the active sentence become subject in the passive sentences and if the object of the active sentence is the object pronoun, so the subject in the passive sentence should become personal pronoun. the sentence is incorrect because the object of the sentence does not become personal pronoun in passive sentence. for example: · she always sings a love song (active voice) · a love song is always sung by she (students answer) from the example above, the active sentence uses third person singular than it should be changed into objective personal pronoun in the passive. the objective pronoun for she is her, so the students should use her instead of she. in order to calculate the percentage of students who made error in using pronoun. i employed the following formula: p = n1 x 100% ∑n p = 57 x 100 % 769 = 7.41% b. student difficulties in auxiliary be in changing active voice into passive voice the students should know and aware of the “to be” that will be used with considering the object that is placed as a new subject. some of the students still used the incorrect to be. here, i tried to review briefly about the errors by giving the example as follows: the broken toys always repair by grandfather (active voice) the broken toys is always repaired by grandfather (students answer) p = 385 x 100% 769 = 50.06% c. students difficulties in past participle (including omission, and addition) students difficulties in past participle happened when they difficult to differentiate the use of irregular form and regular form. regular form is made with adding ed, while in irregular form the students have to memorize the change of word. here, the students also made an omission and addition error. omission means that the students leave past tense inflectional ed. as examples: the electric bulb was invent by thomas edison in1879 a love song is always singed by her the calculation of the errors is: p = 177 x 100% 769 = 23.01 % d. students difficulties in misordering from the analysis, misordering occurred when they lack of knowledge about the order in a passive voice or even a good structure of active voice. as a result the sentences were meaningless because of the position of the word was wrong. for example: active voice australia monitored mount soputan through satelitte imagery s v2 o prep adv passive voice mount soputan was monitored by australia through satellite imagery s aux. be v3 by agent prep adv students’ answer · imagery satelite through soputan mount was monitored by australia it seemed that the students tried to put the last word of the sentence in the beginning as a subject, they were failed to understand that the element that should be put in the beginning as a subject is an object in the active sentence. not to reverse the pattern from the behind into the beginning of the word. the calculation of the error is: p = 93 x 100% 769 = 12.09% e. students difficulties in passive order but active form this error means that the students have put the object in active form into subject in passive voice but they omitted an important element that should be available in passive voice such as be. for example: active voice my father washed my motorcycle s v2 o become passive voice my motorcycle was washed by my father s be v3 by agent students’ answer: my motorcycle washed by my father s v3 by agent the sentence above have no to be, and the pattern is in active form even though the order that is object in the active form have preceded the verb. from the 37 errors were found in 14 students, so the calculation becomes: p = 37 x 100% 769 = 4.81 % f. students difficulties in active order but passive form the last error that i found and analyze was error in active order but passive form. this means that the students did not put the object in active voice into subject in passive voice whereas they have changed the verb into past participle. for example in item number 39: mario advised his sister to study hard before exam (active voice) s v2 o adv his sister was advised by mario to study hard before exam (passive voice) s be v3 by o adv mario was advised by his sister to study hard before exam (students ‘answer) as have been explained before, that the object have to put in the beginning as a subject, while many students did this kind of error by putting the subject in active voice as a subject in a passive sentence. the calculation of this error is: p = 20 x 100% 769 = 2.60 % b. causes of errors many factors that can caused the student do some errors. the students might make error because of the interference of their native language or the complexity of the target language which are known as interlingual and intralingual. a. interlingual errors interlingual interference errors are errors caused by students’ mother tongue interference. the interference was caused by transfer. transfer is an error made by students because there is no difference between the two languages. usually, they try to translate indonesian into english. for example: the bank robber was caught the police last week. the students leave out the word by but they still write the agent. if we try to understand the meaning in indonesia without pay attention about the grammar in english, the sentences was acceptable. because in bahasa indonesia for the first sentence we could say “pencuri itu ditangkap polisi minggu lalu” and it has the same meaning with “pencuri itu ditangkap oleh polisi minggu lalu”. there is no rule that the speaker has to use the word “oleh” in the passive form of bahasa indonesia. it is different with passive voice in english grammar, in which if we put the agent, it should be preceded by the word “by” except if the agent is not mentioned by the speaker because the agent does not really important. thus, it is clear that the students interfered with their mother tongue. b. intralingual errors scovel (2001:51) defines that intralingual error is the confusion a language learner experiences when confronting patterns within the structure of a newly acquired language, irrespective of how the target language patterns might contrast with the learner’s mother tongue. intralingual interference in this research happened because of overgeneralization, ignorance of rule restrictions, and false concept hypothesized. a) overgeneralization overgeneralization tends to occur to the l2 learner because of the transfer of their first language. most of the errors that belong to overgeneralization are errors in addition, in which the students add some elements that should not exist in the sentences, for example: 1. the car is imported by government from cheko everyday (correct passive) 2. the car is importen by government from cheko everyday (students answer) the verb above is included in regular verb, so that the students should only add inflectional –ed to the basic verb (import). however, the students add inflectional en just like in irregular form (break-broken) that made the verb above was meaningless. therefore, the students made overgeneralization errors by adding inflectional –en in regular form. b) ignorance of the rule restriction ignorance of rule restriction means that the students do not master the rules of passive voice. the following sentences are the students’ answer that is used as examples. 1. the monument is visit by hundreds of people every day. 2. two days ago the boy was broken the window. in the first example, the student have succeded to put the object in active sentence into a subject in passive. however, the students failed to use the right past participle. they still using the present verb while in passive rule it should use past participle that is visited. because it belongs to regular form so that the students have to add inflectional –ed in it. in the second example, the active voice of that sentence is: two days ago the boy broke the window. it is obvious that the students do not shift the object in active sentence into a subject in passive sentence, while they have used the auxiliary be and past participle. hence, this sentence cannot be categorized as a correct sentence. in addition, the students omitted the word “by”. c) false concept hypothesized richard (1985:51) says false concept hypothesized is faulty comprehension of distinction in the foreign language. shift the object as an object is a rule in passive, but the students misunderstand the rule with shifting from the very last word into the beginning of the word. they try to hypothesize that the passive can be made with shifting from the last word. for example: imagery satelite through soputan mount was monitored by australia. in order to get further information about the students’ difficulties, i had conducted the interview with some students and the english teacher in the school target. from the interview, i got conclusion that the less frequent of exercises given by the teacher to the students and the situation when the teaching and learning process could be one of the factors that caused the difficulties for the students. the students told that they were explained well by the teacher, but the frequency of the exercises were too low. therefore, the students did not really apply the theory that they have gotten. in this case, the teacher should give addition exercises to the students, not only theoretically. another problem based on the interview was the students were confused with the past participle or verb 3. as we know that passive voice is using past participle. in english, past participle can be in irregular form and regular form. furthermore, some of the students omitted the participle form (v3) of the word or adding the verb 3 with inflectional -s or another addition that they though it was true. even though the teacher has explained about that. moreover, asked the students to memorize the irregular form. conclusions based on the findings and discussion before, it can be concluded that the students did some errors or got some difficulties in changing active voice into passive voice in simple present tense and simple past tense. after the data were analyzed, it could be classified from the highest percentage of the error till the lowest error made by the students. the first error was error in determining the correct to be (385 errors or 50.06%). the second highest errors found was in past participle (177 errors or 23.01%. the third error was error in misordering (12.09%). furthermore, there was also an error in determining pronoun (57 errors or 7.41%). then errors in passive order but active form (37 errors or 4.81%), and the last was errors in active order but passive form (20 errors or 2.60%). the errors happened related to the cause of errors those are interlingual and intralingual. interlingual errors happened because of the interference of a native language into a target language, while intralingual error happened because of the complexity of the target language which is contrast with their native language such is in tenses, pronoun, be, and etc. that is faced by the language learners. based on findings and discussion, i would like to offer some suggestion to the english teacher related with the students diffieculties in changing active voice into passive voice in simple present tense and simple past tense. the suggestion are: a. the teachers should realize and pay attention to the students difficulties by looking at the item regarded as the highest into the lowest frequency of errors made by students. b. the teachers should give more practices to the students besides of the theory and explanation so that the students can apply the theory that they have gotten. furthermore, it can decrease the students’ lack of knowledge and understanding of the grammatical rules. c. the teacher should develop their explanation about passive voice using the interesting method and media so that the students will not bored to keep up the learning process. d. the teacher should emphasize the students to master the transformation of the object of the active voice into subject of the passive voice, the usage of the appropriate be on passive voice with the tense used in the active voice and with the number of the subject, whether the subject is singular and plural, the transformation of tenses in the active voice into passive voice, the usage of past participle (verb 3) whether the verb is regular and irregular. references azar, b.s. 1989. understanding and using english grammar: second edition. new jersey: prentice hall inc. brown, h.d. 2000. principles of language learning and teaching, 4th ed. new york: longman. corder, s.p. 1973. introducing applied linguistic. america: penguin books. dullay, h, marinna b, & stephen k. 1982. language two. new york: oxford university press. james, carl. 1998. errors in language learning and use. new york: longman. nzama, m.v. 2010. error analysis: a study of errors committed by isizulu speaking learners of english in selected schools. university of zululand (unpublished final project). richards, j.c & richards w.s 1985. the contex of language teaching. new york: cambridge university press. rivers, w.m. 1981. teaching foreign language skills. chicago: the university of chicago press ltd. riyanto, s. 2007. a handbook english grammar. yogyakarta: pustaka belajar. somphong, m. 2013. an analysis of errors in passive sentence structure by thai efl university students. osaka: the international academic forum. shridar, j.f. 1981. contrastive linguistics and language teacher: contrastive analysis, error analysis. pergamon press. image2.jpeg image1.png september and reading comprehension in narrative text 1 elt forum 2 (2) (2013) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the use of three phases technique to improve students’ participation ana setiyaningsih department of english, faculty language and arts, semarang state university, indonesia info artikel ________________ sejarah artikel: diterima 2013 disetujui oktober 2013 dipublikasikan november 2013 ________________ keywords: three phases technique, students’ participation, reading comprehension, action research. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this article is about the use of three phases technique to improve students’ participation and reading comprehension in narrative text. in order to achieve the objectives of this research, the writer adopted and action research design. the subject of this research was class 8g of smp n 30 semarang in the academic year 2012/2013 which consist of 37 students. there were two cycles with four phases in each cycle. they were planning, acting, observing and reflecting. the instrument for collecting data, the writer used observation checklist, field notes, test, questionnaire and documentation. the result of this study showed that three phases technique could improve students’ participation and reading comprehension in narrative text. three phases technique namely pre reading, while reading and post reading can lead the students be more active and enthusiastic during teaching and learning process. by using three phases technique, students easily understand the content of the text and also they were active asking and giving their argument about narrative text. © 2013 universitas negeri semarang  alamat korespondensi: gedung b3 lantai 3 fbs unnes kampus sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: anasetiyaningsih@rocketmail.com issn 2252-6706 ana setiyaningsih / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 2 introduction english is one of important languages in this world. people use english to communicate with others in this world, express their idea and their mind. basically, learning english is very important for junior and senior high school students, especially in indonesia. there are four skills in english that have to be improved by students, they are listening, speaking, reading and writing. in english, reading is not only read the text but understand contain of the text. vocabulary and grammar are also important in english. however, the main goal of reading is to understand the ideas of the text.reading will mean dealing with language messages in written or printed form. based on finochiarro (1973:119), reading is defined as a process of bringing meaning to and getting meaning from printed or written material. thus nuttal in urquhart (1998: 17), having considered definitions of reading in terms of reading aloud, or decoding, settles for the extraction of meaning from written messages. based on the result of observation in smp n 30 semarang, the process of teaching reading was less effective. the teacher still used conventional method that was lecturing and structure task in teaching reading. the teacher never gave the students chance to understand the material by themselves. in addition, the teacher still explained the material without having interaction with the students. beside the teacher still used conventional method, the students got bored with the teacher‟s method and they were not interest in doing the activity. they were also lazy in reading the material because of the contain of the text that was so long to be read by themselves. furthermore, the teacher never explained the material in details. the teacher didn‟t have any other technique in teaching. the teacher just read the material based on the hand out without having another sources, just focus on the hand out without having variation in teaching. the teacher just sat down on his chair and never closed with the students. this case made the students was not attracted to join the class and had difficulty to understand the teacher‟s explanation. there are many cooperative learning techniques which can be used to teach reading such as think pair share, jigsaw, and round robin. all cooperative learning techniques has their own advantages and disadvantages. the general advantages of a cooperative learning technique are it can make students be more active and cooperative in teaching learning process. on the other hand, the general disadvantages of a cooperative learning technique are time consuming and difficult in controlling the class during lesson. based on the observation in smp 30 semarang, the average students in each class are 37 students. consequently, there is a difficulty in managing the class such as in grouping the students and using cooperative learning such as jigsaw technique which usually makes the class situation become noisy that teacher cannot monitor all groups at once. besides using cooperative learning to change the conventional method, the researcher has a solution in teaching reading. three-phase technique can be used to change the technique before which is lecturing and structure tasks. three-phase technique namely pre-reading, while-reading, and post reading. this technique is almost same with cooperative learning. three phase technique has some phases which can involve students to easily understand the material without consuming too much time as in cooperative learning. finally, the students will be more active in comprehending their reading text. review related literature general concept of reading according to tickou (1995) in yusuf (2012), “reading is a process of looking at and understanding written language. english texts enrich the readers‟ new vocabulary, structures of english, sentences and new knowledge.” we can enrich our vocabulary and also get more new knowledge from reading. it means that if ana setiyaningsih / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 3 we are not reading, we will not get new information. in addition, we will be stuck in our mindset and will not improve our knowledge. then, by reading we get new vocabulary, sentences and knowledge. moreover, based on finochiarro (1973:119), reading is defined as a process of bringing meaning to and getting meaning from printed or written material. thus nuttal in urquhart (1998: 17), having considered definitions of reading in terms of reading aloud, or decoding, settles for the extraction of meaning from written messages. in conclusion, reading is the process of bring and get information either reading aloud or decoding the extraction of meaning form written message. reading are also involved the readers in interpreting what the writers means. however, the function of reading is to enrich our vocabulary and our information. reading comprehension reading comprehension is the process of understanding and constructing meaning from a piece of text. according to olson and diller (1982:42), what is meant by reading comprehension is a term used to identify those skills needed to understand and apply information contained in a written material. other than that, harris and sipay (1980:179) say that reading comprehension ability is learned to be a set of generalized knowledge acquisition skills which permits people to acquire and exhibit information gained as a consequence of reading printed language. reading comprehension is the ability to gain information from the texts for the purpose to know the whole information deeply. so that it will force the readers to read the whole texts to gain the covert information. however, comprehension is a highly complex cognitive process involving the intentional interaction between the reader and the text to create meaning. in other words, comprehension doesn‟t just happen; it requires effort. readers must intentionally and purposefully work to create meaning from what they read (david chard, 2008). literacy level at high school level for the students of junior high school students, there are four literacy levels including performative, functional, informational, and epistemic (wells in hamashima 2011). they are, performative, functional, informational, and epistemic. the literacy level of junior high school is the functional level which students can communicate both orally and written to solve their daily problems (ktsp, 2006 : 277). for the eighth grade students of junior high school, based on the the standart competence and basic competence which was stated on the curriculum, it mentions that students are expected to give response towards the meaning of the text accurately related with the neighboorhood. so that, this study conducted a research about the students of eighth grade students of junior high school in the developments of students‟ communicative competence in the functional level of literacy in order to think logically, critically, cratively, and innovatively about their environtment. narrative text anderson and anderson (1997: 8) say that a narrative is a piece of text which tells a story and, in doing so, entertains or informs the reader or listener. in addition, based on gerot and wignell (1994), the social function of narrative text is to amuse the reader and to deal with actual or vicarious experience in different ways; narrative deal with problematic events which lead to a crisis or turning point of some kind, which in turn find a resolution. then, based on gerot and wignell (1994: 204), the significant lexicogrammatical features of narrative texts are: focus on specific and usually individualized participants; use of material process; use of relational process and mental process; use of temporal conjunctions; and the use of past tense. in conclusion, the function of narrative text is to amuse the reader with actual or vicarious experience in different ways which have generic structure of orientation, complication, resolution and re-orientation. ana setiyaningsih / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 4 three phases technique based on ruth crilly (2002), the three stages of reading strategy involves teaching students to examine into text. the before reading stage provides a scaffold for new concepts and vocabulary promotes engagement and provides a means for prediction. the second stage, during reading, allows students to integrate the knowledge and information they bring to the text with „new‟ information in the text. the last stage, after reading, allows students to articulate and process their understanding of what they have read and to think critically about the validity of the text. in addition, elif leyla toprak (2009) says that three phase technique in reading are namely, pre-reading, while reading and post reading. in pre reading (warm-up, into, before reading) activities introduce students to a particular text, elicit or provide appropriate background knowledge. then, in while reading (during, through reading) exercises help students develop reading strategies, improve their control of the foreign language, and decode problematic text passages. and then, in post reading (after, follow-up, beyond reading) exercises first check students' comprehension and then lead students to a deeper analysis of the text. each of phases in three phases technique is involved students to have activities when having teaching and learning process. in pre reading activity which is also called warm up activity, students are lead to get the background knowledge of the text. then, while reading activity students are given exercises to develop their knowledge about the text. the last is post reading which is also called post reading activity where students have deeper analysis about the text in a whole. according to ringler and weber, 1984 (in ajideh, 2003), students can be encouraged to do a number things. the aims of the pre-reading phase are arousing the students‟ interest in the topic or type of text, motivating students to read the text by providing a purpose for reading, and activating students‟ existing background knowledge in relation to the topic and getting familiar with some language in the text. prereading activity (warm up), in this stage include discussing the author or text type, brainstorming, considering illustrations and titles. in pre reading activity, the teacher gives motivation to the students by giving some question related to the topic with gives the visual aids of the text. while reading activity (during, through reading), in this stage include guessing word meaning by using context clues, word information and predicting text content. in while reading activity, the teacher asked the students to read aloud the material, and mention the participants of the text, after that, the teacher led the student to predict the text contain by asking them some question orally. post reading activity (follow up), in this stage, exercise is very needed to check the students‟ comprehension and then led students to a deeper analysis of the text. in post reading activity, the teacher asked the students some questions related to the material without look at the material, then teacher gives question in written answer to check the result of the student in understanding the materials. in addition, at this stage, the students review the story, determine the generic structure of the text and also mention the moral value of the text. moreover, checking students‟ vocabulary is also needed in this stage. methods in this study, i used classroom action research (car). based on valsa koshy (2005:1-2), action research is defined as an enquiry, undertaken with rigour and understanding so as to constantly refine practice, the emerging evidence-based outcomes will then contribute to the researching practitioner‟s continuing professional development. an action research is used to solve the problems faced in the classroom teaching and learning process, so that the students‟ achievement and participation improvement in reading comprehension can be seen after using three phases technique as the technique in teaching and learning process. the subjects of this study were 8g students of eight eleven of smp n 30 semarang in the academic 2012/2013. there were 37 ana setiyaningsih / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 5 students consist of 16 male students and 21 female students. in this study, there were two cycles in which each cycle consisted four phases. they were planning, action, observation, and reflection. in planning, i make an appropriate lesson plan and choose text type that would be used in delivering the material. in acting i applied three phases technique in teaching reading narrative text. then, in observing, i used field notes, observation checklist, tests, and documentation in assessing the students‟ participation and reading comprehension during teaching reading narrative text. discussion this study was conducted to investigate the implementation of three phases technique to improve students‟ participation and reading comprehension in narrative text. the data found during the treatment in cycle one and cycle two. the schedules of having this research were 9th, 11th, 16th, 18th, 23rd, and 30th of may 2013. three phases technique was namely pre reading, while reading amd post reading. in each of the phase, students have activities that can lead them to be more active. in the pre reading, students were given the text then i asked them some questions related to the title. the visual aids were also given to the students in order to catch their attention about the lesson. in while reading, the students read aloud the text. after that, the teacher asked them about the participants of the text. then in the post reading, the students have to think critically to determine the moral value of the text. vocabulary and grammatical feature were also check at this phase. the implementation of three phases technique in cycle one was run well. the students enjoyed the reading class. the students were more active in delivering their arguments. then, the field notes, observation checklist and documentation did in order to observe students‟ participation during the lesson. the reflection of the cycle 1 was made before did the cycle 2 activities. the result of the cycle test showed that the students have understood about narrative text. the difficulty of the students was about the vocabulary and the simple past tense. however, some of the students still had difficulty in determined the moral value of the text. then, the implementation of three phases technique in cycle two emphasized on vocabulary, moral value and simple past tense. the field notes and observation checklist filled during the meetings of cycle 2 in order to observe the students‟ improvement. the analysis of the field note was done to find out and describe the students‟ participation during the learning process. they were: (1) the situation during the teaching and learning process the situation of the class in the first time meeting was inconvenient. the male students were very crowded in the corner of the class. the second meeting, the class situation was good enough, only five male students made a noise. they didn‟t respect to me. then, i moved them to seat in the front of the class. the third meeting, the situation in the class was good. all of the students gave attention and joined my lesson. for the next meeting, the situation in the class was getting much better. the students were active to ask some questions about their difficulty and share their opinion about the material. this kind of situation last until the end of our meeting. (2) the students‟ participation during the lesson the first meeting, their participation was very poor. they thought that this meeting would be as boring as the one when their teacher taught them. the second meeting, the students enjoyed my class. their attention was good and they joined my class actively. they excited with three phase technique that was used during lesson that helped them easily understanding the material. their good participants last until the last meeting. (3) the interaction between the students and the teacher the interaction between the student and the teacher was effective. although they were difficult to be controlled, they were fast to get used to me. the interaction happened normally as the students and the teacher. the teacher ana setiyaningsih / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 6 acted as the facilitator whenever the students needed to ask anything about the lesson. besides used field notes, i used observation checklist in order to measure the students‟ participation during teaching and learning process by using three phases technique. according to burns (2009:63), the information from behavior checklist allows the researcher to see which particular type of behavior the student keeps repeating most (interrupting neighbor’s work). the observation check list used in this study was consisted of seven statements to measure students‟ good and bad behavior during the teaching and learning process. in the first meeting of this research, the students had low participation to learn narrative reading comprehension. it was proved by the behavior that most of them were cheating and chatting with their friends. some of them showed their laziness that proved by crossing directly the answer of the pre test without thought it first. then, in the second meeting, i applied three phases technique during teaching reading narrative text, the students‟ participation was good enough. it proved by the students‟ enthusiasm in following the teaching and learning process. some of the students especially the female students answered my oral questions related to the material. in addition, in the third meeting, the students paid attention to the lesson. they were also enthusiastic in asking questions that they have known about the material yet. in the fourth and fifth meeting were the cycle 2 of this research. the others example of narrative text and material was given to the students. simple past tense and moral value of the text were emphasized at this meeting. the power point slide was used to attract the students‟ attention. three phases technique was still applied to make the students comprehended the material. all of the students pay attention to lesson and enthusiasm answering my questions about the text. beside that, some of students asking some questions related with narrative text and the material. since the teacher gave new classroom‟s rules, the students gave attention and no one had chatting with others and also they did not show their laziness again. the students had determined the generic structure of the text and six students shared their argument about the moral value of the text. three students asked some questions that they did not understand about the material. almost all of the students showed their active participation at this cycle. for the end of this research, the students did the post test. of course everyone focused on the test. no one was cheating and chatting. everyone was seriously in doing the post test. then, at the end of this meeting, i gave a questionnaire to the students. in addition, the questionnaire that i used in this study is closed questions or closed ended designs will have predetermined answers, which are often „yes‟, „no‟, „true‟ or „false‟ (taylor, wilkie, and baser : 2006). so that, in this research i provided short answer responses consisting of two choices: yes and no. this questionnaire consisted of 8 questions to answer the problem of the study. the result of the questionnaire, before having the treatment, the writer gave clear explanation about three phases technique in teaching narrative text. then, students thought that three phases technique was important in teaching narrative text. it was proven by 33 (89.2%) students answered “yes”. this technique was also interesting and could the students more enthusiasm also active participated in learning narrative text. it was proven by 32 (86.5%) students answered “yes”. moreover, three phases technique helped students to understand the narrative text was proven by 31 (83.8%) students answered “yes”. three phases technique also increased the students‟ participations during lesson. in addition, the students more independent and did not cheating with their friend in studying english, especially narrative text was proven by 32 (86.5%) students answered “yes”. beside that, the students hoped that three phases technique also applied in the next teaching and learning text type was proven by 34 (91.9%) students answered “yes”. ana setiyaningsih / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 7 the students’ improvement the students‟ reading improvement measured from the mean of pre test, cycle one test, cycle two test and post test. here the result of the students‟ achievement in did the tests: pre test cycle 1 test cycle 2 test post test 58,48 73,13 79,73 83,89 in the pre test, the average achievement of the students‟ pre test was 58, 48. it was lower than the smp n 30 semarang standard competence of english lesson, which states 70 is required pass. so that, it could be concluded that the students‟ pre test achievement was below the standard competence of smp n 30 semarang. then, the result of the students‟ cycle test was good enough. there were 13 students that could not reach the standard competence of english lesson. five students got 64 and 8 students got 68 for their test score. this result showed that there were some improvements in reading comprehension skill after given treatment by using three phases technique. the treatment was continued to make sure that all of the students could reach the standard competence of english lesson in smp n 30 semarang. the next treatment was in the cycle 2 with the same treatment in cycle 1 but with the different management class and different focus of the lessons. then, in the cycle two test, there was little increased of the mean of the test cycle 1 and the test cycle 2. it was better than previous one; all of the students reach the standard competence of english lesson in smp n 30 semarang. for the post test result, the mean (average) score of the students was 83, 89. it could be concluded that the students‟ achievement in learning narrative reading comprehension skills using three phases technique had improvement. therefore, it could be said that the students‟ reading comprehension was successful. in addition, to know the significant improvement of the pre test and post test result, t test was used to compare the student‟s result. t= = = 5.70 the result of the t-test was 5.70 and the d.b value was 36. ttable 5% alpha level of significance for 36 value was 2.021. since the t value was higher than the t-critical value on the table, the improvement was said to be significant. conclusion after conducting the research, there are two points which can be taken as the conclusion: (1) the implementation of three phase technique in the class was successful. it is argued that three phase technique could improve students‟ reading comprehension in narrative text. the students easily comprehend the text without depends on their friends. they could analyze the generic structure of narrative text well. in addition, using three phases technique in teaching reading narrative could lead the students eagerly shared their opinion about the text. moreover, they attract to read the whole text by using three phases technique in reading text. these could be drawn from the mean of the pre-test and the post-test. the mean of the pre test was 58.48 and the post test was 83.89. by using t test, the significant improvement of ajideh, parziv. schema theory ana setiyaningsih / journal of english language teaching 2 (2) (2013) 8 the students‟ ability in reading narrative text was 5.70. (2) the students‟ participation during teaching and learning process had good improvement. the students were enthusiastic in delivering their questions to the teacher. they were active during lesson and paid attention to the lesson. it showed on the questionnaire that 86,5% of the students were enthusiastic and active in learning narrative text by using three phases technique. references -based pre-reading tasks: a neglected essential in esl reading class. the asian efl jounal, volume 3 number1, page 1-19, april 2003. available at http://www.readingmatrix.com/articles/ajide h/article.pdf. [accessed date 2013/02/05] anderson, m. and k. anderson. 1997.text type in english 2. south yarra: macmillan education australia pty ltd. burns, a. 2010. doing action research in english language teaching. new york: routledge chard, david. 2008. what is reading comprehension and why it is important?. online at http;//myread.org/guide_stages.htm. [accessed date 2012/04/26] chrilly, ruth. 2002. my read, strategies for teaching reading in the middle years: three stages of reading. available at http://www.myread.org/guide_stage.htm [accessed date 2013/02/20] finnochiaro and bonomo. 1973. the foreign language learner: a guide for teachers. new york: regent publishing company, inc gerot, l. and p. wignel. 1994. making sense of functional grammar. sydney: antipodean educational enterprises. harris, a.j. and e.r. sipay.1980. how to increase reading ability. new york: longman inc. koshy, valsa. 2005. action research for improving practice: a practical guide. london: paul company publishing. olson, j.p and m.h diller. 1982. learning to teach reading in elementary school. london. macmillan publishing company. toprak, elif leyla. 2009. three reading phases and their applications in the teaching of english as a foreign language in reading classes with young learners. journal of language and linguistic studies. volume 5 number 1. page 23-24. urquhart, a.h. and c.j. weir.1998. reading in a second language: process, product and practice. london and new york: longman. taylor, c. wikle, m. and baser, judith. 2006. doing action research: a guide for school suppport staff. london: paul company publishing yusuf, ahmad. 2012. improving student’s reading comprehension mastery of narratives by using kinetic novels. final project. semarang: english department fbs unnes. http://www.readingmatrix.com/articles/ajideh/article.pdf http://www.readingmatrix.com/articles/ajideh/article.pdf http://www.myread.org/guide_stage.htm putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 18 elt forum 7 (2) (2018) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt modulation in indonesian translation of national geographic articles (a descriptive qualitative study) hanif pandu setiawan, issy yuliasri  english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in october 2018 approved in november 2018 published in january 2019 ________________ keywords: articles; magazine; modulation; national geographic; strategy; translation ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this study investigates the types of modulation which were used on the translation process of national geographic magazine of june 2014 both on usa and indonesian issue. the purposes of this study areto describe the use of modulation in translating “national geographic” from english to indonesian and to describe the maintenance of the source target meaning in the target text. the qualitative approach was used to describe the quantitative data which was got from the analysis. the data of this study was collected using reading and inventorying stages and analyzed using comparing, identifying, and evaluating process. the collected data then was analyzed to investigate the modulation‟s impact on message maintenance. based on those analyses, substitution has the highest rank of modulation type used on the magazine‟s articles (37.8% of total 111 data) followed by reversal (34.2%), deviation (14.4%), specification (8.1%), and generalization (5.4%) sequentially. this result is linear to the maintenance of message rating which was taken from five english department lecturer raters. it shows that the highest number of score 3 (well delivered) percentage ratio is obtained by specification (75.5%) followed by reversal (72.6%), deviation (72.5%), substitution (71.2%) and generalization (60%). from the result above it can be seen that the more frequent occurrence does not always mean to be so effective compared to the less frequent one. the highest percentage of successful maintenance was obtained by specification, which is on 4th rank on the frequency of occurrence table. the most frequent type of modulation, substitution, only settles on 4th rank on the table of score 3. on the other hand, the most distorted type of modulation is gotten by reversal with 9.5% on score 1, while the least distorted one is gotten by generalization. © 2018 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: hanif.pandu@gmail.com h. p. setiawan, i. yuliasri / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 19 introduction in the globalization era, english plays an important role in international communication both in thefield of development, technology, economy, and the education. english is also a lingua franca. it is the most widely used language around the world. supporting this role, each country does many ways to improve their citizens‟ need in english. one of simple ways is providing bilingual books. it is translated from source language into target language. when people read books, they might have never been fully aware of a long and complicated process in translating a foreign language. it is based on the reality that many indonesian people do not possess the knowledge of foreign language well in order to absorb information that is written in a foreign language. nida and taber (1969:11) states that translating is not a separate science, but it often does represent specialized skills and can also require aesthetic sensitivity.skilled translators must have a special capacity for sensing the closest natural equivalent of a text, whether it is oral or written. however, translating is essentially a skill andlargely depends on a series of disciplines, for example linguistics, cultural, anthropology, philology, psychology, and theories of communication. skilled professional translators should have several essential competences to support their translating process. pacte group (2003:58) compromises several interacting sub competences and physiological mechanism. they are: bilingual sub competence; extra-linguistic sub competence; translation knowledge sub competence; instrumental sub competence; strategic sub competence; psycho-physiological components. pacte considers the strategic sub competence as the most important as component, given its role of guaranteeing the control and efficiency of the translation process. tyler as quoted by bell (1991:6) also writes three principles of translating. firstly, a translator should give a complete transcript of the idea of the original work. then, the style and manner of writing should be of the same character of the original. the last, the translation should have all the essay of the original composition. on the contrary, lack of knowledge of those three cases means that translators could not translate well. in order to produce a good translation, a translator has to utilize several kinds of techniques and procedures. newmark (1988:19) states that a translator translates with four levels more or less consciously in mind, i.e.: the textual level; the referential level; the cohesive level; the level of naturalness. those levels are required for producing a good quality translation. among some of translation procedures, modulation is one of essential procedures in the process of translating. modulation, in term of newmark (1988:88) is a variation through a change of viewpoint, of perspective and very often of category of thought. it has 11 categories, namely: negated contrary; part of the whole; cause of effect; space and time; abstract for concrete; intervals and limits; change of symbols; and change of focus. referring to the modulation procedure, national geographic is one of multilingual magazines which utilize translation procedures so well. therefore, the procedure that national geographic uses is worth investigating, to be specific in the modulation stage (in this case meaning shift) based on newmark term, especially for those who choose english for their major. methods the data analysed were in the form of clauses. therefore a descriptive qualitative analysis was employed to analyze the translation. as stated by neill (2007), qualitative research involves analysis of data such as words (e.g., from interviews), pictures (e.g., video), or objects (e.g., an artefact). h. p. setiawan, i. yuliasri / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 20 furthermore, bryman in devetak (2010) states that qualitative research is an exploratory approach emphasizing words rather than quantification in gathering and analysing the data. according to mujiyanto (2011: 23), qualitative approach tries to reveal the phenomenon comprehensively and appropriate with the context trough the natural data collection employing the researcher as key instrument of the study. in addition, this descriptive study tends to use inductive approach for the data analysis. the data analysed were in the form of clauses. therefore a descriptive qualitative analysis was employed to analyze the translation. as stated by neill (2007), qualitative research involves analysis of data such as words (e.g., from interviews), pictures (e.g., video), or objects (e.g., an artefact). furthermore, bryman in devetak (2010) states that qualitative research is an exploratory approach emphasizing words rather than quantification in gathering and analysing the data. according to mujiyanto (2011: 23), qualitative approach tries to reveal the phenomenon comprehensively and appropriate with the context trough the natural data collection employing the researcher as key instrument of the study. in addition, this descriptive study tends to use inductive approach for the data analysis. results and discussions after the data were analyzed and classified, the dominant rising variation order of modulation in national geographic articles were substitution, reversal, deviation, specification, and generalization. the finding consisted of some examples of each variation with descriptions. to see the whole data, see appendixes. the use of modulation in translating “national geographic” from english to indonesian as it has been stated above that the grammar analysis is divided into some main constituents which are based on the theory of interpersonal meanings. the following is the result of the grammar analyis foe this study. the result shows that from the five variations of modulation of total 103 clauses (a clause may contain more than one type of modulation), substitution has the highest rank of modulation types used on the magazine‟s articles (37.8% out of total 111 modulation data) followed by reversal (34.2%), deviation (14.4%), specification (8.1%), and generalization (5.4%) sequentially. no. type of modulation frequency percentage (%) 1 generalization 6 5.4 2 specification 9 8.1 3 reversal 38 34.2 4 substitution 42 37.8 5 deviation 16 14.4 111 100 h. p. setiawan, i. yuliasri / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 21 generalization generalization occurs when a text is translated from source language into target language‟s more general meaning. from the magazines‟s articles, there were six words/phrases/sentences with generalization found on the articles. the percentage is 5.4% of total data. it was the least used type of modulation used on the magazine. st along the summit of el castillo the builders first carved out a subterranean chamber that became the imperial tomb. tt di sepanjang puncak el castillo, para pembangun mula-mula membuat ruang bawah tanah yang kemudian menjadi makam kerajaan. bt along the summit of el castillo, the builders firstly made the basement which became all the royal tombs. specification specification happens when the target text is specified from the original source text. there were nine words/phrases/sentences found with specification found on the articles. resulting percentage of 8.1% of the whole data. the samples taken from magazine‟s articles are as follows: st when they exhausted all the available spacethere, they engineered more, building stepped terraces all the way down the slopes of el castillo and filling them with funerary towers and graves. tt setelah semua tempat di sana habis, mereka memperluas lahan permakaman, dengan membangun teras bertingkat di lereng el castillo hingga ke kaki bukit, lalu memenuhinya dengan menara dan makam. bt after all where there exhausted, they expand the cemetery land, building terraced on the slopes of el castillo to the foot of the hill, then fill it with towers and tombs. the word „engineered‟ (merencanakan; mengatur; membangun) was translated into „memperluas‟ (expand; broaden; widen), which specifically explains the explanation of the funeral area based on the context. „expand‟ itself is a part of „engineereing. the term „engineered‟ is something related to physical development. in this context were towers and graves. it would be too generalised if the word „engineered‟ was not specified into „expand‟ (memperluas). thye translator used „memperluas‟ here to explain the readers what kind of engineering it was on the el castillo. thus, the „memperluas‟ was used as a part of explaining the word „engineering‟ and as substitution to make the actual meaning clearer for the common target readers. related to message maintainance, of total five raters, four raters put this text into score 3 and only one raters put it into score 2. this implies that the text is fairly well delivered. there were still some distortion remaining on this text that could leave the message misunderstood by the target readers. it can be concluded that the change above was made to maintain the message of the text in order to give clearer description of „expand‟. thus, the specification has occured on this text. h. p. setiawan, i. yuliasri / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 22 reversal reversal occurs when translator changes from active for passive, negative to positive. moreover, it is supported by oxford dictionary that reversal is an exchange of position, function and else between two languages. there were 38 words/phrases/sentences with reversal found on the articles. from the magazines‟s articles, there were 38 words/phrases/sentences with generalization found on the articles or had 34.2% of total data.the samples taken from magazine‟s articles are as follows: st concern, however, is starting to shadow the faces of those who study puffins. tt namun, para peneliti puffin mulai dilanda kekhawatiran. bt however, puffin researchers began to be hit by concerns. on the text above, active sentence was used on the source text. when it was translated into indonesia, the sentence turned into passive. if the text was not reversed, it would be „kekhawatiran, bagaimanapun, mulai membayangi wajah-wajah dari mereka yang meneliti puffin.‟ there‟s nothing wrong or confusing with that. however, it is more common to make use of passive sentence when it comes to an abstract thing, in this case „concern‟. thus, it‟s a good decision for the translator to make it passive in order to make the readers feel like they reading from directly from the source text. related to message maintainance, of total five raters, two raters put this text into score 3, two raters put it into score 2, and one rater put it into score 1, and one rater put it into score 1. this implies that the text is fairly well delivered. there were still some distortion remaining on this text that could leave the message misunderstood by the target readers. the change from active sentence to passive sentence above above implied that the translator had used reversal, in this case the active-passive one procedure to give the readers clearer and more relevant message about the context of the text above. therefore, reversal had occured on this text. substitution substitution involves replacing a specific sl item or expression with a tl item, which does not have the same proportional meaning, but it is likely to have a similar impact on the target reader. there were 42 words/phrases/sentences with reversal found on the articles. from the magazines‟s articles, there were 42 words/phrases/sentences with generalization found on the articles or had 37.8% of total data. it had the most frequency of occurence among other four types of modulation. st after a week on the matvei mudrov, life settles into a rhythm that is soothing in its repetition: the green pines of the surrounding forest, the guttural rumble of the train‟s engine, the hypnotic clop clop clop of the tracks below. tt setelah seminggu naik matvei mudrov, kehidupan kini mengikuti irama berulang yang menenangkan: pinus hijau dari hutan di sekitarnya, deru parau mesin kereta api, suara jess jess jess rel di bawah yang menghipnotis. bt after a week rose matvey mudrov, now life follows the rhythm of recurring soothing: pine green of the surrounding forest, the raucous roar of the train engine, sound jess jess jess hypnotic tracks below. h. p. setiawan, i. yuliasri / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 23 there are two substitutions made on the text above. the first, the phrase „settles into‟, which roughly translated as „menetap ke dalam’, was subtituted by the word ‘mengikuti’ which more relevent to the context in bahasa. the second one is the word „clop clop cloop‟ that was subtituted by the word ‘suara jess jess jess’. the readers might not understand if the translator keep that sound of train due tue cultural difference in expressing something. the word „settles into‟ here means stick and follow something. the change was made to clearly tell the readers what the writer actually want to tell without using any kinds of metaphor. the seconfd one, sound „clop cloop clop‟ was made due to culture difference in expressing sounds, just like how they express sound of cat by using „miaow‟ while in indonesia, we express it by saying „meong‟ for example. related to message maintainance, of total five raters, four raters put this text into score 3, and one raters put it into score 2. this implies that the text is fairly well delivered. there were still some distortion remaining on this text that could leave the message misunderstood by the target readers. it can be concluded that the change between two words above was a result of substitution that the translator used to maintain the text‟s message. thus, substitution has occured on this text. deviation deviation involves shift in meaning that entail different aspects between sl and tl.there were 16 words/phrases/sentences with reversal found on the articles. from the magazines‟s articles, there were 16 words/phrases/sentences with generalization found on the articles or had 14.4% of total data st trying to come to terms with his new life. tt berusaha berdamai dengan kehidupan barunya. bt trying to make peace with her new life. the verb „come to terms‟ above has little equivalence to the word ‘berdamai’ though the meaning is same. „come to terms‟ has a meaning „datang dengan ketentuan-ketentuan‟ or „mencapai kata sepakat‟ to be more specific, which is different to ‘berdamai’, that has a meaning „make peace‟ in english. that deviation was made for the sake of making it easy for common readers to understand the message. it would be unusual for the target readers to use term „datang dengan ketentuan-ketentuan‟ even though it‟s logically not wrong. however, the text would be not smooth as the original article and the readers would feel they read a forcibly-translated article. despite of finding equivalence, the use of modulation here was to make the readers feel like they are reading from the original source. related to message maintainance, of total five raters, four raters put this text into score 3, one rater put it into score 2, and one rater put it into score 1. this implies that the text is fairly well delivered. there were still some distortion remaining on this text that could leave the message misunderstood by the target readers. it can be concluded that the change between two idioms above was a result of deviation that the translator used to maintain the text‟s message. thus, substitution has occured on this text. h. p. setiawan, i. yuliasri / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 24 maintenance of message the result shows that the translator translated the articles by using modulation as the procedure to maintain the message of the source text. the rating, taking from five english department lecturer raters, shows that the highest number of score 3 (well delivered) is obtained by substitution (150 data), followed by reversal (138), deviation (58), specification (34) and generalization (18). no. types of modulation freq. of occurence maintenance of message score.3 score 2 score 1 f % f % f % 1 generalization 30 18 60 10 33.3 2 6.6 2 specification 45 34 75.5 7 15.5 4 8.8 3 reversal 190 138 72.6 34 17.8 16 9.5 4 substitution 210 150 71.42 41 19.5 19 9.04 5 deviation 80 58 72.5 16 20 6 7.5 total 555 398 117 47 generalization from the table above, generalization technique has the biggest percentage, 60% on score 3 (well delivered). score 2 and score 3 has 33.3% and 6.6% consequently. moreover, it had the biggest percentage among other types on score 2, making it the most fairly well-delivered type of modulation used on this magazine. it can be concluded that the texts using this kind of modulation are significantly well-maintained when it comes to target readers. the samples can be seen as follows: no. 47 (2) st in different ways, it seemed, they were both itemized gear, tt dengan kata lain, sepertinya, mereka berdua merupakan alat, bt in other words, it seems, they both are tools, the raters put this text into score 2, which was fairly maintained. however, the generalization here ditched the word „itemized‟ and it could lead to readers‟ confusion of what kind of gear was that. specification specification is not so different from generalization related to maintenance of message. the path of percentage distribution is 75.5% on score 3, 15.5% on score 2, and 8.8% on score 1. its h. p. setiawan, i. yuliasri / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 25 successfful maintenance occured because most of the replacement words or phrases were contextualized with specifified adjustment that made the articles easily comprehend by common target readers. it had the highest amount of percentage of score 3 (well-delivered) among other types. therefore, this kind of modulation has significant effect in maintaining the message of the texts. the samples can be seen as follows: no. 66 (3) st when they exhausted all the available space there, they engineered more, building stepped terraces all the way down the slopes of el castillo and filling them with funerary towers and graves. tt setelah semua tempat di sana habis, mereka memperluas lahan permakaman, dengan membangun teras bertingkat di lereng el castillo hingga ke kaki bukit, lalu memenuhinya dengan menara dan makam. bt after all where there exhausted, they expand the cemetery land, building terraced on the slopes of el castillo to the foot of the hill, then fill it with towers and tombs. the term „engineered‟ is something related to physical development. in this context were towers and graves. it would be too generalised if the word „engineered‟ was not specified into „expand‟ (memperluas). thye translator used „memperluas‟ here to explain the readers what kind of engineering it was on the el castillo. thus, the „memperluas‟ was used as a part of explaining the word „engineering‟ and as substitution to make the actual meaning clearer for the common target readers. related to message maintainance, of total five raters, four raters put this text into score 3 and only one raters put it into score 2. this implies that the text is well delivered. there were still some distortion remaining on this text that could leave the message misunderstood by the target readers. reversal reversal has the same path of percentage distribution with the previous two types of modulation. it has 72.6% on score 3, 17.8% on score 2, and 9.5% on score 1. however, despite having high amount of occurance, this type of modulation was the first rank on score 1 percentage (9.5%), highest among other types. meanwhile, looking from score 3 percentage rank, it reached fourth place among other types. it proved that the frequency of occurence didn‟t always go with maintenance of message. the difference of language structure system, culture, and social were the main reason of this high percentage of distorted message.the samples can be seen as follows: no. 18 (2) st “every day something was getting blown up. tt “ledakan terjadi setiap hari. bt “explosion happened every day. on the text above, passive sentence was used on the source text. when it was translated into indonesia, the sentence turned into active. the text is fairly well delivered. however, there were still some distortion remaining on this text that could leave the message misunderstood by the target readers, like what was the specific meaning of „something‟ on the source text. h. p. setiawan, i. yuliasri / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 26 substitution the most used type of modulation in this magazine with 42 occurences, substitution, has 71.42%, 19.5%, and 9.04% on score 3, score 2, and score 1 consequently. this type has the highest amount the occurence among other types of modulation. it happened due to differenct culture aspect that require many adjustment of vocabulary to find the required equivalence. thus, it can be concluded that substitution is the most significant type of modulation among all five types. the samples can be seen as follows: st feet scrambling, excited too. tt mengais-ngais tanah, turut gelisah. bt pawing the ground, nervous as well. on the text above, the word „excited‟ when traslated to bahasa would become „bergembira‟ (happy or glad). however, based on the context of the text, it did not refer to happy. instead, it was something that make someone worry about. thus, the translator substitute the word „excited‟ with „turut gelisah‟ (nervous). the message on this text had a probability to be misunderstood or biased by common readers. deviation deviation, the third most used type of modulation is only slightly different from reversal related to the percentage of maintaining the message with 72.5% on score 3, 20% on score 2, and 7.5% on score 1. the conclusion that can be pulled is no different from previous types of modulation. the messages are not poorly distorted from the source language texts. they are delivered really well. the samples can be seen as follows: no. 62 (3) st but the rich finds at el castillo, a journey of some 500 miles from the wari capital, are filling in many blanks. tt tetapi, temuan melimpah di el castillo, yang terletak sekitar 850 kilometer dari ibu kota bangsa wari, menjelaskan banyak hal. bt however, finding abundant in el castillo, located approximately 850 kilometers from the capital city of the nation wari, are explaining a lot. the clause „filling many blanks‟ on the text above was actually a metaphore of „explaining many things‟ (menjalaskan banyak hal). the translator did not translate that clause roughly. instead, it was the real meaning, which deviates a lot from the source text (filling and explaining), that was put into the translation because there are cultural differences between the two language, which leads to different use of metaphore, idiom, and other analogies. related to maintenance of message, the raters rated this text as well-delivered, meaning common readers would eaasily understand the message of the text. conclusions the topic of this research is about the translator‟s strategy on how the translation of bilingual (or multilingual) magazine done without sacarficing the core message of the texts due to some different aspects, whether it is linguistics or cultural. the research focuses only from procedure aspect of translating, to be specific in the frame of modulation on what kinds of modulation mostly h. p. setiawan, i. yuliasri / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 27 used on the articles and how they maintain the message from source language to target language. after the magazine was analyzed, there were modulations occurred on the articles in the variation of generalization, specification, reversal, substitution, and deviation. from the five types of modulation, substitution has the highest rank of modulation type used on the magazine‟s articles (37.8% of total 111 data) followed by reversal (34.2%), deviation (14.4%), specification (8.1%), and generalization (5.4%) sequentially. this result is linear to the maintenance of message rating. the result, taken from five english department lecturer raters, shows that the highest number of category 3 (well delivered) percentage ratio is obtained by specification (75.5%) followed by reversal (72.6%), deviation (72.5%), substitution (71.2%) and generalization (60%). from the result above it can be seen that the more frequent occurence does not always mean to be so effective compared to the less frequent one. the highest percentage of successful maintainance is obtained by specification, which is on 4th rank on the frequency of ocuurence table. the most frequent type of modulation, substitution, only settles on 4th rank on the category 3 table. on the other hand, the most distorted type of modulation is gotten by reversal with 9.5% on category 1, while the least distorted one is gotten by generalization. this type has the highest frequency of the occurence among other types of modulation. generally, modulation technique is required in translating due to differenct culture aspect that require many adjustment of vocabulary to find the equivalence. thus, the translated texts would flow smoothly and the target readers would not feel like they read translated texts and easily comprehend the information and message of the texts. references aini, noer. 2002. modulation in translating english 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http://press.nationalgeographic.com/files/2015/01/ngm-overview-1-15.pdf putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 40 elt forum 7 (2) (2018) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the correlation between students’ reading comprehension and their paraphrasing ability in narrative text ade resky swarini, dwi anggani linggar bharati, djoko sutopo  english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in october 2018 approved in november 2018 published in january 2019 ________________ keywords: correlation, reading comprehension, paraphrasing ability, narrative text. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ paraphrasing activity allows the students to interpret what they have understood from the text in reading activity. this study investigates the correlation of the students’ reading comprehension and their paraphrasing ability in narrative text. there are two hypotheses in this research; null hypothesis (ho) and the alternative hypothesis (ha). the null hypothesis says “there is no correlation between students’ reading comprehension and their paraphrasing ability in narrative text”. then, ha says “there is a correlation between students’ reading comprehension and their paraphrasing ability in narrative text”. the population of this study is the eleventh graders of sman 1 ambarawa in the academic year of 2016/2017. the students of xi mipa 5 are taken as the samples. the design of this study is explanatory research design. the data are gained by administering two kinds of tests; reading comprehension and paraphrasing tests. those tests are administered twice by using two different texts. there are three main processes in applying this method in the study; the use of the scatterplot, pearson product moment coefficient, and correlation coefficient interpretation. scatterplots displays that there is a positive linear relationship. then, the data are calculated by using the pearson product moment to know the degree of relationship among the variables. the results of the computation of correlation coefficient applied to the sample are 0.67 and 0.84. the consultation to the critical value of the r product moment with 95% confidence level and the number of the subjects 32 is 0.349. it means that the results obtained from the computation are higher than its critical value. next, the results of the computation of correlation coefficient are consulted to the criteria of correlation coefficient interpretation. the interpretations of the relationship are substantial and high to very high. it can be concluded that there is a significant positive relationship between students’ reading comprehension ability in narrative text (x) and their paraphrasing ability in narrative text (y) on the eleventh graders of sma negeri 1 ambarawa in the academic year of 2016/2017. © 2018 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: aderesky123@gmail.com a. r. swarini, d. a. l. bharati, d. sutopo / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 41 introduction language is important for people to carry out their daily activities. without language, people cannot communicate with other people. it means that we cannot get any information we need, because the use of language is to express our communicative needs either in speech or writing. english is one of international languages that is most frequently used. it is used in many fields of life like in business, politics, education, literature and so on. because of its role in all over affairs, english is mostly learned in non-english-speaking countries, and one of them is indonesia. in indonesia, english is learned at school from elementary school to university. english is even being taught from kindergarten in many big cities. harris (1969: 9) says that language exists in two forms, the spoken and the written. two language activities are associated with both speech and writing: an encoding and a decoding process. speaking and writing themselves are the encoding processes whereby we communicate our ideas, thoughts, or feelings through one or the other form of language: and listening and reading are the parallel decoding process by which we “understand” either a spoken or written message. in teaching and learning english process, both students and teacher can develop their four language skills. and the goal of teaching language is the mastery of the four language skills which include listening, speaking, reading and writing skills that correlate one and others. one of the four language skills is writing skill. writing is an output of reading skill. this skill is very important for us because science and knowledge always have transformation and by writing, we can also express our ideas. here, writing draws the kinds of symbols to describe anything recognized by someone and it conveys the message from the writer through those symbols. paraphrasing activity allows the students to interpret what they have understood from the text in reading activity. paraphrasing is, quite simply, restating ideas in different words. in this process, a reader (or listener) can choose to paraphrase one statement, a group of statements, or entire passage (kissner, 2006: 6).there are many factors that influence someone’s difficulties in paraphrasing a story, such as the input of the ideas from the reading activity. there are many ways to avoid those things. one of them is by comprehending a story in reading activity as the input. in senior high school nowadays, the students are expected to learn many kinds of text, such as narrative, descriptive, recount, report, procedure, explanation and so on. therefore, in order to do this research, the writer chooses the narrative text. a narrative is a piece of text which tells a story and, in doing so, entertains or informs the reader or the listener (anderson and anderson, 1997:6). by conducting the research in knowing the correlation between students’ reading comprehension and their paraphrasing ability, it will figure out how is the students’ reading comprehension, how is the students’ paraphrasing ability, and how is the correlation between students’ reading comprehension and their paraphrasing ability in narrative text. it will also help the students to know what should they do in order to avoid their difficulty in paraphrasing a story of narrative text. moreover, this study will also give the teacher a description about the correlation between students’ reading comprehension and their paraphrasing ability in narrative text. due to that point, the teacher will know what should be done in teaching and learning process, especially in reading comprehension and paraphrasing of narrative text, so the teacher can help the students not only in understanding and comprehending text, but also how to express and convey their ideas in writing text. methods research design used in this study was explanatory research design. it was used to find out the correlation between two variables; students’ reading comprehension ability and students’ a. r. swarini, d. a. l. bharati, d. sutopo / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 42 paraphrasing ability. the population was the entire of the eleventh grade students of sma negeri 1 ambarawa in the academic year of 2016/2017. the total number of population was 360 students. from the population, i took class xi mipa 5 with 32 students by using cluster random sampling. in collecting the data, i used two tests. there were reading comprehension test within ten multiple choice items and paraphrasing test in the form of responsive writing. before the test was administered, the reading test was tried out and analyzed. it was conducted in order to know whether the test was valid and reliable or not. after the tryout, the results were analyzed to make sure whether the instruments of reading comprehension can be used or not. then, i conducted the research to collect the data. the reading comprehension and paraphrasing tests were administered twice with two different narrative texts. the first text entitled “the legend of rawa pening” and the other was “the story of malin kundang”. i administered those tests in one meeting of two lessons in 90 minutes. in the first part of the lesson, the students had to read narrative text entitled “the legend of rawa pening”. after reading and comprehended the text, the students had to answer ten multiple choice questions which would measure their reading comprehension ability in narrative text. they had to do that test in ten minutes. after they had done with the reading comprehension test, they had to move to the paraphrasing test. here, i gave them 25 minutes to retell the story that they had read before. they had to tell the story in their own words with at least 100 words. after conducting the test with the first narrative text, i continued the test in the second part of the lesson. i distributed the texts, the booklets, and the answer sheets to the students. in the first ten minutes, the students had to read the narrative text entitled “the story of malin kundang”. after reading that text, they had to answer ten multiple choice items of reading comprehension questions. then, they had to go to the next paraphrasing test. the students had to retell the story, at least in 100 words. after conducting the test, i would like to score the test and analyzed the correlation of students’ reading comprehension ability and their paraphrasing ability in narrative text. results and discussions the researcher had conducted the test. then, i analyzed the data by using the statistical analysis and interpretation analysis to support the data clearly. scatterplot was used in analyzing the data to describe the association between the two scores. these scatterplots displayed the sets of scores in reading comprehension ability and paraphrasing ability in narrative text for participants. here were the scores of the participants which had been achieved and its displayed on the graph. figure 4.1 scatterplot for reading comprehension and paraphrasing ability of the first narrative text (the legend of rawa pening) from the figure 4.1, the distribution of the scores of students reading comprehension and their paraphrasing ability showed that there was a positive linear relationship, in which low (or high) 0 50 100 0 50 100 s co re s o n p ar ap h ra si n g a b il it y scores on reading comprehension scatterplot of text 1 a. r. swarini, d. a. l. bharati, d. sutopo / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 43 scores on one variable related to low (or high) scores on the other variable. it meant the scores of students’ reading comprehension ability was associated with the scores of paraphrasing ability. figure 4.2 scatterplot for reading comprehension and paraphrasing ability of the second narrative text (the story of malin kundang) figure 4.2 displayed how the scores of students reading comprehension and their paraphrasing ability distributed. according to the graph, i could conclude that there was a positive linear relationship. the low (or high) scores on one reading comprehension related to low (or high) scores on the paraphrasing ability. then, the data of students’ reading comprehension and paraphrasing ability were calculated by using pearson product moment to know the degree of relationship among those variables. the formula of the pearson product-moment is as follows: (brown, 2005:143) in which: rxy : pearson product-moment correlation coefficient x : each student’s score on test x mx : mean on test x sx : standard deviation on test x y : each student’s score on test y my : mean on test y sy : standard deviation on test y n : the number of the students who took the two tests the calculation of the correlation coefficient of the first text (the legend of rawa pening) is presented below: the result of the first data shows that . if rxy ≥ 0.349 there is a significant correlation. it can be concluded that from the first data, there is a significant relationship between students’ reading comprehension and their paraphrasing ability in narrative text. then, the correlation coefficient of the second data of the reading comprehension and paraphrasing ability test is also calculated. the result is presented below: 0 50 100 0 50 100 s co re s o n p ar ap h ra si n g a b il it y scores on reading comprehension scatterplot of text 2 a. r. swarini, d. a. l. bharati, d. sutopo / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 44 the calculation of the correlation coefficient from the other data showed that . if rxy ≥ 0.349 there is a significant correlation. it could be concluded that from the other data, there was a significant relationship between students’ reading comprehension and their paraphrasing ability in narrative text. after i had calculated the degree of relationship between students’ reading comprehension and their paraphrasing ability in narrative text, i could interpret the level of relationship among those variables based on the following criteria: coefficient (r) relationship .00 to 0.20 negligible .00 to .40 low .40 to .60 moderate .60 to .80 substantial .80 to 1.00 high to very high (best and kahn, 1995: 308) since the result of the correlation coefficient of the first text (the legend of rawa pening) was , it could be interpreted that the correlation was in the level of substantial. then, the result of the correlation coefficient of the second text (the story of malin kundang) reached , it could be interpreted that the correlation is in the level of high to very high. based on the research finding on students’ reading comprehension ability in narrative text, i could say that the students’ reading comprehension ability in narrative text was good. it could be seen from the computation in which the average of students’ reading comprehension in narrative text reached 69,38 and 73,44. when they were consulted to the table of criteria of ability by brown, the scores are categorized as “average” and “good”. the paraphrasing ability of the eleventh graders of sma negeri 1 ambarawa could also be categorized as “good”. it can be seen from the computation in which the students’ scores in paraphrasing ability reached 75,13 and 75,09. when the scores are consulted to the table of criteria of ability suggested by brown, the scores were categorized as “good”. in relation to the result of the correlation coefficient of the first text (the legend of rawa pening) that it was . when it was consulted to the criteria of the degree of relationship suggested by best and kahn, it could be interpreted that the correlation was in the level of substantial. then, the result of the correlation coefficient of the second text (the story of malin kundang) reached , it could be interpreted that the correlation was in the level of high to very high. according to those results, it could be said that the relationship between students’ reading comprehension and their paraphrasing ability in narrative text was significant. conclusions the purpose of the research is to answer the research questions of how is the students’ reading ability in narrative text, students’ paraphrasing ability in narrative text, and how is the correlation between students’ reading comprehension and their paraphrasing ability in narrative text. to obtain the intended data, i arrange the two sets of test with two titles of narrative text. in each of the tests, there are reading comprehension test to measure the students’ reading comprehension in narrative text and paraphrasing test to measure the students’ paraphrasing ability in narrative text. after conducting the research, i come to some conclusions. first, the reading comprehension ability in narrative text of the eleventh graders of sma negeri 1 ambarawa is good. it can be seen from the computation in which the average of students’ reading comprehension in narrative text reaches 69,38 and 73,44. when they are consulted to the a. r. swarini, d. a. l. bharati, d. sutopo / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 45 table of category level by brown, the scores are categorized as “average” and “good”. so, it can be concluded that the eleventh graders of sma negeri 1 ambarawa have good reading comprehension ability in narrative text. they can comprehend and understand the message that the writer of the story wants to deliver to the reader. second, the paraphrasing ability of the eleventh graders of sma negeri 1 ambarawa is also categorized as “good”. it can be seen from the computation in which the students’ scores in paraphrasing ability reach 75,13 and 75,09. when the scores are consulted to the table of category level of ability suggested by brown, the scores are categorized as “good”. in conclusion of students’ paraphrasing ability in narrative text, the eleventh graders of sma negeri 1 ambarawa have a good ability in understanding and retelling a story that they have read in a good composition. third, there is a significant positive relationship between students’ reading comprehension and their paraphrasing ability in narrative text on eleventh graders of sma negeri 1 ambarawa in the academic year of 2016/2017. in dealing with the result, the computation of correlation coefficient between students’ reading comprehension and their paraphrasing ability in narrative text applied to the sample are 0.67 and 0.84. then, the consultation to the critical value of the r product moment with 95% confidence level and the number of the subjects 32 is 0.349. it means that the result obtained from the computation is higher than its critical value. when the results of the computation of correlation coefficient are consulted to the criteria of correlation coefficient interpretation suggested by best and kahn, the interpretations of the relationship are substantial and high to very high. it can be concluded that there is a significant positive relationship between students’ reading comprehension ability in narrative text (x) and their paraphrasing ability in narrative text (y) on the eleventh graders of sma negeri 1 ambarawa in the academic year of 2016/2017. references anderson, m. and k. anderson. 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(1996). authentic assessment for english language learner. new york: addison wesley longman. siahaan, s., & shinoda , k. (2008). generic text structure. yogyakarta: graha ilmu. smalzer, william r. (2005). write to be read: reading, reflection, and writing. cambridge: cambridge university press. snow, catherine. (2002). reading for understanding: toward an r&d program in reading comprehension. santa monica: rand. ur, p. (n.d.). a course in language teaching. cambridge: cambridge university press. ika oktavianti / journal of economic education 1 (2) (2012) elt forum 7 (1) (2018) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt analysis of google translate’s quality in employing translation techniques dewi kartika, arif suryo priyatmojo  putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) dewi kartika, arif suryo priyatmojo / journal of english language teaching 7 (1) (2018) english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia 40 49 article info ________________ article history: received in april 2017 approved in may 2017 published in july 2017 ________________ keywords : translation, google translate, jakarta post, translation techniques, accuracy, acceptability, readability. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this research focused on the analysis of translation techniques and translation quality of jakarta post’s articles in terms of accuracy, acceptability, and readability. the objectives of this research were to find out the translation techniques applied by google translate in translating the articles of jakarta post and to know the quality of translation by google translate. this research applied a descriptive qualitative method. the data were obtained by using content analysis and questionnaire. the data in this research were ten articles of jakarta post from opinion section. the other data were the results of the translation quality assessments done by the respondents. the research findings showed that google translate applied 9 translation techniques. they were reduction, established equivalent, literal, calque, amplification, transposition, linguistic amplification, linguistic compression, and borrowing technique. the results of the questionnaires showed that the percentage of accuracy was 57.1% with average score 2.5, the percentage of acceptability was 58.6% with the average score 2.5, and the percentage of readability was 63.7% with the average score 2.5. based on the results obtained, the quality of translation results by google translate was less accurate, less acceptable, and less readable. according to the analysis, it can be concluded that calque technique had the best translation quality considering this technique got the highest score in every aspect. while reduction technique was the least because this technique got the lowest score in every aspect. the researcher suggested the users to translate simple sentence instead of a complex one to gain a better quality of translation using google translate. © 2018 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: dewikadewi19@gmail.com introduction the analysis of translation processes become the focus of recent psycholinguist interest. each culture has its own way to translate the language. when translating a source language to the target language, a translator has to understand the background knowledge of both source language and target language so that the cultural traditions can be transferred into the existing culture of target language. as an intermediary of two different languages, a translator has to know the differences between these two languages, so the translator could deliver the meaning and messages from the source language to the target language correctly. almost all translators will find difficulties when translating a language to another language. based on oxford english dictionary, “translation is written or spoken expression of the meaning of a word, speech, book, etc. in another language.” there are many definition given by linguists. newmark (1998:5) explains that it is rendering the meaning of a text into other language in the way that author intended the text. the temptation on is to transfer as many sl (source language) words to the tl (target language) as possible. translation is a phenomenon that has a huge effect on everyday life. this can range from the translation of a key international treaty to the following multilingual poster that welcomes costumers to a small restaurant near to the home of one of the authors (hatim and munday, 2004:3) according to catford (1965: 20), translation is the replacement of textual material in one language (sl) by equivalent textual material in another language (tl). it means that translator should be able to replace the information in source text (sl) correspond with target text (tl). catford (1965: 21) stated that the central problem of translation practice is that to find the target language tranlsation equivalence. brislin in suryawinata (1989: 1-2) stated that translation is the general term referring to the transfer of thoughts and ideas from one language (source) to another (target), whether the languages are written or oral form; whether the languages have established orthographics or do not have such standarization or whether one or both languages are based on signs, as with sign of the deaf. so the translation not only in the form of written text, but also can be oral form. newmark (1988:5) stated that translation is rendering the meaning of a text into another language in the way that the author intended the text. the second meaning concerns on the author intended the text that source language (sl). from here, we can know that the translator can use what language or style they want. steiner and meschonnic in hewson (1991:9) consider that translation as a particulary consistent example of human consciousness in the process of understanding through hermeneutic exploration. hermeneutic translation is the experience of the contradiction between two cultural words which at the same time cause the translator to question his own perceptions and to assimilate those which he finds to be foreign to himself. hartono (2011:6), otherwise, defines “translation is reading the author’s will and purpose in the form of message which contains both denotative and connotative meanings that exist in the source text that must be reproduced by translators into the target’s language. this process runs in a simultaneous cycle. in this globalization era where most people use social media to communicate, it is no longer difficult to communicate with people from different countries even if we do not understand their language because there is google translate which can help us translate. google translate is a free multilingual machine translation service developed by google, to translate text, speech, images, sites, or real-time video from one language into another. there are 103 supported languages in google translate. in november 2016, google announced that google translate would switch to a neural machine translation engine google neural machine translation (gnmt) which translates whole sentences at a time, rather than just piece by piece. it uses this broader context to help it figure out the most relevant translation, which it then rearranges and adjusts to be more like a human speaking with proper grammar. it means that google translate’s quality is improved. the writer observed when doing teaching internship in smp n 24 semarang last year, where english teachers there let students use google translate. it makes the writer wonder whether google translate is appropriate for students to use or not. however, google translate is a machine translation service and of course it has weaknesses. in this study, the writer tried to find out the quality of google translate in employing translation techniques. in translation proccess there are so many translation techniques we can use. the discrepancies in grammar and vocabulary between languages makes it difficult to literally translate every text word for word. in order to account for this, translators use a wide variety of translation techniques in order to accurately translate any given text. molina and albir (2002:507) propose a definition of technique of translation which is based on two premises: 1) the need to distinguish between method, strategy and technique; 2) the need for an dynamic and functional concept of translation techniques. albir in molina and albir (2002:507) states that translation method, strategies, and techniques are essentially different categories. each expert has a separate term in determining a translation technique, so it tends to overlap between the techniques of an expert from one another. the technique is the same but has a different term. in terms of diversity of course this is a good thing, but on the other hand, related research will lead to difficulties in determining the terms of a particular technique. therefore, in this research, the writer uses 18 translation techniques proposed by molina and albir to identify translation techniques used in translation by google translate. the techniques presented by molina and albir has gone through a complex study with reference and compared with translation techniques from the previous translation experts. in establishing the acceptable results, firstly the source text should be well written. in this case, ten articles of jakarta post are taken as samples of well written text. the articles are opinion piece written by the readers or the experts that are sent to the newspaper for the editorial staff to sort and publish as an opinion article. it is a well edited text which is ensured the content is appropriate to publish. the jakarta post itself is a daily english language newspaper in indonesia which has been published since april 25, 1983. accordingly, articles of jakarta post newspaper can be an appropriate source text to get analyzed the accuracy of google translate. the objectives of this study are to find out what translation techniques applied in translation of jakarta post’s articles by google translate and to find out the quality of translation by google translate. in analyzing the quality of google translate, a translator needs to know criteria of good quality of the translation. according to nababan (2003:86), there are three reasons to evaluate the translation products which are to see accuracy, acceptability, and readibility of a translation. the accuracy, acceptability, and readability rating instrument in the form of questionnaires will be used. methodology of the research this final project concerned with texts as the data analysis. therefore, the investigation approach employed this study was descriptive qualitative method. according to flick (2009:45) qualitative research is centrally concerned with the production and analysis of texts, such as transcripts of interviews or field notes and other analytic materials. meanwhile, according to best (1981:156), qualitative studies are those in which the description of observation is not ordinarily expressed by quantitative terms. it is not suggested that numerical measures are never used, but that other means of description are emphasized. in this research, the qualitative method was used in identifying and analysing the accuracy of google translate in employing translation techniques. there are three roles of the researcher in conducting this research. those roles are: first, as data collector; second, as data analyser; and third, as data reporter. as a data collector, the researcher used ten articles directly taken from indonesian daily english language newspaper “jakarta post” from “opinion” section. then, as a data analyser, the researcher analyzed the data that have been collected, identified translation techniques used in the translation results and analysing the quality of translation by google translate using nababan’s quality rating instrument. the last, as a data reporter. the researcher reported the results of the research after identifying and analysing the data. in this study, the writer collected the data from “opinion” section of the jakarta post newspaper which is available at http://thejakartapost.com/academia/opinion. those texts were then translated into indonesian using google translate. next, the output texts of the google translate were analyzed. in analyzing the data in this study, the writer conducted some steps. first step was reading the articles of jakarta post newspaper. second, the writer translating the articles into indonesian using google translate. third, the writer identifying translation techniques used in the texts. forth, the writer counting translation techniques used to know the frequency and percentage of each translation technique. sixth, the writer made and distributed nababan’s translation quality rating instrument including accuracy, acceptability, and readability in the form of questionnaires to measure the quality of translation techniques used in translation by google translate to respondents. seventh, the writer counting the data from the respondents and then those data were classified based on the level of accuracy, acceptability, and readibility. next, the writer counting which techniques had the best accuracy, acceptability, and readability score. the last step was drawing conclusion from the findings. result and discussion among eighteen translation techniques provided by molina and albir, there were nine techniques used in translation of ten articles by jakarta post using google translate. table 3.1. translation techniques used in translation of jakarta post’s articles using google translate no. technique frequency % 1 borrowing 145 41% 2 established equivalent 65 18% 3 literal 46 13% 4 linguistic compression 27 7% 5 reduction 25 7% 6 amplification 20 6% 7 calque 18 5% 8 transposition 8 2% 9 linguistic amplification 3 1% total 357 100% the highest frequency of technique used by google translate was borrowing with the percentage of 41%. the others techniques were established equivalent (18%), literal translation (13%), reduction (7%), linguistic compression (7%), amplification (6%), calque (5%), transposition (2%), and linguistic amplification (1%). table 4.1 showed the frequency of translation techniques in this study. table 3.2. accuracy of jakarta post’s articles translation by google translation indicator number of data frequency accurate 463 57.1% less accurate 284 35.1% not accurate 63 7.8% total 810 100% in table 2, it was shown that the accuracy level of the translation is divided into three level of accuracy. those are accurate, less accurate and inaccurate. the writer found that 57.1% of the translation was translated accurately. meanwhile, 35.1% was translated less accurately and 7.8% was translated inaccurately. table 3.3. acceptability of jakarta post’s articles translation by google translation indicator number of data frequency acceptable 475 58.6% less acceptable 283 35% not acceptable 52 6.4% total 810 100% in table 3, it was shown that the acceptability level of the translation is divided into three level of acceptability. those are acceptable, less acceptable and not acceptable. the writer found that 58.6% of the translation was translated accurately. meanwhile, 35% was translated less accurately and 6.4% was translated inaccurately. table 3.4. readability of jakarta post’s articles translation by google translation indicator number of data frequency readable 516 63.7% less readable 232 28.6% not readable 62 7.7% total 810 100% in table 4, it was shown that the readability level of the translation is divided into three level of readability. those are readable, less readable and not readable. the writer found that 63.7% of the translation was translated readable. meanwhile, 28.6% was translated less readay and 7.7% was translated inaccurately. 1. borrowing technique borrowing technique was the most translation technique applied in translation results of jakarta post’s articles by google translate. there were 145 (41%) items found to be translated using borrowing technique. there were two types of borrowing techniques; pure borrowing and naturalized borrowing. sample 1 st : the plan to withdraw the free-visa facility for citizens of dozens of countries is the latest display of not only inconsistency but also lack of prior study on the government’s part when it comes to policy-making. tt : rencana untuk menarik fasilitas visa gratis bagi warga negara dari puluhan negara adalah tampilan terbaru tidak hanya inkonsistensi namun juga kurangnya kajian sebelumnya mengenai pemerintah saat membuat kebijakan. in sample 1 (data 87) the word “inconsistency”is the fact of being inconsistent or things are not same. it is not translated into “tidak konsekuen”, but it is translated “inkonsistensi”. this is naturalized borrowing technique. sample 3 st : now, 2030 sdgs is a new opportunity to start it over by prioritizing and incorporating tobacco control in every development agenda. tt : sekarang, 2030 sdg adalah kesempatan baru untuk memulai dengan memprioritaskan dan menggabungkan pengendalian tembakau di setiap agenda pembangunan. in sample 3 (data 229) the word “agenda” is a plan of things to be done. it is not translated into “rencana yang harus dilaksanakan”, but google translate borrows it from english instead. this is pure borrowing technique. 2. established equivalent technique there were 65 (18%) items found to be translated using established equivalent technique. established equivalent technique used a term or expression recognized (by dictionaries or language in use) as an equivalent in the tl. sample 5 st : so be brave like my son-in-law: despite his wife’s occasional criticism. tt : jadi berani seperti menantu laki-laki saya. meskipun kadang kadang kritik istrinya. in sample 5 (data 22) the term son-in-law was translated into menantu in indonesian. the term menantu was an expression recognized by indonesian dictionaries or language in use as an equivalent in the english term which meant that the technique used in this translation was established equivalent. 3. literal translation technique there were 46 (13%) items found to be translated using literal translation technique. this technique translates a word or an expression word for word. sample 8 st : just ask your spouse. tt : tanya saja pasangan anda. in sample 8 (data 44), the sentence just ask your spouse was translated into indonesian as tanya saja pasangan anda. ask in indonesian was translated literally into tanya, just into saja, and your spouse into pasangan anda. the translation technique used in this translation was literal translation because every word in the sl was translated literally into the tl. 4. linguistic compression technique there were 27 (7%) items found to be translated using linguistic compression technique. this technique synthesized linguistic elements in the tt. sample 11 st : “so what’s your name?” i said. tt : "jadi siapa namamu?" kataku. in sample 11 (data 34) the clause i said was translated into kataku instead of translating the st into tt with the same number of words like aku bilang, which indicated that the linguistic elements in the st was synthesized. that was why the translation technique used in this translation was linguistic compression. 5. reduction technique there were 25 (7%) items found to be translated using reduction technique. reduction technique suppressed a st information item in the tt. sample 14 st : actually you hunks can really help boost the economy; if you handle the kias and more house chores, millions more women could join the workforce and earn income, inside or outside the home. tt : sebenarnya anda benar-benar dapat membantu meningkatkan ekonomi; jika anda menangani anak-anak dan lebih banyak pekerjaan rumah, jutaan lebih wanita bisa bergabung dengan angkatan kerja dan mendapatkan penghasilan, di dalam atau di luar rumah. in sample 14 (data 4), the word hunks which meant pria menarik was ommited. the translation technique used in translating the sl into tl was reduction since the term hunks was omitted. 6. amplification technique there were 20 (6%) items found to be translated using amplification technique. amplification technique is the opposite of reduction technique. it added details that were not formulated in the st: information, explicative paraphrasing. sample 17 st : but many overlook what men can do and what it takes to get males to contribute to a more prosperous society. tt : tetapi, banyak orang mengabaikan apa yang dapat dilakukan pria dan apa yang diperlukan untuk membuat laki-laki berkontribusi pada masyarakat yang lebih sejahtera. in sample 17 (data 3), the term many found in the sentence but many overlook what men can do and what it takes to get males to contribute to a more prosperous society was translated into indonesian as banyak orang. the term orang was added to make it clear that the term in the st was the people. because of that reason, this translation was called amplification technique. 7. calque technique there were 18 (5%) items found to be translated using calque technique. calque translated foreign word or phrase literally into indonesian. sample 20 st : however, the policy raises a serius question over the directorate general of taxation’s ability to ensure there is no opportunity for corrupt tax officials to abuse their power amid a slew of graft cases implicating the tax office. tt : namun, kebijakan tersebut menimbulkan pertanyaan serius mengenai kemampuan direktorat jenderal pajak untuk memastikan tidak ada kesempatan bagi petugas pajak korup untuk menyalahgunakan kekuasaan mereka di tengah serangkaian kasus korupsi yang melibatkan kantor pajak. in sample 20 (data 111), the phrase directorate general of taxation in the sentence however, the policy raises a serious question over the directorate general of taxation’s ability to ensure there is no opportunity for corrupt tax officials to abuse their power amid a slew of graft cases implicating the tax office was translated into direktorat jenderal pajak which belonged to calque translation technique. it was because the foreign phrase was translated literally into indonesian. 8. transposition technique there were 8 (2%) items found to be translated using transposition technique. this technique changed a grammatical category. sample 23 st : to the delight of many we have yet another holiday — pancasila day, affirming june 1 as the birthday of the state ideology. tt : untuk menyenangkan banyak kita memiliki liburan lain – hari pancasila, yang menegaskan 1 juni sebagai hari lahir ideologi negara. in sample 23 (data 46), the term the delight in the st was translated into menyenangkan in the tt. the delight is a noun whereas menyenangkan is a verb which made it clear that the grammatical category in the st changed. this type of translation technique was called transposition. 9. linguistic amplification there were 3 (1%) items found to be translated using linguistic amplification technique. linguistic amplification added linguistic elements. sample 26 st : it would be truly cynical if jokowi, elected to office on a human rights campaign, reverted to new order-style brutal reaction to claimed attacks on state symbols, including pancasila. tt : akan benar-benar sinis jika jokowi, yang terpilih untuk memimpin kampanye hak asasi manusia, beralih ke reaksi brutal bergaya orde baru terhadap serangan yang diklaim terhadap simbol negara, termasuk pancasila. in sample 26 (data 62), the sentence it would be truly cynical if jokowi, elected to office on a human rights campaign, reverted to new order-style brutal reaction to claimed attacks on state symbols, including pancasila was translated into akan benar-benar sinis jika jokowi, yang terpilih untuk memimpin kampanye hak asasi manusia, beralih ke reaksi brutal bergaya orde baru terhadap serangan yang diklaim terhadap simbol negara, termasuk pancasila. in the tt, the linguistic element made the back translation become it would be truly cynical if jokowi, who is elected to office on a human rights campaign, reverted to new order-style brutal reaction to claimed attacks on state symbols, including pancasila. that was why the technique employed in this translation was called linguistic amplification. conclusions finding and describing the translation techniques applied in ten articles of jakarta post is the purpose of this research. this research also had a purpose in explaining the quality of translation results by google translate which included accuracy, acceptability, and readability. based on the data analysis in the previous chapter, it can be concluded that there are 9 techniques found in the data. they are reduction, established equivalent, literal, calque, transposition, linguistic amplification, amplification, linguistic compression, and borrowing. the total data are 257 sentences from ten articles of jakarta post. the total techniques of the data found are 357. the percentage of each techniques as follows: (1) borrowing technique used 145 times and represents 41%, (2) established equivalent technique used 65 times and represents 18%, (3) literal technique used 46 times and represents 13%, (4) linguistic compression used 27 times and represents 7%, (5) reduction technique used 25 times and represents 7%, (6) amplification technique used 20 times and represents 6%, (7) calque technique used 18 times and represents 5%, (8) transposition technique used 8 times and represents 2%, (9) linguistic amplification technique used 3 times and represents 1%. the most dominant translation technique found is borrowing technique, it means that google translate uses more familiar terms in target language to make the readers easy to understand the translation. the application of translation techniques in terms translation has some influences to the translation quality. based on the translation accuracy assessment, the result shows that the average score of accuracy is 2,5 with 57.1% of all data are translated accurately, 35.1% are less accurate, and 7.8% are inaccurate. the result of translation acceptability assessment shows that the result shows that the average score of acceptability is 2,5 with 58.6% are acceptable, 35% are less acceptable, and 6.4% are unacceptable. while the results of translation readability shows that the result shows that the average score of readability is 2,5 with 63.7% of all data translated readable, 28.6% are less readable, and 7.7% are unreadable. it can be inferred that most of terms translation are accurate, acceptable and readable. in accuracy, calque and borrowing technique got the highest level of accuracy with the percentage of accurate translation of 73%. the other translation techniques that got quite high level of accuracy with the percentage of accurate translation above 50 were linguistic amplification technique (66.7%), literal technique (65%), linguistic compression technique (65%), and amplification technique (60%). there were three translation techniques which got the level of accuracy below 50%. those techniques were established equivalent technique (45%), transposition technique (42.5%), and reduction technique (29%). in acceptability, calque technique got the highest level of acceptability with the percentage of acceptable translation of 75%. the other translation techniques that got quite high level of accuracy with the percentage of accurate translation above 50 were borrowing technique (73%), linguistic amplification technique (70%), literal technique (64%), linguistic compression technique (62%), amplification technique (60%), and established equivalent technique (52%). there were two translation techniques which got the level of accuracy below 50%. those techniques were transposition technique (47,5%) and reduction technique (30%). in readability, calque technique got the highest level of acceptability with the percentage of readable translation of 80%. the other translation techniques that got quite high level of accuracy with the percentage of accurate translation above 50 were literal technique (75%), linguistic amplification technique (73.3%), borrowing technique (72%), amplification technique (69%), linguistic compression technique (65%), transposition technique (55%), and established equivalent technique (52%). there was only one translation technique which got level of readability below 50%, it was reduction technique (37%). based on data above, it can be concluded that calque technique had the best translation quality considering this technique got the highest score in every aspect. while reduction technique was the least because this technique got the lowest score in every aspect. considering the result and significance of the study, there are several suggestions derived from those aspects. the researcher comes with some suggestions for the google translate users and other researchers who are interested in translation analysis. first for google translate users, google translate is a machine translation and it has limitations. while it can help a user to understand the general content of a foreign language text, it does not, consistently, deliver accurate translation. google translate has difficulties in translating complex sentences. it will be better if users translate simple sentence to gain a better quality of translation. second suggestion is addressed to researchers especially english department students, i suggest this research is expected to give more reference for those who studying translation field or translation machine for example google translate. references best, john w.(1981). research in education. new jersey: prentice-hall. catford, j.c. 1965. a linguistic theory of translation. london: oxford university press. flick, uwe. 2009. an introduction to qualitative research forth edition sage. london: sage publications ltd. hatim, b. and munday, j. 2004. translation – an advanced resource book. new york: routledge.latif, muhammad abdul (2017). “translation techniques and accuracy of the indonesian subtitle of the movie philomena”. skripsi. fbs. pend. bahasa inggris, universitas negeri semarang.nababan, m.r. 2003. teori menerjemah bahasa inggris. yogyakarta: pustaka pelajar. hartono, rudi. 2011. teori penerjemahan (a handbook for translators). semarang: cipta prima nusantara semarang. hewson, l. and jacky, m. 1991. redefining translation: the variational approach. great britain: biddles of guildford. molina, l. and albir a.h. 2002. translation technique revisited: a dynamic and functional approach. meta, 47 (4). spain, barcelona: universitat autònoma de barcelona. newmark, peter. a textbook of translation. 1988. united kingdom: prentice hall international (uk) ltd. suryawinata, zuchridin. 1989. terjemahan: pengantar teori dan praktek. malang: publisher ikip malang. image2.jpeg image1.png microsoft word 1. 120 language learning strategies used by students with different listening achievement lilik alfuatin  english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 3 september 2019 approved in 29 november 2019 published in 30 november 2019 ________________ keywords: language learning strategies; listening achievement; high achievement group; intermediate achievement group; low achievement group. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ the objective of this study was to describe the language learning strategies used by students with different listening achievement. seventy students from two classes were chosen to participate in this study by using a convenience sampling technique. they were divided into three achievement groups based on the achievement group’s technique by arikunto (2006). listening achievement test and modified strategy inventory of language learning (sill) questionnaire were used to collect data. the design of this research was descriptive quantitative. the study found that high, intermediate, and low achievement group used all six kinds of strategy. high achievement group used strategies more often than intermediate, and low achievement group. metacognitive strategies were the most used strategies for high, intermediate, and low achievement group. in contrast, affective strategies were the least used strategies for high, and intermediate achievement group. meanwhile, compensation was the least used strategy for low achievement group. it is suggested that the teacher should record their students’ choice of using strategies and teach them how to use strategies in learning listening properly. © 2019 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b8 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: e.teacher.ichsan@gmail.com elt forum 8 (2) (2019) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt lilik alfuatin / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 121 introduction listening is one of four skills that taught in english classroom. burleson cited by caspersz and stasinska (2015) says that listening is a process involves the interpretation of messages that people intentionally transmitted to understand the messages and respond to them appropriately. duzer (1997) as citied in long (2016) states that listening has important role. the first critical role of listening is to acquisition the language. it can be said like that because we can learn a language, if only we have already listened how the language sounds like. beside that, it is also important for communication. outside the classroom, in order to practice the target language, listening skill plays a role in communication. if the learner wants to reply the message of the conversation, the learner should be able to listen into what the other speakers said. they can not do a conversation smoothly unless they can comprehend what the other speakers tell about. despite of its important charges that has been seen nowadays, back then, listening did not receive many acknowledge. even for skill that called as the key of knowing language, listening is possibly the least understood, the least researched, and, historically, the least valued (wilson, 2011). however, listening is considered as a difficult skill to develop and learned. in indonesia, it is usually being difficult to be learned because it is considered as a foreign language. it limits the students’ knowledge of language and its systems which is accompanied by weak opportunities to hear natural speech in the target language (michaleková, 2017). it is also happened because it needs many requirements, as austin (1970) said in long (2016) that “listening is difficult because it well requires attention, thought, interpretation, and imagination”. in order to overcome the problem of listening, learning listening needs to use strategies to make the students become more fluent. oxford (1990) defines learning strategies as specific actions, behaviors, steps, or techniques used by students to improve their own learning. there are some strategies that has been used to increase students’ fluently in listening; such as listening to english music, listening to the podcast, watching english movies, watching english news, practicing with friends, etc. however, teaching listening with various strategies is not enough. the teacher should know what strategies are effective for students. chamot quoted by hanna (2012) explains that the teacher have to find out what strategies students are using by asking and recording their responses. this is the first step of acknowledging their learning strategies in order to raise their awareness of using strategies. by raising the students’ awareness of using strategies, it helps students to develop autonomy, which should be the goal of a strategy based approach model (anna, 2012). for decades, there were lots of studies about language learning strategies. some of the popular taxonomies about language learning strategies that used for the researches were presented by rubin (1987), oxford (1990), o’malley (1985), and stern (1992). among them, oxford’s taxonomy is the most applied nowadays. ellis (1994) quoted by kato (2005) said that oxford’s questionnaire was the most comprehensive classification of learning strategies for these days. yet, language learning strategies do not always been studied alone. there are other aspects which related to language learning strategies. oxford (2003) mentions that the others aspects related to the application of language learning strategies are motivation, gender, age, culture, brain hemisphere dominance, career orientation, academic major, beliefs, and the nature of the second learner language task. besides those aspects, achievement is also another aspect that related to strategies use. long (2017) states achievement is found to be more related to the students’ strategy use. it is because the purpose of strategy use is to overcome students’ difficulties in learning language which also improve their achievements. also, one of the methods to know whether the strategy affects to the students or not is by looking at their achievement. oxford invented a taxonomy that is well-known as language learning strategy. this strategy divides six strategies which the students use in language classroom into two kinds; direct and indirect strategies. direct strategies are for dealing with the target language, working with the language itself in a variety of specific task and situations. it is composed of memory strategies for remembering and retrieving new information, cognitive strategies for understanding and producing the language, and also compensation strategies for using the language despite knowledge gaps. meanwhile the indirect strategies are for general management of learning the target language. it is made up of metacognitive strategies for coordinating the learning process, affective strategies for regulating emotions, and social strategies for learning with the others. all these strategies are called “indirect” because they support and manage language learning without directly involving the target language.. lilik alfuatin / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 122 oxford’s taxonomy also comes with a questionnaire called strategy inventory for language learning (sill). this questionnaire has been used all around the world, such as iran (tamjid & babazadeh, 2012), thailand (piamsai, 2007), arab (aljuaid, 2015), indonesia (alfian, 2016), taiwan (chang, liu, & lee, 2007), china (jia & wang, 2017), japan (kato, 2005), greek (kazamia, 2010), pakistan (kazi & iqbal, 2011), hong kong (tam, 2013), etc. yet, language learning strategies do not always been studied alone. there are other aspects which related to language learning strategies. oxford (2003) mentions that the others aspects related to the application of language learning strategies are motivation, gender, age, culture, brain hemisphere dominance, career orientation, academic major, beliefs, and the nature of the second learner language task. besides those aspects, achievement is also another aspect that related to strategies use. long (2017) states achievement is found to be more related to the students’ strategy use. it is because the purpose of strategy use is to overcome students’ difficulties in learning language which also improve their achievements. also, one of the methods to know whether the strategy affects to the students or not is by looking at their achievement. based on the statements above, in this present study the researcher wanted to study what language learning strategies used by students with different listening achievement. methods this study purposed at describing what kind of language learning strategies the students who had different listening achievement used. to reach its objective, the writer chose descriptive quantitative as the research design. the reason for choosing this research design was because the focus of the research was to explain what kind of language learning strategies that the student used in listening based from the quantitative data. the data were explained in the form of numbers that had been collected through students listening achievement test and questionnaire. the populations of this research were the eleventh grade of social students of sma negeri 2 pati. there were two classes that became the sample of this research. those classes were xi ips 1 and xi ips 2. both classes had 35 students in each class that participated in this study. the researcher chose 70 students of eleventh grade of social by using convenience sampling technique. in this study, in order to collect data there were two instruments that were used; listening achievement test, and questionnaire. the listening achievement test was chosen to determine the students’ listening skill. it was consisted of 50 questions. this test was taken from national examination from year 2014-2017, and also the preparation for national examination 2019. the items were picked and modified in order to adjust with students’ ability. the next instrument was questionnaire. it was used to identify the strategies that the students use in listening. this questionnaire was adapted from strategy inventory for language learning (sill) that invented by oxford (1990). originally there were 50 items in the questionnaire, but the researcher decided to pick 38 items only. in this research the process of analyzing data used two steps. the first step was grouping the students in to three achievement categories. the final step was to find what strategies the students of different listening achievement used. in order to grouping the students listening achievement, there were several steps to do based on arikunto (2006). they were finding the mean, and standard deviation. the results of finding the mean and also standard deviation was used to find the group limit. the criteria of grouping were mentioned in table 1. table 1 group category group score ≥ mean + sd high mean – sd ≤ score < mean + sd intermediate score < mean sd low the second step of this method of analyzing data was focusing on finding what strategies that the students with different listening achievement used in the class based on oxford (1990). it is shown in table 2. lilik alfuatin / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 123 table 2 key to understanding your averages high always or almost always used 4.5 to 5.0 usually used 3.5 to 4.4 medium sometimes used 2.5 to 3.4 low generally not used 1.5 to 2.4 never or almost never used 1.0 to 1.4 from the table above, it showed that there were three level of strategy used. they were high used level, intermediate used level, and low used level. meanwhile, there were five stages of frequencies of used. they were always or almost always used, usually used, sometimes used, generally used, and never or almost never used. each of them was given by its mean. so, in order to know what strategies they used, what level of strategy used, and how frequent they used it, the researcher needed to find its mean. findings and discussion the findings of the study are presented what strategies the students from high, intermediate, and low achievement use in listening. meanwhile the discussion deals with further discussion. findings strategies used by high achievement group table 3 shows that number of average is 3.05 which mean that these students sometimes used strategy in dealing with listening. among six kinds of strategies, metacognitive is rank first as the most used strategy with 3.5as the average. it means that these students usually use metacognitive strategy. this strategy is on high level. meanwhile, affective strategies have 2.44 as the average is ranked as the least strategy used by them. it is on low level, which means that it is generally not used by the students with high achievement. furthermore, among thirty five items, the most used one is item [21] says “saya memperhatikan ketika seseorang berbicara dalam bahasa inggris.” with 4.3 as the average number, it means that this item is on high level and usually used by them. this item belongs to metacognitive strategies. the least used item is item [29] states “saya menuliskan perasaan saya dalam catatan harian pembelajaran bahasa inggris.” which belongs to affective strategy. the average of this item is 1.4 which means it is in low level and never or almost never used by them. in short, high achievement group used all kinds of strategy, from memory strategy to social strategy. the different is on the different level of use. there are strategies that usually used, sometimes used, and generally not used by this group. table 3 no. nama strategi mean rank average of usage 1. memory strategy 2.91 5 medium, sometimes used 2. cognitive strategy 3.01 4 medium, sometimes used 3. compen-sation strategy 3.17 2 medium, sometimes used 4. metacog-nitive strategy 3.50 1 high, usually used 5. affective strategy 2.44 6 low, generally not used 6. social strategy 3.13 3 medium, sometimes used mean 3.05 medium, some-times used lilik alfuatin / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 124 strategies used by intermediate achievement group table 4 shows that intermediate achievement group sometimes uses strategies in order to deal with listening. the average use is 2.89. it is on medium level. to be exact, all of strategies that used by the intermediate achievement group are on medium level. among six strategies, metacognitive strategy is the most used strategy. the average is 3.28. meanwhile, affective strategy is the least used strategy among them. item [21] is the most used item. the item says “saya memperhatikan ketika seseorang berbicara dalam bahasa inggris.” and belongs to metacognitive strategy. this item is usually used by the students with intermediate achievement and on high level. the average of this item is 3.94. on the contrary, the least item says “saya menuliskan perasaan saya dalam catatan harian pembelajaran bahasa inggris.” only has 1.54 as the average. it is item [29] and belongs to affective strategy. this item is generally not used and on low level. table 4 no. strategi mean rank average of usage 1. memory strategy 2.73 5 medium, sometimes used 2. cognitive strategy 2.75 4 medium, sometimes used 3. compensation strategy 2.85 3 medium, sometimes used 4. metacognitive strategy 3.28 1 medium, sometimes used 5. affective strategy 2.64 6 medium, sometimes used 6. social strategy 3.01 2 medium, sometimes used mean 2.89 medium, sometimes used strategies used by low achievement group table 5 shows that the low achievement group sometimes used strategies for dealing with listening. it is on medium level with 2.89 as the average number. among six kinds of strategies, five of them are on medium level meanwhile the rest is on low level of usage. it means that the five strategies named memory strategy, cognitive strategy, metacognitive strategy, affective strategy, and social strategy are sometimes used by this group. on the other hand, compensation strategy is the only one that generally not used by the group. compensation strategy is also the least used strategy among six strategies with 2.36 as the average number. on the contrary, metacognitive strategy is the most used strategy with 3.33 as the average number. from six strategies, there are thirty five items. among them, the most used item for the low achievement group is item [3] and [21] which average are 3.91. both of them were on high level and usually used by the students with low achievement. item [3] which says “saya menghubungkan bunyi dari kata-kata bahasa inggris yang baru dan gambar dari kota kata tersebut untuk membantu saya mengingat kosa kata tersebut.” belongs to memory strategy. meanwhile, item [21] which says “saya memperhatikan ketika seseorang berbicara dalam bahasa inggris.” belongs to metacognitive strategy. on the other hand, item [29] which says “saya menuliskan perasaan saya dalam catatan harian pembelajaran bahasa inggris.” is the least used item among thirty five items. it belongs to affective strategy. this item is on low level. the average is only 1.64. it also generally not used by the students with low achievement. table 5 no. strategy mea n rank average of usage 1. memory strategy 3.00 3 medium, sometimes used 2. cognitive strategy 2.59 4 medium, sometimes used 3. compensation strategy 2.36 6 low, generally not used 4. metacognitive strategy 3.33 1 medium, sometimes used 5. affective strategy 2.58 5 medium, sometimes used 6. social strategy 3.14 2 medium, sometimes used mean 2.89 medium, sometimes used lilik alfuatin / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 125 discussion students with different listening achievement actually used all six strategies named memory, cognitive, compensation, metacognitive, affective, and social strategies. the exact different was on its frequency that was shown on figure 1. the overall average strategies use of high achievement group was higher compared to intermediate achievement group and low achievement group. the overall average strategies use of high achievement group was 3.05 which included in medium level. whereas the average of intermediate achievement group and low achievement group was lower than that. both of the groups had same number. it was 2.89 which included in medium level. to make it short, all groups were on medium level. this was similar with chang, liu & lee (2007), emanto (2013), and fresiska (2013) who also found that the students were on all medium use level. but to be precise, high achievement group use strategies more often than two other groups. it was also similar with pannak & chiramanee (2011), aljuaid (2015) and alfian (2016) who found that the higher proficiency students used learning strategies more often than the lower proficiency students. figure 1 the most used strategies of high achievement group, intermediate achievement group, and low achievement group was the same kind of strategies. it was metacognitive strategies. the different was on the average. the metacognitive strategies average of high achievement group was 3.5 which included in high level and usually used by the students with high achievement. in the other hand, intermediate achievement group’s was 3.28 while low achievement group’s was 3.33. this result also supported the previous studies which also found metacognitive as the most used strategies. (tamjid & babazadeh, 2012; aljuaid, 2015; emanto, 2013; fresiska, 2013). it indicates that students in grade xi social sma negeri 2 pati prefer to learn listening by paying attentions, finding out about language learning, self evaluating, self monitoring, setting goals, seeking practice opportunities, identifying the purpose of listening task, and organizing. students use metacognitive strategies in their study usually centering, arranging and planning, and also evaluating their learning activities. on the other side, the least used strategies for high achievement group and intermediate achievement group was the same. it was affective strategies. the different was also on the average. the average use of affective strategies for high achievement group was 2.44 or on low level and generally not used whereas the average use of affective strategies for intermediate achievement group was 2.64 or on medium level and sometimes used. on the contrast, the least used strategy for low achievement group was compensation strategies. the average was 2.36 or in low level and generally not used. the result for high and intermediate achievement group was supported by tamjid & babazadeh (2012) who found that affective strategy was the last used strategy. on the other hand, the results was different with zuhairi & hidayanti (2016) who found that social strategies were used at the least frequent one, and aljuaid (2015) who found that memory strategies was the least used. based on the results, it seems that students in grade xi social sma negeri 2 pati who has high and intermediate achievement would rather not try to calm themselves, give reward to themselves, listen to their body, discussing their feeling with other, and writing a language learning diary. both groups choose not to lower their anxiety, encourage themselves, and take their emotional temperature often. meanwhile, low achievement group tends to not use compensation strategies often. they choose to least guessing intelligently by using linguistic and other clues. 0 1 2 3 4 m em o ry s tg c og n it iv e s tg c om p en sa t… m et ac o g ni … a ff ec ti v e s tg s o ci al s tg o v er al l high achievement group intermediate achievement group low achievement group lilik alfuatin / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 126 conclusion according to the findings and discussion in the previous chapter, it was found that high achievement group used strategies more often than intermediate and low achievement group. the overall average strategies used of high achievement group was 3.05 which included medium level. whereas the average of intermediate achievement group and low achievement group was 2.89 which also included in medium level. moreover, the most used strategies for all group was the same, it was metacognitive strategies. although it was the same strategies, the average use of each group was different. the average use of metacognitive strategies for high achievement group was 3.5 which included in high level and usually used by them. in the other hand, intermediate achievement group’s was 3.28 while low achievement group’s was 3.33. both groups were on medium use level and sometimes used by the students. based on the conclusion, the writer would like to give some suggestions for the teacher, the students, and also further researcher. firstly, the english teacher especially who teach listening in classroom should record their students’ already used strategy and those who have not been used. by knowing it, the teacher hopefully would be able to develop the classroom activity with considering kinds of suitable strategy for students. although not all of students might be able to use same strategies, but teacher still should be able to pick and teach how to use exact strategies to exact problems and task. still, the teacher should consider students’ preference on choosing the strategies. secondly, the students should use language learning strategies consciously by increasing their awareness by increasing their awareness, they should be able to use strategies in dealing with listening by using appropriate strategies for different task. also, they would be able to choose proper strategies for different problem and task. lastly, further researcher who has any interest in language learning strategies should conduct a study about language learning and other skills such as writing, speaking, and reading. also, it would be better if the further researcher use other instruments such as classroom observation sheets, or interview for more precise data. it would also be much better if further researcher who would like to research about the relation of language learning strategy use and achievement conducts more than one achievement test. references alfian. (2016). the application of language learning strategies of high school students in indonesia. ijee (indonesian journal of english education), 3 (2), 140-157 retrieved from http://journal.uinjkt.ac.id/index.php/ijee aljuaid, h. t. k. (2015). language learning strategies used by a group of saudi arabian efl learners. a thesis, school of education and professional studies, griffith university. arikunto, s. (2006). prosedur penelitian suatu pendekatan praktik. jakarta: pt rineka cipta. caspersz, d. & stasinska, a. (2015). can we teach effective listening? an exploratory study. journal of university teaching & learning practice, 12(4). retrieved from http://ro.uow.edu.au/jutlp/vol12/iss4/2 chang, c. y., liu, s. c., & lee, y. n. (2007). a study of language learning strategies used by college efl learners in taiwan. 第二期（2007年3月） emanto, y. (2013). language learning strategies used by different english proficiency students of state senior high school 3 malang. skripsi. study program of english, under graduate program, universitas brawijaya. retrieved from http://jimbastrafib.studentjournal.ub.ac.id/index.php/jimbastrafib/article/view/155 fresiska, f. (2013). the application of language learning strategies and their relationship with english proficiency of the islamic junior high school students of pondok pesantren modern raden paku trenggalek. skripsi. study program of english, under graduate program, universitas brawijaya. retrieved from http://jimbastrafib.studentjournal.ub.ac.id/index.php/jimbastrafib/article/view/154 lilik alfuatin / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 127 hanna, cecilia. (2012). listening strategies in the l2 classroom: more practice, less testing. college quarterly, 15(1). retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ej976453.pdf jia, l. p., & wang, z. h. (2017). a study of english listening strategies of vocational college non-english majors in china. us-china foreign language, 15(3), 161-172. doi:10.17265/1539-8080/2017.03.003 kato, sawako. (2005). how language learning strategies affect english proficiency in japanese university students. 文京学院大学研究紀要, 7(1), 239-262. retrieved from https://www.ubunkyo.ac.jp/center/library/image/kyukiyo7_kato.pdf kazamia, v. (2010). using the sill to record the language learning strategy use; suggestions for the greek efl population. advances in research on language acquisition and teaching: selected papers. kazi, a. s., & iqbal, h. m. (2011). use of language learning strategies by students at higher secondary level in pakistan. international journal of social sciences and education, 1(4). long, le nhut & tanh, tran thien. (2016). efl teachers’ perception and instruction in listening classes. asian journal of educational research, 4(3). retrieved from http://www.multidisciplinaryjournals.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/full-paperefl-teachers%e2%80%99-perception-and-instruction-in-listeningclasses.pdf michaleková, lucia. (2017). language learning strategies and their impact on listening comprehension of esp learners. retrieved from https://www.pulib.sk/web/kniznica/elpub/dokument/strakova4/subor/michalekova.pdf oxford, r. l. (1990). language learning strategies: what every teacher should know. new york: heinle & heinle publishers. oxford, r. l. (2003). language learning styles and strategies: an overview. pannak, o & chiramanee, t. (2011). language learning strategies used by first year students at thaksin university, songkhla campus, thailand. faculty of liberal arts, prince of songkla university. retrieved from http://tar.thailis.or.th/handle/123456789/668 piamsai, c. (2007). an investigation of the use of listening strategies and listening performance of proficient and non-proficient language learners. chulalongkorn university language institute. chulalongkorn university. retrieved from http://www.culi.chula.ac.th/research/ejournal/2011/chatraporn.pdf tam, k. c. (2013). a study on language learning strategies (llss) of university students in hong kong. taiwan journal of linguistics, 11(2), 1-42. tamjid, n. h., & babazadeh , n.( 2012). comparing intermediate efl students’ and teachers’ perceptions of listening comprehension strategy use. world applied sciences journal, 16(9), 1308-1313. retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/2764/708d017910500aff5bc872fe64c8e46c6d16.pdf wilson, jj. (2011). how to teach listening. england: pearson education limited. zuhairi, a., & hidayanti, i. (2016). the strategies of indonesian junior high school students in learning listening skill. arab world english journal (awej), 7(4), 117 – 124. retrieved from https://osf.io/26dxa/download ika oktavianti / journal of economic education 1 (2) (2012) elt forum 7 (1) (2018) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the effectiveness of booktrack for teaching reading comprehension sita oktabriyanti, rudi hartono, galuh k.d.a.  putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) sita o., rudi h., galuh k.d.a. / journal of english language teaching 7 (1) (2018) english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia 50 56 article info ________________ article history: received in april 2017 approved in may 2017 published in july 2017 ________________ keywords : booktrack app; reading comprehension; quasi-experimental study abstract ___________________________________________________________________ the aim of this study is to find out the effectiveness of booktrack in teaching reading comprehension on the tenth grade students of a senior high school in semarang. in order to achieve the objective of this research, the writer designed a quasi-experimental study. the subject of this study was 64 students of the tenth grade of a senior high school in semarang; 32 students acted as the experimental group to be taught reading comprehension by using booktrack app and the other 32 students as the control group to be taught reading comprehension by using regular medium. the results of the study showed that the score of experimental group was higher than control group. based on the results, it can be concluded that booktrack app is effective as a medium in teaching reading comprehension. © 2018 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: sita.oktabriyanti@gmail.com introduction english is one of the subjects taught in schools. it covers four basic language skills consisting of listening, speaking, reading and writing which have to be mastered by students. reading, as one of the language skills, is important in learning a foreign language. reading is commonly considered as the easiest skill to master because everyone can read fairly well. however, reading is important to improve language skills in english. mikulecky and jeffries (1996) defined the importance of reading as “reading helps you learn to; think in english, enlarge your english vocabulary, improve your writing, a good way to practice your english if you live in a non-english-speaking country, and as a good way to find out about new ideas, facts, and experiences”. as english teachers, we should always find new methods to improve our students’ skills. in reading, teachers have to find an appropriate method to encourage the student so that their reading comprehension will be improving significantly. cunningham (as cited in bridges, 2014) explained that “reading is a very rich, complex and cognitive act that offers an immense opportunity to exercise our intelligence in ways we lose if we don’t read”. serravallo (as cited in bridges, 2014) stated that the more children read, the more they build their background knowledge, which in turn strengthens their ability to comprehend. effective teacher of reading facilitates the expansion of background knowledge by providing frequent and varied opportunities for their students to interact with a variety of commercial books. on the other hand, most students have low interest and motivation in reading. in order to make the students engage to the lesson, a teacher should be able to find an appropriate method and make the lesson interesting. one of the methods is by using media, and in this technology era, online application can be an alternative medium of teaching reading. some methods and strategies have been applied in teaching reading comprehension. using online resources as aids in teaching and learning process is interesting topics for many researchers. therefore, there are many studies that have been done in this area. the first is an experimental study entitled “the use of cartoon short stories in the jakarta post to improve reading comprehension skill”. this study described the effectiveness of cartoon short stories in the jakarta post to improve reading comprehension skill. the object was eighth grade students of mts n margoyoso pati. this study showed that the use of cartoon short stories was beneficial for the students in improving reading comprehension. based on this finding, it is suggested that cartoon short stories can be used by the teachers to improve students’ ability in reading comprehension (mukhaiyaroh, 2008). the similarity between this study and the writer’s study is both of them are experimental studies which aim to find out the effectiveness of online resources in teaching reading comprehension. the second is a study entitled “enhancement of automatization through vocabulary learning using call: can prompt language processing lead to better comprehension in l2 reading?” the study aimed to optimize a multimedia application for vocabulary learning for english as a foreign language (efl). according to the research, multimedia application users not only retained more words and recalled the meanings more quickly but also obtained higher scores on reading comprehension tests that contained the words learned through the application. from this result, it is concluded that multimedia vocabulary learning with a time-control function can automatize word decoding skills and therefore free more working memory, thereby leading to better comprehension of the text (sato, matsunuma, and suzuki 2013). actually, there is a similarity between this study and the writer’s study. they focus on using multimedia to improve reading comprehension. this study used booktrack as the medium for teaching reading comprehension. booktrack is a new way for students to read stories and texts accompanied by a movie-style soundtrack. students also can create booktracks, using their own writing or works being studied in school. this booktrack apps allow users to read the texts on a mobile devices. booktrack also works on google chrome, firefox and opera browser. booktrack can be accessed from smartphone or computer. to access booktrack from smartphone, readers should download the application from play store and install it. when using computer, readers can go to www.booktrack.com from browser and choose the books they want to read. based on the previous studies which showed the effectiveness of using media in teaching learning process, the writer is interested to conduct a research using technology as the medium for teaching entitled “the effectiveness of booktrack in teaching reading comprehension”. this research will find out the effectiveness of using booktrack app as the medium in teaching reading comprehension. the writer will try to compare the use of booktrack and regular medium in teaching reading comprehension to know which medium is more effective. methodology of the research the subject of this study was tenth grade students of sma n 13 semarang. in this research, the writer chose two classes; one is experimental group, and another is control group. moreover, the objectives of the study is to find out the effectiveness of booktrack in teaching reading comprehension on the tenth grade students of a senior high school in semarang. in this study, the writer used quantitative method. the quantitative data used the statistical analysis to calculate the numeral data. the writer used quasi-experimental study as one form of quantitative research to investigate the effectiveness of booktrack app in teaching reading comprehension. in this study, a non-equivalent control group design is used. this design was chosen because the writer did not break the classes up to get the objects of the study. the writer only took two existing classes. this design divided the samples into two groups, a group of participants who receive a treatment as an experimental group and another group of participants as a control group. in conducting this quasi-experimental study, the writer used pretest and posttest as the instruments for collecting the data. there were 4 main activities which were conducted in this study; try-out test, pre-test, treatments and post-test. the try out test was prepared before the instrument was implemented. it was conducted in the same population but not the control and experimental classes. after scoring the result of the try out test, the writer analyzed the data to find out that the instrument is good or not by using the formulas in statistical design. after analyzing the instruments, the students in control and experimental group were given pre-test to find out students’ mastery before the treatment as the beginning data. then, the experimental group was given experimental treatment by using booktrack. the two groups were taught the same material, but with different medium. the experimental group was taught by using booktrack to find out the effectiveness of this medium in teaching reading comprehension. on the other hand, the control group was taught by using regular method. after the treatments, both of groups do the post-test. then, the results of them are computed statistically. result and discussion the research was conducted on april 6th, 2016 – april 21st, 2016. the first activity was conducted on wednesday, 6th april, 2016. try-out test was given to students outside the control and experimental classes which consisted of 32 respondents. the writer gave 20 multiple-choice items and the students were asked to do the test by their own. the writer provided 60 minutes for the students to do the try-out test. then, the writer made an analysis to find the validity, reliability, and difficulty level on the test based on the scores. the result of the valid item is showed in the table below. table 3.1. item validity result category item number total valid 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 17 invalid 5, 9, 13 3 in order to measure the reliability of the test, the writer used kuder richardson 20 formula. the computation of reliability obtained 0.739, for α=5% with n=32, the rtable = 0.349. since r11 was higher than rtable (0.739 > 0.349), it was concluded that the research instrument was reliable. furthermore, to find out the differences between groups of samples, the writer used t-test. the writer used independent sample t-test to know the initial score between the experimental and the control groups in the pre-test. before t-test was done to know the significant difference between the control and the experimental groups, the writer calculated normality and homogeneity. homogeneity tests were calculated in order to decide whether a test was homogeneous or not. the writer used spss program to find out the homogeneity of the tests. it was important because the similarity of both groups would influence the result of test. moreover, homogeneity of a test was used as a requirement to calculate t-test. the following was the computation of homogeneity of the pre-test. table 3.2. homogeneity analysis in control group test of homogeneity of variances control group levene statistic df1 df2 sig. ,548 1 62 ,462 table 3.3. homogeneity analysis in experiment group test of homogeneity of variances experiment group levene statistic df1 df2 sig. 3,812 1 62 ,055 based on the homogeneity test of pre-test data in control group by using levene statistic, it showed that f value was 0.548 and sig value was 0.462. because 0.462 > 5%, it indicated that the data were homogeneous. moreover, based on the homogeneity test of pre-test data in experiment group by using levene statistic, it showed that f value was 3.812 and sig value was 0.055. because 0.055 > 5%, it indicated that the data were homogeneous. normality analysis were used to determine whether or not the subjects have normal distribution. the writer used spss program to find out the normality of the tests. normality of a test was used as a requirement to calculate t-test. if the test was distributed normally, t-test could be applied to find out the significant differences between post-test control and experimental group. if sig value was higher than 0.05, it could be concluded that the tests were normally distributed. the following was normality analysis of the tests. table 3.4. normality analysis one-sample kolmogorov-smirnov test postest_control postest_exp n 32 32 normal parametersa,b mean 70,7813 87,1875 std. deviation 9,34201 9,24030 most extreme differences absolute ,190 ,213 positive ,190 ,188 negative -,182 -,213 kolmogorov-smirnov z 1,072 1,207 asymp. sig. (2-tailed) ,200 ,109 a. test distribution is normal. b. calculated from data. based on normality test by using kolmogorov test for post-test in the control group, z value was 1.072 and sig value was 0.200. because sig 0.200 > 5%, it can be concluded that the post test data in the control group were distributed normally. moreover, in the experimental group, it showed that z value was 1.207 and sig value was 0.109. the post-test data in the experimental group were also distributed normally, for it showed that 0.109 > 5%. the writer calculated t-test by using spss program to find out if there was a significant difference or not. post-test of control group and experimental group were normally distributed and homogeneous. the writer conducted t-test calculation by using spss program. the result of t-test calculation was as follows. image 3.1. process of t-test in control group based on t-test result in pre-test and post-test of the control group, t value was 4.308 and sig value was 0.000. because sig value 0.000 < 5%, the pre-test and post-test data in control group showed different results. image 3.2. process of t-test in experiment group based on t-test result in the pre-test and post-test of experimental group, t value was 9.119 and sig value was 0.000. because sig value 0.000 < 5%, the pre-test and post-test data in the experimental group showed significant difference. according to the table, the result of t-test was higher than t-table and sig. (2-tailed) value 0.000 was lower than 5%. it indicated that there were significant differences between control and experimental group in achieving the result of post-test. null hypothesis (ho) was rejected and alternative hypothesis (h1) was accepted because t-value was higher than t-table (t value > t table). in conclusion, there was a significant difference in the students’ reading after being taught using booktrack app. this section would discuss the research findings which include the meaning of the test result and the effect of treatment. the writer conducted the study by using quasi experimental research design. the aim of this study is to find out whether or not the use of booktrack app is effective to increase students’ reading comprehension at the tenth grade students in a senior high school in semarang. the control group was taught by using regular medium which was printed text. meanwhile, the experimental group was given different treatment by using booktrack app. the treatment was conducted before the post-test was administered. the material for both groups was similar but it just differed on the teaching and medium of learning. the writer conducted treatment of experimental group by using booktrack app. after having explanation about recount text, students got treatment using booktrack app. first of all, students were directed to go to the writer’s blog to explain the steps to use booktrack app. then they were asked to read two passages in www.booktrack.com by clicking the link attached in the blog. finally, the students had to answer the question in the form of multiple choice in a form of electronic test which made by using wondershare quiz creator. the results of the students would automatically send into the writer’s email through this quiz creator. in the learning process, it could be seen that in the experimental group the students enjoyed the class more than those in the control group. it means that the use of booktrack was helpful in attracting students’ interest. after the treatment, the improvement of students’ comprehension in the experimental group was higher than the improvement of the control group. the improvement can be seen when the writer gave the questions after treatment, they answered correctly. it showed that the use of booktrack made reading interesting. the treatment was going well enough. however, the writer still found some obstacle while conducted the research which were time management and poor internet connection. most of the students had to be explained slowly about the steps to open booktrack app because this medium might not be familiar for them. the writer should make sure every student understood in every step before going to the next activity. it was wasting time. moreover, low internet connection in the classroom made students take more time to open the application. it will be necessary for teachers to make a good time management and make sure to have a good internet connection to use this medium. after conducting treatment, the writer calculated the result of the tests by using spss program. after the students received the treatment, the mean scores of both groups were increased. meanwhile, the post-test mean of experimental group was higher than the post-test mean of control group. based on the score, it indicated that after getting treatment, the experimental group got a better result than the control group. there was a significant difference in the students’ achievement between the experimental and the control groups. in addition, the writer also assumed that booktrack app was effective to teach reading comprehension. the results also proved that the pretest was normally distributed and homogeneous. moreover, the writer’s assumptions could be proved by the result of t-test calculated by spss program. before applied the t-test statistical analysis, an analysis to find out the normality and the homogeneity of the two samples were performed. therefore, the writer calculated the normality and the homogeneity of both groups’ post-test. the post-test result of both group were normally distributed. the sig value on control group’s post-test was 0.200 while the sig value on experimental group’s post-test was 0.109. it meant that the test of both groups were normally distributed because both sig value was higher than 0.05. the writer also checked the homogeneity of post-test data by using tests of homogeneity of variances by measured the significant coefficient in levene’s statistics. the significant coefficient was found to be significant. sig value was 0.462 which was higher than the level of significant (0.05). it could be concluded that the population between experimental and control group were homogenous. by knowing the result of posttest homogeneity, the writer concluded that the population of the two groups was homogenous so the t-test could be counted. after found that the post-test scores between the experimental and the control group was normally distributed and homogeneus, the writer continued the statistical analysis by using t-test. the t-test was applied to find out whether or not there was any significant difference in the students’ achievement between the experimental and the control groups. furthermore, it could be seen from the t-test measurement which obtained sig value 0.000 in both experimental and the control groups, with α=5%=0.05. because 0.000 was higher than 5%, the pre-test and post-test data in the experimental and control groups showed different result. so, it indicated that there were significant differences between control and experimental group in achieving the result of post-test. from the results, it was concluded that after treatments given, the experimental group achieved a better result. null hypothesis (ho) was rejected and alternative hypothesis (h1) was accepted because tvalue was higher than ttable (t value > t table ). in conclusion, there was a significant difference in the students’ reading comprehension after being taught using booktrack app. thus, the use of booktrack app in teaching reading comprehension could be one of the media in improving students’ understanding in their learning process. it could be stated statistically that booktrack app is effective to be applied in teaching students’ reading comprehension. conclusions due to the result and discussion in the previous chapter, the writer makes some conclusions as follows. the first conclusion is the significance of the test. based on the computation in the previous chapter, the pre-test and post-test data in the experimental and control groups showed different result. it showed that the experimental group achieved a better result after treatments given. it means that there is a significant difference of the reading comprehension between the students who were being taught with booktrack app and those who were being taught by using regular medium. in other words, the research findings show that the result of the treatment is in line with the hypothesis which stated that “there is significant difference of students’ reading comprehension between those who are being taught with booktrack app and those who are taught by using regular medium”. therefore, the null hypothesis which stated that “there is no significant difference of students’ reading comprehension between those who are being taught with booktrack app and those who are taught by using regular medium” is rejected. second, it is more effective using booktrack as a medium in teaching reading comprehension. it could be seen by comparing the average scores of the experimental and control groups in the pre-test and post-test. the average score of the pre-test for the experimental group is 70.94, while the average score of the control group is 63.75. from the calculation, the difference of average score on the experimental group is higher than the control group. so, it can be concluded that there is good improvement of the experimental group after they received treatments by using booktrack. references alexander, j. e. 1988. teaching reading.third edition. boston: scott, foresman and company arikunto, suharsimi. 2006. prosedur penelitian suatu pendekatan praktek. jakarta: pt rineka cipta bridges, lois. 2014. the joy & power of reading: a summary of research & expert opinion. u.s. scholastic. hartoyo. 2012. ict in language learning. semarang: pelita insani. leibovitz, liel. 2011. reading with sound: the interplay of text and sound in e-book readers and its effect on retention. retrieved from http://info.booktrack.com/reading-with-sound-the-interplay-of-text-and-sound-in-ebook-readers-and-its-effect-on-retention on 11 september 2015. mukhaiyaroh, s. 2008. the use of cartoon short stories in the jakarta post to improve reading comprehension skill (the case of the students of eighth grade of mtsn margoyoso pati in the academic year of 2007/2008). final project. semarang: english department semarang state university. mickulecky, b.s and jeffries, l.(1996). more reading power. britain: longman. sato, t., matsunuma, m., & suzuki, a. 2013. enhancement of automatization through vocabulary learning using call: can prompt language processing lead to better comprehension in l2 reading?. recall, 25, pp 143-1 image2.jpeg image3.png image4.png image1.png ika oktavianti / journal of economic education 1 (2) (2012) elt forum 7 (1) (2018) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt translation techniques in and accuracy of the indonesian subtitles of the movie philomena muhammad abdul latif  putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) m. a. latif / journal of english language teaching 7 (1) (2018) english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia 1 5 article info ________________ article history: received in april 2017 approved in may 2017 published in july 2017 ________________ keywords: accuracy; indonesian subtitle; translation techniques. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this descriptive qualitative study describes the translation techniques and the accuracy of the dialogs found in the movie philomena. the purposes of this study are to find out the translation techniques in and the accuracy of the indonesian subtitle in its dialogs. the data of this study are english-indonesian translations and the result accuracy rating instruments. the translation techniques applied to translate the indonesian subtitle are determined and are later analyzed to find out the degree of accuracy of the indonesian version. the result of the study showed that there are eighteen translation techniques used in the indonesian subtitle. they are literal translation, reduction, amplification, established equivalent, linguistic compression, borrowing, transposition, calque, compensation, modulation, particularization, discursive creation, linguistic amplification, generalization, adaptation, substitution, description, and variation. the accuracy level is 97.89%. © 2018 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: muhammadabdullatifunnes@gmail.com introduction in indonesia, foreign movies are more popular than indonesian movies. for example in bandung, according to an-nuur r. (2013), 6.424.761 out of 10.294.268 people had watched foreign movies for three years started in 2009 and the other 3.869.507 had watched indonesian movies. most of the foreign movies that dominate the market in indonesia are hollywood movies. it is proven by research done by an-nuur r. (2013) who stated that 60% people watched hollywood movie. those movies use english as the means of communication. thus, in order to make indonesian people understand the content of movie, subtitling is needed. subtitling is the best way in understanding foreign movies. it is useful as a means of transferring information from the foreign movies. diaz cintaz, j., & remael, a. (2007) states that “subtitling is a linguistic practice which consists in offering, generally in lower portion of the screen, a written text which sets out to recount the actors’ dialogues and the discursive elements that form part of the image (letters, graffiti, captions, hoardings, etc.) or the sound track (songs, off-screen voices, etc.)”. there are several constraints in subtitling. according to diaz cintaz, j., & remael, a. (2007), there are three kinds of technical constraints in making subtitle. those constraints are in the context of space, time, as well as presentation. in the context of space, the translators are not allowed to make a long explanation due to the limit of space in movie. in the context of time, the translator has to adjust the time with the length of the words. in the context of presentation, the translator has to be readable which will make the viewing experience becomes more enjoyable. because of those difficulties in making subtitle, appropriate techniques must be applied in order to solve those three constraints. a translator needs to know criteria of good quality of the translation. according to larson (1984), there are at least three reasons to evaluate the translation products which are to see accuracy, clarity, and naturalness of a translation. one aspect that should be noticed is the accuracy of the subtitle because the length of words is quite limited in creating subtitle which makes the translator needs to adjust the actual translation. in this study, the researcher will focus on the accuracy of the indonesian subtitle of philomena. assessing accuracy of a translation is very important because it will reveal whether or not the translation communicates the same meaning as the meaning of the source language. if the accuracy level is great, the readers will get the same amount of information of the source language. unfortunately, because of the technical constraints in creating subtitle, a translator may forget to maintain the accuracy of the product of translation. it can also be affected by the techniques used whether they are applied correctly in creating the subtitle. there are two objectives in this stud. the first one is to find out the translation techniques used in the dialogs of the subtitle of the movie philomena. meanwhile the second objective is to find out the accuracy of the indonesian subtitle in the dialogs of the movie philomena. translation technique proposed by molina and albir (2002) was used in this study. it was used because the technique covers more techniques which is useful to analyse the translation better. reduction technique, substitution technique, and nababan in his journal translation quality assessment strategies (2004) proposes a rubric to measure the accuracy of translation called accuracy-rating instrument. nababan, nuraeni, sumardiono (2012) propose three categories in assessing the accuracy of translation. those categories are accurate, less accurate, and inaccurate. accurate translation is given the score of 3, less accurate 2, and inaccurate 1. methodology of the research in this research, the qualitative method was used in observing and analyzing the translation techniques found in the movie philomena. the qualitative method was also used in making interpretations of the meaning of the accuracy level of the the subject of this study was the movie called philomena. the writer used the original script (screenplay) and indonesian subtitle as the data to be analysed. the duration of the movie was about 98 minutes. there are 1280 data from the original script and 1280 from the indonesian subtitle. in this research, the writer had a role as the data analyst. the researcher analysed the translation techniques of each dialog in the indonesian subtitle of philomena. then, the translation techniques were classified using the translation theory proposed by molina and albir (2002). at last, the accuracy of the indonesian subtitle was known by using the nababan’s accuracy-rating instruments. there were two types of data. those were primary data and secondary data. the primary data were all the sentences of the dialogue and their translation in the form of subtitle. the data used in this research were taken from the movie entitled philomena. the secondary data came from three informants. the data were obtained by collecting the lines in the dialogs of the original script and indonesian translation. after that, a table was provided to analyse the english-indonesian translation based on the translation techniques used and to find out the accuracy of the indonesian subtitle. the unit of analysis in determining the translation techniques is in the form of word, phrase, clause, and sentence. after being classified, the data were counted to know the frequency and percentage of each technique used in indonesian translation. afterwards, the dominant technique used in the indonesian subtitle of the movie philomena could be seen. the next instrument was about the rubric in assessing the accuracy of the indonesian subtitle. the accuracy rating instrument was made by using the theory proposed by of nababan, nuraeni, sumardiono. there are three kinds of category in the translation accuracy. level 1 is categorized into inaccurate. level 2 is categorized into less accurate. finally, level 3 is categorized into accurate. the procedure of collecting data in this research was conducted through data analysis. the data were taken from the indonesian subtitle and the original screenplay in the movie philomena. the observation was done by watching the movie and identifying the translation techniques used in each dialog found in the movie. furthermore, the writer used questionnaire for collecting the data to see the accuracy of the indonesian subtitle. hence, nababan’s accuracy-rating instruments was used to assess the accuracy level of translation. the questionnaire was in the form of closed format. the closed question required the informants to choose one of the answer from some alternative answers. the last step was reporting the data. the data were reported in appendices. overall data were included in appendices to help the readers understand this study. result and discussion in table 1, it is shown that there are eighteen translation techniques that were used to analyze the indonesian subtitle in the movie philomena. in this study, there are eighteen translation techniques that are used to translate the english version of the movie philomena into the indonesian subtitle. table 3.1 . translation techniques used in the indonesian subtitle of the movie philomena no translation technique frequency percentage 1 literal translation 464 37.49% 2 reduction 207 16.65% 3 amplification 123 10.54% 4 established equivalent 111 9.49% 5 linguistic compression 78 5.49% 6 transposition 52 4.51% 7 borrowing 51 4.51% 8 modulation 39 3.14% 9 compensation 34 2.74% 10 calque 22 1.69% 11 particularization 17 1.37% 12 generalization 13 1.05% 13 discursive creation 7 0.64% 14 linguistic amplification 3 0.32% 15 substitution 2 0.16% 16 adaptation 1 0.08% 17 description 1 0.08% 18 variation 1 0.08% total 1226 100% the highest frequency of translation technique that is used to translate this movie is literal translation with the percentage of 37.49%. the other translation techniques are reduction (16.65%), amplification (10.54%), established equivalent (9.49%), linguistic compression (5.47%), borrowing (4.51%), transposition (4.51%), modulation (3.14%), compensation (2.72%), calque (1.69%), particularization (1.37%), generalization (1.05%), discursive creation (0.64%), linguistic amplification (0.32%), substitution (0.16%), adaptation (0.08%), description (0.08%), and variation (0.08%). in table 2, it is shown that the accuracy level of the subtitles is divided into three level of accuracy. those are accurate, less accurate and inaccurate. the writer found that 97.89% of the translation is translated accurately. meanwhile, 1.67% is translated less accurately and 0.44% is translated inaccurately. table 3.2 accuracy of indonesian subtitle in the movie philomena indicator number of data frequency accurate 3759 96.89% less accurate 64 1.67% inaccurate 17 0.44% total 3840 100,00% the findings can be explained as follows: 1. literal translation literal translation technique is the highest number of translation technique that is applied in indonesian subtitle of the movie philomena. there are 466 (37.49%) items that are found to be translated using literal translation technique. the literal translation technique in the theory of molina and albir (2002) corresponds to nida’s formal equivalent and scfa’s literal translation. scfa’s literal translation is defined as word for word translation whereas nida’s formal equivalent is when form coincides with function and meaning. (1) st: blood pressure, 131 over 92. tt: tekanan darah, 131/92. bt: blood pressure is 131/92. (datum no. 5) in sample (1), the phrase blood pressure is translated into indonesian as tekanan darah (blood pressure). blood in indonesian is translated literally into darah (blood) whereas pressure is translated into tekanan (pressure). because the sl is translated into the tl using word for word translation, this technique is called literal translation. 2. reduction technique in this study, 207 (16.65%) items are translated into indonesian using reduction technique. reduction technique corresponds to scfa’s and delisle’s implicitation, delisle’s concision, and vázquez ayora’s omission. (15) st: father tierney just asked me where you disappeared to. tt: pendeta tierney barusan bertanya kemana kau menghilang. bt: tierney the priest just asked where you disappeared. (datum no. 27) in sample (15), the word me is omitted in the tt. this kind of translation belongs to vázquez ayora’s omission because it omits the redundancy that is characteristic in the sl. since vázquez ayora’s omission corresponds to molina and albir’s reduction technique, the translation technique used in the translation is reduction technique. 3. amplification technique 131 words or phrases are discovered to be translated using amplification technique. it is around 10.54% of the total data. this technique corresponds to scfa’s explicitation, delisle’s addition, margot’s legitimate and illigitimate paraphrase, newmark’s explicative paraphrase and delisle’s periphrasis and paraphrase. (31) st: put your mind to your work and it will pass. tt: fokuskan pada pekerjaanmu dan sakitnya akan berlalu. bt: focus on your work and the pain will pass. (datum no. 232) in sample (31), the term it found in the sentence “put your mind to your work and it will pass.” is translated into indonesian as sakitnya (the pain). because the implicit information in the st is introduced in the tt, this translation belongs to scfa’s explicitation. due to the fact thet scfa’s explicitation corresponds to molina and albir’s amplification technique, the translation technique used in this translation is called amplification. 4. established equivalent technique there are 118 (9.49%) words or phrases which are translated into indonesian using established equivalent technique. this technique corresponds to scfa’s equivalence and literal translation. scfa’s equivalence means that this type of translation accounts for the same situation using a completely different phrase. meanwhile literal translation is translation terms in the sl using word for word translation. (23) st: i couldn't help overhearing you're a journalist. tt: aku tak sengaja mendengar kau adalah jurnalis. bt: i accidently hear that you are journalist. (datum no. 118) in sample (23), the word journalist in the sentence “i couldn't help overhearing you're a journalist” is translated into indonesian as jurnalis (journalist). the technique of this kind of translation is known as established equivalent. that is because the term journalist is commonly recognized as amerika (american) in indonesian. this type of translation also can be categorized as scfa’s literal translation which makes it obvious that this translation uses established equivalent because of the correspondence between scfa’s literal translation and molina and albir’s established equivalent and scfa’s literal translation. 5. linguistic compression technique there are 68 (5.47%) words or phrases that are translated into indonesian using linguistic compression technique. (10) st: well, i got the sack. i'm unemployed. tt: begini, aku dipecat. aku pengangguran. bt: like this, i was fired. i am unemployed. (datum no. 15) in sample (10), the clause ”i got the sack” is simply translated into “aku dipecat” (i was fired). the sl literally means that “aku mendapatkan pemecatan” (i got an ouster) however in indonesian it is translated as “aku dipecat” (i was fired). because the linguistic element in the tt is synthesized, the translation technique used in this translation is linguistic compression. 6. transposition technique in this study, 56 (4.41%) items are translated into indonesian using transposition technique. (46) st: so he takes up an interest in the horses so he can get in with the upper classes. tt: jadi pemuda ini mulai menaruh minat dalam berkuda sehingga bisa naik derajat. bt: so this young man began to put interest in riding horses so he can rise degree. (datum no. 533) the term the horse in the sl is translated into berkuda (ride a horse) in the tt. the horse is a noun whereas berkuda (ride a horse) is a verb which makes it clear that the grammatical category in the sl is changed. that type of translation technique is called transposition. 7. borrowing technique in this study, there are 56 (4.51%) words or phrases that are translated into indonesian using borrowing technique. the reason why borrowing technique is employed in translating subtitle is that there are items that cannot be transferred into indonesian equivalently. pure borrowing corresponds to scfa’s borrowing whereas naturalized borrowing corresponds to newmark’s naturalization technique. (41) st: and sally mitchell, this is martin sixsmith, used to be the bbc's man in moscow. tt: dan sally mitchell, ini martin sixsmith, dulunya jurnalis bbc di moscow. bt: and sally mitchell, this is martin sixsmith, previously, bbc’s journalist in moscow. (datum no. 92) in sample (41), the word moscow is translated into indonesian as moscow. in indonesian, the capital city of russia doesn’t have any equivalence in indonesian. the term used in the tt does not change at all so it is categorized as scfa’s borrowing technique. because it corresponds to molina and albir’s borrowing technique, the translation technique employed in this translation is borrowing technique. 8. modulation technique in this study, 39 (3.14%) items are translated into indonesian using modulation technique. (62) st: i said the opposite of what i was sacked for. tt: aku dipecat karena mengatakan sebaliknya. bt: i was fired because i said the opposite. (datum no. 20) in sample (62), the sentence “i said the opposite of what i was sacked for” is translated into “aku dipecat karena mengatakan sebaliknya” (: i was fired because i said the opposite). there is a change in terms of the focus in relation to the st. it can be seen that the back translation of the tt is “i was fired because i said the opposite” which focuses on the clause i was sacked for rather than on i said the opposite. that is why this kind of translation technique is called modulation. 9. compensation technique 34 words, phrases, or clauses (2.74%) are found to be translated using compensation technique. (59) st: it's just, why would god bestow upon us a sexual desire that he then wants us to resist? tt: hanya saja, mengapa tuhan memberi kita nafsu birahi lalu dia ingin kita lawan? bt: it's just, why would god give a sexual lust that he then wants us to resist? (datum no. 413) the phrase sexual desire in the sentence “it's just, why would god bestow upon us a sexual desire that he then wants us to resist?” is translated into indonesian as nafsu birahi (sexual lust). it is translated using compensation technique because the element of information in the st is not translated in the same place in the tt. 10. calque technique 21 words or phrases in the movie philomena (1.69%) are translated into indonesian using calque technique. (56) st: and what you're talking about would be what they call a human interest story. tt: dan yang kau sebutkan bekenaan dengan cerita human interest. bt: and what you mention is related with human interest story. (datum no. 126) in sample (56), the phrase human interest story in the sentence “and what you're talking about would be what they call a human interest story” is translated into cerita human interest (human interest story) which belongs to calque translation technique. it is because the foreign phrase is translated literally. 11. particularization technique in this study, 17 (1.37%) items are translated into indonesian using particularization technique. (65) st: i used to be an altar boy. tt: aku dulunya pelayan altar. bt: i used to be an altar servant. (datum no. 292) the term an altar boy in sample (65) is translated into indonesian as pelayan altar. the word pelayan (servant) is more concrete that the one on the sl. because the tl is more concrete that the sl, the translation technique employed in this translation is particularization. 12. generalization technique there are 13 (1.05%) words or phrases that are translated into indonesian using generalization technique. (74) st: i borrowed a box brownie and took it when reverend mother wasn't looking. tt: aku meminjam album foto dan mengambilnya saat ibu pendeta tak melihat. bt: i borrowed a photo album and took it when reverend mother did not see. (datum no. 724) in sample (74), the word box brownie in the sentence “i borrowed a box brownie and took it when reverend mother wasn't looking” is translated into indonesian as album foto (photo album). the term box brownie itself is actually a brand of a photo album. the term foto album (photo album) is more general than the sl. that is why generalization technique is used in this translation. 13. discursive creation technique the are 8 (0.64%) of the english-indonesian translation found in the subtitle of the movie philomena that is translated using discursive creation technique/ (68) st: yeah, collateral damage. tt: ya, akibat kurang hati-hati. bt: the consequence of not being careful. (datum no. 584) in sample (69) the phrase collateral damage is translated into indonesian as akibat kurang hati-hati (the consequence of not being careful). this kind of translation employs discursive creation technique because sl is translated unpredictably out of context into indonesian. in the cambridge dictionary, collateral damage can be defined as “the unintentional deaths and injuries of people who are not soldiers, and damage that is caused to their homes, hospitals, schools, etc”. however, in the tt can be defined as the consequence of not being careful. that is why the translation is stated to be unpredictably out of context. 14. linguistic amplification technique there are 4 (0.32%) words or phrases that are translated into indonesian using linguistic amplification technique. (71) st: i don't know what to do! tt: aku tak tahu apa yang harus dilakukan! bt: i don’t know what must be done. (datum no. 66) in sample (71), the sentence “i don't know what to do” is translated into indonesian as “aku tak tahu apa yang harus dilakukan” (i don’t know what must be done.). there are several linguistic elements added into the tt. that can be seen from the back translation of the tt. the clause “apa yang harus dilakukan” (what must be done) can be interpreted as “what must be done”. that is why linguistic amplification technique is used in this translation. 15. substitution technique in this study, 2 (0.16%) items are translated into indonesian using substitution technique. (77) st: afraid i was a bit... tt: aku agak cemas... bt: i was a bit worried. (datum no. 141) in sample (77), the word cemas (worried) in the tt is added to change the paralinguistic element in this case intonation into linguistic element. that is why this kind of translation technique is called substitution. 16. adaptation technique there is only one phrase that is translated using adaptation technique or it can be said that the percentage is only 0.08%. the adaptation technique is found in the datum number 793. (79) st: i remember that at the fair. tt: aku ingat hari itu saat di pasar malam. bt: i remember that day at the night market. (datum no. 793) sample (79) shows that the fair is translated into indonesian as pasar malam (night market) using adaptation market which means the translator adapted the fair into night market. the word fair can be interpreted as a large public event where goods are bought and sold, usually from tables which have been specially arranged for the event, and where there is often entertainment. in indonesian, pasar malam (night market) is an outside temporary market which sells food and goods and it is also a place where we can ride large machines for pleasure and play games to win prizes. the phrase pasar malam (night market) is translated into indonesian as pasar malam (night market) because the cultural element in the source text is replaced by the one that the target culture has. 17. description technique there is 1 (0.08%) sentence that is found to be translated using description technique. (80) st: tell me, martin, do we have what they call flexible tickets? tt: beritahu, martin, apa kita punya tiket yang bisa ditukar? bt: tell me, martin, do we have tickets that can be exchanged? (datum no. 800) in sample (80), the phrase flexible tickets is translated into tiket yang bisa ditukar (tickets that can be exchanged). the st is translated by replacing a term in the st with a description of its function. it can be seen by the back translation which is written as tickets that can be exchanged. 18. variation technique in this study, 1 (0.08%) item is translated into indonesian using variation technique. (81) st: i got it in yellow. tt: aku masukkan barangmu dalam mobil. bt: i put your stuff into the car. (datum no. 1077) in sample (81), the word yellow in the sentence “i got it in yellow” is translated into mobil (car) in indonesian. this type of translation uses variation technique because the linguistic element yellow is changed into mobil (car) which indicates that it affects aspects of linguistic variation. there are many techniques applied in this translation that contribute positively towards the accuracy of the translation result. 3750 out of 3850 data distributed to all respondents (97.89%) are translated accurately based on the accuracy rating instrument that had been filled in by all three expert. the translation of 68 (1.67%) out of 3840 phrases, words, clauses, or sentences given to the three expert respondents belongs to less accurate one. from the collective data obtained by all respondents, it shows that there is only one datum that is unanimously stated that the translation in less accurate. the translation of 22 (0.44%) out of 3840 phrases, words, clauses, or sentences distributed to the three expert respondents belongs to not accurate one. from the collective data obtained by all respondents, it shows that there is no single data that is unanimously less accurate. conclusions finding and describing the translation techniques applied in the english – indonesian translation of the movie philomena is the purpose of this research. this research also has a purpose to explain the accuracy of the english – indonesian translation of the movie. this research finds out that all 18 translation techniques are applied in the english – indonesian translation of the movie philomena. literal translation is the most frequent translation technique with the percentage of 37.49%. the other translation techniques are reduction (16.65%), amplification (10.54%), established equivalent (9.49%), linguistic compression (5.47%), borrowing (4.51%), transposition (4.51%), modulation (3.14%), compensation (2.74%), calque (1.69%), particularization (1.37%), generalization (1.05%), discursive creation (0.64%), linguistic amplification (0.32%), substitution (0.16%), adaptation (0.08%), description (0.08%), and variation (0.08%). the english – indonesian translations found in the subtitle that get the score of 3 are 97.89%. meanwhile, the translations that gets the score of 2 are 1.67% followed by the inaccurate that get 0.44%. the english – indonesian found in the subtitle of the movie philomena is accurate due to the high level of accurate translation. this research also shows the relation between translation techniques and the accuracy of its translated result. adaptation, description, linguistic amplification, and variation technique gets the highest level of accuracy with the percentage of accurate translation of 100. the other translation techniques that get very high level of accuracy with the percentage of accurate translation above 90 are amplification (97.97%), borrowing (97.19%), calque (94.87%), compensation (96.06%), established equivalent (96.99%), generalization (92.86%), particularization (98.04%), linguistic compression (97.05%), literal translation (98.21%), modulation (98.29%), reduction (97.06%), and transposition (97.44%). there are only two translation techniques which get the level of accuracy below 90%. those techniques are discursive creation (79.17%) and substitution (83.33%). references an-nuur r. 2013. pengaruh citra film indonesia terhadap keputusan menonton. final project management fpeb upi. diaz cintaz, j., & remael, a. 2007. audio-visual translation: subtitling. manchester: st. jerome. larson, m. l. 1984. meaning based translation: a guide to cross language equivalence. london and new york: university press of america. nababan, m.r. 2004. strategi penilaian kualitas terjemahan. jurnal linguistic bahasa. volume 2, no. 1 tahun 2004, 54-65, issn: 1412-0356. surakarta: program studi linguistik. program pascasarjana. image2.jpeg image1.png putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 142 elt forum 6 (2) (2017) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt thematic development on students’ analytical exposition texts a case of the fourth semester students in the academic year 2014/2015 novita setiawati, intan permata hapsari, arif suryo priyatmojo  english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in october 2017 approved in november 2017 published in december 2017 ________________ keywords: analytical exposition, textual meaning, thematic development, thematic structure. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this final project is based on a study endeavored to examine the development of analytical exposition texts written by the fourth semester students of universitas negeri semarang in the academic year of 2014/2015 who took genre-based writing class . the objective of the study is to examine to what extent the students develop their analytical exposition texts, in terms of thematic development. this study is a written discourse analysis in which the data collected are in the form of written texts. to examine thematic development, thematic structure must be found first. the data were divided into clauses and analyzed to discover their thematic structure using theory suggested by gerot and wignell (1995). then the themes and rhemes were examined using thematic development theory suggested by eggins (2004). results show that unmarked topical theme and reiteration pattern are dominant on students’ texts because they are the simplest and easiest form of thematic structure and thematic development. in addition, some problems related to thematic structure and thematic development were found. in thematic structure analysis, one problem of empty theme and three problems of empty rheme were discovered, while more than half of total clauses did not have thematic development. these might indicate two points; first, the students of genre-based writing class are still novice writers. second, they might not know about thematic development theory and how to employ it to develop their analytical exposition texts. © 2017 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: unnes_english@yahoo.com n. setiawati & i. permata hapsari & a. suryo priyatmojo / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 143 introduction among skills learnt in english, writing is considered as the most challenging skill to master for many efl learners. not only do they have to generate ideas, they also have to develop them into a coherent whole text. however, this is not something easy to do. instead of writing a coherent whole text, many efl learners tend to brainstorm ideas, write them in a piece of paper, and submit it on their teacher‟s desk without having it proofread beforehand. as a result, not only grammatical mistakes, but also ideas which jump from one message to another are commonly found by writing teachers. a text which consists of jumping messages may cause confusion for readers. they might not understand what the writer means. when a text does not make sense, it fails to perform its function. moreover, it means that the writer fails to achieve his goal in writing the text. therefore, in teaching writing it is important to teach students how to develop ideas in order to write a coherent text. teaching how to develop ideas can be done by thematic development. it is a method to develop ideas into cohesive and coherent text. nevertheless, according to gugin (2014: 24-25), the teaching of efl has historically give priority to accuracy at sentence level; this will almost inevitably, automatically, create a “grammar-first” teaching approach, which in turn leads to a “grammar is writing” and “writing is grammar” teaching philosophy. this also happens in indonesia. students are taught to make grammatically correct sentences while they do not know how to develop those sentences into a coherent whole text. consequently, jumping ideas are found in their text, which make readers difficult to understand the text. for this reason, it is important to teach students how to develop their text in writing class. based on these problems, this study intends to examine to what extent the fourth semester students of the english department of universitas negeri semarang who took genre-based writing class develop their ideas in writing analytical exposition texts, in terms of thematic development. the goal of writing this text type is to persuade readers to support the students‟ point of views on an issue. to achieve it, their texts must be clear and make sense in order to make readers understand their arguments and support their positions. hence, each idea needs to be carefully selected and developed (derewianka: 1990: 76). these can be done by means of thematic development. thematic developmnet is a method of development that contribute to cohesion and coherence of a text (eggins, 2004:324). it signifies the flow of information from one clause to the other in a text. according to eggins (2004: 324) there are three methods of thematic development: theme reiteration, zig-zag theme pattern, and multiple-rheme pattern. each pattern is explained as follows. 1. theme reiteration it is where the item in the theme of the first clause is also selected as the theme of the following clause (belmonte and mccabe-hidalgo, 1998: 18). in other words, each clause in the text shares a common theme. although this type gives a clear focus, a text using this thematic development is claimed to be boring to read or listen to and it indicates a text which is going nowhere (eggins, 2004: 324). an example of this pattern which taken from butt et. al. (2000: 142) is presented as follows. 1 a good teacher needs to be understanding to all children 2 he or she must also be fair and reasonable 3 the teacher must work at a sensible pace and not one thing after another 4 the teacher also needs to speak with a clear voice clause topical n. setiawati & i. permata hapsari & a. suryo priyatmojo / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 144 theme rheme figure 1.1 theme reiteration 1. zig-zag theme pattern in this pattern, the rheme of the first clause becomes the theme for the second clause. according to eggins (2004: 325): the zig-zag pattern achieves cohesion in the text by building on newly introduced information. this gives the text a sense of cumulative development which may be absent in the repeated theme pattern. an example of linier theme pattern which taken from butt et. al. (2000: 143) is presented as follows. 1 phonetics and phonology are concerned with speech ‒ with the ways in which humans produce and hear speech. 2 talking and listening to each other are so much part of human life. clause topical theme rheme figure 1.2 zig-zag theme pattern 2. multiple-rheme pattern in multiple-rheme pattern, a rheme may include a number of different pieces of information, each of which may be taken up as the theme in a number of subsequent clauses. an example of multiple-rheme pattern which taken from butt et. al. (2000: 144) is presented as follows. 1 it is possible to distinguish three auditory dimensions or parameters of phonation, loudness, pitch, and a quality of sound that is sometimes called „timbre‟. n. setiawati & i. permata hapsari & a. suryo priyatmojo / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 145 2 perceived loudness is related to subglottal pressure. 3 pitch is the perceptual correlate of the frequency of vibration of the vocal folds. clause topical theme rheme figure 1.3 multiple-rheme pattern to recapitulate, developing ideas into a coherent text is important in writing, and one way to examine the development is by examining the thematic development of the text. therefore, the study aims to examine to what extent the fourth semester students of the english department of universitas negeri semarang develop their analytical exposition texts, in terms of thematic development. specifically, there were two aspects analyzed in this study: the realization of thematic structure and the most frequent pattern of thematic development used by the students in their analytical exposition texts. methodology of the research this study investigated the realization of thematic structure and discovered the most frequent patterns of thematic development used in 25 analytical exposition texts written by the fourth semester students of the english department of universitas negeri semarang in the academic year 2014/2015 who took genre-based writing class. in order to investigate the thematic structure, the data was examined using thematic structure theory suggested by gerot and wignell (1995). the result of this examination was then further analyzed using thematic development theory by eggins (2004) to discover the most frequent pattern of thematic development used by the students in their analytical exposition texts. the procedures of analyzing the data are explained as follows. 1. thematic structure analysis in analyzing thematic structure, there were several steps to be followed. (1) before analyzing the thematic structure, each text had to be broken up into clauses. these clauses were then numbered so that it would be easier to count the number of clauses in every text. an example is shown below to make this explanation clearer. being too thin is commonly known as underweight. it is simply defined as weighing less than normal, healthy, or required weight. underweight potentially leads high risk of health problem. there are three clauses in the paragraph which then would be put in sequence. 1. being too thin is commonly known as underweight. 2. it is simply defined as weighing less than normal, healthy, or required weight. 3. underweight potentially leads high risk of health problem. n. setiawati & i. permata hapsari & a. suryo priyatmojo / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 146 (2) next, the clauses were examined for their thematic structures by splitting each clause into theme and rheme. each clause might have more than one theme. nevertheless, every clause must contain one and only one topical theme (eggins, 2004: 302). once the topical theme was identified, the rest of the clause would be rheme. 1. being too thin is commonly known as underweight. subject (embedded clause) rheme topical (unmarked) theme 2. it is simply defined as weighing less than normal, healthy, or required weight. subject (nominal group) rheme topical (unmarked) theme 3. underweight potentially leads high risk of health problem. subject (nominal group) rheme topical (unmarked) theme (3) then, the themes were categorized into topical, interpersonal, and textual themes and counted to calculate their quantity and percentage. (4) each type of theme was further analyzed in detail. a) unmarked topical theme (1) nominal group (2) nominal group complex (3) embedded clause (4) predicator b) marked topical theme (1) adverbial as adjunct (2) prepositional phrase as adjunct (3) nominal group as adjunct (4) embedded clause as adjunct c) interpersonal theme n. setiawati & i. permata hapsari & a. suryo priyatmojo / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 147 (1) modal comment adjunct (2) vocatives (3) finite verbal operator (4) wh-element d) textual theme (1) conjunction (2) conjunctive adjunct 2. thematic development analysis to discover thematic development, the clauses that were examined for their thematic structure were used. for this analysis, the theme was named theme 1, theme 2, etc.; the numbers signified the clause numbers. the rheme was also named rheme 1, rheme 2, etc. next, they were analyzed using thematic development theory by eggins. each clause in a text was connected by an arrow to show its type of thematic development. 1 being too thin is commonly known as underweight. 2 it is simply defined as weighing less than normal, healthy, or required weight. 3 underweight potentially leads high risk of health problem. clause topical theme rheme theme 1 rheme 1 theme 2 rheme 2 theme 3 rheme 3 the last step was classifying the thematic development discovered into three types: theme reiteration, zig-zag pattern, and multiple-rheme pattern. result and discussion a. findings 1. thematic structure the first finding is about three types of theme: topical, interpersonal, and textual. there are 703 clauses in the texts. each text, according to eggins (2004: 302), must have a topical theme. however, only 702 topical themes or 99.86% were discovered. it means there is one clause which does not have topical theme. other types of theme were also found in the texts. interpersonal theme occurred 32 times or 4.55% from the overall clause. textual theme, whose function is to build relation between parts of a text, occurred more frequently compared to interpersonal theme. it was found 328 times or 46.66% in the texts. to summarize, topical theme was found mostly in the texts, then followed by textual theme and interpersonal theme. n. setiawati & i. permata hapsari & a. suryo priyatmojo / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 148 thematic structure total number of clauses 703 theme 702 rheme 700 no theme 1 no rheme 3 table 3.1 thematic structure theme total percentage topical theme 702 99.86% interpersonal theme 32 4.55% textual theme 328 4.66% table 3.2 theme types in students‟ analytical exposition texts furthermore, this study found that there are 3 clauses which have no rheme. they are presented as follows. (1) fast responds on internet transaction no rheme subject (nominal group) topical (unmarked) theme (2) first, from the health side. no rheme conjunctive adjunct adjunct (prepositional phrase) textual topical (marked) theme (3) then, cultural awareness of others. no rheme conjunction subject (nominal group) textual topical (unmarked) theme n. setiawati & i. permata hapsari & a. suryo priyatmojo / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 149 a. topical theme topical theme is the element which refers to a participant, a circumstance or the process of the clause (arunsirot 2013: 165). there are two types of topical theme: unmarked and marked. (1) unmarked topical theme in a declarative clause, the unmarked topical theme is the subject of the clause. the subject can be nominal group, nominal group complex, or embedded clause. in a wh-interrogative clause, wh-items have the function of unmarked topical theme because they represent participant or circumstance (halliday 2004: 85). in this study, wh-items are classified as nominal group. in imperative clause, the unmarked topical theme is the predicator. the following is the result of unmarked topical themes which were found in the students‟ texts. unmarked topical theme total percentage nominal group 591 84.07% nominal group complex 11 1.56% embedded clause 26 3.70% predicator 4 0.57% table 3.3 unmarked topical theme the result shows that nominal group gets 84.07%, followed by embedded clause, nominal group complex, and predicator. embedded clause gets 3.70%, nominal group complex gets 1.56%, and predicator gets 0.57%. (2) marked topical theme in a declarative clause, a theme which is other than the subject is referred to as marked topical theme (halliday 2004: 73). the most usual form of marked topical theme is adverbial group or prepositional phrase functioning as adjunct in the clause. the other is nominal group or embedded clause functioning as complement. marked topical theme total percentage adjunct: adverbial 16 2.28% prepositional phrase 49 6.69% complement: nominal group 2 0.28% embedded clause 3 0.43% table 3.4 marked topical theme the table shows that the highest occurrence of marked topical theme is prepositional phrase (6.97%). it is followed by adverbial group, which get 2.28%, embedded clause, which get 0.43%, and nominal group, which gets 0.28%. in short, compared to marked topical theme, unmarked theme has higher frequency. b. interpersonal theme n. setiawati & i. permata hapsari & a. suryo priyatmojo / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 150 interpersonal theme conveys interpersonal meaning. it includes one or more of the following: (1) finite, (2) wh-elements, (3) vocative, and (4) mood and comment adjunct or modal comment adjunct. here is the result of interpersonal theme analysis which was found in the students‟ texts. interpersonal theme total percentage modal comment adjunct 25 3.56% vocatives finite verbal operator 1 0.14% wh-element 6 0.85% table 3.5 interpersonal theme the table shows that the most dominant interpersonal theme is modal comment adjunct which gets 3.56%. the second is wh-element, which gets 0.85%. the third is finite verbal operator, which gets 0.14%, and there is no vocatives occurred in the students‟ analytical exposition texts. c. textual theme textual theme connects a clause to its neighboring clauses. they can be continuatives, conjunctive adjuncts, and conjunctions. since the texts analyzed are written texts, only conjunctive adjuncts and conjunctions were analyzed. textual theme total percentage conjunction 242 34.42% conjunctive adjunct 86 12.09% table 3.6 textual theme the table shows that conjunctions outnumber conjunctive adjuncts. conjunctions occurred 242 times (34.42%), while conjunctive adjuncts occurred 86 times (12.09%). 2. thematic development the second research problem is to examine thematic development which students employed in writing analytical exposition texts. in analyzing thematic development, eggins‟ theory was used. the following is a table showing the result of thematic development of students‟ writings. thematic development total percentage theme reiteration 151 21.48% zig-zag pattern 136 19.35% multiple-rheme pattern 11 1.56% table 3.7 thematic development the table shows that the students in genre-based writing class mostly used theme reiteration to write analytical exposition texts. theme reiteration was found 151 times in the texts or 21.48%. next, zig-zag pattern was found 136 times in the texts or 19.35%. the last pattern, multiple rheme pattern was found only 11 times or 1.56%. b. discussions 1. topical theme halliday (2004: 64) defines theme as an element which serves as the point of departure of the message, the meaning each clause embodies. it can be topical, interpersonal and textual. among these themes, however, topical theme plays a prominent role to the development of a clause since it takes transitivity role such as actor, behaver, senser, or circumstance within the clause (eggins, 2004: 302). therefore, each clause must have one and only one topical theme (eggins, 2004: 302). nevertheless, this study found that there is one clause which does not have topical theme. that clause is presented as follows. n. setiawati & i. permata hapsari & a. suryo priyatmojo / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 151 for example is the leak of answer key by the printing company that have tender to print the final exam script. conjunctive adjunct rheme textual theme as it can be seen, the clause does not have a topical theme. the clause starts with a conjunctive adjunct for example and the following element is a finite is. because its function is to connect ideas between clauses, conjunctive adjunct must be followed immediately by topical theme, which can be a subject, an adjunct or a complement. this, according to arunsirot (2013: 169), is called the problem of empty theme. it might be caused by mother tongue interference (arunsirot 2013:169) or cross-linguistic influence (ellis, 1997: 54). it might happen since giving example in bahasa indonesia usually does not use a conjunction or conjunctive adjunct, yet indonesians use contoh to give an example, which is a noun. in addition to theme, a clause also must have rheme. it is the part of the clause in which theme is developed (eggins, 2004: 300). it typically contains „unfamiliar‟ or „new‟ information about the theme. this study discovered that there are three clauses which do not have rheme. this indicates that the writers fail to develop the themes of the clauses as has been said by eggins (2004: 300) that rheme is the part of the clause in which theme is developed. a. unmarked topical theme analyzing thematic structure also enables us to discern two kinds of topical theme: unmarked and marked topical theme. the former outnumbers the latter. this might be caused by the fact that novice writers, that have difficulty in composing their texts, tend to choose the simplest way of constructing english sentences by putting either nominal group or pronoun in subject position to make sure that the sentence is grammatically correct (arunsirot, 2013: 172). furthermore, ebrahimi and ebrahimi (2012: 775) state, “the low portion of the marked themes in students‟ writings shows that the students‟ writing is less argumentative in nature.” in this study, unmarked topical theme is composed of nominal group, nominal group complex, embedded clause, and predicator. the findings indicate that among those four categories of unmarked topical theme, nominal group occurred mostly on the texts. choosing nominal group to begin a clause or a sentence lowers the possibility of performing incorrect grammar. besides, hyland (2003: 4) states that teaching writing predominantly involves developing learners‟ skills in producing fixed patterns since accuracy and clear exposition are considered the main criteria of good writing. therefore, 84.07% of clauses begin with nominal groups. while nominal group occurred often on the texts, predicator as unmarked topical theme was the other way round. it only hits 0.57% or 4 clauses. the reason might be in relation to the text type of students‟ writings, which is analytical exposition. in structuring this text type, derewianka (1990: 76) cites three obligatory elements: thesis statement, argument which should be supported by evidence and examples, and restatement of writer‟s position. these elements are usually presented in the form of declarative clause as its function is to give information, whereas imperative clause is commonly used in procedure text to give instructions. the reason of the usage of imperative clauses could be to emphasize their arguments on the texts. b. marked topical theme in this study, there are four elements of marked topical theme which were examined on the students‟ texts: adverbial and prepositional phrase function as adjunct, and nominal group and embedded clause function as complement. n. setiawati & i. permata hapsari & a. suryo priyatmojo / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 152 among those kinds of marked topical theme, prepositional phrase is the most dominant on the students‟ texts since it may serve as circumstantial adjunct denoting time, place, and manner (quality, degree, comparison, and means) which is needed in writing analytical exposition text. this is supported by davies in ebrahimi and ebrahimi (2012: 776) who states, “looking at marked theme from functional view point, these students used this theme to put some elements that frequently indicate notion such as validation of internal evidence, location in discourse time or space, and writer viewpoints into the theme position.” in contrast, nominal group as complement only occurred twice. this might be caused by the fact that creating a clause by making nominal group functioning as complement as the theme of the clause is rather difficult for novice writers. ebrahimi and ebrahimi (2012: 776) also find that there is a systematic increase in the use of marked theme moving from sophomore to senior students, which attest that the occurrence of marked topical theme is relevant to students‟ language proficiency and competence in writing. 2. interpersonal theme the second type of theme this study examined is interpersonal theme which consists of four elements: modal comment adjunct, vocatives, finite verbal operator, and wh-element. these elements convey interpersonal meaning on a text, and thirty-two interpersonal themes have been discovered from the texts. among those elements of interpersonal theme modal comment adjunct occurred frequently because it is one of the language features of analytical exposition text, whereas vocative, the element which was not found on the students‟ texts, is not a language feature of analytical exposition text. 3. textual theme in addition to topical and interpersonal themes, textual themes were also discovered in the texts. regarding frequency analysis, the textual theme is used more than interpersonal theme, yet it is less than topical theme. this could be due to the fact that, “an exposition needs to make a point and to persuade the readers to agree with it” (arunsirot, 2013:172). in order to enhance readers‟ solidarity with his point of view, the writer must grab readers‟ attention by ensuring continuity in the text. this can be achieved by using internal conjunctions and external conjunctions (arunsirot, 2013: 172). in this study, internal conjunctions are referred to conjunctions and external conjunctions are referred to conjunctive adjuncts. according to the findings, conjunctions (internal conjunctions) were frequently found on students‟ texts. this may indicate that the students are still novice in writing since conjunctions are typically employed to chain ideas in spontaneous spoken language (schleppegrell, 1996: 272). compared to conjunctions, conjunctive adjuncts are less employed in the students‟ analytical exposition texts. this result might be due to the fact that conjunctive adjuncts are difficult to master even at advanced level (grager and tyson in mudhhi and hussein, 2014: 19). hence, it is not surprising that the students preferred conjunctions to conjunctive adjunct in constructing their ideas into analytical exposition texts. 4. thematic development all thematic development patterns were found in the texts: theme reiteration, zig-zag pattern, and multiple-rheme pattern; however, theme reiteration was mostly preferred as a method to develop students‟ ideas in composing analytical exposition texts. for the writers particularly novice ones, it is easy to organize their ideas this way since the themes chosen are coming from the same participant. for the readers, this kind of paragraph is easy to understand because “having the same participant made theme on a regular basis provides the text with a clear focus” (eggins, 2004: 324). nevertheless, eggins (2004: 324) also states, “a text in which the theme never varied would not only be boring to read or listen to, but would indicate a text which is going nowhere.” besides, according to wang (2007) and mccabe (1999) in ebrahimi n. setiawati & i. permata hapsari & a. suryo priyatmojo / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 153 and ebrahimi (2014: 256), “the use of the reiteration progression pattern makes the text to be simple, repetitive, and redundant.” thus, overusing reiteration pattern may lead to the lack of deep explanation of the ideas introduced since the writer does not expand the information contained in the rheme (belmonte and mccabe-hidalgo, 1998: 22). furthermore, rakhman (2013), who examined thematic development on analytical exposition texts written by high school students, found that theme reiteration was dominant on students‟ texts. this finding is similar to this study; even though, the subjects are from different level of education. college students are expected to have higher competence in using english compared to high school students. however, in reality most of both students employed the same method to develop their ideas in writing analytical exposition texts. therefore, it might be concluded that genre-based students‟ competence in writing analytical exposition is still low. in addition, many of students‟ texts are lack of thematic development. consequently, the texts could not achieve their goal due to difficulty in understanding the writers‟ ideas. this is also supported by wang (2007: 167) who stated, “if a writer fails to control the flow of information from theme to rheme, his or her text is difficult for a reader to follow, because there is no clear signpost directing the reader, who therefore cannot easily follow the progression of an idea or argument.” this condition might be due to the fact that the students might not know about thematic development theory and how to employ it to develop their texts, particularly analytical exposition texts. conclusions based on the research‟s findings and discussions, there are two main points concluded. first, this study found that topical, interpersonal, and textual themes are discovered from the texts, in which unmarked topical theme is dominant on the students‟ analytical exposition texts. it might be caused by the fact that the students are still novice writers. therefore, to ensure that the texts were grammatically correct, they chose the subjects as the point of departure in most clauses on their texts. second, this study also discovered that most students use reiteration pattern to organize the flow of their ideas from one clause to the other. this method of development is the easiest one to apply compared to the other methods. the students simply pick theme on the first clause to be theme on the subsequent clauses. nevertheless, overusing this method might indicate that the students‟ competence in writing, particularly analytical exposition texts, is low since they failed to develop their ideas on the texts using various methods. it is important to teach students thematic development and thematic structure as they help the students organize ideas and improve texts‟ cohesion and coherence. moreover, they might help english teachers and lecturers evaluate, mark, and improve students‟ writings at discourse level. references arunsirot, s. 2013. an analysis of textual metafunction in thai efl students‟ writing. novitas-royal (research on youth and language). 7/2: 160-174. available at https://www.google.co.id/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&ei 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https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.137.7591&rep=rep1&type=pdf [accessed on 2/7/2016]. wang, l. 2007. theme and rheme in the thematic organization of text: implications for teaching academic writing. in the asian efl journal quarterly. vol. 9. no. 1. tortola: asian efl journal press. pp. 164-176. available at http://asian-efl-journal.com/march_2007_ebook.pdf#page 164 [accessed on 9/10/2015]. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 8 elt forum 7 (2) (2018) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt an analysis of students’ error in perception or production in pronouncing english sounds which have different distributions with their native language ryan biantoro, amir sisbiyanto, suprapto  english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in october 2018 approved in november 2018 published in january 2019 ________________ keywords: analysis; error; perception; production; different distribution. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this paper is written based on the error analysis on perception or production in pronouncing english sounds which have different distributions by the students of smp n 2 demak in academic year of 2015/2016. the study was aimed to describe and to explain the most common problems faced by the students in learning english final voiced stops [b, d, g]. this study is using qualitative approach. the population of the study was the eight grader students of smp n 2 demak. the total numbers of the population used in this research are 310. random sampling technique was used to get the sample. the data of this study was obtained from listening and speaking tests. the result of those tests were used as the source of data collection. then, the result was interpreted by using tinambunan‟s criterion grading. in perception test, the error proportion of the 30 students was 6,07% while in the production test, the error proportion was 28,2% out of 30 students. based on the results, it is concluded that the students were considered exellent in perceiving but fair in pronouncing final voiced stops [b, d, g]. © 2018 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: ryanbiantoro@gmail.com r. biantoro, a. sisbiyanto, suprapto / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 9 introduction language is a means of communication. many people in the world use the different languages because of their different locations and historic backgrounds. english as a means of communication plays an important role. it can be seen in the newspapers that vacancies need persons who can speak english well. the implication is that english should be taught to the students earlier before they continue their study to higher level. especially, the students in the universities must be equipped with english because many of the books are written in english. in addition, in order to understand english text books and fulfill the requirement of vacancies, people try to develop their ability to master both spoken and written english. english as a foreign language has got a special attention in indonesia. english has been taught not only in junior high school, senior high school, and vocational school but also in elementary school or even in paud. like any other learners of english as a foreign language, indonesian learners also meet difficulties in learning english since their native is quite different from english. they are not used to produce english sounds. and therefore they may do some errors in pronouncing words in english. this study is motivated by the fact that the main goal of teaching and learning english is communicative competence which is aimed to enable the students to create texts fluently based on the context. one of the components of communicative competence is linguistic competence. linguistic competence refers to creating grammatical sentences, good pronunciation, or having many vocabularies. a good pronunciation is important because different pronunciation may have different meaning and may cause misunderstanding. according to ramelan (1994:6-7) there are several kinds of pronunciation problems appeared in learning foreign language: (1) the existence of a given sound in the target language which is not found in the student‟s language. (2) sounds which have the same phonetic features but differ in their distributions. (3) similar sounds with different allophones. (4) similar sounds with a slight difference in their phonetic features. (5) consonant clusters. this research will be focused on analyzing students‟ error in production and perception in pronouncing english sounds especially those that have different distributions [ b, d, g ] with their native language. i want to find out the difficulties faced by the students in listening or producing english words, especially, in smp negeri 2 demak. methods this research uses descriptive qualitative method to find the answer of the objective of the study that is to describe whether the students do errors in perception or production while pronouncing english words which contains english sounds [ b, d, g ], by collecting, analyzing the data, and drawing conclusion based on the data analysis. the conclusion cannot be expressed in number, but in sentences. qualitative research is a research that produces a procedure of analysis. it doesn‟t use a statistical procedure of analysis or the other quantitative method (moleong, 2010: 6). the purpose of descriptive research is to record exactly what happened, whether the researcher is describing an experimental treatment or something occurring in the natural habitat of study participants (lecompte et al. 1993: 39). moore (1983:110) as quoted by sulistyo (2008:29) states population means a complete set of individuals or object having some common observable characteristic. moreover, a population is a set or collection of all elements possessing one or more attributives of interest.” r. biantoro, a. sisbiyanto, suprapto / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 10 i chose the eighth graders students of smpn 2 demak as the population of this research. it was based on consideration as the population is homogeneous for the research because they were all the same year. the total numbers of the population used in this research are 310 from the eighth grader students smpn 2 demak. after determining the population, then sample was selected. a good sample is one that representatives and reflects the condition of the population from which it was selected. i used a random sampling technique in collecting data because the population was homogenous. i picked up them randomly as the sample of this research. by using this technique, i hoped that the samples would be representative. instrument plays important role in a research project in which the reliability of the instrument will affect the reliability of the data obtained in the research. tinambunan (1988:75) states some advantages of using multiple choice forms. the advantages are as follows: 1. the multiple choice item is adaptable to subject matter content areas as well as different levels of behavior. it can be used in assessing ability to reason, discriminate, interpret, analyze, make inferences and solve problems. 2. the structure of a premise with three alternatives provides less chance for guessing the correct response. 3. three options in the multiple choice test provide more incorrect choice for selections of responses by the students who don‟t know the best or correct answer. 4. the difficulty of multiple choice item can be controlled by changing alternatives. the more homogeneous the alternatives, the more difficult it is to select the correct response from the given alternatives. from the statements above, i use multiple-choice test to obtain data because multiple choice is easy to analyze and to determine how well each alternative functioned in discriminating between the higher achieving and the lower achieving students. furthermore, the test consisted of 90 items. each item contained a blank, in which the respondents were supported to answer by choosing and crossing the best answer a, b, or c. in constructing all the questions in the test items, i used daily vocabularies, which are familiar with the respondents. i hoped they would have no problem with the test items. results and discussions the study aims to analyze the cause of errors made by the eighth year students of smpn 2 demak, whether in the level of perception or production. the data collected through perception and production test. in the perception test, the students were asked to have listening test consisted of 90 multiple choice items and for the speaking test, the students were asked to pronounce 30 english words consisted the english voiced stop [b, d, g]. the tests were used to find the errors in the level of perception and production which later will be analyzed. the data analyzed in this study were those sounds that falsely judged by the students in listening test and english words that pronounced incorrectly in the spesking test. the following table, table 1, shows the number of errors by the students in the listening test. sample code total proportion (%) s01 2 2,2% s02 10 11,1% s03 1 1% r. biantoro, a. sisbiyanto, suprapto / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 11 s04 1 1% s05 4 4,4% s06 12 13,3% s07 12 13,3% s08 11 12,2% s09 15 16,7 s10 4 4,4% s11 2 2,2% s12 5 5,5% s13 8 8,9% s14 3 3,3% s15 1 1% s16 7 7,8% s17 0 0% s18 7 7,8% s19 3 3,3% s20 1 1% s21 7 7,8% s22 6 6,7% s23 4 4,4% s24 3 3,3% s25 3 3,3% s26 7 7,8% s27 2 2,2% s28 6 6,7% s29 5 5,5% s30 2 2,2% total 154 average 5,13 6,07% table 3.1. errors by the students in the listening test table 1 shows that the students didn‟t find any difficulties in perceiving [b, d, g] sounds. the lowest proportion of errors was 0% and the highest proportion is only 16,7%. the average (mean) proportion of the errors in listening test were 6,07%, less than 10%, which means the students didn‟t find any difficulties to differentiate words contained english voiced stop [b, d, g] and the distractor words based on brown absolute rating scale. in the production test, the students were asked to pronounce 30 english words contains english voiced stop [b, d, g]. then, i analyze the errors made by the students as shown in the table 2 below. r. biantoro, a. sisbiyanto, suprapto / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 12 no words freq propo-rtion 1 cab 12 40,0% 2 cob 8 26,7% 3 cub 9 30,0% 4 hob 14 46,7% 5 mob 9 30,0% 6 nab 12 40,0% 7 nob 11 36,7% 8 rib 13 43,3% 9 rob 11 36,7% 10 tab 12 40,0% total errors 111 average 11,1 37% table 3.2. substitution errors of voiced stop [ b ] table 2. shown the errors made by the students of smpn 2 demak in production test. the first 10 items in the production test were the english words that contains final voiced stop [ b ]. they were cab, cob, cub, hob, mob, nab, nob, rib, rob, and tab. as shown in the table 4.2 there were a total of 111 errors made by the students, with the average errors of 11,1 (37%). the highest frequency of error was also found in the item number 4 for 46,7% of the students made error. the words number 4 is „hob‟, the correct pronounciation is [ hab ] where the students‟ pronounciation was [ hap ]. since in bahasa the voiced stops are never found in utterance final position, indonesian students may have difficulty to pronounce the final voiced stop. no words freq propo-rtion 1 bad 9 30,0% 2 bed 8 26,7% 3 code 3 10,0% 4 food 8 26,7% 5 had 13 43,3% 6 hid 4 13,3% 7 kid 5 16,7% 8 led 7 23,3% 9 nod 6 20,0% 10 sad 7 23,3% total errors 70 average 7,0 23,3% table 3.3. substitution errors of voiced stop [ d ] the second 10 items in the production test were the english words that contains voiced stop [ d ]. they were bad, bed, code, food, had, hid, kid, led, nod, and sad. as shown in the table 4.3 there were a total of 70 errors made by the students, with the average errors of 7,0 (23,3%). the high frequency of error was also found in the item number 5 for 43,3% of the students made error. the words number 4 is „had’, the correct pronounciation is [ hæd ] where the students‟ pronounciation was [ had ]. since in bahasa the voiced stops are never found in utterance final position, indonesian students may have difficulty to pronounce the final voiced stop. r. biantoro, a. sisbiyanto, suprapto / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 13 no words freq propo-rtion 1 bag 8 26,7% 2 brig 9 30,0% 3 bug 7 23,3% 4 dog 9 30,0% 5 dug 7 23,3% 6 log 5 16,7% 7 mug 8 26,7% 8 pig 5 16,7% 9 rig 6 20,0% 10 tag 9 30,0% total errors 73 average 7,3 24,3% table 3.4. substitution errors of voiced stop [ g ] the last 10 items in the production test were the english words that contains voiced stop [ g ]. they were bag, brig, bug, dog, dug, log, mug, pig, rig, and tag. as shown in the table 4.4 there were a total of 73 errors made by the students, with the average errors of 7,3 (24,3%). the high frequency of error was also found in the item number 2, 4, and 10 for 30,0% of the students made error. the word number 2 is „brig’, word number 4 is „dog‟, word number 10 is „tag‟ , the correct pronounciation for the word brig is [ brɪg ] where the students‟ pronounciation was [ brɪk ], second, the correct pronounciation for the word dog is [ dɔg ] where the students‟ pronounciation was [ dɔk ], third, the correct pronounciation for the word tag is [ tæg ] while the students‟ pronounciation was [ tæk ]. the students found it difficult to pronounce the english word „brig’, „dog‟, and „tag‟ since in bahasa the voiced stops are never found in utterance final position. from the table 1, we can see that the students found it easy to determine the right answer in the listening (perception) test. it can be seen from the value of the mean or the average errors of the students. tinambunan (1988:103) says the mean is the average of a group of scores. it is represented by the letter m or (x). the mean is the sum of all the values in a distribution divided by the number of cases or it is the average or arithmetic average of a group of scores. tinambunan (1998: 103) also adds “the computation of mean from ungrouped data is done by adding a series of scores and then dividing this sum by the number of scores.” there are an average of 84,8% of correct answers, while the incorrect answers are on the average of 5,51%. i classified the students‟ achievement by using five letters, those are a, b, c, d and f, which expressed various level of achievement. in addition, it was relatively easy to translate from letter grading to percentage grading. the standard is as follows: percentage of correct answer grade level of achievement 93-100 percent correct a = outstanding outstanding achievement 85-92 percent correct b = very good above average achievement 75-84 percent correct c = satisfactory average achievement 60-74 percent correct d = very weak below average achievement below 60 percent correct f = fail insufficient achievement r. biantoro, a. sisbiyanto, suprapto / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 14 the students‟ achievement could be classified based on the categorization or grade. based on the categorization, the students‟ achievement can be classified as follows: number of students grade percentages of students 20 a 66,7 % 9 b 30 % 1 c 3,3% 0 d 0 % 0 f 0% the result of the test showed clearly that 20 students or 66,7 % got a, 9 students or 30 % got b, and 1 students or 3,3 % got c. the result from the analysis showed that 29 students or 63.33% of 30 students got very good grade. it means that they found no difficulties in the listening test. speaking test no sample code correct incorrect 1 s01 96,7% 3,3% 2 s02 56,7% 43,3% 3 s03 73,3% 26,7% 4 s04 80,0% 20,0% 5 s05 96,7% 3,3% 6 s06 93,3% 6,7% 7 s07 30,0% 70,0% 8 s08 46,7% 53,3% 9 s09 70,0% 30,0% 10 s10 90,0% 10,0% 11 s11 96,7% 3,3% 12 s12 70,0% 30,0% 13 s13 76,7% 23,3% 14 s14 0% 100% 15 s15 93,3% 6,7% 16 s16 40,0% 60,0% 17 s17 86,7% 13,3% 18 s18 76,7% 23,3% 19 s19 40,0% 60,0% r. biantoro, a. sisbiyanto, suprapto / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 15 20 s20 93,3% 6,7% 21 s21 66,7% 33,3% 22 s22 96,7% 3,3% 23 s23 0% 100% 24 s24 73,3% 26,7% 25 s25 53,3% 46,7% 26 s26 33,3% 66,7% 27 s27 90,0% 10,0% 28 s28 70% 30% 29 s29 73,3% 26,7% 30 s30 80,0% 20,0% average 68,11% 31,89% from the table above, we can see that the students found it easy to determine the right answer in the listening (perception) test. it can be seen from the value of the mean or the average errors of the students. there are an average of 84,8% of correct answers, while the incorrect answers are on the average of 5,51%. i classified the students‟ achievement by using five letters, those are a, b, c, d and f, which expressed various level of achievement. in addition, it was relatively easy to translate from letter grading to percentage grading. conclusions after conducting the research, doing the analysis, and presenting the results, in this last chapter, i will draw a conclusion from what i have discussed in the previous chapters. subsequently, i will also offer a number of suggestions regarding with the teaching and learning practice in smp n 2 demak. based on the interview in the school under study, narrative text was stated to be the most difficult one among the other text types (functional text, procedure, recount, descriptive, report) for the students. in narrative text, students are often asked to figure out the message, main idea, and even particular information from the story. to overcome this problem, the teachers manage this problem by implementing various kinds of teaching techniques. one of them is deducing meaning from context. it is applied as a technique which enables the students to deduce meaning of a word by observing its context. this was the reason why this research is conducted whether or not there was a significant correlation between the students‟ mastery of deducing meaning from context and their reading comprehension of narrative text. the data analysis showed that both students‟ mastery of deducing meaning from context and reading comprehension of narrative text were still poor. it was proved from the average of deducing meaning from context was 53.3 and reading comprehension of narrative text was 56.7. the result of the data analysis also showed that the correlation coefficient between the two variables was 0.85, while the critical value for 5 % significance level was 0.433. thus, it could be concluded that there was a very significant correlation between the students‟ mastery of deducing meaning from context and their reading comprehension of narrative text. from the result of analysis it could also be seen that in general both the students‟ mastery of deducing meaning from context and their reading comprehension of narrative text were still poor. r. biantoro, a. sisbiyanto, suprapto / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 16 based on the finding, i would like to give some suggestions to be considered. 1. teachers as the center of the teaching and learning process play an important role in every development of their students. language teaching is different from other subjects, teachers not only dealing with the language itself but has to know the art of using the language, the art of how the native people using their language. english teachers, they play more than two roles since they‟re not only dealing with english itself but also the native language of their students. many of the students still carry the attributes of their mother language. teachers must learns more about pronunciations. they should be a good model for their students. instead of just showing whats right or wrong, they can ask their students the reason why it is right or wrong. 2. the students often struggle to pronounce some unfamiliar words in english. so it will be better if the students enrich their vocabulary through real life, such as television, social media, and internet. social media can be extremely useful to them if they use it well. references alderson, j. charles. 2000. assessing reading. melbourne: cambridge university press. arikunto, suharsimi. 2010. prosedur penelitian suatu pendekatan praktik. jakarta : rineka cipta. bastian, aj. 2013. a correlation study between student‟s reading interest toward their vocabulary mastery. skripsi. salatiga : stain. pdf brown, h. d. 2001. teaching by principles an interactive approach to language pedagogy (2nd ed). san francisco state university. brown, douglas h. 2004. language assessment, principle and classroom practices. san francisco: longman. cahyono & widiati. 2006. the teaching of efl reading. teflin journal, 17(1):46. context clues. http://www.warrencountyschools.org/userfiles/1593/context %20clues%20multiple%20choice%20exercise.pdf. retrieved on june, 15 2016 deluca, betty. 2010. learn new words using context. chapel hill: university of north carolina. http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/3971. retrieved on december, 25 2015. english language arts 2013. http://www.louisianabelieves.com/resources/contact -us. retrieved on june, 15 2016 english language arts reading comprehension test. massachusetts english language arts curriculum framework (2001). http://www.doe.mass.edu/ frameworks/current.html. retrieved on june, 15 2016 fitriani, walida wahid. 2008. the influence of skimming technique on reading a narrative text. final project english department fbs unnes. hudson, t. 2007. teaching second language reading. oxford: oxford university press. margono. 2004. metode penelitian pendidikan. jakarta : rineka cipta. r. biantoro, a. sisbiyanto, suprapto / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 17 mart, çağrı tuğrul. 2012. guessing the meanings of words from context: why and how. international journal of applied linguistics & english literature. 1. 6. http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/ijalel.v.1n.6p.177. retrieved on december, 12 2015. mikulecky, beactrice s and jeffries, linda. 1997. basic reading power. new pyork: addison wesley longman. mikulecky, beactrice s. 1990. a short course in teaching reading skills. new york: addison wesley publishing company. neo, e. 2003. narrative for o‟ level english. singapore : pearson education education asia pte ltd. nuttal, c. 1996. teaching reading skills in a foreign language. oxford: heinneman. oklahoma school testing program. oklahoma core curriculum tests. http://sde.ok.gov/sde/sites/ok.gov.sde/files. retrieved on june, 15 2016. pradana, hendry setia. 2011. the correlation between vocabulary mastery and reading comprehension of the tenth grade students of smk negeri 1 batang in academic year of 2010/2011. final project english department fbs unnes. prihasiwi, paramita rizkie. 2011. improving students‟ vocabulary mastery in reading comprehension through deducing meaning of unfamiliar words from the context and vocabulary building in class viig of smp n 2 pleret in the academic year of 2010/2011. thesis. yogyakarta : uny. pdf saleh, mursid. 2012. introduction to linguistic and educational research. semarang : unnes. sari, dian puspita. 2011. the use of directed reading – thinking activity in teaching narrative text reading. final project english department fbs unnes. the massachusetts comprehensive assessment system. release of spring 2002 test items. http://www.doe.mass.edu. retrieved on june, 15 2016. toba, rostanti. 2009. students‟ mastery of reading skills and its correlation with their reading comprehension ability. thesis. bandung : upi. pdf. vallette, rebecca m. 1997. modern language testing. english : harcourt college publication. california standards test. wiyasa, pangestu adi. 2015. improving students‟ english reading skills by using peer assisted learning strategies of grade vii students of smp 1 jogonalan klaten in the academic year of 2013/2014. thesis. yogyakarta : uny.pdf. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 37 elt forum 6 (1) (2017) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt clustering technique and peer assessment in teaching writing recount text to junior high school students eka yunita widyawati, novia trisanti english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in june 2017 approved in july 2017 published in august 2017 ________________ keywords: clustering; peer assessment; recount text; writing ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this study was conducted under the consideration of the observation in smpn 39 semarang that many students faced problems in learning to write a text. this research is aimed at investigating the effectiveness of using clustering technique and peer assessment in teaching writing recount text compared to three-phase technique and the students’ perception of the lesson. a quasi-experimental was used as the research design in this study. the subjects were the eighth graders of smpn 39 semarang in the academic year of 2016/2017 with 60 students as the samples. the control group (viiic) was treated using three-phase technique and teacher assessment, while the experimental group (viii d) was taught using clustering technique and peer assessment. the findings revealed that the use of clustering technique and peer assessment significantly improved the students’ achievement in writing recount text. it was proven by the result of t-test in which the t-value (4.31) was higher than t-table (2.00). in addition, based on the result of the questionnaire, 90% of the students agreed that the use of clustering technique and peer assessment improved the students’ writing achievement. all in all, the use of clustering technique and peer assessment is more effective for teaching writing recount text to junior high school students than three-phase technique and teacher assessment. moreover, most of the students have a positive perception to the lesson. © 2017 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: unnes_english@yahoo.com e. yunita widyawati & n. trisanti / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 38 introduction as one of the four language skills which should be mastered by junior school students, writing is different since the writers should arrange the words and phrases into some sentences which can be clearly understood by the readers. meyers (2005) stated that writing is a way to produce language which you do naturally when you speak. a good writing needs a long process that may include planning, drafting, editing (reflecting and revising), and writing final version (harmer 2004). some elements including a topic sentence, supporting sentences, concluding sentence, unity, and coherence also should be considered in writing (oshima and hogue 2006). according to school-based curriculum, any text types in english should be mastered by junior school students; one of them is recount text. recount text is one of the text types which should be mastered by the eighth-grade students. according to anderson (2003), recount text is a text that retells past events in the order in which they happen. in constructing a recount text, a writer has to consider some steps; (1) first paragraph that gives background information including the participants, place, and time, (2) a series of paragraphs that retell the events in the order in which they happened, and (3) a concluding paragraph. in addition, the specific language features including the use of proper nouns, descriptive words, past tense, and words that show the order of events are used in writing a recount text. however, based on the observation in smpn 39 semarang, most of the students faced any problems in writing, especially in writing a recount text. the main problem was they did not know what they had to write. also, they felt difficult to organize their idea into a good text. moreover, most of the students frequently made errors in grammatical use, punctuation, conjunction, mechanics, and spelling. as the solution of these problems, any different techniques should be applied in teaching writing. clustering is one of many techniques that may be useful in writing. clustering is one of prewriting techniques that can be used by a writer to produce ideas (oshima and hogue 1997). it helps the students to generate any ideas which come to students’ thinking before they start writing. according to noel (2005), there are a number of steps of using clustering technique. first, the writer can put a word, phrase, or sentence in a circle in the center of a blank page. then, the writer can put every new idea in smaller circles around the first circle. lastly, it is ended by drawing a line to another circle to its relationship to a previous idea. another technique that may be useful in writing is peer assessment. roberts (2006) defined peer assessment as a process of having students critically reflect upon, and perhaps suggest grades or comments for, the learning of their peers. according to brown (2004), it offers some benefits, such as direct involvement of students in the learning process, the encouragement of autonomy, and the increase in motivation. however, peer assessment also gives some important drawbacks, such as subjectivity and the ability to discern their own errors. trisanti (2013) explained some general issues that should be considered in using peer assessment. first, the teacher should explain to the students by giving a copy of form used for assessment and evaluation. second, the teacher should give an opportunity to the students to practice assessing other group members in which their assessment do not affect project scores. third, the teacher should provide feedback in order to improve the students’ performance. based on the background above, this research is aimed at investigating the effectiveness of using clustering technique and peer assessment for teaching writing recount text compared to threephase technique and teacher assessment and describing the students’ perception to the lesson. in order to achieve the objectives of this research, a number of theories and procedures are used. e. yunita widyawati & n. trisanti / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 39 methodology of the research the research design used in the study was matching-only pre-test-post-test control group design by fraenkel and wallen (2008: 271). the design is presented as the following: group pre-test treatment post-test experimental o1 x o2 control o3 c o4 table 2.1 pre-test post-test control group design from table 1, it can be described that the subjects are divided into the experimental and control groups. the basic quality of the subjects is first checked by giving pre-test to both groups. then, the two groups are taught the same topic, but they are treated by using different techniques of teaching. post-test is given after the treatment and the result can be computed and analyzed. the subjects of the study were the eighth-grade students of smpn 39 semarang in the academic year of 2016/2017 with 274 students. the samples were viii c, as the control group, consisted of 30 students and viii d, as the experimental group, consisted of 30 students. the control group was treated by using three-phase technique and teacher assessment, while the experimental group was treated by using clustering technique and peer assessment. in collecting the data, two kinds of instrument were used. the first instrument was writing test which was divided into try-out, pre-test, and post-test. the writing test was given to investigate the effectiveness of using clustering technique and peer assessment for teaching writing recount text to junior high school students compared to three-phase technique and teacher assessment. another instrument, questionnaire, was distributed to describe the students’ perception of using clustering technique and peer assessment for teaching writing recount text. questionnaire design used in the study was closed-ended questions consisting of ten statements. a number of steps were done in order to achieve the objectives of the study. before conducting the research, the try-out test was conducted to see the reliability and validity of the test. it was needed because a good instrument should be reliable and valid. after calculating and analyzing the reliability and validity of the instrument, the pre-test was given to the experimental and control groups. after scoring the pre-test of the students and analyzing them, the same material about recount text was given to both groups. however, they were taught by using the different teaching techniques. the experimental group students were taught by using clustering technique and peer assessment, whereas the control group was treated by using three-phase technique and teacher assessment. the treatments were given in four meetings. after completing the treatments, the post-test was given to both groups. in addition, the questionnaire was distributed to the students of the experimental group to see the students’ perception of using clustering technique and peer assessment for teaching writing recount text. after calculating and analyzing the post-test of the students, the t-test was calculated to see the significant improvement of the students in writing recount text. in addition, the students’ responses to each statement were computed and interpreted to describe the students’ perception of using clustering and peer assessment techniques for teaching writing recount text. in order to find out the validity of the data, this study used methods triangulation. according to hales (2010:14), methods triangulation is the use of multiple methods to study a situation or phenomenon. some methods in collecting the data, such as observation, test, and questionnaire were used. these multiple methods were used to make the methods completed each other. e. yunita widyawati & n. trisanti / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 40 result and analysis in this part, the result and analyses of try-out, pre-test, post-test, and questionnaire are provided. moreover, the discussion of the research findings is presented clearly at the end of this part. try-out the try-out was conducted to find out the validity and reliability of the instruments. it was conducted in viii b with 29 students who took the try-out test. to find out the validity of the test, the writer used content validity. the test was compared with the materials dealing with the curriculum requirement. the school-based curriculum states that the-eighth grade students are supposed to write a simple recount text. in reveals that the test is valid since the test is compatible with the curriculum requirement. another characteristic of a good test is reliable. since the instrument was writing test, the writer used inter-rater reliability. according to nunnaly (1960) in ghozali (2006), an instrument is considered as reliable if the value of cronbach’s alpha is higher than 0.6 (>0.6). the computation of inter-rater reliability of the test using spss 21.0 program is presented as follows: reliability statistics cronbach's alpha cronbach's alpha based on standardized items n of items ,770 ,776 2 table 3.1 the reliability analysis of the test from table 2, it can be seen that the value of cronbach’s alpha is 0.77. it means that the test is reliable since the value of cronbach’s alpha (0.77) is higher than 0.6. in addition, the reliability of peer assessment rubric used as an instrument in this research was also checked. the calculation of inter-rater reliability of peer assessment rubric used as instrument is presented in the following: reliability statistics cronbach's alpha cronbach's alpha based on standardized items n of items ,830 ,835 2 table 2.2 the reliability analysis of the instrument (peer assessment rubric) table 3 shows that the value of cronbach’s alpha is 0.83. it can be concluded that peer assessment rubric used an instrument in this research is reliable since the value of cronbach’s alpha is higher than 0.6 (0.83>0.6). from the overall analysis above, the instruments can be used in the real research since they fulfill the requirements of a good instrument pre-test pre-test was given to the experimental and control groups in order to know the basic ability of the students in writing recount text. from the pre-test result, the mean scores of the students in both groups were analyzed. the mean score of the control group students was 66.73, while the experimental group students was 66.97. it could be concluded that the experimental and control group students had almost equal achievement in writing recount text before getting the treatment. e. yunita widyawati & n. trisanti / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 41 however, the homogeneity and normality of the test should be computed to support the statement. the homogeneity of the pre-test is computed in order to know whether the data of each group are homogeneous. the data are homogeneous if the significance value is higher than the significance level (0.05) (ghozali 2006). the pre-test homogeneity computation is presented as the following: test of homogeneity of variances pretest levene statistic df1 df2 sig. ,000 1 58 ,989 table 3.3 the homogeneity test of the experimental and control groups pre-test from table 4, it can be seen that the significance value (0.99) is higher than 0.05. it reveals that the pre-test data are homogeneous. in other words, the population of the control and experimental groups has the same achievement before receiving the treatment. the normality of the pre-test also should be analyzed to find out whether the data are normal or not. according to ghozali (2006), the data are considered normally distributed if the value of asym.sig.(2-tailed) of kolmogorov-sminorv test is higher than the significance level (0.05). the computation of normality test using kolmogorov-sminorv test in spss 21.0 program is presented below: one-sample kolmogorov-smirnov test experimental group pretest control group pretest n 30 30 normal parametersa,b mean 66,97 66,73 std. deviation 5,881 6,209 most extreme differences absolute ,099 ,099 positive ,099 ,099 negative -,081 -,090 kolmogorov-smirnov z ,540 ,544 asymp. sig. (2-tailed) ,932 ,928 table 3.4 the normality test of the experimental and control groups pre-test from table 5, it can be seen that the result of one-sample kolmogorov-smirnov test (asymp.sig.2-tailed) of experimental group pre-test is 0.93. it indicates that the data of the experimental group pre-test are normally distributed since the value of asymp.sig.(2-tailed) (0.93) is higher than 0.05. in addition, the value of asymp.sig.(2-tailed) of control group pre-test is 0.93. it reveals that the data of the control group pre-test are also normal because the asymp.sig.(2-tailed) value is higher than 0.05 (0.93>0.05). from the overall analysis above, the treatments can be given to the experimental and control groups since the data of pre-test are normally distributed and homogeneous. treatments the different treatments were given to the control and experimental groups. the treatment using clustering technique and peer assessment was given to the experimental group, while the e. yunita widyawati & n. trisanti / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 42 control group was treated by using three-phase technique and teacher assessment. the treatments were given in four meetings. at the first meeting, the material about recount text was explained to both groups, and they did the same activity and task. at the second meeting, both groups wrote a recount text in groups. at the third meeting, they did the activity in pairs and at the fourth meeting, they did it individually. post-test post-test was conducted to both groups after completing all the activities above to measure the students’ achievement after getting the treatment. based on the post-test result, the mean score of the experimental group was 80.33, while the control group was 74.17. the result indicates that the students’ improvement of the experimental group is higher than the control group. however, the t-test should be computed as a statistical evidence to prove the statement. before calculating the t-test, the homogeneity and normality of the post-test should be calculated and analyzed first to know whether the data are homogeneous and normal or not. the result of homogeneity post-test computation is presented as follows: test of homogeneity of variances levene statistic df1 df2 sig. ,000 1 58 ,989 table 3.5 the homogeneity test of post-test from table 6, it can be seen that the significance value (0.99) is higher than 0.05. it reveals that the post-test scores have the same variance. it can be concluded that the population of the control and experimental groups is homogeneous. the normality of post-test also should be computed first in order to see whether the data are normal or not. the normality test of post-test is provided below: one-sample kolmogorov-smirnov test experimental group posttest control group posttest n 30 30 normal parametersa,b mean 80,33 74,17 std. deviation 5,313 5,760 most extreme differences absolute ,143 ,122 positive ,126 ,089 negative -,143 -,122 kolmogorov-smirnov z ,786 ,667 asymp. sig. (2-tailed) ,568 ,765 table 3.6 the normality test of the experimental and control groups post-test table 5 shows that the value of (asymp. sig. 2-tailed) of the experimental group post-test is 0.57. it indicates that the data of the experimental group post-test are normally distributed because the significance value (0.57) is higher than 0.05. moreover, the asymp.sig.(2-tailed) value of the control group post-test (0.77) is also higher than 0.05. it reveals that the data of the control group post-test are also normal. the mean scores difference of pre-test and post-test e. yunita widyawati & n. trisanti / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 43 the improvement of the experimental and control groups in writing recount text can be seen through the mean scores difference of pre-test and post-test which is presented in the following chart: diagram 3.1 the mean scores difference of pre-test and post-test chart 1 shows that the mean score of the experimental group pre-test is 66.97. meanwhile, the mean score of the post-test is 80.33. it reveals that there is significant improvement of the pre-test and the post-test scores achieved by the experimental group students. on the other hand, the writing achievement of the control group students also improves. it is 66.73 for the pre-test and 74.17 for the post-test. in indicates that there is less improvement than the experimental group. the difference of the experimental group mean scores (13.36) is higher than the control group (7.44). it can be concluded that there is a better improvement of the experimental group’s writing achievement after receiving the treatments by using clustering technique and peer assessment. t-test analysis the purpose of calculating the t-test is to examine the hypotheses of this study. the improvement of the experimental and control groups is crucial to be tested as a quantitative evidence to find out whether the two groups have a significant difference in writing recount text. the result of t-test is presented as the following: group statistics class n mean std. deviation std. error mean posttest experimental group 30 80,33 5,313 ,970 control group 30 74,17 5,760 1,052 levene's test for equality of variances t-test for equality of means f sig. t df sig. (2tailed) mean difference std. error difference 95% confidence interval of the difference lower upper 66.73 66.97 74.17 80.33 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 control group experimental group the mean scores of pre-test and post-test pre-test post-test e. yunita widyawati & n. trisanti / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 44 posttest equal variances assumed ,00 ,99 4,31 58 ,00 6,17 1,43 3,30 9,03 equal variances not assumed 4,31 57,63 ,00 6,17 1,43 3,30 9,03 table 3.7 independent sample t-test of the experimental and control groups post-test independent samples test based on the independent sample t-test result above, the test is significant, t(58)=4.31, p<0.05, d=95. it means that the t-value from 58 degree of freedom is 4.31. the probability of obtaining tvalue is 0.5 and the effect size is 0.95. the 95% confidence interval for the average percentage of post-test score ranges from 3.30 to 9.03. an examination of the group mean scores indicates that the post-test score of the experimental group (m=80.33, sd=5.31) is significantly higher than the control group (m=74.17, sd=5.76). in sum, after analyzing the result of t-test calculation, the use of clustering technique and peer assessment is more effective for teaching writing recount text to the eighth-grade students of a junior high school than three-phase technique and teacher assessment. the students’ achievement in writing recount text significantly improves after getting the treatment by using clustering technique and peer assessment. questionnaire result after conducting post-test, the questionnaire was given to the experimental group. the purpose of giving the questionnaire is to see the students’ perception of using clustering technique and peer assessment for teaching writing recount text. the result of the calculation of the students’ responses to each statement in the questionnaire can be seen in the table below: no pernyataan jawaban 1 2 3 4 5 1 saya menyukai pelajaran bahasa inggris. 0% 0% 30% 40% 30% 2 saya menyukai pelajaran menulis dalam bahasa inggris (writing). 0% 3% 30% 57% 10% 3 teknik clustering sangat mudah digunakan oleh siswa. 0% 0% 17% 63% 20% 4 teknik clustering membantu saya untuk mengembangkan ide-ide. 0% 3% 10% 70% 17% 5 dengan menggunakan teknik clustering, saya dapat mengembangkan ide-ide menjadi sebuah paragraf dengan lebih mudah. 0% 3% 10% 63% 23% 6 saya menyukai teknik peer assessment dalam pembelajaran menulis teks recount. 0% 10% 33% 53% 3% 7 suasana kelas menjadi menyenangkan setelah diberikan pembelajaran dengan menggunakan teknik peer assessment. 0% 7% 33% 60% 0% 8 penggunaan teknik peer assessment dapat meningkatkan pemahaman bagaimana cara 0% 3% 3% 80% 13% e. yunita widyawati & n. trisanti / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 45 menulis yang baik. 9 penggunaan teknik peer assessment membantu saya dalam memperbaiki penulisan teks recount menjadi lebih baik. 0% 7% 7% 67% 20% 10 penggunaan teknik clustering dan peer assessment dapat meningkatkan kemampuan menulis saya. 0% 7% 3% 57% 33% table 3.8 the result of the questionnaire from the table above, the calculation result of the students’ responses to each statement in the questionnaire can be drawn as the following chart: diagram 3.2 the result of the questionnaire based on the table 9 and chart 2, the result of the questionnaire can be interpreted. the first statement is intended to know whether the students are interested in english or not. from the result, it indicates that most of the students are interested in english. however, there are some students that do not quite agree about it. the second statement in the questionnaire is to see the students’ interest in writing. from the result, it indicates that most of the students like writing. nevertheless, there are some students that do not quite agree and few students disagree about the statement. the third statement in the questionnaire is intended to find out whether clustering technique is easy to be applied by the students or not. from the table and chart, it can be concluded that clustering technique is easy to be applied by almost all students. nonetheless, there are a few students that do not totally understand how to apply clustering technique in writing. the fourth statement in the questionnaire is to see whether clustering technique helps the students to produce and explore their ideas or not. the result shows that most of the students agree that clustering technique helps them so much to produce and explore their ideas. by using clustering technique, they can write any ideas come into their mind before writing a draft. however, there are some students that do not quite agree and disagree that the technique helps them to produce and explore their ideas. the fifth statement in the questionnaire is intended to find out whether clustering technique facilitates the students to develop their ideas into a recount text. from the result, it reveals that most of the students agree that clustering technique helps them to develop their ideas into a recount text 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% strongly disagree disagree not quite agree agree strongly agree questionnaire findings question 1 question 2 question 3 question 4 question 5 question 6 question 7 question 8 question 9 question 10 e. yunita widyawati & n. trisanti / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 46 easily. clustering technique helps them in developing words or phrases into sentences. then, it helps for developing some sentences into some paragraphs and a text. however, some students argue that clustering technique does not facilitate them to develop their ideas into a recount text easily. the sixth statement in the questionnaire is to describe the students’ opinion of using peer assessment for teaching writing recount text. the result shows that more than a half of the number of the students like using peer assessment technique for teaching writing recount text. nonetheless, almost a half of the number of the students argue that they do not quite agree and disagree with the statement. they feel that they are less interested in peer assessment technique because it is not easy to do. also, they sometimes feel reluctant when giving assessment and suggestion to their peers. the seventh statement in the questionnaire is to know the class condition when using peer assessment technique. by seeing the result of the questionnaire, more than a half of the number of the students argue that teaching writing recount text using peer assessment is enjoyable because they have time to discuss with their classmates to evaluate their peers’ work. they can read it and then give assessment and suggestions. however, almost a half of the number of the students do not quite agree and disagree with the statement. they think that using peer assessment in writing recount text is challenging because they do not have good knowledge in writing. the eighth statement in the questionnaire is intended to find out whether peer assessment improves the students’ understanding and knowledge of a good writing or not. the result reveals that more than three-quarter of the students agree that their understanding of a good writing improves after they receive the treatment by using peer assessment. they can learn from the assessment and suggestions given by their friends. nevertheless, few students are not sure that their understanding of a good writing improves after peer assessment is implemented for teaching writing recount text. the ninth statement in the questionnaire is to find out whether peer assessment technique facilitates the students to revise and edit their own writing. from the calculation result, it indicates that most of the students agree that peer assessment technique facilitates them to revise and edit their writing. they may be aware of the mistakes and errors they make so that they can revise their writing into a better result. nonetheless, some students do not quite agree and disagree with the statement. the last statement in the questionnaire is to see whether the use of clustering technique and peer assessment improves the students’ achievement in writing recount text or not. from the students’ responses to the item, it indicates that the use of clustering technique and peer assessment significantly improves the students’ ability in writing recount text. each component of writing improves after receiving the treatment by using clustering technique and peer assessment. however, there are few students argue that the use of clustering technique and peer assessment does not improve their achievement in writing recount text. discussion of research findings the first objective of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of using clustering technique and peer assessment for teaching writing recount to junior high school students compared to three-phase technique and teacher assessment. the research findings revealed that the use of clustering technique and peer assessment was more effective for teaching writing recount text to junior high school students than three-phase technique and teacher assessment. it was proven by the result of pre-test, post-test and t-test. the mean score of the experimental students in pre-test was 66.97, while the control group was 66.73. it indicated that both groups had almost the same achievement in writing recount text before the treatment given. after getting the treatment, the mean scores of the two groups improved. the mean score of the experimental group was 80.33, while the control group was 74.17. the data proved that the experimental group achieved a better result than the control group after receiving the treatment by using clustering technique and peer assessment for writing a recount text. e. yunita widyawati & n. trisanti / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 47 moreover, the t-test was used to prove the statement. based on independent sample t-test, the t-value was 4.31. it revealed that the t-value (4.31) was higher than t-table (2.00). in addition, the significance value was lower than 0.05. it indicated that there was a significant difference in writing recount text between the experimental and control groups. hence, the working hypothesis (ha) which stated that “the use of clustering technique and peer assessment is effective for teaching writing recount text to the eighth-grade students of smpn 39 semarang in the academic year of 2016/2017” was accepted and the null hypothesis (ho) which stated that “the use of clustering technique and peer assessment is not effective for teaching writing recount text to the eighth-grade students of smpn 39 semarang in the academic year of 2016/2017” was rejected. second, the study was aimed at describing the students’ perception of using clustering technique and peer assessment for teaching writing recount text. based on the result of the questionnaire, most of the students had positive perception to the use of clustering technique and peer assessment for teaching writing recount text to junior high school students. from the calculation, 70% of the students were interested in english and 67% of the students were interested in writing. however, there were few students that stated that they did not quite agree with these statements. in addition, most of the students had a positive response to the use of clustering technique. from the questionnaire finding, 83% of the students agreed that clustering technique was easy to be applied by the students. 87 % of the students agreed that it helped them much more to produce and explore their ideas. moreover, it facilitated 86 % of the students to develop the ideas into a recount text easily. by using this technique, the content and organization of the text improved. however, there were some students argued that the use of clustering technique did not help the students to explore ideas and develop the ideas into a recount text easily. moreover, even though some students argued that they were not interested in using peer assessment because it was difficult, 93% of the students agreed that the use of peer assessment improved their understanding and knowledge of a good writing. they could learn from the correction, assessment and suggestions given by their peers so that their understanding of correct grammar, punctuation, capitalization and spelling improved. it also facilitated 87% of the students to revise and edit their own writing. they could rewrite their writing based on the peer assessment rubric so that the result was better than the first writing. in overall, 90% of the students agreed that the use of clustering technique and peer assessment improved the students’ achievement in writing recount text. however, there were still some drawbacks when using clustering technique and peer assessment for teaching writing text to junior high school students. the students needed much time when using clustering technique since they started by writing some words or phrases, and then they organized them into some sentences. then, they developed the sentences into some paragraphs. besides, peer assessment could be applied successfully when the students had a good background knowledge so that it also took much time to prepare the students. subjectivity was also a problem when using peer assessment. some students felt reluctant when giving low scores to their peers’ work. triangulation result the result of the test indicated that the experimental group students, which were treated by using clustering technique and peer assessment, achieved a better improvement than the control group, which was taught by using three-phase technique and teacher assessment. it was supported by the result of questionnaire in which most students agreed that their writing achievement significantly improved after they were taught by using clustering technique and peer assessment. moreover, when the researcher observed the class activities and situation, most of the students were e. yunita widyawati & n. trisanti / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 48 enthusiastic during the lesson since the techniques were easy, helpful, and pleasing. from the overall explanation, it could be concluded that the data were valid, and they supported one another. conclusions after scrutinizing the data, the writer concludes that she found 146 errors in all derivational categories. the errors were classified based on the four types of surface structure taxonomy as proposed by dulay, burt and krashen (cited in james, 1998:106). they are omission, addition, misordering and misformation. the research findings indicated that the most frequent errors occurred in misformation with 98 (67,1%) errors. it was followed by omission ( 34 errors or 23,3%), and addition ( 14 errors or 9,6%). out of the total errors (146), it showed that the majority of errors occurred in deriving noun to noun and verb to adjective with 30 errors. it was followed by 25 errors in deriving verb to verb, 23 errors in deriving adjective to adjective, 11 errors in deriving adjective to adverb, 10 errors in deriving verb to noun, 9 errors in deriving noun to verb, 5 errors in driving noun to adjective and 3 errors in deriving adjective to noun. this is relevant to the questionnaire result which showed the highest percentage (60 % or 15 students) found most of students agreed they found difficulty in deriving noun to noun. it was followed by 12 students or 48% stated that they found difficulty in deriving verb to adjective. it proved that both the test and questionnaire result indicated the most frequent errors occurred in deriving noun to noun. references akmajian, a., demers, r.a., and harnish, r.m. (1984). linguistics : an introduction to language and communication. cambridge : the mit presss. ellis, rod. (1997). second language acquisition. oxford : oxford university press. haspelmath, m. and sims, a.d. (2010). understanding morphology. london : hodder education. [online.] available at http://morphology.xyz/pdf/haspelmathsims2010.pdf [accessed 1/10/2016]. fromkin, v., rodman, r., and hyams, n. (2011). an introduction to language. wadsworth : cengage learning. james, carl. (1998). errors in language learning and use. exploring error analysis. usa : longman. katamba, francis. (1993). morphology. new york: st. martin’s press. kothari, c. r. (2004). research methodology, methods, and techniques (second revised edition). new delhi : new age international. priyatmojo, a. s. (2011). political discourse : obama’s appraisal attitude. language circle journal of language and literature vol. vi/. available at : http://journal.unnes.ac.id/nju/index.php/lc/article/view/2043 [accessed 08/15/16] 10 elt forum 3 (1) (2014) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the benefits of using dialogue journal writing for imroving students’ writing of personal letter nur aininna  english department, faculty of languages and arts, state university of semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in april 2014 approved in mei 2014 published in juni 2014 ________________ keywords: dialogue journal, personal letter, genre, writing ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this study aims at investigating how dialogue journal writing benefits students’ writing of personal letter and how significance the resulted improvement is. personal letter is important for it is used by people in their daily lives in diverse forms. meanwhile, dialogue journal is chosen as the method for it is powerful to bridge learners’ needs of supplementary learning times and a private student’teacher’s interaction. the research design of the study is mainly qualitative. however, quantitative analysis is still used to reveal students’ overall writing proficiency and the significance of students’ improvement. the five writing aspects mentioned by brown (2004) are used as the basis of both analyses. the qualitative analysis attempts to describe how the students perform the aspects in their writing. meanwhile, the quantitative analysis tries to assess students’ performance of the aspects by giving each aspect a score realization according to the criteria outlined in brown’s rubric of writing assessment. the results of the analysis show that students’ writing improves all the aspects quite well. the biggest improvement lies in the content aspect. majority of students’ earlier writing fails to address the topic of writing. nonetheless, all of their final writing has already addressed the topic correctly. meanwhile, the aspect of style and quality of expressions seems to undergo the least improvement. some vocabularies are still found to be incorrectly used. however, students’ later writings exhibit a better sentence variety realized through the use of various cohesive devices. the improvement unfolded in the qualitative analysis is supported by the findings of the quantitative analysis of which all of the twenty students improve their writing scores in the final test. some scores are even elevated quite significantly. the improvement of the five aspects presented in students’ later writing has turned the writing to be more communicative. therefore, the mastery of the aspects is very beneficial. since all the five aspects belong to the micro and macro-skills of writing, the teaching of these skills is then imperative to be given. © 2014 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: nuraininna90.na@gmail.com issn 2252-6706 nur aininna / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 11 introduction writing is a language skill which remains problematic for many students. when are faced to the task of writing, students, especially nonnative students, find it hard to not only decide what to write, but also how to write it in the target language. the students’ confusion of writing is due to several reasons. firstly, it may deal with various aspects of writing which need to be considered by writers, such as the system of genre which requires writers to employ different structures and features according to the purpose of their writing and other systems of language which demand writers to perform the proper grammar, linking words, vocabulary usage, and many other systems according to the necessity. secondly, writing is not an easy task for it brings along some vexatious characteristics, which include permanence, production time, distance, orthography, complexity, vocabulary, and formality (brown, 2001: 341). however, the time allotment provided for the teaching and learning process is very limited at schools. this limited time results in the limited knowledge of writing internalized by students. besides, the problem of writing is also caused by some student-related factors, such as confidence, laziness, motivation, and consciousness. some students are not confident to express their ideas to others, moreover when they have to tell it in english. they are often too afraid and ashamed of making mistakes and therefore assume that saying nothing is way much better. some others are too lazy to practice writing and review the materials they have learnt at school. this laziness can be caused by the students’ lack of motivation or their unconsciousness of the importance of writing. all the boundaries of learning mentioned before lead to the students’ low performance of writing. the research done by beh (1997) who examined english language instruction provided to 1265 third year students in four provinces reported that 80% of the indonesian students involved in the research promoted a less than good writing ability. similar findings were also seen in the students’ writing product gathered by the researcher in the writing pretest activity in 2013 which took place in a junior high school in semarang, central java, indonesia. almost all of the students she taught at the school failed to properly perform some basic tenses, which are the simple present and the simple past tense. some common mistakes the students presented in their writing are the incomplete structure of text, the incorrect use of verb form, the overuse of verb of which they used both operator and full verb in a sentence at once (‘i am go to in grand mother house’, ‘i’m can play with you’), the improper use of vocabularies, and the lack of sentence variety that most of them began their sentence using ‘i’ and that the use of transitional words and other conjunctions are still poor. the presence of numerous writing mistakes makes students’ writings hard to understand. the message the writer encoded in their writing is then not successfully conveyed. when a piece of writing fails to transfer the intended information, it is then not communicative. if it is not communicative, it then fails to achieve its ultimate goal as a mode of communication. therefore, it is obvious that the students’ low performance of writing needs to be improved. to realize this improvement, the researcher used dialogue journal writing to aid the teaching and learning of writing she conducted. peyton (2000) defines dialogue journal as written conversations in which a learner and a teacher (or other writing partners) communicate regularly (daily, weekly, or on a schedule that fits the education setting) over a semester, school year, or course. this journaling method was chosen because it was seen as a powerful means to bridge the students’ needs of extended learning time and space; private, safe and nonthreatening learning atmosphere; also informal, relaxing, and intimate student-teacher’s interaction. dialogue journal can be carried out by using both offline and online media. jones (1991) suggests that dialogue journal writing can be done in a bound notebook or on a computer disks or nur aininna / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 12 files. in the research, the researcher preferred to use the online media by using the message service of a popular social network namely facebook. the students were demanded to make a piece of writing over a certain topic and then send it to the researcher’s facebook account. the researcher will send back a feedback to their account afterwards which included some necessary corrections and encouragement for the students. this kind of activity is maintained for as long as two weeks in which they had to submit two journals in each week. the progress of students’ writing made in each journal was noted in order to be able to meet the objectives of the research, which were to investigate in what ways dialogue journal benefit students’ writing of personal letter and how significant the improvement of the writing is. personal letter is “a letter directed to one person and contains so many specific personal references and so much personal information…” (levinson, 2007). it belongs to the genre of personal writing and comes in many different forms in people’s daily lives. in the research, this type of writing was chosen because it was included as one of the obligatory genres which needed to be learnt by the eighth grade students. hence, a better mastery of the letter would help students answer and solve any related question, task, or test. therefore, it would further help students improve their academic achievement at school. this research needs to be done to find out how the use of dialogue journal writing affects each aspect in students’ writing and whether or not it is effective to improve students’ overall writing. secondly, it is necessary to be done in order to know how significant the students’ writing improvement is. the findings of the research can be beneficial for teachers and researchers in general as a source of consideration in order to conduct a better teaching and research of dialogue journal in the future. methods of investigation in the process of gathering the data, this study uses one group pretest-posttest design. the diagram is shown as follows: figure 1. one group pretest-posttest design linguistics and educational research (campbell and stanley cited in saleh 2011: 150) this study consists of pre-observation (o1), treatment (x), and post-observation (o2). pre-observation is the earlier stage aims at measuring students’ initial personal letter writing ability and finding out several students’ related factors which may influence their products of writing. this stage consists of two activities, which are pre-test and the pre-interview. the second stage is the treatment which also consists of two activities, which are the explicit teaching and the dialogue journal writing activities. the explicit teaching is the ordinary teaching conducted in four meetings inside the classroom, within the school hours. the material taught in each meeting differs one from another and covers several theories of personal letter, the simple past tense, cohesive devices, and recount text. just as the explicit teaching, the dialogue journal activities also last for four submitted journal entries in which each journal entry is assigned to the students in the end of every explicit teaching. however, the assignment is supposed to be done outside the school hours. the topic of the writing tasks also varies but is still related to the material taught earlier in the explicit teaching. the last stage is the post-observation which is accomplished in two major instructions. the first is the posttest and the second is the post interview. posttest is done to measure students’ nur aininna / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 13 later ability in writing personal letter, while post interview is conducted to find out students’ later perspective of english and dialogue journal writing, their problems when attending the journal writing activities, the benefits they get from the dialogue journal activities, and their suggestion regarding the task. the participants of the research are eighth grade students of smpn 8 semarang studying in class viiib in the academic year of 2013/2014. there are totally 36 students inside the classroom. however, 20 of them are chosen randomly as the main participants of the research. in collecting the data, the research uses tests, field notes, and interview. the collected data are then analyzed in two ways. the students’ writing in the pretest, posttest, and dialogue journal writing activities as well as their answers in the pre and post interview are analyzed qualitatively. the qualitative analysis of students’ writing is done by describing how the writing performs some aspects of writing included in brown’s rubric of assessment, which are organization, content, grammar, punctuation/spelling/mechanics, and style/quality of expressions (brown, 2004). this description is then used as a basis to classify students’ writing proficiency and to draw a conclusion of the students’ achievement of discourse competence as well as their mastery of the micro and macro-skills of writing. the qualitative analysis is also used to analyze students’ answers in the pre and post interview. students’ answers to the same question are listed and then grouped based on its similarity. the findings of the grouping are used to draw a conclusion over the interview. secondly, to support the qualitative analysis, quantitative analysis is also done to students’ writings in both tests. the description made in the qualitative analysis is used as a consideration to determine students’ score realization of each writing aspect. to aid the scoring, the researcher uses brown’s rubric of writing assessment (2004). after getting the score for each aspect, the researcher then sum up the scores to obtain the total scores which are further used to calculate the average score. the mean scores of the students’ writing in the pre and posttest are then compared to one another to see whether or not there is an improvement. furthermore, the mean scores of students’ writing in the two tests are used to measure the significance of the improvement by using t-test formula. results of the study 3.1 findings of the qualitative analysis the first qualitatively analyzed data was students’ writing in the pretest, posttest, and in the dialogue journal writing activities. as the writer described the students’ performance of the five writing criteria by using brown’s rubric of writing assessment (2004), she found that the students occupied three levels of proficiency, which were good, adequate, and fair. each of these proficiency levels are further explained as follows: good proficiency refers to the developed ability of the five criteria. in the aspect of organization, students could be labeled as good if they were able to present all the needed structure of personal letter, a varied use of cohesive devices, and a good coherence in their writings. meanwhile, the content aspect looked for the ability to address the topic of writing and develop the ideas put in the writing. thirdly, the aspect of grammar required students to present the correct system of the simple past tense, in their writing which included the correct use of verb form, word order pattern, and other tense sequences. furthermore, the fourth aspect of punctuation, spelling, and mechanics of writing could be labeled as good if students could present all the needed punctuation properly, all the spelling of words correctly, and obey kinds of writing convention, such as the use of indentation, capitals, etc. finally, the aspect of style and quality of expressions was said to be good when students could show the appropriate vocabulary usage and a good register. 1. good writing in the pretest in the pretest, no students’ writing could be labeled as good. however, there were 2 students showed a good performance of organization in nur aininna / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 14 which they presented almost all of the needed structure of personal letter and only missed out the part of heading in their writing. the other 4 students did well in the aspect of content for they could address the topic of writing appropriately although some of their ideas still needed to be more developed. additionally, there was also 1 student presented a good performance of punctuation, spelling, and mechanics of writing. unlike the majority, this student had made all her paragraphs indented. she had also presented all the needed capitals and full stops in her sentences. 2. good writing in the dialogue journal activities students’ writing performance during the journal writing activities fluctuated in each task. in the first journal writing assignment, no writing could meet the classification of a good writing. however, in the second assignment, 4 students’ writings could be labeled as good. these four students showed a complete and well-structured writing. in the aspect of grammar, three of the students successfully avoided the occurrence of grammatical errors in their writings, but one of them still presented a few mistakes of grammar, such as the absence of a needed preposition and grammar. the number of good writings decreased in the third journal writing assignment in that only one writing was labeled as good. this good student presented no mistake of grammar in her third journal writing assignment. she also included all the needed structures of personal letter and showed a varied use of cohesive devices. regarding the content, the topic of writing was quite well addressed but the ideas were not fully developed. few mistakes of punctuation and spelling were also still presented by the student. in the fourth journal writing assignment, five students’ writings were labeled as good. these students did well in all the five writing aspects even though some grammar and punctuation problems still appeared. the students’ clearest improvement was seen in the aspect of organization, particularly in the area of generic structure, in which they exhibited a complete heading containing city, zip code, and full address which were mostly absent in their previous journal assignments. 3. good writing in the posttest as many as 11 students presented a good writing in the posttest. considering that no student was good in the posttest, such a number represented a quite great improvement of students’ writing proficiency. 6 from these students even elevated their proficiency from fair to good, while the rest moved from adequate to good. the students’ improvement in the posttest took place in all the five assessed writing aspects. in the aspect of organization, all of the writings presented a complete and well structured letter. majority of the students had also made use of various cohesive devices, such as the use of temporal conjunction, references, etc. in the content, most of the students’ writings in the posttest already mentioned the statement of the topic and the conclusions which were absent in all the pretest writings. grammar was the worst aspect performed in the pretest. however, it turned to be the second best performed aspect in the posttest. there was even one student who did not show any single mistake of grammar in her posttest writing. the rests might still present some grammar mistakes but it was getting fewer in number. in the aspect of punctuation, spelling and mechanics of writing, students improved their writings through the presence of indentation, a needed comma in the closure and salutation, as well as the correct spelling of some words which were used to be misspelled in the students’ earlier writings. the students’ style and quality of expressions also improved quite because unlike their pretest writings, the students’ posttest writings already attempted variety which was realized through the use of various cohesive devices. adequate level of proficiency refers to students’ enough ability of the five aspects. adequate organization means students are able to present an acceptable introduction, body, and conclusion. as an instance, they may not clearly state the topic sentence, but if their introducing sentence is still topic-related then it is still acceptable. this adequate proficiency is also represented by the misuse or the absence of nur aininna / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 15 transitional expressions, and omission of one or two parts of the letter structure. in the content, a piece of writing is said to be adequate if it appears several criteria, which are first, the essay addresses the issues but misuses some points. second, the presence of not-fully developed ideas, and the last is the presence of extraneous material in the writing. meanwhile, adequate proficiency of grammar allows the occurrence of some grammatical problems as long as those do not harm the communication of the ideas. on the other hand, the fourth aspect is adequate if students present some problems of writing conventions, punctuations, and occasional spelling errors. in the last aspect of style and quality of expressions, students’ writing is adequate if it shows some misused vocabularies. however, it does not accept writings from being too wordy. 1. adequate writing in the pretest in the pretest, 11 students’ writings were labeled as adequate. among all the aspects, almost all of the students were adequate in the aspect of style and quality of expressions. students’ writings in the posttest already attempted variety unlike theirs in the pretest. this was realized through the use of many references in the beginning of their sentences which made it less monotonous. however, they still showed some inappropriate uses of vocabulary, such as preposition ‘in’ in the reference in there, ‘such’ in the sentence such letter from me, and ‘much’ used in so much letter from me. aside of style and quality of expressions, many students were also adequate in the aspect of punctuation, spelling, or mechanics of writing, organization, and content. however, in the aspect of grammar, no student was labeled as adequate because all of their grammar were fair in the pretest. 2. adequate writing in the dialogue journal writing activities adequate writings could be found in all the four journal writing assignments. in the first journal assignment, 19 students’ writings were labeled as adequate. in the organization, students failed to present the complete structure of personal letter for most of them omitted the part of heading, while some others excluded the salutation part of the letter. besides, half of the students missed out the statement of the topic in their writing. nevertheless, several uses of cohesive devices already appeared in the students’ first journal writing assignment. in the content, all of the students’ writings addressed the topic quite well but their ideas could be more developed. students’ grammar in the first journal assignment was also almost good for the system of the simple past tense was already presented quite properly in most of the sentences. the form of the full verbs and the sequence of words were correct. however, the form of operator verb was still incorrect in some of the students’ writing. in the aspect of spelling, punctuation, and mechanics of writing, students exhibited some common mistakes, such as the absence of comma in the salutation and closing, the omission of indentation, misspelling of words, and the absence of needed capitals. these many mistakes caused this aspect to be labeled as fair. regarding the style and quality of the expressions, the students’ first journal writing assignment had attempted variety which was seen from the various uses of cohesive devices. students’ writing proficiency in the second journal writing assignment generally improved. the number of adequate writing in the second task was fewer than that in the first task and it resulted in the greater number of good writings presented in the second journal writing assignment. the best performed aspect was grammar which was the worst performed aspect in the first journal writing assignment. in this second assignment, most of the verbs used were in the correct form. this excellent performance might be resulted from students’ fresh memories and understanding of past tense which had just been taught in the second explicit teaching. besides, students’ grammar might be good because they did not really apply it to create a whole text but simply sentence per sentence which did not seem to be related to one another. however, the students’ overall writing performance in the third journal writing assignment was worse than that in the second assignment. nur aininna / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 16 3. adequate writing in the posttest the number of students who obtained the adequate scores in the posttest was smaller than that in the pretest. the minimum writing score given to the adequate students in the posttest was also higher. among all the analyzed writing aspects, majority of the students were adequate in the aspect of style and quality of expressions. students’ register in the posttest was actually quite good for all the students’ writings already attempted variety. aside of the reference, they had also begun their sentence by using some adverbs of time. however, some misuses of vocabulary still appeared in many of the students’ writings. those frequently misused vocabularies include preposition in and pronoun your. the insufficient ability in performing the aspects of writing leads students to the fair level of proficiency. in the organization aspect, students’ writings are said to be fair if they present a minimally recognizable introduction and conclusion in their writings, also when they demonstrated many problems of word order pattern, less developed ideas, few or even no uses of cohesive devices, and when they omitted some parts of the generic structure. in the content fair proficiency refers to the incomplete development of ideas and an off the topic essay. meanwhile, students’ grammar ability is fair if they appear many problems of grammar which give a negative effect on the communication of the ideas. in the aspect of punctuation, spelling, and mechanics, fair level of proficiency refers to the presence of error uses of general writing conventions and punctuation which interfere with the writing ideas and the problems of spelling which distract readers. lastly, fair ability of the style and quality of expressions means that the students misuse many vocabularies and present a lack awareness of register, poor expressions of the ideas, and a too-wordy writing. 1. fair writing in the pretest almost half of the students’ writings in the pretest were labeled as fair. the students’ worst performance lied in the aspect of grammar in which 19 of the 20 students were labeled as fair in this third aspect. they showed numerous problems such as the incorrect uses of verb form, the problems of sentence structure in which the students failed to create a proper sentence because they missed some elements needed in the sentences, such as subject, verb, etc., the misuse of pronoun, and plurality, modality, preposition, ownership, and the mistakes of making correct noun phrases. secondly, fair proficiency in the pretest was also demonstrated in the aspect of organization by 5 students. in this first aspect, no student could present a complete and wellstructured letter for all of them omitted some parts of the letter, such as heading and closure. besides, they also failed to create a good coherence because their ideas were incomplete and not fully developed. the use of cohesive devices was also poor that they frequently used adding ‘and’ and causal ‘because’ only. in the content, 9 students were labeled as fair because the ideas they included in the writing were very limited, did not fully developed, and even off the topic for they filled their letters with greeting and questions related to the addressee’s life instead of retelling their holiday experience. meanwhile, in the aspect of punctuation, spelling, and mechanics of writing, 3 students were labeled as fair. these students presented many mistakes in their writings, such as misspelling of words, problems of indentation, capitalization, as well as commas and full stops usage. smaller number of fair performances was shown in the aspect of style and quality of expressions in which only 2 students were labeled as fair in this fifth aspect. one of the students was even labeled as fairly unacceptable because he only wrote an introducing sentence in his writing and did not include any ideas nor he provided any conclusion or closing to finish his letter. 2. fair writing in dialogue journal writing activities there was only one piece of writing fairly performed in the dialogue journal activities. this writing was submitted by s-3 in the first journal writing assignment. in the aspect of organization, this student omitted three parts of the generic structure, which were heading, closure, and the signature. the statement of the topic and the conclusion were also absent in her writing. additionally, the flow of the ideas was not good nur aininna / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 17 for each idea seemed to stand alone. hence, the coherence of the writing still needed to be improved. the use of cohesive devices was also still poor because the only devices found in the writing were only adding conjunction ‘and’ and causal ‘because’. another aspect which was fairly performed by the student was the aspect of grammar. the verbs used were mostly mistaken and some needed subject, verb, and prepositions were absent in the writing. it made the writing difficult to understand. a fair performance was also shown in the aspect of punctuation, spelling, and mechanics of writing in which the student presented many mistakes, such as the omission the full stop in the final sentence, the absence of indentation and needed capitals, some misuses of comma, as well as the incorrect spelling of word vacation which was spelled vocation. however, the student’s performances of the content and style or quality of expressions were not fair but adequate. 3. fair writing in the posttest in the posttest, no writing could be labeled as fair because the lowest score obtained by the students was 73 which belonged to the adequate range of scores. the findings of the qualitative analysis showed that students’ initial writing proficiency was still low. it was shown from the various mistakes presented in their earlier writings. these mistakes appeared in all the 5 writing aspects and led to the great number of fair writings in the pretest. this was such an irony considering the findings of the interview which revealed that the students had actually learnt the language for many years. this might be caused by the negative perspective of english they held ever since. in the pre-interview, it was found that more than half of the students thought that english was important yet difficult, boring, scary, and confusing. these perspectives might have discouraged students to pay attention to the language and attend more of its learning. their low ability of writing might also be caused by the limited time they got to learn the language. 85% of the students admitted that they did not take any english course outside the school and so their learning of english only depended on the learning given at school which was very limited due to the time and the great number of materials required by government. nevertheless, their writing performance improved in the later writing as seen from the increasing number of students whose writings were labeled as good. a better perspective of english and the presence of dialogue journal writing activities might have something to do with it. students’ answers in the post interview uncovered that 90% of the students held a positive perspective about english and dialogue journal by saying that the two were fun and easier to understand. this positive perspective might have motivated the students more to learn english, especially writing. besides, they also claimed that dialogue journal really had helped them absorbed more knowledge of english writing, allowed them to interact with the teacher easily within a private ambience, so that they could ask everything more comfortably, and let them experience a new interesting way of learning. 3.2 findings of the quantitative analysis just as the findings of the qualitative analysis in the pretest, the findings of the quantitative analysis of students’ pretest writings showed that their proficiency in this first test was only in between fair or adequate. none of their scores could successfully reach the minimum score of good writings that was 81. the highest score the students got in the pretest was 73, while the lowest was 9. in order to find out the overall students’ writing proficiency, the students’ pretest scores were all summed up to be divided by the total number of students and so the average score could be obtained. based on the formula, the mean score of students’ writings in the pretest was 62,75. the students’ writing scores improved quite greatly in the posttest. the highest score obtained by the students in this final test was 91, while the lowest was 73. it was then clear to see that the students’ highest score in the pretest became the lowest in the posttest. this score improvement resulted in the increasing students’ posttest mean score. in the posttest, the students’ average score was 82,35 and it was 19,6 higher than the mean score obtained in the pretest. the nur aininna / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 18 significance of the improvement was also proven in the calculation of t-test. t-test was done by comparing t-value with the critical value of the ttable. if the value of t-value was higher than the ttable, it could be concluded that the improvement was significant and vice versa. the calculation of the t-value is shown as follows: t − value = 19.60 √ 6427 20(20 − 1) = 4,769 after obtaining the t-value, the next step was to gain the critical value of the t-table. firstly, the writer calculated the degree of freedom by using the formula (df) = n – 1. n represents the number of the research participants and since there were 20 students in the research, then the (df) was 19. by using the (df) 19 and the level of critical value of the t-table which was 1, 73 and it was 3,03 smaller than the value of the t-value. hence, the really was a significant difference between the pre and posttests which indicated that there was also a significant improvement of the writing products. the improvement of students’ writing products took place in all the five writing criteria. the greatest improvement lied in the aspect of content, while the smallest improvement was in the style and quality of expressions. this was seen from the comparison of the mean score of each aspect obtained in the pre and posttests. the comparison of the mean is shown in the following table: table 3.2.1 improvement of each writing aspect writing aspect mean of scores of the aspect improvement percentage of the improvement pretest posttest organization 13,65 17,90 4,25 21,25% content 13,05 18,55 5,5 27,5% grammar 9,8 14,35 4,55 22,75% punctuation, spelling, mechanics 13,45 16,65 3,2 16% style and quality of expressions 12,8 14,9 2,1 10,5% 3.3 discussions of findings based on the findings, there is a connection between the students’ performance of organization and theirs of content. as that mentioned in chapter two, one of the area of organization aspect is coherence. this coherence refers to the logical connection between ideas. a logical connection between ideas can be seen if only students develop and divide their ideas clearly into opening or introduction, body which contained main and supporting ideas, and conclusion. similarly, the aspect of content also assessed whether or not students fully develop their ideas. therefore, both organization and content pay attention to the development of ideas in students’ writings. students’ completion of the area of coherence in the organization then reflects their accomplishment of content in the area of ideas development. if their coherence was good, then their development of ideas was also good. however, it only works in the area-level and not in the aspect-level. a good completion of organization does not mean that the content is also good because both aspects cover some other different areas which need to be considered in doing the holistic analysis. therefore, the performance of a particular area of an aspect cannot be used to draw a conclusion over the aspect as a whole. another similar connection lies between the aspect of organization and the aspect of style and quality expressions. the later aspect assesses nur aininna / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 19 several areas, one of them is the register or sentence variety presented in students’ writing. one of the ways to see whether or not the students attempt variety in their writing is by observing how the sentences begin. if they are always begun with the same thing, for example it is always started with subject i, the writing tends to be monotonous and thus, the writing is lack of register. meanwhile, if the sentence beginning varies from one to another, it shows that the writing attempts variety or may even be good at register. some cohesive devices can be very useful for creating sentence variety. the simplest and most common devices to use include reference and temporal conjunction. several references, such as we, they, it, this, that, he, she, etc can be used to refer to a subject mentioned in the earlier sentence and avoid repetition in the later sentences. meanwhile, temporal conjunction can also be used to clarify the sequence of events and distinct the sentence beginning at once. the ones such as firstly, secondly, then, next, and after that are the ones frequently used by the students in their writing. in short, it can be seen that when the use of cohesive devices varies, then the sentence variety is likely well presented. on the other hand, when its use is poor, the register is then not so good or even absent. aside of the relation between aspects, the findings are also useful for revealing students’ achievement of discourse competence because the areas of some writing aspects are also the areas on which discourse competence concerns. the three areas of organization are the areas of discourse competence. the areas of content are the areas of sociocultural competence. meanwhile, the areas of grammar, spelling (in the aspect of spelling-punctuation-mechanics), and vocabulary usage (in the aspect of style and quality of expressions) are the areas of linguistic competence. hence, students’ performance of the areas reflects their achievement of discourse, socicultural, and linguistic competence. according to the findings of students’ writing in the pretest, no student seems to have possessed a good discourse, sociocultural, or linguistic competence at first. it is shown from their performance in all the areas of the writing aspects which is initially both adequate and fair. the adequate proficiency presented in the aspect of organization shows that students’ achievement of discourse competence still needs to be developed. besides, the adequate proficiency showed in the content indicates that their achievement of the sociocultural competence is still below the expectation. meanwhile, the aspect of grammar, the area of spelling and vocabulary usage which are shown to be fair in students’ earlier writings reflects that students’ initial linguistic competence is still low. linguistic competence is then the worst competence among all the competencies performed in students’ early writings. nonetheless, students’ performance in their later writings shows a quite great improvement for they can successfully improve their achievement of discourse and sociocultural competence from adequate to good, and their performance of grammar from fair to adequate. furthermore, the findings of the data analysis help the researcher figure out students’ mastery of micro and macroskills of writing. based on the findings of the students’ earlier writings, the worst skill performed by the students is the fourth microskill of writing that is to use the acceptable grammatical systems. this is proven by the numerous problems of grammar presented in their initial writings. however, the students’ grammar starts to improve from their second journal writing to the final writing. the second worst performed aspect is the third microskill of writing, which is to produce an acceptable core of words. this is seen from the presence of many misuses of vocabularies. the third problematic microskill is the first microskill of writing which deals with the production of grahemes and orthographic patterns of english or spelling. many students frequently misspelled several words, such as the word regards which is spelled regrads, reply which is spelled replay, and your which is spelled you’re or vice versa. an improvement is also seen in the students’ mastery of the first macroskill of writing of which is the use of rhetorical forms and conventions of written discourse. this macroskill relates to the use of punctuations and other writing conventions. in nur aininna / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 20 the early writings, students mostly omit the indent in their paragraphs. many of them also leave out a needed comma in both closing and salutation. on the contrary, in their later writings, the students already make their paragraphs indented and they have also put a comma in the closing and salutation. the students’ improvement of organization aspect leads to the improvement of several micro and macroskills of writing. a varied use of cohesive devices presented in the students’ later writings shows that their mastery of the sixth microskill develops much. the complete completion of the generic structure in the later writings demonstrates that the students have a better mastery of the second macroskill of writing. meanwhile, a better flow of ideas which indicates a better achievement of coherence shows that the students’ mastery of the third macroskill of writing is also better. conclusions based on the analysis of the research, two kinds of conclusion can be drawn as follows: 1. dialogue journal writing improves students’ writing of personal letter in several ways. those are: a) first, it improves the writing in terms of organization, particularly in the completion of generic structure and in the achievement of cohesion. unlike what was found in the initial writing, after being involved in such activities, students’ later writings demonstrate all the five needed structures of personal letter. besides, they also show a better cohesion in their writing which is realized through the various uses of cohesive devices, including temporal conjunction, listing and adding conjunction, consequence, reference, and synonyms. b) second, dialogue journal writing contributes to develop the content of students’ writing. the findings of the field notes and the post test show that students can address the topic of writing better as compared to their writing before accomplishing the activities. furthermore, they also develop their ideas more fully by providing some supporting sentences and examples to support their main sentences in their later writing. c) third, dialogue journal writing improves students’ performance of grammar. the improvement is shown in the use of correct verb form and the presence of all the needed elements of a sentence (parts of speech, article, pronoun, etc) in students’ later writing. d) fourth, dialogue journal writing helps improve students’ mastery of punctuation, spelling, and mechanics of writing. commas and full stops that were mostly misused and absent in their earlier writings are already present and correctly used in their later writing. in addition, the beginning of the paragraphs has also been indented. furthermore, the spaces in between clauses or sentences that were absent before has also been presented afterwards. e) finally, dialogue journal writing improves students’ writing of personal letter in terms of sentence variety and the quality of the expressions through the presence of fewer misused vocabularies and various uses of reference, temporal conjunction and other devices which improve the register of the writing. 2. the improvement of students’ writing is quite significant as seen from the measurement of students’ writing scores in both pre and posttest which shows that the average score of the students’ writing in the post test is higher than that of the pretest. however, since there were two kinds of treatment given to the students in the research namely explicit teaching and dialogue journal writing itself, the writer cannot be so sure whether such a great improvement is merely resulted from the dialogue journaling. the explicit teaching might also have given some contribution to the improvement. nonetheless, considering that language needs practice, dialogue journal writing which is also another form of language practice is believed as having a quite great influence to it. references beh, y. 1997. current research in southeast asia. relc journal, 28 (1), 175 – 179. in beryl, exley. 2005. learner characteristics of asian efl students: exceptions to the ‘norm’. in nur aininna / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 21 young, janelle, eds. proceedings pleasure passion provocation. joint national conference aate & alea. 2005. pages 1 – 16, gold coast, australia brown, d. h. 2001. teaching by principles: an interactive approach to language pedagogy, second edition. new york: longman brown, d. h. 2004. language assessment: principles and classroom practices. new york: pearson education jones, paul. 1991. what are dialogue journals?. in joy kreeft peyton and jana staton (eds.), writing our lives: reflections on dialogue journal writing with adults learning english. new jersey: prentice hall. levinson, jay conrad. 2007. guerilla marketing. new york: houghton mifflin peyton, joy kreeft. 2000. dialogue journals: interactive writing to develop language and literacy. national center for esl literacy education saleh, mursid. 2011. linguistic and educational research. semarang: unnes press microsoft word 10. fahmi millati hanifah-article 109 the comparison between wattpad and blog in project based learning to teach written analytical exposition text fahmi millati hanifah, dwi anggani linggar bharati  english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 8 july 2019 approved in 29 july 2019 published in 29 july 2019 ________________ keywords: wattpad; blog; project based learning; writing; analytical exposition text ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ the purpose of the study was to find out which one is more effective between wattpad and blog in project based learning to teach written analytical exposition text. this study was a quasi-experimental research. the subject was the eleventh grade students of sma ibu kartini semarang in the academic year of 2018/2019. they were divided into experimental group 1 and experimental group 2. the experimental group 1 was taught using wattpad while the experimental group 2 was taught using blog as the learning media and both of them used project based learning as the teaching method. the pre-test result revealed that the mean score of the experimental group 1 was 60.76 and the experimental group 2 was 60.69. meanwhile, the post-test mean scores of experimental group 1 and experimental group 2 were 80.23 and 74.46. the t-test showed that there was a significant difference between the experimental group 1 and the experimental group2 since tvalue was higher than t-table (4.490 > 2.064). it could be concluded that both wattpad and blog were effective to teach writing skills. however, the use of wattpad was more effective than using blog in project-based learning to teach written analytical exposition text. © 2019 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: fmillatih@gmail.com elt forum 8 (1) (2019) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt fahmi millati hanifah & dwi anggani linggar bharati / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 110 introduction writing is one of the four skills of language that is important to learn. by writing, we can convey information, persuade or convince readers to be able to agree with our writings, entertain the readers, etc. unfortunately, it is quite difficult for students to master writing, especially for efl students in indonesia. as stated by handayani (2012) writing is often regarded as the most difficult language skill because it must pay attention to more aspects than others. writing involves being creative, spelling, grammar, punctuation, choice of appropriate words, sentence linking, and text construction (phillip, 2003). moreover, the grammar and structure of english are different from bahasa. meanwhile, students must be able to translate words from bahasa into english context in order to enable the text to make sense when it is read by people. in addition, when students learn english writing in the classroom, they seem less motivated to follow the lesson because they do not know how to start writing. they have no idea of what to write, lack of vocabulary, and have difficulty in arranging words into sentences, sentences into a paragraph, and paragraphs into a cohesive and coherent text. furthermore, the teacher plays an important role in achieving the learning objectives in the classroom. the most common role is to teach knowledge to the students. there are many teaching ways teachers can apply. unfortunately, it is still found some teachers using the conventional method, in which the teachers just explain lesson materials by using board marker and whiteboard then ask students to write on a piece of paper or their book. if the teacher only uses this method, the students will feel bored and less enthusiastic in the learning process. consequently, students cannot understand the lesson materials presented by the teacher well. if they cannot comprehend the materials then they will find it difficult to produce good writing. as a result, the purposes of writing learning will be difficult to achieve optimally. media used by the teachers in teaching and learning activities also affect the effectiveness of learning. it will be more interesting if the teachers do not only use the whiteboard, markers, or depend on the student textbook. teachers have to use media that can make students more interested in the learning process and can effectively make students' writing skills to be better. considering we are living in the technological era, where many people cannot be separated from using the internet in daily life, especially social media. social media is very popular in almost all ages, children, teenagers, to adults, have at least one social media account. especially for teenagers, they use social media as a practical and efficient communication tool. besides that social media is also considered can show their existence through posting photos, status, and seen from their many followers. teenagers now seem to prefer their activities in cyberspace than in the real world. it can be seen when a group of teenagers hangs out in a park for example, unlike in the old days when the internet was not yet popular where they had fun talking to each other but now they are more busy playing their own phones to reply to messages and comment one’s status on social media. they are as if addicted to social media. based on the statements above the writer assumes that teaching methods and media are very important in supporting the effectiveness of the learning process. hence, in this study the writer offers teachers to use project-based learning as an alternative teaching method in the writing learning process. according to larasati (2015), project-based learning can enhance students’ motivation in writing, empower students’ creativity, and make the interactions between teacher and students become more active. it is similar to what was stated by fragoulis (2009), project-based learning could draw students’ interest, motivation, engagement, and enjoyment of the learning process. in project-based learning, students work collaboratively to solve problems. project-based learning is related to the learning activity based on real world problems and challenges that require students to work in a team through meaningful activities and producing a final product, simpson (2011). it can fahmi millati hanifah & dwi anggani linggar bharati / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 111 engage students to think critically and allow students to work cooperatively with others. in addition, the writer also offers social media as media can be used in writing learning activity. therefore, the researcher decided to find out which one is more effective between social media wattpad and blog in project-based learning to teach writing, especially writing of analytical exposition text. this study was carried out in sma ibu kartini semarang for eleventh-grade students, in which the school applies the curriculum of 2013 which requires the eleventh graders to be able to master analytical exposition text. according to the english teacher of eleventh grade, analytical exposition text is one of the materials that is quite difficult to be mastered by students based on her previous teaching experiences. i hope, the result of this study can be used by teachers as an alternative way to effectively teach writing skills. methods the study was a quantitave research. the study used a quasi-experimental design in the form of pretest and post-test experimental group design. as stated by best (1981), quasi experimental design was used when randomization was not possible to be conducted, it applied a less satisfactory degree of control. the quasi experimental research in the form of pre-test and post-test experimental group design included two groups, then those groups were given pre-test to know the first condition whether there was any difference between experimental group 1 and experimental group 2, then treatment, and post-test in the last session. moreover, nonprobability sampling was used in this study. according to sugiyono (1997: 64), nonprobability sampling was a sampling technique that did not give equal opportunities for each population element to be selected as a sample. there were individuals in the population who could not be sampled because they had been set aside by certain consideration. kothari and garg (2014) explained that non-probability sampling was a sampling procedure that was applied when the estimation of probability could not be given in the population that was included in the sample. the subject of this study was the eleventh grade students of sma n 1 ibu kartini semarang in the academic year of 2018/2019. the sample of this study was the students at xi ipa 1 and xi ips 1 of sma ibu kartini semarang. the consideration of choosing these classes as the sample was because there were two eleventh classes in this school. class xi ipa 1 had nineteen students while class xi ips 1 had thirteen students. although the class xi ipa 1 had more students than xi ips 1, i only chose thirteen students to be as sample, so that the experimental group 1 and experimental group 2 had the same sample. the sampling was based on their achievement in english subject which showed an equal result and also the suggestion from the english teacher. in this study, the experimental group 1 was taught by using wattpad, while the experimental 2 group was taught by using blog. both of groups used project based learning as the teaching method. in this study, i used some steps of collecting data. the steps in collecting data included pretest, treatment, and post-test. after collecting the data, the researcher analyzed the data using some method. first, the researcher was scoring the pre-test and the post-test to get the mean score. second, the researcher calculated the normality and the homogeneity of the tests. last, the researcher measured the significant difference between the experimental group 1 and the experimental group 2. the result of the test score was analyzed by using t-test. t-test was used to determine if there was any significant difference in students’ writing achievement between the students who were treated using wattpad and the students who were treated using blog. i calculated the t-value by using spss 15. the kind of t-test that used was independent sample t-test. then, i compared the t-value with the t-table. if t-value was higher than t-table, there was a significant difference in writing achievement between students who were taught using wattpad and those who were taught using blog in which both of them were combined with project based learning. fahmi millati hanifah & dwi anggani linggar bharati / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 112 if t-value was lower than t-table, there was no a significant difference in writing achievement between students who were taught using wattpad and those who were taught using blog. findings and discussion the result of this study was organized based on the technique of collecting the data. it was obtained from the test data. result the pre-test was given to the experimental group 1 and experimental group 2. it aimed to measure students’ prior knowledge of writing analytical exposition text. in assessing the pre-test results, i used a scoring rubric consisting of five aspects. the five aspects were (1) organization, (2) content, (3) grammar, (4) punctuation, and (5) vocabulary. the pre-test was conducted by twenty six students in which there were 13 students of the experimental group 1 and also 13 students of the experimental group 2. the pre-test result of the experimental group 1 and the experimental group 2 was presented in the following table. table 1. the pre-test result the lowest pre-test score in the experimental group 1 was 56.00 and in the experimental group 2 was 55.00 furthermore, the highest pre-test score in the experimental group 1 was 67 and in the experimental group 2 was 68. the mean of pre-test score in the experimental group 1 was 60.76 and the mean of pre-test score in the experimental group 2 was 60.69. based on the pre-test statistic of both groups, the pre-test score mean of experimental group 1 was different from the experimental group 2. however, the difference was not too significant. this meant that the prior ability of the two groups in writing analytical exposition text was similar. after getting the result of pre-test then i analyzed the homogeneity of the experimental group 1 and experimental group 2. it aimed to find out whether the two groups were homogeneous or not. i calculated the homogeneity by using spss 15. the homogeneity of variances was showed in the following table. table. 2 the homogeneity of variances lavene statistic df1 df2 sig. 1.337 1 24 .259 based on the table above, the significance of homogeneity was 0.259. since the significance of homogeneity was 0.259 (> 0.05), it could be concluded that the pre-test variables of experimental group 1 and experimental group 2 were homogeneous. furthermore, i found out whether the research data was distributed normally or not then i calculated the normality test by using spss 15. the normality test of pre-test data was presented in the table below. n minimum maximum mean std. deviation variance experimental group 1 13 56 67 60.76 2.712 7.359 experimental group 2 13 55 68 60.69 3.497 12.231 valid n (listwise) 13 fahmi millati hanifah & dwi anggani linggar bharati / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 113 table. 3 the normality test pre-test scores of experime ntal group 1 pre-test scores of experime ntal group 2 n normal parametersୟ,ୠ mean std.deviation most extreme differences absolute positive negative kolmogorovsmirnov z asymp. sig. (2tailed) 13 60.76 2.712 .158 .158 -.103 .571 .900 13 60.69 3.497 .164 .164 -.107 .591 .876 data was normally distributed if the value of asymp.sig. > 0.05. based on the normality test using kolmogorov-smirnov test in the table 3, the asymp.sig value of experimental group 1 was 0.900 and the asymp.sig value of experimental group 2 was 0.876. the asymp.sig value of both groups was higher than 0.05. it could be concluded that the pre-test data of experimental group 1 and experimental group 2 was normally distributed then the research could be continued. after calculating the homogenity and the normality, i calculated the t-test. based on the table 4, in the lavene’s test column it could be seen that the sig. was 0.259. since the sig. was higher than 0.05 then i concluded that experimental group 1 and experimental group 2 had homogeneous variances. if both groups were homogeneous, the results used were in the equal variance assumed row. the results presented that sig. (2-tailed) was 0.951 and t-test was 0.063. the sig. (2-tailed) was 0.951 > 0.05 then it could be stated that there was no significant difference between the two groups. the t-value was 0.063 while the t-table (α = 5% and df = 24) was 2.064. since t-value was lower than t-table (0.063 < 2.064) so the mean of both groups was homogeneous. hence, it was concluded that there was no significant difference between the result of experimental group 1 and experimental group 2. it meant that the students had the same competence before getting the treatment. the result of t-test pre-test could be seen in the table 4. the treatment was held after the pretest. there were four meetings of treatment. in the treatment, experimental group 1 was taught using wattpad combined with project-based learning as the teaching method, meanwhile experimental group 2 was taught using blog combined with project-based learning as the teaching method. the lowest post-test score in the experimental group 1 was 75.00 and in the experimental group 2 was 70.00. furthermore, the highest pre-test score in the experimental group 1 was 86 and in the experimental group 2 was 81.00. the mean of post-test score of the experimental group 1 was 80.23 and the experimental group 2 was 74.46. it could be stated that there was a significant difference between experimental group 1 and experimental group 2. it meant that the achievement of experimental group 1 was higher than the fahmi millati hanifah & dwi anggani linggar bharati / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 114 achievement of experimental group 2. thus, the use of wattpad was more effective than blog to teach writing of analytical exposition text. table 4. the t-test of pre-test table. 5 the post-test result after getting the result of post-test then i analyzed the homogeneity of the experimental group 1 and experimental group 2. the homogeneity of variances was showed in the following table. table 6. the homogeneity of variances lavene statistic df1 df2 sig. .201 1 24 .658 based on the table above, the significance of homogeneity was 0.658. since the significance of homogeneity was higher than 0.05, it could be concluded that the post-test variables of experimental group 1 and experimental group 2 were homogeneous. furthermore, i found out whether the research data was distributed normally or not then i calculated the normality test by using spss 15. the normality test of post-test data was presented in the table below. independent samples test lavene’s test for equality of variances t-test for equality of means f sig. t df sig.(2tailed) mea n diffe rence std. error differe nce 95% confidence interval of the difference lower upper equal variances assumed equal variances not assumed 1.337 .259 .063 .063 24 22.602 .951 .951 .076 .076 1.227 1.227 -2.456 -2.465 2.610 2.618 n minimu m maximum mean std. deviation variance experimental group 1 13 75 86 80.23 3.059 9.359 experimental group 2 13 70 81 74.46 3.478 12.103 valid n (listwise) 13 fahmi millati hanifah & dwi anggani linggar bharati / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 115 table 7. the normality test pre-test scores of experime ntal group 1 pre-test scores of experime ntal group 2 n normal parametersୟ,ୠ mean std.deviation most extreme differences absolute positive negative kolmogorovsmirnov z asymp. sig. (2tailed) 13 80.23 3.059 .106 .106 -.103 .381 .999 13 74.46 3.478 .148 .148 -.100 .533 .939 the asymp.sig value of experimental group 1 was 0.999 and the asymp.sig value of experimental group 2 was 0.939. the asymp.sig value of both groups was higher than 0.05. it could be concluded that the post-test data of experimental group 1 and experimental group 2 was normally distributed. before i calculated the t-test of post-test, i calculated the difference in results of the pre-test and post-test between the experimental group 1 and the experimental group 2. it could be seen in the table 8, the different gain of the experimental group 1 was 19.46 and the different gain of the experimental group 2 was 13.76. thus the different gain between pre-test and post-test of the experimental group 1 was higher than the different gain between pre-test and post-test of the experimental group 2. table 8. the difference of pre-test and post-test average scores groups തܺof pre-test തܺof posttest the difference between pre-test and post-test experimental group 1 60.76 80.23 19.46 experimental group 2 60.69 74.46 13.76 the difference between experimental group 1 and experimental group 2 0.07 5.77 fahmi millati hanifah & dwi anggani linggar bharati / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 116 the different gain of pre-test and post-test had been found, then i calculated the t-test to find out the significant difference between the post-test of both groups. the calculation was done by using spss 15. the following table presented the t-test of post-test. table 9. the t-test of post-test based on the table above, in the lavene’s test column it could be seen that the sig. was 0.658. since the sig. was higher than 0.05 then i concluded that experimental group 1 and experimental group 2 had homogeneous variances. if both groups were homogeneous, the results used were in the equal variance assumed row. the results presented that sig. (2-tailed) was 0.000 and t-test was 4.490. the sig. (2-tailed) was 0.000 < 0.05 then it could be stated that there was significant difference between the two groups. the t-value was 4.490 while the t-table (α = 5% and df = 24) was 2.064. since t-value was higher than t-table (4.490 > 2.064) then the post-test result of both groups was significantly different. as the result, there was significant difference between the two groups. thus, the alternative hypothesis (ha) was accepted and the null hypothesis (ho) was rejected because t-value was higher than t-table (t value > t table). discussion after calculating the pre-test and post-test scores of the experimental group 1 and the experimental group 2, then i analyzed the results to investigate whether the aim of the study was achieved. the main purpose of this study was to find out which is more effective between using wattpad and blog with project based learning in teaching written analytical exposition text to the eleventh graders of sma ibu kartini semarang in the academic year of 2018/2019. after conducting try out, the researcher conducted the pre-test for the experimental group 1 and the experimental group 2. before the pre-test was carried out by the two groups, i asked them some questions about analytical exposition text in general and only a few of them could answer the questions quite correctly. in order to know how far the knowledge and abilities of the students in written analytical expsoition text then the pre-test was conducted. based on the pre-test result computation of the experimental group 1 and the experimental group 2, they were had no significant difference or relatively had the same competence in writing analytical exposition text. since the independent samples test lavene’s test for equality of variances t-test for equality of means f sig. t df sig.(2tailed) mean difference std. error difference 95% confidence interval of the difference lower upper equal variances assumed equal variances not assumed .201 .658 4.490 4.490 24 23.614 .000 .000 5.769 5.769 1.284 1.284 -3.117 -3.115 8.421 8.423 fahmi millati hanifah & dwi anggani linggar bharati / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 117 computation showed that there was slight difference in the pre-test score of both groups, the two groups were considered homogeneous. the pre-test had been conducted and the two groups were stated homogeneous then the research continued by giving treatment to both groups. giving the treatment was done in four meetings. the experimental group 1 was taught using project based learning as the teaching method and wattpad as the media. the teaching method used in the experimental group 2 as same as the experimental group 1 while the media used was blog. both the experimental group 1 and the experimental group 2 seemed enthusiastic when the treatment was given. they worked on their project in groups and discussed each other. sometimes, they asked me things that were poorly understood. the experimental group 1 was more enthusistic and interested in the learning activities than the experimental group 2. quite a number of students from the experimental group 1 were familiar with wattpad and they even actively used it. meanwhile, the experimental group 2 almost all students knew blog, but they did not have an active account. in the last meeting of the research, the post-test was conducted by both groups. based on the statistical computation of post-test, the result showed that the use of wattpad in project based learning was more effective than using blog in project based learning to teach analytical exposition text. another statistical computation was t-test of pre-test and post-test. based on the t-test of pretest result, there was no significant different between experimental group 1 and experimental group 2 because the t-value was lower than t-table. it meant that both groups were homogenous. however, from t-test of post-test result, there was a significant difference of the students’ writing achievement between experimental group 1 and experimental group 2 because the t-value was higher than t-table. therefore, the alternative hyphothesis that stated “there is a significant difference between the result of using wattpad and blog in project based learning to teach writing of analytical exposition text for the eleventh graders of sma ibu kartini semarang in the academic year of 2018/2019” was accepted. it could be said that wattpad in project based learning was more effective than blog in project based learning to improve the students’ writing ability in analytical exposition text because there was a significant different between the scores of students who were taught using wattpad and blog. the post-test score of students who were taught using wattpad were higher than post-test score of students who were taught using blog. conclusions the aim of the study was to find out which one is more effective between wattpad and blog in project based learning to teach writing of analytical exposition text. the researcher carried out the pre-test to know the students’ ability in writing analytical exposition text before getting the treatment. furthermore, the post-test was conducted to find out the improvement of the students’ writing ability after receiving the treatment. the pre-test results revealed that there was no significant difference in writing ability of analytical exposition text between the students who were taught using wattpad in project based learning (the experimental group 1), and those who were taught using blog in project based learning (the experimental group 2). the mean of their pre-test score was almost the same, the experimental group 1 was 60.76 and the experimental group 2 was 60.69. it meant both groups had the similar competence before getting the treatment. after the students got the treatment, they conducted the post-test to know how far their writing ability improved and the difference in result between the experimental group 1 and the experimental group 2. from the post-test results, the experimental group 1 got higher score than the experimental group 2. the mean score of experimental group 1 was 80.23 and the experimental group 2 was 74.46. moreover, the t-test computation of post-test score showed the t-value was 4.490 fahmi millati hanifah & dwi anggani linggar bharati / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 118 while the t-table (α = 5% and df = 24) was 2.064. since t-value was higher than t-table (4.490 > 2.064) then the post-test result of both groups was stated significantly different. thus, it could be concluded that wattpad and blog were effective as the learning media to teach writing skills. however, the use of wattpad in project based learning was more effective than the use of blog in project based learning to teach written analytical exposition text. suggestions in this study, i offer some suggestions to english teachers, students, and future researchers. for english teachers, teaching method, strategy, and media used in teaching and learning activities are important to be regarded. the teachers should use interesting teaching method and media in teaching writing, especially in written analytical exposition text. thus, the students will be excited and enthusiastic to the lesson. they will pay more attention and focus on the materials explained by the teacher and the tasks they have to do. hence, based on this study, wattpad that is combined with project based learning can be applied to improve students’ writing ability. for students, they have to read and practice writing a lot. they can enrich vocabulary, and encourage critical and creative thinking by reading then express their thoughts by writing a lot. they should feel free and enjoy writing without worrying about making mistakes. they can use wattpad on their phone to practice writing wherever and whenever they are. teacher can guide them by giving some advice and feedbacks so their writing ability can improve. for future researchers, they should figure out the problems in teaching and learning activities, especially concerning the teaching strategy and media teachers used. understanding the characteristics of students is also important to know which strategy and media are appropriate for them. they can use this study as a reference in conducting further research. references arikunto, s. 2006. prosedur penelitian: suatu pendekatan praktik. jakarta: pt rineka cipta. nunan, d. 1992. research methods in language learning. cambridge: cambridge university press. sugiyono. 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(vol, 5(1): 1-8). available at http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt accessed on [23-02-2018] sari, d. p. 2017. pengembangan menulis kreatif melalui wattpad. prosiding simnasiptek: c-1 – c-4. larasati, a. 2015. improving students’ writing skills through project based learning technique. final project of universitas negeri yogyakarta. microsoft word 5. hayati wasistyo adi.docx 49 content analysis of student book when english rings a bell (revised edition) for grade viii of junior high school hayati wasistyo adi  english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 3 october 2018 approved in 29 july 2019 published in 29 july 2019 ________________ keywords: textbook analysis; when english rings a bell; 2013 curriculum; cognitive domain; psychomotor domain ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ the aim of this study was to analyze the relevance of the materials with the cognitive and psychomotor domains in the 2013 english curriculum competence in english rings a bell textbook for grade eight of junior high school. this study used qualitative methodology. the researcher conducted the analysis of textbook based on theory of anderson and krathwohl’s (2001) taxonomy of cognitive domain and simpson’s (1972) taxonomy of psychomotor domain in order to more focus on its relevance with materials in the textbook. the instruments used to collect the data were observation in the form of checklists and document analysis. the result showed that in term of cognitive domain, there were 23 materials in the book which were relevant or 74.19%, 7 materials which were partly relevant or 22.58%, and only 1 material which irrelevant or 3.2%. meanwhile, in term of psychomotor domain, there were 10 materials in the book which were relevant or 32.25%, 10 materials also which were partly relevant, and 11 materials which were irrelevant or 35.48 %. thus, it can be concluded that the materials in this textbook materials are relevant with 2013 curriculum, in term of cognitive domain. even though, it lacks relevant materials of psychomotor domain. © 2019 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: vyalyla52@gmail.com elt forum 8 (1) (2019) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt hayati wasistyo adi & puji astuti / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 50 introduction textbook is an important item in learning process. it is used for student as a manual instructor in studying, and for teachers as directions to teach a lesson. the necessity of the textbook in indonesia becomes the main element of learning english, because english is a foreign language in indonesia. students can learn by themselves through textbook. teachers also get clear materials and activities that can be used in the classroom. school curriculum always changes. the government (ministry of education and culture of indonesia) usually changes the curriculum in 5-10 years. they stated that the curriculum should be changed based on human development. the newest curriculum in indonesia is 2013 curriculum. it is usually called as term k-13. this curriculum has different characteristics than the previous one. k-13 is a curriculum of values that occupied by character building. the values can be tracked from the core competences. it consists of core competence (ki) 1 to 4. ki-1 is designed for spiritual competence, ki-2 for social competence, ki-3 refers to knowledge competence and ki-4 is for skill competence. according to ahmad (2014), the learning paradigm encompass direct and indirect learning model. direct learning model reflects to ki-3 and ki-4. while, indirect learning model refers to ki-1 and ki-2. these two competences have no specific learning materials as it is integrated into cognitive and psychomotor domains. therefore, a textbook usually only present the materials according to cognitive and psychomotor domains. ki-3 emphasizes cognitive domain and ki-4 represents psychomotor domain. the government which is ministry of education and culture of indonesia (meci), also published a textbook as a medium of learning based on k-13. it has two versions. there are student book and teacher book. for the english lesson, the tittle of the textbook is when english rings a bell. according to pusat kurikulum dan perbukuan balitbang kemdiknas, this textbook is one of the textbooks from the government which can be bought by the school. therefore, almost every schools in indonesia use its textbook. based on telephone interviewed with them, schools in indonesia should use dana bos (bantuan operasional sekolah) to buy the textbook from the government. even though, the textbook has many revision edition. for example, when english rings a bell seventh graders has been published in 2013 and revised in 2014, 2016, and 2017. there are some researchers conducted similar studies about content analysis of student book entitled when english rings a bell (revised edition) for grade viii of junior high school. firstly, kamila (2014) analyzed the relevance of materials in the textbook for seventh graders of junior high school to 2013 curriculum. this study found out that some of the materials are not relevant with the cognitive and psychomotor domains which are contained in the 2013 english standard competence. however, there are more materials which are relevant with the 2013 english standard competence than the materials which not. hashemnezhad and maftoon (2011) evaluated english language grammar textbook for iranian college students. the result of statistics for the questionnaire showed that subject matter, vocabulary and structure, and physical makeup of the book are emphasized. data analysis for the checklist indicated that within cognitive domain, only first stages are emphasized and the last stages of synthesis and evaluation are neglected. in a similar vein, razmjoo and kazempourfard (2012) reported the activities and the exercises for three units of each of the four coursebooks of interchange series using the six levels of bloom’s taxonomy. the results conveyed that lower order cognitive skills were most frequent in interchange coursebooks. in general, there are many researchers who have examined english textbooks e.g. chyntia (2013), kamila (2014), zareian (2015), and al-mashaqba (2017). they also have different criteria to hayati wasistyo adi & puji astuti / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 51 analyze, such as content, physical appearance, assessment, english skills, gender, mood realization, etc. for instance, there are many of researchers who analyzed the cognitive domain level in the textbook. however, they only presented the percentage of the cognitive level based on high order thinking skills and low order thinking skills. on the other hand, there is a few researchers who investigated the psychomotor domain of the textbook. textbook is an important element in learning process. awasthi (2006) in nguyen (2015) stated that textbook is a teaching and learning material for both the teacher and the learner to rely on in the process of teaching and learning. this textbook is much needed to help the learning process inside and outside class. in english lesson, the role of textbook is very helpful for the students. when the students cannot listen the teacher clearly, they can take a look to the textbook. usually english words tend to have different pronunciation with its letters. even though, not all textbooks have compatible content for the students. for those reasons the importance of textbook analysis is needed. textbook analysis will evaluate the content of the textbook. it will use several instruments to evaluate the data. from the evaluation, the readers will know whether the textbook is good nor not. they also can know the compatibility of the textbook with the curriculum being used. as we know, curriculum is a set of regulation which arranges learning process. romine in hamalik (2006:65) also stated that curriculum is interpreted to mean al of the organized courses, activities, and experiences which pupils have under the direction of the school, whether in the classroom or not. in indonesia, there are many curricula that are used. the latest curriculum is 2013 curriculum. according to the 2013 curriculum, english standard competence contains two kinds of competences, they are: core competences and basic competences. core competence is divided into four objectives. the first and second objectives emphasize on affective domain. the third objectives emphasize on cognitive domain, and the forth objectives emphasize on psychomotor domain (permendikbud no. 68 tahun 2013). according to taxonomy of educational objectives by bloom (1956), cognitive refers to the knowledge domain. it is related to the learner’s thinking. affective refers to the emotional and value domain that related to the learner’s attitude. and psychomotor refers to the use of motoric creativity that is related to the learner’s skill. cognitive and psychomotor domain indeed become vital elements in learning process. those domains should be appeared in the textbook. because the existence of basic competence three and basic competence four emphasize cognitive and psychomotor domains. hence, the purpose of 2013 curriculum can be achieved. consequently, i focused on the cognitive and psychomotor domains which showed in the textbook. i analyzed the textbook in term of cognitive and psychomotor domain. i also used the english syllabus from 2013 curriculum as reference. therefore, the purpose of this study are to describe the relevance between the materials in the student book entitled when english rings a bell (revised edition) for grade viii of junior high school with the core and basic competence in 2013 curriculum in terms of cognitive and psychomotor domains. methods in this research, i implemented descriptive qualitative content analysis as the research design. according to kothari (2004:8) stated that qualitative research deals with data that are in the form of words or pictures rather than numbers and statistics. as the data was in the form of words and documents, so the data were analyzed qualitatively. i used when english rings a bell for grade eight of junior high school textbook as the object of the study and did the analysis by breaking down the materials in the textbook into two categories, hayati wasistyo adi & puji astuti / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 52 cognitive and psychomotor domains and examined them by relational analysis to core and basic competences of 2013 curriculum. the data from this study were collected through several steps of observation. first, i read and observed the content of the textbook thoroughly. second, i collected the materials of the textbook with the 2013 curriculum in terms of cognitive domain. third, in a similar way, i also collected the materials of the textbook with the 2013 curriculum in terms of psychomotor domain. i used the tables of observation checklist as the observation instrument. as stated by cunningsworth (1995) in alavinia and siyadat (2013: 154), one of the research instruments in content analysis is checklist. i implemented bsnp (badan standar nasional pendidikan) checklist as my instruments. there are two kinds of observation checklist. the first is observation checklist to observe the relevance between the materials in the book with the cognitive aspect in basic competence three of the 2013 english curriculum. the second observation checklist is to observe the relevance between the materials in the book with the psychomotor aspect in basic competence four of the 2013 english curriculum. the figures below are my observation checklist of cognitive and psychomotor domains. figure 1. observation checklist of cognitive domain figure 2. observation checklist of psychomotor domain in this research, i also used bloom’s revised taxonomy of cognitive domain stated in anderson and krathwohl (2001) and psychomotor domain stated by simpson (1972) as my document analysis guidelines. here are the figures which i used to analyze the level of cognitive and psychomotor domains. figure 3. cognitive domain level analysis hayati wasistyo adi & puji astuti / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 53 figure 4. psychomotor domain level analysis in this research the process of analyzing data used four steps. first, the materials were classified based on the basic competence three as the cognitive domain and basic competence four as the psychomotor domain. i used anderson and krathwohl’s (2001) cognitive domain and simpson’s (1972) psychomotor domain keyword levels to classify the materials into basic competence three and basic competence four. after that, the data from the textbook were collected and entered to the checklist table to make comparison between the materials on the textbooks and the materials required in 2013 curriculum. then, i identified the differences and similarities between the materials in the textbook with those are suggested by basic competence of 2013 curriculum. last, the materials in the textbook were evaluated to find out its relevancy with the core and basic competence of 2013 curriculum. findings and discussion the findings of the study are presented into two categories which are the relevance of the materials to the cognitive and psychomotor domains. findings the relevance of the materials to the cognitive domain the first result analysis of materials based on basic competence three in student english textbook entitled when english rings a bell .the categorization of cognitive level analysis has been done by referring to anderson and krathwohl’s (2001) cognitve taxonomy. even tough, some activities or instructions did not use original action verb that was stated in anderson and krathwohl (2001). therefore, i should find the similar meaning of the textbook activities or instructions with action verbs that has been stated in the theory. after breaking down the materials written in the textbook according to the basic competence three of 2013 curriculum and finding out its relevance to the cognitive domain of learning used the checklist instrument i conclude that there is relevance between textbook materials and the basic competence three. it can be seen in the following figure: hayati wasistyo adi & puji astuti / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 54 figure 5. the relevance of textbook materials to the basic competence three (cognitive domain) i made a percentage form of the data analysis. i used a percentage of the textbook relevancy to cognitive domain. in total there were 31 materials included in the cognitive domain according to the 2013 curriculum standard of contents. first, there are 23 materials which are relevant or around 74.19%. second, there are 7 materials which are partly relevant or about 22.58%. third, there is only one material or around 3.22% which is irrelevant to the cognitive domain. according to those percentages, i concluded that the textbook fulfills around 74.19% materials which are relevant to the cognitive domain and able to cover the purposes of the topic, language features, and social functions of the ideal materials which are intended to be achieved by the students. the relevance of the materials to the psychomotor domain this is the second result analysis of materials based on basic competence four in student english book entitled when english rings a bell. the categorization of psychomotor level analysis has been done by referring to simpson’s (1972) taxonomy. several activities or instructions did not use original action verb that was stated in simpson (1972). therefore, i should find the similar meaning of the textbook activities or instructions with action verbs that has been stated in the theory. after i classified the materials in the textbook and found out its relevance to the psychomotor domain used the checklist instrument, i resumed the findings. figure 6 shows the relevance of textbook materials to the basic competence four. after i analyzed the data, i made percentage form of the data analysis. i used a percentage of the textbook relevancy to psychomotor domain. there were 31 materials which include in the psychomotor domain according to the 2013 curriculum standard of contents. firstly, there are 10 or around 32.25% of relevant materials. secondly, there are also 10 or around 32.25% materials which are partly relevant. lastly, there are 11 materials or around 35.48% which are irrelevant to the psychomotor domain. according to those percentage, i concluded that the textbook only fulfilled around 32.25% materials which were relevant to the psychomotor domain and abled to cover the purposes of the topic, language features, and social functions of the materials which were intended to be achieved by the students. hayati wasistyo adi & puji astuti / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 55 figure 6. the relevance of textbook materials to the basic competence four (psychomotor domain) discussion according to those findings, i concluded that the textbook covered around 74.19% materials which are relevant with the cognitive domain and able to fulfill the purposes of the topic, language features, and social functions of the ideal materials which are intended to be achieve by the students. the finding above has a great gap with the previous study by kamila (2014). the researcher evaluated bright textbook for grade seven of junior high school. the findings conveyed that the textbook covered 80% of relevant materials of cognitive domain. similarly, akbar (2016) also revealed that his study presented around 88% of relevant materials in the selected eleventh graders textbook. it emphasized that kamila (2014) and akbar (2016) findings have higher percentage of relevant materials rather than when english rings a bell textbook. besides, chyntia (2013) also investigated when english rings a bell textbook for grade seven of junior high school based on 2013 english curriculum. the results of her study showed that the textbook covered around 53% of relevant materials. this confirmed that the textbook has lower percentage rather than my findings in terms of cognitive domain. furthermore, when english rings a bell textbook only applied around 32.25% materials which were relevant with the psychomotor domain and did not able to fulfill the purposes of guiding the students to use their psychomotor ability to create something with their creativity which should be achieved by the students according to the syllabus. this matched well with previous findings by hashemnezhad and maftoon (2011) and tivany and pusparini (2013). their studies revealed that psychomotor domain were rarely used in the textbooks. in contrast to the findings above, kamila (2014) and heriati (2017) conveyed that their studies applied 61% and 72% of relevant materials in terms of psychomotor domain. my findings do not support the previous studies in this area. in fact, unlike what was previously thought, i found that different textbook and grade of the school can differentiate the results of the research. moreover, i elaborated the data analysis by analyzing the level of each domain, especially cognitive and psychomotor. the analysis focused on action verbs of each domain which reflected theirs level. the findings shown that the most frequent level that was discovered in the textbook was remember level. remember (c1) level used 9 action verbs. while, understand (c2) level has 5 action verbs. apply (c3) level has 2 action verbs. analyze (c4) level has 5 action verbs. evaluate (c5) level has 2 action verb. and create (c6) level has 2 action verbs. therefore, the total of low order thinking level (c1, c2, and c3) was 16 action verbs. whereas, the total of the high order thinking level (c4, c5, and c6) was only 9 verbs. it can be concluded that the low order thinking level was used frequently rather than high order thinking skill in this textbook. hayati wasistyo adi & puji astuti / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 56 the results above shared a number similarities with hashemnezhad and maftoon (2011), razmjoo and kazempourfard (2012), assaly and igbaria (2014), roohani et al. (2014) abdelrahman (2014), abu–dabat (2014), alfaki (2014), zareian (2015), assaly and smadi (2015), and ulum (2016) findings. those studies also presented that the textbook applied a great numbers of low order thinking level than high order thinking level. therefore, it can be illustrated that there is no significant difference between the previous studies and my study in terms of cognitive domain. whereas, the usage of high thinking level should be introduced in junior high school. according to muhajir effendy, the minister of education and culture of indonesia, national examination applied 10% of high thinking level questions in 2018. therefore, the high thinking level is really important for the students. they should be taught not only low thinking level activities, but also high level one. when they only try to answer the questions in low level, they will not accustomed to answer high level questions. consequently, they may have trouble to answer high thinking level questions in national examination. for those reasons, the content of the textbook also should provide more high thinking level materials or activities. hence, the students will be more understand about the activities in high thinking level. the results also showed that the most level that was often discovered in the textbook was guided response level (p3). the frequency of these level were: perception (p1) level has 2 action verbs; set (p2) level has 1 action verb; guided response (p3) level has 6 action verbs; mechanism (p4) level has 2 action verbs; complex or overt (p5) level has 2 action verbs; adaptation (p6) level has 1 action verb; origination (p7) level has 2 action verbs. the total of these action verbs was 16. the result above concurs well with heriati’s (2017) study. in her research, the total of action verbs in psychomotor domain was 11. on the other hand, there were 34 action verbs used in cognitive domain. hashemnezhad and maftoon (2011) also support this finding. their study shown that there were 48 action verbs of psychomotor domain. meanwhile, the total of action verbs in cognitive domain was 56. in summary, the number of psychomotor action verbs were not as much as cognitive domain. therefore, this will impact in the process of teaching and learning. because most of the level has rare action verbs as the instructions of doing in the teaching and learning materials of the textbook. as already stated, 2013 curriculum emphasizes on affective, cognitive, and psychomotor domains. as a result, the application of psychomotor domain which focuses in students’ skills should be balanced. the finding has shown that the most frequent action verb used was repeat (p3). it was used for 44 times in the textbook. it conveys that the textbook applied listening and speaking skill the most. however, in learning english the students should master listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills. therefore, the application of psychomotor domain activity should be enhanced in the textbook. the students not only get the knowledge from the materials but also have a great skill in english. conclussion after analyzing the data of materials of the textbook entitled when english rings a bell for eighth graders senior high school published by the ministry of education and culture of indonesia. i found the relevance of the relevance material based on basic competence curriculum in terms of cognitive and psychomotor domain. in terms of the relevance of the materials in the english student book when english rings a bell with the core and basic competence three materials written in the english lesson syllabus for eighth graders of junior high school and the instruction of each material with the cognitive domain action verbs stated in anderson and krathwohl (2001), there were 23 materials in the book which were relevant or about 74.19 %, 7 materials which were partly relevant or about 22.58 %, and 1 material which was irrelevant or about 3.2%. according to those findings, i conclude that the textbook hayati wasistyo adi & puji astuti / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 57 covers around 74.19 % materials which were relevant with the cognitive domain and able to fulfill social functions of the ideal materials which are intended to be achieve by the students. in terms of the relevance of the materials in the english student book when english rings a bell with the core and basic competence four materials written in the english lesson syllabus for eighth graders of junior high school and the instruction of each material with the psychomotor domain action verbs stated in simpson (1972), there were 10 materials in the book which were relevant or about 32.25%, 10 materials which were partly relevant or about 32.25%, and 11 materials which were irrelevant or about 35.48%. according to those findings, i come to conclusion that the textbook only covers around 32.25 % materials which were relevant with the psychomotor domain. it can fulfill the purposes of guiding the students to use their psychomotor ability to create something with their creativity which should be achieved by the students according to the syllabus. after conducting the analysis, i provide some suggestion for the book writer, the book user, government, and other researchers as follows. the writer of this book should develop and improve the materials written in the book both in terms of cognitive and psychomotor domains because the materials in the book just have around 74.19% relevancy to the anderson and krathwohl’s (2001) taxonomy cognitive domain and basic competence three of the english syllabus and about 32.25% relevancy to the simpson’s (1972) taxonomy psychomotor domain basic competence four of the english lesson syllabus. i also suggest the book users to look for other source of materials which can complete the materials in this book. i also recommend that if the book users use this book as their main source or learning, they should have a complement source of learning in order to get the complete explanation of the materials. the government also should give the teacher and students enough materials to learn and evaluate the teaching and learning process in the school. if the teachers and students did not enough source of learning, the government should help them to cover it. the further researchers who are interested to conduct a study in the same field as i did, i recommend them to analyze other terms in the same textbook. they also can investigate the other textbook related to the 2013 curriculum with the same or different terms. bibliography abdelrahman, m. 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(2014). evaluating four corners textbooks in terms of cognitive processes using bloom ’ s revised taxonomy. rals, 4(2), 51–67. sitepu, b, p. (2012). penulisan buku teks pelajaran. bandung: pt remaja rosdakarya. stemler, s. an introduction to content analysis. available at: https://www.ericdigests.org/2002-2/content.htm [retreived 01/31/17] sugiyono. (2009). metode penelitian kuantitatif, kualitatif dan r and d .bandung: alfabeta. tarigan, h. guntur and d. tarigan. (2009). telaah buku teks bahasa indonesia. bandung: angkasa wahab, m. (2013). developing an english language textbook evaluative checklist. iosr journal of research and method in education (iosr-jrme), 1(3), 55–70. retrieved from www.iosrjournals.org wen-cheng, w., chien-hung, l., and chung-chieh, l. (2011). thinking of the textbook in the esl / efl classroom. canadian center of science and education, 4(2), 91–96. https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v4n2p91 zareian, g. (2015). an evaluation of questions in two esp coursebooks based on bloom ’ s new. international journal of education and research, 3(8), 313–326. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 184 elt forum 6 (2) (2017) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the implementation of pbx (passive box) in teaching passive voice true-experimental study of eleventh grade students of sma n 1 kudus in the academic year 2016/2017 vikit fadila rohmah, laurentius elyas nugraha  english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in october 2017 approved in november 2017 published in december 2017 ________________ keywords: pbx (passive box), passive voice, senior high school students ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ according to the english teachers of sman 1 kudus especially those who teach the eleventh graders, learning passive voice becomes hard for students when they need to transform the active into passive voice because they are stuck in the formula of passive voice in different tenses. this study aims to find out the significant difference between the group who learns using pbx (passive box) and that who learns without using pbx (passive box). this study uses true-experimental design. the experimental group is asked to learn passive voice uses video and pbx (passive box) while the control group only uses video. to know the result of the study, the gathered data in post-test are computed using independent sample t-test in spss where the result can be seen from the levene’s test. the result shows that pbx (passive box) is effective for students to learn passive voice. therefore, pbx (passive box) can be used as an additional medium in learning passive voice for senior high school students. © 2017 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: unnes_english@yahoo.com v. fadila rohmah & l. elyas nugraha / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 185 introduction grammar is one of the language components that is important to be taught to the students if they want to communicate in english well. having knowledge of grammar, they can arrange sentences correctly so that people can understand what they mean. in other words, their sentences should be grammatically correct. the main purpose of teaching english grammar is to provide the students with the basic knowledge of constructing group of words that can be identified into subject and predicate and it has a complete meaning. the passive voice is an important grammatical structure that appears in every form of written and spoken english. knowledge of this construction is vital for reading and writing english in everyday life. according to hornby (2010: 1663), voice is the form of a verb that shows whether the subject of a sentence performs the action (the active voice) or is affected by it (the passive voice). if the subject of a sentence performs the action of the verb, the verb is said to be in the “active voice”; for example: i stopped, i bathed. on the other hand, if the subject is acted upon by the verb, the verb is said to be in the “passive voice.” there are two ways of casting a verb in the passive in english so as to cause the subject to be acted upon its verb: the first and foremost way is using a form of the verb to be and the “past participle” of the lexical verb: the window was broken (palmer, 1980:190). in this study, the passive voice formula is summarized in a table. a table means arranging data in rows and columns. tables can be used to summarize experiments, describe the inclusion criteria, give background information, and present results (durbin, 2004:1235). choosing table as the media to convert passive formula into passive box is one way to make it easier for students to understand passive form. many students still have difficulties in learning the passive voice. as said by parrot (2004:294), “learner may fail to recognize a passive construction, thinking that the subject of a sentence is the agent when it is not, auxiliary verb (e.g. was), and distinguishing the past tense form and the past participle are the same e.g. attacked (but not bit/bitten).” according to english teacher of eleventh graders at the sma n 1 kudus, the problems faced by the students in learning passive voice are those: first, they find it difficult to identify the form of passive voice; second, they find it difficult to find the form of verbs; and they find it difficult to change active voice into passive voice. passive voice in english has be + past participle (regular and irregular verbs), while their first language does not have such rules. thus, choosing passive box as an additional media in teaching passive voice makes the students easier in applying the formula of passive voice whether changing active into passive voice or passive into active voice. in this study, i would like to describe the passive voice mastery of sma n 1 kudus students, the implementation of pbx (passive box) in teaching passive voice at the eleventh grade students of sma n 1 kudus in the academic year 2016/2017, and to describe the students‟ score of passive voice material reacting to the implementation of pbx (passive box). methodology of the research the design of this study is true-experimental because it provides completely adequate controls for all sources of internal invalidity. it represents no compromise between v. fadila rohmah & l. elyas nugraha / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 186 experimental design requirements and the nature and reality of the situation in which a study is undertaken (saleh, 2012:128). here, i used post-test only control group design. according to saleh, it is the potentially most useful true design. in this study, a test is chosen as the instrument. test is defined as a series of questions or exercises use to measure skill, knowledge, intelligence, ability, and attitude of an individual or a group (arikunto, 2006:223). the instrument which is used in this study is objective test. an objective test item is one for which there is a specific correct response. it is in form of short-answer items. there are two parts which is used in the instrument, they are: completion item and modifying active sentence into passive form. the completion item is used to check whether students are able to use passive voice in a sentence or not. the instruction which is given in this part is “make passive voice by using the word in the bracket. the tense of the passive voice is the same as the tense of the word in the bracket.” while „modifying sentence‟ is used to check the students‟ mastery in changing active sentence into passive sentence. the instruction which is given in this part is “change the underlined sentence/phrase into passive voice.” collecting data method is the way that can be used by the researcher to collect the data. i used the objective test items since it is easy to score and administer. in scoring the objective test, each correct answer is counted one point. moreover, the data are collected through observation and test. here are some methods to find the significance of the test between experimental and control group. try out test trying out the test is necessary since the result can be used to measure the validity, the reliability of the test, and it can be carried out in either a small scale or a large one (arikunto, 2006: 223). the try out test is used to find out whether or not the instrument is proper enough to be tested in the real test. there are 35 test items in try out test. after conducting the try out, the data are analyzed to find out the validity and reliability. the test which is invalid and not reliable is not used. to calculate the validity of each item, i used pearson product moment correlation which is applied in spss. where in pearson the correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed) (uyanto, 2009: 222-226). moreover, to measure the reliability test, i used cronbach formula which is applied in spss. where the reliability coefficient is 0.7, so the test is said reliable if the cronbach alpha is more than 0.7 (uyanto, 2009: 286-289). according to arikunto (2006: 210), the item difficulty of the test is classified into 3 levels; difficult, medium, and easy. if the test and an item measure the same ability or competence, we will expect that those who have a high overall test score will have a high probability of answering the item correctly. thus, a good item should discriminate between those who score high on the test and those who score low on the test. treatment control group is taught passive voice using video while experimental group is taught using video and pbx (passive box). post-test a post-test is a measure on some attribute or characteristic that is assessed for participants in an experiment after a treatment (creswell, (2008:301)). thus, the post-test is given after the students get the treatment. post-test only uses some item questions of try out test which are valid and reliable. result and discussion v. fadila rohmah & l. elyas nugraha / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 187 in this research, i used pearson product moment correlation which is applied in spss to calculate item validity. from 35 test items, i found 21 test items which are valid and take 20 of 21 of those items for control and experimental groups‟ test items. after finding of the item validity, i check the reliability of those items by using spss. from the output of spss, i found that the reliability coefficient in cronbach’s alpha column is 0.733 whereas the test is said reliable if the cronbach alpha is more than 0.7 (uyanto : 2009). therefore, the test which wass used for control and experimental groups was reliable. in addition, for degree of item difficulty, i found that the test items that i used contain easy, medium and difficult items. moreover, the test items contain the result of the discrimination powers as easy, good, moderate, excellent, difficult and worst. after getting the treatment, the students were given posttest. the activity of the test was conducted on january 9 and 11, 2017. it was attended by 73 students where 36 students of control group and 37 students of experimental group. in this activity the students had to do the same test with 20 items. here is a chart showing the score of experimental and control group. diagram 3.1 the post-test result of experimental and control groups according to the english teacher of sman 1 kudus especially who teaches the eleventh graders, the students when learn passive voice usually get difficulties in transforming the tenses. moreover, when they know the form/tense which is used in the sentence, they often open their notes because they still get confused with the formula. therefore, the implementation of pbx in teaching passive voice is really helpful which can be seen from the reaction of control group when they face passive voice exercises that they often ask about the formula than the experimental group. it also can be said that teaching passive voice uses pbx makes learning process more effective because the students can use their logic to memorize the passive voice formula, and they do not spend much their time to recall the formula by seeing their notes. the different form of be in all tenses make me aware of how important that the students are able to memorize all the “be” form and applied them in a sentence correctly. that is the reason why i use pbx (passive box) where the passive voice formula is summarized in a table. in addition, using a table can make the students gain the information fast and easily. to check whether pbx (passive box) can be used as a medium in learning passive voice or not, i bring this case to an experimental study. in this study, there are two groups: 37 students in the experimental group and 36 students in the control group. both of them learn passive voice 76 78 80 82 84 86 88 experimental group control group 86.08 [value] t h e m e a n s c o r e s o f p o s t t e s t v. fadila rohmah & l. elyas nugraha / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 188 through video but only the experimental group get pbx (passive box) concept after watching the video. both of these groups also get the same exercises and the same post-test item. based on the observation, the students in the experimental group feel that pbx really helps them in constructing the active sentence into passive voice sentence. they can think the passive form fast and understand how to apply the content in pbx easily. one of the students in experimental group says that pbx is really helpful when they get confused in changing the form of be in a sentence without changing the tenses. meanwhile, the students in control group get difficulty whenever they get modal (such as will) and be which have to be transformed in passive voice. they are confused of how to change the form of be whether it is still be or in form of is, am, are, was, and were. instead of seeing this phenomenon, i also did an independent sample t-test to know whether the difference score between the two groups is significant or not. levene's test for equality of variances t-test for equality of means f sig. t df sig. (2tailed) mean difference std. error difference 95% confidence interval of the difference lower upper score equal variances assumed 1.452 .232 3.143 71 .002 -5.94219 1.89069 9.71212 -2.17226 equal variances not assumed 3.126 60.837 .003 -5.94219 1.90078 9.74324 -2.14115 table 3.1 independent samples test in addition, the independent sample t-test shows that the difference between the experimental group and control group is significant which can be seen from the levene‟s test more than 0.05 and the p-value less than 0.05. therefore, the students who learn using pbx (passive box) master passive voice better than the students who learn without pbx (passive box). conclusions 1. some problems faced by the students when converting an active sentence into a passive are: a. the different form of be in different tenses, b. the difference of object and adverb, c. the difference of present perfect and past tense. 2. pbx (passive box) can improve students‟ understanding in learning passive voice. in fact, using pbx (passive box) can help the students to recognize the different form of be in passive voice because the difference of be form is v. fadila rohmah & l. elyas nugraha / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 189 summarized in a table. the students also get easier when they have to change the verb because using pbx (passive box) teaches the students that all of the verbs which are needed in passive voice after be is past participle (v3). the significant difference that pbx (passive box) really helps the students in learning passive voice can be seen from the post-test result. 3. the result of the study shows that after the treatment there is a significant difference of students‟ achievement in learning passive voice using pbx (passive box) and students who only learn by using video. this is shown from the significant difference between the two means (experimental and control groups). mean of the post-test of the experimental group is 86.08 while the control group get 80.14. it shows that there is a significant difference between the two means where the mean of experimental group is higher than the mean of control group. this difference which can be seen vividly seems inappropriate if only a judgment, so it needs to be tested using statistical analysis which in this study i use spss. in spss, i use independent sample t-test. levene's test for equality of variances of sig. whether in assumed and not assumed is more than 0.05 which is meant that the equal variances assumed is fulfilled. because of the levene’s test result shows that the assumption of two variances are the same is fulfilled. therefore, i move on to p-value (2-tailed) which is 0.002 where it is less than 0.05 which is meant that the difference between two variables are significant. it can be concluded that there is a significant difference between experimental and control groups. in short, implementing pbx (passive box) in teaching passive voice gives more effective result than only using video. 4. teaching passive voice by implementing pbx (passive box) to the eleventh year students of sman 1 kudus gives some contributions. the contributions of pbx (passive box) are as follows. a. pbx (passive box) guides the students with more attention and understanding in doing passive voice exercises. b. pbx (passive box) helps the students to memorize how to convert kind of tenses with different be form into passive voice. c. pbx (passive box) teaches the students how useful of using table in summarizing all of the passive voice formula. references arikunto, s. (2006). dasar-dasar evaluasi pendidikan. jakarta: bumi aksara. arikunto, s. (2006). prosedur penelitian suatu pendekatan praktik. jakarta: rineka cipta. arsyad, a. (2003). media pembelajaran. jakarta: raja grafindo persada. celce, m. et. al. (1999). the grammar book, second edition. newburry: heinle & heinle publisher. creswell, john w. (2008). educational research: planning, conducting, evaluating quantitative and qualitative research. new jersey: pearson education. durbin, c. g. (2004). effective use of tables and figures in abstracts, presentations, and papers. respiratory care, 1233-1237. ebel r. l., frisbie. (1986). essential of education measurement. engle wood cliff: prentice-hall publisher america. v. fadila rohmah & l. elyas nugraha / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 190 escudero, e. b., reyna, n. l., & morales, m. r. (2000). the level of difficulty and discrimation power of the basic knowledge and skills examination (exhcoba). revista electrόnica de investigaciόn educativa, vol. 2, no. 1. hornby, a. s. (2010). oxford: advanced learner's dictionary. new york: oxford university press. nurhillah, e. (2008). some difficulties faced by the student in learning passive voice. jakarta: unpublished. palmer, f.k. (1980). the english verb. london: longman parrot, martin. (2000). grammar for english language teachers. united kingdom: the press syndicate of the university of cambridge. ___________. (2004). grammar for english language teachers. united kingdom: the press syndicate of the university of cambridge. riyanto, diana. (2015, march 27). transforming active sentence into passive with pbx. retrieved from https://englishgrup.blogspot.co.id/2017/03/transforming-active-sentence-into.html?m=1. saleh, m. (2012-2013). introduction to linguistic and educational research. semarang: unpublished. uyanto, stanislaus s. 2009. pedoman analisis data dengan spss. yogyakarta: graha ilmu. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 165 elt forum 6 (2) (2017) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the analysis of unit-shifts in a subtitle of the hobbit third sequel rita zoraya, djoko sutopo, yuliati english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in october 2017 approved in november 2017 published in december 2017 ________________ keywords: translation, unit-shift, subtitle english to indonesian. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this final project is about the analysis of unit-shifts that occur in the translation of subtitle a film entitled the hobbit: the battle of the five armies. various subtitles were already created to make it easier for audience to understand this film. the result of this study shows that there are 14 unit-shifts that occur with various frequencies. with 144 of total unit-shifts that occur in this study, the detail of each unit-shift type as follow: 2 unit-shifts for morpheme into phrase type; 8 unit-shifts for morpheme into word type; 5 unitshifts for phrase into sentence type; 9 unit-shifts for sentence into phrase type; 12 unit-shifts for clause into sentence type; 14 unit-shifts for sentence into clause type; 23 unit-shifts for clause into word type; 1 unit-shift for word into clause type; 35 unit-shifts for phrase into word type; 5 unit-shifts for word into phrase type; 22 unit-shifts for sentence into word type; 6 unit-shifts for word into sentence type; 1 unitshift for phrase into clause type; and 1 unit-shift for clause into phrase type. © 2017 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: unnes_english@yahoo.com r. zoraya & d. sutopo & yuliati / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 166 introduction language as a means of communication has been used by human for thousands of years. it will be very hard to imagine if we do not have language as a means of communication since the role of language is very important for human being in order to help them in conveying thoughts, ideas, and even to do transactions, commerce and international cooperation. to get the idea about what actually a language is, we need to take a look at some definitions which are offered by language experts. the first definition is as said by chomsky (1957) that “language is a set (finite or infinite) of sentences, each finite in length, and constructed out of a finite set of elements”, then we can conclude that each languages in the world will have their own length and constructed out of a finite set of different elements. we can agree that there is a vast diversity between these languages which takes form of pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary etc. the diversity as mentioned before are only if we take a look at diversity in language from oral languang point of view. we do not yet talk about diversity in language from written point of view. however, to simplify the problem, this study only take a look at the oral language. nevertheless, this diversity can be a barrier to maintain a good communications between 2 or more different languages. the most common technique to overcome this barrier is by using translation. munday (2001: 4) stated that the term translation itself has several meanings: it can refer to the general subject field, the product (the text which has been translated) or the process (the act of producing the translation), otherwise known as translating. scholars have many opinions about the translation meaning. however they can agree that the purpose of translation remains the same, which is to transfer equivalent message from one language to another language. similar with the other things that happen around the human evolution, languages will also change and improve throughout human development. new words are invented, or even sometimes they are forgotten. this fact creates a challenge for the study of translation to keep developing also, in order to maintain its purpose as a bridge to connect one language to another. another challenge, which occurs in translation, is the realization that even the best translator will not able to provide the perfect translation. as explained by nida (1964) in venuti (2000: 126) that there can be no absolute correspondence between languages since no two languages are identical. as the result, since there are no two identical languages, then the shifts in translation cannot be avoided. catford (1965) in venuti (2000: 141) stated that shifts mean the departures from formal correspondence in the process of going from source language (sl) to target language (tl). catford said that there are two major types of shifts that occur, namely level shifts and category shifts. level shift is a shift from grammar to lexis. it means that a grammatical unit in english, such as noun, affix, etc, has a lexical unit in indonesian as its translation equivalent (machali, 1998: 14). for example, “jakarta is the biggest city in indonesia” which is translated as “jakarta merupakan kota terbesar di indonesia”. the form “is” as a unit in english grammar is translated into indonesian by the lexis “merupakan”. this final project focuses on category shifts. however, we should know that there are four kinds of category shifts: structure shifts; class shifts; unit shifts; and intra-system shifts. structure shifts grammatically occur at any ranks of language where words, phrase, clauses, or sentences in sl has its translation equivalent with the same rank in tl so only their structures are different. catford (1965:77) gave an example of structure shifts in phrase rank from 'a beautiful woman' with adjective + noun in english to 'wanita yang cantik' with noun + adjective in indonesian. class shifts occur when the translation equivalent of a sl item is a member of a different class from the original item. an example given by catford (1965:79) clearly showed a change of class r. zoraya & d. sutopo & yuliati / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 167 english clause 'they insist on higher wages' is translated into an indonesian clause 'mereka menuntut kenaikan gaji'. the example shows that the english adjective of comparative 'higher' changes to indonesian noun 'kenaikan'. unit shifts occur when the translation equivalent of a unit at one rank in the sl is a unit at different rank in the tl. an example comes from the translation of english clause 'my father is very nice' to indonesian clause 'ayahku sangat baik' where a phrase in sl 'my father' has a word 'ayahku' in tl as its equivalence. based on the combination between rank in english, there will be 14 kinds of unit-shifts that are possible to occur during translation. they are morpheme into phrase type;morpheme into word type; phrase into sentence type; sentence into phrase type; clause into sentence type; sentence into clause type; clause into word type; word into clause type; phrase into word type; word into phrase type; sentence into word type; word into sentence type; phrase into clause type;and clause into phrase type. the last shifts, intra-system-shifts, are the shifts occurring internally within the system of the language concerned. the system involves a selection of a non-corresponding word in the system of tl. an example of this is: sl: they need a pair of weapons. tl: mereka membutuhkan sebuah senjata. it is obviously seen from the example above that though we have a corresponding plural form of „weapons‟ (e.g. through repetition of the word „senjata‟ in bahasa indonesia), system in bahasa indonesia needs the use of the singular form of „a pair‟. catford (1965: 79) said that unit shift is simply defined as changes of rank. it is about departures from formal correspondence where in the translation equivalent of a unit at one rank in the source language (sl) is a unit at a dissimilar rank in the target language (tl). for instance, adjective in the source language (sl) is translated into a clause in the target language (tl). some examples of unit shifts are: 1. sl (english) we watched some unsportmanlike decisions from the referee. tl (bahasa indonesia) kita menyaksikan beberapa keputusan-keputusan yang tidak adil oleh sang wasit. from the examples above, it is clearly seen that there is a change of rank in unit shifts, namely the morpheme “un” turning into a word “tidak”. 2. sl (english) last night, the storm was really terrible. tl (bahasa indonesia) semalam, badainya benar-benar buruk. from the examples above, it is clearly seen that there is a change of rank in unit shifts, namely the phrase “last night” turning into a word “semalam”. according to larson (1984: 15) translation is classified into two main types, namely form-based and meaning-based (idiomatic) translation. form-based translation attempts to follow the form of the source language (sl) and it is known as literal translation, while meaning-based translation makes every effort to communicate the meaning of the sl text in the natural forms of the receptor language. such translation is called idiomatic translation. a literal translation sounds like nonsense and has little communication value (larson, 1984: 15). the literal translation can be understood if the general grammatical form of the two languages is similar. larson (1984: 16) said that idiomatic translations use the natural forms of the receptor language both in the grammatical constructions and in the choices of lexical items. a truly idiomatic translation does not sound like translation. the example of form-based translation and meaning-based translation as below: r. zoraya & d. sutopo & yuliati / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 168 no sl (english) tl (bahasa indonesia) form based translation meaning-based translation 1. who has he been living with? (margono, 1999: 4) siapa telah dia tinggal dengan? (margono, 1999: 4) dengan siapa dia tinggal? (margono, 1999: 4) 2. they've brought an apocalypse upon our heads! mereka telah membawa kehancuran di atas kepala kita! mereka telah membawa kehancuran pada kita! table 1.1 example of form-based and meaning-based translation based on the purposes of translation, brislin in choliludin (2007: 26-30) categorized translation into four types, namely: 1) pragmatic translation: it refers to the translation of a message with an interest in accuracy of the information that was meant to be conveyed in the sl form and it is not conveyed with other aspects of the original language version. example: the translation of the information about repairing a machine. 2) aesthetic-poetic translation: it refers to translation in which the translator takes into account the affect, emotion, and feeling of an original version, the aesthetic form used by the original author, as well as any information in the message. example: the translation of sonnet, rhyme, heroic couplet, dramatic dialogue, and novel. 3) ethnographic translation: its purpose is to explicate the cultural context of the sl and tl versions. translators have to be sensitive to the way words are used and must know how the word fits into cultures. example: the use of the word „yes‟ versus „yeah‟ in america. 4) linguistic translation: is concerned with equivalent meanings of the constituent morphemes of the sl and grammatical form. example: language in a computer program and translation machine. meanwhile, the other language expert, catford (1978: 21) had different preference for a more linguistic-based approach to translation and this approach was based on the linguistic work of firth and halliday. his main contribution in the field of translation theory was the introduction of the concepts of types and shifts of translation. catford proposed very broad types of translation in terms of three criteria: the extent of translation (full translation vs partial translation); the grammatical rank at which the translation equivalence is established (rank-bound translation vs. unbounded translation); the levels of language involved in translation (total translation vs. restricted translation). in this study, i analyze deeper about the second type as explained by catford. rank-bound translation, it means that the selection of tl text equivalent is limited at only one rank, such as wordfor-word equivalence, morpheme-for-morpheme equivalence, etc. unbounded translation, it can move freely up and down the rank-scale. here is some example for the rank-bound translation and unbounded translation: r. zoraya & d. sutopo & yuliati / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 169 no sl (english) tl (bahasa indonesia) bound translation unbounded translation 1. never mind the books. jangan pikirkan bukubukunya lupakan buku – bukunya. 2. open this door! buka pintu ini! buka pintunya! 3. i can see him! aku bisa melihat dia! aku bisa melihatnya! table 1.2 example of bound and unbounded translation the source of data in this final project is the subtitles of a movie entitled the hobbit: the battle of the five armies. the source language (sl) of the movie subtitles is english and the target language (tl) is bahasa indonesia. the unit shifts which occur in the movie will be analyzed in this final project. as stated by christina (2002: 7), subtitles are textual versions of the dialog in films and television programs, usually displayed at the bottom of the screen. they can either be a form of written rendering of the dialog in the same language, with or without added information to help viewers who are deaf and hard-of-hearing to follow the dialog, or people who cannot understand the spoken dialogue or who have accent recognition problems. it is common to find some subtitle which the meaning is not equivalence, because as explained before that there are no two identical languages, so if the source language is bluntly translated into the target language then the result will be not quite communicative. however, a good subtitle will provide the equivalence meaning which minimize the wrong impression from the audience about what is truly happening in the movie. this study has a purpose to analyze the types of shifts which exist in the translation of indonesian subtitle of the hobbit: the battle of the five armies. it will also find out the translation level in indonesian subtitle of the hobbit: the battle of the five armies is good enough or not, since the occurrence of the shifts found in translations will also indicate the smoothness of the translations themselves. methodology of the research this study used descriptive qualitative method. it means that an analysis explanation in a form of descriptive text will be used to explain the result of this study. however , there is also a simple formula which is going to be used in this study either. even though the formula will only be used to support the analysis the data. the formula is not going to be the main focus on the research. according to huberman and miles (1994: 45), “qualitative data is usually in the form of words rather than numbers. the qualitative data were the sources of well-grounded, rich descriptions and explanations of processes in identifiable context of words, sentences, utterances and dialogues”. the definition clarifies that qualitative research does not use enumeration or counting. it deals to describe, analyze, and interpret an object that is observed. creswell, as cited by sugiono (2011:31), states that qualitative research is a means for exploring and understanding the meaning individuals or groups ascribe to a social or human problem. the process of research involves emerging questions and procedures; collecting data in participants‟ setting; analyzing the data inductively, building from particulars to general themes; and making interpretation of the meaning of data. the final written report has a flexible writing structure.” r. zoraya & d. sutopo & yuliati / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 170 bogdan and biklen, as quoted by sugiono (2011), formulate the characteristics of qualitative research as follows:  qualitative research has the natural setting as the direct source of data and the key of instrument.  qualitative research is descriptive. the data collected is in the form of words of pictures rather than number.  qualitative research is concerned with process rather than simply with outcomes or products. qualitative research tends to analyze their data inductively. in conducting this study, i used some observation sheets to get the data. first of all, i created comparison sheet between the subtitle in source language (english) and target language (indonesian). all the translation in each subtitle will be listed in this sheet, including them which do not have unit shifts. the example of the comparison sheet as below: the example of comparison sheet english subtitle indonesian subtitle 00:01:13,490 --> 00:01:14,573 i warned you. 00:01:14,824 --> 00:01:17,701 did i not warn you what would comeof dealing with dwarves? 00:01:17,952 --> 00:01:19,036 now they've done it. 00:01:19,287 --> 00:01:20,454 they've woken the dragon! 00:01:20,705 --> 00:01:22,748 they've brought an apocalypse upon our heads! 00:01:12,391 --> 00:01:13,725 sudah kuperingatkan kau ! 00:01:13,726 --> 00:01:16,604 bukankah sudah kuberitahu akibat berurusan dengan kurcaci ? 00:01:16,854 --> 00:01:18,188 sekarang merekatelah melakukannya ! 00:01:18,189 --> 00:01:19,606 mereka membangunkan sang naga ! 00:01:19,607 --> 00:01:21,650 membawa kehancuran pada kita. as we can see in the table 3.1, each sentence in english subtitle will have its pair in indonesian. i also put the time marker on each sentence to ease the analyzing process. the time markers are slightly different, because the creator of those subtitles are not the same person. r. zoraya & d. sutopo & yuliati / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 171 there is another observation sheet that i use in conducting this study, which is the analyzing sheet. in this sheet, the unit shifts between st and tt will be elaborated thoroughly. we can see the example of analyzing sheet as below: the example of analyzing sheet u n it s h if ts m o rp h em e in to w o rd t im e 0 0 :0 1 :1 3 ,4 9 0 > 0 0 :0 1 :1 4 ,5 7 3 e x p la n at io n t h e e n g li sh m o rp h em e -e d i s tr an sl at ed i n to t h e w o rd s u d a h i n b a h a sa i n d o n es ia . t h er e is a c h an g e fr o m m o rp h em e in to w o rd . b ac k t ra n sl at io n i d id w ar n y o u ! t ar g et t ex t s u d ah k u p er in g at k an k au ! s o u rc e te x t i w ar n ed y o u ! n o . 1 below is the sequence of methods that i use in this study. 1) observing. first of all, i observed my data by watching carefully the film several times both with indonesian and english subtitles. this step is crucial since we know that the translations sometimes depend on the situtation like how the source language is spoken, who is the speaker, who is the listener etc. 2) collecting. r. zoraya & d. sutopo & yuliati / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 172 second step was to collect the data by downloading the subtitles and then turned them into the comparison sheet as explained before. this step must be done carefully. for subtitle in source language, i think there is not so much different between one subtitle and others. in other hand, it is better if we choose a subtitle with good translation quality for target language. since it willbe easier to detect the unit-shifts that may occur if compared with bad translation in a subtitle which uses literal translation. 3) identifying. i identified the data in the comparison sheet carefully and then deleted all the sentences in the sheet except for those which had the unit shifts. 4) analyzing. i analyzed the simplified data to know which unit shifts occur in each pair of sentences and then rewrite them into the analyzing sheet. result and discussion as we know, there are no 2 same languages in this world. as the result, there must be shifts which would occur in the translation process from source language into target language. it is been clear that translation deals about meaning. as long as the core meaning is maintained, it is acceptable to involve any shifts in the translation. the shifts themselves are various. there are level shifts, category shifts, and meaning shifts. this study is concerned with one aspect of category shifts, which is unit-shifts. unit-shifts occur when the translation equivalent of a unit at one rank in the sl is a unit at different rank in the tl. we know already that there are 5 rank in language. they are morpheme, word, phrase, clause and sentence. in this study, i analyze the unit-shifts that occur in the translation of subtitles from english (source language) into indonesian (target language) of a hollywood film entitled the hobbit: the battle of the five armies. this film is the last chapter of the hobbit trilogy. i found all types of unit-shifts occur in the translation of this film‟s subtitle. it is understandable, since english and indonesian are so different in their unit ranks. in order to make it clearer, i make a summary for the result of this study. the table which shows the summary can be seen as below. type of the unit shifts findings number total 1 morpheme into phrase 113, 134 2 2 morpheme into word 28, 44, 46, 66, 70, 99, 112, 118 8 3 phrase into sentence 12, 77, 95, 98, 124 5 4 sentence into phrase 5, 24, 36, 63, 82, 106, 136, 142, 143 9 5 clause into sentence 79, 92, 94, 96, 102, 115, 119, 135, 138, 139, 140, 141 12 6 sentence into clause 3, 7, 38, 87, 89, 91, 103, 104, 108, 116, 117, 120, 125, 130 14 r. zoraya & d. sutopo & yuliati / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 173 7 clause into word 11, 33, 37, 51, 52, 59, 60, 72, 73, 74, 76, 78, 81, 86, 88, 90, 97, 101, 123, 126, 128, 132, 133 23 8 word into clause 114 1 9 phrase into word 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 13, 15, 18, 19, 21, 23, 26, 27, 29, 32, 35, 39, 41, 45, 47, 48, 49, 50, 57, 61, 67, 69, 75, 80, 83, 84, 85, 109, 122, 129 35 10 word into phrase 53, 54, 68, 71, 100 5 11 sentence into word 9, 14, 16, 17, 20, 22, 25, 31, 34, 40, 42, 43, 55, 56, 58, 64, 65, 105, 111, 121, 137, 144 22 12 word into sentence 1, 30, 93, 107, 127, 131 6 13 phrase into clause 110 1 14 clause into phrase 62 1 total 144 there are 144 unit-shifts findings in the translation of subtitle of the film entitled the hobbit: the battle of the five armies from sl english to tl indonesian. each findings have been analyzed thoroughly and carefully to avoid any mistake in identifying the unit-shifts which occur in it. the „number‟ indicates the number of order which is also shown in the appendix. i have made the list of findings in the appendix in order of its appearance in the film itself. furthermore, below is the result of bungin‟s formula for the findings of unit-shifts in the translation of subtitle of the film entitled the hobbit: the battle of the five armies. bungin‟s formula: with: p = number of percentages f = frequency of a certain unit shifts occurance n = total number of unit shifts found type of the unit shifts total findings percentage 1 morpheme into phrase 2 2% 2 morpheme into word 8 5% 3 phrase into sentence 5 4% r. zoraya & d. sutopo & yuliati / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 174 4 sentence into phrase 9 6% 5 clause into sentence 12 8% 6 sentence into clause 14 10% 7 clause into word 23 16% 8 word into clause 1 1% 9 phrase into word 35 24% 10 word into phrase 5 3% 11 sentence into word 22 15% 12 word into sentence 6 4% 13 phrase into clause 1 1% 14 clause into phrase 1 1% total 144 100% i can conclude that the unit-shifts from bigger rank unit to smaller one are more commonly found in the translation from english to indonesian subtitle of a film entitled the hobbit: the battle of the five armies. as example there are 35 unit-shifts from phrase into word, meanwhile only 5 unit-shifts from word into phrase. the reason is probably because the language in the sl is actually an “old” english like in the elizabethan era. we know that british english is different if compared to american or australian english which are simpler. the complexity in the sl make it harder to translator to find the equal translation in tl. thus, he/she simplified the translation into smaller rank unit. as example is the finding number 2. in the sl, it said “never mind the books.”, and it is translated as “lupakan buku bukunya!”. the literal translation would be “jangan pernah pikirkan buku-bukunya!”, however it will be rather odd to use it in indonesian conversation. the closest translation will be “jangan pikirkan buku-bukunya”, and even though it is acceptable to say it in indonesian, i agree that it will be more suitable to say “lupakan buku-bukunya” instead since it has the same meaning and it is proper to use in such a hurry situation. conclusions based on the result of this study, and my experience in conducting this study, i would like to recommend some suggestions as below: 1) for similar studies in the future, it is better to analyze the subtitle a film from british english than american/australian english. since the british english is commonly r. zoraya & d. sutopo & yuliati / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 175 more complicated compared to american/australian ones. this way, it is more likely that the study will find more unit-shifts in the translation from sl to tl. 2) for the translators, we must realize and accept that there are no 2 same languages in the worlds. when i was searching for the subtitle of the film the hobbit: the battle of the five armies, i find there are a lot of bad subtitles created by other translators. almost all of them are due to the translators tried to use literal translation from sl to tl which make the core meaning is slightly or sometimes badly damaged. references catford, john c. 1965. a linguistic theory of translation: an essay on applied linguistics. london: oxford university press. indrawan, rully and yaniawati, poppy. 2014. metode penelitian kuantitatif kualitatif & campuran. bandung: refika aditama. mason, jennifer.2002. qualitative researching. london: sage publication ltd. sugiyono. 2015. metode penelitian pendidikan pendekatan kuantitatif, kualitatif, & r&d. bandung: alfabeta central institute of indian languages. anukriti net available at http://www.anukriti.net/pgdts/course411/index.html accessed on june 12, 2017 ordudari, mahmoud. translation procedures, strategies and methods available at http://translationjournal.net/journal/41culture.htm accessed on june 15, 2017 vanilla. translation shifts available at http://transvanilla.blogspot.co.id/2010/04/translation-shifts.html accessed on june 13, 2017 alzuhdy, yosa abduh. 2014. analisis translation shift dalam penerjemahan bilingual bahasa inggris – bahasa indonesia available at: http://staff.uny.ac.id/sites/default/files/penelitian/yosa-abduh-alzuhdy-ss-mhum/artikel-diksiyosa-catford.pdf accessed on june 13, 2017 herman. 2014. category shifts in the english translation of harry potter and the philosopher‟s stone movie subtitle into indonesia (an applied linguistics study) available at: http://iosrjournals.org/iosr-jhss/papers/vol19-issue12/version-5/f0191253138.pdf accessed on june 14, 2017 ika oktavianti / journal of economic education 1 (2) (2012) elt forum 7 (1) (2018) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the effectiveness of word wizard game in learning vocabulary (an experimental study of eighth grade students of smp negeri 1 ambarawa in the academic year of 2016/2017) anna yunia, amir sisbiyanto, indrawati  putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) anna yunia, amir sisbiyanto, indrawati / journal of english language teaching 7 (1) (2018) english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia 58 68 article info ________________ article history: received in april 2017 approved in may 2017 published in july 2017 ________________ keywords : word wizard game, vvocabulary, rreading nnarrative text. abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this study aimed to investigate the significance difference on the students’ comprehending in learning vocabulary for those were taught by using word wizard game for experimental class and were taught by direct translation method for control group. the subject of this study was the eighth grade students of smpn 1 ambarawa in the academic year 2016/2017. the instrument used to obtain the data were pre-test, post-test, and questionnaire. however, the writer conducted try out test to check whether the instrument was reliable and valid to be used for pre-test and post-test. the data were gathered and calculated using ms. excel and spss. the result of this study revealed that word wizard game could improve students’ vocabulary mastery by significant improvement of students’ achievement. the result analysis of the quantitative data shows that the mean scores of the experimental group increases from 56.00 to 76.31. the ttest of mean difference was 8,875 and ttable was 2.00. the result concludes that the working hypothesis is accepted. it means that there is a significant difference between students who were taught by using word wizard game and those who were taught by using direct translation method. in addition, the analysis of the questionnaire shows that students were interested towards word wizard game for reading narrative text (mean: 3.25). they recognized that the implementation of the technique for learning narrative text made them enjoy the class (agree: 62.5% and strongly agree: 37.5%). thus, the analysis reveals that word wizard game effective in teaching vocabulary. © 2018 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: introduction realizing the importance of english, the indonesian government stipulates english as the first foreign language and sets it as a compulsory subject at junior high school, senior high school, and university and also at elementary school as a local content. as stated in school-based curriculum (depdiknas, 2006), the aim of english teaching and learning at schools is to develop students’ english skills so as to communicate and discourse in english on certain literacy level. languages have three main components namely; sound phonological, grammatical and lexical ones. this project deals with vocabulary as lexical item. to make the teaching english vocabulary more interesting and joyful, it is important to consider teachers’ quality, students’ interest and other supporting factors. in this case, to attract students’ attention and interest in learning vocabulary teachers can use a game as a media in conducting materials. webster (1972: 664) states that teaching aids are many varieties of devices and materials, which rely on the sense of sight to inform. if teachers using a method or technique appropriately students not only interested in following the lesson, but also the result will be satisfactory. vocabulary is a very important thing, no matter how good the speakers in grammar. without sufficient vocabulary the speakers cannot deliver their meaning. meriem webster states that vocabulary is “an alphabetical list of the words used in a book, often including their translation or definition” (webster, 1986:2560). vocabulary is total number of words in a language with their meaning and known to a person and used in particular book. (hornby, 1995: 1331). in teaching vocabulary some teachers face some problem such as the students always use the same idiomatic expression to express different sort of things, they forget the word soon after they have looked up in the dictionary, and most of them feel bored and do not pay attention during english course because the materials presented by the teacher are not interesting. cohen (1998:5) states that in language learning strategies there are: strategies for identifying material, repeated contact with the material, and formally committing the material. based on the phenomena and reasons above, the writer is challenged to conduct an experimental research focusing on word wizard game. klippel (1984:77) created a game called word wizard which adapted from brandes and phillips (1997). this game contributes to the development of students’ academic vocabulary mastery. by conducting the study, the writer expects that teachers and schools will realize the important of students understanding and their interest in learning vocabulary using this game. methodology of the research according to healey (1996:1), “research is any process by which information is systematically and carefully gathered for the purpose of answering questions, examining ideas, or testing theories”. in this research, the writer was use an experimental study because she wanted to know the effectiveness of this game. there will be the experimental group which will receive a new treatment by giving the game and the control group that treated as usual. it is in line with the statements of gay, l.r (1981) that “the experimental group typically receives a new or novel treatment, a treatment under investigation, while the control group usually either receives a different treatment or is treated as usual. the control group is needed for comparison purposes to see if the new treatment is more effective than the usual or traditional approach, or to see if one approach is more effective than another. the encyclopedia of educational evaluation in arikunto (2006: 130) states that the population of a set of element processing one or more attribute of interest. the population which the writer used to conduct the research was the eighth grade students of smp negeri 1 ambarawa. there were eight classes of eighth grade. each class consisted of 32-35 students. the sample of the study is viii b as the control group and viii a as the experimental group. there were three main activities, pretest, treatments, and posttest. those activities were done on fifth meetings because the limited time which given by the teacher and the material were explained before by the teacher, so the writer gave pretest, review the material briefly, explained the strategy and gave posttest. the pretest was held at the first meeting. the treatments conducted in the second, third, and fourth meetings. the last was posttest which held to measure the students’ comprehending of vocabulary mastery by reading narrative text after getting the treatments. result and discussion result of try-out test the analysis was to get a good instrument for investigation. the try out test was conducted before the writer do the pretest for both control group and experimental group in a meeting, the try-out test was conducted on saturday, 6th january. the viii c was chosen as the try out group. the try out test is in form of multiple choices items which consist of 35 questions. validity of the test a good test has to be valid. validity refers to the precise measurements of the test. the validity computation is consulted with the r table of product moment by determining the significant level of 5% and n which is according to the data. if the rxy > r table so the instrument is valid. for α = 5% and n = 32, r table = 0.349. the following is the example of counting the validity of item number 1: = the item number 1 of the try out test was valid since its rxy = 0.396 higher than critical value (0.349). after all the item numbers were analyzed, there were 27 valid items from 35 items and the rest were invalid. they were presented in the following table: table 3.1. criteria number of items the total number valid 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 25 25 invalid 2, 7, 8, 9, 16,18, 24, 25, 32, 36 10 from the distribution above, it can be concluded that the try out instrument had 25 valid items and 10 invalid items reliability of the test reliability of the test shows the stability or consistency of the test scores when the test is used. the following is the computation of the reliability of the instrument. the formula is: if r11 > rtable, so the instrument is reliable table 3.2. n % cases valid 32 100,0 excludeda 0 ,0 total 32 100,0 cronbach's alpha n of items ,834 35 based on the try out table, it can be gotten: r11 = 0, 834 the result of commutating reliability of the first try out instruments was 1.042. for α = 5% with n = 32, and r table = 0.349. since the result of r11 was higher than r table, it was concluded that the first try out instrument was reliable and could be used as the instrument to get the data. discriminating power according to heaton (1975: 174) the discriminating power measured how well the test items arranged to identify the differences in the students’ competence. after the trial test was carried out, an analysis was made to find out the discriminating power of each item. table 3.3. upper group lower group no. code score no. code score 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 t-29 t-9 t-17 t-11 t-13 t-16 t-26 t-7 t-18 t-10 t-23 t-1 t-6 t-14 t-2 t-28 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 t-25 t-30 t-3 t-15 t-4 t-31 t-19 t-12 t-22 t-21 t-5 t-27 t-32 t-20 t-24 t-8 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 sum 16 sum 14 according to the criterions, the item number 2 is satisfactory this item was can be used. from, the computation of the discriminating power of the try out test, the result of classification can be seen in the following table: table 3.4. classification number of item poor 8, 9, 16,25, 25, 35 satisfactory 2, 7, 18, 32 good 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34 excellent from the table above, it was found that 6 items were said to be poor, 4 items were said to be satisfactory, 25 items were said to be good, and no item was said to be excellent. difficulty level of the test after computing the overall 35 items of first try out test, it was found that 23 items were classified to be easy, 17 items were classified to be medium and no item was classified to be difficult. . based on the analysis of validity, reliability, item difficulty, and item discrimination it could be considered that 25 items were applicable for this study. they were numbers 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 26, 27, 28 29, 30, 31, 33, 34. pre-test after conducting tryout test and analyzing the data which were collected, i moved to the next step of this research. the pretest was conducted on wednesday, january 11th 2017 for experimental group and on monday, january 9th 2017 for control group. it was held in the first meeting. there were 32 students of viii a as the experimental group and 32 students of viii b as the control group joined the test. the purpose of this test was to know the initial condition of the students’ vocabulary mastery. in this test, the students were asked to answer 25 questions. the time for students doing the pre-test was 40 minutes. the result of the total score of the experimental group was 1792. then the mean of all students’ score was 56.00.the minimum score was 44 and the maximum score was 66. the standard deviation was 5.747. and the result of the total score of the control group was 1810. then the mean of all students’ score was 56.56.the minimum score was 44 and the maximum score was 72. the standard deviation was 8.068. this following chart is the result of the pretest which was conducted in class viii b as the control group and class viii a as the experimental group diagram 3.1. treatment of the research then, the students were given treatments. the experimental group got a treatment by using word wizard game. on the other hand, the control group was taught by using direct translation method. the treatment for control class was conducted on saturday, january 14th 2017, wednesday january 16th 2017 and on saturday, january 21th 2017. then the treatment for experiment group was conducted on thursday, 12th 2017, monday january 18th 2017 and on thursday 19th 2017. there were 32 students in control group and 32 students in experimental group who joined in this activity. first meeting in the first meeting, the writer made a review the material briefly. students were analyzed the definition, purposes, and generic structure of the text and analyzed the vocabulary used in the text. then the students were conducted in group and the writer discussed and gave example about the word wizard game for experimental group and direct translation method for control group second meeting the next meeting, students were stimulated by brainstormed to know more about the social function, generic structure, and specific terms of narrative text. then, students analyzed the vocabulary used in narrative text. students were playing word wizard game. the students kept only four important words and they wrote those words in a paper from the teachers. after that, the teacher asked the students to work in pairs and try to tell a story using those important words so the students in pairs got 8 words. they have to find another group so they got 64 important words. third meeting in the last meeting of treatment, the writer made several groups and the groups were given the passage of narrative text and the questions related to the text and analyzed the vocabulary by using word wizard game. post test the posttest was conducted on thursday, january 23rd 2017 for control class and on friday, january 25th 2017 for experimental class. there were 32 students of experimental group and 32 students of control group joined this test. the posttest in this study had a purpose to measure the students’ vocabulary mastery after getting treatments. the students did the posttest through the test. the process of post-test was similar with the pretest the students of both experimental and control groups were given 25 questions of multiple choices. the test spent about 40 minutes. the result of the total score of the experimental class was 2442. then the mean of all students’ score was 76.31.the minimum score was 62 and the maximum score was 88. the standard deviation was 5.282. and the result of the total score of the control class was 2158. then the mean of all students’ score was 67, 44. the minimum score was 48 and the maximum score was 80. the standard deviation was 8,458. this following chart is the result of the pretest which was conducted in class viii b as the control group and class viii a as the experimental group. diagram 3.2. homogeneity of the test the homogeneity test was conducted to find out whether the groups’ were similar on their vocabulary mastery or not. homogeneity was to know that both two classes are homogeneous. it was important because the similarity of both objects would influence the test result. if both classes are not homogenous, the treatment also cannot be conducted because both classes do not have same ability in vocabulary mastery. the analysis of homogeneity could identify if the pre-test scores of both groups were homogeneous. by using spss 21, below was the analysis of homogeneity of pre-test scores. levene statistic df1 df2 sig. 1,087 6 21 ,402 based on the analysis above, it showed that the significance value was 0.402. the hypothesis was accepted if the significance value was more than 0.05. the pre-test scores of both groups were homogeneous; since the significance value was higher than 0.05. levene statistic df1 df2 sig. 1,158 4 17 ,364 the test of homogeneity for post-test showed that the significance value was 0.364. the hypothesis was accepted; since, the significance value was higher than 0.05. thus, the post-test scores of experimental and control groups were homogeneous. normality of the test normality was used to show if such data was normally distributed. test of normality distribution by using spss 21.0 resulted kolmogorov-smirnov statistics or one-sample k-stest. the hypothesis was accepted if asymp. sig.(2-tailed) was higher than 0.05. table 3.5. control experimental n 32 32 normal parameters a,b mean 56,00 56,56 std. deviation 5,747 8,068 most extreme differences absolute ,188 ,153 positive ,188 ,153 negative -,118 -,134 kolmogorov-smirnov z 1,061 ,864 asymp. sig. (2-tailed) ,211 ,444 the pre-test scores of experimetal group were also normally distributed. it could be concluded from the value of asymp. sig.(2-tailed) of the group, which was 0.444. it was higher than 0.05. therefore, the score of pre-test of both groups was normally distributed. the following is the normality of post-test table 3.6. posttest_experimen posttest_control n 32 32 normal parametersa,b mean 76,31 67,44 std. deviation 5,282 8,458 most extreme differences absolute ,180 ,214 positive ,180 ,139 negative -,164 -,214 kolmogorov-smirnov z 1,017 1,211 asymp. sig. (2-tailed) ,252 ,107 the group’ scores were normally distributed, because the value of asymp. sig.(2-tailed) was higher than 0.05. not to mention, the post-test scores of control group showed the similar result. because the value of asymp. sig.(2-tailed) was 0.107; thus, the test distribution was normal. significant difference of the two tests after all the tests were executed, the two tests were compared. the students did the pretest and the post test well. in this research, the different questions of the pretest and posttest were used, since the purpose of this research was to analyze the significance different on pretest and posttest of the two groups. the table below showed the calculation of the paired-samples t-test of control group. table 3.7. pair 1 posttest-pretest paired differences mean std. deviation std. error mean 95% confidence internal of the lower upper -20.313 5.839 1.032 -22.142 -18.207 t df sig. (2-tailed) -19.670 31 .000 the result showed that the mean scores difference was -20,313. in addition, the t-value was -19,679 and the sig.(2-tailed) was 0.00. ha was accepted since the value of sig.(2-tailed) was lower than. 0.05. thus, the scores of post-test was higher than the pre-test. the following table showed the calculation of the paired-samples t-test of experimental group. table 3.8. pair 1 posttest-pretest paired differences mean std. deviation std. error mean 95% confidence internal of the lower upper -10,875 6,871 1,215 -13,352 -8,398 t df sig. (2-tailed) -8,953 31 .000 the result showed that the mean scores difference of the experimental group was -10,875. moreover, the t-value was -8,953 and the sig.(2-tailed) was 0.00. ha was accepted since the value of sig.(2-tailed) was lower than. 0.05. thus, there was improvement on the post-test after the treatment by using word wizard game were given to the experimental group. in general, almost all of the students made improvement in their vocabulary mastery after the treatment. it was proven that the students’ achievement of the posttest was higher that of the pretest. questionnaire the results of questionnaire obtained from 32 respondents of experimental group were as follows; 1. the first item was about “saya menyukai pelajaran bahasa inggris”. the result showed 24 students or 75% respondents in the group like english. moreover, 25% of students like english lesson very much. it meant that almost all of the students in the group like english lesson 2. the second item was about “saya menyukai metode pembelajaran word wizard game dalam pembelajaran narrative text”. twenty-two of thirty-two students in the group declared that they like the method. unfortunately, only 3.12% of the respondents or a student answered that she/he was not like this method. 3. the third item was about “metode pembelajaran word wizard game lebih menarik ketimbang metode pembelajaran biasa dalam pembelajaran narrative text”. there were 93.75% or students who sagree to the statement. the rest 6.25% of the respondents were disagree. 4. the fourth item was about “metode pembelajaran word wizard game membuat pelajaran narrative text lebih mudah dipahami”. most of the students were felt happy in learning narrative text using word wizard game, there were twenty nine students or 90.62% who agree and 2 or 6.25% students who were chose very agree. moreover, only a student who were not happy. 5. the fifth item was about, “ metode pembelajaran word wizard game membuat pengajaran narrative text menjadi lebih santai”. there were 20 students or 62.5% of overall respondents were enjoy in learning narrative text in applying word wizard game. 6. the sixth item was about “metode pembelajaran word wizard game membuat konsentrasi pembelajaran narrative text menjadi lebih tinggi”. there were 29 students or 90.62% of the respondents agreed that the implementation of the strategy did make them more concentrate in learning narrative text. in addition, the other 9.37% were disagreed. 7. the seventh item was about “metode pembelajaran word wizard game dapat membantu saya mengingat kata-kata yang biasa digunakan dalam narrative text menjadi lebih baik.” twenty-eight students or 87.5% of the respondents agreed with the statement. 8. the eighth question was about “menambah perbendaharaan kata menggunakan word wizard game dalam pembelajaran narrative text”. thirty or 93.75% students of the total respondents agreed that it was effective to learn narrative text after applying word wizard game method. 9. the ninth item was about “word wizard game merupakan metode yang tepat untuk pembelajaran bahasa inggris sehingga saya termotivasi.” the implementation of word wizard game method increased their motivation and gained 96.87% of students’ opinion. 10. the tenth item was about “metode pembelajaran word wizard game perlu digunakan untuk materi-materi lain dalam pembelajaran bahasa inggris”. fourteen students that were 43.75% of the respondents agreed that word wizard game method supposed to be used in the other kinds of text such as procedure, recount, descriptive, etc. conclusions the research findings from pre-test and post-test mean scores of experimental group showed that it was statistically increased from 56.00 to 76.31. meanwhile, the scores of control group only increased from 56.56 to 67.44. on the one hand, the data were analyzed by using independent sample t-test. the mean scores comparison of both groups in post-test proved that the working hypothesis (ha) was accepted. the analysis showed that the value of sig.(2-tailed) (0. 00) was less than the value of α = 5% = 0.05. in the other hand, the data were also investigated by using paired-sample t-test. the analysis showed that both of the groups were improved after the treatments. through the mean scores differences, the t-value of the experimental group was -8,953. meanwhile, the t-value of the control group was -19,679. based on the results, it can be concluded that there was a significant difference between the two groups, after being given several treatments. thus, the analysis of significant difference revealed that word wizard game was effective in teaching reading narrative texts for the subjects of this research. the questionnaire with likert-type items was delivered for students. the analysis showed that 96.88% of the students agreed that the implementation of the strategy assisted them to learn narrative text through word wizard game. in addition, 3.12% of them even strongly agreed towards the statement. references arikunto, s. 2006. prosedur penelitian (suatu pendekatan praktek). jakarta: rineka putra. cohen, andrew d. 1998. strategies in learning and using a second language. england: addison wesley longman limited. healey, joseph f. 1996. statistics: a tool for social research. united states of america: wadsworth publishing company a division of international thomson publishing inc. hornby, a.s. 1995. oxford advanced learner’s dictionary. london: oxford university press. klipple, f. 1984. keep talking. great britain: the bath press webster, meriem. 1986. webster collegiate thesaurus. philipine: meriem webster, inc. mean control experimental 56.56 56 min score control experimental 44 44 max score control experimental 72 66 std. dev control experimental 8.0680000000000014 5.7469999999999999 mean experimental control 76.31 67.440000000000026 min score experimental control 62 48 max score experimental control 88 80 std. dev experimental control 5.282 8.4580000000000002 image2.jpeg image3.emf image4.wmf oleobject1.bin image1.png ( ) ( ) ( ) { } ( ) { } 2 2 2 2 xy r su nsu sc nsc su sc nscu = 2 2 2 2 xy r xy r putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 83 elt forum 6 (1) (2017) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the effectiveness of cooperative integrated reading and composition (circ) to improve writing in descriptive texts kamila nurul ibriza  english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in june 2017 approved in july 2017 published in august 2017 ________________ keywords: circ, technique, writing, descriptive. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this paper is based on a study which investigated the eighth grade students’ achievement in writing descriptive text. the study aimed to find out the effectiveness of cooperative integrated reading and composition (circ) technique to teach writing of descriptive and to investigate the significant difference of students’ writing achievement between the students who were taught using that technique and those who were not. the study employed quasi-experimental non-equivalent control group design. the data were pretest, and post-test scores. the result of the study shows that the mean score of the pre-test in the experimental group is 63.97, while in the control group is 64.46. therefore, the result of post-test increased. in the post-test, the mean score of the experimental group is 76.26, and the control group gets 71.13. moreover, the t-test result is 2.847 and ttable is 2.024. it can be clearly seen that tvalue is higher than ttable. it means that the hypothesis of h1 is accepted and h0 is rejected. based on the proven hypothesis, it could be proven that cooperative integrated reading and composition (circ) is effective to teach writing of descriptive text for the eighth grade students of junior high school students. © 2017 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: unnes_english@yahoo.com k. nurul ibriza / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 84 introduction students should learn all of the language skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) particularly in order to guide them to be able to communicate with other people who also speak english. communicating in language learning not only happens in a spoken way by using spoken language, but also in the form of written language. spoken and written languages are two different aspects of language in the language skills. spoken deals with speaking and listening, whereas written language deals with reading and writing. according to boardman and frydenberg (2002: 31-47), to create a good writing, there are some components that we need to consider; coherence, cohesion, unity, and completeness. a product of writing is considered as good if there are coherence, cohesion, unity, and completeness in it. those are difficult components to master for the students in junior high schools even in universities. moreover, teachers play important roles in teaching and learning process such as designing lesson plan, preparing learning materials and media, and evolving teaching techniques. relating to teaching writing, a teacher should find appropriate and interesting technique to make the students easy in writing. furthermore, not only considering the technique, but also the teacher should consider the process of writing in resulting a good writing product. it is in line with brown‟s statement. brown (2001: 335), “writing needs a process of thinking, drafting, and revising that requires specialized skills, skills that not every speaker develop naturally”. it means that students need a lot of practices to master writing skill in order to produce a good text. writing cannot be done in short times, it needs some stages in the process of writing. it is different from other skills which can be done in short times. in the process of planning, drafting, revising and editing, we will often re-plan, re-draft, and re-edit before we get the product of writing. according to curriculum 2013, students of junior high school are demanded to comprehend descriptive text. there are standard and basic competencies in teaching writing of junior high school in line with curriculum 2013. its standard competence is revealing the meaning of short functional text and simple short essay in the form of descriptive to interact with surrounding. meanwhile, its basic competencies is revealing the meaning and simple rhetorical step in the simple short essay using written language accurately, fluently, and appropriately to interact with the closer surrounding in the form of descriptive. for the students of junior high school, those competencies are difficult to be achieved especially in writing descriptive text. descriptive text is one of the text types or genres given to junior high school. according to gerot and wignell (1995: 208), descriptive text has social function to describe a particular person, place, or thing. it has two generic structures. they are: 1) identification: identifies phenomenon to be described and 2) description: describe parts, qualities, and characteristics. furthermore, gerot and wignell mentions the lexicogrammatical features of descriptive text. they focus on specific participants, use of attributive and identifying process, frequent use of epithets and classifiers in nominal group, and use of simple present tense. descriptive text belongs to one of the difficult genres of writing for junior high school students. it is difficult for them because there are many aspects to consider such as generic structures and lexicogrammatical features. beside those aspects, they always get stuck when they are asked to describe someone or something. this matter is caused by some cases not only because of their lack of vocabularies, grammar, or lexicogrammatical features, but also k. nurul ibriza / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 85 the teaching method or teaching method of teaching and learning source that are not appropriate for them. the teacher tend to use monotonous teaching techniques. they use lecturing technique by explaining the materials using power point. they explain the material while the students are looking it at the projector screen. after that, the students are asked to describe directly after they got the topic whereas they do not understand the materials. hence, the teaching and learning process become monotonous and so it influences the atmosphere of the class automatically. the students get bored quickly and do not comprehend the materials well. moreover, the teacher directed the students to work individually in writing. as a result they merely did their work inactively without participating in the learning process. the teacher seldom gave a feedback to the students‟ writing. she usually gave the students a topic to write about, asked them to submit it, and then just returned the marked sheets without discussing them with the students. besides, the students had difficulties in developing their ideas, using sentence patterns, choosing appropriate words and they were confused deciding what to write about. it was shown from the duration they need to compose a text in fact, the number of students left their papers blank. in this study, i consider that cooperative integrated reading and composition (circ) can solve the problems above. cooperative integrated reading and composition is one of the cooperative learning techniques which can be an effective way in teaching writing. richard and rodgers (2001: 192) state that cooperative learning is an approach to teaching that makes maximum use of cooperative activities involving pairs and small groups of learners in the classroom. in cooperative learning, teachers teach students collaborative or social skills so that they can work together more effectively. cooperative learning provides and facilitates students to work together in group (pair of team) in order to accomplish their work at the end of the learning process, every individual is responsible for learning something by using his or her own way. circ technique is categorized as cooperative learning which mainly involves students learning from each other in groups. in this technique, teacher prepares instruction as the focus of the lesson. students practice the points taught by the teacher in preparation for quiz (faridi, 2012:80). moreover, durukan (2011: 103) states that circ technique is developed to support traditionally used “skill-based reading groups” approach. firstly, reading groups are established in the classroom. next, students are paired off within the groups. when the teacher works with a reading group, couples try to teach each other meaningful reading and writing skills by using reciprocal learning technique. they help each other in performing basic skill-building activities (such as oral reading, contextual guessing, asking questions, summarizing, writing a composition based on the story, revising-correcting composition). in circ, students work in pairs on a series of cognitively engaging activities, including reading to each other, predicting how stories will end, summarizing stories, and practicing spelling, decoding, and vocabulary. the students will be asked to create a descriptive text with the model of one of their group members. it makes the students will be easy to describe the object because they will observe it directly, not just imagine that. therefore, based on the explanation above, hopefully cooperative integrated reading and composition (circ) can be a successful way to solve those problems above. it is in line with my objectives in conducting this study that by using circ technique, it can be an appropriate technique to teach writing of descriptive text and can be an effective way to improve the students‟ writing skill mastery especially in writing descriptive text. k. nurul ibriza / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 86 methodology of the research this study employed a quasi-experimental which used non-equivalent control group design i used this design, because firstly, this design required two classes, one was as experimental group and the other was a control group; and secondly, selecting the subject randomly was impossible to me. this study was conducted in one of the state junior high school in kudus. population of this study was eighth grade students of one of junior high school in kudus in the academic year 2016/2017. there were seven classes of the eighth grade students of that school. on the average, each class consisted of 39 students. the sample of this study were two classes of eighth grade students in that school. the first class as the control group and the second class as the experimental group. i chose the sample based on some consideration; these classes are taught by the same teacher, these classes have given the same facilities from school, these classes are never taught by using circ technique, these classes are taught the same material that is descriptive text. in this study, i used written test as instrument, then analyzed the result of the test (pretest and post-test) using t-test formula. it is used to know whether there is any significant difference between the students who were taught by using circ technique and those who were not. if the tvalue is higher than ttable, it means that there is significant difference between two means. on the other hand, if tvalue is lower than ttable, it means that there is no significant difference between two means. before computing the t-test value, i had to find the normality and homogeneity of experimental and control groups‟ pre-test to find out that the data was normally distributed and homogeneous. k. nurul ibriza / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 87 result and discussion the data were obtained from the students‟ achievement in writing of descriptive text. i used analytic scale for rating composition task by brown and bailey as cited by brown (2004: 244-245) to analyze the pre-test and post-test writing product of the students. the analytic scale covers five components of writing; organization, content, grammar, punctuation and spelling, and style. the following tables show the average of each component both in pre-test and post-test of the control and experimental group. aspects pre-test post-test average of organization 15.1 15.6 average of content 12.8 14.9 average of grammar 9.9 12.2 average of punctuation and spelling 11.6 13.6 average of style 15.0 15.0 table 3.1 average of each component both in pre-test and post-test of the control group aspects pre-test post-test average of organization 12.3 16.1 average of content 13.4 16.5 average of grammar 9.8 12.8 average of punctuation and spelling 14.2 14.9 average of style 14.2 15.7 table 3.2 average of each component both in pre-test and post-test of the experimental group from the table above, it can be seen that the average scores of each component of writing on the two groups were improved on the post-test. after analyzing the students‟ writing product of pre-test and post-test, then i calculated the scores. the following table shows the mean scores for pre-test and post-test for all aspects of students‟ mastery. group mean of pre-test mean of posttest the difference between pretest and post-test experimental 63.97 76.26 12.29 control 64.46 71.13 6.67 table 3.3 the result of pre-test and post-test mean scores of the experimental and control groups table 3 gives the information about the mean of pre-test of the experimental group is 63.97 and their mean of post-test is 76.26. meanwhile, in the control group, the mean of pre-test is 64.46 and the mean of post-test is 71.13. the difference between pre-test and post-test of the experimental group is 12.29 and the difference between pre-test and post-test of control group is 6.67. to make the difference easier to be understood, i applied the mean score between the control and the experimental groups into the chart as follows: k. nurul ibriza / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 88 diagram 3.1 the mean score between the control and experimental groups the chart 1 describes about the pre-test and post-test result of experimental and control groups. the chart 1 shows the result of post-test of both groups increased. meanwhile, in the control group, there was less improvement than the experimental group. it meant that the difference of mean score in the experimental group was higher than in the control group. after getting the data of the experimental and control groups, the normality of those data were analyzed to make sure the data were normally distributed or not. based on the data of pre-test normality computation in the experimental group, the value was 2.398 and table was 7.815. since value was lower than table (2.398<7.815), then it could be concluded that the pre-test of experimental group was said to be normally distributed. beside that, according to the data computation of pre-test in the control group, the value was 5.160 and table was 7.815. since value was less than table (5.160<7.815), it could be inferred that the pre-test of control group was said to be normally distributed. moreover, i computed the normality of post-test of both groups. the post-test normality computation of the experimental group showed value was 1.974 and table was 7.815. since value was less than table (1.974<7.815) so the post-test of experimental group was considered to be normally distributed. for the control group, the normality computation resulted value was less than table (5.517<7.815) so the post-test of control group was considered to be normally distributed too. beside calculating the normality of pre-test and post-test, i computed the homogeneity of both tests. the objective of homogeneity (f-test) is to test the hypothesis whether the two samples are from the same normal population with equal variance or from two normal populations with equal variances or not. therefore, homogeneity is important to be checked. if ≤ it means that the data had the same variance and they were homogeneous. from the pre-test homogeneity computation of both groups, i found that (1.061) < (4.10). it could be concluded that the experimental and control group had the same variance. it meant that the population of the two groups were homogeneous. meanwhile, from the post-test homogeneity computation of both groups, it resulted was 1.829 and was 4.10. since was less than (1.829<4.10) so i concluded that the population of the two groups was homogeneous. after the data were considered as normal and homogeneous, i applied the t-test. in order to know the t-test result, it is needed to find the mean score and score deviation of the post-test of the two groups. the score deviation of the post-test of experimental group was 1699.436 and the control group was 3108.389. after computing the score deviation, the result can be put into the t-test formula. based on the calculation, it resulted = 2.847. for , with df = 39-1= 38, so 55 60 65 70 75 80 pretest posttest experimental group control group k. nurul ibriza / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 89 = 2.024. since exceeded (2.847>2.024), the null hypothesis (h0) was rejected and the working hypothesis (h1) that there were significant difference in writing achievement between the students who were taught by using circ technique and those who were not, was accepted. the objective of this study were to find out whether circ was effective to teach writing of descriptive text or not and to find out how much the significance difference between control group‟s achievement after taught by using regular technique (lecturing) and experimental group„s achievement in writing of descriptive text after taught by using circ as the technique to teach writing of descriptive text at the eighth grade students of one of the state junior high school in kudus in the academic year of 2016/2017. the mean scores difference between pre-test and post-test of the experimental and the control group were calculated to know the improvement of the students‟ writing skill before and after getting the treatment. in the pre-test, the mean score of the control group and the experimental group were 64.46 and 63.97. according to the pre-test result, it could be concluded that the ability of two group was relatively same. the mean score of pre-test of the experimental and control group also had slight difference, so it was said to be normally distributed and homogeneous. after the students received the treatment, the mean scores of the two group increased. however, the mean score of the post-test of experimental group was higher than control group. the experimental group‟s mean score was 76.26 and the control group‟s mean score was 71.13. the score indicated that after getting the treatment, the experimental group achieve a better result than the control group. teaching writing of descriptive text by using circ technique made an upgrading of the students‟ writing ability more than teaching them by lecturing technique. it could be seen in the average of each aspect of writing components both in the pre-test and post-test. (see table 1 and 2) based on the average of each aspect of writing components both in the pre-test and post-test, it could be seen that the students‟ writing ability of descriptive text increased. increasing ability involved the whole aspects of the components of writing; organization, content, grammar, punctuation and spelling, and style. the students‟ ability in organizing their ideas was so bad before getting the treatment. they lacked of understanding of how to give an appropriate title, to make effective introductory paragraph or give supporting sentences for generalizations. some of them, even, did not give the title for their texts. after teaching the students by using circ technique with the help of explanation from the teacher the students of the experimental group were better in organizing their ideas compared to the control group. relating to the content, there is a significance difference between the content of students‟ writing in the pre-test and post-test for both groups. in the pre-test, the students did not know about what they had to write in their descriptive text. therefore, they only produced very simple sentences. after getting the treatment, the content of the students‟ writing improved, especially in the experimental group. they chose one of their group members to be the subject description. the improvement of the content of the experimental group‟s writing was higher than the control group. talking about the grammar, generally, the students‟ grammar was still weak. most of the students in both of the groups lack of understanding of how to produce some sentences into a good structure in terms of simple present tense and adjective order. however, after the experimental group and control group received the treatment, they showed improvement in their grammar. the treatments given to both the experimental group which was circ technique and control group which was lecturing technique gave significant contribution to the students‟ punctuation and spelling. before the treatment was given, the students did not know how to use the appropriate words and had problems in vocabularies. in the pre-test, the students could not find appropriate words for showing their ideas. after the students of the experimental k. nurul ibriza / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 90 group were treated by using circ activities in which there were revising and editing, they had known what register should be used according to particular topics appropriately. whereas, the control group which was taught by using lecturing technique still got the problems in the case of register. it was proven by their average score of style of post-test which was same as their average score of style in pre-test. both of treatments in the experimental group which was circ technique and control group which was lecturing technique did not give significant contribution to the students‟ punctuation and spelling. the gain of these aspects depended more on the teacher‟s explanation and correction during the treatments. based on the average of each aspect of writing components, both in the pre-test and post-test between the experimental and control groups, i inferred that there was a significant effect in teaching writing of descriptive text by using circ technique. moreover, the was higher than obtained 2.847 and was 2.024. it proved that the difference is statistically significant. from that data, it can be concluded that there was significant difference between the group which was taught by using circ technique and the group which was by using the lecturing technique as the english teacher‟s regular technique. the data also indicated that the use of circ technique to teach writing of descriptive text was effective. conclusions based on the result of the data analyzes and research findings, i concluded that firstly the student of experimental and control group relatively have equal level in writing of descriptive text before getting the treatment by using circ technique. it could be seen by the result of pre-test in the control group that was slightly different from the experimental group. since there was only slightly difference in the pre-test result between two groups, it could be concluded that the two groups were homogeneous before getting the treatment. secondly, after calculating the t-test, i concluded that there was significance difference of achievement in writing of descriptive text of the students who were taught by using circ technique and those who were taught by using the lecturing technique since the t_valuewhich was higher than t_(table.). in other words, this t-test result revealed that the working hypothesis of this study was accepted that the null hypothesis was rejected. lastly, i inferred that circ technique gave contribution to improve students‟ achievement in writing of descriptive text. it could be seen from the mean scores differences between pre-test and post-test of experimental and control groups. the mean scores difference between pre-test and posttest of control group was lower than experimental group. by comparing the mean scores difference of both groups and this scores achieved by each group in two tests (pre-test and post-test), i come to conclusion that circ technique was effective to be used in teaching writing of descriptive text and it gave higher significant difference of the experimental groups‟ achievement in writing of descriptive text than the control group. references boardman, c. a., and frydenberg, j. 2002. writing to communicate paragraph and essays. new york: pearson education, inc. brown, h. douglas. 2001. teaching by principles: an interactive approach to language pedagogy, second edition. new york: pearson education, inc. brown, h. douglas. 2004. language assessment: principles and classroom practices. new york: pearson education, inc. k. nurul ibriza / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 91 durukan, erhan. 2011. effects of cooperative integrated reading and composition (circ) technique on reading-writing skills. educational research and reviews, 6/1. pp. 102-109. faridi, abdurrahman. 2012. language teaching theories. semarang state university: unnes press. gerot, linda, and peter wignell. 1995. making sense of functional grammar. sydney: gerd stabler. richards, j. c. &theodore s. rodgers. 2001. approaches and methods in language teaching. cambridge: cambridge university press. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 1 elt forum 7 (2) (2018) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the implementation of transposition translation procedures in english-indonesian translation of epic movie subtitle putri anggraeni, januarius mujiyanto, ahmad sofwan  english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in october 2018 approved in november 2018 published in january 2019 ________________ keywords: transposition, movie, subtitle, translation, newmark. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ the topic of this research is the implementation of transposition translation procedures in english-indonesian translation of epic movie subtitle. movie or film can be considered as the most popular literary work yet brings out language aspects into broaden. as we know, a lot of popular movies are written in english which led translator produce a qualified translation of the movie in order to make the movie easier to understand by the audiences. there are many translation procedures implemented in a movie translation, one of them is transposition translation procedure. the goals of this final project are to reveal how many types and how the transposition translation procedure is implemented in translating the subtitle of epic movie. this study used qualitative approach in describing the results of the analysis of transposition translation procedure implemented. in gathering data, the writer used two steps, they are watching and transcription. in analyzing data, the writer used several steps, they are identifying, classifying, reducing, and reporting. after analyzing the data, the results of this research were presented by using the qualitative-descriptive method. there are 108 out of 1551 parts of subtitles implemented four types of transposition translation procedure. the results of the analysis are described as follows: transposition translation procedure involving literary translation is 63.9%, transposition translation procedure involving change of words’ position 27.7%, transposition translation procedure involving change of word class 4.6%, and transposition translation procedure involving adjustment and replacement of words 4.6%. it can be seen that the most frequently implemented procedure is transposition translation procedure involving literary translation. the translator implemented all types of transposition translation procedure in order to produce a good translation which high in naturalness and equivalency of meaning between sl and tl. © 2018 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: putrianggra8@gmail.com p. anggraeni, j. mujiyanto, a. sofwan / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 2 introduction film as a form of literature can be a very entertaining media. it can be proved by the fact that almost every family in the world has at least one television set at home. the reason that film become the most popular literature product is that it offers moral values, produced in a many genres, interesting with many colorful animation and special effects, easy and cheap to get, and often include language and culture content. kusumarasdyati and luo (nuriswara, 2014, p. 1) state that “…films provide exposures to the real language, used in authentic settings and the culture in which the foreign language is spoken.” as means of communication, the language on the film is one of the important aspects. the audience can automatically learn the language from the film they are watching, in this case is english. for the indonesian audience, who speak indonesian, this condition may be problem. they need the source language (sl) to be translated into target language (tl). it is not a simple matter to translate a language into another. every subtitle translator needs strategies and procedures to translate the subtitle so that they can translate it properly and produce a good subtitle. since transposition translation procedure is the commonest translation procedure used, it should be taken to the consideration. as written in the language circle: journal of language and literature xi/2, that in the process of translation, the translator uses class shift (transposition) as a translation strategy to achieve a communicative translation, it is important to every translator to understand how this procedure is implemented in translation in order to produce high qualified subtitle translation in the future. according to newmark (1988:5) translation is rendering the meaning of a text into another language in the way that the author intended the text. newmark gave more explanation from his statement above that translation was not only translating the language but also the translator should transfer the meaning of the text, so the reader knew about the author intention. another definition by catford (1965:20), explained that translation was the replacement of textual material in one language (sl) by equivalent textual material in another language. this definition concerned in two keywords in understanding translation. these are textual material (where text might have been expected) and equivalent. the use of these terms concerned in idea that translation transposed the source language grammar (clauses and groups) into target language equivalents and translated the lexical units into proper and right sense in the context of the sentence. from some statements and definition from the experts above it can be concluded that translation is an process of activity of change, produce and convey the meaning from the writer (source language) into the target language to get the closest meaning that will be easily understood and acceptable for the reader by considering naturalness and equivalency between sl and tl. according to the macquire dictionary in machali (2000:62), “a procedure is the act or manner of proceeding in any action or process”. at first the different methods or procedures seem to be countless, newmark (1988) mentions the difference between translation methods and translation procedures. he writes that, “while translation methods relate to whole texts, translation procedures are used for sentences and the smaller units of language”. so it is clear about the difference between translation methods and translation procedures. there are the most common translation procedures used in translation, as depicted by newmark (1988): transference, naturalization, cultural equivalent, functional equivalent, descriptive equivalent, componential analysis, synonymy, through translation, shifts or transpositions, modulation, recognized translation, translation label, compensation, reduction and expansion, paraphrase. other procedures, vinay and darbelnet also gave: equivalence, adaptation, couplets, and notes. according to newmark (1988), as quoted by sayogie, transposition consists of four types of grammatical changes, those are: p. anggraeni, j. mujiyanto, a. sofwan / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 3 transposition translation procedure involving literal translation (automatic transposition), is caused by the difference of grammatical structure of a language and offers the translator no choice. transposition translation procedure involving the change of words’ position is required when a sl grammatical structure does not exist in the tl. the change is also possible to occur when sl passive voice is not common to be translated in tl passive voice, so the words’ position are changed and transform it into tl active voice with equal meaning, and also caused by unnatural meaning of literal translation. transposition translation procedure involving change of word class is grammatically possible when sl literal translation is not in a tl natural usage. for instance, sl noun phrase can be shifted into a tl verb phrase. transposition translation procedure involving adjustment and replacement of words can be considered as a semi or full change of a full-set sl sentence into a new composition of tl with equal meaning, required adjustment and replacement of some words in order to complete lexical gap in the translation. a definition of movie stated by hornby (1995: 434) defined film is a story, etc. recorded as a set of moving pictures to be shown on television or at the cinema. as stated in microsoft encarta 2008, movie or film is a series of images that are projected onto screen to create the illusion of motion. motion pictures also called movies, films, or the cinema are one of the most popular forms of entertainment, enabling people to bring themselves in an imaginary world (microsoft encarta: 2008). while coulson (1978: 622) states that film or movie is story, incident, etc. recorded on film on moving pictures. furthermore, lorimer (1995: 506) states that films can record culture, and they can treat social or political issues and other aspects of societies to capture relationship difficult to be communicated by other means. based on the definitions above, it can be concluded that movie is one of literature forms which contain story, play, history, culture, incidents, science, etc. that is recorded as video and shown in cinema, television, theaters, or other broadcast media which is as entertainment as the main purpose. from the research conducted by dries (1995) it is known that there are two major types of film translation: dubbing and subtitling; each of them interferes with the original text to a different extent. subtitling, as cited from matviska (2014) can be explained as supplying a translation of the spoken source language dialogue into the target language in the form of synchronized captions, usually at the bottom of the screen, is the form that alters the source text to the least possible extent and enables the target audience to experience the foreign and be aware of its 'foreignness' at all times. therefore, the language of a subtitle should be a short, dense, and precise objectives and standards of good language use. subtitle usually appear on the lower part of the screen and consist of the translated source language into target language. dubbing is oriented at the target audience that makes the translator adapt the source text which in the end has to meet the standards existing in the target language or country, as cited from cintaz (2009). labially synchronized dubbing which is also known as lip sync is the most widelyspread type of revoicing of feature films which are in mass distribution and mostly it is performed by professional actors. during selection of dubbing actors original voice, temperament of the character and voice age are taken into consideration. p. anggraeni, j. mujiyanto, a. sofwan / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 4 methods this study is a descriptive-qualitative research. it means that this study presents the data in a form of description. based on to pope and mays (in bram, 2013: 25), qualitative researchers study things in their natural settings in an effort to discover the meanings seen by those who are being researched (or subjects) rather than that of the researcher. in this research, the writer only collect, classify and analyze the data, and in the end, draw conclusion based on the data gathered in a form of description. the data used in this research are the subtitles taken from epic movie. they are served in a form of subtitle, there are subtitles used, they are english and indonesian subtitle compared and analyzed sentence by sentence. there are 1551 parts of english and indonesian subtitles divided by the time they occur on the screen, but not all of them are used. the subtitles used are the subtitles implemented transposition translation procedure, there are 108 parts. due to the same type of data, 108 subtitles is reduced into simpler data which represent each kind of transposition translation procedure, so the result of this study is easier to understand. the data of this study is in a form of table contains english and indonesian subtitles and the time they occur on the screen when the movie is played. the writer decided to divide them based on the time they occur because it is considered to be more valid rather than divided them sentence by sentence. it is also because the translator translate them based on the time they occur too. the techniques of collecting the data in this research can be summarized into two steps. they are: 1. watching; since the data of this study was taken from a film, the first step the writer took was watch the film. this step is considered as the primary step because by watching a movie, an audience is able to get deeper understanding about the story of the movie. the writer not only watched the movie one but repeatedly also to get more understanding about the english (sl) and indonesian (tl) subtitles of the movie. 2. transcription; after watching and get enough understanding about the story and the subtitle of the movie, the writer then gathered the subtitles as the data by transferring the source language (sl) and the target language (tl) of the subtitle into a table. the writer listed all the subtitles into a table and put them based on the time they occur on the screen when the movie is played, so there would be no incorrect pair between sl and tl in the table. here, the writer put both the source language (sl) and the target language (tl) of the subtitle side by side. the techniques of collecting the data in this research can be summarized into four steps. they are: 1. identifying; after the writer gathered all the subtitles of sl and tl data from the movie, the writer identified them based on the transposition translation procedure used. the writer then made another table contain only subtitles implemented transposition translation procedure. 2. classifying; after reading all the script and related sources from books, journals, articles, etc. the writer will classify the data into a table based on the types of transposition translation procedure implemented in translating the parts of the subtitles. there were four types of transposition translation procedure used as references in classifying the data. 3. reducing; due to the same type of transposition translation procedure implemented by some parts of subtitles, some similar data occurred. to avoid misunderstanding and make the results of the analysis easier to understanding, the writer reduce the data into the simpler one. some parts of subtitles implement same transposition translation were left and the others were analyzed as the representation of the reduced data. p. anggraeni, j. mujiyanto, a. sofwan / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 5 4. reporting; the result of this study was reported or served in the next chapter in a form of a table completed by the description as an explanation of the implementation of transposition translation procedure in translating the english into indonesian subtitles of epic movie, and more detailed data were put on the appendices. the data on the appendices are hoped able to help the readers understand how this study is done. results and discussions there are 4 kinds of transposition translation procedures used by the translator in translating subtitle, they are (1) transposition translation procedure involving literary translation, (2) transposition translation procedure involving change of words’ position, (3) transposition translation procedure involving change of word class, and (4) transposition translation procedure involving adjustment and replacement of words. in addition, the writer only gave attention in the transposition translation procedures used in translating the subtitle of epic movie. in order to get efficient and exact results, i took some representative data by using sampling method for each kind of transposition translation procedure. it is done because there are many similar data occur in this research, so they must be reduced to get the valid result. the table below shows the data statistic of the number of each transposition translation procedure used: no transposition translation procedure frequency percentage 1 transposition translation procedure involving literary translation 68 63.96% 2 transposition translation procedure involving change of words’ position 30 27.77% 3 transposition translation procedure involving change of word class 5 4.62% 4 transposition translation procedure involving adjustment and replacement of words 5 4.62% sum 108 100% from 1551 english into indonesian subtitle translated, there were 108 of them implemented transposition translation procedure. if the sum of overall data and the data implemented transposition translation procedure is compared, it can be considered that the data implemented transposition translation procedure is very small in amount. this problem occurred because in many scenes of the film the subtitles only express some noises such as grunt, roar, gasps, growls, and so on. translation of these kind of expression are very simple, thus appear in almost every scene of the movie because it contains some fighting scene. even though there are only few parts implemented transposition translation procedure, the implementation of that translation procedure in translating english into indonesian subtitle of epic movie is considered very well.transposition translation procedure involving literal translation is divided into 2 kinds, the first one is the change of noun into adjective, and the second is the change of plural noun into singular noun. this procedure was implemented in 68 parts of the subtitle, and considered as the most frequently used procedure because in literal translation the change of sl into tl is automatic and offers the translator no alternative choice (newmark, 1998). transposition translation procedure involving change of words’ position is then can be divided into 3 kinds based on the factors influencing the changes of the words’ position. they were the change of passive voice into active voice, the change because unnatural meaning, and the change because sl grammatical structure does not exist in tl. this procedure was implemented in 30 parts p. anggraeni, j. mujiyanto, a. sofwan / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 6 of the subtitle. transposition translation procedure involving change of word class is implemented in 5 parts of the subtitle. this procedure was implemented because literal translation is grammatically possible but may not accord with natural usage in the tl, and thus makes sl verb phrase changed into tl noun phrase. transposition translation procedure involving adjustment and replacement of words is also implemented in 5 parts of the subtitle. the cause leads this procedure to occur is that there is lexical gap in direct translation of english into indonesian translation, so that the adjustment and replacement were needed to complete the gap. conclusions we live in the society influenced greatly by the media. with the appearance of advanced technologies there appeared also new forms of modern literature as media of communication which led to new forms of translation. movie as a form of modern literature, has become one of the most influential part of language. the translation of movie or movie translation is called audiovisual translation starts to become a new, best, and easy way to learn language. with the social phenomenon of globalization, translators face the urgent need to translate films in short periods of time but in a high-quality way. thus, they have to understand the strategies to produce a good translation, one of them is by implementing the proper translation procedure in translating languages. the goals of this study are to reveal how many and how the transposition of translation procedure is implemented in translating english into indonesian subtitle of epic movie. as the results of analysis and discussion conducted by the writer, there are several conclusion found. the writer used 108 out of 1551 parts of english into indonesian subtitle as the data to achieve the goals of this study. as written in the chapter ii, the writer described four types of transposition translation procedure proposed by newmark’s classification. those type of transposition translation procedure are; (1) transposition translation procedure involving literary translation, (2) transposition translation procedure involving change of words’ position, (3) transposition translation procedure involving change of word class, and (4) transposition translation procedure involving adjustment and replacement of words. by analyzing the subtitle, it is known that all types of transposition translation procedure were implemented in translating subtitle. the implementation frequency of types of transposition translation procedure is different, this is because every type of transposition translation procedure required different grammatical structures of sl and tl. the details of implementation frequency in form of percentage are follows: transposition translation procedure involving literary translation is 63.9%, transposition translation procedure involving change of words’ position 27.7%, transposition translation procedure involving change of word class 4.6%, and transposition translation procedure involving adjustment and replacement of words 4.6%. based on the results of this study, it is known that the importance to understand translation procedure, especially transposition translation procedure is undeniable. even so, we still have to complete this procedure with other procedure because not all subtitles can be translated by implementing this translation so the translation of the subtitles become highly-qualified. references catford, j. c. 1965. a linguistic theory of translation. london: oxford university press. cintaz, d. j. 2009. new trends in audiovisual translation (ed). bristol: multilingual matters. p. anggraeni, j. mujiyanto, a. sofwan / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 7 dries, j. 1995. breaking eastern european barriers. sequentia, vol. ii, no. 4 june/july/august 95, p. 6. hornby, a.s. 2010. equivalence: in oxford advanced learner’s dictionary, (8th ed., p. 495). oxford: oxford university press. machali, r. 2000. pedoman bagi penerjemah. jakarta: pt grasindo. matkivska, n. 2014. audiovisual translation: conception, types, characters’ speech and translation strategies applied. ukraine: kyiv national linguistic university. microsoft® encarta® reference library 2005. © 1993-2004 microsoft corporation. all rights reserved. mujiyanto, j. 2011. petunjuk penulisan skripsi. semarang: unnes press. newmark, p. 1988. a textbook of translation. london: prentice hall. nida, e.a. dan c.r. taber. 1969. the theory and practice of translation. leiden: e.j. brill. nuriswara, i. m. 2014. the analysis of translating procedures on the subtitle of sherlock holmes “game of shadows”. bandung: universitas pendidikan indonesia. rahmawatie. i, engliana i. m. 2017. the shifts of functional words in the translation of toer’s bumi manusia into english by max lane. language circle: journal of language and literature, xi/2. saputra, h. b. 2013. strategies used in the translation of clauses in puss in boots. semarang: univeristas negeri semarang. sayogie, frans. 2009. teori dan praktek penerjemahan bahasa inggris ke dalam bahasa indonesia. tangerang: pustaka anak negeri. vinay, j. p. and darbelnet, j. 2000. a methodology for translation: the translation studies reader., ed. l. venuti. london and new york: routledge. http://www.dictionary.com/browse/subtitle, accessed on january 30th, 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/epic_(2013_film), accessed on january 27th, 2017. http://www.dictionary.com/browse/subtitle, accessed on january 30th, 2017. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 63 elt forum 7 (2) (2018) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the influences of tongue twister in teaching pronunciation of aspirated sound [ph] anik kholisoh, alief noor farida  english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in october 2018 approved in november 2018 published in january 2019 ________________ keywords: aspirated sound; pronunciation; tongue twister. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ speaking english for indonesian students needs more than an effort to master as they cannot produce intelligibly pronunciation. besides, their mother tongue interferes them when there is different sound production between indonesian and english; hence, they have difficulty in pronouncing aspirated sound that does not exist in indonesian. this study aims to find out how indonesian students pronounce aspirated sound [ph] and the influences of tongue twister to teach pronunciation of aspirated sound [ph]. this research uses pre-test post-test quasi-experimental design. the data were collected from the result of pronunciation tests of seventh graders of smp negeri 12 magelang in academic year 2016/2017. the findings showed that students mispronounced [ph] into /p/ as what they had in indonesian. after being taught with tongue twister, the mean score of experiment group increased from 13.28 to 50.16. there was significant difference of the ability between students who were taught pronunciation using tongue twister and those who were not. the t-test result was 0.000 sig 5%; it means there was different ability between control and experiment group after receiving the treatment. based on the result, the researcher concluded that tongue twister helps indonesian students to improve their pronunciation of aspirated sound [ph]. © 2018 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: anikkholisoh.10595@gmail.com a. kholisoh, a. n. farida / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 64 introduction the fact that english is considered as inconsistence language is very crucial since its spelling is different from its pronunciation. for english native speaker, it would not be a big problem, but for english as the second language (esl) and english as the foreign language (efl) learners, it may take a long time and need more than an effort to master the language. indonesian students are one of the ones who find it difficult to learn english as indonesia is included in the expanding circle of braj kachru’s circle together with china, egypt, israel, nepal, saudi arabia, zimbabwe and some other countries (yoneoka, 2002). thus, the problem arises in speaking field as the learner cannot produce the intelligibly pronunciation or pronunciation that is good enough to be always understood (harmer, 2001). sometimes esl and efl learners who are good at vocabulary and grammar have some difficulties in pronunciation because they do not learn pronunciation from the early time as they start learning english. in addition, brown (2001) stated that for general speaking, children have an excellent opportunity to sound like native speaker if they keep being in authentic context. consequently, learners in the beginning level need to have more practice if they want to have good ability in pronunciation. unfortunately, indonesian learners do not have sufficient training in this language aspect when they study english at school. as the compulsory subject, each english aspects does not have balance portion in teaching learning process. harmer (2001) revealed that “almost all english teachers get students to study grammar and vocabulary, practice functional dialogues, take part in productive skill activities, and become competent in listening and reading. yet some these same teachers make little attempt to teach pronunciation in any overt way and only give attention to it in passing.” in line with this statement that, in fact in indonesia, pronunciation practice do not have enough portion to be taught in the class because teachers tend to focus on the main lesson material such as reading text. students has not been introduced to any segmental feature such as english sounds nor supra-segmental features such as stress and intonation. another thing to be concerned about learning new language for esl and efl learners is the influence of the native language or first language (l1) to the target language or second language (l2). if some sounds are very similar in both native and target language, the influence is called facilitating. for example, both indonesian and english have sound /n/; for indonesian students, the existence of sound /n/ helps them in acquiring sound /n/ in english because they are somewhat similar. however, the interfering influence comes when indonesian students face english sound /ʒ/ which does not exist in their native language, so does happen for sound [ph] from all those discussions, the main problem for indonesian students is in learning pronunciation practice. it is in line with wulandari (2011) who stated that students meet difficulties in learning english pronunciation due to the different elements between their mother language and the target language. they do not have enough basic knowledge in pronunciation to go one step ahead to speaking so that many indonesian people consider speaking english is very difficult to do and to master. besides, mother tongue interfering problem comes to learners who have learned english but finding hard to be fluent in speaking and hard to catch native speaker spoken due to the different sound production between indonesia and english. thus, learning english pronunciation in the very early level can help to overcome this problem because learners stand a good chance to sound like native speaker. moreover, the way to teach pronunciation needs to be effective so that the learning process gets maximum result. one of the effective method to teach pronunciation is using tongue twister that is fun and challenging as being suggested by prošic-santovac (2009) that “tongue twisters were a. kholisoh, a. n. farida / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 65 generally perceived as a useful exercise for improving pronunciation, and their potential for providing context for the target phonemes was valued the most.” this study aims to find out how indonesian students pronounce aspirated sound [ph] before this research was conducted. further, researcher also wants to know whether tongue twister gives influences for indonesian students when teacher uses it to teach pronunciation of aspirated sound [ph]. methods this research used quantitative research in which the data analysis could be done by statistical calculation. there are some types of quantitative research, but in this study quasi-experimental design was chosen. for the reason of not making a mess on the class which had been set by the school, the pre-test post-test quasi-experimental design was quite suitable for this study. the population of this study was the seventh grade students of smp negeri 12 magelang in the academic year of 2016/2017. the seventh graders were chosen because the study about pronunciation practice was very effective given to english learners in beginner level to help them overcame the fossilized accent. furthermore, cluster sampling technique was selected because the design of this research was quasiexperimental which inquired nonrandom control and experiment group. it was simpler if the sample was taken as group or cluster than as individual subject. in this study, vii a consisted of 31 students was chosen as the control group, and vii d consisted of 32 students was chosen as the experiment group. paper [ˈpeɪ.pə r ] pencil [ˈpen t  .s ə l] parking [ˈpɑː.kɪŋ] pepper [ˈpep.ə r ] picture [ˈpɪk.tʃə r ] party [ˈpɑː.ti] partner [ˈpɑːt.nə r ] parent [ˈpeə.rənt] pretty [ˈprɪt.i] peter [ˈpiː.tə] paris [ ˈpær.ɪs] proper [ˈprɒp.ə r ] apology [əˈpɒl.ə.dʒi] repeat [rɪˈpiːt] peanut [ˈpiː.nʌt] people [ˈpiː.pl  ] post office [ˈpəʊst ɒf.ɪs] personal [ˈpɜː.s ə n. ə l] practice [ˈpræk.tɪs] power [paʊə r ] table 2.1. list of words consisting of aspirated sound [ph] using test as the instrument of collecting data, the researcher conducted two kinds of tests, they were pre-test and post-test. however, before the instrument was tested, researcher tried it out to know whether the test was eligible and suitable to be used using validity and reliability test. the try a. kholisoh, a. n. farida / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 66 out test was conducted once in vii c consisting of 31 students. the researcher handed in student worksheet in order to give chance for students to study at a glance first before the test was delivered. there were twenty words consisting of aspirated sound [ph] in the worksheet that is presented in table 1. after giving short explanation about the objective of the test and the material of the test, students came forward one by one to read twenty words consisting aspirated sound [ph]. the result of the study was score which represented students’ ability in pronouncing aspirated sound [ph]. after the data was collected, the researcher analyzed them using statistical analysis. the statistical analysis in this research was the analysis of pre-test and post-test result which included descriptive statistic, normality, homogeneity, and t-test calculation using spss 20.0 to gain the hypothesis. the hypotheses of this research were: h0 : there is no influence of tongue twister in students’ ability in pronouncing aspirated sound [ph] ha : there is influence of tongue twister in students’ ability in pronouncing aspirated sound [ph] the researcher used the probability level to determine the result of hypothesis. if the probability > 0,05 it means h0 is accepted and ha is refused. if the probability < 0,05 it means h0 is refused and ha is accepted. results and discussions based on the researcher’s observation and experience during teaching practice for three months in smp negeri 12 magelang, students’ ability in pronunciation was in general low especially in pronunciation of aspirated sound [ph]. their sound production on [ph] sound was influenced by their mother language. they mispronounced [ph] into /p/ as what they had in indonesian. when they started learning english, they were difficult to acquire aspirated sound. it was proved by the low score of pre-test that was delivered before students got any treatment. 3.1 pre-test pre-test was test given before conducting the treatment. both control and experiment group received similar test. this test was used to measure the initial ability in both groups. it was also used as a guide for the researcher to know that students’ ability in pronunciation in control and experiment group was in the same level. using the reliable and valid test, researcher tested students one by one pronouncing words consisting aspirated sound [ph] and gave score. score 1 was given for the correct sound production and score 0 was for the incorrect one. the final score was drawn from the following formula. 𝑆𝑐𝑜𝑟𝑒 × 5 = 𝐹𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝑆𝑐𝑜𝑟𝑒 the result of the test was analyzed in statistical analysis using spss 20.0. the mean of pre-test in control group was 13.39 with the highest score was 30 and the standard deviation was 8.697. whereas the mean of the experiment group was 13.28 with the highest score was 30 and standard deviation was 8.855. kolmogorov-smirnov df sig. pre-test control group 31 0.186 pre-test experiment group 32 0.116 table 3.1. pre-test normality test a. kholisoh, a. n. farida / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 67 the result of pre-test statistical analysis was then analyzed in normality and homogeneity test. the normality test in this study was conducted by kolmogorov-smirnov in spss 20.0. the distribution is normal if the significance value is > 0.05. table 2 showed that the sig value of pre-test control group (0.186) was higher than 0.05 and the sig value of pre-test experiment group (0.116) was also higher than 0.05. in short, the distribution of the test score in pre-test both in control and experiment group was normal. figure 1 and 2 present the normal distribution of pre-test of control and experiment group. figure 3.1. score distribution of pre-test of control group figure 3.2. score distribution of pre-test of experiment group levene statistic df1 df2 sig. 0.000 1 61 0.996 table 3.2. pre-test homogeneity of variances test the homogeneity test was conducted using the formula of one way anova. from the calculation, the probability/sig was 0.996 which meant that it was higher than 0.05. therefore, this test was homogeneous or the pre-test of control and experiment group came from the same variance. a. kholisoh, a. n. farida / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 68 levene's test for equality of variances t-test for equality of means f sig. t df sig. (2tailed) mean difference std. error difference 95% confidence interval of the difference lower upper nilai equal variances assumed .000 .996 .048 61 .962 .106 2.212 -4.317 4.529 equal variances not assumed .048 60.987 .962 .106 2.211 -4.316 4.528 table 3.3. pre-test independent samples test in this study, the researcher used independent sample t test. the result showed that the sig (2-tailed) which was higher than 0.05. it meant that there was no difference initial ability between students in the control and experiment group. from all pre-test calculations, it can be concluded that in the initial condition, both control and experiment group were in the same level. the mean scores of the two were merely similar. if we look at the histograms in figure 1 and 2, they performed less skewness or the shape was almost close to bell shape which showed the normal distribution of mean scores (tuckman in saleh, n.d.). furthermore, the spread or variance of the two groups was equal or homogeneous proved by the value of homogeneity of variance was 0.996 > 0.05. at last, the t-test score that was 0.962 > 0.05 means h0 is accepted and ha is refused or there is no different ability between control and experiment group before the treatment was given. 3.2 treatment the experiment group was taught pronunciation of aspirated sound [ph] using tongue twister. the researcher provided videos as the media in delivering tongue twister, modeled how to pronounce and guided students to practice. on the other side, control group was taught using conventional method (unstructured discussion). however, this group were still given brief explanation about the material of pronunciation of aspirated sound [ph]. below is the list of tongue twister used in the treatment. pirates private property pirates private property pirates private property peter piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. a. kholisoh, a. n. farida / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 69 a peck of pickled peppers peter piper picked. if peter piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, where's the peck of pickled peppers peter piper picked? based on researcher observation during the treatment, students quite enjoyed practicing tongue twister since it is fun and challenging. automatically they trained their tongue to produce aspirated sound while pronouncing tongue twister. 3.1 post-test the post-test for experiment group was done after this group was given special treatment which was practicing tongue twister. students did the same test as they did in pre-test; they pronounce twenty words one by one. the researcher’s observation focused only on students’ production of the aspirated sound [ph]. score 1 was given for the correct sound production and score 0 was for the incorrect one. control group had exactly the same post-test, technique and scoring system as experiment group. the mean of post-test in control group was 29.03 with the highest score was 85 and the standard deviation was 17.341. whereas the mean of post-test in experiment group was 50.16 with the highest score was 100 and standard deviation was 20.260. kolmogorov-smirnov df sig. post-test control group 31 0.129 post-test experiment group 32 0.200 table 3.4. post-test normality test the result of pre-test statistical analysis was later analyzed in normality and homogeneity test. the distribution is normal if the significance is > 0.05. table 5 showed that the sig value in post-test control group (0.129) was higher than 0.05 and the sig value in post-test experiment group (0.200) was also higher than 0.05. consequently, the distribution on the test score in pre-test both in control and experiment group was normal. figure 3 and 4 present the normal distribution of post-test of control and experiment group. figure 3.3 score distribution of post-test of control group a. kholisoh, a. n. farida / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 70 figure 3.4 score distribution of post-test of experiment group levene statistic df1 df2 sig. 0.956 1 61 0.332 table 3.5. post-test homogeneity of variance test table 5 presents the result of post-test homogeneity of variance test. the result of homogeneity test showed that the probability/sig was 0.332 which meant it was higher than 0.05. therefore, this test was homogeneous or the post-test of control and experiment group came from the same variance. levene's test for equality of variances t-test for equality of means f sig. t df sig. (2tailed) mean difference std. error difference 95% confidence interval of the difference lower upper nilai equal variances assumed .956 .332 -4.440 61 .000 -21.124 4.758 -30.638 -11.610 equal variances not assumed -4.451 60.099 .000 -21.124 4.746 -30.618 -11.630 table 3.6. post-test independent samples test table 6 presented that sig (2-tailed) or probability was 0,000 while the significance level was 0,05 (5%). it showed that the probability was less than the significance level (0,000 < 0,05). from all post-test calculations, it can be concluded that after receiving treatment, the mean score increased quite significant for both control group (13.39 to 29.03) and experiment group (13.28 to 50.16). moreover, the post-test score was also in normal distribution. the histogram of post-test control on figure 3 performed a little bit skewness, but the normality value was still in normal category (0.129 > 0.05) while the distribution of post-test experiment score on figure 4 was almost symmetrical which meant normal distribution. both groups score spread or variance was also homogenous or equal proved by the value of post-test homogeneity of variance was 0.332 > 0.05. finally, the final condition of the two groups was shown by the value of t-test 0.000 < 0.05. the probability is less than 0.05 then h0 is refused and ha is accepted or in other word there is a. kholisoh, a. n. farida / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 71 different ability between control and experiment group after receiving the treatment. from the result, the researcher concludes that teaching pronunciation of aspirated sound using tongue twister influences students’ ability shown by the score after the treatment was higher than the score before the treatment and the significance difference in t-test of post-test. from the result of the research, it can be drawn a theory that english pronunciation of indonesian students is influenced by their mother language especially in aspirated sound [ph]. they are hard to pronounce [ph] because they do not have aspirated sound in indonesian. when they learn [ph] sound, it is interfered by /p/ sound of indonesian or /p/ without aspiration. this problem makes the researcher to find out the solution that is applying tongue twister to teach pronunciation of aspirated sound [ph]. the result of the research proves that students’ performance or ability in pronouncing aspirated sound increases. the theory is strengthen by a study on the influence of mother language to the target language conducted by andi-pallawa (2013). in the comparative study of phonological system between indonesian in english, he found that both languages supply several similarities and differences. the similarities did not give significant impact but the difference put learners into trouble. researcher found out that phonemic features: / p, t, k / were never aspirated in indonesian words wherever they occurred. that is why indonesian students had difficulties to pronounce [ph]. to find the solution of this problem, a previous researcher also used tongue twister to teach pronunciation. iriyani (2015) tried to improve fifth graders' pronunciation of “th” by using tongue twister. the result of the study showed that there was improvement after the treatment was given. by pronouncing words over and over, students were aware of their mistakes and memorized vocabulary at the same time. tongue twister also gave different atmosphere in classroom learning as it could break the boredom of monotonous learning process. the present study proved that fun media once again was well accepted by the student especially young learners and tongue twister as one of them gives significant influence in pronunciation practice of /th/ sound. in addition, tongue twister also works on other english sound such as [ph]. conclusions according to the data analysis in the previous chapter, the conclusions could be drawn as follow 1. students’ ability in pronunciation was in general low. students’ sound production on aspirated sound [ph] was influenced by their mother language that does not have aspirated sound. students mispronounced [ph] into /p/ as what they had in indonesian. in addition, students did not get enough pronunciation practice in the classroom as teacher focused on the material such as grammar and reading. 2. there was difference in students’ ability in pronouncing aspirated sound [ph] between those who had been taught tongue twister and those who had not or who had been taught using conventional method in smp negeri 12 magelang. besides, based on the researcher’ observation, students enjoyed practicing tongue twister since it is fun and challenging. students kept repeating unique series of words after a model on videos and they automatically trained their tongue to produce aspirated sound while pronouncing tongue twister. in short, students’ ability in pronouncing aspirated sound [ph] increased by using tongue twister and it was effective to use. a. kholisoh, a. n. farida / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 72 references andi-pallawa, b. (2013). a comparative analysis between english and indonesian phonological systems.international journal of english language education, 1(3), 103-129. retrieved february 9, 2017, from http://www.macrothink.org/journal/index.php/ijele/article/viewfile/3892/3180 brown, h. d. (2001). teaching by principles: an interactive approach to language pedagogy (2nd ed.). white plains, ny: pearson education. harmer, j. (2001). the practice of english language teaching (3rd ed.). essex: longman. iryani, t. (2015). improving fifth graders' pronunciation of “th” by using tongue twisters (a classroom action research at fifth graders of sdn mojoagung 01, trangkil-pati in the academic year of 2014/2015). final project. semarang state university. prošic-santovac, d. (2009). the use of tongue twister in efl teaching. annual review of the faculty of philosophy. novi sad, 34, 159-169. retrieved july 18, 2017, from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/277173037_the_use_of_tongue_twisters_in_efl_teachi ng saleh, m. (n.d.). statistics in educational research: handouts and assignments. semarang: unnes press. wulandari, c. (2011). the description of pronunciation practice in the classroom (a case study of the seventh grade students of rsbi classes of smp n 2 wonosobo in the academic year of 2009/2010). final project. semarang state university. yoneoka, j. (2002). englishes in asia. retrieved february 6, 2017, from www2.kumagaku.ac.jp/teacher/~judy/gyoseki/30asianenglish.doc putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 79 elt forum 10 (1) (2021) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt group work activity to enhance students’ courage in delivering questions during online learning: a classroom action research retnaningsih sma negeri 9 semarang article info ________________ article history: received in 10 july 2019 approved in 30 march 2021 published in 31 march 2021 ________________ keywords: group work; delivering question; online learning ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ the objective of this study is to find out the effectiveness of group work strategy in maximizing the students’ courage in delivering questions during the online classes. in particular, this study will examine theories on learning, online learning, group work, and courage in delivering questions as part of character building. the approach to be applied in this research is quantitative methods. the research design implemented in this study is classroom action research for 36 students of class xii ips 1 at sman 9 semarang. the technique of collecting data uses observation techniques, interviews, and documentation studies. the results show that learning with the group work can increase the courage of students to ask questions up to more than 75% which shows the effectivity of the strategy and the teacher’s strategy in determining the persons involving in a group work plays a significant role in the success of group work and the motivation to deliver questions during the online classes. © 2021 universitas negeri semarang correspondent address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 sma negeri 9 semarang banyumanik, semarang, 50267 e-mail: retnaningsihsma9@gmail.com http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& retnaningsih/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 80 introduction one of the ways to improve education in indonesia is by making changes and improvements in the learning process. it is necessary to make efforts to improve learning. the main objective of learning is that students can master the subject matter according to the set of objectives. to achieve this goal, an educator has to make efforts in preparing a lesson plan, and selecting the learning methods to the implementation of evaluation. but in reality, after learning activities are completed, there are still students who do not master the learning subjects or topics. in an effort to prevent the covid-19 pandemic to spread wider, the government issued a policy for students to study at home. starting march 16, 2020, schools conduct the teaching and learning online. online learning is a learning system without face to face meeting between teachers and students but is carried out online using the internet network. teachers must ensure teaching and learning activities continue, even though students are at home. teachers are required to be able to do innovation and to design the learning media by utilizing online media. the success of teachers in conducting online learning in the covid-19 pandemic situation is the ability of teachers to make some innovations in designing materials, learning methods, and what applications which are suitable with the materials and methods. creativity is the key to success for a teacher to be able to motivate students to stay enthusiastic about learning online and not take the learning as a psychological burden. to increase students' courage to deliver questions on online teaching for english class of class xii ips1 at sma n 9 semarang, researchers formed group work. according to suprijono (2011) stated that the advantages of group work include: enhancing student motivation to actively learn, creating a sense of togetherness and cooperation, instilling solidarity between friends in groups, and problem solving in doing assignments and projects. in addition to suprijono (2011) said that the learning model of "group work" can increase enthusiasm and motivation to learn, especially for those who lack of ability and skills to deliver questions. sutikno (2013), moreover, stated that group work may increase the students’ courage in delivering questions and at the same time as increasing courage, group work also able to increase learning outcomes. the main reason for this is that students who work in groups can get additional information from the group. then, there will be an exchange of knowledge between group members, so that in solving a problem, the results can be more perfect when compared to independent work. regarding to this, piaget (in slavin, 2011) emphasizes that children at a young age will judge a bad behavior as something that produces negative consequences or impacts even though the purpose of the action is good. according to piaget, the second stage of morality is the stage of autonomous morality. autonomous morality stage occurs in children over 6 years of age or in the middle and late childhood. by the ages of 10 to 12, children stop using and obeying the rules based on conscience. thus, with this autonomous morality is also called the morality of cooperation. this morality arises when the child's social world begins to expand so that he has more peers in his environment. the interaction and cooperation with other children create new ideas for the child about the rules and because of that, their morality changes. asking students to deliver questions in class requires the students’ courage, because without their courage, the activity of asking and answering questions in class will experience obstacles. the meaning of asking or delivering questions we define here is asking for information (explanation), asking to be told (about something), and asking for misunderstanding (abdullah, 2000). thus, it can be interpreted that asking is an activity to carry out questions for obtaining information and to get a clearer answer to a matter that has not been understood or not yet understood. pradoto (2001) in his research results said that the use of questioning techniques accompanied by worksheets and teaching aids in the teaching and learning process can improve learning outcomes. courage to ask or delivering questions is a condition that exists in each individual which is indicated by the ability to show up with confidence and be able to overcome fear when asking for information and get clear answers to something that is not yet understood. in addition, asking questions in learning is seen as a teacher activity to encourage, guide and assess students' thinking abilities. there are several factors that make students reluctant or are afraid of asking or raising questions in the classroom during the teaching and learning process, including afraid of being considered stupid or being laughed at by friends; b) afraid of being asked to come forward to solve the questions or problem by the teacher; c) afraid of being asked to explain the material that has retnaningsih/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 81 just been delivered by the teacher; d) afraid of considered unprepared as they were not reading the teaching materials or paying less attention to the teacher during lessons which make them less understand; e) afraid of expressing opinions because they are confused about how to convey them (cannot speak properly). based on its functions, the objectives of teaching english subjects in the current curriculum include: (1) developing the ability to communicate in english both orally and in writing. these abilities include listening (listening), speaking (speaking), reading (reading), and writing (writing); (2) raising awareness of the nature and importance of english as a foreign language to become main language learning tool; (3) developing an understanding of the relationship between language and culture and expanding cultural horizons. thus, students have cross-cultural insight and involve themselves in cultural diversity. based on the researchers 'observations, the students' lack of courage to ask questions was caused by several factors, including, the number of students who are willing to ask questions were limited, if anyone was willing to ask questions, it was limited to students who were considered having higher abilities than other students, the limited number of students interested in asking questions were limited because they are ashamed to be considered not capable of mastering the lesson and the students' interest in reading textbooks is lacking, so that they do not master the learning material being discussed. learning itself, in article 1 point 20 of law no. 20 of 2003 concerning the national education system is a process of interaction between students and educators, and learning resources in a learning environment. meanwhile, according to wingkel in siregar and nara (2010), learning is a set of actions designed to support the student learning process, by considering the extreme events that play a role in a series of internal events that occur and are experienced by students. to support this, learning according to gagne in siregar and nara (2010) is instruction which is intended to promote education, an external situation needs to be arranged to activate, support and maintain the internal processing that constitutes each learning event. meanwhile, according to dimyati and mudjiono (2009) learning is a process organized by the teacher to teach students how to learn, how to acquire and the process to obtain knowledge, skills, and attitudes. from the explanation above, it can be concluded that learning is a conscious effort made by educators, students and learning resources in the environment. learning is an activity carried out by the teacher in such a way that student behavior changes for the better. learning aims to help students gaining various experiences and with that experience, the behavior of students which includes knowledge, skills, and values or norms that function as controllers of students' attitudes and behavior increases, both in quantity and quality. with the covid-19 virus outbreak, the government obliges all schools to conduct online learning. the online learning system is a learning system without face-to-face learning between teachers and students but is done online using the internet network. teachers must ensure learning activities continue, even though students are at home. here, teachers are required to be able to design learning media as an innovation by utilizing online media. this is in accordance with the minister of education and culture of the republic of indonesia’s regulation number 4 of 2020 concerning implementation of education policies in the emergency of the spread of corona virus disease (covid-19). online learning is conducted through a personal computer (pc) or laptop connected to an internet network connection. teachers can maximize learning at the same time using groups on social media such as whatsapp (wa), telegram, instagram, zoom applications or other media as learning media. thus, the teacher can ensure students take part in learning at the same time, even in different places. in the online learning process, it is important to add educational messages to parents and students about the covid-19 pandemic outbreak. thus, the schools want to make sure that students find the online learning is doable and able to replace face to face learning. to overcome the risk during covid-19 virus outbreak, the implementation of online learning is considered the best way, the program is right on target, and the learning outcomes are achieved. however, there is a lesson learned from the world of education in the midst of the covid19 pandemic which says that face-to-face learning activities with teachers in a classroom have proven to be more effective than online. this was explained by an education expert of universitas brawijaya (ub), aulia luqman aziz in accordance with national education day 2020. he mentioned, "forever, the teaching profession will not be replaced by technology," said luqman in retnaningsih/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 82 his statement on ub's official website, saturday (2/5/2020). according to him, full online learning has recently caused a lot of complaints from students and parents. furthermore, in accordance with learning, teachers are also obliged to take care of students’ character building. one of the way in supporting the students’ character building is to motivate students to engage in the process of teaching and learning and to think critically by the activity of delivering questions. here, to refer to the activity of delivering questions, we label the activity as asking. asking is an activity to get some information from someone you know or person in charge. the response given can be in the form of knowledge to matters which requires consideration. so, asking is an effective stimulus that encourages thinking skills. questioning skills, for a student is a very important skill to master, because through these skills students can create a more meaningful learning atmosphere. learning will become very boring, when the teacher explains the subject matter for hours without being punctuated by questions, either just provoking questions, or questions to get students to think. therefore, in every learning process, whatever learning model is used, asking questions is an activity that always acts as an inseparable part. experts believe that good questions have a positive impact on students, including increasing the full participation of students in the learning process, improving students' thinking skills, because thinking itself is asking questions, arising students' curiosity, and guiding students to determine answers, and helping students to focus on the problems discussed. the habit of asking questions of seeking for information and finding a better understanding will make us open-minded. to ask questions requires courage to lead students to the right path, avoiding things that are misleading. courage to ask questions will not be born just like that but needs to be nurtured or trained by parents, teachers, or older siblings (hasibuan and moedjiono, 2012). in the process of teaching and learning activities, teaching cannot be separated from the problem of "asking" because the questions posed by students can be used to determine the extent of student involvement in teaching and learning activities. students in asking questions need to pay attention to the objectives and level of questions, to know, recall and evaluate the level of experience of the concepts that have been studied. to provoke student questions, the teacher displays contradictory problems by providing student activity sheets (lks) which contain a varied sequence of activities and questions and dividing groups of students heterogeneously. based on the development of psychology (piaget in slavin, 2011), it can be briefly stated that from the age of twelve to adulthood, children begin to be able to consider several simultaneous views regarding their own objective actions. they can formulate theories and test hypotheses, filtered that they can think inductively and deductively, and can provide arguments with implications. thus, the courage of students will be more visible in asking questions both with their own friends in one group and with another group. the level of questions itself can be grouped into three, namely low-level questions are questions that require a short answer and usually these questions begin with the words "what, where, who, and when". medium level questions are questions that require a short answer but are not complex problems, they usually begin with the word "how". meanwhile, high-level questions are questions that require a short answer and are complex problems, usually beginning with the word "why" (bolla and pah, 1983). in instilling the courage to deliver questions, researcher believes in strengthening the quality of the students’ group work to ensure cooperative learning. according to suprijono (2009), cooperative learning is a broader concept covering all types of group work including forms that are more teacher-led or teacher-directed. the support of vygotsky's social constructivism theory (in suprijono, 2009) has placed the importance of the cooperative model. vygotsky's social constructivism emphasizes that knowledge is built and constructed mutually. vygotsky emphasized that students construct knowledge through social interactions with other people. based on some of the definitions above, it can be concluded that cooperative learning is a learning strategy based on group collaboration carried out to achieve specific goals. according to rusman (2013), cooperative learning is different from other learning strategies. the difference can be seen from the learning process which emphasizes the process of teamwork in groups. the goals to be achieved are not only academic ability in terms of mastery of subject matter, but also there is an element of cooperation for mastery of the material. this cooperation is the hallmark of cooperative learning. group study between more accomplished and underachieving friends is useful for teaching knowledge, skills, and strengths to peers. this is in accordance with the theory of phenomenology that every lesson must be "meaningful" for retnaningsih/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 83 humans and humanity, because humans are social beings as well as individual beings. thus, the objective of this study is to find out the effectiveness of group work strategy in maximizing the students’ courage in delivering questions during the online classes. in particular, this study will examine theories on learning, online learning, group work, and courage in delivering questions as part of character building. methods this article employed a classroom action research to the 36 students of xii ips 1 at sman 9 semarang in the academic year 2020/2021 which was conducted through online learning. besides classroom observation, data were also collected through literature review and theoretical studies from various library sources. the data used in the study were collected through observation by researchers and observers. the method used is that researchers and observers enter virtual discussion groups. the tool used is the observation sheet. the population of this study was students of class xii ipa1 sma n 9 semarang year 2020/2021. in total, there were 36 students. students consist of 23 boys and 13 girls. whereas, the research cycles consisted three cycles. the first cycle of meeting 1 was held for 3 days: monday, november 2, 2020 at 08.30 up to 09.00; tuesday, november 3, 2020 at 08.30 up to 09.00, wednesday, november 4, 2020 at 11:15 a.m. up to 11.35 a.m. the first cycle of meeting 2 was held on tuesday, november 10, 2020, at 07.30 up to 08.50. cycle ii meeting 1 was held on saturday, november 14 2020 at 07.30 up to 08.30. the second cycle of meeting 2 was held on wednesday, 18 november 2020 at 07.30 up to 08.30. cycle iii meeting 1 was held on saturday, november 21, 2020 at 07.30 up to 08.10. cycle iii meeting 2 was held on monday, november 23, 2020 at 08.30 up to 09.00. the research procedure consisted of three cycles. each cycle was divided into 4 parts, namely: planning, implementation, observation and reflection. in addition, the analysis of research data applied qualitative descriptive analysis with percentage techniques. findings and discussion inter-cycle discussion after carrying out a series of actions in each cycle and based on the results of observations, there were several results that the researcher can convey. the first result was related to the level of courage of the students to ask questions in a discussion with a small number of members. the courage of students to ask questions was low, and vice versa, the more the number of members of the group, the higher the students' courage to ask questions in the discussion. with a group discussion, students who were not brave enough to ask questions were motivated by their friends in their group so that they had the courage to ask questions. merging discussion groups between groups that were motivated to ask questions and groups that were less motivated to ask questions can be helpful to motivate other groups (those who are less motivated to ask questions). they started to be motivated to ask questions in group discussions. overall results after the researcher conducted the research accompanied by the observer in 3 cycles the results obtained were, there were 36 students of class xii ips 1, consisting of 23 boys and 13 girls. in the online learning process, the students find difficulties throughout the learning process because the meeting is without a face to face meeting. in addition to providing learning material, researchers always provide motivation and inserting character education to shape students' personalities. there are various student responses, some are loyal to take part in learning, but there are also students who are less sensitive and are lazy to take part in learning. even in the learning process, there was no response from the students. researchers are concerned with the conditions of the learning process like this. the researcher then tries to create different learning methods by empowering students in the learning process, namely the group discussion method. researchers think back to the current situation because students cannot meet each other, what can be done is a virtual discussion. finally, the researcher conveyed the idea to the students and they could accept and understand. the facilities used are cellphones/ laptops devices with google classroom, google meet, and whatsapp (video call) applications. researchers also convey these ideas to fellow teachers, fellow science teachers integrated to help the process of carrying out the discussion. retnaningsih/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 84 the researcher then divided the students into 18 groups, each of which consisted of 2 students, by means of the students looking for their own discussion pairs. the time used for discussion uses learning hours, with a duration of time between 10 to 20 minutes. next, the researcher made a schedule for group discussions with each one accompanied by a researcher or observer. in the first cycle, on average, 14% (5 students) asked questions from 36 students. the courage to ask occurred during the meeting 1, there were 1 student, and meeting 2 were 4 students, after students were given actions in the form of motivation in the form of motivation the importance of asking both individually and classically. the observation result in cycle ii showed that the students' courage to ask an average of 45% (16 students) who were motivated to ask from 36 students, the courage to ask more questions was found at the second meeting, namely 10 students and 6 students at the first meeting. so that there was an increase of 4 students. in cycle ii, the number of questions that arose was an increase of 31% from cycle i. this tendency if the increasing number of students delivering questions indicates the success of the teacher in cycle ii, namely dividing the class into 9 groups with more group members. researchers provide motivation and praise for students who dare to ask questions, with the hope that students' courage will increase. in the third cycle after the observation, the results obtained from students who asked there were an increase of 35% to 80% (30 students out of 36 students). at meeting 1 there were 12 students and at meeting 2 there were 18 students who asked questions. the teacher's actions by adding value, make students motivated and take the initiative to ask questions. from the results of observations made by the observer, it shows that there is a good change in students to take advantage of the opportunity to ask, which is 35% higher than in cycle ii, so that it will affect the understanding of the concept just discussed. the level of active response of male students was higher than that of female students. thus, from the researchers' observations from cycle i to cycle iii, the group discussion learning model was able to encourage students to ask questions in completing assignments. in addition, the learning atmosphere can be fun, cheerful, not tense and feelings of shame, fear and lack of confidence can gradually disappear so that psychologically it can arouse individual interest in understanding the material presented and the burden they feel becomes relatively light, because all material is done in groups. likewise, for teachers, the task load becomes relatively lighter in carrying out the learning process, because the learning process is more studentcentered. discussion from the study, it can be concluded that the study was succeed. the achievement of students was increased and it was shown by the confident that the students show while delivering questions in group. it is in line with the statement delivered by suprijono (2011) stated that the advantages of group work including enhancing student motivation to actively learn, creating a sense of togetherness and cooperation, instilling solidarity between friends in groups, and problem solving in doing assignments and projects. from the classroom action research that has been done, it shows that the existence of students in one group can help to push students to show their ability in delivering questions. although the activity is student-centered, it does not mean that the teacher has no responsibility to teach the students. the teacher here acts as facilitator which can intrigue the process of asking and answering to happen. moreover, the ability of the teacher in designing the group task also play a significant role to ensure the group work happens. as mentioned by hasibuan & moedjiono (2012) courage to ask questions will not be born without a reason but needs to be trained by parents, teachers, or older siblings (hasibuan & moedjiono, 2012). in other words, it is a habit that needs to be cultivated. teacher plays his own role by providing a task which requires group work so the process of discussion involving group question and answer can happen. besides, teacher also has the role to choose a correct partner for each student in one group. the choice of member of each group will take part in the process of asking and answering questions. to underline all of this, teacher takes part in choosing task and team partner to invite student’s participation to ask questions. the ability of making question itself will ignite students’ critical thinking and confidence. students’ performance, especially their performance in questions production during group works was mostly influenced by their own motivation. students who had positive attitude toward class activities spoke more and performed better than students who had negative attitude toward retnaningsih/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 85 teaching and learning process (szpotowicz, 2012). motivation also played roles in creating an effective learning. besides, the amount of experience, the students took for doing group works affect how they performed during the process, the more experience they had, the better they did the group works as well as questions production (szpotowicz, 2012). moreover, performing group work during speaking class could give the students more opportunity to use subject language communicatively. it also meant, they could improve their speaking ability, and indeed their questions production. in addition, such kind of environment reduced stress and provided students with more intakes related to their performance (hung & mai, 2020). yet, the teachers needed to keep encouraging students to actively use the subject language while discussing their works in group (hung & mai, 2020). thus, it is hoped that the students could develop their speaking skills, critical skills and their questions production. group work and questions production could not be separated from the notion of social interaction (nipp & palengue, 2017). the ability to communicate well, particularly being able to excel the skills of question production, needed intensive social interaction. interaction between students and students was the core element of effective cooperative group work. however, every group works certainly triggered some challenges. the challenges that occurred during group works were related to the contribution of group participants, group management and how to embrace diverse opinions and ideas. to ensure successful group works during teaching and learning process, the teachers could apply some policies to reduce problems that might occurred (nipp & palengue, 2017). the policies should accommodate the nature of group work, especially for questions production. communication and transparency were also required to promote effective learning experience during group as well as during questions production. this study suggested that teachers needed to make careful consideration regarding the implementation of group work. the teacher must be careful in determining the members of each study group, before implementing the learning using the "group work" strategy. the teacher must make detailed plans, compile brief work instructions, which contain the substance of the material, and work steps. the teacher must consider the situation and conditions of the classroom environment and its composition, because to implement the group work strategy requires adequate preparation, especially the readiness of students in receiving lessons. moreover, the teacher must always monitor and provide motivation in the implementation of group work activities. by considering those elements, the teaching learning process, especially for group work activities, in fostering question production can be done successfully. conclusion the conclusion is not only about restating the data or findings, but also synthesizing the purpose of the study which at the end yields the findings and discussion which should be compatible with the objectives of the research. moreover, based on the results of the research and discussion above, it can be concluded that learning with the group work method, can increase the courage of students to ask questions up to more than 75%. teachers can gradually come up with various learning strategies and techniques, and empower students to overcome their own learning difficulties. the determination of the number of study group members and the selection of members of each group greatly determines the activeness/ courage of students to ask questions. the readiness of the teacher in preparing learning material, the readiness of students in learning and the monitoring of the teacher in the group work process affect their success. the future research related to group works and question production can investigate the opportunity to study the group work as well as question production for higher education students. the study can explore in what extent question production and critical thinking skills can be promoted thoroughly. references aji, a.l. (2021, february 20). akademisi ub: profesi guru tak bisa diganti teknologi di masa covid-19. kompas. https://edukasi.kompas.com/read/2020/05/04/135657971/akademisi-ubprofesi-guru-tak-bisa-diganti-teknologi-di-masa-covid-19?page=all bolla j.i. & d.n. pah (1983). panduan pengajaran mikro. direktorat jenderal pendidikan tinggi. dimyati and mudjiono. (2009). belajar dan pembelajaran. rineka cipta. hasibuan & moedjiono. (2012). proses belajar mengajar. pt. remaja rosdakarya. retnaningsih/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 86 hung, d. m. & mai, l. t. t. (2020). high school teachers’ perceptions and implementations of group work in english speaking classes. international journal of instruction, vol.13 (2), 445462. masrur mh, abdullah. 2000. membina keberanian. putra pelajar. nipp, m. b. & palenque, s. m. (2017). strategies for successful group work. journal of instructional research, vol. 6, 42-45. pradoto, j. (2001). meningkaikan hasil belajar melalui teknik bertanya pada konsep sistem gerak di sltp 2 sokaraja. [thesis, universitas negeri semarang]. fpmipa unnes. rusman. (2013). metode-metode pembelajaran: mengembangkan profesionalisme guru. pt raja grafindo persada. siregar, e., & nara, h. (2010). teori belajar dan pembelajaran. ghalia indonesia. slavin, r. e. (2011). cooperative learning. learning and cognition in education, 160-166. suprijono, a. (2009). cooperative learning teori & aplikasi paikem. pustaka pelajar. suprijono, a. (2011). model-model pembelajaran. gramedia pustaka jaya. sutikno, s. (2013). belajar dan pembelajaran. holistica, 49-50. szpotowicz, m. (2012). researching oral production skills of young learners. c.e.p.s journal, vol. 2(3), 141-166. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 18 elt forum 6 (1) (2017) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt an analysis of english phrasal verb translation in totto-chan novel: the little girl at the window dwi indah mutiara s., ahmad sofwan, pasca kalisa english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in june 2017 approved in july 2017 published in august 2017 ________________ keywords: phrasal verbs, translation strategy, translation quality ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this study is attempted to focus on phrasal verb translation of an english novel totto-chan: the little girl at the window to its indonesia version entitled totto-chan: gadis cilik di jendela. the objectives of the study are: (1) to describe the strategies used in translating phrasal verb in the totto-chan novel (2) to describe the quality of phrasal verb translation in the totto-chan novel. in conducting this research, descriptive qualitative approach is used. the presentation of discussion is presented in a descriptive way. the data are analyzed by finding the phrasal verbs in the source language and in the target language. the translation strategies are analyzed based on mona baker’s theory. meanwhile, the researcher uses nababan’s theory to identify the translation quality of the phrasal verbs. the result of the study shows that (1) there are 35 data translated using idiom of similar meaning and form, 155 phrasal verbs translated using an idiom of similar meaning but dissimilar form, 5 phrasal verbs translated by paraphrase and 5 phrasal verbs are translated by omission; it shows that the most strategy used is using idiom of similar meaning but dissimilar form (2) the accuracy level of this novel’s phrasal verb translation is 80,67 % which indicates that the translation is accurate, the acceptability level is 83,17 % which shows us the translation is acceptable and the readability level which is 92,33 % which proves that the translation of this novel is highly readable. © 2017 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: unnes_english@yahoo.com d. indah mutiara s. & a. sofwan & p. kalisa / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 19 introduction based on oxford advanced learner’s dictionary, hornby (2000) states that translation is the process of changing something that is written or spoken into another language. one of the most prominent definitions of translation is stated by newmark (1988). he defines that translation is a process of rendering the meaning of a text into another language in the way that the author intended the text. on the other hand, nida and taber (1974) state that translating consists of reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the source language message, first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style. from the definition mentioned, it is found that translation is a process which is intended to find meaning equivalence in the target language. courtney (1989) defines that idiomatic expression of phrasal verb is a combination of a verb and a preposition or adverb that creates a meaning different from its original. for example, the phrase look after that has meaning take care of someone or something the total meaning of look after is different from the meaning of the look and after. from many perspectives above, we know that translation is the transfer of the message or language from the source language into the target language and acceptable in its meaning with regard equivalence. idiomatic phrasal verb is one of the problematic factors in translating a novel. nevertheless, few studies conducted to discuss these problems. some of them discussed the content of the novel such as cultural terms (aziz, 2014), review of the story (hartanto, 2012) etc. however, research on other issues also developed. for instance, the research about translation has been conducted by several researchers but they only focus on what the translation method used in translating a novel (candra, 2016). since few studies have been done in dealing with translation problem especially for phrasal verb, this research is conducted to discuss translation of phrasal verb briefly. dealing with the problems above, the objectives of the study is to find out the strategy used to translate phrasal verbs as well as identify the quality of phrasal verbs translation. to support this study, the researcher finds some previous studies dealing with translation strategy and quality. straksiene (2009) has conducted an analysis of idiom translation strategies. in this article the translation of english idioms into lithuanian and difficulties that translator meets were analyzed. the analysis has showed that kirvaityt’s translation of idioms involved four basic translation strategies: paraphrasing, which involves explanatory and stylistic paraphrase, idiom to idiom translation, which involves using idiom of similar meaning and form and using idiom of similar meaning but dissimilar form, literal translation and omission. another is a research about accuracy, clarity, and naturalness in the translation of phrasal verbs by susilawati (2011). the results of susilawati’s research shows that the accuracy and the clarity of the phrasal verbs is above average or good while the naturalness is below average or poor. in her research described the accuracy, clarity and naturalness are the important features that should be possessed by the translation in order to be a good translation. the difference between this research and ratna susilawati’s research is the theory, corpus and focused of the research. methodology of the research the research design is meant to set up an effective direction in conducting the research. this research uses descriptive method in which the researcher collects and analyzes the data, then draws conclusion based on the data analysis. the data are in the form of phrasal verbs and its drawing analysis. after all data collected, they will be analyzed by finding the use of phrasal verbs on the source text. in addition, the researcher asks three raters to give score for each aspect of translation quality and measures the given score based on nababan’s theory. d. indah mutiara s. & a. sofwan & p. kalisa / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 20 the sources of the data are totto-chan: the little girl at the window by dorothy britton published in 1984 and totto-chan: gadis cilik di jendela by widya kirana in 2003 (third edition). the book begins with totto-chan’s mother coming to know of her daughter’s expulsion from public school. her mother realizes that what totto-chan needs is a school where more freedom of expression is permitted. thus, she takes totto-chan to meet the headmaster of the new school, mr. kobayashi. from that moment a friendship is formed between master and pupil. the book goes on to describe the times that totto-chan has, the friends she makes, the lessons she learns, and the vibrant atmosphere that she imbibes. all of these are presented to the reader through the eyes of a child. thus the reader sees how the normal world is transformed into a beautiful, exciting place full of joy and enthusiasm. the reader also sees in their role as adults, how mr. kobayashi introduces new activities to interest the pupils. one sees in mr. kobayashi a man who understands children and strives to develop their qualities of mind, body and his concern for the physically handicapped and his emphasis on the equality of all children are remarkable. in order to collect the data, the writer did some steps. first, the researcher found both novels; english and indonesian and read both of the data, the source and the target language. after getting the data, the writer chose the pages containing the phrasal verbs that would be used as data and arrange the data in a table. the next step is identify the data which were found in the book. then, for determining the quality of the translation, the researcher found three raters and asked them to give scores for each aspect of translation quality. the last is measuring the given scores using nababan’s theory. this research used descriptive method in which the researcher collected and analyzed the data, then drew conclusion based on the data analysis. qualitative data are just not those that cannot be quantified, qualitative data can and should sometimes be quantified. qualitative data can be gathered in many ways, including observations, journals, logs, retrospective narratives, document analysis, interviews and questionnaires. the data finding were analyzed descriptively in a form of explanation and its interpretation using theory of translation strategy and translation quality. the researcher used types of phrasal verb from quirk et.al (1984) in corpus linguistics (2014) to analyze the data. lexical verb direct object particles (adverb) particles (preposition) prepositional object phrasalverb (intransitive) show up phrasal verb (transitive) separable inseparable write call the note down on a friend phrasal prepositional verb (intransitive) get along with tony prepositional verb (transitive) put their success down to team spirit table 2.1 types of phrasal verb by quirk et.al adopted from corpus linguistics (2014) from the data of phrasal verb above, the writer examines the strategy used by the translator in translating the phrasal verbs. d. indah mutiara s. & a. sofwan & p. kalisa / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 21 translation strategies using an idiom of similar meaning and form using an idiom of similar meaning but dissimilar form translation by paraphrase translation by omission table 2.2 translation strategies by baker (1992) in addition, the quality of translation was also analyzed in this research. the data were examined whether it is accurate, acceptable and readable or not. the basis analysis data is taken from nababan (2012). source language target language accuracy (1-3) acceptability (1-3) readability (1-3) they got off the oimachi train at jiyugaoka station. mereka turun dari kereta oimachi di stasiun jiyugaoka. 3 3 3 she had hardly ever been on a train before and was reluctant to give up the precious ticket she was clutching. totto-chan yang jarang sekali naik kereta enggan mengulurkan karcisnya yang berharga. ia memegangi karcisnyaerat-erat. 3 2 2 total 6 5 5 average 3,0 2,5 2,5 table 2.3 quality of translation by nababan (2012) result and analysis the first aim of this study is to find out the strategies applied to translate phrasal verbs in totto-chan novel. this study is conducted based on a set of strategies to translate phrasal verb or idiom provided by mona baker. the second purpose of this study is to discover the quality of translation in the novel based on nababan’s theory. the first purpose of the study is to determine the strategy used by the translator to translate the phrasal verbs in the totto-chan novel. the researcher has analyzed the collected data as in table 4. strategy frequency percentage 1 35 17,5 % 2 155 77,5 % 3 5 2,5 % 4 5 2,5 % total 200 100 % table 3.1 strategy of phrasal verb translation d. indah mutiara s. & a. sofwan & p. kalisa / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 22 the table 4 shows the distribution of translation strategy used in translating phrasal verbs. there are 35 phrasal verbs translated using an idiom of similar meaning and form, 155 phrasal verbs translated using an idiom of similar meaning but dissimilar form, 5 phrasal verbs translated by paraphrasing and 5 phrasal verbs are translated by omission. there are 35 data of phrasal verbs which are translated using idiom of similar meaning and form strategy. it can be shown in the following example. example 1 (page 12, line 33) sl: mother flinched as the teacher leaned forward. tl: mama jadi salah tingkah ketika guru itu mencondongkan badannya kedepan. in this example, “leaned forward” is translated into “mencondongkan badan kebadan”. based on free dictionary, “lean forward” means to bend forward. here, the translator renders its meaning into “mencondongkan badan kedepan” in indonesian. it shows that both have the similar meaning. moreover, “leaned forward” is a phrasal verb or verb phrase as well as “mencondongkan badan kedepan” which is a verb phrase too. therefore, this data uses idiom of similar meaning and form strategy. from the examples above, we know that idiom of similar meaning and form strategy is quite common used in translating phrasal verbs. this finding reveals a study done by pratama (2016) that the use of idiom of similar meaning and form strategy is quite common in translating phrasal verbs or idiomatic expressions in a novel or other literary works. it can be seen from the presented table that shows the counted data using this strategy. the translator used this strategy in delivering the meaning of phrasal verbs in the novel because they have the equivalence expressions in indonesian. from the examples above, most of the phrasal verbs are translated word by word. it happens because the translator must find the similar form of the phrasal verbs. if it is a phrasal verb, she has to find the similar meaning in phrasal verb form. there are 155 data of phrasal verbs which translated using this strategy. it can be shown in the following example. example 1 (page 9, line 1) sl: they got off the oimachi train at jiyugaoka station. tl: mereka turun dari kereta oimachi di stasiun jiyugaoka. in this example, “got off” is translated into “turun”. based on cambridge dictionary, “got off” means to leave a train or bus. here, the translator renders its meaning into “turun” in indonesian. it shows that both have the similar meaning. however, “got off” is a phrasal verb or verb phrase while “turun” which is a verb not a phrase. therefore, this data uses idiom of similar meaning but dissimilar form strategy. from the examples above, we know that most of phrasal verbs are translated using idiom of similar meaning but dissimilar form. this finding reveals a study done by akbari (2013) that it is possible to find an idiom or fixed expression in the target language which has a similar meaning to that source language, but which consists of different lexical items. for example, the english expression one good turn deserves another and the french expression a beau jeu, beau retour (a handsome action deserves a handsome return) use different lexical items to express more or less the same idea. the translator uses this strategy in delivering the meaning of phrasal verbs in the novel because they do not have the equivalence expressions in indonesian. from the examples above, most of the phrasal verbs are not translated word by word like the strategy before. it happens because the translator cannot be able to find the similar form of the phrasal verbs. if they are translated word by word, the delivered meaning would be awkward. consequently, she uses the strategy of similar meaning but dissimilar form. there are 155 data of phrasal verbs which translated using this strategy. it can be shown in the following example. d. indah mutiara s. & a. sofwan & p. kalisa / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 23 example 1 (page 9, line 1) sl: they got off the oimachi train at jiyugaoka station. tl: merekaturundarikeretaoimachi di stasiunjiyugaoka. in this example, “got off” is translated into “turun”. based on cambridge dictionary, “got off” means to leave a train or bus. here, the translator renders its meaning into “turun” in indonesian. it shows that both have the similar meaning. however, “got off” is a phrasal verb or verb phrase while “turun” which is a verb not a phrase. therefore, this data uses idiom of similar meaning but dissimilar form strategy. from the examples above, we know that most of phrasal verbs are translated using idiom of similar meaning but dissimilar form. this finding reveals a study done by akbari (2013) that it is possible to find an idiom or fixed expression in the target language which has a similar meaning to that source language, but which consists of different lexical items. for example, the english expression one good turn deserves another and the french expression a beau jeu, beau retour (a handsome action deserves a handsome return) use different lexical items to express more or less the same idea. the translator uses this strategy in delivering the meaning of phrasal verbs in the novel because they do not have the equivalence expressions in indonesian. from the examples above, most of the phrasal verbs are not translated word by word like the strategy before. it happens because the translator cannot find the similar form of the phrasal verbs. if they are translated word by word, the delivered meaning would be awkward. consequently, she uses the strategy of similar meaning but dissimilar form. there are only 5 data of phrasal verbs which translated using this strategy. it can be shown in the following example. example 1 (page 16, line 2) sl: you see, her flag took up most of the paper, so there wasn’t enough room for the fringe. tl: anda tahu, benderanya dia gambar hampir sehalaman penuh, jadi tak ada tempat cukup untuk rumbai-rumbainya. in this example, “took up” is translated into “dia gambar”. based on cambridge dictionary, “took up” means to fill an amount of space. here, the translator paraphrases its meaning into “diagambar” in indonesian. it shows that the translator found the difficulties in translating this phrasal verb because there is no similar meaning word in indonesian. as a result, this data uses translation by paraphrase strategy to convey the meaning. this finding reveals a study by sari (2013) that such strategy is a common way of translating idioms when a match cannot be found in the target language or when it seems inappropriate to use idiomatic language in the target text because of differences in stylistic preferences of the source and target languages. the translator delivers the meaning of phrasal verbs in the novel by paraphrasing because the translator cannot find the similar meaning and form of the phrasal verbs in indonesian. if they are translated word by word or using the previous strategies, the delivered meaning would be awkward and hardly readable. as a result, she uses translation by paraphrasing to make the readers more understand with the meaning. there are only 5 data of phrasal verbs translated using this strategy. it can be shown in the following example. example 1 (page 38, line 2) sl: they filed out to return to their classroom. tl: lalumerekakembalikekelasmereka. in this example, “filed out” is not translated into indonesian. based on cambridge dictionary, “file out” means to get out. here, the translator omits the phrasal verb because it does not change the meaning of the sentence in the tl. it shows that the translator is able to translate the d. indah mutiara s. & a. sofwan & p. kalisa / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 24 sentence without translating the phrasal verb there. as a result, this data uses translation by omission strategy to convey the meaning.this finding reveals a study done by sari (2013) that an idiom may sometimes be omitted altogether in the target text. this may be because it has no match in the target language, its meaning cannot be easily be paraphrased, or for stylistic reason. the translator uses this strategy in delivering the meaning of phrasal verbs in the novel because the phrasal verbs do not contribute the meaning of a sentence or text. from the examples above, the phrasal verbs are not translated like the strategies before. it might happen because the translator cannot find the similar meaning and form of the phrasal verbs. moreover, it is difficult to translate by paraphrasing. if they are omitted, the meaning of the whole text would not be changed or influenced. therefore, she uses the omission strategy to deliver the meaning. the second aim of this study is to determine the quality of translation. the first category of the translation quality is accuracy. after asking three raters to give score for each category, the accuracy level has been analyzed as in table 5. category frequency percentage accurate 484 80,67 % less accurate 102 17 % inaccurate 14 2,33 % total 600 100 % table 3.2 accuracy level of phrasal verb translation from 600 collected data, we know that there are 484 data translated accurately. meanwhile, 102 data are translated less accurately. the rest are 14 data translated inaccurately. in this study, the writer asks three raters to rate the accuracy level of all phrasal verbs found in the novel. they determined the accuracy level based on the scale and definition by nababan. below are the detailed explanations of each accuracy level. example 1 (page 9, line 1) sl: they got off the oimachi train at jiyugaoka station. tl: mereka turun dari kereta oimachi di stasiun jiyugaoka. in this example, “got off” is translated into “turun” which is accurate according to the three raters. it is because the meaning of phrase in a source text is accurately delivered without any distortions. this finding reveals a study (siregar, 2016) that the accurate criteria are most identified as literal technique. the literal technique is high enough to produce an accurate translation, although some of them need the improvement. in this study, most of phrasal verbs in the novel are translated accurately by the translator. it is proven by the performed data which given by the three raters. they give score 3 or maximum score for each phrasal verbs. it might be happened because the phrasal verbs are categorized as common word or verb so the readers are familiar with them. example 2 (page 9, line 14) sl: totto-chan gazed longingly into the box and went on,“when i growup i’m going to sell railroad tickets!” tl: totto-chan memandang kotak itu dengan penuh minat lalu melanjutkan, “kalau sudah besar, aku mau jadi penjual karcis kereta!” in this example, “went on” is translated into “melanjutkan” which is less accurate according to the three raters. it is because the meaning of phrase in a source text is accurately delivered. however, there are still some distortions because of several techniques which may change the d. indah mutiara s. & a. sofwan & p. kalisa / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 25 meaning of the texts as a whole. this finding reveals a study done by siregar (2016) that the translation techniques which contributed to less accurate criteria are additions, modulation, and equivalence. several other techniques are also slightly contributed on these criteria, such as adaptation and deletion. these techniques can make any distortions which can change the meaning of the texts as a whole. in this study, some of phrasal verbs in the novel are categorized as less accurate translation. it is proven by the performed data given by the three raters. they give score 2 for each phrasal verbs. it might happen because the phrasal verbs are categorized as uncommon word or verb so the readers are less familiar with them. example 3 (page 24, line 30) sl: she had never looked forward to a day so much. tl: belumpernahdiabersemangatharibarusepertiitu. in this example, “looked forward” is not translated clearly in indonesian which means that it is an inaccurate translation according to the three raters. it is because the meaning of phrase in a source text is not accurately delivered or deleted. this finding reveals a study by siregar (2016) that inaccurate translations are caused by deletion/omission and inappropriate message transfer of source text into target text. therefore, the meaning in a source text is not accurately delivered because of the deletion or omission. in this study, only 14 phrasal verbs in the novel are not translated accurately by the translator. it is proven by the performed data which given by the three raters. they give score 1 or minimum score for each phrasal verb. it might happen because the readers are not familiar with the phrasal verbs. the second category of the translation quality is acceptability. after asking three raters to give score for each category, the acceptability level has been analyzed as in table 6. category frequency percentage acceptable 499 83,17 % less acceptable 87 14,5 % not acceptable 14 2,33 % total 600 100 % table 3.3 acceptability level of phrasal verb translation from 600 collected data, we know that 499 data are acceptable. in addition, 87 data are less acceptable. the rest are 14 not acceptable data. in this study, the writer asks three raters to rate the acceptability level of all phrasal verbs found in the novel. they determined the acceptability level based on the scale and definition by nababan. below are the detailed explanations of each acceptability level. example 1 (page 25, line 1) sl: mother usually had trouble getting totto-chan out of bed in the morning. tl: biasanya mama kesulitan membangunkan totto-chan di pagi hari. in this example, “getting out” is translated into “membangunkan” which is acceptable according to the three raters. it is because the translation is natural: using the common technical terms and familiar to readers: phrase in accordance with the norms of indonesian language. in this study, most of phrasal verbs in the novel are identified as acceptable translation. it is proven by the performed data which given by the three raters. they give score 3 or maximum score for each phrasal verbs. it might be happened because the phrasal verbs are categorized as common d. indah mutiara s. & a. sofwan & p. kalisa / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 26 word or verb so the readers are familiar with them. this finding reveals a study done by siregar (2016) that most of the phrasal verbs are categorized as acceptable translation. in this novel, there are 83 % phrasal verbs which identified as acceptable translation. the data are similar with siregar’s finding that most of the phrasal verbs are categorized as acceptable translation. example 2 (page 26, line 11) sl: rocky always used to walk with totto-chan as far as the gate of the other school and then come back home. tl: rocky biasa berjalan menemani totto-chan sampai gerbang sekolahnya yang lama, lalu pulang. in this example, “come back” is translated into “pulang” which is less acceptable according to the three raters. it is because the translation is already natural: but there is few trouble in using the technical terms or grammatical errors. this finding reveals a study by siregar (2016) that less acceptable translation characterized with less naturalness, and the technical term is not commonly used, or contains the slight grammatical errors. his findings are similar with this study that less acceptable translations are rarely occurred in the novel. in this study, some of phrasal verbs in the novel are categorized as less acceptable translation. it is proven by the performed data which given by the three raters. they give score 2 for each phrasal verbs. it might be happened because the phrasal verbs are categorized as uncommon word or verb so the readers are less familiar with them. example 3 (page 39, line 5) sl: she started ladling out the contents of the cesspool. tl: ia mulai mencedok isi bak penampung kotoran itu. in this example, “ladling out” is translated into “mencedok” which is not acceptable according to the three raters. it is because the translation is not natural or it seems like translation work: using uncommon and unfamiliar technical terms to the readers: using phrase which is not in accordance to the norms of indonesian language. in this study, the translations of some phrasal verbs in the novel are not acceptable based on three raters. it is proven by the performed data which given by them. they give score 1 or minimum score for each phrasal verbs. it might happen because the readers are not familiar with the phrasal verbs. this finding reveals a study by siregar (2016) that the main reason for unacceptable translation is omission and deletion of importance information in target text or occurrence of unfamiliar words as in the example above. the third category of the translation quality is readability. after asking three raters to give score for each category, the readability level has been analyzed as in table 7. category frequency percentage highly readable 554 92,33 % quite readable 43 7,17 % hardly readable 3 0,5 % total 600 100 % table 3.4 readability level of phrasal verb translation from 600 collected data, we know that 554 data are highly readable. in addition, 43 data are quite readable. the rest are 3 data which are hardly readable. in this study, the writer asks three raters to rate the readability level of all phrasal verbs found in the novel. they determined the readability level based on the scale and definition by nababan. below are the detailed explanations of each readability level. example 1 (page 39, line 3) d. indah mutiara s. & a. sofwan & p. kalisa / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 27 sl: lifting it off with difficulty, she discovered an opening that was undoubtedly the one she was looking for. tl: dengan susah payah, ia membuka penutup itu dan akhirnya menemukan lubang yang dicarinya. in this example, “lifting off” is translated into “membuka” which is highly readable according to the three raters. it is because the meaning of phrase can be easily understood by the readers. in this study, most of phrasal verbs in the novel are identified as highly readable translation. it is proven by the performed data which given by the three raters. they give score 3 or maximum score for each phrasal verbs. it might happen because the phrasal verbs are categorized as common word or verb so the readers are familiar with them. this finding reveals a study done by siregar (2016) that that most of the phrasal verbs are categorized as highly readable translation. in this novel, there are 92 % phrasal verbs identified as highly readable translation. the data are similar with siregar’s finding that most of the phrasal verbs are categorized as highly readable translation. example 2 (page 42, line 12) sl: “maybe it will come along the oimachi line tracks and then branch off this way at that level crossing.” tl: “mungkin gerbong itu akan lewat jalur kereta oimachi, lalu berbelok ke sini di persimpangan itu.” in this example, “branch off” is translated into “berbelok” which is quite readable according to the three raters. it is because the meaning of phrase can be easily understood by the readers. there are several points which should be read repeatedly to get their meanings. this finding reveals a study by siregar (2016) that quite readable translation occurred when there are several points which should be read repeatedly to get their meanings. his findings are similar with this study that quite readable translations are rarely occurred in the novel. it is less than 8 % data are categorized as quite readable translation. in this study, some of phrasal verbs in the novel are categorized as quite readable translation. it is proven by the performed data which given by the three raters. they give score 2 for each phrasal verbs. it might happen because the phrasal verbs are categorized as uncommon word or verb so the readers are less familiar with them. example 3 (page 24, line 30) sl: she had never looked forward to a day so much. tl: belum pernah dia bersemangat hari baru seperti itu. in this example, “looked forward” is not translated clearly which means that it is hardly readable according to the three raters. it is because the result of the translation can hardly be understood. this finding reveals a study by siregar (2016) that hardly readable translation is considered as difficult by readers by giving score 1 for data pairs that identified as low level of ratability. often the translation has some terms that are less understood and less coherent sentence. his findings are similar with this study that hardly readable translations are rarely occurred in the novel. it is less than 1 % data are categorized as hardly readable translation. in this study, the translations of some phrasal verbs in the novel are hardly readable based on three raters. it is proven by the performed data which given by them. they give score 1 or minimum score for each phrasal verbs. it might happen because the readers are not familiar with the phrasal verbs. conclusions conclusions are drawn to answer the research problems of this study as well as to highlight other findings. to make it easier for the readers, the conclusions of this research are presented as follows. d. indah mutiara s. & a. sofwan & p. kalisa / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 28 there are four strategies used in translating phrasal verbs found in the novel. the first one is using idiom of similar meaning and form, the second is using idiom of similar meaning but dissimilar form, the third is paraphrase, and the last is omission. the most used strategy to translate the phrasal verbs in the totto-chan novel is using idiom of similar meaning but dissimilar form. it can be seen from the use of similar meaning but dissimilar form percentage which is 77.5%. meanwhile, the percentage of first strategy is 17.5%. besides, the percentage of paraphrase and omission are 2.5% of each. there are three categories to assess the quality of phrasal verbs translation in the tottochan novel. the first is accuracy level, the second is acceptability level, and the third is readability level. the accuracy level of this novel’s phrasal verb translation is 80.67% which indicates that the translation is accurate. in addition, the acceptability level is 83.17% which shows us the translation is acceptable. the last is readability level which is 92.3%. it can be said that the translation of this novel is highly readable. as a result, the translations of phrasal verbs in this novel are accurate, acceptable, and highly readable. references akbari, m. 2013. strategies for translating idioms.journal of academic and applied studies, 3/8. a.s. hornby. 2000. oxford advanced learner’s dictionary of current english. new york:oxford university aziz, ihsan a. 2014. translation analysis of cultural terms in negeri 5 menara.depok:universitas indonesia. baker, mona. 1992. in other words: a coursebook on translation. new york: routledge. britton, dorothy. 1984. totto-chan: the little girl at the window. kodansha publisher. candra, i made. 2016. translation method of phrasal verb in novel eat pray love by elizabeth gilbert. journal of linguistics. courtney, rosemary. 1989.dictionary of phrasal verbs. uk: longman group uk limited. hartanto, f. 2012. an analysis of educational values in tetsukokuroyanagi’s novel entitle totto chan: the little girl at the window. salatiga: stain. kirana, widya. 2003. totto-chan: gadiscilik di jendela. jakarta: gramedia. livingstone, charlotte. 2008. oxford mini dictionary & thesaurus. new york: oxford university press. nababan, m et.al.2012. pengembangan model penilaiankualitasterjemahan. kajianlinguistikdan sastra, 24/1. pratama, bayu g. 2016. translation strategies to render idiomatic expressions in dan brown’s digital fortress by ferry halim.final project.semarang state university. sari,sabrichautama.2013. strategiesintranslatingidiomaticexpressions of phrasal verbs terence blaker’s bilingual novel “ms. wiz goes live” into “ms. wiz jadibintang televisi” by malasuhendra.semarang: diannuswantoro. siregar, r. 2016. translation quality assessment of “the 8 th habit: from effectiveness to greatness by stephen r. covey” into indonesian. journal of language and literature, 4/1. pp. 228-239. 1 elt forum 5 (2) (2016) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the effectiveness of using computer game “fast hands” to improve students’ vocabulary mastery for junior high school (a quasi experimental research at the eighth grade students of smp negeri 1 muntilan in the academic year of 2014/2015) retno trihandayani drs. ahmad sofwan m.a., ph.d. english department. faculty of languages and arts. state university of semarang. aticle info ________________ article history: received in april 2016 approved in april 2016 published in may 2016 ________________ keywords: computer game, fast hands, vocabulary. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this study was a quasi-experimental research aimed at finding out whether computer game “fast hands” effectively improve students’ vocabulary or not. the population of this study were 192 students from the eighth grade of smp negeri 1 muntilan in the academic year 2014/2015. of this population, two classes were chosen as the experimental group (viii-b) and the control group (viii-f) consisting of 24 students for each group. thus, there were 48 students as the samples. based on the result of the analysis, it is shown that the students’ progress in mastering vocabulary for both groups is good after they were given the treatment. it is shown from the different means result in the experimental group, that is from 66.46 in the pre-test to 84.79 in the posttest. thus, it has 18.33 in difference. in the control group the difference between the two means is 13.54. 65.83 in the pre-test and 79.37 in the posttest. to check whether the treatment significantly influenced students’ vocabulary, the t-test formula was used. based on the result of the computation, the t-value is 2.237. this result was consulted with the critical value on the ttable with 5% alpha level of significance and 40 degrees of freedom by using interpolation. based on the result of interpolation, the critical value is 2.015. since t-value is higher than t-table (2.237 > 2.015) it can be concluded that computer game “fast hands” effectively improve students’ vocabulary compared to the word lists strategy. thus, it is suggested that the teachers may use computer game “fast hands” in their teaching practice especially in improving students’ vocabulary. © 2016 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: retnootrihandayani@gmail.com issn 2252-6706 retno trihandayani / journal of english language teaching 5 (2) (2016) 2 introduction background of the study english as one of the most influential languages in the world is very important to learn because it can be used to give and receive information and to develop education, technology and art. english is also useful for young students. preparing students to learn english as early as possible is a very good thing because their brains are ready to learn and will be very easy for them to master. english is the most widely used language in the world. in addition, indonesia is one of the countries that many of its citizen use english as their daily language. even many schools have implemented english as their primary language. it shows that english is a language that has a very large influence in life, especially in education, technology, science, art and in making the relationship of cooperation with other countries. the current era of globalization requires human resources to compete in accordance with current development. therefore, english should be given or be introduced to students since they are children. in english, there are four skills that should be mastered namely listening, speaking, reading and writing. in order to master english, we should also master the grammatical rule and vocabulary. more and more we master vocabulary, then it will be easier for us in mastering english. laufer (1997:140) in indriarti (2014) states that learning vocabulary is one of the most important elements without which neither comprehension nor production of language is possible. on the other word, vocabulary cannot be separated from other language skills. the more words the learners know, they will be more better to understand what they hear or read. in addition, the more words they have, they will be more accurate to express their ideas in spoken or written form. in school-based curriculum, teachers are given the freedom to utilize a variety of methods and media that can improve the interest, attention, and creativity of learners. this is important because in school based curriculum the teacher serves as a facilitator who is expected to select the media used in learning. medium as one of learning sources is an alternative way to optimize the learning process. the media used should be interesting and they match to the characteristics of the learners. this aspect can be done by applying learning and playing technique, such as the use of computer games. learning through computer games is able to provide several advantages. first, lessons given can be accepted with delight, as related with the nature of the game that is entertaining and exciting. second, because game is fun, playing at once arouse great interest for learners in a particular subject. computer game has spread rapidly in youth people life; they get accustomed to the computer game rather than the other technology. by the development of the technology, computer game comes in various types. it is possible that we consider about the use of computer game as a medium in teaching and learning. here the writer tries to use “fast hands” as one of computer games to teach vocabulary. this is a game for learning english focusing on vocabulary items where the player will listen to the sound or read the word and then click on the matching pictures. it is really easy, fun and interesting to learn and review words. the players can choose the content that they want to play with and there are more than 500 vocabulary items in total. by using computer game “fast hands” as a medium for teaching, learners are expected to be more interested in learning vocabulary and they get motivated in teaching learning process. literature review there have been a number of researchers conducted some studies related to the use of computer game in improving students’ vocabulary mastery such as zahro’ (2010), sulistiyani (2010), kirti (2013), astuti (2014), etikasari (2014), sanchez (2006), and d’alesio, scalia, and zabel (2007). from the related of previous studies, i am inspired to do an experimental research on teaching vocabulary by using computer game “fast hands”. however, there are differences retno trihandayani / journal of english language teaching 5 (2) (2016) 3 between these researches above and this research. this research is about applying computer game “fast hands” to improve students’ vocabulary mastery, whereas, most researches above were about applying song lyrics, computer media (atm 5 programme), cartoon pictures, puppet, virtual field trips, and multisensory instruction. the writer uses computer game “fast hands” to improve students' vocabulary mastery because this game is very interesting and many categories of vocabulary are contained in this game. finally, the researcher decides to use computer game “fast hands” in this research because so far there are not many researchers using this medium in improving vocabulary mastery. general concept of vocabulary vocabulary is a collection of the words with their meaning that it used to communicate. kammeenui (1991) in bintz (2011) states that learning vocabulary is fundamentally about learning definition of words. many teachers believe that defining words before reading a text is an effective instructional technique to support vocabulary growth and enhance reading comprehension; however, research indicates otherwise. for example, the popular practice of requiring students to find definitions of words and write those words in sentences before reading appears to have little apparent impact on their word knowledge and language use, and has not improved student comprehension of texts that contain those words. computer game “fast hands” game can be classified as one of the media that is familiar with youth people and can be used for teaching and learning process. in this study i used computer game “fast hands”. computer game “fast hands” is a medium to teach vocabulary adopted by owen. this is a game for learning english focusing on vocabulary items. the player listen to the sound or read the word and then click on the matching pictures. it is really easy, fun and hopefully a great way to learn and review words. the player can choose the content their want to play with and there are more than 500 vocabulary items in total. research methodologies in this research, i used quasi-experimental research design with the use of non-equivalent control group design. this study involved two groups: an experimental group and a control group. this research used pre-test and post-test to obtain the data. table 1 research design pretest treatment posttest experimental group o1 x o2 control group o3 o4 the population in this study was the eighth grade students of smp negeri 1 muntilan in the academic year of 2014/2015. the number of the students was 192, which were divided into 8 classes. the sample was viii-b as the experimental group and viii-f as the control group. the instrument of this research was test. before the test is used to collect the data, the tryout test was conducted to measure the validity, reliability, discriminating power, and the difficulty level of the test. to measure the significance of the pre-test and post-test of the both groups, the researcher used t-test based on arikunto (2006). result and discussion result of try out test the try-out test was conducted on april 27th, 2015. it was held in another class beside the experimental group and control group. the viii c was chosen as the try out group. there were 24 students and they had to choose the correct answer in the multiple-choice task format, complete the vocabulary matching task format, and select response fill-in vocabulary format items test which consisted of 40 items in 60 minutes. the total scores of try out test were 1517.5 and the mean scores were 63.23. the result showed that the items were valid and reliable. retno trihandayani / journal of english language teaching 5 (2) (2016) 4 result of pre-test this research was followed by 24 students of class viii-b as the experimental group and 24 students of class viii-f as the control group. there were 20 questions in multiple-choice, matching, and fill-in tasks format in 30 minutes. from the pre-test result, the experimental group got total scores 1595 in doing pre-test. next, the maximum score was 85.0, the minimum score was 50.0, and the mean score of this group was 66.46. in addition, the total scores of pre-test in control group was 1580. furthermore, the maximum score was 80.0, the minimum score was 50.0 and the mean score of the students’ result in this group was 65.83. the result of pre-test in control group was slightly different from the experimental group. as a result, the writer concluded that two groups had equal level vocabulary mastery before getting the treatment; therefore, the experiment could be continued. treatments the treatment was conducted two times for the experimental and control groups. both groups received the same materials with different teaching media and method. the experimental group was taught by using computer game “fast hands” as media, while the control group was taught using the word lists strategy. result of post test the post-test was followed by 24 students of class viii-b as the experimental group and 24 students of class viii-f as the control group. it was conducted as the same way as the pre-test. based on the post test result, the total score of experimental group was 2035. this group got mean score 84.79. furthermore, the control group got total score 1905. the mean score of this group also increased, that was 79.37. as a result, the result showed that there was an improvement in post test result than pre-test. it can be concluded that computer game “fast hands” have more effective to improve students` vocabulary mastery than word lists strategy. the significance difference of two tests to know the significant difference of the experiment, t-test formula was used in this research. it was done by comparing the t-value and t-table. the t-value was found from the score differences between pre-test and post-test both in experimental and control groups, while the t-table was found by consulting to the critical value on the table column. the difference of the means of the experimental and control groups was classified to be significant if the t-test was higher than the ttable. to measure the significance of the two groups, this formula was used: t = 𝑀1−𝑀2 √𝑆12 𝑁1 + 𝑆22 𝑁2 = 84.79 − 79.37 √66.26 24 + 74.59 24 = 5.42 √2.761 + 3.108 = 5.42 √5.869 = 5.42 2.423 = 2.237 the critical value on the t-table for 46 degrees of freedom and 5% alpha level of significance was 2.015. because t-value is higher than t-table (2.237>2.015). it can be concluded that there is significant difference between the post-test of the experimental group and the control group. it means that there is difference in the experimental group and the control group on vocabulary mastery after they received the treatment. in can be concluded, teaching vocabulary by using computer game “fast hands” are more effective to improve the vocabulary mastery of the eighth grade of smp negeri 1 muntilan in the academic year 2014/2015 than word lists strategy. conclusions this research was conducted on the purpose to find out whether computer game “fast hands” effectively improves students’ vocabulary. in other words, it was conducted to find out whether or not computer game “fast retno trihandayani / journal of english language teaching 5 (2) (2016) 5 hands” gives improvement of students’ vocabulary mastery compared to the word lists strategy. based on the result of the experiment, there are some conclusions. firstly, there is a significant difference in students’ improvement of vocabulary mastery between those who were taught by using computer game “fast hands” and those who were taught by using word lists strategy for the eighth grade students of smp negeri 1 muntilan in the academic year 2014/2015. secondly, the use of computer game “fast hands” is more effective in enhancing students’ vocabulary compared to word lists strategy. it can be seen from the computation on the previous chapter which showed that the t-value is higher than the t-table on the 5% alpha of education and 40 degrees of freedom (2.237>2.015). it means that the students’ vocabulary mastery on the experimental group is better than the control group which shows the effectiveness of the treatment given to the experimental group compared to the treatment given to the control group. references arikunto, suharsimi. 2006. prosedur penelitian suatu pendekatan praktik (edisi revisi vi). jakarta: pt asdi mahasatya. astuti, jatmiko p. 2014. the use of cooking academy game to enrich vocational students’ english vocabulary (a classroom action research at the tenth grade students of smk n mojosongo in the academic year of 2012/2013). final project of english department, semarang state university. bintz, w.p. 2011. teaching vocabulary across the curriculum. middle school journal. available at http://littoolkit.pbworks.com/f/middle%252 0school%2520vocabulary%2520strategies.pdf [accessed 25/1/2015]. d’alesio, rosemary; scalia, maureen; and zabel, renee. 2007. improving vocabulary acquisition with multisensory instruction. an action research project submitted to the graduate faculty of the school of education in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of master of arts in teaching and leadership. etikasari, anis. 2014. group guessing as a vocabulary learning technique to enrich students’ vocabulary (a classroom action research to students of xi ipa 3 of sma n 1 wonosobo in the academic year of 2012/2013). final project of english department, semarang state university. indriarti. 2014. the effectiveness of semantic mapping strategy to improve students’ vocabulary mastery (a quasi experimental study of the eighth grade students of smp negeri 4 batang in the academic year of 2013/2014). final project of english department, semarang state university. sanchez, alicia d. 2006. enhancing vocabulary acquisition through synthetic learning experiences: implementing virtual field trips into classroom. a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of doctor of philosophy in modeling and simulation in the college of sciences at the university of central florida orlando, florida sulistiyani. 2010. improving students’ vocabulary through computer media (atm 5 programme) (study case: smun 6 tangerang of the 2009/2010 academic year). final project of stba budhi tangerang. zahro’, masning. 2010. the use of song lyrics to improve students’ vocabulary of verb (an experimental research at the eighth grade students of mts uswatun hasanah mangkang semarang in the academic year of 2009/2010). english department of tarbiyah faculty walisongo state institute for islamic studies semarang. microsoft word 8. 175 enhancing efl learners’ talk through cooperative learning-facilitated task-based learning: process siti asriyah  english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 16 august 2019 approved in 29 november 2019 published in 30 november 2019 ________________ keywords: task-based learning; cooperative learning; enhance; efl learners’ talk. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this study aimed to explain how cooperative learning facilitates task-based learning in enhancing efl learners’ talk for eighth-grade students of smpn 1 magelang in the academic year 2018/2019. the researcher conducted the study based on ellis (2003) and kagan (1994) theories for explaining the process of teaching and learning activities using task-based learning (tbl) and cooperative learning (cl) methods for enhancing efl learners’ talk. this study used a qualitative case study methodology. the instruments used were observation sheet, interview guidelines, and document analysis. based on the data analysis, it can be concluded that cooperative learning techniques that facilitated the task-based learning in learning activities can enhance the efl learners’ self-confidence to talk in front of the class. besides, task-based learning facilitated with cooperative learning techniques enhances students’ courage and creativity, it also makes them more active. the practice also made them more understand the materials. there are some suggestions. first, it will become a good alternative for the teacher to look up some interesting materials for the students as their guidance to enhance their speaking habits. the students are suggested to be accustomed to learning to speak using group and pair techniques because the technique can motivate them to have a speaking habit. lastly, the next researcher needs to conduct further research related to other techniques in helping the students to improve their talk. © 2019 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b8 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: e.teacher.ichsan@gmail.com elt forum 8 (2) (2019) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt siti asriyah / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 176 introduction a human being is a social creature by nature. people need communication to develop their social relationships. children are getting used to working in groups, starting from school. while teaching english to the students, teacher always tries hard to help students to improve their skills in mastery english. teachers want their students to be able to use english as a means communication, at least in the classroom. many language teachers face many difficulties in making students speak in the target language together with their friends. it means that communicative skill does not increase using group work. indonesia is currently implementing the 2013 curriculum (k-13). student-centered learning is a compulsory approach to learning the 2013 curriculum that prioritizes students' interests and abilities (in learning). student centered learning, which is a feature of the 2013 curriculum learning that realized through scientific approach, also involves students in the learning process and needs to follow the principles of group work or cooperative learning. because of that, recently in indonesia a learning method called cooperative learning is strengthened. cooperative learning is a teaching arrangement that refers to small, heterogeneous groups of students working together to achieve a common goal (kagan, 1994). cooperative learning has become popular and often used by many teachers and lecturers. when the teacher has formed a group on cooperative learning, the teacher must give a task. a task is an activity that requires learners to use language, with emphasis on meaning, to attain an objective defined by bygate, skehan, and swain (in ellis, 2003). tasks hold a central place both in the second language acquisition research and in language pedagogy (ellis, 2003). task is an assignment given by the teacher to be done in students' cooperative learning group. based on my observation during having teaching practiced in junior high school, the school was already a school that uses k13. however, only a few prominent students that braved to speak in front of the class, only about 20 until 25% of the students in the class, the rest of them just listened and embarrassed to speak in front of the class. some studies about students’ talk have been conducted to overcome that problem. one of them is by using task based language (huajing, 2011; sanchez, 2011; ruso, 2007; fitri, 2013; munirah & muhsin, 2015) and using some techniques of cooperative learning (wang, 2017). unfortunately, they just demonstrate the task-based language or cooperative learning in classroom. therefore, this study attempts to address this gap in literature by exploring how cooperative learning facilitates task based learning in enhancing students’ talk. i concentrate on the following research question “how does cooperative learning facilitate task-based learning work in enhancing efl learners’ talk?” methods the research method that the writer used in this final project is qualitative method. based on creswell (2014), qualitative research method is an approach for exploring and understanding the meaning individuals or groups ascribe to a social or human problem. what constitutes qualitative research involves purposeful use for describing, explaining, and interpreting collected data (williams, 2007). this research used qualitative case study precisely. this qualitative case study is an approach to research that facilitates exploration of a phenomenon within its context using a variety of data sources. this ensures that the issue is not explored through one lens, but rather a variety of lenses which allows for multiple facets of the phenomenon to be revealed and understood (baxter & jack, 2008). this research uses qualitative case study because this research does not only focus on description and explanation, but also explores the phenomenon of classroom activities based on the data collected from the result of observation and interview about how the cooperative learning techniques facilitated task-based learning can enhance the students’ talk. i collected the data in various ways. beside the observation and interview, i also did documentation and document analysis. it made the data more valid. therefore, i did not just describe the result of the research, but also represented the real activities they did in the classroom. the subjects of the study were the second year students of smpn 1 magelang in the academic year 2018/2019 and the teacher who teaches there. the students had studied english as a foreign language for about two years. i used one class; it is one of viii class as the sample of the research in order to save the observation time. the eight-grades students had learnt english for one year, so they had more knowledge about english than seven-grades students. i was interested to siti asriyah / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 177 know about the task that was given by the teacher in cooperative learning group in indonesia especially in smpn 1 magelang. in this research, i chose smpn 1 magelang because this school is a favourite school. this school uses k-13. the goal of using k-13 is to make the students more active and the teacher is just a facilitator. because of using k-13, some teachers use cooperative learning technique in their teaching learning process. when the teachers apply a cooperative learning technique, they will give a task to be done by the students in their group. in this study, the unit of analysis was the learning activities done by the teacher and the students in the classroom. the focus of this research was the teaching learning process in the classroom. to generate findings in a systematic way, the researcher needs some instruments in this research. the instruments used to collect the data from the research were observation sheet, interview guidelines, and document analysis guidelines. the observation was needed for monitoring class performance of the students. it was used to identify students’ activity in the classroom during the learning process using cooperative learning technique that facilitates task based learning. according to mills (2000:50) the research observed as a normal component of the teaching, monitoring and adjusting instruction based on the verbal and nonverbal interactions in the classroom. therefore, i used direct observation as one of data collection strategies because of the not overly time-consuming. i used field notes in doing observation. here are some instruments that i used. figure 1 in this study, i used structured interview. in structured interview, questions are planned and created in advance, which means that all candidates are asked the same questions in the same order. i used indonesian in the interview because the participants were students. it made them easier to understand her questions. i asked some questions to her participants below. there were two kinds of participants in this research. they were teacher and students. siti asriyah / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 178 in this study, i analysed the lesson plan from the teacher. lesson plan is the guide of the teaching learning process had been done in the classroom. every teacher has to make it before he/she teach in the classroom. in the lesson plan, has been set all aspects of the learning from basic competence up on the instruments of assessment. these are some guidelines in doing document analysis. (1) learning method (metode pembelajaran) the learning method that used in the classroom must be suitable with the learning method that written in lesson plan. the method used by the teacher should be cooperative learning and taskbased learning. the cooperative learning technique facilitates task-based learning. (2) learning activities (langkah-langkah pembelajaran) this part is the most important part to be analysed. it is because the researcher can see whether the teacher doing the learning activities appropriate with lesson plan or not. the activities have to represent the aspect of cl and tbl. the learning activities must show that cl technique has to facilitate tbl. findings and discussion findings on july 27th – august 10th, 2018, i did some class observations to know the technique used in english teaching and learning process of class viii a of smp negeri 1 magelang. i observed five meetings. figure 2 from the table above, it can be seen that every meeting consists of tbl’s phases with its activity. the students pass the tbl’s phases gradually. because of the pre-task is just the explanation, so there is no cl technique used to support the activity. however, when doing main activity, like task cycle, cl technique used to facilitate the phase to make the students easier in understanding the material. cl technique that is used must be suitable with the phase that is past. positive responses from the students about the teaching technique mrs. ayu as the english teacher of viii a gave the students a quiz in every meeting to remind the materials that had been discussed before. that technique got a positive response from the most of the students. they were enthusiastic in answering the question because they will get the additional score from mrs. ayu. most of them were interested with the learning activities because she gave them time to discussion in answering the question. it made them more interactive and easy to understand the materials. siti asriyah / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 179 use of cl and tbl in classroom for enhancing efl learners’ talk cooperative learning is an educational approach which aims to organize classroom activities into academic and social learning experiences. students must work in groups to complete tasks collectively toward academic goals. in this research, the students did some cooperative learning techniques like nht and dramas. the teacher planned it in the lesson plan. those techniques were combined with tbl. that combination makes the students more active and creative. they enjoyed the lesson. the group work task made them easier in understanding the material and more confident in speaking english. in this research, i used informal assessment using a self-evaluation format. the selfassessment form will provide students' feedback and attitudes towards the given task. this evaluation was done individually, even if students worked in pairs or groups. however, in this research, i assessed it by myself by using observation sheet in every meeting. therefore, the assessment in this research is without score. i knew the enhancement of the students’ talk by observing their activities, analyzing the students’ explanation in their answers of interview, and analyzing the answers of the teacher too. discussion cooperative learning enhances social interaction, which is essential to meet the needs of at-risk students (johnson, 1998; slavin, karweit, & madden, 1989). based on the findings, cooperative learning techniques used by the teacher make them easier in understanding the material and minimize the pronunciation error. this finding is in line with research findings of ilmi (2012) which showed that the students’ speaking skills improved using cooperative learning. the students made a good improvement in some aspects of speaking skills such as pronunciation, fluency, and interactive communication. they were more confident to speak english. they had more chances to speak up. they easily learnt the materials with a group. the group work activities applied improved the students’ understanding towards the materials and the teacher’s classroom management. all of the tasks given were containing those expressions. when the students had to make a dialog, they had to use the expressions. it made the students more creative. in addition, those cl techniques that used to facilitate tbl method with three phases of it could enhance their selfconfidence to speak english. those findings are consistent with the research findings of sanchez (2016), which showed that the use of task-based learning was interrelated with the enhancement of speaking performance and with participation because children executed tasks for learning english as means of communication. that study used action research. he asked the students to do some speaking tests, describe pictures and transcribe video recordings. then he analyzed the result of their performance. those findings are strengthened by the research findings of marsakawati (2016) that demonstrated that tbl can influence the students’ speaking achievement and increase their selfconfidence. the results of the interview were appropriate with the results of the observation. the activities that i observed reflected the information given by the interviewees. then, the result of document analysis shows that the learning activities in the classroom are in line with the lesson plan. it was a real condition. therefore, it can be concluded that cooperative learning techniques that facilitated the task-based learning in learning activities can enhance the students’ talk, confidence, courage, and creativity; it also can make them more active. conclusion based on the result of the research on the speaking techniques used by english teacher of class viii a of smpn 1 magelang, the conclusions can be drawn as follows. as stated before, the research aimed at explaining how the cooperative learning facilitates task-based learning in improving efl learners’ talk to students of grade viii a of smpn 1 magelang. hence, the findings of the research involved the process of learning that had been done in classroom reached that goal. in meeting 1 and meeting 2, the teacher still used traditional method. it means that the learning is teacher-centered methods focused on rote learning and memorization. the teacher just explained the material in two meetings first because those two meetings still discussed the introduction of it. then in meeting 3 until meeting 5, she asked the students to practice the expression. in those three meetings, she used cl and tbl in teaching learning process. siti asriyah / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 180 the implementation of cooperative learning and task-based learning was successful to enhance students’ talk ability and involvement. those two methods gave students situation that could make them active in the process of teaching and learning of speaking. they were trained to perform mutual interaction with the students and the teacher in discussion of doing a task. they were given opportunities to share ideas and knowledge about the materials to the other students. they also had to share their discussion result in front of the class in drama form. besides, the use of interesting activities also supported the success of meeting 3 and 4. however, some students still less active in the teaching learning process. therefore, she tried to solve it so that in meeting 5 the students’ talk ability could be enhanced successfully. giving reward to the best group in form of dictionary improved the students’ motivation to speak english and participation during the teaching and learning process. from the three methods of collecting the data (observation, interview, and document analysis), it can be concluded that cooperative learning techniques that facilitated the task-based learning in learning activities can enhance the students’ talk, confidence, courage, and creativity of the students, also can make them more active. practice also made them more understand the material. references abdurrahman, eko, endang susilawati and zainal arifin. 2013.“improving students’ ability in reading comprehension through cooperative learning (think pair share)”. unpublished thesis: tanjungpura university of pontianak. amstrong, steve. 2013. the 10 powerful teaching strategies. http://www.innovatemyschool.com/ideas/the-10-most-powerful-teaching-strategies (16/10/2018) angus, kelly. 2013. how to: create your qualitative interview guide. available on http://www.askingsmarterquestions.com/how-to-creating-your-qualitative-interview-guide/ (accessed on 18/06/2017) arikunto, suharsimi. prof. dr. 2002. prosedur penelitian suatu pendekatan praktek. 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________________ article history: received in october 2017 approved in november 2017 published in december 2017 ________________ keywords: teaching vocabulary, picture crossword puzzle games, quasi-experimental research. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this article is based on a study which attempted to examine the effectiveness of the picture crossword puzzle game in teaching vocabulary. the purposes of this study are to describe the difference in students’ vocabulary mastery between those by using picture crossword puzzle game and conventional method (translation) and to describe the effectiveness of picture crossword puzzle game in teaching vocabulary. the research design used in this study was a quasi-experimental research. the population of this research was the seventh grade students of smpn 2 patebon in the academic year of 2016/2017. the control group was the class of vii-g and the experimental group was the class of vii-h. the results show that from the pre-test, both control and experimental groups have the same mean scores, which is 68.44. after the treatment, there was an increase of mean score of both groups in post-test, which is 81.25 for the control group and 90.94 for the experimental group.the quantitative result shows that the t value is 4.182 and the t table is 1.999. based on the statistic, it is concluded that there is a sifnificant difference in achievement between both groups. however, this statistic result is not that significant regarding the condition of both control and experimental groups. in other words, the picture crossword puzzle game has no significant effect on students’ vocabulary mastery. yet, the result of the questionnaire shows that teaching vocabulary using picture crossword puzzle game is interesting for the students. there are 91.8% students who give positive response to picture crossword puzzle game. in conclusion, the picture crossword puzzle game can be used to teach vocabulary because this game is interesting. © 2017 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: unnes_english@yahoo.com w. nugroho & suprapto / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 192 introduction vocabulary is one of the very basic things in learning english. we cannot say anything without vocabulary. what can we say without vocabulary? even a word can express our feelings. for example, when we say “amazing!!!” it’s only one word, but you can express that you feel amazed by using it. what is actually vocabulary? schmitt (2000:112) says “vocabulary is more than just individual words working separately in a discourse environment. rather, once words are placed in discourse, they establish numerous links beyond the single orthographic word level”. hatch and brown (1995:1) adds that vocabulary is a list or set of words for a particular language or a list or set of words that individual speaker might use. similarly, hornby (1995:1331) defines vocabulary as: 1. the total number of words in language 2. all the words known to a person or used in a particular book, subject, etc. 3. a list of words with their meaning, especially one that accompanies a textbook in a foreign language based on the definitions above about vocabulary, we can conclude that vocabulary is a list of words in a language that is used by the individual speaker to convey the meaning or to express what the speaker wants to say. students should master enough vocabularies in learning a language, including english. vocabulary is the key to communicate. without vocabulary, someone cannot say what he wants to say, cannot write what he wants to write, or cannot read and understand what he wants to read. vocabulary is a powerful carrier of meaning, and it forms the basis of learning a second language. it is one of the crucial conditions for a successful communication (vopálková, 2008). it is the basic things in a language and central to english language teaching because without many vocabularies, students are not able to understand others or express their own ideas. learning vocabulary is a complex process. the students’ aim to be reached in learning vocabulary is primarily their ability to recall the word at will and to recognize it in spoken and written form (shejbalová, 2006). it means that teachers have to find the right way in teaching vocabularies to make students understand and acquire them. but the problem is that sometimes students cannot follow the lesson, or they do not pay attention to the lesson, or they simply get bored. it is a big challenge to the teachers. the teachers must create a good atmosphere in the classroom, so students can follow, pay attention and do not feel bored with the lesson. a similar condition happened in smpn 2 patebon, kendal. students were not enjoy when the teacher taught vocabularies using conventional method. teaching using game is one of the many ways to make the learning process more effective and interesting. some teachers think that language games are a waste of time and prefer not to use them in a classroom since games sometimes have been considered only for its one element, that is fun (deesri, 2002). on the other hand, rizki, et al (2013) suggested that using picture games in the classroom would make the students fun that they would learn better and faster. jaramillo (2012) also states that the crossword puzzle activity may prove to be a meaningful learning experience for building, understanding, and improving the retention of terms associated with a particular knowledge area. two examples of games are using pictures and crossword puzzles. pictures not only bring images of reality, but can also function as a fun element in the class. sometimes it is surprising how the pictures may change a lesson, even if only employed in additional w. nugroho & suprapto / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 193 exercises or just to create the atmosphere (joklová, 2009). the picture can help the students to imagine “the thing” of the word. besides, students tend to remember what they see than what they think. meanwhile, a crossword is a word puzzle that normally takes the form of a square or a rectangular grid of white and black shaded squares. the goal is to fill the white squares with letters, forming words or phrases, by solving clues which lead to the answers (https : / / e n . w i k i p e d i a . org/wiki/crossword). rokhuma (2011) demonstrated that crossword puzzles and quartet cards make the students have a lot of chances to speak out, memorize the spelling and also read and read again the words. consequently, students get easier in recognizing and memorizing the english vocabulary given to them. the game in teaching is one of the many ways to make the learning process more effective and interesting. games is crucially important for english language learners and teachers, not only because they provide enjoyment and relaxation, but also as they encourage students to use their language in a creative and communicative manner (yolageldili & arikan : 2011). besides, games are attention grabbing and attention holding. they are intrinsically motivated and they may be addictive. this is the first time the writer knows about the picture crossword puzzle game was when the writer had an assignment about teaching game, and had to choose one game to be presented in front of others. the lecturer gave suggestion to read a book entitled vocabulary 2 games and activities by peter watcyn-jones (2002). there are many vocabulary games in this book. the writer chose one of the games inside the book called picture crossword: parts of the body. this game is about learning vocabulary by using a crossword and pictures as a media. the terminologies are focused on “part of body”, but the writer made some adjustments in this study. the writer changed the terminologies from “part of body” vocabulary into “things to buy” vocabulary. this adjustment was made because the topic that related to the curriculum of the seventh grade students of the junior high school at that time was “thing to buy vocabulary”. the purposes of this study are to describe the difference in students’ vocabulary mastery between those by using picture crossword puzzle game and conventional method (translation) and to describe the effectiveness of picture crossword puzzle game in teaching vocabulary. based on the background above, in order to know whether the game is effective or not, the writer would like to conduct a research entitled the effectiveness of picture crossword puzzle game in teaching vocabulary (an experimental study of seventh grade students of smp n 2 patebon in the academic year of 2016/2017). methodology of the research in this research, the writer conducted a quasi-experimental design study as the research design. creswell (2009:233) states that quasi experimental is a form of experimental research in which individuals are not randomly assigned to groups”. saleh (2012) adds that “quasi experimental design is partly-but not fully-true experimental design, they control some, but not all of the sources of internal validity”. in this study, the non-equivalent control group is chosen by the writer. it has two existing groups, one is the experimental group and the other one is the control group. the classes of experimental and control groups were obtained from the teacher’s decision. the reason why the writer chose this design was because first, the writer did not break the classes w. nugroho & suprapto / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 194 to get participants randomly from many classes, but the writer obtained 2 existing classes from 8 classes. second, the writer did not want to rearrange or reschedule the classes that the school has arranged, in order to avoid the problem of time, place, the effectiveness of research and the management of the school. there were 2 groups or classes in this study who were considered as the subject. first was the experimental group and the second was the control group. at the beginning of research, both of the 2 classes were given the same pre-test to get the first data. after that the experimental group received the picture crossword puzzle treatments four times on the other hand, the control group did not receive the treatment, but the writer taught the lesson using conventional method (translation). then, at the end of the meeting, the same post-test was given to the experimental group and the control group to get the final data, so the data collected can be analyzed and compared with the pre-test data. to get more information about the picture crossword puzzle, the writer gave a questionnaire to the experimental group only. the questionnaire was about their opinion related to the treatment. then, the effectiveness of using the picture crossword puzzle game in teaching vocabulary can be seen from the data. the subject of this study was students of smp n 2 patebon in the academic year of 2016/2017. tuckman (1978:227) says that “the population (or target group) used in a questionnaire or interview study is that group about which the researcher is interested in gaining information and drawing conclusions”. according to creswell (2012:142) “a population is a group of individuals who have the same characteristic”. the population in this study was the seventh grade of smp n 2 patebon in the academic year of 2016/2017. the total population was 256 students consisting of 130 male students and 127 female students. there were 8 classes of seventh grade: vii-a up to vii-h. each class consisted of 32 students except vii-e which consisted of 33 students. seventh grade students were chosen because based on the curriculum used in this school, “things to buy” vocabulary was one of the materials taught in this grade. saleh (2001:45) states that “a sample is a group of people, goods or objects from which the research data are obtained”. a sample is actually a part of a population deliberately selected to represent the population. creswell (2009) also explains “sample is a subgroup of the target population that the researcher plans to study for generalizing about the target population”. the classes chosen by the writer which were considered as the sample in this study were the class of vii-g and the class of vii-h. there were 32 students in each class. the class of vii-g was considered as the control group, while the class of vii-h was considered as the experimental group. the reason why those classes were chosen as the sample is because the teacher who was in charge of guiding the writer in the school gave permission to the writer to use only those two classes. there are 2 variables in this studies. independent variables and dependent variables. saleh (2012:31) states that an “independent variable is the variable that will be studied to determine its effect (or influence) on a particular variable which is central to the subject matter”. it means that an independent variable is a variable that influences the outcome. the independent variable in this study was the picture crossword puzzle game. saleh (2012:32), “the dependent variable is the variable which is of central interest to the researcher, and whose weight or value is affected by the weight or value of some other variables”. in this study, the dependent variable was students’ achievement of vocabulary mastery. w. nugroho & suprapto / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 195 there are 2 kinds of instruments used in this study. the test instruments and the questionnaire instruments. those instruments were used for analyzing the data obtained. below was the procedure of analyzing the data: 1. the analysis of the try-out test 2. the analysis of the pre-test and post-test 3. the analysis of the questionnaire the test used was a multiple-choice test. before conducting the pre-test and post-test. the writer conducted a try-out test to make sure that the instruments for pre-test and post-test were good. there were the analyses that have been done to analyze the try-out test. they are: 1. validity of the test 2. reliability of the test 3. item facility of the test 4. discriminating power of the test after the try-out, a pre-test was conducted by the writer. then the writer gave treatments to the groups. the control group was taught using the conventional method (translations) and the experimental group was taught using the picture crossword puzzle game. after the treatment, the post-test was also conducted by the writer for the both groups. while the questionnaire was only given to the experimental group. there were the analysis that has been done in order to get the results of the pre-test and the post-test. those were: 1. mean score 2. standard deviation 3. normality 4. homogeneity 5. t-test in order to analyze the pre-test and post-test scores. the writer used the spss as a calculation tool. all those analyses were calculated using spss. the significant difference between both groups is accepted if the value of sig.(2-tailed) on the t-test is less than 0.05. then, the effectiveness of the treatments is accepted if the t value is higher than the t table. (t value t table). if those statements are accepted, it means that there is a significant difference between students who were taught by using picture crossword puzzle game and the students who were taught using conventional method (translations) the questionnaire was given to the students after they have done the post-test in the last meeting. the questionnaire was only given to the experimental group which consists of 32 students. there were five questions which related to the treatments they have experienced in the questionnaire. result and discussion result of the test based on the try-out analysis, the test is reliable with the value of reliability is 0.838. the try-out instrument is also valid. there are 20 valid items. they are item number 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 14 ,17 ,18, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28 , 29, 30. while 10 items are invalid. they are number 2, 6, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16, 19, 20, 25. in the item facility analysis, the result shows that there are 0 items are very difficult, 13 items are appropriate and 17 items are very easy. in discriminating power analysis, there are 0 items are very poor, 15 items are poor, 8 items are w. nugroho & suprapto / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 196 satisfactory, 6 items are good and 1 item is excellent. so there are 20 items for the pre-test and post-test instruments. before giving the treatments to the students. a pre-test is conducted by the writer. the purpose is to know the basic knowledge of the students of “things to buy” vocabulary. from calculation, the mean scores of both groups surprisingly the same. it is 68.44. independent sample t-test is used to calculate the t-test of the pre-test of both groups. null hypothesis (ho) is accepted if there is no significant difference between the experimental group and the control group. the result is both groups have equal ability in “things to buy vocabulary”. it is proven by the value of sig.(2-tailed) is 1.000. in addition, ho is accepted if t value is less than t table. the t value is 0. for α=5%, df =32+32-2 = 62, the t table is 1.999. because t value is less than the t table, it means that ho is accepted. based on the result, the students of the control and the experimental group have the equal level of ability in “things to buy” vocabulary. the post-test is conducted in both groups in order to know the improvement of the control group and the experimental group after treatments. the mean score of the post-test of the control group is 81.25 and for the experimental group is 90.94. it shows that the achievements of both groups have improved. after that, the writer compares the significant difference in the post-test scores using independent sample t-test. working hypothesis (ha) is accepted if there is a significant difference in students who are taught by using the picture crossword puzzle game compares to those who are taught using conventional method (translation). based on the calculation, ha is accepted if the value of sig.(2-tailed) is less than 0.05. the result shows that the value of sig.(2tailed) is 0.000. it means that 0.000 < 0.05. in addition, ha is accepted if the t value is more than the t table. the t value is 4.182. for α=5%, df =32+32-2 = 62, the t table is 1.999. because the t value is more than the t table (4.182 > 1.999). it means that the ha is accepted and there is a significant difference in both groups. it proves that there is a significant difference in the experimental group who has been taught using the picture crossword puzzle game. the writer also analyzes the paired-sample t-test to compare the score between the pre-test and post-test each group. the result of this comparison shows which group improves higher than the other after the treatments. the hypotheses are ho = post-test score is lower than pre-test scores (sig.(2-tailed) > 0.05) and ha = post-test score is higher than pre-test scores (sig.(2-tailed) < 0.05). the result is both of the group’s sig.(2-tailed) is 0.000. so, the sig.(2tailed) is less than 0.05 (0.000 < 0.05). it means that the students’ achievement of the control and the experimental group have improved. then, the difference mean of the control group is 12.813, while the difference mean of the experimental group is 22.500. the difference mean score of the experimental group is higher than the control group. it proves that the experimental group has a better improvement than the control group. w. nugroho & suprapto / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 197 after finishing the procedures of the analysis of the result of the test, the result shows that there is a significant difference in the seventh grade students of smp n 2 patebon in the academic years of 2016/2017 who are taught by using the picture crossword puzzle compares to those who are taught using the conventional method. so, the working hypothesis (ha) is accepted. below is the comparison between the control and the experimental group of pre-test and post-test score. the chart above proves that the seventh grade students of smp n 2 patebon in the academic year of 2016/2017 obtain a significant achievement in vocabulary mastery and the picture crossword puzzle game is an effective way in teaching vocabulary. based on the explanation and all the calculations above, the treatments of picture crossword puzzle is effective. but, if we see the mean score of the post-test of both groups, there is something interesting here. the mean score of the post-test of the control group is 81.25 and 90.94 for the experimental group. the range of the mean score is only 9.69. in the writer’s point of view the range is not that significant. although statistically proven that the treatments of picture crossword puzzle is effective. the passing grade in smp n 2 patebon is 75. it means that both groups have reached the score. it can be inferred that the picture crossword puzzle is a good method in teaching vocabulary, but so does the conventional method (translation). the mean score of the control group is 81.25. it is not that bad. it is really good. so actually both treatments are good for teaching vocabulary. although the experimental group’s score is higher than the control group, it cannot be concluded that the conventional method (translation) is not an effective way in teaching vocabulary. so, the writer concludes that actually the both treatments are effective to teach vocabulary. result of the questionnaire the questionnaire was given to the students after they have done the post-test in the last meeting. the questionnaire was only given to the experimental group which consisted of 32 students. there were five questions which related to the treatments they have experienced pre-test post-test 0 20 40 60 80 100 pre-test post-test w. nugroho & suprapto / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 198 in the questionnaire. the questionnaire was written in indonesia, so the students were able to understand the questions easily. the question number 1 is whether the students like the treatments, number 2 is whether the students can remember the vocabulary easily after using the treatments, number 3 is whether the students can answer the answer of the test easily after the treatment, number 4 is whether the students become more interested in studying english after the treatments, and the number 5 is about whether the students get a new experience in learning english using the treatment. the result shows that there are 91.8% students give positive effect on picture crossword puzzle game. based on the explanation in the discussion of the test result, both of the treatment actually are effective in teaching vocabulary. it means that there is no ineffective method. but if we see the results of the questionnaire, we can get other information relates to the picture crossword puzzle. the results of the questionnaire show that students like to study using picture crossword puzzle, they are able to memorize the vocabularies easier, they are able to answer the test easily, they like to learn english more after using picture crossword puzzle and they get new experience in learning english. in addition, picture crossword puzzle can make the students pay attention more and focus on the learning process. it has happened in the classroom, even though the class is a little bit noisy, but most of the students enjoy the game. the writer got a lot of questions about the materials from the students during the treatments. conclusions based on the research finding, there is an improvement of both groups in the pre-test and the post-test. in the control group, the mean score has improved from 68.44 to 81.25. the experimental group’s mean score also has improved from 68.44 to 90.94. the writer analyzed the test score using the independent sample t-test. the working hypothesis (ha) is accepted if there is a significant difference in students who are taught by using the picture crossword puzzle game compares to those who are taught using conventional method (translation). in the post-test, the mean score comparison of both groups proves that the working hypothesis (ha) is accepted. ha is accepted if the value of sig.(2-tailed) is less than 0.05 the value of sig.(2-tailed) was 0.000. it means that 0.000 < 0.05. moreover, the t value (4.182) is higher than the t table (1.999). because the t value is more than the t table (4.182 > 1.999), it means that the ha is accepted. the writer also compared the mean scores of pre-test and post-test of each group to determine how much they have improved using the paired-sample-test. the results show that both of the groups have improved after the treatments given. however, the mean scores indicate that the difference mean score of the experimental group (22.500) has improved better than the control group (12.813), while the t-value of the control group is 10.430 and the experimental group is 11.421. from the calculation, statistically the picture crossword puzzle is effective in teaching vocabulary. but if we see the mean score of the post-test, the range is not that significant. the range of the mean score is only 9.69. the passing grade in smp n 2 patebon is 75. it means that both groups have reached the score. it can be inferred that the picture crossword puzzle is a good method in teaching vocabulary, but so does the conventional method (translation). the mean score of the control group is 81.25. the score is really good. so actually both treatments are good for teaching vocabulary. w. nugroho & suprapto / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 199 second, the results of the questionnaire show that there are 91.8% students give positive effect on picture crossword puzzle game. the students like to study using picture crossword puzzle, they are able to memorize the vocabularies easier, they are able to answer the test easily, they like to learn english more after using picture crossword puzzle and they get new experience in learning english. in addition, picture crossword puzzle can make the students pay attention more and focus on the learning process. based on the explanation above, the writer concludes that even though the results is not that significant, but the questionnaire result shows that the students give a positive response to the treatment after doing this research, the writer would like to give some suggestion related to the study. first, it is important for the teachers to know the general characteristic of the students in a class. the teachers should be more creative in teaching the material. for example, using games as a method. using games in a classroom can make the students enjoy and motivate them in the learning process, especially in teaching vocabulary, the picture crossword puzzle game can be an alternative in teaching vocabulary. second, for the students, they can use any kind of games to learn vocabulary. the students should realize that there are many fun ways in learning english, especially in learning english vocabulary. third, the writer suggests that the other researchers should find other games for teaching english, especially teaching vocabulary as a new method in teaching english in a fun way. references creswell, john w. 2009. research design: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (3rd ed). california: sage publication, inc creswell, john w. 2012. educational research: planning, conducting and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research (4th ed). boston: pearson education. deesri, angkana. 2002. games in the esl and efl class. the internet tesl journal, vol. vii, no. 9. available at http://iteslj.org/techniques/deesri-games.html. hatch, evelyn, and cheryl brown. 1995. vocabulary, semantic and language education. cambridge: cambridge university press hornby, albert sydney. 1995. oxford advanced learner’s dictionary. new york: oxford university press jaramillo, carlos mario zapata, bell manrique losada, michaile j. 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education. masaryk university w. nugroho & suprapto / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 200 tuckman, b.w. 1978. conducting educational research. london: harcout brace jacobovitz vopalkova, sarka. 2008. teaching english vocabulary. thesis. faculty of arts and philosophy. university of pardubice watcyn-jones, peter. 2002. vocabulary games and activities 2. essex: pearson education limited yolageldi̇li̇, gülin, and arda arikan. (2011). effectiveness of using games in teaching grammar to young learners. elementary education online, 10(1), 219-229, 2011. i̇lköğretim online, 10(1), 219-229. available at h t t p s : / / a r c h i v e . o r g / d e t a i l s / e r i c _ e 527862. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 92 elt forum 6 (1) (2017) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt washback analysis of students’ perception and teachers’ teaching material of english national examination 2017 khilma nahdia  english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in june 2017 approved in july 2017 published in august 2017 ________________ keywords: washback, teaching material, perception, national examination. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this final project is intended to investigate the washback of the english national examination based on the students‟ perception and teachers‟ teaching material. the research used descriptive qualitative methods as its research methodology. the study shows that the national examination brings positive and negative effects to both students and teachers. for the students, the national examination triggers them to study harder than usual. nevertheless, the national examination still makes the students anxious due to its usefulness as the consideration of their next school level entrance, which, consequently, makes them give more attention only to the subjects tested in the national examination. furthermore, for the teachers, the national examination makes them work hard to supply the students with various media, methods, and books in the teaching-learning process in order to make the students getting ready to face the national examination. nonetheless, the national examination that only tested the reading and writing skills makes the teachers do not teach the english skills material equally. in conclusion, the washback of the english national examination in smp n 12 semarang shows the indication of both positive and negative washback effects of the national examination. © 2017 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: unnes_english@yahoo.com k. nahdia / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 93 introduction national exam is a national test held by the government which designed to examine students‟ performance or competence (bharati, 2007). however, the national examination has always been a hot topic every year. the implementation of the national examination that started firstly in 1950 until now has changed several times, from its format until its function for the students. however, this year, in 2017, the idea of the national examination moratorium was appeared by considering some harmful effects brought with it. one of the effects is the school citizens that put the national examination into a very important test which, as a result, makes the school gives a special treatment to the national examination subjects. however, there are several reasons why students and teachers put the national examination as an important test. it happens due to the fact that even though nowadays the national examination is no longer used as the students‟ graduation determiner, it is still used as the students‟ determiner for continuing to the next school level. therefore, the important role of the national examination for indonesian students makes it categorized as indonesian high-stakes test. according to madaus (1988) in pizarro (2010), high stake test is a test which affects the test-takers and the other people concerned significantly. johnson et al. (2008) in polesel, duffer, & turnbull (2012) define high stakes tests in the united states as a test that affects the students‟ success, the teacher accountability, and the schools‟ reputation or the schools‟ funding. therefore, it can be concluded that a high stake test is a test which has significant consequences for the success of the students. however, the consequences of the national examination can be categorized into positive and negative consequences, just like what tayeb et al. (2014) say about the high stake test. according to them, high-stakes test is a test that has serious implications directly and significantly to the micro and macro stakeholders which result is seen both positively and negatively. it can be said that a high stake test can bring effects, both positive and negative result, to the schools‟ citizen. moreover, the positive and negative effects of a test are, however, widely known as washback. washback, or also known as backwash, is the testing on teaching and learning effect (hughes, 1989, p. 1). in the next study, green (2013) defines washback as test effect of a test preparation on the teaching and learning. according to brown (2004), washback refers to the test effects on the instructions of the students test preparation. furthermore, bachman and palmer (1996) define washback as the impact aspects that particularly attract both researchers of language testing and practitioners. moreover, shohamy, as cited in bailey (1999) summarizes four key definitions that are useful in understanding the washback concept: 1. washback effect refers to the impact that tests have on teaching and learning; 2. measurement driven instruction refers to the notion that tests should drive learning; 3. curriculum alignment focuses on the connection between testing and the teaching syllabus; and 4. systemic validity implies the integration of tests into the educational system and the need to demonstrate that the introduction of test can improve learning. tests can also have effects beyond the classroom. the wider effects of tests on the community as a whole, including the school, are referred to as test impact. in conclusion, based on the definitions above, it can be concluded that washback is an effect of testing on teaching and learning process in the classroom in order to prepare the test itself. moreover, as an effect of tests, washback certainly has two sides, whether it is positive or negative, depending on whether it has a beneficial or harmful impact on educational practices. it is in line with the statement from wall and alderson (1993) that defines washback as a test that k. nahdia / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 94 can be powerful determiners of things happen in the classroom, both positively and negatively. however, messick (1996) define washback as a serious influence of a test to the language teachers and learners for doing things they will not crucially otherwise do which promote or inhibit language learning. therefore, from the saying, it can be concluded that washback as test effect can be powerful determiners that influence what teachers and learners do both positively and negatively. furthermore, according to pearson (1988) in cheng (2004), the washback effect of a test will bring a negative effect if it is unable to reflect the learning principles and course objectives to which the test supposedly relates; and it will bring a positive effect if the effects are advantageous and encourage the whole range of desired changes. alderson and wall (1993), on the other hand, stress that the quality of the washback effect might be independent of the quality of a test. any test, a good one or a bad one, may bring beneficial or detrimental washback effects result. however, a few years ago, in 2007, sukyadi made a study about washback of the national examination in indonesian content. during this year, the national examination was still used as students‟ graduation determiner. therefore, when the students could not pass the exam, they would be stated not graduate from the school. furthermore, the study showed that the washback effect brought positive and negative washback to the school‟s citizens. this fact, as a result, brought much anxiety to the students by thinking how to be able to graduate from the school. the pressure that the students get, in the end, made students did many things to be able to graduate from the school whether in a positive way or in a negative way. nevertheless, nowadays, the national examination is no longer used as graduation determiner. started in 2016, the students‟ consideration for being stated graduate from a school is determined by their behavior in the school and their score in the school report card. it is no longer used the score of the national examination for the graduation determiner. the fact is that the national examination is no longer used as graduation determiner. therefore, it built a question for the researcher. if the national examination is not used as graduation determiner anymore, does it still impact the students as much as it did years ago? the question appeared motivates the researcher to conduct a research about washback of the english national examination with junior high school students as her subject. the study is intended to find the washback of the english national examination for the students‟ perception and teachers teaching material of smp n 12 semarang, the school that the researcher chose as her study place. methodology of the research in this study, the researcher uses a descriptive qualitative method as her research methodology. in a qualitative method, it utilizes certain methodologies and procedures to generate qualitative data in the forms of words, either spoken or written. qualitative research is a means for exploring and understanding the meaning individuals or groups ascribe to a social or human problem. (creswell, 2009, p. 4). according to glass & hopkins (1984) as cited by trisanti (2016) descriptive research is a research method that involves collecting data that describe events and then organizes, tabulates, depicts, and describe the data collection. furthermore, according to arikunto (2010), the appropriate method for qualitative research is a mix of various data resources and method (multi method of data collection). for that reason, in her study, the writer did some data collection methods such as observation, interview, questionnaire, and also documentation for having a complete data collection. the researchwas arang in academic year 2016/2017. firstly the researcher observed the school’s area. she looked in detail about the school’s surroundings that might affect students’ pleasant of studying there. after did the observation, the writer interviewed the random ninth grade k. nahdia / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 95 students of the school from class a until class h (two students from each class) and also the english teachers who teach ninth grade. then, to obtain more in-depth information, the writer gave a questionnaire to the same students and teachers who had been interviewed before. furthermore, during the data collecting methods, the researcher also documented the book that the teachers used as their teaching material to support their teaching before and after the national examination preparation. result and discussion washback of the english national examination based on the students’ perception according to the data collected from the interview and the questionnaire that is given to the students, it shows that based on the students‟ perception, the washback of the english national examination happens in smp n 12 semarang are both positive and negative washback. according to pan (2009), positive washback happens when a test can motivate students to work harder to have a sense of accomplishment and enhance learning. moreover, in this research, the positive washback of the national examination is indicated by the students‟ statements that the national examination makes them study harder than they usually do. they admit that in the class, they pay their full attention to the teachers; which they do not usually do when they were in the eight and seven grades. in addition, in their house, they study by doing the national examination exercises almost every day. in short, from all of the students participate in this study almost all of them increase their time to study. they also do it on their own, without any command from their parents. they do it because they realize and conscious that they indeed need to study to prepare themselves in facing the national examination. it is also in line with cheng, watanabe, and curtis (2004) statement that says positive washback means the positive attitude of both teachers and students towards tests/examination that make them work willingly and collaboratively towards its objectives. furthermore, from the interview held by the researcher, it can be concluded that the students are no longer afraid of the national examination. it is proven by the students who do not want the national examination to be deleted. they, instead, want it to be implemented because, according to them, it can trigger their motivation to study and, the most important one, it is used as their ticket to enter the next school level. if there is not any national examination, they do not know what kind of test they have to do. moreover, the data from the questionnaire shows that all of the students want the national examination to be held again in the next year. they agree with it because they believe that the national examination can be used as a benchmark for the indonesian education level and they are also sure that the national examination is able to not only help the students boost their english skill improvement but also measure their english skills as well. nevertheless, the national examination is not only brought positive washback but also the negative one. even though it does not scare the students a lot, it still, however, stresses them out. it is because the result of the national examination which uses as their determiner to continue the next school level makes them still considers the national examination as a very important event. even though the stress level they get by the national examination is not that much, it still has many reasons to make them study hard in preparing themselves to face it. as mentioned before, almost every day the students study for the national examination. unfortunately, based on the students‟ admission, they study it by using exercise books; which consists of multiple choice items. according to alderson and hamplyons (1996), although teachers may choose to follow the format of a test in their test preparation classes, they may have no solid evidence that this will help their students improve their scores. it is just that this seems an obvious way to approach the shortk. nahdia / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 96 term goal of passing the test. this study method definitely unable to develop students‟ knowledge because they study based on questions, not based on the material. moreover, the national examination makes the students use most of their study time only to study subjects tested in the national examination. they do not give much attention to the other subjects as much as they give to the national examination subjects. mostly, the students say that they study in those subjects only near the school examination implementation. washback of the english the national examination based on the teachers’ teaching material for the positive washback, based on the data collected, the national examination motivates the teachers to equip the students with the best material that advantageous for them to be ready to face the national examination. they use various media, methods, and books to provide best services for the students. due to the long experiences in teaching the ninth grade, the teachers also do not find any difficulties in teaching students who will face the national examination. furthermore, the teachers also do not feel under pressure or stressful because of the responsibility which given to them to teach students who will face the national examination. according to them, the joy of study is important above all. it makes them try their best to make their students enjoy their study, especially in studying english. however, not only brings positive washback, the national examination also brings negative washback to the teachers. according to alderson and wall (1993), the results of negative washback can be seen in three areas, they are the content of teaching, the methodology, and the assessing of the students. moreover, in the content of teaching as the washback of teachers‟ teaching material, the negative washback is showed when the teachers do not teach the whole textbook since they realize that some skills; namely speaking and listening, are not assessed due to the effectiveness of using the limited class time to practice the reading and writing skills. it is, however, happens in smpn 12 semarang. according to the teachers, they do not teach all of the english skills equally because the skills which are tested in the national examination are only reading and writing skills. it makes the teachers give more attention to the skills tested in the national examination, and give less attention to the listening and speaking skills. moreover, pan (2009) stated that it will be a negative washback when the tests encourage teachers to narrow the curriculum and lose instructional time and lead to “teaching to the test”. the english teachers, furthermore, admit that they mostly teach following the table of specification (standar kompetensi lulusan). they indeed teach based on the standard competence (kompetensi dasar) in the class but emphasize more to the material that is included in the table of specification. they also sometimes use the previous national examination questions as the students‟ exercise if they find the suitable for the material they are teaching. furthermore, the national examination raises a discrepancy between the national examination subjects and the nonnational examination subjects, which leads to the emergence of jealousy between the teachers. according to teacher 1, the national examination makes the non-national examination teachers feel jealous due to the different treatment which is given to the national examination subjects and nonnational examination subjects. it is also because the students are also treated the national examination subjects differently than the non-national examination subjects. therefore, it is the reason why the nonnational examination teachers getting jealous with teachers of the national examination subjects. in addition, the national examination makes the younger english teachers do not want to teach ninth grade students because they are afraid of the weight given to the ninth grade teachers. it makes teacher 1 and teacher 2 have to teach ninth grade again and again. furthermore, due to the special treatment given for the national examination that make the school hold a focus class of the national examination subjects after the implementation of the school examination, the ninth grade teachers who also teach seven and eight k. nahdia / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 97 graders have to leave their 7 and 8 classes to teach in the national examination focus class since it is held at the same time. however, from the questionnaire and interview given to the teachers after the implementation of the english national examination, the overall english national examination also brings positive and negative washback. as mentioned above, the english national examination makes the teachers and students try their best to prepare the english national examination. the teachers work hard by providing and delivering the materials to the students. the students, on the other hand, try their best to study and be prepared well to face the english national examination. nevertheless, on the day of the english national examination implementation, it is, ungratefully, not like what they expected due to the unsatisfying result of the students‟ national examination english score. according to the teachers, the english national examination questions are way too difficult for the students. in their opinion, the questions difficulty level is too hard for the students which make their english score unsatisfying. the teachers, however, are not quite sure with their opinion because the teachers do not know how the questions really are. it happens because due to the national examination which held via computer, the teachers are unable to access the website to see the questions since they had no account to do it. however, according to the teachers, they had already tried to access it by using the students‟ account, but they still could not do it because it was automatically closed right after the english national examination time was up. moreover, the government also have not uploaded the questions so the teachers cannot see and analyze what makes their students have an unsatisfying score in english. washback type happens in smp n 12 semarang from both students‟ perception and teachers‟ teaching material, it can be concluded that washback type happens in senior high school 12 semarang is both positive and negative washback. for the positive washback, according to data collected, the national examination makes the teachers try their best to prepare their students to face the national examination. they use various media, methods, and books to provide best services for the students. due to the long experiences in teaching the ninth grade, the teachers also do not find any difficulties in teaching students who will face the national examination. furthermore, the teachers also do not feel under pressure or stressful because of the responsibility which given to them to teach students who will face the national examination. according to them, the joy of study is important above all. it makes them try their best to make their students enjoy their study, especially in studying english. moreover, for the students, the national examination makes them study harder than they usually do. from all of the students participate in this study; almost all of them increase their time to study. they also do it on their own, without any command from their parents. they do it because they realize and conscious that they need to study to prepare themselves in facing the national examination. in short, the students are no longer afraid of the national examination. it is proven by the data that shows all of the students who want national examination to be held again in the next year. for the negative washback happens in state junior high 12 semarang. according to the teachers, they do not teach all of english skills equally because the skills tested in the national examination are only reading and writing skills. it makes the teachers giving more attention to the skills tested in ne, which are only reading and writing skills. they, however, do not give specific attention to the listening and speaking skills because they are not used in the english national examination. the teachers, furthermore, admit that they mostly teach based on the table of specification. they do not give much attention to the materials that will not appear in the table of specification. k. nahdia / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 98 for the students, however, the national examination still stresses them out. it was because the result of the national examination which uses as their determiner to continue to the next school level made them still considering the national examination as a very important test. even though the stress level they got by the national examination is not that much, it still gives many reasons to make them study hard in preparing themselves to face it. moreover, with the national examination, they use most of their study time only to study subjects tested in the national examination. they do not give much attention to the other subjects as much as they give to the national examination subjects. mostly, the students say that they study in those subjects only near the school examination implementation. however, this year’s english national examination in smp n 12 semarang brings negative washback. after the english national examination implementation, the score shows decreasing average score result than last year’s english national examination. it is, however, not only happened in smp n 12 semarang but also in almost every school in indonesia. according to the teachers‟ assumption, it happens because the questions‟ difficulty levels are too high for the students. the teachers, however, cannot prove whether it is right or wrong because based on the computerbased national examination test type, people who are able to access the site are only those who have an account to do it. in this case, only the students who are able to access the site. even though the teachers indeed want to log into the site and check the questions, they have no account to do it. according to the teachers, they have been trying to access the site by using the students‟ account. nevertheless, after the time of the national examination is up, automatically, the site closes itself and no one able to access it anymore. from the teachers‟ admission, the government, however, has not uploaded the english national examination questions on the internet. it makes the teachers have no access at all to look and check the questions. furthermore, the teachers‟ states that they also assume that because it is the first time their students do the english national examination on the computer, it may affect their concentration on doing the exam because it is a well-known secret that there are several english national examination texts which sometimes written in a long story. it might bore the students and makes their eyes tired for always looking at the screen on and on. in conclusion, their eye tiredness might affect their concentration and brought the worst result for the students‟ scores. conclusions based on the washback analysis result of the english national examination in smp n 12 semarang in the academic year 2017, the conclusions could be drawn as follows. this study explored washback from the national examination through the perception of students and the teaching material of the teachers. therefore, the findings reveal the result of both positive and negative washback effects of the english national examination. the positive washback of students‟ perception is indicated by the students that improve their study intensity and pay more attention to the teachers in the class. according to pan (2009), positive washback happens when the test motivates the students to work harder to have a sense of accomplishment and thus enhance learning. based on the data collected, it shows the students‟ admission that their motivation to study is increased significantly during the national examination preparation. the indication of students‟ study improvement can be seen by the increment of the study time they spent in their house and their attentiveness during the english class due to their realization of the importance of the study for their own benefits. however, the positive washback comes together with the negative one. according to the data collected, the result shows that in spite of the fact that the national examination is no longer used as k. nahdia / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 99 graduation determiner, the students still consider it as an important test that, as a result, brings anxiety to the students. even though their anxiety is not too exaggerated, it still exists as a result of the national examination‟s score that used as the students‟ determiner to enter the next school level. it, however, becomes the best motives for the students to give most of their attention to study the national examination subject harder and, consequently, impact their study time for the other subjects. according to brown (2004) (brown, 2004) the students‟ treatment of the national examination and nonnational examination subjects can be classified as a „test-driven learning‟, which indicates the students‟ positive attitude toward learning to the test that determine their lives and, on the other hand, makes them giving little attention to the subject which does not directly contribute to pass the exam. in short, the anxiety of being unable to enter the school they targeted triggers their study motivation for the national examination subject and, on the other hand, makes them less concerned with the subjects which are not tested in the national examination since they have no influence for their entrance to the senior high school. furthermore, the washback of the english national examination from the teachers‟ perspective on smp n 12 semarang is also both positive and negative. the positive washback indicates by the teachers‟ effort to equip the students with the best material and, in addition, illuminate the material that can help the students understand and be ready to face the national examination. moreover, the teachers’ effort to support students’ readiness in facing the national examination is shown by the use of various media, methods, and books in the both regular and extra english classes. besides, due to the long experiences in teaching the ninth grade, the teachers do not find any difficulties or feel under pressure of the responsibility of teaching students who will face the national examination. according to them, the joy of study is important above all. as the result, in teaching the students, they provide the best methods to make their students enjoy the study, especially in studying english. however, not only positive washback, the negative washback is also found in the school. according to alderson and wall (1993), the results of negative washback can be seen in 3 areas, the content of teaching, the methodology, and the way in assessing the students. according to them, the indication of negative washback of the teaching content is, when the teachers do not teach the whole book because some skills are not more useful to spend the limited time they have. however, the negative washback on the content of teaching in smp n 12 semarang is indicated by the teachers who do not teach all of the english skills equally. it happens as a result of national examination which only tests reading and writing skills which, therefore, makes the teachers give less attention to the speaking and listening skills in order to help the students for being ready to face national examination. moreover, pan (2009) said that if the tests encourage teachers to narrow the curriculum and lose instructional time and lead to “teaching to the test”, it is the result of negative washback. on the case of washback of the national examination in smpn 12 semarang, the teachers teach based on the standard of competence (standard kompetensi/sk) and basic competence (kompetensi dasar/kd) for the ninth grade students. nevertheless, if the material is mentioned in the table of specification (standar kompetensi lulusan/skl), the teachers would emphasize more and illuminate the materials so the students can be easily understood them. furthermore, the teachers also used the previous national examination questions as students‟ exercises if the texts were suitable to the material they taught. k. nahdia / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 100 furthermore, the national examination raises a discrepancy between the national examination subjects and the nonnational examination subjects, which leads to the emergence of jealousy between the teachers. according to teacher 1, ne makes the non-national examination teachers envy because the national examination subjects which are treated differently compared with the non-national examination subjects. in addition, due to the focus class of the national examination subjects which the school held after the school examination, it makes the ninth grade teachers who also teach 7 and 8 graders have to leave their 7 and 8 classes to be able to teach the national examination focus class since it is held at the same time. in short, it makes the seven and eight graders neglected by the teachers. furthermore, this year‟s english national examination implementation in smp n 12 semarang brings both positive and negative washback. as mentioned before, the national examination motivates both teachers and students to do their best in preparing the national examination. however, after the national examination implemented, the result makes both teachers and students disappointed. according to the data collected by the researcher after the national examination, the national examination results show the decreasing average score of english than the last year‟s english national examination average score. it, however, is not only happened in smp n 12 semarang, but also in almost every school in indonesia. according to the teachers‟ assumption, it happens because the questions‟ difficulty levels are too high for the students. the teachers, however, are not quite sure with their assumption because until the national examination result announced, the government has not uploaded the questions so the teachers cannot check how exactly the questions were. references alderson, c. j., & wall, d. (1993). does washback exist? applied linguistics, 115-129.alderson, c., & hamp-lyons, l. (1996). toefl preparation course: a study of washback. language testing, 280-297. arikunto, s. (2010). prosedur penelitian: suatu pendekatan praktik. jakarta: rineka cipta. bachman, f. l., & palmer, s. a. (1996). language testing in practice: designing and developing useful language tests. oxford: oxford university press. bailey, m. k. (1999). washback in language testing. new jersey: educational testing service. bharati, d. a. (2007). uan and its relevance to the new curriculum, ktsp. magistra, 79-83. brown, d. (2004). language assessment: principles and classroom practices. new york: pearson education. cheng, l., & curtis, a. (2008). washback in language testing. new jersey: lawrence erlbaum associates. cheng, l., watanabe, y. j., & curtis, a. (2004). washback in language testing: research, content, and method. new jersey: lawrence erlbaum associates. creswell, j. w. (2009). research design: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. california: sage publications. green, a. (2013). washback in langauge testing. international journal of english studies, 39-51. hughes, a. (1989). testing for language teachers. cambridge: cambridge university press. pan, y. c. (2009). a review of washback and its pedagogical implications. vnu journal of science, foreign language, 215-228. pizarro, m. a. (2010). exploring the washback effect of a high-stakes english test on the teaching english in spanish upper secondary schools. revista alicantina de estudio ingleses, 149-170. polesel, j., duffer, n., & turnbull, m. (2012). the experience of education: the impact of high stakes testing on school students and their families. sydney: the whitlam institute within the university of western sydney. tayeb, y. a., aziz, m. s., ismail, k., & khan, a. b. (2014). the washback effect of the general secondary english k. nahdia / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 101 examination (gsee) on teaching and learning. gema online, 83-103. trisanti, n. (2016). integrating extensive reading into content subject course teaching in tertiary level. the 5th eltlt international conference proceedings, 466-470. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 82 elt forum 7 (2) (2018) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the effectiveness of simulation board game to improve speaking skill in descriptive text to the tenth grade students of sma negeri 2 wonosobo 2015/2016 nuari larasati, abdurrachman faridi, rohani  english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in october 2018 approved in november 2018 published in january 2019 ________________ keywords: board game, conventional method, speaking skill. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this experimental research aims to find out if simulation board game is more effective than conventional method to improve students’ speaking skill. around sixty-six students of the tenth grades of sma negeri 2 wonosobo, in academic year 2015/2016 participating in this research were categorized into two groups named experimental and control group. to make it easier to understand, the result was presented in the form of statistical data. the post-test score of both groups is quite far which is 75.12 for the experimental and 60.12 for the control group. in addition, the sig (2-tailed) of the t-test which is 0.000 explains that there is a significant difference between the students who are taught by using board game and those who are taught by using conventional method. furthermore, the n-gain score shows that the effectiveness of speaking skill with board game is at the medium level, while the effectiveness of speaking skill with conventional method is at the low level. based on the data analysis result of the research, it can be concluded that use of board game is more effective than the use of conventional method to teach speaking skill to the students. © 2018 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: uness_english@yahoo.com n. larasati, a. faridi, rohani / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 83 introduction mastering english is very important for certain group of people in their life since english is an international language that is used almost in every part of the world. learning english as language requires the mastery of four skills. they are listening, speaking, reading, and writing. speaking is one of the important skill for them to practice their capability and their understanding, how to send idea, and how to spell word well. there are several essential components of speaking skill. brown (2004: 157) states that the speaking skill consist of six components: grammar, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, pronunciation and task. in this case the students’ motivation and interest are very needed to make the process of their understanding more easily. furthermore, speaking is a skill that needs practices. the more students practice through sharing their idea, they will become the better speaker. in addition davison and dowson (2009:107) say that pupils need opportunities to speak and listen in a wide variety of context and for a wide range of purpose, in order to increase their thinking ability, to develop their powers of communication and to provide examples of language in use through which to develop their explicit knowledge about speaking and listening. the failure of the teaching english can be caused by the material of english subject is very variety, so the teachers are obligated to choose the suitable approach, strategy, and method in order to achieve the teaching purposes easily, and the media will make the students to be more motivated to study. the teacher can use some methods in learning process to help the students’ understanding about the material that is explained. in applying the method, the teachers have to prepare many things like; teaching material, classroom management, and many other aspects because using inappropriate technique can make the students get difficulties in understanding the teacher’s explanation and it means that the teacher may be failed in teaching them. it is in the same line with burns and joyce’s statement (1997: 54): “one of the aims of most of the language programs used by today’s teachers is to develop spoken language skills, and most programs aim to integrate both spoken and written language”. to make the students have strong interest in teaching and learning process especially in learning speaking, the teacher should take the best approach, method, and strategies. then, the teacher can use media in teaching english, method is used to help the students for speaking to make interaction between the teacher and students. furthermore, the teacher has to prepare the interested aids before teaching learning process done. harmer (1993: 3) states, “motivation means a kind of drive that encourages somebody to pursue a course action”. it should be done by every english teacher in order that the students are interested to learn this language. english teacher must be able to manage the teaching by using certain method in the teaching-learning process, so that the students will like it without boring and despair. the teacher can uses game in teaching activity because game can increase the students’ interest in the class, based on the writer previous experience when the writer was doing ppl in smp negeri 1 magelang, the writer found the students’ was interesting when the writer gave some games in the class, it made the students not become bored and they become more active in the class. mei and yu jing (2000) believe that through playing games, students can learn english as the way the children learn and say their mother language without being aware they are studying; thus without stress, the students can learn a lot in learning target language. it means that learning through game decreases the stress from lesson and makes the students enjoy the learning process. for example board game it usually implies entertainment and relaxation. games are activities that encourage the participants to compete with one or with more individuals. they have certain rules. celce and murcia (2001:34) say that game is an organized n. larasati, a. faridi, rohani / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 84 language activity that has particular task and objective and set of rules which involve an element of competition between players. the teacher can uses board game as method in teaching and learning processes. by using game, learning process can be fun and the learning process is not only about textbooks and recitation. according to hornby (1995: 486) game is an activity that you do to have some fun. board game can be defined as something or an instrument that is used to attract students’ motivation to follow the teaching and learning process because board game can make the students more focus in learning, because they do not feel that they are forced to learn. they also enable learners to acquire new experiences within a foreign language which are not always possible during a typical lesson. board game can be method that will give many advantages for teacher and the students either. in this situation speaking board game can be conducted to change the bored class to become more enjoyment class. based on the reason above, the writer tried to find out the effectiveness of this study entitle “ the effectiveness of simulation board game to improve speaking skill to the tenth grade students of sma negeri 2 wonosobo 2015/2016. beside the writer used this technique to make the students more active in speaking class. methods in achieving the objective of the study, the writer used pre-experimental research to obtain the required data and information. the approach that used was quantitative method which means that the method and the instrument involves numerical measurements and the statistical quantification was conducted. the subject of this study were the students of sma negeri 2 wonosobo in the academic year 2015/2016. then the writer categorized the subject of the study into population, sample, and technique of sampling. the population is the whole members to which the writer gathered information in order to generalize of the research result. the population in this study was the tenth grade students at sma negeri 2 wonosobo in academic year 2015/2016. sample is a representative of the population on critical parameters at an acceptable level of proficiency. saleh (2001: 34) explains, researcher can consider the suitable number of sample to represent the population”. in selecting the sample, the writer used purposive sampling. first the writer looked the population from all classes of tenth grade students’ score from their mid semester’ score, then the writer chose two tenth grade classes from sma n 2 wonosobo which get the equal score and equal ability in english. the two classes which have chosen became experimental group and control group. the writes has chosen x mia 5 class as the experimental group and x ibb class as the control group. the method of collecting data that the writer used in this study were test, questionnaire, and observation checklist. it should be applied in conducting the research in order to get the appropriate result of the research. the method of collecting data in this research can be seen as follow: firstly, the writer conducted pre-test. the test is given to identify the students’ speaking achievement before giving the treatment. in this test, the students are asked to do speaking test in front of the class. next, for the real experiment the students were given a treatment by using board game in teaching speaking to the experimental group and using conventional method to the control group. this treatment was conducted in order to determine whether there is significant difference in speaking achievement between the experimental group and control group. n. larasati, a. faridi, rohani / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 85 the last, data are obtained from the post-test. it was conducted to know the improvement the students’ speaking achievement after the treatments done. the test items are the same with pre-test items. the students are asked to describe something related to the material given. the last but not least, questionnaire was given after doing post-test. it is to support the primary data in this research and to know how far the result effects on the students. the result of treatments is known by the students’ achievement that got by comparing the result before (pre-test) and after treatments (post-test) conducted. results and discussions pre-test was given before doing the experiment. the pre-test was given in x ibb class as the control group and x mia class as the experimental group on 26 april 2016. in the pre-test, students was given a brief explanation about descriptive text without treatment, after that the students were asked to make a spoken descriptive text then they told it in front of the class. this was used to measure the students’ skills in spoken descriptive text before they were given the treatment. in conducting experiment, students of the experimental group were given treatment using board game after pre-test. the treatment was given in three times. the first treatment was given on the second meeting on 3 may 2016. the second treatment was conducted on 10 may 2016. then the last treatment was on 17 may 2016 ten minutes before post-test. the purpose of these treatments was to apply the use of board game in teaching a spoken descriptive text. in the first meeting before pre-test the writer only gave a brief explanation without the game. the second meeting the writer gave the treatment using board game, the students were asked to make groups, each group consist of six students, after that they played board game in their group. in board game provides questions related to spoken descriptive text. in the third meeting the writer gave the same treatment and game with the different questions about spoken descriptive text. the last meeting before post-test, the students were given a brief summary. the aims of giving treatments using board game is to help the students in speaking skill. post-test was given after all treatments were done. the post-test was conducted on 17 may 2016. the writer gave the test for the experimental group and control group in order to know the achievement of the students. the post-test question was the same with the pretest. post-test is used to measure the students’ skill after the treatments. the results of the descriptive statistics analysis of the pre-test’s score were seen as follows: table 3.1.pre-test’s scores the table above shows that both the control and the experimental group had the same maximum score but different minimum score, the differential between two means was almost similar. from the table 4.2, the total pre-test scores of the students in experimental group were 1984 and the mean was 58.35; with the minimum score was 48 and maximum score was 68. while the total pre-test scores of the students in control group were 1,880 and the mean was 5.75: with the minimum score was 52 and maximum score was 68. if we calculated the difference of both means, descriptive statistic n min max sum mean experimental 34 48.00 68.00 1984.00 58.3529 control 32 52.00 68.00 1880.00 58.7500 valid n 32 n. larasati, a. faridi, rohani / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 86 the result would be 0.4 which indicated that the difference still could be tolerated. in order to find out the result of the data analysis, the descriptive statistics analysis of post-test score is also important. after conducting the descriptive analysis of the post-test score, the result could be seen as follows: descriptive statistics n min max sum mean experimental 34 68.00 84.00 2560.00 75.2941 control 32 52.00 64.00 1924.00 60.1250 valid n 32 table 3.2. statistics of post-test’s score the result was different from the previous result, in this table all aspects show different result. the minimum, maximum and the mean of the data were different even the number of the data were same. the experimental group had higher result in every aspects than the control group. from the computation of the test result, the total post-test scores of the students in experimental group were 32,560 and the mean was 75.29; with the minimum score was 68 and maximum score was 84. while the total post-test scores of the students in control group were 1,924 and the mean was 60.12; with the minimum score was 54 and the maximum score was 64. the difference means between the experimental and control group were 15.16 which indicates the significant difference between experimental and control group. thus, based on the significant difference from both groups, it can be concluded that after the treatment, the enhancement for each class were quite different. from the diagram below, the blue rectangular were maximum score result of pre-test and post-test, the red rectangular were minimum score result of pre-test and post-test, and the gray rectangular were the mean result of pre-test and post-test. it showed that the line of experimental and control group’s pre test was almost same, but the line of experimental group’s post test was significantly higher than control group’s one. the result can be illustrated in the following diagram: figure 3.1. experimental and control groups the result of the questionnaire can be illustrated in the following diagram: 68 84 68 64 48 68 52 52 58.3 75.2 58.7 60.1 0 20 40 60 80 100 control experimental experimental and control group maximum minimum mean n. larasati, a. faridi, rohani / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 87 figure 3.2 questionnaire result of experimental group from the data above, it could be concluded that basically the students like english lesson. they found difficulties in speaking and still felt afraid to speak in front of their friends. after they using board game in the learning process, they felt board game could help them in their speaking and they became brave to speak in front of their friends. according to them, board game was effective strategy to to improve the students’ speaking skill, because they thought that there were significant changes in their speaking. it can be concluded that most of the students agree that board game can help the students to improve their speaking skill. conclusions the purposes of this study, first is to explain whether the students will be more active in the class if the teacher uses simulation board game in learning process. the second purpose is to find out whether any effectiveness of using simulation board game to improve the students’ speaking skill. after conducting the research the writer can conclude that students are more active in the class because after they got simulation board game they have courage to speak in front of the class and they can speak more fluency. the second conclusions of the research are drawn in accordance with the result of the data analysis in the previous chapter. based on the data analysis, the writer concluded that there is a significant difference between the experimental group and the control group. the average score for the experimental group was 58.3 for the pre-test and 75.29 for the post test, while the average scores for the control group was 58.7 for the pre-test and 60.12 for the post-test. each group had different achievement. the achievement of experimental group was higher than the control group. moreover, almost all students in the experimental group got maximal score in their post-test. there is an improvement of students’ achievemen in speaking of descriptive text. it could be concluded that using simulation board was effective in teaching speaking of descriptive text. the students’ responses toward simulation board game in speaking descriptive text is shown from the questionnaire given to the students in the experimental group after post-test was conducted. it was found that 88.20% students answered “yes” (is whether or not the students realize that board game could help them to improve their speaking skill). moreover, it was found 79.40% students answered “yes” (whether the students have any differences before and after using board game in learning process or not). according to them board game was effective to make the students active in speaking english descriptive text, because they thought that there were significant changes in their speaking. it can be 47.10% 76.50% 91.20% 88.20% 88.20% 79.40% 91.20% 85.30% 76.50% 52.90% 23.50% 8.80% 11.80% 11.80% 20.60% 8.80% 14.70% 23.50% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 0.00% 20.00% 40.00% 60.00% 80.00% 100.00% 120.00% 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 questionnaire yes no total n. larasati, a. faridi, rohani / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 88 concluded that most of the students agree that simulation board game can help the students to improve their speaking skill of descriptive text. references brown, h.d. 2001. teaching by principles: an interactive approach to language pedagogy. san francisco: longman. ______ 2001. teaching by principles: an interactive approach to language pedagogy. san francisco: longman. ______ 2003. language assessment: principles and classroom practice. san francisco: longman. ______ 2004. language assessment: principles and classroom practices. new york: pearson education, inc. burns, a. and joyce, h. 1997. focus on speaking. sydney: national centre of english language teaching and research. celce, m. and murcia. 2001. teaching english as a second or foreign language. usa: heinle&heinle. chang, s. and cogswell, j. 2008. using board game in the language classroom. new york: tesol convention and exhibition. davidson and dowson. 2009. learning to teach english in the secondary school: a comparison to school experience (learning to teach subjects in the secondary school series). uk: routledge. harmer, j. 1993. the practice of english language teaching. new york: longman. ______2007. how to teach english. new york: longman. hornby, a. s. 1995. oxford learner’s dictionary of current english. london: oxford university press. kusumarasdyati. and khusnah, n. 2013. the effectiveness of a board game for teaching speaking to the seventh graders of mts. nu terate gersik. an article of surabaya state university. lee, h. l. j. 2012. smarties: using board game in the english classroom for edutainment and assessment. vol. 8 no. 1. lewis, g. and bedson, g. 1999. games for children. uk: oxford university press. mei, y. y. and jang y. 2000. using games in an efl class for children. daejin university elt research paper. fall, 2000. nimarwati, l. a. 2015. improving students’ speaking skills through speaking board games of grade viii of smp n 13 yogyakarta in the academic year 2013/2014. final project of yogyakarta state university. oxford advanced learner’s dictionary. 2010. oxford: oxford university press. provenzo, a. b. and povenzo, e. f. 1981. favorite board game you can make and play. us: courier corporation. saleh, a. r. 2001. pemberdayaan perpustakaan perguruan tinggi. makalah lepas. tidak dipublikasi. n. larasati, a. faridi, rohani / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 89 smith, h. 2006. playing to learn: a qualitative analysis of bilingual pupil-pupil talk during board game play. language and education vol. 20 no.5 p415-437. thornbury, s. 2000. a dogma for efl. iatefl issues, 153. utamaningsih, m. n. 2012. improving students’ speaking ability through story board game: an action research of tenth grade students of sma n 1 grabag. final project of semarang state university. microsoft word 6. 158 investigating washback of national standardized school examination on junior high school students and teachers alief imani sumpada  english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 5 august 2019 approved in 29 november 2019 published in 30 november 2019 ________________ keywords: washback; learning strategy; teachers’ strategies; usbn ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this final project aimed to investigate the washback of english national standardized school examination on ninth graders and teachers. the research used descriptive qualitative method as its research methodology. the results showed that english national standardized school examination or ujian sekolah berstandar nasional (usbn) brought positive and negative effect. the students applied some learning strategies to develop their reading and writing skills to face english usbn. however, they gave less attention to listening and speaking skills. also, the students focused to get good result on the examination because it determined their graduation and their higher level school. the teachers prepare the students to take the examination by taught the material more thoroughly. they used various sources and media to support the teaching and learning activities. however, they gave less attention on listening and speaking skills and lose instructional time. to summarize, there were trends of positive and negative washback of english usbn on the students and teacher at smp n 1 kertek in academic year of 2018/2019. © 2019 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b8 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: e.teacher.ichsan@gmail.com elt forum 8 (2) (2019) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt alief imani sumpada / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 159 introduction in some recent years, the ujian nasional (un) is not used as main factor to determine students’ graduation. in 2016 the minister of education and culture ministry, muhajir effendi, proposed the national examination moratorium in front the tenth commission of parliament. nevertheless, the national examination is still needed to be conducted for some reasons. based on the cabinet secretary, pramono anung, indonesia president joko widodo, decided to defend the national examination in indonesia. the national examination is still needed to defend indonesia’s ranking in program for international student assessment (pisa). pisa is an international survey that observe achievement of 15 years old students on, reading literature, mathematic, and science. however, there is another well-known and nation-wide standardized test in indonesia which is called ujian sekolah berstandar nasioinal (usbn). in the year academic 2018/2019, usbn is used as determiner of the students’ graduation. nonetheless, the students and teacher change their focus to usbn. usbn is a measuring activity on students’ competence conducted by educational unit based on students’ competence specification, in order to obtain admission of academic achievement (bsnp, 2018). however, the usbn requires the students and teacher do some extra efforts to anticipate it. these extra efforts and special treatment given by the teacher may bring some effects to the students and the lesson. there are two kinds of effects that could possibly appear, those are positive and negative effect. the positive effect may result on teaching and learning purpose to develop english skill. in other way, the negative effect may result the teaching and learning to a test, thus lesson in class is dominated by test practice and reviewing. the effect of a test in language learning is commonly called as “washback”. the term “washback” refers to the influence of testing on teaching learning (bailey, 1996). the word can be found in certain dictionaries and defined as “the unwelcome repercussions of social actions” by the new webster’s comprehensive dictionary of the language, and “unpleasant after-effects of an event or situation” by collin’s cobuild dictionary of english language. also based on cheng (2005, p. 26), washback is an educational phenomenon derived from research studies into (a) the relationship between teaching, learning, and testing. in his book brown (2004, p. 29) defines washback as the effects of an assessment on teaching and learning prior to assessment itself, that is, on preparation for the assessment. based on bailey (1996, p.259) washback is generally defined as the influence of testing on teaching and learning. wall & alderson (1993) in bailey (1999, p. 1) stated that it is common to claim the existence of washback (the impact of a test on teaching) and to declare that tests can be powerful determiners, both positively and negatively, of what happens in classrooms. buck (1988) in bailey (1999, p. 3), described washback as a natural tendency for both teachers and students to tailor their classroom activities to the demands of the test, especially when the test is very important to the future of the students, and pass rates are used as a measure of teacher success. this influence of the test on the classroom (referred to as washback by language testers) is, of course, very important; this washback effect can be either beneficial or harmful. since washback is an effect of a test, so the effect itself can be a beneficial effect or harmful effect. taylor (2005, p. 154) washback is generally perceived as being either negative (harmful) or positive (beneficial). positive washback as taylor (2005, p. 154) explained is a result when a testing procedure encourages ‘good’ teaching practice; for example, an oral proficiency test is introduced in the expectation that it will promote the teaching of speaking skills. on the other hand, the harmful or negative washback as pan (2009) stated that washback is where the teachers will usually teach to the test, narrow the curriculum and only focus on what will be tested. noble and smith (1994) in cheng, watanabe, & curtis (2008, p. 9) also found that highstake testing could affect teachers directly and negatively, and that teaching test-taking skills and drilling on multiple-choice worksheets is likely to boost the scores but unlikely to promote general understanding. pan (2009, p. 261) summarized the effect of washback as follows; table 1 positive effect of washback positive washback classroom settings 1. tests induce teachers to cover their subjects more thoroughly, making them complete their syllabi within the prescribed time limits. 2. tests motivate students to work harder to have a sense of accomplishment and thus enhance learning. alief imani sumpada / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 160 3. good tests can be utilized and designed as beneficial teaching-learning activities so as to encourage positive teaching-learning processes. educational/societal system decision makers use the authority power of high-stakes testing to achieve the goals of teaching and learning, such as the introduction of new textbooks and new curricula. table 2. negative effect of washback negative washback classroom settings 1. tests encourage teachers to narrow the curriculum and lose instructional time, leading to “teaching to the test.” 2. tests bring anxiety both to teachers and students and distort their performance. 3. students may not be able to learn real-life knowledge, but instead learn discrete points of knowledge that are tested. 4. cramming will lead students to have a negative positive toward tests and accordingly alter their learning motivation. educational/societal system decision makers overwhelmingly use tests to promote their political agendas and to seize influence and control of educational systems. thus, the writer wanted to observe the students’ learning strategies to learn english for preparing the school national standardized test. based on ellis (2003) successful learners use more strategies than unsuccessful learners. by comparing many students learning strategies and their achievement, the writer believes that results in this study can be useful for many parties. not only the students, but also the teachers’ strategies is the focus in this study because the teachers take important role to guide the students comprehend the material. spratt (2005, p. 8-21) stated that teacher attitude towards an exam would seem to play an important role in determining the choice of methods used to teach exam classes. methods the writer focuses in describing and explaining washback related to teachers’ strategies and students’ learning strategies of english usbn at smp n 1 kertek in the academic year of 2018/2019. there were 16 students in this study from class ix a until ix g. the students were selected without any sampling technique, however the writer considered to choose the students based on their achievement in the class. there were two teachers as the respondents in this study. both teachers taught english for 9th grade students. the teachers have taught english for more than a decade. due to confidentiality, the writer uses initial name in this study for mrs es and mrs wrdw. in this research, the writer used descriptive qualitative method. the descriptive qualitative method is aimed to describe phenomenon and its characteristics (nassaji, 2015, p. 129). he further explained that this research is more concerned on “what” rather than “how” or “why” something has happened. also, one fundamental characteristic of this method is naturalistic data involvement. in addition, this research method attempts to study language learning and teaching in their naturally occurring setting without any intervention or manipulation of variables. gall et al. (2007) in nassaji (2015, p. 129), stated that observation and survey tools are often used to gather data. the writer used some tools to gather the data. one is a summative rating scale, popularly known as a questionnaire, an inventory, or (less accurately) a survey. the most often used strategy scale around the world at this time is the strategy inventory for language learning (sill, oxford, 1986-1990) in (oxford, 1995). the sill (oxford 1986-present) was first designed as an instrument for assessing the frequency of use of language learning strategies by students at the defense language institute in monterey, california. there are two revised versions of the sill, one for foreign language learners whose native language is english (80 items) and the other for learners of english as a second or foreign language (esl/efl, 50 items) (oxford, 1995). in this study, the writer used 50 items version of sill. alief imani sumpada / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 161 the writer translated the original version (english) into bahasa indonesia in order to anticipate misunderstanding. the items were reduced and modified to 22 items, however the 6 subscales (memory, cognitive, compensation, metacognitive, affective, and social) were maintained to keep the core of the sill. the writer also used interview guidance. the questions asked to the students were related to their learning strategies. bahasa indonesia was used to anticipate misunderstood. it was ranged from questions related to their english background and habitual related to english to more specific questions related to their learning strategies. there were 20 items and 6 sub-items in the students’ interview guidance. the questions asked to the teachers were related to their teachers’ strategies. the questions were also in bahasa indonesia. it was also ranged from questions related to their opinion toward usbn to their method in developing the students’ reading and writing skill. the interview guidance consisted of 20 questions. the writer adopted a data analysis procedure proposed by miles and huberman (1984). this analysis procedure consist of three steps, those steps are data reduction, data display, and conclusion. data reduction is process of selecting, focusing, simplifying, abstracting, and transforming the ‘raw’ data that appear in written-up field notes. the writer screened the less valuable data and picked valuable data, then the writer processed the data into understandable data. the data were divided into students’ learning strategy and teachers’ teachers’ strategies. data display is an organized assembly of information that permits conclusion drawing and action taking. the collected data from the instruments were presented in figures, and tables to grasp easier the data meaning. the conclusion drawing and verification is to decide what things mean, is noting regularities, patterns, explanations, possible configurations, causal flows, and propositions. the reader writer explained in sentences the data meaning based on the processed with supporting tables and charts of the data from previous step. according to miles and huberman (1984, p.23) the diagram of data analyzing procedure as follows; figure 1. diagram of data analyzing procedure descriptive technique was used in this study to report the data in. the basic procedure in reporting the results of a qualitative study is to develop description and themes form the data to present these description and themes that convey multiple perspectives from participant and detailed description of the setting or individuals (creswell, 1994, p. 204). based on loeb et al. (2017), descriptive analyses are central to almost every research project. she continued to explain, whether the goal is to identify and describe trends and variation in populations, create new measures of key phenomena, or simply describe samples in studies aimed at identifying causal effects, descriptive analyses are part of almost every empirical paper and report. the writer described the interview and observation in sentences to explain the response of the subject of study. the statistical results were presented in sentence after processing by simple statistical method. data collection data reduction data display conclusion/ drawing verificaiton alief imani sumpada / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 162 findings and discussion washback of the national standardized school examination on teachers’ strategies based on the data gained from the questionnaire, interview, and teachers’ lesson plan, the washback related to teachers’ strategies to prepare the students of smp n 1 kertek to take english usbn in the academic year of 2018/2019 is both positive and negative. pan (2009) stated that tests induce teachers to cover their subjects more thoroughly, making them complete their syllabi within the prescribed time limits. the teachers’ responses on the questionnaire shows that usbn preparation is used to teach the materials more thoroughly. some materials related to reading and writing skills were taught in detail, since reading and writing skills were dominant used in english usbn. both teachers used different method to teach the students. mrs. wrdw used genre based approach to help the students understand many kind of text deeper. the approach is based on a teaching-learning cycle where strategies such as modelling texts and joint construction (firkins et al., 2007). the gba approach was elaborated with the kurikulum 2013 which requires the students to be more active learner. mrs. wrdw argued that group discussion was effective to develop students’ skills. she also stated that reading and writing skills were developed more intensively in the extra class. the material both in regular and extra class were integrated, thus the students can comprehend the material deeper. mrs. es, however, used different approach to teach her students. she used scientific approach to guide the students to comprehend the material more systematically based on the students’ book. the students were guided to comprehend the material in their book and discuss it in detail including some aspects of english related to the text. both teachers stated that they taught the material based on sk & kd in regular class and did more exercises in the extra class. in the extra class, they taught less theory and gave the students more exercises. some early meetings were used to refresh students’ understanding on some materials and the rest of the meetings were used to discuss and do exercises. both teachers used some media to teach the students. for example, mrs wrdw used laptop and lcd screen to conduct the lesson. moreover, the school suggested the students to have exercise books of four national examination subject, which are bahasa indonesia, english, mathematic, and science. the books were often discussed in the extra class, also in some meetings in regular class after sk & kd materials were given. the students’ books were also used to give more examples and exercises on the given material. mrs er used some books to give the students more variations of the question item. some previous test papers were also used by both teacher. the test papers were given to the students in order to help the students connect the material with question item. the test paper were used in the extra class program and it was only used in some regular class meetings after all material based on sk & kd were given. furthermore, the teacher stated that the usbn preparation did not interrupt the regular class. the teachers taught the students based on the curriculum, syllabi, standar kompetensi & kompetensi dasar. usbn preparation was used to gain students’ deeper understanding on the material, since the english usbn covered the material form 7th until 9th grade. however, there was also trend of negative washback on teachers’ strategies. based on (pan, 2009), negative washback happens when the teacher have to narrow the curriculum and lose the instructional time leading to “teaching to the test”. the teachers gave less attention to the materials of listening and speaking skills because both skills were not tested in english usbn. also, some meetings in the regular class were used to do exercises drilling because the teacher considered that they should give more exercises for the students to prepare the usbn. furthermore, the school decided to start the extra class program from the middle of first semester. in addition, some meetings in regular class were used as usbn preparation which was focusing on exercises drilling. mrs es stated that students’ comprehension on previous year materials were not good enough. she argued that the usbn specification were quite high and the kurikulum 2013 did not cover the specification in detail. based on her experience, years ago when she taught 8th grade students, she thought that kurikulum 2013 were designed to grow students’ interest on english and the learning activity somehow were not supposed to discuss the material comprehensively. thus, when the students have to face the un & usbn, the teacher had to guide their students to catch up wide gap between students’ understanding and the specification of the test. mrs wrdw also argued that the old same problem which the students dealt with was vocabulary. not only the low motivated students, but also high motivated students experience the alief imani sumpada / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 163 same. thus, the extra classes were grouped based on the students’ achievement on the try out test in order to give precise treatment for the students. mrs wrdw admitted that she ever asked the students to bring a text with some question items based on text. then, she asked the students to exchange their texts, of course the students have to understand their own text before they give it to other student. as a result, the students could get many texts and exercises without spending much time to find it. in addition, both teachers agreed if english was tested nationally, however they considered that the specification of the test was quite high compared to the students’ skills. the teacher also admitted that they have to do extra effort to teach the students. the extra effort had to be done since the gap between students’ material comprehension with usbn specification was quite wide. yet, some low motivated students did not make extra effort to study harder. for example, some low motivated students had low motivation to develop their vocabulary, as a result the students found difficulty to understand a text and question related to the text. washback of the national standardized school examination on students’ learning strategies based on the data gained from the questionnaire and interview, the washback on students’ learning strategies to develop reading and writing skills at smp n 1 kertek in academic year of 2018/2019 is both positive and negative. according to pan (2009), tests motivate students to work harder to have a sense of accomplishment and thus enhance learning. the result from questionnaire and interview showed that they studied harder to develop their reading and writing skills, even though english was not their favorite subject. english is a foreign language in indonesia and it was considered challenging subject for the students. the time for them to practice or use english were not much because english was rarely used in the daily communication. the lesson in the school also limited based on the lesson plan. based on that reason, the students admitted that english usbn was needed extra preparation. their strategy to prepare english usbn were mostly by study harder either in the school or outside school. usbn result was used as consideration of their graduation and to enrol to senior high schoolsome students admitted that they dealt with vocabulary. most of them had difficulty when they found new word and since the word was a key to answer the question. most of them used the dictionary to find out the meaning, then the students memorized the words by repeating it a lot. when they found new word and it was not allowed to open dictionary, guessing the meaning based on the sentence and context was the strategy. in addition, trying to find the synonym of the word was also applied by the students. the second common difficulty was grammar which is related to tenses. some students admitted that they experienced the difficulty on grammar. most of the students answered that they reviewed the tenses to evaluate their mistake and did a lot of practices to memorize the formula of the tense. moreover, many students responded that they study english outside the school from many media, such as movies, television, music and online application. in some cases, they connected some words which are similar to words in bahasa indonesia. in addition, when they did not understand meaning of a word, they would guess the word by paying attention to the context or sentence. also, they would use another similar word if they could not find the correct one. the students sometimes reviewed the material related to usbn specification. most of the students “collaborated” with other people to help them preparing english usbn. many students admitted that they joint tutoring class, eventhough the school have provided extra class program to help them face usbn. the students did not only actively consulting with the teacher or tutor within the lesson, but also outside the lesson. by doing so, they could get extra time to deal with the difficulty in learning usbn material. the students also showed good time management to balance their time for studying and refreshing. the effective time to learn was different among them, however they spent 1 hour up to 1.5 hours to study for english. in the weekend, they spent the time for refreshing by watching movies, playing games, doing sports, and many activities to relieve the stress, but some students also spent the time to study after refreshing. they also appreciated themselves for every learning accomplishment reached. it is important to keep their motivation and confidence. however, negative washback also appeared when students may not be able to learn real-life knowledge, but instead learn discrete points of knowledge that are tested (pan, 2009). since the students were motivated to get good mark on usbn, they focused only on developing their reading alief imani sumpada / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 164 and writing skills. thus, listening and speaking were given less attention because both skills were not tested in usbn. most of them only learnt listening and speaking skills on the regular class which is based on syllabi, sk and kd. they also did not have enough time to practice both skills after school. even though many students admitted they watch movies and listening music in english to develop their vocabulary, it was not real-life knowledge that was expected. the exercises given to the students also triggered negative washback. based on pan (2009), cramming will lead students to have a negative positive toward tests and accordingly alter their learning motivation. based on the interview a month before usbn, most of the students admitted that they were about 60-70% readiness to prepare usbn. they also said that they had some difficulties and needed to study again to prepare usbn, since the results of usbn was used to determine their graduation. the result of usbn was combined with unbk as a requirement to enroll in higher level school. the better the result, the opportunity to enroll at favorite school was also higher. thus, the students’ intention was not purely to understand the material instead to get good mark on the examination. conclusion the ninth grade students of smp n 1 kertek used vary strategies to improve their reading and writing skills to face usbn. according to pan (2009), tests motivate students to work harder to have a sense of accomplishment and thus enhance learning. the students did extra effort to develop their reading and writing skills by spending more time to study, for example many students joint tutoring program outside the school even though the school have provided the extra class program. the students also tried to develop some aspects of english such as vocabulary and grammar by memorizing new words and doing a lot of exercises. they also managed their time to balance between studying and refreshing, thus they could handle pressure of the examination. however, the students also showed trend of negative washback on english usbn. according to pan (2009) negative washback also appeared when students may not be able to learn real-life knowledge, but instead learn discrete points of knowledge that are tested. even though the students studied hard to develop their reading and writing skills, they only focus on english usbn preparation. the strategies they applied were supposed to make them ready face english usbn. also, listening and speaking were given less concern because english usbn only tested reading and writing skills. they only practice both skills in the regular class which were based on sk and kd. thus, it could be seen that the students did not consider to practice their english skills in real-life context. in addition, the numbers of exercises which were given to students also triggered negative washback. based on pan (2009) cramming will lead students to have a negative positive toward tests and accordingly alter their learning motivation. the students motivation to develop their reading and writing skills was to get good score as possible on english usbn, thus it alter their motivation which was supposed to develop the real-life skill of reading and writing. pan (2009) stated that tests induce teachers to cover their subjects more thoroughly, making them complete their syllabi within the prescribed time limits. both teacher used english usbn preparation to teach the materials in detail, also english usbn preparation also did not interrupt the lesson based on sk and kd. the english teacher used methods to teach the students which were supposed to develop students’ reading and writing skills. both teachers used different teachers’ strategies to develop students’ reading and writing skills. mr es used scientific approach to develop students’ reading and wiritin skills, however mr wrdw used genre based approach. however, there was a trend of negative washback on teachers’ strategies. according to pan (2009), negative washback happens when the teacher have to narrow the curriculum and lose the instructional time leading to “teaching to the test”. the teachers gave less attention to the materials of listening and speaking skills because both skills were not tested in english usbn, also the school decided to start the extra class program from the middle of first semester. in addition, some meetings in regular were used as usbn preparation which was focusing on exercises drilling. references alderson, & wall. 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(2005). washback and impact. elt journal, 154-155. microsoft word 4. 143 the politeness of teacher’s utterances inside and outside classroom dian tri ceriyantina  english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 22 july 2019 approved in 29 november 2019 published in 30 november 2019 ________________ keywords: politeness; utterance; pragmatic; teacher. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this study is about politeness of the teacher’s utterance entitled: the politeness of english teacher’s utterances inside and outside classroom. the aim of this study is to find out the strategy and the dominant maxim of politeness that used by teacher inside and outside the learning process. this study was a descriptive qualitative study to describe the result of the analyzing of teacher’s utterance. the writer used teacher’s utterance inside and outside the learning process as the object of the study. in collecting data, the writer records the teacher’s utterance inside the learning process then transcript the result of the record. after that, the data will be analyzed with the type of politeness and classified into the maxim of politeness. the result of the analyze teacher’s utterance inside and outside the learning process contains of 73 utterances with ten maxims of politeness by leech (2014). after going through data analysis process, it can be concluded that seven maxims of politeness used by english teacher inside the learning process. the maxims that used are tact with percentage 47,95%, obligation s to o with percentage 27,29%, generosity with percentage 17,80%, approbation with percentage 2,74%, modesty with percentage 1,37%, obligation o to s with percentage 1,37%, sympathy with percentage 1,37%. meanwhile, the result of the analyze teacher’s utterance outside the learning process contain of 20 utterances with five maxims, the maxim that used are tact with percentage 50%, generosity with percentage 15%, modesty with percentage 15%, approbation with percentage 10%, obligation of s to o with percentage 10%. based on the result of the procedure, the writer can conclude that the dominant type of the maxim and politeness strategy that used by english teacher inside and outside the learning process. the writer also use analysis method to analyze the data so that can be found the reason of the classification result. © 2019 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b8 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: e.teacher.ichsan@gmail.com elt forum 8 (2) (2019) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt dian tri ceriyantina / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 144 introduction education is essentially a human effort to humanize humanity itself, which is to civilize human beings. with education human can be directed to develop human basic potential to be real. nababan (1984 : 68) said that the main tool in the teaching and learninginteraction between student and teacher and material is language. in the process of teaching and learning a teacher needs to pay attention to politeness. the politeness of teacher’s utterance is very important as an good example for students to give an understanding of how ethics or character behave in interacting. the students need to be scoutedand directed to be polite, because the students is the next generation who will live according to their time. today most of the teacher are not pay attention to the maxim that they used in teaching and learning process or when they talk to others outside the learning process. the maxim of politeness is very important in everyday communication. maxim that teacher used when they taught to the student can be influence their behavior to the teacher self. if the students are left in impolite language it is not impossible that existing polite language can be lost and then born a bad generation that arrogant, rough, far from ethical values, religion and not character. therefore, language politeness of teacher is necessary. language politeness of teacher allegedly can improve uncomfortable situation when the problems occur in students. however, it can’t be denied that in reality there are still teachers who pay less attention to the principle of politeness in speaking. politeness behavior is closely associated with the culture and language of ethnic. both of these cannot be separated from one another. language is a reflection of culture. instead, the culture is the values and principles that occurs in a speakers community of a language. the study politeness is a part of pragmatic studies. according to leech (1983) pragmatics is a branch of linguistics that studies the structure of the language externally, namely, how the language unit is used in communication. while bublitz and norick (201-1) stated that pragmatics is the study of the ability to connect and harmonize language sentence and proper context. based on some the opinion above, it can be affirmed that pragmatics is the branch of linguistics that studies the structure of language externally, which is related to with how the language unit is used in communication. pragmatics basically investigates what is the meaning behind the speech related to the context. generally, politeness is a way of behaving and speaking well in accordance with the rules which apply in the community and do not threaten other people’s faces. many linguists have formulated their politeness concept. all politeness concepts put forward by the expert vary. they have different views about the concept of politeness. study on politeness is closely related to goffman (1967), lakoff (1973), leech (1983), leech (2014), brown and levinson (1987). those experts have proposed different theories about politeness.according to goffman (1967), politeness relates to the rules about the things that are social, aesthetic, and moral. the typical features for this theory are showing formality, expressing apologies, and making a hedge. politeness is showing awareness of the dignity of others in speaking. lakoff (1973) stated that politeness is developed by the community members in order to reduce friction in the private iteration. there are three rules that must be followed to implement the politeness, namely the formality scale, indecision scale, and the similarity or equality. formality scale means never pushy or arrogant. an arrogant utterance is considered less polite, conversely, if an utterance is not arrogant and does not force it is considered polite. similarity means act as if you and the hearer to be the same. an utterance is considered polite if it makes happy the speech partner, on the other hands, if the speaker’s utterance makes the partner speech unhappy, it is not considered polite. leech (1983) defines politeness as a strategy to avoid conflict that can be measured by the degree of effort made to avoid conflict situations. six maxims of politeness principle filed by leech (1983) are tact maxim, generosity maxim, approbation maxim, modesty maxim, agreement maxim, and sympathy maxim. whereas according to leech (2014) there are ten maxims are tacht maxim, generosity maxim, approbation maxim, modesty maxim, agreement maxim, sympathy maxim, opinion retience maxim, obligation s to o maxim, obligation o to s maxim, feeling retience maxim. brown and levinson (1987), in their analysis, stated that politeness involves people showing an awareness of other people’s face wants. face refers to our public self-image. brown and levinson formulated the politeness principles into five strategies, namely bald on record strategy, positive politeness strategy, negative politeness strategy, off record strategy and do not do the fta. dian tri ceriyantina / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 145 classroom is a place of the interaction process which happens between a teacher and students (hassini, 2006). it must be effective and polite. if in the classroom interaction runs well, the knowledge that will be delivered by the teacher will be received by students well. hartuti (2014) said that a study of politeness strategy in refusal used by english teachers in madiun regency.the study investigated politeness strategy in refusal conducted by the english teachers in madiun regency relating to different social in refusal conducted by the english were elicited, using discourse completion tasks (dct), from 38 english teachers, 14 male and 24 female who teach in junior high school in madiun regency. the collected data are analyzed by using brown and levinson’s theory of politeness strategy. the refusal strategies were classified based on modified refusal taxonomy by beebe et al (1990). the findings of the research are described in line with the problem statement as follows : first, the english teachers of junior high school in madiun regency applied two semantic formula indirect and direct strategies in conjunction to adjunct identified by beebe et al (1990) across three refusals acts (invitations, offers and suggestions). the indirect strategy was the prominent refusal strategy especially in declining offers invitations. second, the english teachers used all four politeness strategies (positive politeness and negative politeness) of brown and levinson (1987) in declining invitations and suggestions, most of the english teachers applied positive politeness strategy and the dominant type was positive politeness 13 reasons. the influence of social distance on politeness strategy used by the english teachers in declining invitations, offers, and suggestions was not significant. the most prevalent strategy in declining three acts of refusals across status levels was positive politeness strategy. positive politeness strategy mostly dominated the refusals to the refusals to collocutors of equal and lower status but in refusals to collocutirs of higher status, most of english teachers used negative strategy. last, gender differences virtually has no influence on the choice of politeness strategy in three refusals acts across status levels. both male and femaleenglish teacher’s conducted the same politeness strategies of brown and levinson (1987). they used positive politeness significantly the highest and off record was the least dominant strategy. females used positive and negative politeness little bit more often than males but males used bald on record or off record little bit more often than females. in english learning, politeness can be a strategy according to manik and hutagol (2015) an analysis on teacher’s politeness strategy and student’s compliance in teaching learning process. this study aims to find out the politeness strategy used by the teacher and how the politeness affects to the student’s compliance. the focus is on directive and expressive speech acts. the subjects of this study were two teachers and students of class. the data was gathered by video audio recording the teacher’s utterances and the student’s compliance to the teacher, in order to find the teacher’s politeness principles and student’s compliance to the teacher’s utterances. in the data analysis, it is found that : the teachers used four maxims in their communication to the students. they are tact maxim, generosity maxim, approbation maxim, and agreement maxim. it is not found that the teachers used modesty maxim and sympathy maxim. the teachers were dominantly used tact maxim in their directive speech acts to the students.children pragmatic competence and positive emotions were the factors that affected the student’s compliance to the teacher’s politeness utterances. peng and xie (2014) a case study of college teacher’s politeness strategy in efl classroom. in the process of teaching and learning activity, teacher’s language plays a very important role in efl classroom, such as teacher’s academic instructions, motivating the class and evaluating students. no exaggeration to say that teacher’s language is indispensable to effective communication in class. adopting brown and levinson’s politeness strategies through class observation, the researcher aims to reveal how the teacher applies politeness strategies politeness strategies to his teaching practice in the language use. through analyzing the data collected, the researcher finds out the college teacher conducts his class on term of positive politeness and negative politeness in a practical way. evidently the adoption of politeness strategies shortens teacher – student social distance, makes the class interesting, and in turn facilitates english and teaching learning. politeness also used to interaction in the classroom. shofi’ah and aimah (2017) the politeness principles of teachers and students in english as a foreign language classroom interaction this study was conducted to find out the politeness principles in efl classroom interaction. consisting of six maxims : tact maxim, approbation maxim, generosity maxim, dian tri ceriyantina / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 146 agreement maxim, modesty maxim, and sympathy maxim. there were one english teacher and one classroom of eight grade students of junior high school that became the subject of this study. in depth, this study was to explore use of politeness principles of students and teacher in the efl classroom interaction. a mix method research with the domination of qualitative research, were used as the instruments of the data collection. the result of the study shows that violation of politeness principles has the higher position with the percentage 41% rather than fulfillment with the percentage 31.5% , while other utterance becomes the lowest utterance with 27.5%. the highest maxim fulfilled was generosity with the percentage 38% and the lowest maxim fulfilled was modesty maxim with 1%. then politeness as second language has been deliver by subertova (2013) aspects of politeness in a classroom of english as a second language. this thesis deals with politeness and its realization in a classroom discourse. the theoretical part describes the most influential politeness theories and also the findings on the topic of teaching pragmatics and linguistic politeness. the research in the thesis focuses on analysis of teacher’s verbal realization of politeness as found in the recordings of four english lessons. the research was designed to verify the two hypotheses: teachers are basically polite in a classroom of english as a second language. politeness strategies of czech teachers of english differ from those of native speaking teachers. the politeness can be used to promote the interaction as has been delivered by sulu (2015) teacher politeness in efl class is considered to promote effective interaction between people. in the context of language teaching, it is believed to enhance learning by providing a lively and friendly atmosphere in classroom (jiang, 2010). this study investigates an efl classroom in terms of interaction between english learners and native english speaking teacher. the aim of study is to see whether the effects of politeness strategies differ when students and teacher do not share the same culture and native language. two hours of classes were observed and tape-corded by the researcher. the recordings were transcribed and analyzed by making use of related politeness strategies and function of speech. also,three randomly chosen students were interviewed after the class. the findings showed that politeness existed in that efl classroom and it helped students to have positive feelings towards the lesson and motivated them to participate more in classes. the previous study that discuss about politeness in environment outside the learning process is politeness strategy in everyday communication (ryabova, 2015) the culture of contemporaneity present itself through various concepts and discourses that constitute the category of everyday life, which they reveal and portray. in linguistic terms, the category of everyday life is manifested in different forms of communication, and first of all in the system of norms and models of speech behavior , known as speech etiquette. the goal of the article is to analyze the use of some models of english speech etiquette, specifically the use of politeness forms typical of the english. politeness strategy present itself in various types, as absolutely, relative,negative or positive politeness. the type of politeness presuppose a definite from of etiquette speech act. politeness strategy is analyzed in speech acts of apologies and condolences through their pragmatic structures. the previous study that related to this topic and discuss about politeness of speech is politeness of speech acts in academic interaction (baharman, 2012) this study aimed to describe and explain the propriety of speech act in academic interaction. this study include the type of qualitative research using ethnography of communication design theory, speech act theory, and the theory of linguistic politeness. the research data consists of data conversation and fields notes. data collected through recording techniques, observation, interviews, and transcriptions. data analysis was carried out through four main procedures, namely: data collection, data reduction, data presentation and conclusion or verification. based on data analysis. politeness of speech act are classified into four, namely: civility in act assertively, acts of civility in the directive, civility in com missive act, civility in expressive act. here is the previous study that related with the topic about speech act politeness. nashruddin and haryanto (2017) politeness principle used by efl teacher in classroom interaction and its implication toward teaching learning process. this is a case study of an efl teacher’s politeness in classroom interaction which applied qualitative method. based on observation, recorded data and interview. the result of classroom observation showed that politeness existed in that efl classroom and the teacher used five maxims there are tact maxim, generosity maxim, approbation maxim, agreement maxim and sympathy maxim. tact maxim was used by the teacher in classroom communicationmost dominantly. other previous study that related to politeness according to stranovska and durackova (2013) analysis of politeness speech act in slovak and foreign language text of request in the context of cognitive style. our paper deals with the comparison of request formulation in politeness speech act dian tri ceriyantina / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 147 of narrow and broad categories in english, german and slovak languages. we focus on the analysis of social influence on speech production of narrow and broad categorizations in terms of different information processing in different languages. a remarkable finding is the use of more advanced politeness element in the speech act of broad categorizes in german language in situation of social distance and social dominance. the previous study that related to the topic about politeness inside the learning process. the teaching of politeness in the spanish as a foreign language (sfl) classroom (gonzalez and martin, 2014) this work takes its starting point the importance of appropriately incorporating politeness into the teaching of any foreign language so as to educate speakers to be capable of maintaining an effectively interaction with its native speakers. this aim examine the treatment of communicative politeness in sfl teaching manuals and particular in two key documents from this fields. the common european framework of reference for language and the cervantes institute curriculum. in the second part, methodological guidance is offered for teaching politeness in a reflexive way in the sfl classroom. the previous study that related to this topic about politeness of communication is positive politeness and negative politeness in didactic communication (hobijilaa, 2012) didactic communication involves the usage of positive and negative politeness at all levels (verbal, nonverbal and para verbal) concerning the interaction teacher – student. this reality is reflected in the present paper by the answers provided by a group of teachers and students from “alexandry ioan cuza” university of iasi,romania, at an interview focused on the topic of communication with preschool/primary school students. therefore, the aim of the analysis is the main forms of manifesting positive and negative politeness in this particular framework of didactic communication (as part of teaching methodology) at a preschool and primary school level. in this study, the writer analyzed the politeness based on the theory by geoffrey leech (2014).in order to analyze the data finding, the researcher uses analytic procedures as follows: 1. recording the english teacher teaching and learning process also recording the utterance when the english teacher outside the learning process. 2. transcribing the data into the written form by english teacher. 3. listening the recording again to check the accuracy of the data. 4. selecting the data from the recording which are in according with the objectives of the study. 5. recording the data into the data sheets, and 6. classifying data. the researcher intended to find out the politeness of the teacher’s utterance. to be more specific, three research questions are addressed as follows: 1. how is the type of politeness used by english teacher inside and outside learning process? 2. how is the dominant type of politeness that used english teacher inside and outside the learning process? methods research approach the politeness of teacher’s utterances will affect on learning process in the classroom. english teacher’s politeness also influence beyond the learning process. teacher’s utterances also affect on the communication between the teacher and some people outside the learning process. research site and research participants this study was conducted at mts mimbarul huda, desa menggala, kecamatan bumiayu. the research participants of this study were the english teacher of mts mimbarul huda, desa menggala, kecamatan bumiayu. object of the study the object of the study is the english teacher’s utterance. procedures the steps in collecting the data are as follows: 1. recording the english teacher teaching and learning process also recording the utterance when the english teacher outside the learning process. 2. transcribing the data into the written form by english teacher. 3. listening the recording again to check the accuracy of the data. dian tri ceriyantina / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 148 4. selecting the data from the recording which are in according with the objectives of the study. 5. recording the data into the data sheets, and 6. classifying data. in classifying the data, the data will be classified as ten categorizes based on leech’s book. they are generosity, tact, approbation, obligation s to o, obligation o to s, agreement, opinion reticence, sympathy, feeling reticence. findings and discussion analysis of teacher’s utterances inside the classroom in learning process, the activities were divided into three categories. they are opening activity, core activity and closing activity. in opening activity, there are 8 utterances. those could be categorized as 5 types of politeness. they are tact, sympathy, approbation, obligation s to o and modesty. it can be seen in the table below. table 1 types of politeness in opening activity activity type of politeness frequency opening tact 2 sympathy 1 modesty 1 approbation 2 obligation s to o 2 total 8 based on table above, there are five types of politeness in eight utterances in learning process in opening activity. table 2 types of politeness in core activity activity classification of activity type of politeness frequency core activity exploration tact 21 generosity 6 obigation s to o 9 eaboration tact 8 generosity 3 obligation s to o 6 obligation o to s 1 conformation tact 3 generosity 4 obigation s to o 3 based on table above, the researcher found 64 dialogues that pronounced by the teacher during teaching and learning process. those dialogues contain of 3 types of politeness during core activity. they are generosity, tact, obligation s to o. those dialogues were classified based on the activity exploration, elaboration and conformation. table 3 types of politeness in closing activity activity type of politeness frequency closing tact 1 in closing activity the researcher only found one utterance which produced by teacher that contain of politeness. dian tri ceriyantina / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 149 table 4 the overall types of politeness in teacher’s utterances inside the classroom no type of politeness frequency percentage 1. tact 35 47,95 % 2. obligation s’s to o 20 27,29% 3. generosity 13 17,80% 4. approbation 2 2,74% 5. modesty 1 1,37 % 6. obligation 0’s to s 1 1,37% 7. sympathy 1 1,37 % 8. opinion retience 0 0 9. agreement 0 0 10. feeling retience 0 0 total 73 100 % based on finding above, the researcher found 72 utterances of politeness during teaching and learning process by english teacher of mts mimbarul huda menggala bumiayu. the teacher also used seven types of politeness they are generosity, tact, approbation, modesty, obligation s’s to o, opinion retience, sympathy. the researcher did not found ageement, obligation s to o’s and feeling retience used by english teacher. from 72 utterances tact was used 34 times, obligation s to o used in 17 times, generosity used in 16 times, approbation used in 2 times, then modesty, opinion retience, sympathy each used only one time. therefore, tact is dominant used by english teacher of mts mimbarul huda menggala bumiayu. analysis of teacher’s utterances outside the classroom in the process of outside learning, the researcher found 20 utterances that produced by english teacher of mts mimbarul huda bumiayu. from the 20 utterances clasiffied into 5 type of politeness according to geoffrey leech’s theory. the type of politeness that used by english teacher are generosity, tact, approbation, modesty and obligation. it can be seen below as follows: table 5 types of politeness outside classroom no type of politeness frequency 1. tact 10 2. generosity 3 3. modesty 3 4. approbation 2 5. obligation of s to o’s 2 based on the data analysis above, the researcher foundthat 20 teacher’s utterance that could be classified into 5 type of politeness in 20 times when the researcher talk to the teacher outside the learning process. the type of politeness dominant used by the english teacher when he talk to other is tact. conclusion in this research, the researcher discusses about the utterance used by the teacher inside and outside the classroom at mts mimbarul huda menggala bumiayu. the first question in this study is to describe type of politeness used. based on the findings above, it shows that there are seven types of politeness used by the teacher. they are generosity, tact, approbation, modesty, obligation s to o, sympathy, obligation o to s. tact was mostly dominant used by english teacher in learning process.it is the most performed utterance by the teacher during teaching and learning process which occured in 35 times which reprecent 47.95 %.obligation s to o were found to be the most performed utterance in teaching and learning activities which occurred 20 times which represent 27.29%.generosity were found to be the most performed utterance in learning activities which occurred 13 times which represent 17.80%. approbation were found in 2 times which represent 2,74%.modesty, sympathy, obligation o to s also used by the teacher in teaching and learning process. those types only appeared in 1 time, each type only represents 1.37%. dian tri ceriyantina / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 150 the researcher also can conclude that tact maxim is the most usually used in communication. tact was mostly dominant when the teacher talk to the researcher.tact was found in 10 times which represent 50% from the utterance.generosity was found in 3 times with 3 utterance from 20 wich represent 15%. then, modesty was found in three utterance from 20,which represent 15%.approbation was found in 2 times from 20 utterance which represent 10%. obligation s to o’s used by teacher when they ask about the result of the research, the teacher also ask about clarity when he teach to be easily when the researcher analyze. the type of obligation s to o’s was found in 2 times from 20 utterance which represent 10%. when the teacher was talking to the researcher, the researcher only found 5 types from 10 types of politeness according to leech 2014.after comparing the result with the previous study, the researcher conclude that tact maxim is the most usually used by the teacher in teaching and learning process. on the other hand, generosity maxim, approbation maxim, modesty maxim, sympathy maxim also generally used by the teacher although not as often as tact maxim. references baharman, s. 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(2013). analysis of politeness speech act in slovak and foreign language text of requeat in the context of cognitive style. journal of social and behaviour science. vol. 82, no. 3. available at https://www.sciencedirect.com [accessed at 05/03/2018]. subertova, a. (2013). aspects of politeness in classroom of english as a second language. charles university. prague. available at file:///c:/users/idjo/downloads/ [accessed at 04/03/2018]. sulu. (2015). teacher politeness in efl class. international online journal of education and teaching. 2(4). 216-221. available at http://iojet.org/index.php [accessed at 04/03/2018]. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 29 elt forum 6 (1) (2017) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt students’ problems in making derivational words dwi putri setyani, rudi hartono, arif suryo priyatmojo  english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in june 2017 approved in july 2017 published in august 2017 ________________ keywords: derivational morphology, error analysis, descriptive qualitative research ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this paper aims to find out what kinds of errors the students made in making derivational words and the most frequent errors occurred. it is a descriptive qualitative research which focuses on the error analysis of derivational morphology. the subject of this study was the students of english education unnes batch 2012. by using quota sampling, 25 students were taken for the try-out test and another 25 students were taken for the real test. the data were obtained from a test and questionnaire. in analyzing the data, the researcher used error analysis method. it consists of identifying errors, describing errors, explaining errors and error evaluation. the finding errors were analyzed based on the surface structure taxonomy that specifies four types of errors namely omission, addition, misordering and misformation. the result showed that errors were found in all categories of derivational morphology. there were 146 errors which consisted of 98 (67,1%) misformation, 34 (23,3%) omission, and 14 (9,6%) addition. thus, it was crystal clear that the most frequent errors occurred in misformation. © 2017 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: unnes_english@yahoo.com d. putri setyani & r. hartono & a. suryo priyatmojo / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 30 introduction one of the most fundamental units that should be learned to master english is vocabulary (words). words help us to convey our thoughts through language. anyone who has mastered english usually has a long list of words to convey information both spoken and written. words (written or spoken) are used to convey a broad sense of meanings (priyatmojo, 2011). they are associated with a wide range of information and that each type of information forms an important area of study for a subfield of linguistics. within the field of morphology, it is possible to learn deeply about the nature of words. morphology is the part of linguistics that deals with the study of words. according to fromkin, rodman and hyams (2011:41), morphology is part of grammatical knowledge of a language. the term morphology is derived from the greek word morph which means “form” and logos which means science. it is the study of the internal structure of words, and of the rules by which words are formed. akmajian, demers and harnish (1984:55) explain that, “morphology is the subfield of linguistics that studies the internal structure of words and the interrelationships among words.” for every word people have learned, they intuitively know something about its internal structure, for instance, the word tree. it cannot be broken down into any meaningful parts. in contrast, the word trees is made up of two parts: the word tree plus an additional element, -s (known as the “plural” ending). morphology is generally classified into two major parts. they are inflectional morphology and derivational morphology. haspelmath and sims (2010:18) describe that derivational morphology or derivation is the relationship between lexemes of a word family. another definition was stated by katamba (1993:47). he stated that derivational morphology form words in different ways. the first is by changing the meaning of the base to which they are attached, e.g. kind vs unkind (both are adjectives but with opposite meanings); obey vs dis-obey (both are verbs but with opposite meanings). the second is by changing the word-class that a base belongs to, e.g. the addition of -ly to the adjective kind and simple produces the adverbs kind-ly and simp-ly. as a rule, it is possible to derive an adverb by adding the suffix –ly to an adjectival base. there are nine categories of derivational morphology. they are: 1) adverbs derived from adjectives (e.g. exactly, efficiently, slowly); 2) nouns derived from nouns (e.g. kingdom, friendship, disadvantage); 3) nouns derived from adjectives (e.g. purity, radicalism, freedom); 4) noun derived from verbs (e.g. performance, commitment, singer); 5) adjectives derived from adjectives (e.g. pinkish, illegal, disagreeable); 6) adjectives derived from verbs (e.g. readable, reliable, explosive); 7) adjectives derived from nouns (e.g. joyful, meaningless, selfish); 8) verbs derived from verbs (e.g. underestimate, untie, disbelieve); and 9) verb derived from nouns (e.g. hasten, beautify, terrorise). unlike derivational morphology, inflectional morphology does not change referential or cognitive meaning. while a derivational affix may move a base into a new word class (e.g., kind (adjective) but kind-ly (adverb), an inflectional morphology does not alter the word-class of the base to which it is attached. inflectional morphology are only able to modify the form of a word so that it can fit into a particular syntactic slot. basically, english has only eight bound inflectional affixes (fromkin, rodman and hyams, 2011:51): 1) {-s} third person singular present; 2) {-ed} past tense; 3) {-ing} progressive; 4) {s} plural; 5) -„s possessive; 6) {-er} comparative, and 7) {-est} superlative. however, english (like all languages) has many irregular forms, which may be irregular in a variety of ways. first, irregular words may use different inflections than regular ones: for example, the modern past participle inflection of a regular verb is {-ed}, but the past participle of freeze is frozen and the past participle of break is broken. second, irregular forms may involve internal vowel changes, as in man/men, woman/women, blow/blew, ring/rang/rung. third, some forms derive from historically unrelated forms: went, the past tense of go, historically was the past tense of a different d. putri setyani & r. hartono & a. suryo priyatmojo / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 31 verb, wend. this sort of realignment is known as suppletion. other examples of suppletion include good, better, and best, and bad, worse, and worst. fourth, some words show no inflectional change: sheep is both singular and plural; hit is both present and past tense, as well as past participle. fifth, many borrowed words, especially nouns, have irregular inflected forms such as alumnae as the plural of alumna. the distinction between inflectional and derivational morphology was also explained by (akmajian, demers, and harnish 1984:55): first, inflectional affixes never change the part of speech of the base morpheme to which they are attached. for example, both eat and eats are verbs; both girl and girls are nouns. in contrast, derivational affixes often change the part of speech of the base morpheme. thus, read is a verb, but readable is an adjective. (as noted earlier though, some derivational affixes do not change part of speech: for example, derivational prefixes in english generally do not change the part of speech of the base morpheme to which they are attached, so that both charge and recharge, for instance, are verbs.) in short, an inflectional affix never changes the part of speech of its base morpheme, while a derivational affix may. second, inflectional and derivational suffixes occur in a certain relative order within words: namely, inflectional suffixes follow derivational suffixes. thus, in modernize – modernizes the inflectional –s follows derivational –ize. if an iflectional suffix is added to a verb, as with modernizes, then no further derivational suffixes can be added. english has no form modernizesable, with inflectional –s followed by derivation –able. for these reasons, it is often noted that inflectional affixes mark the “outer” layer of words, while derivational affixes mark the “inner” layer. intuitively, the function of certain derivational affixes is to create new base forms (new stems) that other derivational or inflectional affixes can attach to. thus, the suffix –ize creates verbs from adjectives, and such –ize verbs, like other verbs, can have the inflectional ending –s attached to them. in this sense, then, certain derivational affixes create new members for a given part-of-speech class, whereas inflectional affixes always attach to already existing members of a given part-of-speech class. finally, inflectional and derivational affixes can be distinguished in terms of semantic relations. in the case of inflectional affixes, the relation between the meaning of the stem morpheme and the meaning of the stem + affix is quite regular. hence, the meaning difference between tree and trees (singular versus plural) is paralleled quite regularly in other similar pairs of nouns and noun + plural affix combinations. in contrast, in the case of derivational affixes the relation between the meaning of the base morpheme and the meaning 1`of the base + affix is sometimes unpredictable, as we have seen. for example the pair fix and fixable shows a simple meaning relation (“x” and “able to be x”d”); but recall pairs such as read – readable or wash-washable, where the –able form has undergone semantic drift and has accrued new elements of meaning beyond the simple combination of the meaning of the base and the meaning of –able. such semantic drift is generally not found in cases of a base + inflectional affix, so that a word such trees is simply the plural of tree and has not accrued additional meaning. fromkin, rodman and hyams (2011:52) summarized the difference between derivational and inflectional morphology as follows: inflectianal derivational grammatical function lexical function no word class change may cause word class change d. putri setyani & r. hartono & a. suryo priyatmojo / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 32 small or no meaning change some meaning change often required by rules of grammar never required by rules of grammar follow derivational morphemes in a word precede inflectional morphemes in a word productive some productive, many nonproductive table 1.1 the differences between derivational and inflectional morphology these theories implicitly show that the change of derivational words does not have specific rules or standards. certain changes occur such as transformation by adding suffixes (-ance, -dom, -ful, -hood, -ion, -ist, -ity, etc) or prefixes (-uni, -bi, -di, -multi, etc). different process happens when we want to change the class of words. based on the writer‟s experience when she got derivational exercises from the lecturer, she found some difficulties in transforming the words. the writer was a bit confused in choosing the appropriate suffixes to be added in the words. this difficulty caused her making errors in her work. due to its complexity of the irregular change, the researcher wants to analyze students‟ errors in changing derivational words. therefore, this reason has inspired the researcher to conduct a study on students‟ problem in making derivational words by describing kinds of errors and find out the most frequent errors occurred in the students batch 2012 of english department unnes. hopefully, it will prevent the students from making the same errors in the future. methodology of the research this study was a descriptive qualitative research. kothari (2004:2) states that descriptive research includes surveys and fact-finding enquiries of different kinds. the major purpose of descriptive research is description of the state of affairs as it exists at present. it concerns with describing the characteristics of a particular individual, or of a group. this study used qualitative research method in analizing the data since the aim of the study is to explain what kind of errors occured and to describe the most frequent error. therefore, the data was analyzed and explained deeply in the form of words rather than numbers to analyze the errors made by students. however, quantitative method was also needed to process some data which was can only be represented in the form of numbers and tables. nonetheless, this research did not use too complicated formula to present the results. quantitative method was only used to calculate the percentage of the errors occurred. meanwhile qualitative approach described and gave details analysis of information in the form of sentences. it represents an attractive and fruitful way of doing research. this study was conducted at state university of semarang. the population of this study was the english education students batch 2012. meanwhile the sample were 25 students for the try-out test and another 25 students for the real test. in this study, the researcher used quota sampling. it is a nonprobability sampling method in which elements are selected to ensure that the sample represents certain characteristics in proportion to their prevalence in the population. the researcher was intended to find students who had taken derivational morphology class and whoever was available d. putri setyani & r. hartono & a. suryo priyatmojo / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 33 for the set quota (twenty five students for the try-out test and the different twenty five students for the real test). they were supposed to do the test and questionnaire to know the errors occurred in making derivational words. the choice was under the consideration that firstly, they were assumed to have good derivation mastery since they had already passed some sequence of derivation classes in the previous semesters, such as: word-based lexical, introduction to linguistics and english syntax. secondly, as teacher candidates, they should master it since they have to deliver english lesson especially derivation in the right way. in fact, due to no particular rules in changing derivational words, it may lead into confusion for some students. therefore, the researcher aims to analyze the type of errors appearing in students‟ work, know the frequency of each error, and the most frequent error in making derivational words. in this research, the researcher had a role as the data collector. at first, the researcher gave consent form to the subjects as an approval from the students to participate in the research. then, the researcher conducted the try-out test which was administered on may 13th 2016 by twenty five students. there were 45 items of completion test and the time allotment was 90 minutes. it was conducted before the real test to find the validity and reliability of the test items. after the items were valid and reliable, the researcher composed the real test and administered it to another twenty five students of english education students‟ batch 2012 of english department unnes. they did 27 items for 60 minutes on may 20th 2016. at the end of the test, the students did the given questionnaire. the questionnaire was given to strengthen the result of the test. it helped the researcher to see the learning difficulty from students‟ perspective. it consisted of 20 closed statements related to students‟ difficulty in derivational morphology. it was given at the end of the test with the 20 minutes of time allotment. the researcher used the likert scale to analyze the questionnare. likert item is used to measure respondents‟ attitudes to a particular question or statement. result and analysis in analyzing the data, the researcher used error analysis method by ellis (1997:15): 1) identifying errors. the researcher identified all errors made by the students in derivational morphology categories. 2) describing errors. once all the errors had been identified, they could be described and classified based on surface structure taxonomy; omission, addition, misformation, and misordering. 3) explaining errors. calculating the errors and explaining the errors‟ description and its frequency. 5) error evaluation. in the last step, the researcher evaluated the errors and the most frequent error. from the evaluation, it could be seen in which part of derivational morphology the students made errors and how well their mastery in learning derivational morphology. as the researcher stated in the previous part, the errors were classified into 4 types of errors according to dulay, burt and krashen cited in james (1998:106) as follows: omission, addition, misformation and misordering. from the data analyzed, it was found 146 errors with the calculation result as follows: they were 34 errors of omission, 14 errors of addition, 98 errors of misformation, and (0) no error of misordering. d. putri setyani & r. hartono & a. suryo priyatmojo / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 34 table 2.1 total errors‟ occurence the result above revealed a total of 146 data containing errors. of all these errors, it indicated that misformation (n=98) accounted for the majority of errors. this is followed by omission (n=33), addition (n=15) and misordering (n=0). out of the total errors, it showed that the most frequent errors occurred in deriving noun to noun and verb to adjective with 30 errors. it was followed by 25 errors in deriving verb to verb, 23 errors in deriving adjective to adjective, 11 errors in deriving adjective to adverb, 10 errors in deriving verb to noun, 9 errors in deriving noun to verb, 5 errors in driving noun to adjective and 3 errors in deriving adjective to noun. the percentage of students‟ errors were converted into a pie chart. the pie chart showed the detail percentage of each errror types as follows. diagram 2.1 the classification of errors the diagram 1 showed that the majority of errors consist of misformation errors with 98 (67,1%). misformation is characterized by the use of the wrong form of a structure or morpheme. specifically, it spread out almost in all derivation categories. from the calculation, there were 16 misformation errors in deriving noun to noun, 1 misformation error in deriving adjective to noun, 7 misformation errors in deriving verb to noun, 23 misformation errors in deriving adjective to adjective, 29 misformation errors in deriving verb to adjective, 2 misformation errors in deriving noun to adjective, 18 misformation errors in deriving verb to verb, 1 misformation error in deriving adjective to adverb and 1 misformation error in deriving noun to verb. off all 9 derivational classifications, the majority of misformation errors occured in deriving verb to adjective (n=29) and no misformation error was found in deriving adjective to adverb. the following are the examples and explanations of misformation errors found in students‟ work. one of the example was in item number 15: [it would be (responsible *antonym) ____________ to ignore this warning.] in which the majority of misformation errors occured. 13 from 25 students made the same errors by answering d. putri setyani & r. hartono & a. suryo priyatmojo / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 35 unresponsible. at a glance, this answer might seem does not contain any error. in fact, the word unresponsible does not exist in english dictionary. on the one hand, the prefix unwhich means „not‟ is extremely widespread and used in adjectives: for instance unhappy, unreadable, unacceptable, uncertain, but on the other hand it does not mean that uncan be prefixed to all adjectives freely. we do not find ungood, unpossible, and unresponsible. in this case, those students tended to apply the regular rules to those that are irregular. in misformation terminology, these errors are called as regularization. the word responsible in this context, has prefix –ir which means not responsible. the second classification was omission. it refers to the absence of an item which must be present in a well-formed utterance. there are 34 (23,3%) errors in omission and they were found in seven categories of derivational morphology. they occurred in deriving noun to noun (14), adjective to noun (2), verb to noun (1), verb to adjective (1), noun to adjective (1), verb to verb (7), and noun to verb (8). one of the example was on item number 7: [she showed uncharacteristic (nervous) _______ during the show]. in this part, the researcher noticed flaw of the students spelling which omitted certain parts of the letters. it was detected only one error (nervous). the correct answer was nervousness. it meant that the student omitted the suffix –ness from nervousness. the third classification was addition. it is the presence of an extra item which must not be present in a well formed utterance. the result of the test showed that there were 14 (9,6%) errors of addition. off all 9 derivational classifications, the majority of addition errors occured in deriving adjective to adverb (n=10) and it was followed by deriving verb to noun (n=2) and noun to adjective (n=2). the item number 2 was one of the example of addition error found in students‟ work: [rio haryanto drives (fast) ____________ at barcelona‟s catalunya circuit]. in this item, the majority of addition errors occured. the writer identified 10 errors of addition in this item. they produced the same errors by answering fastly. at a glance, this answer might seem correct. in fact, the word fastly does not exist in english dictionary. it is true that many adverbs end in –ly. however, some adverbs are not containing –ly and formed by conversion such as fast and hard. they are derived from the adjective fast and hard. thus, the correct answer of the question number 2 was fast. the last classification was misordering. it is the incorrect placement of a morpheme of group of morphemes in an utterance. misordering error was not found in this study. in getting further information, the researcher gave questionnaire to the students. the students were given twenty minutes to answer twenty close-ended questions of questionnaire. the questions represented the students‟ perspective about derivational morphology including their difficulty in doing the test. according to the data tabulation, there were 3 highest percentage on students‟ difficulty in changing derivational words. firstly, there were 60% or 15 students agreed that they found difficulty in deriving noun to noun. secondly, there were 12 students or 48% stated that they found difficulty in deriving verb to adjective. and thirdly, it was detected that 40% or 10 students found difficulty in deriving verb to verb. based on the result, it can be summarized that most students found difficulty in changing derivational words from noun to noun, verb to adjective and verb to verb. in addition, the result shows that almost all students strongly agree that it is necessary to learn derivational morphology. however, they thought that they have not found any strong theoretical basis to learn derivational morphology easily. therefore, they agreed that there should be definite rules in forming derivational morphology changes. hence, according to the result analysis, it showed that errors were found in all categories of derivational morphology in changing adjective to adverb, noun to noun, adjective to noun, verb to noun, adjective to adjective, verb to adjective, noun to adjective, verb to verb, and noun to verb. based on the error analysis of the surface structure taxonomy, findings indicated that misformation (n=98 or 67,1%) was the most frequent error occurred. it almost can be found in all categories of derivational morphology. it was followed by omission (n=34 or 23,3%), and addition (n=14 or 9,6%). meanwhile, it was crystal clear that the errors‟ calculation showed misformation as the most d. putri setyani & r. hartono & a. suryo priyatmojo / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 36 frequent errors occurred. from the total 146 errors, misformation was on the first rank of the most frequent errors with 98 (67,1%) errors. in addition, both questionnaire and test result indicated deriving noun to noun (n=30) and verb to adjective (n=30) as the derivation categories where most errors occured. conclusions after scrutinizing the data, the writer concludes that she found 146 errors in all derivational categories. the errors were classified based on the four types of surface structure taxonomy as proposed by dulay, burt and krashen (cited in james, 1998:106). they are omission, addition, misordering and misformation. the research findings indicated that the most frequent errors occurred in misformation with 98 (67,1%) errors. it was followed by omission ( 34 errors or 23,3%), and addition ( 14 errors or 9,6%). out of the total errors (146), it showed that the majority of errors occurred in deriving noun to noun and verb to adjective with 30 errors. it was followed by 25 errors in deriving verb to verb, 23 errors in deriving adjective to adjective, 11 errors in deriving adjective to adverb, 10 errors in deriving verb to noun, 9 errors in deriving noun to verb, 5 errors in driving noun to adjective and 3 errors in deriving adjective to noun. this is relevant to the questionnaire result which showed the highest percentage (60 % or 15 students) found most of students agreed they found difficulty in deriving noun to noun. it was followed by 12 students or 48% stated that they found difficulty in deriving verb to adjective. it proved that both the test and questionnaire result indicated the most frequent errors occurred in deriving noun to noun. references akmajian, a., demers, r.a., and harnish, r.m. (1984). linguistics : an introduction to language and communication. cambridge : the mit presss. ellis, rod. (1997). second language acquisition. oxford : oxford university press. haspelmath, m. and sims, a.d. (2010). understanding morphology. london : hodder education. [online.] available at http://morphology.xyz/pdf/haspelmathsims2010.pdf [accessed 1/10/2016]. fromkin, v., rodman, r., and hyams, n. (2011). an introduction to language. wadsworth : cengage learning. james, carl. (1998). errors in language learning and use. exploring error analysis. usa : longman. katamba, francis. (1993). morphology. new york: st. martin‟s press. kothari, c. r. (2004). research methodology, methods, and techniques (second revised edition). new delhi : new age international. priyatmojo, a. s. (2011). political discourse : obama‟s appraisal attitude. language circle journal of language and literature vol. vi/. available at : http://journal.unnes.ac.id/nju/index.php/lc/article/view/2043 [accessed 08/15/16] microsoft word 4. rudi wibowo aji 37 the use of flashcards with numbered heads together to improve students’ vocabulary knowledge rudi wibowo aji, alief noor farida  english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 27 december 2018 approved in 29 july 2019 published in 29 july 2019 ________________ keywords: flashcards; numbered heads together; vocabulary knowledge; quasi experimental research ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this quasi experimental study aims to find out the effectiveness of the use of flashcards collaborated with numbered heads together compared to the use of only flashcards to improve seventh grade students’ vocabulary knowledge in one junior high school in batang. the data was obtained through pre-test and post-test. conventional change score data analysis showed that the control group achieved better vocabulary knowledge improvement result with 3.42 compare to 2.66 improvement result of experimental group. likewise, the data analysis using process-oriented change score by frost (2014) also favour the control group with 22% improvement than the experimental group with 19% improvement. thus, flashcards is more effective than flashcards collaborated with numbered heads together to improve students’ vocabulary knowledge. © 2019 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: wiboworu@gmail.com elt forum 8 (1) (2019) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt rudi wibowo aji & alief noor farida / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 38 introduction vocabulary knowledge is considered as a very important knowledge required for students who wish to learn a foreign language. consequently, learning vocabulary has become a major concern in learning a foreign language (barkat & aminafshar, 2015). hamzehbagi and bonyadi (2015) reffered learning vocabularies of a foreign language, in addition to reading skill, as a fundamental skill in the course of learning a language. furthermore, başoğlu and akdemır (2010) assumed that learning vocabulary is a crucial part of learning a foreign language. learning vocabulary is essential in learning a foreign language, yet many students still find it difficult to be comprehended. as the result, lack of vocabulary knowledge has become one of the difficulties faced by students in learning a foreign language such as english (barkat & aminafshar, 2015). in addition, aslan (2011) believed that meaningful communication couldn’t be able to achieve due to the students’ lack of vocabulary knowledge. many ways are available to overcome students’ lack of vocabulary knowledge as well as to improve it in learning english as a foreign language (aslan, 2011; barkat & aminafshar, 2015; başoğlu & akdemır, 2010; erbey, mclaughlin, derby, & everson, 2011; hamzehbagi & bonyadi, 2015; mechling, gast, & thompson, 2008; orawiwatnakul, 2013; yousefi & bonyadi, 2014). the use of flashcards is among those taken into consideration as an effective approach in learning vocabularies (aslan, 2011; hamzehbagi & bonyadi, 2015). the use of flashcards is effective to improve students’ vocabulary knowledge (aslan, 2011). flashcards are also effective in improving students’ vocabulary knowledge in collaboration such as with reading racetrack (erbey, mclaughlin, derby, & everson, 2011). however, flashcards is considered as less effective when compared to technological based media such as smart board technology and computer assisted language learning (barkat & aminafshar, 2015; mechling, gast, & thompson, 2008). the use of flashcards is effective to improve students’ vocabulary knowledge. aslan (2011) indicated that using flashcards could be very useful as well as effective for the students in learning english vocabulary especially for young learners. in addition, hamzehbagi and bonyadi (2015) confirmed that flashcards can improve students’ english vocabulary knowledge significantly of iranian first grade high school female students. furthermore, the effectiveness of flashcards in improving students’ vocabulary knowledge has been shown in study conducted by savaiano, lloyd, and hatton (2017) in which they found that flashcards instruction was effective for teaching the meanings of words studied in braille. on the other hand, flashcards is considered as less efffective when compared to technological based media. mechling, gast, and thompson (2008) confirmed that both flashcards instruction and smart board technology were effective in teaching target sight words in a small-group instructional arrangement; nonetheless, students read a greater percentage of observational words when words were presented using smart board. in the same way, barkat and aminafshar (2015) found that computer assisted program (cap) was more effective as well as useful for learning new vocabularied at the elemenentary level students compared to flashcards. flashcards was still considered effective when in collaboration. erbey, mclaughlin, derby, and everson (2011) confirmed that flashcards intervention combined with reading racetracks to teach phonics, sight words, and math facts improved the students’ number of corrects for each subject-matter area. meanwhile, cooperative learning, which is a teaching method recommended by the 2013 curriculum, is an effective method for english learning for english as a foreign language students. zarei and keshavarz (2011) demonstrated that vocabulary post-test of iranian english learners of elementary students receiving cooperative integrated reading and composition (cirs) performed significantly better than the non-cooperative learning students. rudi wibowo aji & alief noor farida / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 39 moreover, cooperative learning is more effective compare to another teaching method such as competitive learning. for example, seifoori and haradashi (2015) indicated that cooperative learning had a significantly more effective impact on the vocabulary retention of the 60 efl students from vip language schools in iran compared to competitive learning. in addition, numbered heads together, which is a teaching method commonly used in accordance with 2013 curriculum, is effective in improving students’ vocabulary. iwai (2014) confirmed that although the analysis of the overall quiz scores revealed no statistical differences between the numbered heads together and teacher-fronted approach used to teach vocabulary in a beginning jfl class, student opinion questionnaires revealed that most students felt that group work helped to create a favourable social and affective environment for learning. however, numbered heads together is produce less equality of participation and participation levels of group members per turn taken. lange, costley and han (2016) demonstrated that numbered heads together is produce less equality of participation and participation levels of group members per turn taken than think-pair-share. in terms of combination, cooperative learning is able to enliven vocabulary lessons. wilkinson (1994) stated some benefits of combining cooperative learning with story development such as stimulates brainstorming, reinforces the vocabulary words, encourages a feel of narrative writing, and helps shyer students to develop confidence in classroom participation. based on previous studies mentioned above, it can be concluded that the areas that have been explored by other researchers are the effectiveness of flashcards and cooperative learning for teaching vocabulary. flashcards was studied and compared to other modern media such as the use of computer assisted language learning (call), and smart board technology. similarly, cooperative learning structures such as cooperative integrated reading and composition (circ), numbered heads together, and think-pair-share were investigated of their effectiveness for teaching vocabulary. cooperative learning structures were studied and compared to competitive learning, traditional methods, and another cooperative learning structure. another conclusion of previous studies above is that both flashcards and cooperative learning are improved when they are in combination such as with reading racetrack with flashcards and story development with cooperative learning. the area that has not been explored is the effectiveness of combining flashcards with cooperative learning structure, numbered heads together, for teaching vocabulary in junior high school classes. this present study is conducted based on theory of dual coding theory (jared, poh, & paivio, 2013) which strongly related to picture superiority effect (crutcher & beer, 2011), and behaviourist learning theory (ellise, 1997) for the flashcards related activities. meanwhile, for activities related to cooperative learning, theory of sociocultural learning (stevens, 2008) and kagan’s structure named numbered heads together (kagan, 1989) is used. in activities that involved both flashcards and cooperative learning, all of the theories are used together as they complement each other. additionally, in relation to vocabulary knowledge, theories that related to the definition of vocabulary (lehr, osborn, & hiebert, 2004; steffani & huang, 2017), vocabulary knowledge (chapelle, 1999; lehr, osborn, & hiebert, 2004; richards, 1976; schmitt, 2014; shen, 2008), and part of speech (linse, 2006) are used in this study. in terms of flashcards, dual coding theory (jared, poh, & paivio, 2013) is used as a core theory for this present study as it is highly related to picture superiority effect (crutcher & beer, 2011). dual coding theory supported the use of flashcards in retrieving memory as a certain word shown in a card can evoke the memory of its picture and vice versa. additionally, picture superiority effect support the use of pictures in flashcards as this theory considered pictures to be better remembered than words. furthermore, both pictures and words are used in the flashcards for this study; one side rudi wibowo aji & alief noor farida / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 40 has picture and the other side has word, as this is following the argument of haynes and zacarian (2010). moreover, related to flashcards activities, theory of behaviourist leaning (ellise, 1997) is used in conducting this study as it explain the nature of stimulus and reinforcement for learning activities. the implication of this study towards this present study then that in activities related to flashcards, students are given reinforcement based on the stimulus given which is the flashcards themselves. in terms of cooperative learning, this present study is conducted by arranging the composition of students in each groups of numbered heads together activities so that they consist of not only less competent students but also more competent students. these approach of students grouping in numbered heads together activities is based on the theory of sociocultural learning as stated by stevens (2008) that “for complex cognitive tasks, learners benefit from interaction with more competent peers, like those interactions in cooperative learning” (p. 189-190). this composition of students is determined by the results of the pre-test that they took before following numbered heads together activities. the results of the pre-test were analysed and scored, then the students are ranked based on the results of their pre-test scores. this rank then determined which group they belong to. furthermore, stevens (2008) also added that “sociocultural theory revolves around the ability of peers to provide guidance and feedback to one another during the collaborative dialogue” (p. 190). therefore, students’ interactions during such activities are monitored as well as guided so that they could engage in the collaborative dialogue. in addition, kagan’s structure named numbered heads together (kagan, 1989) is used as an assistance of performing activities related to numbered heads together in cooperative learning during the interventions of experimental group for this present study. the students were divided into eight groups consist of four students in each groups. each member of the groups was assigned with number which range from 1 to 4. they were given a simple badge with a number on it which each of them hold to show their number. in terms of vocabulary knowledge, vocabulary, defined for the purpose of this present study as gathered from statements of several experts (lehr, osborn, & hiebert, 2004; steffani & huang, 2017), is a collection of words that the students know and understand at the very least as a receptive and print vocabulary. furthermore, as this study is specifically focuses on vocabulary knowledge, it is worth mentioning that only one aspect of vocabulary knowledge (chapelle, 1999; lehr, osborn, & hiebert, 2004; richards, 1976; schmitt, 2014; shen, 2008) is used here that is only vocabulary size. this aspect of vocabulary knowledge is defined as the number of words that the students know and understand. additionally, in relation to vocabulary, part of speech (linse, 2006) is also taken into consideration in this present study. following the aspect of part of speech, words as used in this study are consisted of nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and prepositions. flashcards and the combination of flashcards and numbered heads together are studied and compared in regards with their effectiveness in improving students’ vocabulary knowledge in this present study. both flashcards and numbered heads together are demonstrated to be effective in improving students’ vocabulary knowledge. however, both are also considered as less effective when compared to certain media. on the other hand, the effectiveness of both are verified not only as individual but also when in collaboration. this collaboration might be the answer of improving both flashcards and numbered heads together which eventually are able to be used as an approach of improving students’ vocabulary knowledge. thus, this present study seeks further evidences of the effectiveness of flashcards to improve students’ vocabulary knowledge by collaborating it with cooperative learning which is a teaching method commonly used in accordance with 2013 curriculum, specifically numbered heads together. rudi wibowo aji & alief noor farida / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 41 methods a quasi-experimental research design is used as a research design for this study as the objects are already in groups of classrooms. the object of the study is the seventh grade students of smpn 1 tulis in academic year 2017/2018. the population of this study is the seventh grade students of smpn 1 tulis in academic year 2017/2018. there are 192 students which divided into 6 classes so that each class consists of 32 students. the samples of this study are two classes, vii b as the experimental group and vii f as the control group. the study begins by giving pre-test for both control and experimental groups. after that, three interventions are given to each of the groups; 1st, 2nd, and 3rd intervention. the interventions for experimental group are conducted by using flashcards with numbered heads together, while the control group by using flashcards. next, post-test is given to both groups. finally, the results of both pre-test and post-test are analysed using a conventional change score and using a process-oriented change score by frost for defining students’ improvement in vocabulary knowledge. two tests are used as instruments for collecting data, namely test a and test b. both tests are in the form of multiple choice consisting of 28 items with 4 options in each items; 1 correct answer and 3 distractors. the quality of a test is assessed by several aspects such as validity, reliability, and practicality. analyses of the instruments used in this present study is conducted by examining the tests in terms of item facility, item discrimination, & distractor efficiency (brown, 2004). item facility or if in short is the formula to determine whether certain test is easy or difficult for those who taken the test. item discrimination or id is the formula to determine whether the item is able to distinguish or separate between the high-ability test-takers and low-ability test-takers (brown, 2004). distractor efficiency, according to brown (2004, p. 60) “is the extent to which (a) the distractor ‘lure’ a sufficient number of test-takers, especially lower ability ones, and (b) those responses are somewhat evenly distributed across all distractors.” the data is analysed in two methods of measuring students’ change score; a conventional change score and a process-oriented change score by frost. conventional change score calculated the students’ improvement of vocabulary knowledge by calculating the difference between students’ mean score of pre-test score and post-test score. the mean score of both pre-test and post-test of experimental and control groups are subtracted in order to find out the students’ improvement of vocabulary knowledge. process-oriented change score proposed by frost, et al. (2014) divided the analysis of each items into one of the four categories based on the students results of pre-test and post-test. the categories are “consistently understood” in which students are able to respond correctly at the pre-test and post-test; “learned” in which students are respond incorrectly at the pre-test and then they are able to respond correctly at the post-test; “consistently not understood” in which students are respond incorrectly at both pre-test and post-test; and “inconsistent” in which students respond correctly at pre-test but respond incorrectly at post-test. detail information of each items tested can be obtained by this process-oriented change score approach. see table 1 of example of process-oriented change score analysis. table 1 process-oriented change score analysis item pre-test respond post-test respond category park correct correct consistently understood incorrect correct learned incorrect incorrect consistently not understood correct incorrect inconsistent rudi wibowo aji & alief noor farida / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 42 table 1 presented the example of process-oriented change score analysis as proposed by frost, et al. (2014). it divided the analysis of item “park” into one of the four categories based on the students’ results of pre-test and post-test. if the students are able to respond correctly at the pre-test and posttest, then they fall into “consistently understood” category. if the students are respond incorrectly at the pre-test and able to respond correctly at the post-test, then they fall into “learned” category. if the students are respond incorrectly at both pre-test and post-test, then they fall into “consistently not understood” category. if the students are able to respond correctly at the pre-test but respond incorrectly at the post-test, then they fall into “inconsistent” category. findings and discussion result of pre-test the pre-test was conducted at both experimental and control group. it was performed on january 11th 2018 for both groups. this test was carried out in order to find out the students’ initial vocabulary knowledge prior to interventions. moreover, the results of pre-test in also used as a guidance for students’ grouping for numbered heads together activities at experimental group. pre-test for the experimental group was carried out with 31 out of 32 students with the absence of student e-04. while the pre-test for the control group was carried out with all 32 students. however, the results of some students are not valid due to their absence of pre-test, treatment 1, 2, 3, and posttest as well as the students’ failure of submitting the test code in which happened to student e-22 and c-22. table 2 result of pre-test  score n mean experimental 378 23 16.43 control 395 27 14.62 table 2 displayed the mean scores of pre-test of both experimental and control groups. the total pre-test score of experimental group was 378, so the mean score of pre-test for the experimental group with 23 students was 16.43. meanwhile, the total pre-test score of control group was 395, so the mean score of pre-test for the control group with 27 students was 14.62. result of post-test the post-test was conducted at both experimental and control group. it was performed on january 20th 2018 for both groups. this test was carried out in order to find out the students’ vocabulary knowledge improvement after the interventions. post-test for the experimental group was carried out with 28 out of 32 students with the absence of student e-04, e-18, e-19, and e-20. while the post-test for the control group was carried out with 31 out of 32 students with the absence of student c-16. however, the results of some students are not valid due to their absence of pre-test, treatment 1, 2, 3, and post-test as well as the students’ failure of submitting the test code in which happened to student c-06. table 3 result of post-test  score n mean experimental 439 23 19.09 control 487 27 18.04 table 3 displayed the mean scores of post-test of both experimental and control groups. the total post-test score of experimental group was 439, so the mean score of post-test for the experimental rudi wibowo aji & alief noor farida / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 43 group with 23 students was 19.09. meanwhile, the total post-test score of control group was 487, so the mean score of post-test for the control group with 27 students was 18.04. students’ vocabulary knowledge improvement the improvement of students’ vocabulary knowledge is analysed in two methods; a conventional change score which is the difference of mean of students’ score of pre-test and post-test, and a processoriented change score which is a detailed way of measuring students’ change score of the tests by categorizing students’ responses into four category; “learned words”, “words inconsistently understood”, “words consistently understood”, and “words consistently not understood” (frost, et al., 2014). conventional change score which is the difference of mean of students’ score of pre-test and post-test is used to calculate the improvement of students’ vocabulary knowledge. the following table 4 presented the mean score of both pre-test and post-test of experimental and control groups along with their improvement which is calculated by subtraction of post-test with pre-test mean score. table 4 students’ improvement based on conventional change score analysis pretest posttest improvement experimental 16.43 19.09 2.66 control 14.62 18.04 3.42 table 4 showed that the mean score of the pre-test for the experimental group was 16.43. meanwhile, the mean score of the post-test of the experimental group was 19.09. therefore, there was an improvement of 2.66 between the pre-test and the post-test scores achieved by the students of the experimental group. likewise, table 4 displayed that the mean score of the pre-test for the control group was 14.62. meanwhile, the mean score of the post-test of the control group was 18.09. therefore, there was an improvement of 3.42 between the pre-test and the post-test scores achieved by the students of the control group. thus, it can be concluded from the comparison of pre-test and post-test mean score that the control group improvement which interventions was using only flashcards method was higher than that of the experimental group. figure 1 showed the comparison of pre-test and post-test mean score from table 4. figure 1 comparison of students' improvement based on conventional change score analysis 3,42 2,66 14,62 16,43 18,04 19,09 control experimental post-test pre-test improvement rudi wibowo aji & alief noor farida / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 44 figure 1 displayed the comparison of students’ improvement based on conventional change score analysis. it presented that the mean score of the pre-test for the experimental group was 16.43. meanwhile, the mean score of the post-test of the experimental group was 19.09. therefore, there was an improvement of 2.66 between the pre-test and the post-test scores achieved by the students of the experimental group. likewise, figure 1 displayed that the mean score of the pre-test for the control group was 14.62. meanwhile, the mean score of the post-test of the control group was 18.09. therefore, there was an improvement of 3.42 between the pre-test and the post-test scores achieved by the students of the control group. process-oriented change score by frost which divided the items tested into four categories namely “words consistently understood”, “learned words”, “words inconsistently understood”, and “words consistently not understood” is also used to analyse the improvement of students’ vocabulary knowledge in this present study. the following table 5 displayed the four category of process-oriented change score of experimental and control groups. table 5 students' improvement based on process-oriented change score by frost analysis experimental control consistently understood 58% 53% learned 19% 22% consistently not understood 15% 19% inconsistent 8% 6% improvement 19% 22% table 5 displayed that the experimental group has 58% of its total words tested falls into consistently understood category, 19% falls into learned category, 15% falls into consistently not understood category, and 8% falls into inconsistent category. meanwhile, the control group has 53% of its total words tested falls into consistently understood category, 22% falls into learned category, 19% falls into consistently not understood category, and 6% falls into inconsistent category. the improvement of vocabulary knowledge of experimental and control groups can be seen in learned category as it represents the words tested that the students failed to respond correctly during the pre-test but successfully able to respond correctly during the post-test. according to table 5, the experimental group was able to improve 19% while the control group was able to improve 22% of vocabulary knowledge. thus, it can be concluded that the vocabulary knowledge improvement was better achieved by the control group which interventions was using only flashcards method. figure 2 showed the comparison of the four category of process-oriented change score by frost of the experimental and control group from table 5. figure 2 displayed the comparison of students’ improvement based on process-oriented change score analysis. it presented that the experimental group has 58% of its total words tested falls into consistently understood category, 19% falls into learned category, 15% falls into consistently not understood category, and 8% falls into inconsistent category. meanwhile, the control group has 53% of its total words tested falls into consistently understood category, 22% falls into learned category, 19% falls into consistently not understood category, and 6% falls into inconsistent category. discussion this present study is meant to answer the research question. it was to find out the effectiveness of flashcards collaborated with number heads together compared to the use of only flashcards to improve students’ vocabulary knowledge of the seventh graders of smp negeri 1 tulis, batang in the academic year of 2017/2018. rudi wibowo aji & alief noor farida / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 45 the analysis of the pre-test data from both experimental and control group shown that the average score of experimental group was 16.43 while the control group was 14.62. this indicates their vocabulary knowledge prior to the interventions given to them. figure 2 comparison of students’ improvement based on process-oriented change score by frost analysis after conducting the pre-test, three interventions are given to both groups. the experimental group was given interventions with flashcards collaborated with numbered heads together while the control group was given only flashcards. both groups were given exactly the same material from english book provided by the government. after the interventions, the post-test was conducted to both groups. the analysis of the posttest results shows that the average score of experimental group was 19.09 while the control group was 18.04. this indicates some improvement of their vocabulary knowledge after given the interventions. further analysis of the pre-test and post-test results of both experimental and control groups shown that the control group which was given interventions of only flashcards has achieved higher improvement score than the experimental group which was given intervention of flashcards collaborated with numbered heads together. the control group accomplished 3.42 improvement score compare to 2.66 improvement score of the experimental group. thus, this is demonstrated that flashcards is more effective than flashcards collaborated with numbered heads together to improve students’ vocabulary knowledge. this finding is in line with research findings of aslan (2011) which proved that flashcards could be useful and effective for the students in learning english vocabulary. this finding is then further supported by research findings of hamzehbagi and bonyadi (2015) which demonstrated that flashcards can significantly improve students’ english vocabulary knowledge. additionally, the analysis of pre-test and post-test results of both experimental and control groups using process-oriented change score by frost also implies the same results. it confirms that flashcards is more effective than flashcards collaborated with numbered heads together to improve students’ vocabulary knowledge. the process-oriented change score by frost analysis shows that the experimental group achieved only 19% improvement compare to the control group improvement of 22%. this finding is consistent with research findings of savaiano, lloyd, and hatton (2017) which verified that flashcards instruction was effective for teaching the meaning of words. this finding is then further strengthened by research findings of sage, rausch, quirk, and halladay (2016) which validated that flashcards was a viable option for the students in learning english words. in conclusion, the analysis of pre-test and post-test results from both experimental and control groups using both conventional change score and process-oriented change score by frost confirms 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% consistently understood learned inconsistent consistently not understood control experimental rudi wibowo aji & alief noor farida / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 46 that flashcards is more effective than flashcards collaborated with numbered heads together to improve students’ vocabulary knowledge. conclusion this present study was conducted on the purpose to find out the effectiveness of the use of flashcards collaborated with numbered heads together compared to the use of only flashcards to improve students’ vocabulary knowledge for the seventh grade students of smp negeri 1 tulis, batang in the academic year 2017/2018. based on the results and the analysis of the data, it can be concluded that flashcards is more effective than flashcards collaborated with numbered heads together to improve students’ vocabulary knowledge. suggestions the suggestions are categorized into three aspects such as theoretical, practical, and pedagogical. theoretically, the results of this study is expected to be able to be used as a reference for further research in the future related to english vocabulary learning, teaching process and cooperative learning. practically, the results of this study is expected to be able to help students in learning english vocabulary as well as motivating them to improve their interest in learning english by implementing flashcards in their study. pedagogically, the result of this study hopefully will enrich the way in teaching vocabulary for english teachers as teachers who was unwilling to use flashcards for their teaching method may now implement flashcards in teaching english vocabulary since the results of this present study verified that flashcards is effective to improve students’ vocabulary knowledge. as for the students, the result of this study is expected to encourage them in learning english vocabulary as well as open their mind of english learning activity. acknowledgement i thank to the headmaster of smpn 1 tulis, batang, sugiyanto, s.pd., m.si., who has given me a permission to conduct this research in smpn 1 tulis, batang and the teachers especially for the english teacher, nurul mufidah, s.pd., who have given me the opportunity to conduct this study and suggestions for this study. i also thank for the seventh grade students of smpn 1 tulis, batang for their participation as the sample of this study. references aslan, y. 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(2011). on the effects of two models of cooperative learning on efl reading comprehension and vocabulary learning. modern journal of language teaching methods, 1(2), 39-54. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 102 elt forum 6 (2) (2017) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt translation procedures of physics terms in the physics bilingual book for senior high school year xi mareta permata sari, issy yuliasri  english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in october 2017 approved in november 2017 published in december 2017 ________________ keywords: translation procedures, accuracy, physics terms, bilingual book ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this study attempted to analyze the use of translation procedures and their accuracy. the objectives of the study were to describe the translation procedures used to translate the physics terms and to identify their accuracy in physics bilingual book for senior high school year xi. this research was conducted qualitatively. this study applied the theory proposed by vinay and darbelnet (in hatim and munday 2004:30) about translation procedures and the accuracy criteria of translation assessment by nababan (2012:50). the results of the study showed that there were 119 data of physics terms and three translation procedures found in this study. the three translation procedures were equivalence, calque and transposition. the translation procedure mostly used was equivalence, followed by calque and transposition. in terms of accuracy, three raters found that around 99.15% of the data were translated accurately, whereas the rest 0.84% of the data were inaccurately translated. the translation procedure with the highest accuracy was equivalence, followed by calque and transposition. thus, the equivalence procedure was mostly used and had the highest accuracy rating in this research, followed by calque and transposition. © 2017 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: unnes_english@yahoo.com m. permata sari & i. yuliasri / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 103 introduction to begin with, the existence of rsbi (the pioneering of international standard school) in secondary education has piled up in indonesia. the use of english in rsbi schools is to make students and teachers get used to english. the use of english is in line with the purpose of rsbi schools that is to be the international standard school. rsbi schools use english in teaching learning activities. teachers in rsbi schools are also taught english in order to enable them to teach. in order to make the teachers and students acquainted with english, they are equipped with supportive textbooks in teaching learning activities. the supportive textbooks mentioned above are bilingual books. the bilingual books are provided with two languages indonesian and english. regarding the use of bilingual textbooks in rsbi schools, i am interested in using physics bilingual book for this research. according to oxford advanced learners’s dictionary, term is a word or phrase used as the name of something, especially one connected with a particular type of language. however, physics is the scientific study of matter and energy and the relationships between them, including the study of forces, heat, light, sound, electricity and the structure of atoms. in addition, physics is one of the lessons which is full of scientific terms and complicated formulas. besides, the studies about physics terms are just few. those things make physics more interesting to be studied. in this case, in indonesia the use of bilingual textbook is in line with the need to acknowledge english as an international language. automatically, the secondary education students who are acquainted with english in their bilingual textbooks will be at some advantages. first, students can obtain the knowledge from the subjects. second, students will be familiar with the english terms related to the subjects. the last, students will be having less difficulty in learning from international journals which indeed use english as the language. the publishers of bilingual textbooks need translators who are acquainted well with english to translate foreign languages into indonesian language. the translators, at least, should have high proficiency in english. they are demanded to have a good ability in translating english textbooks as the source of information in education into the target text in indonesian. besides, translation work needs translation procedures in which it is not an easy task to do. the translation procedure is needed to obtain a high quality of translation in target language or at least equal with the source language. there are some procedures of translation as the way to gain at least adequate results of translation. vinay and darbelnet’s in hatim and munday (2004:30) categorization of translation procedures is very detailed. they name two ‘methods’ covering seven procedures including 1) direct translation, which covers borrowing, calque and literal translation, and 2) oblique translation, which is transposition, modulation, equivalence and adaptation. in this case, translators need to be careful to translate such difficult source texts, for example, the one which has physics terms. translators should make the translation work accurate as the intended meaning in the source text. in order to know whether a translation is good or not, it would be better if a translation is evaluated by experts. the experts can evaluate the accuracy of a translation. according to nababan (2008:86), an assessment toward the quality of a translation mainly focuses on the accuracy. newmark (1988:173) suggested that that some kind of accuracy must be the only criterion of a good translation in the future what kind of accuracy depending first on the type and then the particular text that has been translated and that the word 'sub-text’ with its gricean implications and implicatures can be made to cover a multitude of inaccuracies. moreover, to translate such scientific terms, it must be appropriate with the scientist’s intention. after confirming to the editor of yudhistira, i acknowledge that the editor of the book which is used in this research uses the direction of translation from indonesian into english. the materials in the book were extracted from the bibliography. the materials were synchronized with the curriculum for the time being. the editor uses the books reference for reference only. hence, i intend to analyze the translation m. permata sari & i. yuliasri / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 104 procedure and accuracy of the translated physics terms in physics bilingual book for senior high school year xi published by yudhistira. the selection of translation procedure in translating technical terms was very essential because it affected the validity and accuracy of the data. therefore, this research will contribute to determine whether the physics bilingual book for senior high school year xi is good enough to be studied as a guide for physics lesson for secondary education students. methodology of the research this research includes in qualitative research method. patton (1990) states qualitative research methodologies are designed to provide the researcher with the perspective of participants through immersion in a culture or situation and direct interaction with those under study. the object of the study is the physics bilingual book for senior high school year xi. this book contains many physics terms. the object of the study focused on the physics terms in the form of indonesian language as source language and the translation product in the form of english language terms as the target language. there were two aspects analyzed in this study. they were the translation procedure of the physics terms and the accuracy of the translated physics terms. the accuracy of the translated physics terms was evaluated by raters who are expert in indonesian-english language. in conducting this study, there were some stages which should be done in order to obtain the data. the stages were collecting all the data from the book, writing down all the data derived from the book in a table, identifying and classifying the data based on translation procedures proposed by vinay and darbelnet, calculating the frequency and percentage of translation procedures in the data in order to obtain the information related to the frequent used of translation procedure happen in the data, interpreting the result of the assessment of raters in term of accuracy of the translated physics terms, and drawing conclusion from the outcome of the whole analysis. this research took the data from physics bilingual book for senior high school year xi which was published by yudhistira in 2009. the data are physics terms which first being checked in some dictionaries including oxford advanced learner’s dictionary and dictionary of physics. the translated physics terms are identified and classified based on translation procedures proposed by vinay and darbelnet in tables. i calculated the frequency and percentage of translation procedures in the data. then, i gave questionnaires to the raters. the questionnaires given contain accuracy criterion to analyze whether the translated physics terms is good or not. result and discussion in this study, there were 119 data of physics terms contained in the book of physics bilingual book for senior high school year xi. the physics terms were translated from indonesian into english. there were three translation procedures found in the book. the translation procedures found in the book were equivalence, calque, and transposition. the percentages of translation procedures in the data were resumed in a table as follows: no. translation procedure frequency percentage 1. equivalence 100 84% 2. calque 17 14.28% 3. transposition 2 1.68% table 3.1 table of data tabulation from the data tabulation table, it could be concluded that there were three translation procedures from seven translation procedures proposed by vinay and darbelnet used in translating m. permata sari & i. yuliasri / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 105 the physics terms in the physics bilingual book. there were 119 data analyzed in the book. the analysis was as follows: the first translation procedure mostly used was equivalence with the frequency of 100 times (84%), followed by calque with the frequency of 17 times (14.28%), and the last translation procedure was transposition with the frequency of 2 times (1.68%). 1. translation procedures 1.1 equivalence equivalence is where one and the same situation can be rendered by two texts using completely different stylistic and structural methods. the classical example of equivalence is given by the reaction of an amateur who accidentally hits his finger with a hammer: if he were french his cry of pain would be transcribed as ‘aïe!’, but if he were english this would be interpreted as ‘ouch!’. the method of creating equivalences is also frequently applied to idioms. the equivalence procedure occurred 100 times with the percentage of 84%. the data of equivalence procedure can be seen from the following datum: a. datum no. 1 source text : sebuah pesawat dari semarang menuju jakarta terbang dengan kecepatan rata-rata 800 km/jam. target text : an airplane flies semarang to jakarta with the average speed of 800 km/hour. the translator translated the term ‘kecepatan’ in indonesian into ‘speed’ in english. in the source text, the technical term ‘kecepatan’ was translated by using equivalence procedure. the context of the text described an airplane flies semarang to jakarta with the average speed of 800 km/hour. the rate of an airplane movement is best described by the term ‘speed’. in the dictionary of physics, the technical term ‘speed’ according to pitt (1977:358) is defined as the rate of increase of distance travelled with time. 1.2 calque a calque is a special kind of borrowing whereby a language borrows an expression form of another, and each of its elements is translated literally. calque is literal translation of a foreign word or phrase lexically as well as structurally. the calque technique occurred 4 times with the frequency of 3%. the calque procedure can be seen from the following datum: a. datum no. 4 st : vektor satuan adalah suatu vektor yang besarnya satu, tanpa satuan, serta arahnya sepanjang sumbu koordinat. tt : a unit vector is a vector, which magnitude is one. it has no unit and its direction is along the axes of the coordinate. the translator translated the term ‘vektor satuan’ in indonesian into ‘unit vector’ in english. in the source text, the technical term ‘vektor satuan’ was translated by using calque procedure. in the source language, the first term ‘vektor’ became the second term in the target language and the second term became the first term. the term ‘vektor’ was translated into ‘vector’ in the target language. the consonant ‘k’ was substituted with the consonant ‘c’ in the target language. the term ‘satuan’ in the source language was translated into ‘unit’ in the target language. 1.3 transposition m. permata sari & i. yuliasri / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 106 the method called transposition involves replacing one word class with another without changing the meaning of the message. besides, being a special translation procedure, transposition can also be applied within a language. the transposition technique occurred 51 times with the frequency of 43%. the data of transposition procedure was shown by the following examples: a. datum no. 44 st : sebuah partikel bergerak harmonik sederhana. persamaan simpangannya dinyatakan dengan y = 10 sin 0,5t dengan t dalam sekon dan y dalam cm. tentukan percepatan partikel pada t = 2,5 sekon! tt : a particle undergoes simple harmonic motion. its vertical displacement is stated as y = 10 sin 0.5t, where t is in second and y in cm. calculate the particle’s acceleration at t = 2,5 seconds. the translator translated the term ‘bergerak harmonik sederhana’ in indonesian into ‘simple harmonic motion’ in english. in the source text, the technical term ‘bergerak harmonik sederhana’ was translated by using transposition procedure. the words ‘bergerak harmonik sederhana’ in the source language which was a verb turned into ‘simple harmonic motion’ in the target language which was a noun. 2. accuracy score of the translated physics terms no rate of accuracy criteria of accuracy score data number total percentage 1 unanimously rated 1.accurate 3,3,3 005, 006, 011, 012, 015, 016, 017, 018, 019, 020, 021, 023, 026, 028, 029, 031, 032, 034, 037, 038, 039, 040, 041, 042, 044, 049, 050, 051, 052, 053, 055, 056, 057, 058, 061, 063, 065, 068, 069, 070, 073, 074, 075, 076, 077, 078, 079, 081, 082, 083, 084, 085, 086, 089, 090, 091, 092, 093, 094, 095, 099, 102, 104, 105, 106, 108, 110, 112, 113, 114, 115, 118, 119 73 61% 2. not quite accurate 2,2,2 3.inaccurate 1,1,1 2. not unanimously rated 1.accurate 3,3,2 59 1 0.84% 3,2,3 07, 33, 46, 67, 100 5 4.2% 2,3,3 02, 03, 04,08, 09, 10, 13, 24, 25, 30, 35, 43, 60, 64, 66, 80, 87, 88, 96, 97, 98, 101, 109, 111, 116, 117 26 21.8% 2,2,3 01, 22, 47, 48, 71, 107 6 5% 2,3,2 54, 72 2 1.68% 1,3,3 14, 45, 62, 103 4 3.36% 2,3,1 36 1 0.84% 2.inaccurate 1,2,2 27 1 0.84% m. permata sari & i. yuliasri / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 107 table 3.2 table of data tabulation from the data tabulation table, it could be concluded that there were two rate of accuracy. the first rate of accuracy was unanimously rated and not unanimously rated. based on the oxford advanced learner’s dictionary, unanimously rated is defined as ‘if a decision or an opinion is unanimous, it is agreed or shared by everyone in a group. in unanimously rated data, the raters rated the data similarly. the raters rated the data by giving similar score. in unanimously rated data, there were three criteria of accuracy. they are accurate, not quite accurate and inaccurate. the accurate data were given score 3 by the three raters. the not quite accurate data were given score 2 by the three raters. then, inaccurate data were given score 1 by the three raters. however, in this research, i only found the accurate data for unanimously rated data. there were 73 data were found ‘accurate’ from 119 data with the percentage of 61.34%. the 73 data were accurate because the three raters gave the score 3. the 73 data included in ‘unanimously rated’ data. the second rate of accuracy was not unanimously rated. it was the reverse of unanimously rated. the data became not unanimously rated because the raters were not unanimous in giving score for the data. it means that there were differences on assessment of raters who rated the accuracy of the data. there were data which assessed differently. in not unanimously rated data, there were also three criteria of accuracy. they are accurate, not quite accurate and inaccurate. the accurate data was suitable based on the dictionary of physics and the raters’s perspectives on their assessment. the not quite accurate data was suitable based on the dictionary of physics, but they were rather differently with the raters’ assessment. then, the inaccurate data was not suitable based on the dictionary of physics. however, in this research, i found the various score forms included in ‘not unanimously rated’ data. the difference score forms happened because the three raters gave different score for each physics term. the data which included in accurate data was the first score variant 3,3,2 with the frequency of 1 time (0.84%). the second score variant was 3,2,3 with the frequency of 5 times (4.2%). the third score variant was 2,3,3 with the frequency of 26 times (21.8%). the fourth score variant was 2,2,3 with the frequency of 6 times (5%). the fifth score variant was 2,3,2 with the frequency of 2 times (1.68%). the sixth score variant was 1,3,3 with the frequency of 4 times (3.36%). the seventh score variant was 2,3,1 with the frequency of 1 time (0.84%). ‘then, the last data was ‘inaccurate’ data with the frequency of 1 time (0.84%). there were 45 data were found ‘accurate’ from 119 data with the percentage of 37.81%. the 45 data included in ‘not unanimously rated’ data. the inaccurate datum score was 1,2,2 given by the three raters. based on the analysis above, there were two criteria of accuracy found in this study. they were accurate and inaccurate criteria. the accurate data was gained by calculating the accurate data from ‘unanimously rated’ data and ‘not unanimously rated’ data. the accurate data from ‘unanimously rated’ data was 73 data with the percentage of 61.34%. the accurate data from ‘not unanimously rated’ data was 45 data with the percentage of 37.81%. thus, the total of accurate data was 118 data with the percentage of 99.15%. however, the ‘inaccurate’ data was 1 datum with the percentage of 0.84%. the analysis showed that around 99.15% of the data were translated accurately, whereas the rest 0.84% of the data was inaccurately translated. 2.1 unanimously rated 2.1.1 accurate criteria the data became unanimously rated because the raters were unanimous in giving score for the data. it means that there was similarity on assessment of raters who rated the accuracy of the data. there were data which assessed similarly. the accurate data was suitable based on the dictionary of physics and the raters’s perspectives on their assessment. the criteria of accurate translation were given the score of 3 by the three raters. there were 73 data from 119 data or 61% in this research. the data of accurate data can be seen from the following datum: m. permata sari & i. yuliasri / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 108 a. datum no. 6 st : perubahan kecepatan tiap satuan waktu disebut sebagai percepatan. tt : the change of velocity per unit of time is called acceleration. the score given by each rater was 3. each rater gave score 3 toward the translated physics term above. in the dictionary of physics, the technical term ‘acceleration’ according to pitt (1977:12) is defined as the rate of increase of velocity with time expressed in metres per second (m s-2) or other similar units. thus, the meaning of ‘acceleration’ described the same situation as ‘percepatan’. it indicated that the translated physics term of ‘percepatan’ from indonesian (source language) into ‘acceleration’ in english (target language) was accurate without distortion of meaning. the three raters also thought that the term ‘percepatan’ should be translated into term ‘acceleration’ in the target text. 2.2 not unanimously rated 2.2.1 accurate criteria 2.2.1.1 accurate data (score 3, 3, and 2 by the three raters) the example data for ‘accurate’ data with the score 3 by the first rater, score 3 by the second rater, and score 2 by the third rater can be seen from the following datum: a. datum no. 59 st : hukum kekekalan momentum menyatakan bahwa jumlah momentum sebelum tumbukan sama dengan jumlah momentum setelah tumbukan. tt : the law of momentum conservation states that the sum of momentum before collision equals to the sum of momentum after collision. in the dictionary of physics, the technical term ‘the law of momentum conservation’ according to pitt (1977:80) is defined as ‘in any system of mutually interacting or impinging particles, the linear momentum in any fixed direction remains unaltered unless there is an external force acting in that direction. besides, i also confirmed to the first, second and the third rater about their perspectives on the ‘the law of momentum conservation’ term. the first rater thought that ‘the law of momentum conservation’ term was accurate without distortion of meaning. the second rater also thought that ‘the law of momentum conservation’ term was accurate without distortion of meaning. the third rater which gave score 2 in the first time changed her perspective on the technical term after realizing her mistake in giving assessment. the third rater then said that the term of ‘the law of momentum conservation’ was accurate. 2.2.1.2 accurate data (score 3, 2, and 3 by three raters) the example data for ‘accurate’ data with the score 3 by the first rater, score 2 by the second rater, and score 3 by the third rater can be seen from the following data: a. datum no. 33 st : energi potensial pegas (ep) dapat diperoleh dengan menghitung luas daerah di bawah kurva. tt : the area in the graph indicates the potential energy of the spring (ep). in the dictionary of physics, the technical term ‘potential energy’ according to pitt (1977:171) is defined as ‘the energy possessed by a body or system by virtue of position, m. permata sari & i. yuliasri / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 109 equal to the work done in changing the system from some standard configuration to its existing state’. the first and third rater gave score 3 to the technical term. it means they agreed that the term of ‘potential energy’ was accurate. meanwhile, the second rater gave score 2 to the technical term. then, i confirmed to the second rater about her perspective on the ‘potential energy’ term. the second rater had doubts about the technical term. the second rater thought that the term ‘potential energy’ was a little less accurate but did not change the original meaning. however, in the dictionary of physics, the term of ‘potential energy’ existed. thus, the term of ‘potential energy’ included in accurate data. 2.2.1.3 accurate data (score 2, 3, and 3 by the three raters) the example data for ‘accurate’ data with the score 2 by the first rater, score 3 by the second rater, and score 3 by the third rater can be seen from the following data: a. datum no. 4 st : vektor satuan adalah suatu vektor yang besarnya satu, tanpa satuan, serta arahnya sepanjang sumbu koordinat. tt : a unit vector is a vector, which magnitude is one. it has no unit and its direction is along the axes of the coordinate. in the dictionary of physics, the technical term ‘unit vector’ according to pitt (1977:402) is defined as ‘vectors, usually written i, j, and k, that have unit length and lie along the x-, y-, and z axes respectively’. the second and third rater gave score 3 to the technical term. it means they agreed that the term of ‘unit vector’ was accurate. meanwhile, the first rater gave score 2 to the technical term. the first rater which gave score 2 in the first time changed his perspective on the technical term after realizing his mistake in giving assessment. the first rater then said that the term of ‘unit vector’ was accurate. meanwhile, in the dictionary of physics, the term of ‘unit vector’ existed. i also thought that the term of ‘unit vector’ was accurate based on the dictionary of physics and the dominant score by the second and third rater. 2.2.1.4 accurate data (score 2, 2, and 3 by the three raters) the example data for ‘accurate’ data with the score 2 by the first rater, score 2 by the second rater, and score 3 by the third rater can be seen from the following data: a. datum no. 22 st : medan gravitasi didefinisikan sebagai daerah yang masih mendapat pengaruh gaya gravitasi. tt : gravitational field is defined as the region that is still affected by gravity. in the dictionary of physics, the technical term ‘gravitational field’ according to pitt (1977:171) is defined as ‘the space surrounding a massive body in which another massive body experiences a force of attraction’. the third rater gave score 3 to the technical term. it means the third rater agreed that the term of ‘gravitational field’ was accurate. meanwhile, the first and second rater gave score 2 to the technical term. the first and second rater had doubts about the technical term. the first rater thought that the term was not far from the translation target. the second rater thought that the technical term was a little less accurate. meanwhile, in the dictionary of physics, the term of ‘gravitational field’ existed. then, i confirmed to a physics lecturer in semarang state university m. permata sari & i. yuliasri / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 110 about the ‘gravitational field’ term. she thought that the term of ‘gravitational field’ was accurate. thus, the term of ‘gravitational field’ included in accurate data. 2.2.1.5 accurate data (score 2, 3, and 2 by the three raters) the example data for ‘accurate’ data with the score 2 by the first rater, score 3 by the second rater, and score 2 by the third rater can be seen from the following data: a. datum no. 72 st : resultan semua gaya gravitasi (gaya berat) partikel-partikel penyusun benda berada pada titik tertentu. titik itu merupakan titik tangkap gaya berat atau sering disebut sebagai titik berat atau titik pusat massa. tt : the resultant of all gravitational forces (weight forces) of the particles that make up an object is located at a certain point. the capture point of the gravitational force is called the center of gravity or the center of mass of an object. in the dictionary of physics, the technical term ‘center of mass’ according to pitt (1977:62) is defined as ‘a point such that if any plane passes through it, the sum of the products of the masses of the constituent particles by their perpendicular distances from the plane (the sum of the mass moments) is zero’. the second rater gave score 3 to the technical term. it means the second rater agreed that the term of ‘center of mass’ was accurate. meanwhile, the first and third rater gave score 2 to the technical term. the first and third rater had doubts about the technical term. the first rater thought that the term was not far from the translation target. the third rater which gave score 2 in the first time changed her perspective on the technical term after realizing her mistake in giving assessment. the third rater then said that the term of ‘center of mass’ was accurate. meanwhile, in the dictionary of physics, the term of ‘center of mass’ existed. then, i confirmed to a physics lecturer in semarang state university about the ‘center of mass’ term. she thought that the term of ‘center of mass’ was accurate. 2.2.1.6 accurate data (score 1, 3, and 3 by the three raters) the example data for ‘accurate’ data with the score 1 by the first rater, score 3 by the second rater, and score 3 by the third rater can be seen from the following data: a datum no. 45 st : dua buah partikel melakukan gerakan harmonik pada saat garis lurus. keduanya berangkat dari titik kesetimbangan pada saat dan arah yang sama. periodenya masing-masing 1/4 s dan 1/7 s. berapa beda fasenya setelah kedua partikel itu bergerak selama 0,1 s? tt : two particles are undergoing harmonic motion in the same straight line. both of them start from the equilibrium at the same time and direction. the periods are 1/4 s and 1/7 s respectively. what much is the phase difference between the two particles after 0.1 s? in the dictionary of physics, the technical term ‘phase difference’ according to pitt (1977:278) is defined as ‘the difference of phrase between two sinusoidal quantities that have the same frequency’. the second and third rater gave score 3 to the technical term. it means they agreed that the term of ‘phase difference’ was accurate. meanwhile, the first rater gave score 1 to the technical term. the first rater had doubts about the technical term. the first rater then changed his perspective and said that the term of ‘phase difference’ was a little less accurate but did not change the original meaning. the technical term still delivered the meaning well. meanwhile, in the dictionary of physics, the term of m. permata sari & i. yuliasri / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 111 ‘phase difference’ existed. then, i confirmed to a physics lecturer in semarang state university about the ‘phase difference’ term. she thought that the term of ‘phase difference’ was accurate. thus, the term of ‘phase difference’ included in accurate data. 2.2.1.7 accurate data (score 2, 3, and 1 by the three raters) the example data for ‘accurate’ data with the score 2 by the first rater, score 3 by the second rater, and score 1 by the third rater can be seen from the following data: a. datum no. 36 st : simpangan adalah jarak antara posisi beban terhadap titik kesetimbangan. tt : displacement is the distance between the position of the weight and the equilibrium point. in the dictionary of physics, the technical term ‘displacement’ according to pitt (1977:110) is defined as ‘a change in position; the distance moved by a given particle of a system from its position of rest when acted upon by a disturbing force’. the second rater gave score 3 to the technical term. it means the second rater agreed that the term of ‘displacement’ was accurate. meanwhile, the first rater gave score 2 to the technical term and the third rater gave score 1 to the technical term. the first rater thought that the technical term was not quite accurate. however, the first rater also thought that the technical term still delivered the meaning well. the third rater thought that the term of ‘displacement’ was not too good translation of ‘simpangan’. the third rater thought that the translation of ‘simpangan’ was ‘deviation’. however, based on the dictionary of physics, the term ‘deviation’ according to pitt (1977:100) is defined as ‘the difference between an observation and its true value’. the meaning of the ‘deviation’ term was not suitable with the term referred in the target text. the third rater suggested me to ask the physics lecturer. then, i confirmed to a physics lecturer in semarang state university about the ‘displacement’ term. she thought that the term of ‘displacement’ was accurate. then, in the dictionary of physics, the term of ‘displacement’ existed. thus, the term of ‘displacement’ included in accurate data. 2.2.2 inaccurate criteria the inaccurate data was not suitable based on the dictionary of physics. the term which i found in the data was different from the term in the dictionary of physics. the datum of ‘inaccurate’ data was given the score 1 by the first rater, score 2 by the second rater, and score 2 by the third rater. the datum of inaccurate data can be seen from the following datum: a. datum no. 27 st : hukum kekekalan energi mekanik dapat digunakan untuk menentukan kecepatan lepas (escape velocity) suatu benda. tt : the law of mechanical energy conservation can be used to determine the escape velocity of an object. in the target text i found the term ‘energy conservation’. however, in the dictionary of physics, the technical term should be ‘conservation of energy’. the term ‘conservation of energy’ according to pitt (1977:80) is defined as ‘the principle of the total energy in any system is constant’. besides, i also confirmed to the first, second and the third rater about their perspectives on the ‘energy conservation’ term. the first rater thought that the term of ‘energy conservation’ was inaccurate or the translation of technical term is inaccurate (or deleted). the second rater thought that the ‘energy conservation’ term changed the original meaning of the technical term. then, the second rater thought m. permata sari & i. yuliasri / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 112 that the term should not be ‘energy conservation’ but ‘conservation of energy’ because there were differences on cultural background between people who are mastering in physics and english lecturers. the second rater thought that sometimes the use of ‘energy conservation’ term was not a problem for english lecturers or english students. however, it might cost difference for people who are studying physics. the third rater had the same perspective as the second rater. the third rater also thought that the term ‘energy conservation’ should be ‘conservation of energy’. the third rater thought that the term ‘conservation of energy’ was the term which usually being used by people who are studying physics. i also thought that the term ‘conservation of energy’ was the most suitable term to replace the ‘energy conservation’ term. thus, the term of ‘displacement’ in the target text included in inaccurate data. 3. the relation between accuracy rating and translation procedures no translation procedure level of accuracy rating rater 1 rater 2 rater 3 frequency data number frequency data number frequency data number 1. equivalence a.accurate (score 3) 66 6, 7, 11, 12, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 26, 28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34, 37, 38, 39, 40, 46, 49, 50, 51, 55, 56, 57, 59, 61, 65, 67, 68, 69, 70, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 100, 104, 105, 106, 108, 112, 113, 114, 115 91 2, 3, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 26, 28, 29, 31, 32, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 43, 49, 50, 51, 54, 55, 56, 57, 59, 60, 61, 62, 64, 65, 66, 68, 69, 70, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84 ,85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 96, 97, 98, 101, 103, 104, 105, 106, 108, 109, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119 96 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39, 40, 43, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 55, 56, 57, 60, 61, 62, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 96, 97, 98, 100, 101, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117 b.not quite 31 1, 2, 3, 11 1, 7, 22, 33, 3 54, 59, 72 m. permata sari & i. yuliasri / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 113 accurate (score 2) 8, 9, 10, 13, 22, 24, 35, 36, 43, 47, 48, 54, 60, 64, 66, 71, 72, 80, 87, 88, 96, 97, 98, 101, 107, 109, 111, 117 46, 47, 48, 67, 71, 100, 107 c.inaccurate (score 1) 3 14, 62, 103 1 36 2. calque a.accurate (score 3) 13 5, 41, 42, 52, 53, 58, 63, 95, 99, 102, 110, 118, 119 14 4, 5, 25, 30, 41, 42, 52, 53, 58, 63, 95, 99, 102, 110 16 4, 5, 25, 30, 41, 42, 52, 53, 58, 63, 95, 99, 102, 110, 118, 119 b.not quite accurate (score 2) 3 4, 25, 30 1 27 1 27 c.inaccurate (score 1) 1 27 3. transpo sition a.accurate (score 3) 1 44 2 44, 45 2 44, 45 b.not quite accurate (score 2) c.inaccurate (score 1) 1 45 total 119 119 119 table 3.3 recapitulation of accuracy rating based on the table above, there were three translation procedures applied in the data by the translator. the three translation procedures were equivalence procedure, calque procedure and transposition procedure. the table showed that the number of accurate data was dominated by equivalence procedure, followed by calque procedure and transposition procedure. even though some of the accuracy data of each rater were different, but mostly the accurate data were dominated by equivalence procedure in each rater’s assessment as shown in the table. m. permata sari & i. yuliasri / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 114 conclusions based on the thorough analysis, i found that in translating physics term from indonesian into english need to apply equivalence procedure. the reason was because in translating technical terms such as physics terms, the translator found the equivalence in the source language and in the target language. the data in this research showed the physics terms in indonesian as the source language were translated into english as the target language. even though in this research indonesian as the source language, but many physics terms in indonesian borrowed the physics terms from foreign language especially english and not the reverse. the importance in using equivalence in this research was to respect the origin of the physics terms. based on the reason mentioned beforehand, the equivalence procedure was the most accurate procedure to be applied in this research. the other translation procedures which were found in translating physics terms in this research were calque procedure and transposition procedure. each technical term was translated differently based on translation procedures proposed by vinay and darbelnet. there were 119 data were analyzed in the book. the translation procedure mostly used was equivalence procedure with the frequency of 100 times (84%), followed by calque procedure with the frequency of 17 times (14.28%) and transposition procedure with the frequency of 2 times (1.68%). the application of equivalence procedure in the data was appropriate. it made the translation of physics terms was accurate without distortion of meaning. beside the translation procedures, the technical term was assessed for its accuracy. the assessment of accuracy itself was done by three raters. the three raters found that around 99.15% of the data were translated accurately, whereas the rest 0.84% of the data were inaccurately translated. the data was gained by the following description; the accuracy of the equivalence procedure was 84.03%, followed by calque procedure with the accuracy 13.44%, and transposition procedure with the accuracy 1.68%. thus, the equivalence procedure was mostly used and had the highest accuracy rating in this research. as overall, the physics terms were translated accurately. the accuracy of the translation was 99.15% from 118 data. it means that almost all the data was accurate. in this case, the translator applied the proper translation procedures in the data so the translation of physics term in physics bilingual book for senior high school year xi was accurate without distortion of meaning. the application of translation procedures was very important because it affected the result of the translation. the selection of translation procedure in translating technical terms was very essential because it affected the validity of the data. therefore, translator’s competence and cautious work were really needed. besides, the outcome of the data in this research was considered good enough. references agung, i gusti ayu mahatma. 2016. translations procedures in translating religious terms. vol. 23, no. 45. available at: https://ojs.unud.ac.id/index.php/linguistika/article /download/23711/15528 [accessed 11 october 2016] bassnett, s. 2002. translation studies. usa and canada: routledge. available at http://www.translationindustry.ir/uploads/pdf/translation_studies,_3rd_ed_-_bassnett, _susan_(routledge).pdf [accessed 11 october 2014] collins, allan. et al. 2004. design research: theoretical and methodological issues. lawrence erlbaum associates. inc.: the journal of the learning 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(2009). research design: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. california: sage publications. green, a. (2013). washback in langauge testing. international journal of english studies, 39-51. hughes, a. (1989). testing for language teachers. cambridge: cambridge university press. pan, y. c. (2009). a review of washback and its pedagogical implications. vnu journal of science, foreign language, 215-228. pizarro, m. a. (2010). exploring the washback effect of a high-stakes english test on the teaching english in spanish upper secondary schools. revista alicantina de estudio ingleses, 149-170. polesel, j., duffer, n., & turnbull, m. (2012). the experience of education: the impact of high stakes testing on school students and their families. sydney: the whitlam institute within the university of western sydney. tayeb, y. a., aziz, m. s., ismail, k., & khan, a. b. (2014). the washback effect of the general secondary english examination (gsee) on teaching and learning. gema online, 83-103. trisanti, n. (2016). integrating extensive reading into content subject course teaching in tertiary level. the 5th eltlt international conference proceedings, 466-470. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 49 elt forum 6 (1) (2017) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the use of think-pair-share in teaching reading comprehension a case study of the english teachers in smkn 1 randudongkal in the academic year of 2016/2017 faiza maulida english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in june 2017 approved in july 2017 published in august 2017 ________________ keywords: think-pairshare, cooperative learning, reading comprehension ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this study was conducted to explore the english teachers’ attitude toward the implementation of think-pair-share in teaching reading comprehension. the aim was to describe the implementation of think-pair-share in teaching reading comprehension by english teachers, reveal the difficulties faced by english teachers in teaching reading comprehension using think-pair-share technique, and explain how the english teachers solve their problem in teaching reading comprehension using think-pair-share technique. in this study, i used qualitative method. the participants of this research were all of the english teachers in smk n 1 randudongkal in the academic year of 2016/2017. in this research, i used questionnaire, interview, classroom observation and document analysis as data collection methods. the result revealed that the implementation of think-pair-share in teaching reading comprehension was quiet different for each teacher such as including all language skills, using game as variation, or implementing think-pairshare with no variation. this study showed that there were two main problems faced by the english teachers: the lack of preparation and students’ limited vocabulary. in conclusion, think-pair-share was an interesting and helpful technique that helped english teachers in the teaching and learning process. besides, it helped students to be actively engaged in the classroom activity. © 2017 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: unnes_english@yahoo.com f. maulida / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 50 introduction reading skill is considered as an essential skill as well as other three language skills. according to alyousef (2006), reading can be seen as an “interactive” process between a reader and a text which leads to automaticity or (reading fluency). in this process, the reader interacts dynamically with the text as he/she tries to elicit the meaning and where various kinds of knowledge are being used: linguistic or systemic knowledge as well as schematic knowledge. in conclusion, the reader communicates with the text and tries to elicit the meaning of information that they got from it. we are not only reading the text, but also trying to understand what we are reading. ability or skill of comprehending a message in the text is the goal of reading in a language instruction. reading comprehension is the process of reconstructing meaning from text. process of reconstructing meaning is the process of transform the information that is presented and illustrated how the readers can show they understand what they read (sormin, 2011). reading is essential because through reading activity, the students can improve knowledge, information, news, attitudes, and wise in thinking (listiani, 2014). although reading is a familiar activity for students, this skill is still not easy to be mastered. in 2015, programme for international student assessment (pisa) revealed that the reading skill level of indonesian students is 69 from 76 countries which has been surveyed. this result was lower than vietnam which has the level of 12 of all the surveyed countries (natalia, 2016). it indicates that indonesian students have very low average in reading comprehension. comprehending the texts is not easy for students especially in english since they have to give all of their attention to the text. there may be some distractions that they face along the reading process. discovering the correct methods is an essential to help teachers in teaching reading comprehension to their students in order to make them interest in learning english with the result that the goal of teaching reading can be achieved and it will give impact on the improvement of students‟ reading comprehension ability. in this study, i chose cooperative learning as an alternative in teaching reading comprehension. cooperative learning is a successful teaching strategy in which small teams, each with students of different levels of ability, use a variety of learning activities to improve their understanding of a subject. each member of a team is responsible not only for learning what is taught but also for helping teammates learn, thus creating an atmosphere of achievement. students work through the assignment until all group members successfully understand and complete it (kagan, 1994). think-pair-share technique has many beneficial aspects for students. this kind of model could help students to improve their communicative skill by discussing with their classmates (sugiarto, 2014). this study is drawing from the theory of bojovic (2010) as a reference about reading skill. bojovic (2010) stated that “a reading skill is a cognitive ability a person is able to use when interacting with the written text”. some students still find it difficult to master reading comprehension as suparman (2012) explained that “the difficulties in comprehending the texts have been the main focused to find the solution” (as cited in palupi, 2013). shehu (2015) explained that “this difficulty in reading comprehension occurs for many reasons, the three most important ones are listed as follows: (1) vocabulary. new words are seen by students as a great obstacle to comprehend a text. it is necessary for students to properly comprehend the words or the vocabulary of a written passage in order to be able to decode the message, thus comprehend a written text; (2) working memory. the students often complain of the fact that they cannot recall the information they just read. they need to hold the information in working memory long enough for the information to be more extensively processed, and often some of them lack it; (3) type of text. the type of text is another factor that influences a lot reading comprehension. it is considered to be one f. maulida / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 51 major barrier. some texts are easy to be perceived some others are very difficult.” to solve the problem, teachers need to provide appropriate method to help students. this study also used a theory from kagan and high (2002). “in classrooms in which the kagan structures are used regularly, students for whom english is a second language learn both english and academic content far more quickly and far more thoroughly than when traditional instructional strategies are used. with the kagan approach, rather than planning cooperative lessons, we make cooperative learning part of any lesson by including structures”. cooperative learning is a well known method as a successful teaching strategy. think-pair-share, one of the structures developed by frank lyman and his colleagues at the university of maryland, can be one of the solutions for reading comprehension problem. this structure will be beneficial for students since it is one way to incorporate cooperative learning into a classroom in order to give students the opportunity to actively process and develop a meaningful understanding of class material (sampsel, 2015). reading is a tool for human to be able to communicate with others in the way of written form. unfortunately, since many students still find it difficult to master reading comprehension, perhaps the implementation of cooperative learning method will help to solve the problem. the use of think-pair-share is expecting that the students will be motivated to improve their ability to read well in english. the success of this implementation will be reached if the teachers play their role as effective as it should be. various techniques are provided in cooperative learning to help teachers in teaching process. one of them is think-pair-share. this technique can be one of the solutions not only to solve students‟ difficulties in reading comprehension but also to help teachers by providing appropriate technique to teach reading comprehension. there are many previous studies that discussed thinkpair-share in helping students improving their skills. for instance, narzoles (2012) conducted his study on the academic performance of esl students and the results revealed that the experimental group exposed to the think-pair-share strategy had enhanced academic performance after the treatment with 15.59 mean over the 11.10 of the control group.and.bataineh (2015) found that students taught using cooperative learning strategies (co op-co op and think-pair-share) had mean gain scores significantly different from those students taught using traditional strategy in the delayed posttest which lead to the fact that using such strategies in teaching undergraduate students at university enhanced the memorization of the students. then, raba (2017) for his research focused on improving students‟ oral communication skills in efl classrooms and he also found that tps made teachers became more aware of the importance of tps strategy in improving students‟ oral skills. next, some researchers tried to find out the effectiveness of think-pair-share in improving students‟ ability in reading comprehension such as asl et al. (2010) and khaghaninejad (2015). they focused on the achievement of the students in reading comprehension. their study showed that the treatment meaningfully influenced learner‟s reading ability and helped them get higher scores. those examples above showed that think-pair-share used by many researchers in various of skills improvement. however, few studies have been done focusing only on the improvement of students‟ skills. it means, the research only focused on the result of the implementation of thinkpair-share technique whether or not the technique gave impact on students‟ ability such as in reading or speaking. many previous studies such as i have mentioned before only focused on the improvement of students‟ score to indicate the success of think-pair-share technique implementation in a certain skill. only a few revealed the process of cooperative learning implementation. therefore, i conducted a research that focused on the english teachers‟ attitude toward the implementation of think-pair-share in teaching reading comprehension. i emphasized on the process of the implementation of think-pair-share in teaching reading comprehension by the english teachers. the process of implementing think-pair-share in teaching reading comprehension f. maulida / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 52 included how teachers implemented think-pair-share technique in the classroom, what difficulties that they might face and how they solved the problems. methodology of the research this research was a case study since the main purpose of this study is to describe the implementation of think-pair-share strategy for teaching reading comprehension by english teachers. according to bogdan and taylor, qualitative method is a research method that produces a descriptive data, for example written words or spoken words from the respondents and their attitudes (as cited in widiastuti, 2010). case study is essentially heuristic; it reflects in the events portrayed features which may be construed as a manifestation of some general, abstract theoretical principle (hammersley, 2000). the study was conducted in smkn 1 randudongkal. the participants of this study were all of the english teachers in smkn 1 randudongkal. there were three english teachers; mr. budi, mrs. ida, and mr. toni (all are pseudonyms). the english teachers were practitioners of cooperative learning since they usually use the method in their teaching and learning process. the data in this study were taken from the questionnaire, the interviews, the classroom observations, and document analysis. the procedures of collecting data were as follows: (1) i gave the questionnaire as soon as i met the english teachers and asked them to write down their answer in the blank space; (2) after the questionnaires were done, i conducted the classroom observation. i asked the english teachers to use think-pair-share in their class activity; (3) i did the interview after the classroom observation was done. the questions were the same as in the questionnaire (essay questions) but in addition to the prepared questions that i already had, i made other questions that i generated from classroom observations; (4) the document analysis was done throughout the study. the document that i analyzed was the lesson plan of the english teachers. then, the procedures of analyzing data in this study were in three steps: (1) data reduction, i collected all the data from questionnaire, interview, classroom observation, and document analysis. then, i selected and simplified the data until it transformed into important data that i used for presenting the result; (2) data display, the data display of this research was provided in the descriptive form. the findings were descriptively explained according to what had happened in the field. in this step, i organized all the data and described the answer of the problem statement, such as describing the implementation of think-pair-share in teaching reading comprehension in smk n 1 randudongkal and describing the problem faced by the english teachers and how they solved them; (3) conclusion drawing and verification, the conclusion was gained based on the data obtained. result and analysis the use of think-pair-share technique in teaching reading comprehension the data were gathered from the questionnaires, the interviews, the classroom observations, and document analysis. in this research, there were three english teachers as research participants: mr. budi, mrs. ida, and mr. toni (all are pseudonyms). all of the english teachers implemented k13 in their teaching and learning process. k-13 or the curriculum 2013 is a recent policy of the ministry of education in its efforts to continuously improve the quality of education in indonesia. every class in smkn 1 randudongkal used this curriculum according to the policy of the school. in this research, i observed all of the three english teachers. since they had more than one classes, i decided to observe two classes for each teacher so i observed six classes in total. the classes were chosen randomly based on the schedule and the agreement of the english teachers and the f. maulida / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 53 researcher. since this research was a qualitative case study, the findings were presented in the form of descriptive explanation. based on the data, i present the findings as follows: the implementation of think-pair-share technique in teaching reading comprehension i observed two classes of xii tkr (teknik kendaraan ringan) they were xii tkr 2 and xii tkr 3. all of the students of xii tkr 2 are male while xii tkr 3 there are only three female students. from the document analysis, mr. budi did not make lesson plan for this meeting because both classes would only discuss the questions from examination sheet since they were preparing for their examination school. the lesson plan i got from mr. budi was the one which he used in the previous meeting when he taught the material for semester one such as factual report, offering services, giving news, and etc. instead of english, the lesson plan still used indonesian language. cooperative learning method was not stated in the lesson plan. mr. budi used some tools for supporting his teaching and learning process such as laptop, lcd, and speaker. he implemented the technique in both classes with the right steps during the teaching and learning process. mr. budi and the students were discussing the reading section. first, students read the text by their own. next, they were asked to answer the questions with their friends next to them. and then, they came in front of the class in pair to explain their answer. in the beginning of the lesson, mr. budi did not explain the procedure of think-pair-share. he only told the definition to the students briefly. when he used think-pair-share technique in his classes, the students were active and enthusiastic. the students were not afraid to ask question if there was something that they did not understand. many students have to be chosen by the teacher in order to answer the question, yet there were some students who were brave enough rising their hand and coming forward to give their ideas about their answer. all language skills were included in mr. budi‟s class activities. for instance, writing skill when the students wrote some difficult words in the whiteboard and then speaking skill when the students came in front of class to present their answer with the reason. during the lesson, the teacher often used indonesian even javanese instead of english. he thought that the comprehension of the students were the first thing to be concerned in order to understand the material. mr. budi also gave variation in his teaching and learning process like involving the listening activity. for example, if there was a word which the students did not know the meaning, he would open the cambridge dictionary in his laptop and together with the students looked for the word. in terms of giving compliment, mr. budi always did so to those who could answer the question correctly but he did not blame those who could not. during the interview, mr. budi explained that there were some differences among classes he taught such as character and gender of the students. he explained that female students were more sensitive than male students so that he had to be careful of what he said. for instance, mr. budi sometimes used sarcasm as a joke to his male students, but he would not do so in a class full of female students. he was afraid if he would hurt their feelings (female students) and it would affect their interest in learning in his class. based on all of the data i obtained and analyzed, it was found that mr. budi implemented think-pair-share technique in the same way in all classes that i have observed. he used the technique step by step appropriately. there was not so much variation, yet mr. budi was concerned more about including all language skills in the teaching and learning process such as reading, writing, listening and speaking skill as i have explained above. the use of aids for instance lcd and speaker also implemented during class activities. the implementation of think-pair-share technique in teaching reading comprehension exactly as its procedure with no variation f. maulida / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 54 two classes that i observed in mrs. ida‟s classes were x tphp (teknologi pengolahan hasil pertanian) and x ak 2 (akuntansi). these classes were the opposite of mr. budi‟s classes. both classes were dominated by female students. mrs. ida did not make a lesson plan for her teaching and learning process. instead, she used the lesson plan from the last year academic. in the lesson plan, cooperative learning method was not stated. the methods used were scientific learning, discussion and assignments. there was no specific technique that she would use in her classes. the same as mr. budi, mrs. ida used indonesian for her lesson plan. during the observation, she did not use aids such as power point, video, lcd, laptop, etc while in the lesson plan it was written that she would use aids. mrs. ida did not explain the procedure of think-pair-share to the students. in mrs. ida‟s class activities, there were included reading-speaking skill and reading-writing skill. there was no significant listening skill. there were no any variations in the used of think-pair-share technique by mrs. ida. she implemented the technique as appropriate as its procedure. in the teaching and learning process, the teacher rarely gave compliment to the students. the students were less active and seldom spoke their mind. the teacher often should choose and enforce the students to answer the questions. mrs. ida also infrequently motivated the students to be brave to give their opinion. related to all of the data i had got, i found that the implementation of think-pair-share technique in mrs. ida‟s classes aligned with its procedure. in the questionnaire, mrs. ida also wrote that she always followed the steps orderly. each class received the same instructions. there was no variation when mrs. ida implemented the technique. students stick to the text and then answered the questions which given by the teacher. mrs. ida also did not use any aids such as lcd, laptop or speaker to help her in the teaching and learning activities. she only relied on the handout (lks) that she brought. the implementation of think-pair-share technique in teaching reading comprehension combined with game the last observation that i did was in mr. toni‟s classes. two classes which i observed were xi ak 2 and xi ak 3. for both classes, mr. toni did not make a lesson plan to help him in the teaching process. the first class that i observed was xi ak 3. this class was dominated by female students. the procedure of think-pare-share was not mentioned by mr. toni. he asked the students to read the text entitled “cow” and then answer the questions with their seatmate. the students presented their answer in the written form. the second class was xi ak 2 and it was also dominated by female students. the material discussed was also report text but the teacher used variation in the teaching and learning process. for this class, mr. toni used a game which it is developed by himself. during the teaching and learning process, the students seemed active and enthusiastic to ask the group which came in front of class. yet, the game took a lot of time because all students must find the paper; as a result, not all of the group could come forward in front of class to share their ideas. from all of the data that i had got, i found that mr. toni implemented think-pair-share technique differently in each class. mr. toni used a game as a variation in the teaching reading using think-pair-share technique only in one class while the other class used the technique in the usual steps. also, in the end of the game, the students presented their topic in group not in pairs which was contradictive with the procedure of think-pair-share technique. the reason was to make it fast and encouraging students so that they brave enough to come forward in front of class and answered their friend‟s questions directly. in addition, mr. toni used aids in his teaching and learning process such as his laptop to input which group that already had come forward. problems faced by english teachers and how they solved them f. maulida / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 55 from the implementation of think-pair-share in reading comprehension, english teachers found some problems. it was based on the questionnaire, the interviews and the classroom observations two main problems were identified. lack of teacher’s preparation two of the english teachers agreed that think-pair-share technique was easy to be implemented. yet, one of them said that this technique rather difficult to be used because the teacher was lack of preparation. this problem seemed unpretentious yet it could obstruct the process of teaching and learning in class. this was the first main problem that i taught it could give impact in the teaching and learning activities. it was found by mrs. ida when she taught x tphp class. when i did the interview, mrs. ida admitted that she was lack of preparation because she was too busy. at that time, mrs. ida should have provided some questions for students to be answered. since mrs. ida had not make it yet, she had to make several questions right away in the class and it took time. it would be better if mrs. ida had already prepared the questions before the class began so that she would not be confused to think what question should be mentioned. based on that problem, the solution for the lack of teacher‟s preparation was made a good preparation. teachers had to make sure that it was well-prepared for the teaching and learning process. english teachers could start to make a good preparation by making a good lesson plan. moreover, as far as i know, teachers were obligated to make lesson plans to help them in teaching students. lesson planning is an important process in teacher trainees‟ gaining experience since it forces them to reflect on what to teach, how to teach, and how to evaluate (quoted from nesari & mina, 2014). in the case of mrs. ida, for the next class she used the questions that she made in the previous class so that she did not have to think again what questions should be mentioned. students’ limited vocabulary the main problem that mr. budi, mrs. ida, and mr. toni mentioned was the lack of students‟ vocabulary. not only from the interviews but also from the classroom observations that i did in six classes, it was true that many students had problem with their vocabulary. for instance, in one short passage which contained five to six lines students could find more than ten difficult words. to help students gained more vocabulary, there were some efforts from the english teachers to solve this problem. mr. budi used an electric dictionary in his laptop to help students understood the difficult words that they found in any text. mr. budi would ask the students to write all the difficult words in the whiteboard so that all of students could see the word list and even could take a note in their book. then, with the help of mr. budi, students looked for the meaning of the words together using an electric dictionary. the students would read the meaning of the difficult word in english sentence and they try to interpret it by them self with the directive of the teacher. since it was explained in english, they would also know more words or phrases. mrs. ida also used dictionary to solve the problem of students‟ vocabulary. through the interview mrs. ida explained that she would ask the students to open their dictionary to help them in understanding the meaning of the difficult words. students relied on their own dictionary to look for the meaning of the difficult word. mrs. ida would explain what the text was about after the students have done understanding the text by them self and then correct them if there any mistakes in interpreting the meaning. mr. toni had another way to help the students to improve their vocabulary mastery. he said that he would ask the students to memorize some vocabulary and then test them. however, this kind of method was infrequently used by mr. toni, so that the result was insignificant. another problem that faced by mr. toni was pronunciation of the students. he said that many students still did not f. maulida / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 56 speak english correctly. to overcome that problem, mr. toni asked the students to often speak in english. if they were miss pronouncing, mr. toni would correct them. discussion this study revealed that vocabulary was one of the reasons of difficulties in reading comprehension. specifically, the findings of this research showed that from six classes i have observed, there were many students that still have problem in understanding new words they found in text. it was also revealed by shehu (2015) that the reasons of difficulties in reading comprehension was vocabulary, working memory, and type of text. based on the research, we could see that the use of think-pair-share technique could help english teachers in teaching reading comprehension. they stated that this technique was easy enough to be implemented on students. english teachers made think-pair-share as a part of lesson activity in their class. this is related to the theory i used from kagan and high (2002) about including structures to make cooperative learning as part of any lesson in english classes in order to improve students‟ achievement. still, the success of teaching and learning process depends on how english teachers deliver the material to the students. it is related to the way english teachers communicate with their students. a good relationship between teachers and students is needed as it would be a key of successful learning. astuti and lammers (2017) also explained that teachers become one of the factors that influences the teaching and learning process especially in the implementation of cooperative learning. teachers‟ understanding of cooperative learning, which is part of the rules component, may create systemic tensions in an activity system. therefore, an effective implementation of cooperative learning (i.e., one that enhances learning) through the enactment of individual accountability requires support from its social environment, especially from the teachers and their understanding of cooperative learning (astuti & lammers, 2017). the quality of the relationship that the students and teachers have with each other would influence some factors such as academic achievement and student motivation. positive relationship improves student behavior and motivation to learn as well as their academic achievement (yunus et al, 2011). however, enthusiasm and motivation of the students were somehow changeable. it could be seen from the classroom observations such as found in mr. budi‟s classes when students started to get bored. english teachers have to be clever enough in order to keep students involve in the lesson activity and reduce the gap between the high-motivated students and low-motivated students in the teaching and learning process. this problem was also proved by widyaningsih (2014) in her study that the english teacher should also be creative in using interesting activities in order to attract the students‟ involvement in the teaching and learning process. during the classroom observations, with the use of think-pair-share technique, students‟ confident leveled up to some degree. for instance, students would rather come forward with their partner than stand alone in front of the class to speak their mind. in every class i have observed, the students hesitated to come forward voluntarily if they were alone. yet, with partner, students would be brave enough to show their ideas to others. related to the previous studies that i have reviewed before, palupi (2013) also revealed that think-pair-share technique made the students feel more confident in telling their ideas with their friends. from the interview that i had done, it showed that think-pair-share helped students to be active and creative. in this case, especially when students were given some questions, they would actively participate in the class activity. with their partner, students would seek the answers of the questions. then, they would deliver their answer with their creativity to arrange sentences by their own interpretation. the same finding was mentioned by raba (2017) and darsana (2010) from their study where they found that think-pair-share could make active and creative participation since think-pair-share gave students opportunities to show their creativity. f. maulida / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 57 since the students actively involved in the learning process, the class become alive and fun. students freely spoke their mind whether they wanted to ask something or answer the question or maybe gave their opinion about the topic being discussed. those kind of situation was also found by andik (2013), he explained that during the process of teaching learning using think-pair-share, the students were active and enthusiastic. the class was enjoyable and interesting during the teaching and learning process. from the explanation above, it could be stated that students prefer to work in groups rather than individually. students like to share and discuss their idea with their partner. as the previous study done by lange et al. (2016) explained that the participants of their research were more satisfied with think-pair-share technique as they prefer group work that promotes equal participants. this „share and discuss‟ activity could give many benefits for students in enhancing their ability. this task sharing allows students to be responsible for presenting what they learned (production of the target language) and paying attention to their peers‟ presentations. during peer interaction, which usually took place between two performances of individual accountability, learners provided vocabulary feedback to each other, which also means production of the target language (astuti & lammers, 2017). the alternation of information between students during peer interaction is essential for learners‟ language acquisition and development. conclusions from this study, i can conclude that the use of think-pair-share in reading comprehension was relatively easy to be implemented in the classroom activity. it showed that this technique was appropriate to teach students in reading comprehension. think-pair-share was an interesting and helpful techniques as all the english teachers mentioned in the questionnaire and also in the interview. through this research some problems were revealed. the first problem was the lack of teacher‟s preparation. this problem was mentioned by mrs. ida through the interview. secondly, one problem which all of the three english teachers mentioned in the interview was students‟ vocabulary mastery. from the classroom observations, it revealed that all of students did not have good mastery of english vocabulary. the first problem was the lack of teacher‟s preparation. this problem was mentioned by mrs. ida. for this difficulty, mrs. ida tried to solve it by paying attention more about preparing the materials before she started the next class. then, for students‟ vocabulary mastery problem, even though all of the three english teachers used dictionary to solve it, they had different version in their implementation. mr. budi used an electric dictionary in his laptop, mrs. ida let her students used their own dictionary, and mr. toni sometimes asked his students to memorize the vocabulary. references alyousef, h. s. (2006). teaching reading comprehension to esl/efl learners. journal of language and learning, 5(1), 63-73. andik. (2013). improving reading comprehension by using think, pair, and share technique. universitas islam malang, malang. asl, z.g., davarlbina, m., & abdi, r. (2015). the effect of cooperative learning on improving reading comprehension of efl learners. the iranian efl journal. 11(2), 30-40. astuti, p. & lammers, j.c. (2017). individual accountability in cooperative learning: more opportunities to produce spoken english. indonesian journal of applied linguistics, 7(1), 215-228. f. maulida / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 58 bataineh, m.z. (2015). think-pair-share, co op-co op and traditional learning strategies on undergraduate academic performance. journal of educational and social research, 5 (1), 217-226. bojovic, m. p. (2010). reading skills and reading comprehension in english for specific purposes. serbia: university of kragujevac. darsana, g. n. (2014). improving reading comprehension through think pair share technique of the tenth grade students' of smk pgri 4 denpasar in academic year 2013/2014. unpublished master‟s thesis, mahasaraswati denpasar university, denpasar, bali. hammersley, m. (2000). case study method: key issues, key texts. london: sage. kagan, s. (1994). cooperative learning. retrieved january 24, 2017, from http://www.kaganonline.com/ kagan, s. & julie high. (2002). kagan structures for english language learners. esl magazine. khaghaninejad, et al.. (2015). examining the effects of strategy-based instruction of reading passages to iranian undergraduate efl learners. international journal of english language an literature studies, 4, 96-110. lange, et al.. (2016). informal cooperative learning in small groups of scaffolding on participation. issues in educational research, 26. listiani, n. k. (2014). improving reading comprehension through think pair share at the eight grade students of smpn 2 abiansemal in academic 2013/2014. unpublished master‟s thesis, mahasaraswati dennpasar university, denpasar, bali. narzoles, d. t. g. (2012). think-pair-share: its effect on the academic performance of esl students. international journal of literature, linguistic & interdisciplinary studies, 1(3&4), 22-26). natalia, m. d. (2016, march 22). retrieved january 24, 2017, from harianjogja.com: http://www.harianjogja.com palupi, a. a., suparman, u., & suka, r.g. (2013). teaching reading comprehension through thinkpair-share (tps) technique. lampung university, bandar lampung. raba, a.a.a. (2017). the influence of think-pair-share (tps) on improving students‟ oral communication skills in efl classrooms. creative education, 8, 12-23. sampsel, a. (2013). finding the effects of think-pair-share on student confidence and participation. honors projects. paper 28. shehu, i. (2015). reading comprehension problems encountered by foreign language students, case study: albania, croatia. rome: mcser publishing. sormin, f. f. (2011). improving students' achievement in reading comprehension through thin pair share technique. medan. sugiarto, d. (2014). the implementation of think-pair-share model to improve students' ability in reading narrrative texts. international journal of english and education, 209. widiastuti, d. (2010). teachers’ difficulties in teaching their subjects in an immersion class. skripsi unpublished. semarang state university, semarang. widyaningsih, n. (2014). improving the eight grade students' reading skill through the think-pairshare technique at smp n 3 wonosari gunungkidul. unpublished master‟s thesis. state university of yogyakarta, yogyakarta. yunus, m.md, osman w.s.w, & ishak, n.m. 2011. teacher-student relationship factor affecting motivation and acadmeic achievement in esl classroom. procedia social and behavioral science, 15, 2637-2641. ika oktavianti / journal of economic education 1 (2) (2012) elt forum 7 (1) (2018) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt pop-up card to teach regular and irregular past verbs rizka d. a. a, sri wahyuni, arif suryo priyatmojo  putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) rizka d. a. a, et. al. / journal of english language teaching 7 (1) (2018) english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia 24 31 article info ________________ article history: received in april 2017 approved in may 2017 published in july 2017 ________________ keywords: pop-up card, past simple verbs, learning media. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this paper is based on an experimental research aiming to explain to what extent the achievement of the students who were taught by using pop-up card differs from those who were taught by using regular teaching media used by the teacher in attaining regular and irregular past verbs and to describe how effective pop-up card is to teach regular and irregular past verbs. the subject of the study was the students of viii c, as the control group, and viii d, as the experimental group, of one of junior high schools in semarang in the academic year of 2016/2017, consisting of 60 students, chosen by using convenience sampling. this study used pretest-posttest control group design as a part of quasi-experimental design. the experimental group was taught regular and irregular past verbs by using pop-up cards and the control group was taught by using regular teaching media used by the teacher. t-test of the data showed that tvalue is higher than ttable (2.494 > 1.67). it can be concluded that there was a significant difference between the achievement of the students who were taught by using pop-up card and those who are taught by using regular teaching media used by the teacher. © 2018 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: rizkadaa@gmail.com introduction grammar takes an important role in a language. gerot & wignell (1994:2) explain that grammar is a theory of language, of how language is put together and how it works. it includes the theory about putting words together or using appropriate verb form in sentences. thus, learning verb forms is important for grammar mastery to know how language is used appropriately. verbs are central to the description of an event because we organise the telling of the event around the process or action or state of affairs (alsagoff, 2008:107). verbs can be divided into three major categories, according to their function within the verb phrase, that are full verbs, primary verbs, and auxiliary verbs. morphologically, full verbs are considered under two heads: regular verbs (such as ‘call’) and irregular verbs (such as ‘drink’). irregular verbs differ from the regular verbs, that the past form and the –ed form participle of irregular verbs cannot be predicted by general rule from the base. (quirk, greenbaum, leech, & svartvik, 1985: 98) there are differences in regular and irregular verbs. it is explained by declerck, reed, & capelle (2006:24) that: the regular past tense indicative form consists of the stem of the verb and a suffix usually written as –ed. the fact that the addition of the suffix is sometimes accompanied by a minor spelling adjustment to the stem is not considered as relevant. verbs that form their past tense this way are called weak verbs or regular verbs... however, there are quite a few verbs in english that are irregular verbs or strong verbs. these verbs do not form their past tense by the addition of a suffix (mostly written as –ed) to the stem, but by various other means. because of the categorization of verb form changing, it is more difficult for english learners to master the verb form changing to apply into sentences appropriately. therefore, it is a necessity to find out how to learn effectively to master verb form changing as a part of learning grammar. there are problems related to grammar mastery for junior high school students in indonesia. the first one is that efl students commonly face difficult word structure in making grammatically correct sentences. the second, students are lack of vocabulary mastery, especially verb form changing. it makes the students to have difficulties in making sentences in english. in english, tenses indicate time. therefore, a sentence with wrong verb form will cause misunderstanding in meaning. thus, the students should learn verb form changing well, that could be by self learning or at school. the materials given in english classes at school can be devided into two. they are spoken and written materials. spoken materials include listening and speaking in language skills, while written materials include reading and writing. based on school-based curriculum, students of junior high school in indonesia study some genres of text. they are descriptive, report, procedure, recount, and narrative text. the language feature of the texts are different. descriptive, report, and procedure text use simple present tense, while recount and narrative text use simple past tense. to understand those tenses, students are supposed to have high achievement in mastering the verb form as the key of tenses. therefore, teachers should give them materials about verb forms and tenses in their classes. in 2013 curriculum, students are also supposed to understand tenses and be able to implement them into sentences or utterances. for example, students have to understand how to make sentences showing the information of daily activities using simple present tense, or stating past activities using simple past tense correctly. therefore, students are supposed to understand verb forms and be able to use the correct form of a verb to make grammatically correct sentences or utterances. from the statements above, it can be concluded that in both school-based curriculum and 2013 curriculum, there are materials that demand the students to learn tenses and acquire knowledge of verb forms related to them. based on the preliminary study conducted in one of the state junior high schools in semarang, it was found that the eighth graders of the junior high school had problems in attaining regular and irregular past verbs. it was indicated from the students’ scores in test of regular and irregular past verbs that were low. students need a medium to learn regular and irregular past verbs that can improve their understanding about the new verbs itself. for junior high school students, especially the eighth graders of junior high school, the medium should be interesting and communicative, so that it will be easier for them to remember the new verbs they just learn. according to thornbury (2002:25), the best of all subjects of word learning were subjects who were given the task of silently visualising a mental picture to go with a new word, what so called imaging. other tests have shown that easily visualised words are more memorable than words that don’t immediately evoke a picture. therefore, the researcher tries to propose a teaching medium that has a visualisation of what will be taught, that is regular and irregular past verbs. nowadays, pop-up card has been popular. it has been used to make a birthday card, special gift, thanksgiving card, etc because of its fascination. students of junior high school are mostly interested in something like this. it will be good to make it as a medium for learning activities. pop-ups are easy to make. johnson (1992:7) says that he takes ‘pop-up’ book to be hinged paper sections attached to book pages in such a way as to lie flat when the book is closed, but which becomes three-dimensional when the book is open. since it is three dimensional, pop-ups are interesting and imaginable to resemble real situations. therefore, pop-ups are particularly effective as media in the teaching and learning process. pop-up cards that were used in this study have some contents. they are verb introduction table, 3d images as the visualization of the verb meaning in context, and questions containing the verb. the verb table contains a verb in infinitive and past simple form. table 1.1. the content of pop-up card: verb table infinitive past simple stop stopped questions provided in the pop-up cards are in past tense, so they are effective to stimulate the students to practice making sentences by using past simple verbs. the example of the questions is “why did you stop playing game?”, followed by 3d image which visualizes a student who stopped playing games. by using that question, the students are expected to answer in past tense by implementing the past simple verb “stopped”. one pop-up card contains of 5 verbs, with 5 visualizations and 5 questions. each card was used by 2 students for collaborative learning. pop-up cards used in this research were designed for learning regular and irregular past verbs, for both the content and the layout of the cards. therefore, it is expected that the pop-up card is effective and efficient to learn the material, yet it has not been proved by any preliminary study. therefore, this research was aimed to measure to what extent it is effective to implement pop-up card as a medium for students to learn english regular and irregular past verbs through an experimental research entitled “the effectiveness of pop-up card to teach regular and irregular past verbs”. methodology of the research in the effort to achieve the objectives of the research, an experimental research as a part of quantitative researches was conducted. this research was done at one of junior high schools in semarang in the academic year of 2016/2017. the population of this research was the eighth grade students of one of junior high schools in semarang in the academic year of 2016/2017. the students are devided into 6 classes. they are viii a until viii f. there are two groups in experimental studies. they are experimental group and control group. by using convenience sampling, two classes were chosen as the two groups. viii d was chosen as the experimental group, while for the control group, viii c was chosen. both groups were chosen based on the consideration that they were willing to take parts in the study and that they have the relatively same ability according to their preliminary achievement in the previous class material before the research was conducted. the experimental group was taught by using pop-up card as the medium in the teaching and learning process. meanwhile, the control group was taught by using regular teaching media used by the teacher. the teaching material for both groups was regular and irregular past verbs, or what so called past simple verbs. the research was conducted beginning from august 6th, 2016 until august 29th, 2016. there were seven agendas in seven weeks in the research. the first one was asking permission to do the researrch in the school. the next agenda was giving try-out test to one class other than the control and experimental groups. the third agenda was giving pretest to both control and experimental groups. then, the next three meetings were used to give treatments to the groups. the last agenda in the school was giving posttest to both groups. each of agendas was done once in a week. the research used pretest-posttest control group design as a part of quasi-experimental design. in this design, pretest was firstly done for the two groups. however, since the items of the pretest were multiple choice test items, try-out test was conducted before the pretest. it was aimed to choose valid items for the actual pretest of the study. try out test is used to choose the items which meet the criteria of a good test item for the actual test. it was administered before the pretest and posttest were conducted to collect data. the students in the class which was used for try-out test were informed that the material of the test was regular and irregular past verbs. after the try-out test had been finished, the items of the test were analysed to choose which items met the criteria of a good test item for the actual test, that were valid and reliable. the computation needed in this test were validity and reliability tests, and item analysis of difficulty level and discriminating power. after the pretest was done in both the control and experimental groups, treatments were given to both groups. the treatment for the experimental group was teaching a material of regular and irregular past verbs by using pop-up card as the medium of the teaching and learning process. meanwhile, in the control group, the students got the same materials, but they were taught by using regular teaching media used by the teacher. there were three meetings of the teaching and learning process. after the treatments were done for both groups, posttest was given to both groups to know the result after getting treatment. both pretest and posttest were done in 80 minutes. then, the results were computed statistically. the source of the data is the result of the students’ pretest and posttest scores. the type of the data is quantitative data, in numeric form. the data was obtained through the students’ document of tests result. after that, the data were analyzed through a statistical analysis in order to draw a conclusion by using sample test and hypothesis test. sample test was done before the study to see whether the sample distribution is normal or not and to see whether the sample is homogeneous or not. the sample test includes normality test and homogeneity test. the normality test was calculated by using chi square formula. meanwhile, the homogeneity test was computed by using barlett formula from the pretest and posttest scores of both experimental group and control group as the source of the data. the test other than sample test was hypothesis test that was measured by using t-test formula. the first data computed in this study was the control group students’ score of pretest. after that, the calculation was continued based on the data of the experimental group students’ scores. the mean score, the normality and homogeneity of the pretest was computed and analysed. then, the students’ scores of posttest were calculated. the mean score, the mean score difference between the pretest and posttest mean scores of both groups, and the normality and homogeneity of the posttest were analysed. the computation of the data for a final result was done by using t-test formula. the value of tvalue was consulted with ttable with dk = n1 + n2 -1 in which the significance level is 5%. if tvalue ≥ ttable so the data is considered to have a significant difference in the significance level. after the data has been calculated by using t-test formula, then null hypothesis (h0) is determined whether it is accepted or not. if the tvalue ≥ ttable so h0 is rejected. in the contrary, if tvalue ≤ ttable, it means that the h0 is accepted. result and discussion the result of the study was obtained by analysing the data that were the students’ scores of the pretest and posttest of both control and experimental groups. there were four steps in the process of collecting the data. they were conducting try-out test, pretest, giving treatment, and administering posttest at the end of the activity in the groups. firstly, try-out test was conducted to identify the item validity, reliability, difficulty level, and discriminating power. the try-out test consisted of 50 multiple choice items. the first test was sample test, consisting of validity test and reliability test. pearson-product moment was used to calculate the item validity. the result of the calculation showed that there were 30 valid items and 20 invalid items. to find out the reliability of the test, k.r. 20 (kuder-richardson number 20) formula was used. based on the result of the caomputation by using the formula, the reliability of the try-out test items was 0.900. since the rvalue (0.900) was higher than rtable (0.361), so the try-out test is considered to be reliable. after being done with sample test, the item analysis was done. the first analysis was the analysis of discriminating power to categorize the test items based on the ability of the students in the group’ answers. the results of the calculation showed that 18 items were poor items, 13 items were satisfactory items, 16 items were good items, and 3 items were excellent items. the next analysis was determined by using difficulty level analysis which was used to categorize the test items based on the difficulty level. the calculation of difficulty level was categorized in three categories. they are difficult, in range of 0.00 < id ≤ 0.30; medium, in range of 0.30 < id ≤ 0.70; and easy, in range of 0.70 < id ≤ 1.00. based on the categorization, it was revealed that there were 5 items that were easy, 23 items that were medium and 22 items that were difficult. from the calculation of try-out test by using some formulas, all of test items were analysed. some items were eliminated and some others were chosen to be used as the pretest items. as the result, 30 items were used for the pretest. the pretest was a multiple choice test consisting of 30 items. the posttest was a fill-in-the-blanks test consisted of 20 fill-in-the-blanks items and each of the posttest items was scored 5. the result of the pretest showed that there was no significant difference between the control and experimental groups’ achievements because tvalue is lower than ttable, i.e tvalue (-0.828) < ttable (1.67). therefore, it can be concluded that the ability of the students in both control and experimental groups were relatively the same before the treatments were given. the following table shows the result of the pre-test of both control and experimental groups: table 3.1. the result of the pre-test variance resource experimental group control group sum of scores 1783.333333 1850 number of students (n) 30 30 x 59.44 61.67 variance (s2) 129.5658 86.3985 standard deviation (s) 11.38 9.30 the mean score of the posttest in the control group was 83.50. meanwhile, the experimental group’s scored 88.33. it can be seen that the achievement of the experimental group was higher than the control group’s. below is the tabulation of the average scores of both groups: table 3.2. the result of the post-test variance resource experimental group control group sum 2650 2505 number of students (n) 30 30 x 88.33 83.50 variance (s2) 48.8506 60.6034 standard deviation (s) 6.99 7.78 after the data of mean scores of both control and experimental groups was obtained, an analysis of significance was computed. by using t-test formula, it was obtained that tvalue is higher than ttable, i.e tvalue (2.530) > ttable (1.67). therefore, the null hypothesis was rejected. the mean score difference of both control group and experimental group can be shown as follows: table 3.3. the mean score difference of the control and experimental groups group pretest posttest the difference control 61.67 83.50 21.83 experimental 59.44 88.33 28.89 the table above showed that the mean score of the pretest in the experimental group was 59.44. meanwhile, the mean score of the posttest was 88.33. therefore, there was a significant improvement between the pretest and posttest scores of students in the experimental group. the mean scores of the control group also showed an improvement. the pretest mean score was 61.67 and the posttest mean score was 83.50. in the control group, there was less improvement compared to the improvement of the experimental group. the improvement of the control group was only 21.83, while the experimental group’s was 28.89. it can be inferred that the difference of mean score in the experimental group was higher than that in the control group. thus, the experimental group showed better performance than the control group. to see if the data of the research can be analyzed or not, the normality and homogeneity tests were done. the normality test was done by using chi square formula. based on the computation of the control group students’ scores in the pretest, it was found that was 1.5482 and was 7.81, with α = 5% = 0.05 and dk = 6 – 3 = 3. because the was lower than , so the data were considered to be normally distributed. the next is the computation of the students’ scores in the experimental group. it was obtained that was 5.3974, and = = = 7.81. since the (5.3974) < (7.81), so the pretest score of the experimental group is said to have a normal distribution. the posttest of the control group is said to be normally distributed since the (3.618) was lower than (7.81). the same result was obtained in the computation of the experimental group students’ score on the posttest, that was 7.4773 and = = = 7.81. since the was lower than , so the posttest of the control group is said to have a normal distribution. homogeneity test is done to show that the population is exactly homogeneous or not. barlett test is used to test the homogeneity of population. the first computation was the homogeneity of the pretest of both control and experimental groups. the result of the computation showed that (1.182) < (3.84). therefore, the data is considered to be homogeneous. in the computation of the data in the posttest, it resulted that (1.182) < (3.84). it means that the data of both control and experimental groups in the posttest is homogeneous. since the objectives of the study were to explain to what extent the achievement of the students who were taught by using pop-up card differs from those who were taught by using regular teaching media used by the teacher in attaining regular and irregular past verbs and to describe how effective pop-up card to teach regular and irregular past verbs is, the result of all of data computation was analysed. from the data obtained after conducting the research, it was revealed that the achievement of the students who were taught by using pop-up card differs significantly from those who were taught by using regular teaching media used by the teacher. it was proven from the data of the students’ score in the pretest and posttest. the mean score of the control group in the pretest was 61.67, while the experimental group scored 59.44. it can be seen that both groups have relatively same ability before the treatments were given. in the posttest, the control group scored 83.50. meanwhile, the experimental group scored 88.33. from the analysis of the computation by using t-test, the result showed that there was significant difference between the achievement of the experimental and the control groups. conclusions from the computation and analysis of the data from the students’ pretest and posttest scores, a conclusion was drawn. the first is that the analysis of the result shows that the achievement of the students who were taught by using pop-up card differs significantly compared to those who were taught by using regular teaching media used by the teacher. it is proven by the computation and analysis of the students’ score in the pretest and posttest by using t-test formula. based on the comparison of the mean score difference of the posttest of both control and experimental groups, it was shown that the experimental group performed better than the control group after the treatment was given. the experimental group was taught regular and irregular past verbs by using pop-up card as the media of the learning process. in other words, it can be inferred that pop-up card, as the media of learning process, is effective to teach regular and irregular past verbs for students, especially grade eighth students of junior high school. after the research was finished, there were some suggestions, especially for teachers, to conduct effective and efficient learning process in the classroom. the first suggestion is to build fun atmosphere in the class by using interesting media for learning the material. therefore, the students will keep focusing on the material during the learning process. the second is to motivate the students to learn by themselves. using teaching methods and media which build the students’ creativeness to produce instead of taking something from the learning process will be effective for that. for example, by using questions provided in pop-up cards in this research, the students were stimulated to write sentences in past tense. references gerot, l., & wignell, p. (1994). making sense of functional grammar. sydney: gerd stabler antipodean educational enterprises. alsagoff, l. (2008). a visual grammar of english. jurong: longman. quirk, r., greenbaum, s., leech, g., & svartvik, j. 1985. a comprehensive grammar of the english language. new york: longman. declerck, r., reed, s., & capelle, b. (2006). the grammar of the english verb phrase volume 1: the grammar of the english tense system. berlin: walter de gruyter gmbh & co. kg. thornbury, s. (2002). how to teach vocabulary. charlbury: bluestone press. johnson, p. 1992. pop-up paper engineering : cross-curricular activities in design technology, english and art. new york & london: routledgefalmer. image2.jpeg image1.png ika oktavianti / journal of economic education 1 (2) (2012) elt forum 7 (1) (2018) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the practice of corrective feedback used by a teacher in teaching english endah triwinarsih, dwi rukmini, pasca kalisa  putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) endah t., dwi r., pasca k. / journal of english language teaching 7 (1) (2018) english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia 80 82 article info ________________ article history: received in april 2017 approved in may 2017 published in july 2017 ________________ keywords : spoken corrective feedback, teaching speaking, bilingual. abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this study focuses on the practice of corrective feedback used by a teacher in sd semesta bilingual school. the objective of the study is to describe the type of corrective feedback used by a teacher in sd semesta bilingual school and to describe the frequency of each type of corrective feedback used by the teacher in teaching english in sd semesta bilingual school. this study is a qualitative research. the data were taken by interviewing an english teacher and taking video of teaching and learning process. the videos were transcribed which in the next step, they were analyzed for gaining the result. the data were analyzed in the noticing, collecting, and thinking process according to the theory of qualitative data analysis by siedel (1998). according to the analysis, the teacher in sd semesta bilingual school used all kinds of corrective feedback. the result shows that explicit feedback is the most frequent corrective feedback which represents 24.14%. the other strategies are as follows: (2) recast occurs 17.24%, (3) clarification request occurs 13.79%,(4) metalinguistic feedback occurs 13.79%, (5) elicitation occurss 13.79%, and (6) repetition occurs 13.79%. the most dominant type of using corrective feedback is explicit correction. the implication of using corrective feedback on english speaking is that, the student will be brave to active on every teaching learning activity especially on speaking. © 2018 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: endahtri_winarsih@yahoo.co.id introduction according to arend (2007:17), “the ultimate purpose of teaching is to help students become independent and self-regulated”. based on the statement, teaching process should be effective in order to achieve the goal. the effectiveness of teaching depends on some parts of teaching. one of them is a teacher. building up students’ motivation to learn is one of the requirements of the effective teacher (arend 2007:19). in process of teaching, there are so many activities between the teacher and the students. they share ideas, solve a problem together, giving correction, discuss some issues, question and answer each other, and etc. it requires a good communication and skills both the teachers and the students. feedback can be positive or negative. positive feedback affirms that a learner response to an activity is correct. in pedagogical theory positive feedback is viewed as important because it provides affective support to the learner and fosters motivation to continue learning (ellis, 2009). feedback is what guides and develops a learner’s thinking and it is a very important part of the learning process. provided that feedback is constructive, it will have a positive effect on a students’ learning (irons, 2008). inappropriate feedback will not effective in the learning process. an example of inappropriate feedback is when feedback is given to encourage and make students feel better even though the quality of their production in poor. lightbown & spada (2006) explain six types of corrective feedback that have been identified in different studies, they are explicit feedback, recast, clarification request, metalinguistic feedback, elicitation and repetition. after the teacher gives feedback to the learners, they also give some responses for the teacher’s feedback such as repeating the teacher’s correction. according to ellis (2009), corrective feedback has been classified into two groups such as explicit feedback and implicit feedback or negative feedback and positive feedback. in the case of spoken corrective feedback, he created a combination of two taxonomies as illustrated in table 1. table 1.1. a taxonomy of corrective feedback strategies (ellis, 2009: 8) explicit implicit input –providing recast explicit correction output-prompting repetition metalinguistic explanation clarification request elicitation paralinguistic signal based on the table above, recast, repetition, and clarification request fall into the category of explicit corrective feedback types whereas explicit correction, metalinguistic, elicitation, and paralinguistic signal fall into implicit corrective feedback types. table 2 is intended to describe these strategies table 1.2. corrective feedback strategies (ellis, 2009: 9) corrective feedback strategy definition example recast the corrector incorporates the content word of the immediately preceding incorrect utterance and changes and corrects the utterance in some way (e.g., phonological, syntactic, morphological or lexical). l: i went there two times t: you’ve been.you’ve been there twice as a group? repetition the corrector repeats the learner utterance highlighting the error by means of emphatic stress. l: i will showed you. t: i will showed you. l: i will show you clarification request the corrector indicates that he/she has not understood what the learner said. l: what do you spend with your wife? t: what? explicit correction the corrector indicates an error has been committed, identifies the error and provides the correction. l: on may t: not on may. we say, “i will start in may.” elicitation the corrector repeats part of the learner utterance but not erroneous part and uses rising intonation to signal the learner should complete it. l: i’ll come if it will not rain. t: i’ll come if it….? paralinguistic signal the corrector uses a gesture or facial expression to indicate that the learner has made an error. l: yesterday i go to cinema. t: (gestures with right forefinger over left shoulder to indicate past) many studies have been done focusing on written corrective feedback to improve students’ written accuracy. some studies also compared the influence of writing corrective feedback and critical comentaries on students’ writing (fazio, 2001; fathman & whalley, 1990; kepner, 1991; semke, 1984) or the differential effect of different types of written corrective feedback (chandler, 2003; lalande, 1982). however, few studies have been done focusing on the use of spoken corrective feedback. some of studies focused on the practice of spoken corrective feedback used by lectures at universities (ozturk, 2016; calsiyao, 2015; anggoro, 2013). however, few studies have beeen done focusing on young learners spoken form. therefore, the researcher want to find out the use of corrective feedback focussing on young learners spoken production. the writer would like to focus on kinds of spoken corrective feedback and the frequency of each type methodology of the research this study is a case study. it was straightly related to an event or a case (sherman and webb 1988). the case occurred in a social life. the researcher took phenomena of the use of corrective feedback in teaching english. the subject of this study was an english teacher in sd semesta bilingual school, semarang. there were an english teacher and 20 students that involved in the research. the teacher was interviewed for the topic of this study. the researcher also interviewed the teacher and asked her what type of corrective feedback method she preferred to use in communicative activities and why she considered it the best one. besides, their teaching processes were recorded as the data. lyster and ranta (1997) indicated different types of error treatment, or corrective feedback, with student responses to that feedback. they were interested in finding what types of corrective feedback that lead students to correct their own errors. they identified six types of corrective feedback. table 2.1. corrective feedback strategies adopted from lyster & ranta (1997). corrective feedback strategy example recast teacher: what did she become when he grew up? student: she be a teacher teacher: good. she became a teacher. explicit feedback teacher: where will you go next week? student: i go to cinema. teacher: you mean i will go to cinema. student: oh sorry! yes, i will go to cinema. clarification request teacher: what makes you happy right now? student: i met my old friend yesterday. teacher: what? metalinguistic feedback student: why did go yesterday? teacher: who go? subject of sentence. student: why did he go yesterday? elicitation student: she like playing basket. teacher: like or likes? she. student: likes. she likes playing basket. repetition teacher: why did you go to cinema yesterday? student: i went to cinema it watch spiderman. teacher: it watch (with raising intonation). student: to watch. the data of this study was the transcripts of the recorded video of the teaching process and the results of interviewing the teacher. all of them were analyzed in the noticing, collecting, and thinking process according to the theory of qualitative data analysis by siedel (1998). noticing here meant gathering information by doing observation, interviewing objects of the study, taking a video, and etc. (seidel 1998). in this step, the researcher observed the transcript and coded the data that indicated the use of kinds of positive reinforcement. the data were coded with the requirements as follows. table 2.2. code of corrective feedback no. kinds of corrective feedback code 1. recast rec 2. repetition rep 3. clarification request cr 4. explicit feedback ef 5. elicitation e 6. metalinguistic feedback mf for example: teacher : where will you go? student : i go to school. teacher : you mean i will go to school. (rec) the next step was collecting. collecting meant sorting the data into pieces (seidel 1998). here, the researcher sorted the data based on the kinds of positive reinforcement. it was divided into six components. they were recast, repetition, clarification request, explicit feedback, elicitation and metalinguistic feedback. the researcher sorted the data by filling the table with certain data based on use of corrective feedback. examining the data to be analyzed was called thinking (seidel, 1998).there were three main goals in thinking process (1) making definition,(2) searching relationship of the data, and (3)making innovation about the research (seidel 1998). in order to achieve the goals of thinking process, the researcher counted the percentage of the use of the positive reinforcement. the percentage was counted by using this formula. ( x 100 % )kind of corrective feedback total of corrective feedback besides counting the percentage, the researcher used the result of interviewing the teachers and the result of counting the percentage. it was analyzed to get a new definition or innovation of the application of corrective feedback in teaching process. the last step was describing. the researcher described the result of the analysis in the thinking process. the description was also supported by the result of interviewing the teachers. by describing the data, the conclusion of the research was achieved. result and discussion after analyzing the data by classifying the corrective feedback based on lyster and ranta’s classification (1997) to find out the corrective feedback strategies, the findings are counted to find out the frequency, percentage, and the most frequent corrective feedback strategies used by a teacher in teaching english. the data analysis shows that, six kinds of corrective feedback strategies are used by the english teacher; (1) recast, (2) explicit feedback, (3) clarification request,(4) metalinguistic feedback, (5) elicitation, and (6) repetition, after counting the findings, the detailed results of the frequency and percentage of each corrective feedback strategies used by an english teacher in teaching english are displayed on the table below. table 3.1. frequency and percentage of the corrective feedback no corrective feedback frequency percentage 1. recast 5 17.24 % 2. explicit feedback 7 24.14 % 3. clarification request 4 13.79 % 4. metalinguistic feedback 4 13.79 % 5. elicittion 5 17.24 % 6. repetition 4 13.79 % total 29 100 % the data have a total of 29 teacher feedbacak involving 6 different corrective feedback strategies. the table shows that explicit feedback is the most frequent corrective feedback strategies used by an english teacher in teaching the second graders of sd semesta bilingual school. it occurs 7 times and represents 24.14%. the other strategies are as follows: (2) recast occurs 5 times and represents 17.24%, (3) clarification request occurs 4 times and represents 13.79%,(4) metalinguistic feedback occurs 4 times and represents 13.79%, (5) elicitation occurs 4 times and represents 13.79%, and (6) repetition occurs 4 times and represents 13.79%. the followings are the detailed description of each corrective feedback strategies used by an english teacher in teaching the second graders of sd semesta bilingual school. 1. recast recast can be defined as the teacher’s reformulation of all or part of a student utterance minus the error. thus, there was no clear indication as the case of explicit correction than an error occurred. by means of recast, teacher repeated the utterance with changes. the teacher used recast when she was teaching english in semesta bilingual elementary school. there were five data of corrective feedback. below is the sample of recast done by the teacher: the teaching learning process was held in semesta bilingual elementary school, based on the topic that would be discussed “animal” where the students were asked about the last material. one of the students got his turn to answer the question. example 1: t: have you done week: play zoo? week: play zoo? okay, last meeting what page did we learn? s: 29 t: last time, last time. s: 29 t: 28 – 29. correct. have you done with the work? the teacher correct the student’s error by simply repeating “29” and adding “28” without pointing out that an error has been made. example 2 t: and animal do. they have groups. how do we group them? s: in family. t: in their family. okay. let’s see. now, compare these two pictures. what pictures are they? when one of the students tried to answer another question from the teacher about “groups of animals”, then the teacher was evaluating the structure. the teacher repeats the student’s utterance “in family” and adds information by saying “in their family” to reformulate the error without pointing out that an error has been made. the teacher asked them to brave in many kinds of circumstance related with english speaking. below is the other wxample of recast correction: example 3 t: okay, risky where do you put the ball? s: under the parrot. t: parrots. under the parrots. okay. finish? have you got your ball? the teacher repeats the student’s utterance with correct form by adding “s” on student’s utterance. she adds information by saying “under the parrots” to reformulate the error without pointing out that an error has been made. 2. explicit correction explicit correction requires the teacher to provide the correct form and clearly shows that there is an error in the student’s utterance. as the teacher provides the correct form, he or she clearly indicates that what the student had said was incorrect. the english teacher in semesta bilingual elementary school used explicit correction as the corrective feedback. below is the example based on the observation: example 4 s: is there something you want to know about an animal? our keepers.. t: zoo keepers. s: zoo keepers can answer all your questions. when the students was doing monologue about “animal’s zoo”, there were some mistakes and noted by the teacher. the teacher corrects the student’s error clearly by saying “zoo keeper” when the student makes an error when he says “our keepers”. the teacher gives him the correct form then the student corrects his error by repeating the teacher’s utterance “zoo keepers can answer all your questions.” below is the other example of students’ errors and teachers’ correction using metalinguistic feedback: example 5: s: what about our crocodiles our.. t: or s: our t: or s: or the snakes. the teacher corrects the student clearly by pointing out his error and directly say “or” when the student make an error by saying “or”. the student repeats the teacher’s correct form and continuing his utterance. example 6: s: we’ve got lots of delicious (mispronounce) food and drink. t: ok. please repeat after me! delicious. s: delicious the teacher corrects the student mispronounce clearly by pointing out his error when he pronounces a word “delicious” incorrectly and asks the student to repeat the correct form “delicious.” 3. clarification request in this strategy, the teacher indicates the message has not been understood or the student’s utterance contained some kind of mistakes by using phrase like “excuse me?” or “sorry?” clarification request is the last possibility for teacher to have students’ errors correction to indicate them either their utterance is ill-formed or that their utterance has been misunderstood by the teacher. there were four data of clarification request corrective feedback used by the teacher in english class at semesta biingual elementary school. the frequency of this strategy in the study is four times (13.79%). example 7: . s: perka and bee. t: sorry? s: fly and bee. t: fly and bee, okay. based on observation on english class with the topic ‘animal’ that the students should guess some kinds of animals; one by one they answer the questions on their book. the student try to answer the question with “perka and bee”. the teacher asks question “sorry?” to clarify the student’s utterance. the student realizes that what he has said was incorrect then he corrects his answer from “perka and bee” to “fly and bee.” example 8: s: so baby bear tasted the porridge in little ball. t: sorry? s: ball. t: can you spell it? when one of the students tried to answer the teacher’s question by saying “ball”, the teacher realizes that what the student has said was incorrect then the teacher says “sorry?” to help the student clarify his utterance and ask the student to spell that word. the correct form should be bowl not ball the the teacher asked the student to spell it. below is the other example of clarification request: example 9: t: there is no “s” here so.. s: yes t: yes what you mean? the teacher realizes that what the student has said has not been understood then the teacher clarifies by asking “yes what you mean?” 4. metalinguistic feedback corrective feedback contains metalinguistic comments, information, or questions that raise the students’ awareness of the erroneous utterances, without explicitly correct them. this means metalinguistic feedback points to the nature of errorbut attempts to elicit the information from the students. the teacher in semesta bilingual elementary school used metalinguistic feedback as the corrective feedback. this strategy requires the teacher to provide comment or information related to the formation of the student’s utterance without providing the correct forms. there were four data (13. 79 %) of metalinguistic feedback. below was the metalinguistic feedback based on observation. example 10: t: okay, last meeting what page did we learn? s: 29 t: last time, last time. s: 29 in speaking, the teacher opened the teaching and learning process by asking the last materials. the student tried to answer the last page they learnt. the teacher says “last time, last time” to help the student corrects his answer. the teacher doesn’t provide the correct form of the erroneous utterance but the teacher repeats her utterance. example 11: t: how do you call it rizky? s: teeth. t: teeth? okay. this isn’t teeth. what do you think about this? s: it’s a beak. in the animal lesson, the teacher gave a game by asking students to describe some animals. one of students tried to answer one part of bird but he did a mistake by saying “teeth”. the teacher doesn’t provide the correct form of the erroneous; she helps the student to correct himself by repeating the student’s error “teeth? okay. this isn’t teeth.” and asking his opinion “what do you think about this?” example 12: s: it’s coffee. t: look at the spelling. what’s the first letter? s: c asking about the spelling of some difficult words is very important especially for young learners. the teacher in the lesson about “public place” gave an instruction to one of the students to spell “coffee”. the teacher says “look at the spelling. what’s the first letter?” to help the student corrects his answer. the teacher doesn’t provide the correct form of the erroneous utterance but asks him to have a look at the spelling then give him the correct pronunciation of “café”. 5. elicitation the teacher directly elicits the correct form from the student by asking question (e.g. “how do you write it? fill or feel?”) or by pausing to allow the student to complete the utterance (e.g.,”they are ….”). the frequency of this strategy in the study is five times (17.24%). example 13: t: do you see letter “s” on it? s: yes. t: kind or kinds? s: kinds. when a student was doing monologue, she wanted to say “different kinds”, then the teacher evaluating the mistake did by the student by evaluating the plural form. the teacher tries to elicit correct form from student by asking question and giving two forms contain of correct and incorrect forms then the student can feel the difference. below is another drillings from the teacher to improve student’s speaking skill by using elicitation technique: example 14: t: snake or snakes? s: snakes. t: what did you say? s: snake. the teacher repeats student’s utterance and gives the correct form then asks him which one is the correct form according to him. example 15: t: visit (veh) or visit? s: visit (veh) t: what did you say? s: visit. the teacher tries to elicit correct form from student by asking question and giving two forms contain of correct and incorrect pronunciation then the student knew her error. 6. repetition repetition strategy is signed when the teacher repeats the student’s error with rising intonation. the frequency of this strategy in the study is four times (13.79%). example 16: t: andika, where is your cheese? s: my cheese in my locker. t: the locker? (rising intonation) s: the rat. the teacher realizes that what she has said is incorrect so she repeats the student’s utterance “the locker?” with rising intonation then the student can correct his answer. example 17: t: where did the cat sleep? s: on the bed. t: on the bed? ( rising intonation) s: in the basket. the teacher realizes that what she has said is incorrect so she repeats the student’s utterance “on the bed?” with rising intonation then the student can correct his answer. example 18: t: where do you live now? s: in semarang. t: in semarang? (rising intonation), more specific. the teacher repeats the student’s utterance “in semarang?” with rising intonation that indicates the student’s answer is incorrect. giving corrective feedback to the students is one of the teachers’ microskills in teaching english. corrective feedback is also one of the requirements of being an effective teacher. effective teacher is expected to help the students achieving their dreams and having better behavior. it can be influenced by the condition during their study in the classroom. as the result, corrective feedback is important to be implemented by the teacher. based on the findings, corrective feedback is also used by the english teacher at semesta bilingual elementary school. she uses all kinds of corrective feedback in the teaching and learning process. they are recast, explicit correction, clarification request, metalinguistic feedback, elicitation, and repetition. the teacher uses the type of corrective feedback based on the erroneous has made by the students. she uses recast strategy to reformulates the students’ error and provides the correction without directly indicating that the student’s utterance was incorrect. the frequency of recast strategy in this study is five times. explicit correction makes her correct the students’ error by providing the correct utterance clearly. the frequency of explicit correction strategy is seven times. in clarification request, she shows a sign that she has not been understood by saying “sorry?” the frequency of this strategy is four times. she uses metalinguistic feedback by giving information relates to students’ utterance without providing the correct form. the frequency of metalinguistic feedback strategy is four times. she also uses elicitation during her teaching and learning process. she directly elicits the correct form by asking question such as “kind or kinds?” the frequency of this type is five times. the last, she uses repetition strategy to correct students’ erroneous. she repeats the students’ utterance with rising intonation that indicates the students’ utterance is incorrect. the frequency of repetition strategy is four times. this study indicates that explicit correction is a corrective feedback strategy that often occurs during the learning process. outcomes of the present study are in line with those of studies conducted by kirgoz and agcam (2014) who found that explicit corrective feedback had high percentages of students’ uptake. the teacher used explicit correction a lot more than other types. the finding is completely different with camilia (2012), who found that recast is the most frequently used in communicative activity. it also contradicts the result done by anggoro (2013), who found that the most dominant type of corrective feedback used in speaking class is clarification request strategy. it can be seen that the study did by the researcher and the other researcher has many kinds of differences. this study are not in line with study conducted by al-ghazo (2016) who found that metalinguistic feedback, recast and elicitation were reported to be the most used strategies of spoken corrective feedback. while the result of the study did by the researcher that was found the frequency of recast and elicitation are 17. 24% and metalinguistic feedback found 13 79 %. the most dominant type of using corrective feedback is explicit correction that was found 24. 14 %. the result of this study are not in line with study conducted by hussein (2014) who found that recast is the most common used followed by elicitation and metalinguistic feedback. in the same way ozturk (2016) reported that in his study the teacher had high percentage of explicit correction and recast; about 39% and the teachers preferred to use recast in dealing with the students’ error. in this study, recast was reported as the second frequently used corrective feedback type. it occurs 5 times or about 17,24 %. in this study, the main focus is on the kinds of corrective feedback strategies used by the teacher in teaching young learners. based on the interview with the teacher, she favors corrections of language errors; and she did not neglect any of the errors and treated errors immediately using different strategies. these strategies give teachers clear vision about classroom practices on how she corrects her students’ spoken errors. conclusions the findings show that explicit feedback is the most frequent corrective feedback strategies used by an english teacher in teaching the second graders of sd semesta bilingual school. it occurs 7 times. the other strategies are as follows: (2) recast occurs 5 times, (3) clarification request occurs 4 times,(4) metalinguistic feedback occurs 4 times, (5) elicitation occurs 4 times, and (6) repetition occurs 4 times. the results shows that the implementation of corrective feedback given by the teacher match with students’ needs. the teacher always adjusts the feedback with the type of error made by the students. the teacher believes corrective feedback is important to be applied in order to help students especially young learners to achieve the learning goals. it is due to the aims of the teacher’s corrective feedback which is used to make individual to think about giving better quality responses. in addition to that, the feedback given is aimed to trigger students’ curiosity so that it leads them to be engaged actively during the learning process. the researcher has seen the implementation of corrective feedback and the methods how to implement it in the teaching and learning process. the teacher in sd semesta bilingual school used all kinds of corrective feedback. it was very good. they mostly used explicit feedback during her teaching and learning process. by implementing corrective feedback, the student knew the part of their error. however, the teacher should control how to give the corrective feedback. the teacher has to see the changing of the students’ behavior. if it is good, the teacher can continue to give the corrective feedback. on the other hand, if the feedback changes the students’ behavior into the bad one or makes the student lost their confidence, the teacher should change the strategy to correct the students’ errors. as a result, the students can achieve better achievement and become great students. references arend, r.i. 2007. learning to teach (7th ed.). new york: mcgraw-hill. ellis, r. 2009. corrective feedback and teacher development. l2 journal. hussein, b. a. e. 2014. rationalizing spoken corrective feedback in sudanese efl classrooms. international journal of applied linguistics & english literature. linse, c. t. (2006). practical english lnguage teaching: young learners. new york: mcgraw-hill. lightbown, p. & spada, n. 1990. focus on form and corrective feedback in communicative language teaching: effects on second language learning. studies in second language acquisition. lyster, r. & ranta, l. 1997. corrective feedback and learner uptake: negotiation of form in communicative classroo: studies in second lnguage acquisition. seidel, j.v. 1998. appendix e: qualitative data analysis. available at http://www.qualisresearch.com/downloads/qda.pdf. accessed [25/12/16]. sherman, r.r and webb, r.b. 1988. qualitative research in education: focus and methods. great britain: taylor and francis (printers) ltd. turney, c. 1983. sydney microskills redevelop series 1 reinforcement, basic questioning, variability. adelaide: sydney university press. sheen, y. 2007. the effect of focuses written corrective feedback and language aptitude on esl learners acquisition of articles. tesol quarterly. sherman, r. r and webb, r. b. 1988. qualitative research in education: focus and methods. great britain: taylor and francis (printers) ltd image2.jpeg image1.png putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 122 elt forum 6 (2) (2017) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt linguistic expressions in cosmopolitan magazine’s advertisement medyana noor, helena i.r agustien, rohani  english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in october 2017 approved in november 2017 published in december 2017 ________________ keywords: advertisement, stylistics, linguistic expression, context of situation, figures of speech, positive negative adjectives. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this study aimed at describing the way the advertiser used the distinctive linguistic expressions in the cosmopolitan magazine’s advertisement. since the advertisement should attract the consumer as many as possible, the advertiser needed to have a plan to find a solution of this problem in conveying the messages through the advertisement. in this study, the discussion was limited by finding out distinctive linguistic expressions of the advertisement which can be used to convey meanings through text and image. this was a descriptive qualitative study. the analysis involved context of situation analysis, lexicogrammar analysis, and semantic analysis. the analysis revealed that in terms of context of situation, the advertiser delivered persuasive text. therefore, the advertiser is obliged to say persuasive statements to persuade the consumer or buyer. meanwhile, lexicogrammar analysis showed that the advertiser delivered the message of the product in order to inform the benefit and achieve the economic goal of the advertised product. the large parts of the clauses of the text were positive adjective which showed the good quality of the advertised product. the semantic analysis showed that personification was the most frequent figure of speech used in the advertisement text. in that sense, the advertiser wanted to give the inanimate object the quality of living thing. © 2017 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: unnes_english@yahoo.com m, noor & helena i.r agustien & rohani / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 123 introduction language is one of the valuable products of culture created by human beings. human beings created a means by which they can exchange information as well as feelings. the needs to exchange information and feelings make people interact. this process of human interaction is called communication. the language of advertising is used to convey information from producer to consumer including advertisements. advertisement is one example of mass communication that is a process in which a person or a group of people sends a message through a communication channel including television, radio, magazine, newspaper or social media to large group of people. the aim of advertisements is to enhance the visibility of the products and services among the consumer, to attract reader’s attention or to increase consumer’s awareness, affect the reader and persuade them to use and buy the product. this study investigates how the advertiser employs distinctive linguistic expressions in the advertisement of cosmopolitan magazine. the distinctive linguistic expressions here refer to the stylistic strategies used in the advertisement. according to verdonk (2002:5) “stylistics the study of style, can be defined as the analysis of distinctive linguistic expressions in language and the description of its purpose and effect.” a linguistic expression can be referred to any physical form like sound, visual image or sequence thereof that is used to represent linguistics unit. a linguistic expression may be spoken or written. it is distinct from the actual process of speaking or writing that produce the expressions. leech (1981:13) explained that ”stylistics, simply defines as the (linguistic) study of style, is rarely undertaken for its own sake, simply as an exercise in describing what use in made of language.” while simpson (2004:2) states that “the definition of stylistics is a method of textual interpretation in which primacy of place is assigned to language.” stylistic analysis is a normal part of linguistics and literary studies. stylistic refers to the identification of patterns of usage in spoken or written. in linguistics, the purpose of a close analysis is to identify and classify the element of language being used. in literary studies, the purpose is usually an adjunct to understanding, and interpretation. in both cases, it is practiced as a part of understanding the possible meanings in a text. generally, stylistic analysis is concerned with the typical of a text in the use of language in text for delivering message in particular. it is also assumed that the process of stylistic analysis will reveal the good quality of the text. with the development of globalization and industrialization, goods are produced day by day. as a result, advertisement plays an important role in selling product. the language being used in the advertisement varies which can affect on persuading consumer to buy the product. it also forms its special style and language used in the advertisement differs from other styles because it presents persuasive power. magazine is one of the most effective way of providing information. the advertisement on it can achieve good effect since it provides with colourful image and catchy phrase or clauses in the text in order to attract readers’ attention as many as possible and arouse readers’ desire to purchase the product. in establishing what kinds of distinctive linguistic features which are employed by the advertiser, firstly the text should be well written. in this case, the advertisement text from cosmoplitan magazine united states edition 2014 issue is taken as sample of written text. it is an opinion, thought, ideas about products or services which is made by the advertiser. trappes and lomax in davis and elder (2004:149) also add that “text is both something produced by interactants in the process of making discourse and something consumed by linguists in the process of making analyses.” therefore, discourse analysis is used as a tool for understanding authentic spoken and written interaction. “a contextual configuration is a specific set of values that realises field, tenor or mode” (halliday and hasan, 1985:55). context of situation is a useful term to cover the things going m, noor & helena i.r agustien & rohani / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 124 on in the world outside the text which make the text what it is. there are three variables within any context of situation which largely determine the language choices that are made in the construction of any language text. these variables function together and are responsible for the configuration of language features found in any text. at this level of analysis the lexicogrammar related such as vocabulary, adjectives, tenses would be discussed. in the study, printed advertisement is the most visual aspect of the illustration. rather than abstract, concrete or everyday vocabulary represents lexical means used in printed advertisement. vocabulary is the means for advertisers to express their opinion about the product. in the fields of advertising, adjectives are considerably represented word class as they convey a positive or negative meaning. “adjectives are pertinent in advertising as they convey a positive or negative affective meaning” (delin 2000:133). its function is to describe spesific quality and feature of the product. what tense used in the advertisement is discussed in the finite analysis. it is used in order to find out what tense that is frequently used in the print advertisement and why it tends to use that tense. the present tense is commonly used in the advertisements. the use of present tense might indicate how good the quality of a product is, whether or not it has long lasting effect. at the same time, it makes the advertisement easy to understand. at semantic level of analysis, figure of speech or figurative language and other rhetorical device are discussed. they frequently appear in the text of advertisement because they play major role in the advertising since it makes playful, unique and nicely interconnected text of advertisement. there are so many kinds of figure of speech and rhetorial device, but only several that will be classified into this analysis including personification, simile, hyperbole, metaphor, and other rhetorical device like repetition, alliteration, assonance, question and also general technique. keraf (2009), leech (1972), leech (1981) and myers (1997) point out a number of language and rhetorical devices typical for advertising, one of each is the semantic level that includes figures of speech, rhetorical device, sound technique, etc. methodology of the research the data of this research was analyzed using descriptive qualitative method. it was descriptive because the data collected from analyzing the distinctive linguistic expressions in the advertisement of cosmopolitan magazine. the analysis would be divided into 3 units of analysis, there were discourse analysis, lexicogrammar analysis and semantic analysis. discourse analysis would cover the element of context of situation of the advertisement. it covered the whole text and the image of the advertisement. lexicogrammar analysis included the finite analysis and the adjective analysis, why it tends to use either positive or negative adjectives. while semantic analysis included figures of speech and other rhetorical device. the qualitative method was applied in this study because all of the data in this study were in the form of words. cresswell (1994:145) states that “qualitative research is descriptive in that the researcher is interested in process, meaning, and understanding gained through word or picture”. however, when used along with quantitative methods, qualitative research can help us to interpret and better understand the implications of quantitative data. the quantity of the data is a mean to enhance the qualitative analysis in the study. interpretation is mainly used to analyse the quantitative data and also needed to describe the qualitative framework of analysis in the study. the researcher needed to demonstrate that the research used clear logic and provided strong evidence to substantiate the claims that had been made to analyse and interpret the data. the followings are the details of steps of analyzing the data in details: (1) collecting the printed advertisement from cosmopolitan magazine united states edition from january to december 2014. m, noor & helena i.r agustien & rohani / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 125 (2) examining the advertisement that is matched with one condition. the advertisement must contain of elements of advertisement, which are headline, body copy and slogan. (3) reading the advertisement. (4) analysing the text of printed advertisements in the process of analysing the text, the writer has divided the text of printed advertisements into three parts, which are into headline, body copy and slogan. the linguistic expressions or stylistic strategy includes the process of analysing context of situation, style markers: lexicogrammar, and semantic aspects. in order to make it easy to understand, each element has its table of data. on this part, the writer uses quantitative approach to support the qualitative analysis data. (5) presenting and discussing the result of the analysis after analysing the text, the result is presented in the table. based on this identification, later on the writer would interpret the result of each unit of analysis into words in the discussion part. the writer discusses the result of analysis by reviewing all text on each printed advertisements that have been analysed. the review is conducted by conveying the distinctive linguistics expression realized in the printed advertisements. result and discussion the results of the analysing the distinctive linguistic expression in cosmopolitan magazine’s advertisement are divided into two parts. those are overall analysis and analysis results of each style markers. overall results the distinctive linguistic expressions were analyzed by the researcher and the first run of the analysis was performed in order to know the register of the advertisement which was context of situation analysis. it was important that context of situaton be discussed before going further to analyse text because the context of situation determined how the resource of language system would be used by the advertiser in employing distinctive linguistics expressions on the advertisement to communicate with the reader. the three variables within any context of situation which are field, tenor and mode were being analysed. the context of situation of advertisements of cosmopolitan magazine were concluded in the overall result because they shared mostly the same of functions and purposes. from the field point of view, it could be concluded that the texts were about the idea and messages of the advertised product to gain interest and persuade the reader to purchase the product in order to reach economic goal of the company of advertised product. in terms of tenor, the advertiser and the reader or the consumer are involved. the advertisement built a casual or informal (minimum range) with the reader or consumer. the relationship between the advertiser and the reader was temporary relationship. from mode point of view, the language in these context are the central element (constitutive). the medium of the text was written and also used written mode to deliver the content. after loooking at the field, tenor and mode, we then discussed how these affect the choice of language in the text. in studying the intention of the advertiser in the text through the implication of context of situation or register, also studying about how the advertiser made meaning using the figures of speech and positive or negative adjectives. the findings of lexicogrammar analysis were divided into two main parts of analysis. the first was grammar analysis, which consist of finite analysis and the second was lexical analysis, which included positive or negative adjectives analysis. while semantic included figure of speech analysis. finite is the essential constituent in a clause or sentence. finite in the clause functions to make sure the intention of something will be m, noor & helena i.r agustien & rohani / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 126 done by the subject. the most frequent of finite used in the advertisement text was present tense, followed by past tense and modals. the advertiser tended to convey the goal of the advertised product through the choice of words. moreover, by using present tense, it also expressed the advertiser’s expectation and hope to make the consumers deserve what they want by providing more benefit and best result of the product. past tense in the clause gave those words the ability to sound as if it was done in the past. modal in the clauses gave those words the ability to sound as if it was done in the future. vocabulary is the means for advertisements to express ideas or opinions about product, service or event. reader’s positive or negative evaluation of an advertised product or service would be displayed by the affective meaning. the advertisement in this study contained adjectives with both positive and negative meaning or connotations. positive adjectives were mostly used in the advertisement text, followed by small parts of negative adjectives. using positive adjective expressed the good or positive qualities of the product. however, that words were often used subjectively depending on what was being described. the last interpretation in this study was the semantic analysis. semantic analysis focused on analyzing figures of speech and other rhetorical device. the result of the analysis showed various figures of speech employed in the advertisement text by the advertiser. figures of speech found in the sample of advertisement such as personification, hyperbole, alliteration, repetition, simile, rhetoric question and also general technique. the advertiser often used personification to describe how the product worked and functioned. hyperbole was used to exaggerate the benefit of the product or what the product could do or how it gave a result after using its product. the repetition was used as attention catcher because it was easily remembered. simile was used to compare two different things or showed similarities between them. rhetoric question was used to attract the reader even it did not require a real answer. the figure of speech was often used to give different vibe in the text. since it was playful and attractive which could gain target reader’s attention to read or to purchase the advertised product. a) analysis result of style marker (1) finite analysis (i) present tense 1. love the skin you’re in. in this clause it can be referred that the advetiser expresses the feeling. to love the oportunity for having nice and good skin. 2. it’s brilliant even for sensitive skin. it shows that the product is suitable not only for normal skin but also for sensitive skin. the advertiser wants to convince those with sensitive skin who are afraid of using certain product to try this product without feeling worried that their skin becomes worse. 3. hair looks thicker wash after wash. in this clause, it indicates that using the shampoo will make the hair looks thicker if one’s uses it continually. it gives volume to the hair because the hair becomes thicker. 4. because you’re worth it. in this clause, the advertiser certainly confident to reach the consumers’ expectation. by using the word “worth”, it seems that the advertiser again wants to convince the consumer to m, noor & helena i.r agustien & rohani / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 127 purchase the product. since the product is worth buying and worth using and it has more benefit. in conclusion, from present tense poin of view, the advertiser tends to convey the goal of the advertised product throught the choice of words. moreover, by using present tense, it also expresses the advertiser’s expectation and hope to make the consumers deserve what they want by providing more benefit and best result of the product. the finding also indicates that the advertiser explicitly gives an offer to the consumer about the product’s appeal. what the advertiser shared is the condition that the advertised product wants to reveal. (ii) past tense 1. in our study, 80% agreed their skin has never looked so beautiful. 2. formulated to reveal your skin’s radiance instantly and naturallly. 3. enriched with exquisite argan and indulgent camellia oils. 4. the how, glazed pearls in shea butter glide. as we can see from the examples of the clauses above, the verbs found in the advertisement text that indicate past tense such as agreed, formulated, enriched, glazed. past tense in the clause give those words the ability to sound as if it is done in the past. the effect of using past tense is to tell the target reader or the consumer that something already happened. besides, using the choice of words indicates that the advertiser is certain about what he was saying and without doubt at all. it makes the advertisement text sounds more persuasive. it is intended to convince the targer reader or the consumer to choose and purchase the advertised product. (iii) modal 1. for visibly reduced pores that can lock up to half their size. 2. so you can always shine strong. 3. i will never let a dark spot steal my spotlight. 4. i will not let age change me. 5. i will change the way i age. as we can see from the examples of the clauses above, the verbs found in the speech that indicate modal verb such as will and can. modal in the clauses give those words the ability to sound as if it is done in the future. it is a type of verb that is used to indicate modalitythat is ability, permission, and obligation. thus, the effect of using modal is to tell the target reader or the consumer that is something will happen. besides, by using the choice of words indicates that the advertiser gives possible result of using the advertised product. (2) adjectives analysis (i) positive adjective 1. a lightweight moisturising lotion enriched with 4 beautifying oils. 2. brighten up your skin naturally with new simple iluminating cream. 3. hair looks & feels thicker with luxurious body and bounce. 4. see bright,pearlescent,healthy-looking in just 2 weeks. from the clauses above, we can spot the words “lightweight”, “simple”, “thicker”, “luxurious”, “bright”, “pearlescent”, and “healthy-looking” were classified into positive adjectives. m, noor & helena i.r agustien & rohani / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 128 those adjectives that were used in the advertisement were mostly positive. the positive adjectives here, remarked that the quality of the product is good. the advertiser wanted to emphasize the good quality product to inform the reader. (ii) negative adjective 1. no harsh chemicals that can upset your skin. 2. sensitive skin experts. 3. go for dull-beam gleam. 4. i will never let a dark spot steal my spotlight. from the clauses above, the words “harsh”, “upset”, “sensitive”, “dull”, and “dark” were classified into the negative adjectives. those words represented the antonym of good quality of the product. usually the negative adjectives used to compare before-after using the product or the effect of something before using the product. (3) semantic analysis (i) personification personification refers to a thing as having human qualities or ability. in other words, it is a way of giving an inanimate object the qualities of living thing. this can sometimes be used to invoke an emotional response to something by making it more personable, friendly, and relatable. 1. fight 7 signs of aging over time while providing instant coverage for flawlessly beautiful skin. in this clause, the one that fights 7 signs of aging over time is a cream. while we know that a cream is an object that is imppossible to do an action like fighting. the word “fight” is personifed to explain something that a skincare could do to the skin like to make the skin looks beautiful and flawless. 2. seriously seductive shine. “seductive” is a personified word that is used to illustrate how the shine is shining. seductive is a quality of living things that can make the inanimate object sounds lively. 3. my shine shampoo and conditioner with argan oil will take a shine to your hair like you wouldn’t believe. this clause is classified into personification because the word “take” that is the quality of living thing is personified. 4. i will never let a dark spot steal my spotlight. “steal” here indicate the quality of living thing since an object can take action like a living things. as we can see from the examples of the clauses above, the words found in the advertisement text that indicate personification such as fight, glowing, seductive, take, change, glisten. as mention before, advertisement can often use personification when inanimate objects or abstractions are given with human qualities to make it more dramatic, interesting, and more attractive because we can better relate to the objects which are personified or sometimes it can be reverse. (ii) hyperbole m, noor & helena i.r agustien & rohani / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 129 hyperbole refers to a word or a phrase that is being exaggerated to emphasize. this figure of speech makes things seem much exaggerated than it really were by using astonished illustration of everyday things. it is often seen as an exaggeration that adds a bit of humor to a phrase, clause, sentence or even story. 1. it is brilliant even for sensitive skin! in the clasue above the word “brilliant” is used to exaggerate meaning to add emphasize of how good the product for the people who has sensitive skin. 2. it is perfect even for sensitive skin. the word “brilliant” is an exaggerated action to emphasize how good the advertised product works for sensitive skin. 3. the marvellous transformer. “marvellous” is obviously an exaggerated word to emphasize how good the transformer is. 4. be extraordinary. the word oxtraordinary here exaggerated from being ordinary. 5. your best beautiful. in this clasue we find the word “best”. the word definitely indicates as exaggerated word because it emphasizes the beauty of one’s. in conclusion, from the examples of the clauses above, the words found in the advertisement text that indicate hyperbole such as brilliant, perfect, marvellous, lasts, so much more. hyperbole in the clauses give those words the ability of exaggerating things, to make it sounds like even more than it were. advertisement can often use hyperbole when objects or things are given exaggerating action or feeling to make it bigger or uncommon situation than usual. therefore, a hyperbole is an unreal exaggeration to emphasize the real situation. by using hyperbole, a writer makes common human feelings remarkable and intense to such extent that they do not remain ordinary. (iii) alliteration alliteration refers to the repetition of a sound in the first syllable words or phrases. it is a very common figures of speech that involves using words that begin with the same sound. it is often used in advertising slogans to create something catchy that more people will remember. 1. maybe she’s born with it. maybe it’s maybelline. in the clause above we can see alliteration “may” in the word may be and maybelline. 2. get dramatic results...without drastic measures. we can see alliteration word “dra” in the word dramatic and drastic. 3. anti aging + beauty balm = color and correction in the clasue above the alliteration is “a”, “b”, and “c” in the words anti aging, beauty balm, and color and correction. 4. bye, bye, breakouts. we can see alliteration “b” in the word bye and breakouts. as we can see from the examples of the clauses above, the words found in the advertisement text that indicate alliteration such as maybe and maybelline, dramatic and drastic, anti aging, beauty balm, color and correction, bye and breakout. an important point to remember here is that m, noor & helena i.r agustien & rohani / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 130 alliteration does not depend on letters but on sounds. it also makes the words catchy and easy to memorize. (iv) repetition repetition refers to a repeating of a word within a sentence with no particular placement of the words in order to emphasize. it is such a common literary device that is almost never even noted as a figure of speech but more as a rhetorical device. 1. hair looks thicker wash after wash. the clause above used “wash” to emphasize its point of continuity. if you wash your hair continually, your hair will look thicker. 2. biore deep cleansing pore strips + pore unclogging scrub. as we can see above, there is repetition on word “pore” to emphasize or to focus just in pore area. 3. protect it. sleek it. own it. the clause above used the word “it” that refers to the hair. it emphasizes that it needs to be protected, sleeked, and owned. in conclusion from the examples of the clauses above, the words found in the advertisement text such as wash, pore, it. repetition in the clauses make an idea clearer because it repeats the same words or phrases a few times. it has the ability of making simple sentence sounds like a dramatic one. it enhances the beauty of a phrase or a sentence and stresses on the point of main significance. it often uses word associations to express the ideas and emotions in indirect manner. (v) other rhetorical device other rhetorical devices that include in this study are simile, metonymy, metaphor, ellipsis and also rhetorical question. we can take a look at the clauses below: 1. beautifies like an oil, moisturises like a lotion. the clause above is classified into simile. in this figure of speech, two things are compared that are not really the same, but are used to make a point about each other. the comparartion in the simile uses the words “like” or “as”. in the clause above, compared between beautifies and oil, moisturises and a lotion by using the word “like”. 2. in our study, 80% agreed their skin has never looked so beautiful. in this clause we can see “80% agreed” that is classified into metonymy. not to be confused with personification, because “80%” here represents the woman who undergoes a series of dermatological test from the advertised product. 3. what goes with everything? this clause is classified into rhetorical question. rhetorical question refers to a form of question without a need of a reply, it is just for persuasion. it is also to make the idea a point more prominent. it is often used to capture consumer’s attention. 4. get dramatic result...without drastic measures. this clause is classified into ellipsis, since it is obviously use “...”. it is an omission of the word in a phrase or a sentence. m, noor & helena i.r agustien & rohani / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 131 5. how smooth are you? in this clause, we can see a question mark that indicates it is a rhetorical question. as mentioned before, rhetorical question is asked for effect or to lay emphasis on some point discussed. it does not need a real answer. it is used for style as an impressive persuasive device. conclusions this study investigated how the advertiser employed distinctive linguistic expressions in the advertisement of cosmopolitan magazine. the advertisements varied from make-up product, skin care product, hair product, etc. after analyzing data in the previous chapter, the writer delivered several conclusions which answered the problems stated before. the answers to the research problems of this study presented as follows. from context of situation point of view. the advertisement was kind of persuasive text, because through the text the advertiser tried to persuade the reader to purchase their money in the product. the information shared was mostly about the specification and the benefit of the product. from the lexicogrammar point of view, in conclusion, from present tense point of view, the advertiser tends to convey the goal of the advertised product through the choice of words. moreover, by using present tense, it also expresses the advertiser’s expectation and hopes to make the consumer deserve what they want by providing more benefit and best result of the product. on the other hand, past tense in the clause gives those words the ability to sound as if it was done in the past. the effect of using past tense was to tell the target reader or the consumer that something already happened. besides, using the choice of words indicated that the advertiser certain about what he was saying and without doubt at all. it made the advertisement text sounded more persuasive. while modal in the clauses give those words the ability to sound as if it is done in the future. it was a type of verb that was used to indicate modalitythat is ability, permission, and obligation. thus, the effect of using modal is to tell the target reader or the consumer that something will happen. besides, by using the choice of words indicates that the advertiser gives possible result of using the advertised product. reader’s positive or negative evaluation of an advertised product or service will be displayed by the affective meaning. the advertisement in this study contained adjectives with either positive and negative meaning or connotations. the result of adjective analysis can be seen as follows: semantic analysis focused on analysing figures of speech and other rhetorical devices. the advertiser often used general technique to describe the product what the product is, what the benefit of the product is. the figures of speech is often used to give different vibe in the text. since it’s playful and interesting that can gain target reader’s attention to read or to buy the advertised product. the advertiser used media which provided the documentation that drew attention from the reader that helped him to convey the message of the advertised product. the advertiser used both text and image that showed the typical of the product. it is an effective strategy to express ideas, thought or perceptions about the advertised product. he tried to persuade and to influence as many buyer as possible to purchase it. he also delivered persuasive text to the reader. he delivered his statement by following several steps in order to systematically build persuasive text. he gained attention from the headline of the advertisement, then described the benefit or the way to use the product and gave the product’s typical slogan. references m, noor & helena i.r agustien & rohani / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 132 creswell, j.w. 1994. educational research: planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research. boston: pearson education, inc. davis, alan and elder, catherine. 2004. the handbook of applied linguistics. united kingdom: blackwell publishing ltd delin, a. 2000. the language of everyday life. london: sage halliday, m.a.k. and hasan, r. 1985. language, context, and text: aspects of language in a social-semiotic perspective. victoria: deakin university. keraf, gorys. 2009. diksi dan gaya bahasa. jakarta: pt gramedia pustaka utama. leech, geoffrey.1972 [1966]. english in advertising: a linguistic study of advertising in great britain (english language series).london:longman leech, geoffrey. and short, m.h. 1981.style in fiction: a linguistic introduction to english fictional purpose.london:longman myers, greg. 1997.words in ads.london:hodder arnold simpson, p. 2004.stylistics: a resource book for students.london:routledge verdonk, peter. 2002. stylistics. oxford: oup 50 elt forum 3 (1) (2014) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the use of problem based learning to improve students’ speaking ability siti khotimah  english department, faculty of languages and arts, state university of semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in april 2014 approved in mei 2014 published in juni 2014 ________________ keywords: problem based learning, speaking ability, achievement, action research. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ senior high school students are expected to have a good speaking skill, meanwhile their ability to speak english is very low especially in term of fluency. therefore, teachers need an alternative method to teach speaking skill that is called problem based learning. the objective of this study is to know the application of problem based learning as teaching method in improving students’ speaking ability and students’ achievement in speaking english. the action research was carried out in some steps. those steps were pre-elimination test, conducting the cycles starting with planning, acting, observing, reflecting, and post-test. as data collection instruments, i used observation sheets, questionnaire, interview, and self and peer assessment of the students. the implementation of this method was reflected in the classroom activity, students self and peer assessment, questionnaire, interview, and observation sheets. the result of the study showed that there were significant improvements of students’ speaking ability after being taught by problem based learning. they also enjoyed the activities in class by having a discussion, sharing, and cooperation with their friends. in addition, the students gave positive opinion, response, and interest toward the implementation of problem based learning method. therefore, the students’ speaking ability was increased. based on the result above, it can be concluded that this method gave positive contribution to the improvement of the students’ speaking ability. this method is beneficial to help the students to learn to speak english in more enjoyable way. © 2014 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: b3 building, fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: khotimhasiti17@gmail.com issn 2252-6706 siti khotimah / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 51 introduction speaking is one of the four skills that should be mastered beside listening, reading and writing. speaking has an important role in daily life that is to convey someone’s mind directly. it influences someone’s performance in many aspects, such as social, politic, bussiness and education. a good presentation comes from a good presenter who can speak effectively in front of many people. making students speak english is a difficult job for english teachers. it needs a long process of practice and learning. students of foreign language learners see that their native language is completely different from english while an opportunity to learn english and practice it in their real life is very limited in time and space. therefore, they need more practice to speak english. considering the importance of speaking skill, the indonesian government states that students should master this skill fully, not only the theory of speaking itself but also the practice. the latest curriculum, curriculum of 2013, recommends the use of scientific approach in its teaching learning process. furthermore, it suggests the application of teaching methods such as project based learning, problem based learning, and discovery learning. these new methods are much different from the common method used before. these methods emphasize on the process of learning, not the outcome of it. the center of teaching learning itself is the students not a teacher anymore. one of the methods offered by 2013 curriculum is problem based learning. yew (2009:11) states that problem based learning is a learning approach that seeks to create a learning environment where students learn in the context of meaningful problems, actively constructing mental models in the process, coconstructing ideas with peers in a collaborative fashion and developing self-directed learning skills in the process. thus, pbl brings together four fairly new insights into learning, namely that learning can be considered a constructive, self-directed, collaborative, and contextual activity. another source mentions that problembased learning (pbl) is focused experiential learning organized around the investigation and resolution of messy, real-world problems (imsa 2008:1). based on the definitions above, we can conclude that problem based learning is a method using problems as an approach to train the students to think critically when they face a problem. besides, this method also teaches them how to work in a group. therefore, the writer is challenged to find out whether problem based-learning method can be one of the alternatives to improve students’ speaking ability or not. i hope this study will help the teacher as a tutor and educator to improve their students’ ability in their speaking skill. literature review related to the definition of speaking, (brown, 1994; burns & joyce, 1997) in florez (1999:1) say that “speaking is an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing and receiving and processing information.” in addition, hornby (2005: 1467) states that “speaking is used to show that what you are saying is true in general, to convey the ideas, and to have a conversation with somebody about something.” based on those statements, it can be inferred that speaking is the ability to use a language orally or say things that cannot go back and be changed except with repeating it. in another word, speaking is the key to communicate. 2.1 teaching speaking there are three theories about language learning (thornbury, 2005: 38) that can be applied in teaching speaking, that are behaviourist, cognitivist and sociocultural theory. behaviorist theory emphasizes its method on repeated reinforcement through modeling. while cognitivist theory sees that learning is a movement from controlled to automatic processing which applied the conscious attention to the learning of individual stages through repeated aviation (thornbury, 2005: 38). the last and more perfect than the previous is siti khotimah / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 52 sociocultural theory, all learning is mediated through social and cultural activity whereby the teacher interacts with the learners to provide a supportive framework within the learners, so that they can extend their present competence that is called by assisted performance (thornbury, 2005: 38). 2.2 curriculum of 2013 this curriculum was made based on the national education purpose; thinking pattern arrangement founded on students’ necessities, developing and intensifying material, reinforcing the teaching learning process, and adjusting students’ and teachers’ task. the expectations of this curriculum are developing students’ critical thinking, cooperativeness, awareness towards their surroundings, responsibility of their task, and developing students-centred learning. 2.3 problem based learning the pbl curriculum was develop in order to stimulate learners, assist them in seeing the relevance of learning to their future life, maintain their motivation towards learning in high level, and to show the learners to be responsible. the use of pbl has expanded from medical study to various education areas such as science, law, math, education, economic, business, social studies, engineering, etc. problem based learning uses “real world problems and tasks as the initiative objective in constructing knowledge and enhancing learning experience” (tai and yuan: 2007:1). whereas addalla and gaffar (2011:1) states that “pbl education strategy is characterized by using patient’s problem as a motive for students learning, to acquire knowledge of basic and clinical sciences related to that problem and acquire problem solving skills”. problem based learning can be described as “an instructional strategy in which students confront conceptually ill-structured problems and strive to find meaningful solutions” (rayne and symons 2005:6). 2.4 component of pbl based on rayne and symons (2005: 6) there are some components in problem based learning which will be explained as follows: a. group work. students work together in small groups and provide a framework in which students can test and develop their level of understanding of the material. b. problem solving. the problems given in a pbl environment are often daily problem means that they face it every time in their life that need enquiry and critical analysis to solve it. c. discovering new knowledge. in order to find a meaningful solution, students will have to seek new knowledge. d. based on the real world. the main emphasis is to encourage students to start thinking like an expert early on in their careers, thereby easing them to solve their daily problem in their real life. 2.5 implementation of pbl abdalla and gaffar (2011:15) state that there are three steps in implementing pbl in teaching learning process. a) first session of pbl the purpose of this phase is to discuss the objectives of problem based learning which include challenging students’ knowledge and experience in order to solve the problem given to them. in this phase, the group has to set up their roles and responsibilities in group discussion including leader of the group, secretary and also member of the group. the duration of this session should be 1-2 hours. following the first session of pbl, students will have several days to study individually to manage the task given by the teacher. b) second session of pbl the aim of this session is to share what students have learned individually before to solve the problem. the duration of this session should be 1-2 hours. meanwhile the objectives of this session are train them to be active thinker, cooperate with others, responsible for the task given to them, learn how to inform others and gat an early feedback on result of learning process. siti khotimah / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 53 c) third session of pbl the duration of the last session should be 1-2 hours. the aim is to create the discussion forum where the students can ask the expert concerning to the problem given before. they have to share their result of group discussion in front other groups to get a feedback from them. research methodologies the researcher applied the classroom action research and took a part as a teacher for 32 students of x ms 4 of sma n 1 muntilan in the academic year of 2013-2014 as the subject of the study. from nine classes of all students in grade tenth, this class was chosen as the subject of the study because it was the most managable class. the research was conducted in three cycles as an effort to improve the students’ speaking skills. the three cycles were called as cycle 1, cycle 2 and cycle 3. in this research, the researcher applied the four phases of kemmis and mc taggart in burns (2010:8) in each cycle. the phases are planning, acting, observing, and reflecting. the design of this research is presented in the figure and explanation below: figure 1. action research process the action research consists of four phases as follows: 1. planning planning is the first step of the research procedure. the researcher made possible plans covering other research members' opinion, suggestion, and expectation and materials to overcome the reading problems. the teachers’ and the students’ opinion and suggestion were obtained through interviews. the materials and other sources of all about reading were collected based on related references and experience. 2. acting the action that had been planned in the planning step was applied here. in this research, the treatment was using “directed readingthinking activity strategy” to enhance their ability in reading comprehension. 3. observation observation is the activity of collecting the data to identify to what extent the result of “acting” reaches the objective. the data being taken were qualitative data. they were taken from observation checklist and field note. 4. reflection reflection is the activity of evaluating critically about the progress or change of the students, class, and also teacher. in this step, the researcher or collaborator observed whether the “acting” activity resulted any progress, what progress happens, and also about the positives and negatives, and so on. findings and discussion the data result from the pre-test up to the post-test showed that the students’ speaking skill increased relatively stable along the process of implementing problem based learning in the three cycles. the final result of the test deals with the total score the students gained before and after using problem based learning. in the pre-test result, the students had problems in every aspect of speaking skill. in short, pronounciation control was very poor and they could not produce utterances fluently. the lack of vocabulary variation was also the problem. it means that the vocabulary variation was not enough sufficient to express the idea. it influenced to the result of comprehension component, while the students couldn’t show the performance as the teacher’s expectation. siti khotimah / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 54 after conducting cycle one and cycle two, the result of the post-test increased. the figure below shows the improvement of each component: figure 1. students’ improvement by using problem based learning, the researcher improved students’ speaking in all aspects. all students got good scores in grammar, vocabulary, comprehension, fluency, pronunciation, and intonation. the improvement of each aspect of speaking skill is explained as follows: 1) grammar the target tenses that the students should be learnt in this material was simple past tense, because this chapter was about narrative story. they basically knew structure, but they could not implement it perfectly in speaking. they verb two or added –ed in the end of the verb. they often mixed the structure when spoke in english. after doing the cycles, the result of grammar aspect increased. the result showed that the students understood how to use simple past tense correctly. they also corrected their grammar by themselves when they did mistakes in performing a converstation. 2) vocabulary the pre-test data showed that the students had limited vocabularies to express their idea and feeling. they only used familiar and simple words in their sentences, even some of them forgot the simple word because of their nervousness. by using pbl method, the students got challenge to enrich themselves about the vocabulary variaton in order to make a good conversation and for the sake of their discussion. after doing several practices using pbl method, the test result increased from a test to another. the students’ vocabulary achievement improved because they got new vocabulary from the treatment also the teacher’s explanation and they accustomed to speak in english. they also tried to find new vocabulary from their dictionary or asked the teacher. 3) fluency fluency is one of the most important and difficult aspects to be achieved in speaking skill. the result of the pre-test showed that fluency got a second grade of low score. as stated above in the questionnaire result, the students admitted that they rarely spoken english english in their real life, so it influenced their fluency. after given the treatment, the students’ fluency increased. it was influenced by their habit in speaking when they practiced in discussion. they also had to present their discussion result in front of their classmate. it trained them a lot to speak. so, since they had a lot of practices, their fluency achievement in the post-test was much better than in the pre-test. 4) comprehension the next significant improvement was in the comprehension aspect. comprehension is the ability to understand the sentence or content of the story completely and be familiar with the situation, fact etc. the result of the research showed that the students’ comprehension increased. in the beginning of the treatment, the students did many mistakes related to the teacher’s instruction. they almost didn’t understand what they should do and don’t. after the treatment, the students could understand what the teacher said and got the point of information related to the topic discussed. in this aspect, the writer found out how good they understood a spoken language. 5) pronunciation the students’ pronunciation got the low score in pre test. they did many mistakes though they used a familiar and simple words. after given the treatment, the students’ achievement increased. the students’ pronunciation improved because they learned how to pronounce the 0 1 2 3 4 5 p ro n o n ci at io n v o ca b u la ry fl u e n cy c o m p re h e n si o n in to n at io n g ra m m ar pre-test post-test siti khotimah / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 55 words correctly since their wrong pronunciation were corrected in the cycle one, two and three. 6) intonation students could maintain their intonation quite well since pre-test. they could differentiate how to say a statement sentence or affirmative sentence. so that, the writer did not have any difficulties in helping them to improve the intonation aspect in speaking english. after conducting the third cycle, students’ improvement in intonation aspect were high and they could apply it in conversation unintentionally. 4.1 the advantages of using problem based learning method in teaching speaking the use of problem based learning method had several advantages towards the students’ speaking skill. first, the most important is it improves the students’ speaking skill in oral communication. problem based learning method forced the students to speak up only in english. all of the students must say something or must give opinion about something. this condition that made the class become conducive for the students to learn speaking english. all of the students could be more active in class, it increased students’ oral communication especially in english. the result is students’ speaking skill is getting better. second, the use of problem based learning method in teaching speaking could increase students’ motivation and interest in learning english especially for speaking skill. by using a fun treatment and not too formal, students will like the learning atmosphere. students will enjoy those condition so that their interest in english improves. besides, the problem used in discussion was a daily problem that they often face. it made them more active in discussing the solution of the problem. in addition, all the activities that were involved in this strategy gave the students an experience in speaking english so that they could be more confident in performing their speaking. students also will not feel shy when conveying their ideas. third, problem based learning method is a technique that requires cooperation with other students in group. students learn how to work together to achieve the goal and how to solve the problem. thus, by conducting problem based learning method, students learn social skills such as cooperation, teamwork, and communication skills which are useful in their future life. moreover, this method also required students to think critically before decided what they have to do, so that, it will help them to be a critical thinker. conclusion and suggestion 5.1 conclusion based on data interpretation and discussion presented in the previous, i draw the following conclusions: according to the data analysis in chapter 4, it can be drawn some conclusion that: first, the purpose of the study is ‘to find out how problem based learning is used in teaching speaking to the tenth graders of senior high school 01 muntilan in the academic year 2013/2014.’ it is based on the result of analysis from the observation sheets about students’ behavior during the treatment, and also the analysis of the questionnaire. the implementation of problem based learning itself was easy and students seemed to like this method based on the questionnaire analysis. this method was applied in class and the students played their role seriously, discussed the solution of the problem together with their group member and constructed the argumentation to back up their solution before they told their solution in front of the class. the application of this method could improve students’ speaking ability. the first purpose was accomplished well. second, the problem based learning method improves students’ achievement in speaking after being taught by this method. students’ improvement in speaking can be seen from the result of pretest and posttest. it can be seen from the aspects of speaking skill which covered grammar, vocabulary, comprehension, fluency, pronunciation, and intonation. the result from the test proved that students’ speaking ability was getting better after using this game. siti khotimah / journal of english language teaching 3 (1) (2014) 56 5.2 suggestion based on the conclusion above, there are some suggestions which are presented to improve students’ speaking skill. firstly, working together in group is one of the methods that can be applied in teaching speaking. teachers should have interesting techniques to teach their students, for example by using discussion technique. students need to train their speaking skill by speaking english anytime and anywhere. by using problem based learning method that provides problem to be discussed, it will help the students to be more talkative in their environment and train them to be critical. this method was just an example to encourage students in learning speaking. teacher should be able to find another method which is interesting. furthermore, students need to be more active in learning speaking. they have to be active in every opportunity that requires them to speak in english. practicing is the best way to learn english, it will make them more fluent in speaking and improve their self-confidence. it will be easier if they have a discussion with their friends and share everything they think of. lastly, for other researchers who conduct an action research in speaking skill area, they can explore any other methods to apply in english speaking classroom. moreover, they can do further research on this topic in the future. references abdalla, muhammed elhasan & abdelrahim mutwakel gaffar. 2011. the seven steps of pbl implementation. ksa: jazan university. burns, anne. 2010. doing action research in english language teaching. new york: roudledge. florez, mary ann c. 1999. improving adult english language learners’ speaking skills. available at www.cal.org/caela/esl_resources/digests/speak .html . [accessed 07/01/2014] illinois mathematics and science academy. 2008. problem based learning matters. aurora, il: imsa. [online]. available at http://pbln.imsa.edu/resources/pbl_matters.p df [accessed 12/01/2014] raine, derek & sarah symons. 2005. possibilities: a practies guide to problem based learning in physics and astronomy. uk. university of hull. tai, gillian xiao lian & may chan yuen. 2007. authentic assessment strategies in problem based learning. singapore: journal thornbury, scott. 2005. how to teach speaking. new jersey: pearson education esl. thornbury, scott. 2005. how to teach speaking. new jersey: pearson education esl. yew, elaine h. j. 2009. process of problem based learning. singapore: ruby printing pte ltd. [online]. available at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1 365-2923.2011.04035.x/abstract [accessed 09/01/2014] microsoft word 8. nur aeni afiati mafuroh 86 coherence in students’ analytical exposition texts nur aeni afiati mafuroh, yusnita sylvia ningrum  english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 25 october 2018 approved in 29 july 2019 published in 29 july 2019 ________________ keywords: analytical exposition; coherence; schematic structure; thematic choices; thematic development ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this study aims to reveal the coherence of 19 analytical exposition texts written by the fourth semester students of english department of unnes through analysis of schematic structure, thematic choices, and thematic development. coherence is an essential component to create a make-sense text. thus, it is very important to know the students’ competency in writing a good text. this study applied a qualitative approach. it employed theories of schematic structure based on stages proposed by gerot and wignell (1995), thematic choices from gerot and wignell (1995) and thematic development by eggins (2004). the findings indicated that students preferably used topical theme (67.79%) and textual theme (30.42%). in addition, in terms of thematic development, theme reiteration is the most common pattern applied by the students. based on the findings, students’ texts were less coherence because there were several texts having an incomplete thesis at the beginning of the paragraph and one text leaving 1 out of 3 stages of exposition text. furthermore, the over-use of theme reiteration might show that the students’ writing skill is low because they could not elaborate their ideas through various methods. therefore, it is suggested that the students should learn how to organize their ideas into a coherent analytical exposition text. © 2019 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: aeni9037@gmail.com elt forum 8 (1) (2019) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt nur aeni afiati mafuroh & yusnita sylvia ningrum / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 87 introduction there are four skills of language: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. to master a language including english, those skills are, then, very important. among those language skills, writing is considered as the most difficult skill for english as a foreign language (efl) students (fitriati & yonata, 2017; kilic, genc, & bada, 2016). the difficulties in writing are due to some aspects, starting from choice of words, grammar, spelling, punctuation to the more complicated aspects such as generating ideas and putting these ideas together in harmonious and logical ways (katrini & farikah, 2015). in other words, there are many things to consider when a student wants to produce a good text. producing a text is not only about how to express the writer’s ideas by using appropriate structures. it is not only about putting ideas in a combination of words, but also turning such ideas logically into a readable text (katrini & farikah, 2015). the text which is understandable is called a coherent text. text coherence has been a point of interest of some writing experts. for example, oshima and hogue (2006) explained that coherence means all sentences hold together in which the movement of one sentence to the next is logical and smooth. thornburry (2005) also argued that a coherent text is a text which makes sense to the readers. it means a writer must write a make-sense text to the readers by arranging the sentences in the text so that they move logically and smoothly. thornburry (2005) mentioned two perspectives of analyzing coherence, the micro and macro levels. while micro level coherence can be realized through texts’ logical relations and theme-rheme; in the macro level, coherence is achieved by looking at texts’ lexical chains, schemas and scripts. in regards to this study, i analyzed text coherence through analysis of schematic structure in order to recognize the genre of the text, thematic choices in order to know how students write a text effectively by paying attention to the front of the clause, and thematic development analysis in order to find out how students shape their writing through pattern they mostly use. if the students can use the patterns well, their writings certainly have logical movement of ideas. the failure to construct a logic movement of sentences may lead the readers misunderstand, or worse they may have different interpretation to writer’s purpose of writing, for example in writing analytical exposition. gerot and wignell (1995) defined an analytical exposition as a text which persuades the readers that something is the important case. to make the readers believe, the writers must write a well-organized exposition text. however, many efl students still got difficulties in writing a coherent exposition text. they had problems of empty theme and empty rheme (setiawati, 2016). they also did not use thematic patterns for all clauses (ervina, sukmawati, & zakiyah, 2016). in addition, it was found that some analytical exposition texts had no reiteration at the last paragraph (undayasari & saleh, 2018). seemingly, coherence is still the current issue which happened to efl students. thus, this study is an attempt to reveal coherence in analytical exposition texts through analysis of schematic structure, thematic choices, and thematic development. to sum up, the objectives of this study are to (1) figure out the schematic structure in the students’ exposition texts, (2) find out the types of thematic choices and thematic development found in students’ exposition texts, and (3) examine the students’ exposition texts coherence in terms of schematic structure, thematic choices, and thematic development patterns. methods this study used a qualitative research since it is aimed to reveal the coherence in analytical exposition texts through schematic structure, thematic choices, and thematic development in nur aeni afiati mafuroh & yusnita sylvia ningrum / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 88 the form of words. the object of this study was 19 analytical exposition texts written by the fourth semester students of unnes majoring in english education and taking genre-based writing (gbw) class in rombel 207-208 in the academic year of 2017/2018. to collect the data, the researcher firstly asked the students to give permission. after that, the researcher asked them to send the copy of the data via email or whatsapp. finally, the researcher listed the texts based on the students’ register numbers. then, were several steps to analyze the data: (1) reading each of texts, (2) analyzing the schematic structure of each text, (3) diving each text into clauses, (4) determining thematic choices (5) analyzing thematic development, (6) presenting the data in forms of tables, (7) interpreting the data based on theories from gerot and wignell (1995) and eggins (2004), and (8) concluding the findings. findings and dicussions schematic structure in students’ analytical exposition texts the finding of schematic structure was presented in the following table. table 1 schematic structure analysis in students’ exposition texts texts components of analysis thesis arguments reiteration text 1    text 2    text 3    text 4 *   text 5 *   text 6 *   text 7 *   text 8  only 1 argument elaborated text 9    text 10 *   text 11 *   text 12    text 13 *   text 14    text 15    text 16    text 17 *   text 18 *   text 19    note: * means the thesis only contains the writer’s position. there is no preview or the writers did not outline the main arguments to be presented. according to table 1, there were 3 types of schematic structures found in the students’ analytical exposition texts elaborated below. thesis, arguments, and reiteration the example could be illustrated by text 14. according to gerot and wignell (1995, pp. 197198), thesis must contain writer’s position and preview. the thesis on text 14 was realized in the sentence “one of the methods to teach english to the early childhood is using children’s songs, because children’s songs have some benefits”. from this sentence, the writer’s position was positive because she agreed to use songs in teaching english. moreover, the preview could be seen in the words “because children’s songs have some benefits”. it could be assumed that in the next paragraphs, the writer would elaborately inform the benefits of children’s songs. nur aeni afiati mafuroh & yusnita sylvia ningrum / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 89 paragraph 2 and 3 were the arguments of the text. paragraph 2 performed the first benefit of children song. it was realized by the sentence “firstly, the lyrics of children’s songs are not too long and not complicated”. next, paragraph 3 used the sentence “secondly, the tone and rhythm of the children’s songs will make the children’s mood become happy” as the second benefit of the songs to teach english for children. in addition, the last paragraph was the conclusion of the text. the writer concluded her arguments by writing the sentence “in conclusion, children’s songs are really good for early childhood to learn english because children’s songs are not complicated with entertaining lyrics and have good tone with exciting dance movement”. in other words, she restated her arguments briefly. incomplete thesis, arguments, and reiteration the example of the text containing this schematic structure could be illustrated by text 5. as explained by gerot and wignell (1995), a thesis must have position and preview. however, in paragraph 1 of the text 5, the writer only showed her position for the issue. in the first paragraph, she just informed what 5 words per day is effective without giving the main reasons or arguments. in other words, she only showed her agreement of using this method. she did not give the reasons why this method is good in learning english. paragraphs 2,3, and 4 were the arguments of the text. in paragraph 2, the writer informed the first reason of using 5 words per day method. it was realized by the sentence “firstly, the ability of the human brain has its limits”. then, paragraph 3 showed the second reason to use 5 words per day method, which could be seen in the sentence “secondly, this method doesn’t take much time”. moreover, in paragraph 4, the sentence “thirdly, this method is quite fun and will not bore us” can be regarded as the third reason. furthermore, paragraph 5 was the reiteration or conclusion of the text. the writer reiterated her arguments by writing the sentence “thus, for the reason above, we can conclude that this method should be applied for beginners and for all.” thesis, incomplete arguments, and no reiteration the example of the text having such schematic structure was realized in text 8. in the first paragraph, the writer could make a good thesis by writing the sentence “this method is quite effective to improve students’ skill in speaking english because it’s more focused on speaking and listening practice rather than writing and reading”. from this sentence, it seemed that the writer showed her agreement of using audio-lingual method in learning english. moreover, she also introduced two main arguments that were about speaking and listening skills. however, in paragraph 2-4, the writer only restated and developed her first argument about speaking skill. she did not elaborate her second argument properly that was about listening skill. in addition, she also did not summarize her all arguments. therefore, the schematic structure of text 8 was not good because it left one out of three stages of analytical exposition text thematic choices in students’ analytical exposition texts the first finding was about three types of theme: topcal (ideational), textual, and interpersonal theme (gerot & wignell, 1995; halliday, 2014). the finding was presented in table 2. nur aeni afiati mafuroh & yusnita sylvia ningrum / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 90 table 2 types of themes in students' analytical exposition texts texts topical textual interpersonal f % f % f % text 1 24 3.97 13 4.8 0 0 text 2 22 3.64 16 5.9 0 0 text 3 21 3.48 9 3.32 0 0 text 4 30 4.97 6 2.21 2 12.5 text 5 24 3.97 13 4.8 0 0 text 6 33 5.46 10 3.69 0 0 text 7 43 7.12 15 5.54 1 6.25 text 8 44 7.28 11 4.06 0 0 text 9 34 5.63 14 5.17 2 12.5 text 10 29 4.8 13 4.8 1 6.25 text 11 44 7.29 16 5.9 2 12.5 text 12 46 7.62 25 9.23 2 12.5 text 13 28 4.64 13 4.8 0 0 text 14 22 3.64 12 4.42 0 0 text 15 55 9.11 27 9.96 4 25 text 16 28 4.64 16 5.9 0 0 text 17 15 2.48 8 2.95 2 12.5 text 18 29 4.8 13 4.8 0 0 text 19 33 5.46 21 7.75 0 0 total 604 100 271 100 16 100 % total theme types % total topical % total textual % total interpersonal 67.79 30.42 1.79 table 4.2 performed that topical theme (67.79%) was the dominant type of theme followed by textual theme (30.42%) and interpersonal theme (1.79%). example 1 (text 15 clause 7) 7 because, generally a child imitate struct. modal adjunct nom. group rheme 7 text. inter. un. top. theme 7 this example contained three types of themes which can be realized by the words “because”, “generally, and “a child”. topical theme topical theme is divided into unmarked and marked as shown in table 3. table 3 types of topical themes in students' exposition texts texts unmarked marked f % f % text 1 20 3.7 4 6.25 text 2 19 3.52 3 4.6 text 3 20 3.7 1 1.57 text 4 23 4.26 7 11 text 5 21 3.9 3 4.6 text 6 31 5.74 2 3.2 text 7 34 6.3 9 14.1 text 8 41 7.59 3 4.6 text 9 33 6.11 1 1.57 text 10 25 4.64 4 6.25 text 11 42 7.78 2 3.2 text 12 43 7.96 3 4.6 text 13 25 4.63 3 4.6 text 14 22 4.07 0 0 text 15 49 9.44 6 6.25 nur aeni afiati mafuroh & yusnita sylvia ningrum / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 91 text 16 26 4.81 2 3.2 text 17 10 1.85 5 7.81 text 18 23 4.26 6 9.4 text 19 31 5.74 2 3.2 total 538 100 66 100 % total topical types % total unmarked topical % total marked topical 89.07 10.93 table 3 showed that the occurrence of unmarked topical was higher than marked topical theme. while marked topical only performed 10.93%, unmarked topical theme achieved the higher occurrence with the percentage of 89.07%. unmarked topical theme based on gerot and wignell (1995), in a declarative clause, unmarked topical theme can be defined as the subject of the clause. there are several subjects or elements of unmarked topical theme including nominal group, nominal group complex, and nominalization or embedded clause. halliday (2004, p. 85) also argued that in a wh-interrogative clause, whitems have the function as unmarked topical theme because they represent participant or circumstance. the following table is the result of unmarked topical themes types found in students’ exposition texts. table 4 types of unmarked topical themes in students’ exposition texts texts ng ng cp. embed. str. rel. exist. wh-intr. f % f % f % f % f % f % text 1 20 4.18 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 text 2 18 3.76 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 7.69 0 0 text 3 18 3.76 1 10 0 0 1 3.03 0 0 0 0 text 4 22 4.59 0 0 0 0 1 3.03 0 0 0 0 text 5 19 3.97 0 0 1 50 0 0 1 7.69 0 0 text 6 31 6.47 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 text 7 29 6.05 1 10 0 0 3 9.09 1 7.69 0 0 text 8 33 6.89 4 40 0 0 2 6.06 2 15.4 0 0 text 9 29 6.05 0 0 0 0 3 9.09 0 0 1 100 text 10 23 4.8 1 10 0 0 0 0 1 7.69 0 0 text 11 39 8.14 0 0 0 0 2 6.06 1 7.69 0 0 text 12 40 8.35 1 10 0 0 2 6.06 0 0 0 0 text 13 24 5.01 0 0 0 0 1 3.03 0 0 0 0 text 14 19 3.97 1 10 0 0 2 6.06 0 0 0 0 text 15 39 8.14 0 0 0 0 7 21.2 3 23.1 0 0 text 16 21 4.38 0 0 0 0 3 9.09 2 15.4 0 0 text 17 8 1.67 1 10 0 0 0 0 1 7.69 0 0 text 18 20 4.18 0 0 1 50 2 6.06 0 0 0 0 text 19 27 5.64 0 0 0 0 4 12.1 0 0 0 0 total 479 100 10 100 2 100 33 100 13 100 1 100 % total un. top. 89.03 1.86 0.37 6.13 2.42 0.19 89.03 1.86 0.37 6.13 2.42 0.19 as shown in table 4, students used all types of unmarked topical theme suggested by gerot and wignell (1995). it was found that nominal group was the dominant subject used by the students was nominal group due to performing 89.03% followed by structural relative (6.13%), existential (2.42%), nominal group complex (1.86%), embedded clause (0.37%), and wh-interrogative (0.19%). the examples of unmarked topical theme were presented below. nur aeni afiati mafuroh & yusnita sylvia ningrum / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 92 example 2 (text 2 clause 10) 10 the students could share their knowledge and opinion in doing the exercises and discussing the answer to the exercises. nom. group rheme 10 un. top. theme 10 example 3 (text 3 clause 7) 7 ostrander and schroeder cited in harmer said nom. group complex rheme 7 un. top. theme 7 example 4 (text 5 clause 22) 22 the results we get will always be attached to our memories. embedded clause rheme 22 un. top. theme 22 example 5 (text 1 clause 18) 18 reading english newspapers can be supplementary to texts books. nom. group rheme 18 un. top. theme 18 example 6 (text 11 clause 21) 21 there are some benefits of using picture. existential rheme 21 un. top. theme 21 example 7 (text 12 clause 29) 29 who have learning difficulties in all subjects. struct. rel. rheme 29 un. top. theme 29 example 8 (text 9 clause 5) 5 so what is the best way to learn english in the shortest amount of time? struct. wh-inter. rheme 5 text. un. top. theme 5 examples 5-8 showed the various functions of unmarked topical theme other than participant. example 5 used the words “reading english newspapers” in order to represent the theme functioning as a process. example 6 used the word “there” in order to represent the theme functioning as an existential. example 7 used the word “who” in order to represent the theme functioning as wh-relative. furthermore, example 8 used the word “what” in order to represent the theme functioning as wh-interrogative. thus, there are many ways of presenting unmarked topical theme. marked topical theme nur aeni afiati mafuroh & yusnita sylvia ningrum / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 93 in a declarative clause, marked theme refers to the topical theme which is not the subject. marked topical theme is not common to appear in the beginning of a sentence or clause. according to gerot and wignell (1995), marked topical theme usually happens in the forms of adverbial, prepositional phrase, and complement. the finding showed that students used three types of marked topical as mentioned by gerot and wignell (1995). the following table is the result of marked topical theme. table 5 types of marked topical themes in students’ exposition texts texts adverbial prep. phrase complement f % f % f % text 1 0 0 4 6.35 0 0 text 2 0 0 3 4.76 0 0 text 3 0 0 1 1.6 0 0 text 4 0 0 7 11.1 0 0 text 5 0 0 3 4.76 0 0 text 6 0 0 1 1.6 1 100 text 7 2 100 7 11.1 0 0 text 8 0 0 3 4.76 0 0 text 9 0 0 1 1.6 0 0 text 10 0 0 4 6.35 0 0 text 11 0 0 2 3.17 0 0 text 12 0 0 3 4.76 0 0 text 13 0 0 3 4.76 0 0 text 14 0 0 0 0 0 0 text 15 0 0 6 9.52 0 0 text 16 0 0 2 3.17 0 0 text 17 0 0 5 7.95 0 0 text 18 0 0 6 9.52 0 0 text 19 0 0 2 3.17 0 0 total 2 100 63 100 1 100 % total marked topical types % total adverbial % total prep. phrase % total complement 3.03 95.45 1.52 from this table, prepositional phrase (95.45%) was more frequent than adverbial group (3.03%). on the contrary, complement (1.52%) was the rarest subject used by the students. example 9 (text 7 clause 23) 23 and automatically they will learn how to pronounce the words correctly. struct. adverbial rheme 23 text. marked top. theme 23 example 10 (text 1 clause 16) 16 by reading english newspapers students can have knowledge about their country as well as about the world. prep. phrase rheme 16 marked topical theme 16 example 11 (text 4 clause 16) 16 in public places we need to have a confidence. prep. phrase rheme 16 marked topical theme 16 nur aeni afiati mafuroh & yusnita sylvia ningrum / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 94 example 12 (text 17 clause 8) 8 almost everyday we may listen to western music / song anytime and everywhere without realizing prep. phrase rheme 8 marked top. theme 8 example 13 (text 6 clause 13) 13 or the way teacher(s)speak struct. complement rheme 13 text. marked topical theme 13 according to example 9-13, it could be assumed that there are various ways of presenting marked topical theme. textual theme the finding of textual themes was presented in table below. table 6 types of textual themes in students' exposition texts texts continuative conjunctive adjunct structural f % f % f % text 1 0 0 7 10.3 6 2.97 text 2 0 0 5 7.35 11 5.44 text 3 0 0 2 2.94 7 3.47 text 4 0 0 1 1.48 5 2.48 text 5 0 0 4 5.88 9 4.46 text 6 0 0 1 1.48 9 4.46 text 7 0 0 2 2.94 13 6.44 text 8 0 0 0 0 11 5.44 text 9 0 0 2 2.94 12 5.94 text 10 0 0 3 4.41 10 4.95 text 11 0 0 4 5.88 12 5.94 text 12 0 0 6 8.82 19 9.4 text 13 0 0 2 2.94 11 5.44 text 14 0 0 3 4.41 9 4.46 text 15 0 0 9 11.76 18 9.4 text 16 0 0 6 8.82 10 4.95 text 17 1 100 1 1.48 6 2.97 text 18 0 0 5 8.82 8 3.47 text 19 0 0 5 7.35 16 7.92 total 1 100 68 100 202 100 % total textual theme types % total cont. % total conj. adj. % total struct. 0.4 25.1 74.5 as presented in table 6, structural was the most frequent of textual theme due to appearing 74.5% whereas conjunctive adjunct performed 25.1%. on the contrary, the rarest of textual theme was continuative with the percentage of 0.4%. example 14 (text 17 clause 14) 14 well from the memorized lyrics we can learn new words, expressions or phrases. cont. prep. phrase rheme 14 text. marked topical theme 14 nur aeni afiati mafuroh & yusnita sylvia ningrum / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 95 the second type of textual theme is conjunctive adjunct. as said by gerot and wignell (1995), conjunctive adjuncts are free to move in a clause. the result of conjunctive adjuncts was presented in table 7. table 7 types of conjunctive adjuncts in students' exposition texts no add. temp. causal sum. adv. verif. app. correct. cond. text 1 5 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 text 2 2 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 text 3 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 text 4 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 text 5 0 3 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 text 6 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 text 7 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 text 8 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 text 9 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 text 10 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 text 11 2 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 text 12 1 0 2 1 2 0 0 0 0 text 13 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 text 14 0 2 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 text 15 0 1 3 1 1 0 1 1 1 text 16 0 4 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 text 17 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 text 18 0 4 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 text 19 2 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 total 14 26 11 9 4 1 1 1 1 % 20.5 38.2 16.2 13.2 5.9 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.5 table 7 portrayed that there were several types of conjunctive adjuncts realized in students’ exposition texts. those types were additive, temporal, causal, summative, adversative, verificative, appositive, corrective, and conditional. from those types, the highest percentage was found in temporal type because it appeared 38.2%. the most recurring temporal type functioning as conjunctive adjunct was “then”. the following is the example of conjunctive adjunct. example 15 (text 15 clause 24) 24 then, a child like something conj. adj. nom. group rheme 24 text. un. top. theme 24 example 15 revealed the most frequent conjunctive adjuncts was realized in the word “then”. the last type of textual theme is structural. the common structurals functioning as textual theme were “that” and “because” as shown in examples below. example 16 (text 4 clause 28) 28 that oral presentation is very important for university students’ thought and professional. struct. nom. group rheme 28 text. un. top. theme 28 nur aeni afiati mafuroh & yusnita sylvia ningrum / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 96 example 17 (text 4 clause 12) 12 because we kindly open our mind to receive other’s opinions. struct. nom. group rheme 12 text. un. top. theme 12 interpersonal theme gerot and wignell (1995) mentioned that interpersonal theme includes modal adjunct, vocative, finite, and wh-interrogative. however, students only applied modal adjunct. the most frequent types of modal adjunct were “of course”, “once”, and “now” as shown in the following examples. example 18 (text 11 clause 42) 42 of course they will speak modal adjunct nom. group rheme 42 inter. un. top. theme 42 example 19 (text 9 clause 17) 17 once you have listened to the english audio book modal adjunct nom. group rheme 17 inter. un. top. theme 17 example 20 (text 15 clause 1) 1 now english is a second language modal adjunct nom. group rheme 1 inter. un. top. theme 1 thematic development in students’ analytical exposition texts the finding of thematic developments was presented in the following table. table 8 types of thematic development in students’ exposition texts texts theme reiteration zig-zag pattern multiple rheme f % f % f % text 1 12 8.51 3 2.4 0 0 text 2 5 3.55 2 1.6 0 0 text 3 4 2.84 3 2.4 1 33.33 text 4 6 4.27 6 4.8 0 0 text 5 8 5.67 0 0 0 0 text 6 9 6.38 3 2.4 0 0 text 7 9 6.38 13 10.4 0 0 text 8 9 6.38 10 8 1 33.33 text 9 10 7.1 5 4 0 0 text 10 3 2.13 8 6.4 0 0 text 11 17 12 6 4.8 0 0 text 12 10 7.1 6 4.8 1 33.33 text 13 6 4.27 3 2.4 0 0 text 14 5 3.55 4 3.2 0 0 text 15 6 4.27 20 16 0 0 text 16 9 6.38 10 8 0 0 text 17 3 2.13 5 4 0 0 text 18 2 1.42 9 7.2 0 0 text 19 8 5.67 9 7.2 0 0 nur aeni afiati mafuroh & yusnita sylvia ningrum / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 97 total 141 100 125 100 3 100 % total pattern types % total reiteration % total zig-zag % total multiple rheme 52.41 46.47 1.12 table 8 showed that theme reiteration pattern (52.41%) was mostly used by the students in writing analytical exposition texts followed by zig-zag pattern (46.47%) and multiple rheme pattern (1.12%). theme reiteration the example of theme reiteration pattern could be seen below. example of theme reiteration pattern in text 1 clause theme rheme 14 besides, english newspapers help students to enjoy reading, based on their interests. 15 so, the english newspapers can be learners personal english classroom and can help students acquire higher level of proficiency in english. 16 by reading english newspapers students can have knowledge about their country as well as about the world. 17 again, reading english newspapers widens students outlook and enriches their knowledge. 18 reading english newspapers can be supplementary to texts books. this example revealed that theme reiteration pattern could be found on text 1. in this pattern, the theme of the first clause is also selected as the theme of the following clause. from this table, the theme was “english newspapers”. the theme in clause 14 was also chosen as the theme in clause 15-18. zig-zag pattern the following was the example of the zig-zag pattern found in text 7. example of zig-zag pattern in text 7 clause theme rheme 3 in indonesia, english is used as a foreign language. 4 english is divided into four skills 5 which are listening, speaking, reading, and writing. 6 all of these skills should be taught by english teachers (depdiknas, 2006:307). based on the example above, zig-zag pattern could be found in text 7. this pattern performed that the rheme of a clause became the theme of the following clause. in clause 4, the theme was about “english” which was taken from the rheme in clause 3. next, in clause 5, the theme is “which” referred to the rheme in clause 4. moreover, the theme in clause 6 also referred to the rheme in clause 5. nur aeni afiati mafuroh & yusnita sylvia ningrum / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 98 multiple rheme pattern the following is the example of multiple rheme pattern which could be realized in text 8. example of multiple rheme pattern in text 8 clause theme rheme 28 there are some types of drill: repetition drill and substitution drill. 29 in repetition drill, we only ask the students to repeat sentences or words said before without making any change. 30 in substitution, the students have to substitute the words in sentence with the words the teacher about to mention, this example provided the use of multiple rheme pattern in the students’ exposition taken from text 8. multiple rheme occurred when a clause contained more than one information, and each of which would become the theme of the subsequent clauses. in clause 27, the rheme informed two ideas. those ideas were about two drills: “repetition drill” and “substitution drill”. the first idea then was elaborated in clause 29 and the second idea was developed in clause 30. the result of schematic structure showed a similarity and a difference with studies committed by garintama (2018) and undayasari and saleh (2018). the similarity could be seen in the use of reiteration as the last stage in analytical exposition. based on the findings, there was one text which had no reiteration. both this current study and those previous studies found that “reiteration” was one of the components of analytical exposition which is commonly left by a few students. the difference between this current study and studies from garintama (2018) and undayasari and saleh (2018) was in the use of thesis and arguments. although students had already applied good schematic structure, there were several theses which were not complete. some students only gave their position towards the topic presented in the text. they did not inform their preview. thus, students might get difficulty in creating a good thesis and reiteration. the result of topical theme as the dominant type of theme is in line with the results of previous studies committed by az-zahro (2017), babaii et al. (2016), jalilifar et al. (2017), katrini and farikah (2015), setiawati (2016), and undayasari and saleh (2018). those previous studies figured out that topical theme was frequently used by the students instead of textual and interpersonal theme. this occured because almost all of the students’ analytical exposition texts contained declarative sentences which put subject as the starting point of the clause. from the view of thematic developments, this finding is similar to the result of studies conducted by setiawati (2016) and undayasari and saleh (2018). theme reiteration was mainly used because it is easy for students especially novice writers to organize their ideas by using the same participant as the theme in each clause. conclusions firstly, students used three schematic structures including texts containing thesis, arguments, and reiteration, texts comprising incomplete thesis, arguments, and reiteration, and a text only consisting of thesis and incomplete argument. considering those structures, students might get difficulties in organizing a good thesis and reiteration. nur aeni afiati mafuroh & yusnita sylvia ningrum / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 99 secondly, topical theme was mainly used instead of textual and interpersonal theme. then, in terms of thematic developments, theme reiteration was the dominant pattern because it is the easiest way in organizing ideas in which the students simply use theme on the first clause to be the theme on the next clauses. in conclusion, students’ texts were less coherent. although they had used a correct schematic structure, there were several texts having an incomplete thesis and there was also one text which left 1 out of 3 stages of analytical exposition text. in addition, from the view of thematic developments, the over-use of theme reiteration might show that the students’ writing skill is low because they could not elaborate their ideas through various methods. suggestions for the english students, they should learn how to organize a good thesis in order to write a coherent analytical exposition text. furthermore, it is suggested that english teachers or lecturers should relate the material of thematic choices and thematic development. during the process of learning, they also should give clear explanation and instruction in order to make the students understand. in addition, for the future researchers, they are expected to find an alternative approach or way to help the students in writing a coherent text. references az-zahro, u. f. 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(2014). halliday ’ s introduction to functional grammar (4th ed.). new york: routledge. jalilifar, a., alipour, m., & rabiee, m. (2017). a comparative study of thematicity in the argumentative writing of university efl students and the introduction section of research articles. journal of teaching language skills (jtls), 36(1). 85-110. doi: 10.22099/jtls.2017.4043 katrini, y. e., & farikah. (2015). analysis of theme of the analytical exposition texts written by the third semester students of english department of tidar university. international journal of english and education, 4(3). 548-565. kilic, m., genc, b., & bada, e. (2016). topical structure in argumentative essays of efl learners and implications for writing classes. journal of language and linguitic studies, 12(2), 107–116. nur aeni afiati mafuroh & yusnita sylvia ningrum / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 100 oshima, a., & hogue, a. (2006). writing academic english (4th ed.). united states of america: pearson longman setiawati, n. (2016). thematic development on students’ analytical exposition texts. thornburry, s. (2005). beyond the sentence: introducing discourse analysis. oxford: macmillan publisher limited. undayasari, d., & saleh, m. (2018). comparison of thematic structure and progression between english and indonesian exposition texts written by undergraduate students of upi ( rhetorical study ). english education journal, 8(1), 43–50. microsoft word 7. ayu silvana faradilla rochim 78 communicative competence components analysis in using english through english interaction room ayu silvana faradilla rochim, dwi rukmini  english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 17 december 2018 approved in 29 july 2019 published in 29 july 2019 ________________ keywords: communicative competence; using english; english interaction room (eir). ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this study was aimed to explain the communicative competence components of the fourth semester english department students through english interaction room (eir). the communicative competence components in using english were analyzed based on the grammatical competence, discourse competence, sociolinguistic competence and strategic competence. this study used qualitative method which means that the data of this study were explained by using descriptive analysis method. the result showed that (1) mostly, the utterances of the participants were ungrammatical in syntax, while some were in morpheme, but those were acceptable (2) mostly the utterances were appropriate with the topic discussed. the participants were able to construct a unified discourse, (3) mostly, the utterances seemed natural and used less formal language, and (4) most participants used achievement strategy to hold the conversation. in conclusion, most of eir participants are communicative in using english viewed from the discourse competence, sociolinguistic competence and strategic competence. they need to increase their competence of using english grammar. © 2019 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: ayusilvanafaradilla@gmail.com elt forum 8 (1) (2019) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt ayu silvana faradilla rochim & dwi rukmini / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 79 introduction this study is related to the goal of english students learning english. they acquire english as their second language in order to be able to communicate using english. we know how necessary communication in people’s life is. as stated by rickheit and strohner (2008) that the ability to reach people goals in social life depends on their communicative competence. it means that people communication is important and people must have competence to be communicative. in this case, the ability to communicate using english is necessary for english learners to compete in this modern era. the purpose of communication is to convey or to exchange the message to others. to reach the goal of communication, english learners need to have communication skill. it is the tool in communication process which are used to remove barriers to reach effective communication. while brian spitzberg in rickheit and strohner (2008) defined, “communication skills are generally thought to be manifestations of some underlying ability, which is a capacity for action. this capacity is typically conceptualized as a function of numerous motivation (e.g. confidence, goals, reinforcement potential, etc.) and knowledge (e.g. content and procedural knowledge, familiarity, etc.) components.” but the fact is that, mostly, english students are difficult to use english daily. some reasons stated that they are ashamed of making mistakes when they use english. they are afraid of making mistakes in grammar which make the listener do not understand what they mean. they are also afraid if they are not interactive and let the conversation stuck in a moment. therefore, this study was aimed to analyze the communicative competence components in using english by explaining their grammatical competence, discourse competence, sociolinguistic competence and strategic competence. in this modern era, there are many easier and simpler applications with high technology which is used as communication system for people. one of those application is whatsapp. whatsapp application is an easier and well-known modern application in recent years. it seems like sms (short message service), facebook, bbm (blackberry messenger), and email. especially whatsapp application which provides not only text message service, but also audio call, video call and voice note service. whatsapp application also can be used to transmit and receive any kinds of document, such as pictures, videos, musics, recording, and also kinds of file in form of microsoft word, power point, excel, pdf, etc. we can also make a group in this application, which means that we can have a chat room with more than two people. in case of using english, english learners need to train their communicative skills by practising more in order to make their habit until they feel confident to use english, whether spoken or written. it is important for them to practise, because the goal of learning english is that they can communicate using english. while, the goal of communication is to convey the message. therefore, eir was created to be functioned as their chat room to communicate using english in semi spoken communication. then i analyzed the components of communicative competence in order to know their quality in using english. it is necessary for english learners to be able using english as a communication purpose. which means that english learners are required to communicate using english as their learning result. as stated by ellis (2003) that the goals of learning english as the second language are to know the learners’ ability to communicate and the fluency in using english. akilandeswari, kumar, pavithra, maryam and banu (2015) defined that communication is the main to the success of people to convey the message to someone or a group of people. it is fact that communication is deal with the process of understanding and being understood through ideas, facts, thoughts and emotions. in addition, richards and schmit (1993) defined that communication is functioned as the exchange and negotiation of information between at least two persons through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, oral and written/visual modes, and production and comprehension processes. according to rickheit and strohner (2008: 24), communicative competence is related to practical application needed in social interaction including interpersonal relationships, academic, professional success, psychological and also health problems. effectiveness and appropriateness in using language ayu silvana faradilla rochim & dwi rukmini / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 80 become the criteria of being communicative. while, brown (2000, 246) defines communicative competence as the way of how people use language based on the context considering the subject, audience, occasion, and purpose of communication. from the concept of ‘communicative competence’ above, in my view, communicative competence is the functional knowledge to indicate the succesful communication ability of the participants in order to reach the goal of being communicative. if the participants in communication process do not able to use their communicative competence, they would not reach the understanding of the exchanged information in the communication process. there are four components of communicative competence. those are grammatical, discourse, sociolinguistic and strategic competence. according to cuellar (2013), grammatical competence is the ability to produce and recognize well-formed phrases and sentences. in line with those definitions, andrasyah (2009) connected the grammatical competence with acceptability. he categorized into pragmatically acceptable, syntactic ungrammaticality and morphological ungrammaticality. according to marta (2016), discourse competence is the appropriateness of linguistic resources and rhetorical strategies in order to reach effective communication in specific context. trujillo (2010) defined discourse comptence is the ability to make logical connection of sentences into meanigful utterances whether spoken or wrritten which are appropriate with the given social context. he underlined with the appropriate cohesion, coherence and rhetorical organization to combine ideas. ritchie (2011, p. 123-141) defined sociolinguistic competence as the ability to produce socially appropriate speeach in context. in his research, he analysed the sociolinguistic competence including the markers of social relations, politeness conventions, expressions of folk-wisdom, and register differences. mariani (1994) defined strategic competence as the ability to solve communication problems despite an adequate command of the linguistic and sociocultural code. this competence refers to the ability to cope with unexpected problems in communication process while the speakers do not have ready-made solutions. he also mentioned two kinds of strategic competence, those were: 1) reduction or avoidance strategy : it means when the speakers avoid the problem by keeping the message within the communicative resources, 2) achievement strategy : it is used to express the meanig of a word when the exact term is not available. in this globalisation era, there are huge advances of new technology. we almost use any kinds of technology in our daily lives. we often use technology at campuss, at school, at home, in the office, wherever and whenever we are. we use technology for communication, education, transportation, manufactoring, business, and so much more. one of technology used in this study was whatsapp application or also called whatsapp messenger. according to rouse (2013), “whatsapp messenger is a freeware and cross-platform instant messaging and voice over ip (voip) service which allows the sending of text messages and voice calls, as well as video calls, images and other media, documents and user location. the application runs from a mobile device though it is also accessible from desktop computers; the service uses standard cellular mobile numbers.” while ryanto in awada (2016) claimed that whatsapp is a social and cultural medium for learners to communicate with others as same as studying by obtaining a new language through exchanging whatsapp messages. from the definition of whatsapp application stated above, i conclude that whatsapp application is a modern application for communication system which can be used easily to exchange information personally or even in a chat room group through text messaging, voice calls, video calls, images, and also documents. whatsapp application was chosen as the media for interaction using english in this present study. in this study, whatsapp was used as the media for english learners to communicate using english. by using whatsapp application, it was created a group labelled english interaction room for the english learners as the media for them to interact and discuss using english, even spoken or written. whatsapp application gives people an easy way to communicate and share any kinds of information such as text message, audio, video and also document even personal or in a group. follows ayu silvana faradilla rochim & dwi rukmini / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 81 were some steps to make a group labelled “english interaction room” in whatsapp application: first, save the contact number of the english learners who would be the participants of discussion. second, in chat option, create a chat room group named “english interacation room”. then, add the contact number of the participants to the english interaction room group. add an icon by tapping on the empty photo box. the last, tap the green check mark. the term ‘chat room’ in oxford dictionary (2010) was categorized into a noun which is referred to an area on the internet where people can communicate with each other, usually about one particular topic. chat room is almost the same with online dicussion that had defined by beal (2008) as an online communication space where participants can post and read messages from other participants about certain issues discussed. chat room in my personal view is a service of certain communication application that is used to exchange any kinds of information to other users that need to be connected on the internet. chat room in this present study was a service on the whatsapp application and used as a room for english learners to exchange any kinds of information, ideas and opinions using english. in using internet, there will always be some rules that need to be obeyed. in case, to interact with others there must be a set of rules to respect others. it is called nettiquette. beal (2008) mentioned some nettiquette as follows: 1) do stay on topic, which means that the participants need to read the topic of a particular discussion and keep the posts related to the topic, 2) do turn theat caps lock key off. capital letters are considered as shouting and rude in communicating online, 3) do search before posting. it means to make sure that the questions or asking for help on a particular topics are not repeated. in addition, ryan (2013) suggested for the instructor to organize the chat room should consider some criteria: 1) the educational level and background of the participants, 2) the size of the groups participating in the online discussion, 3) the period of time that is available to participants, and 4) the ability of the participants to access the internet chat room functioned as the room for the learners to interact using english was organized similar to online discussion. there were some steps clarified by ur (1981:18-24) to hold a discussion: 1) presentation is to make participants completely clear how the discussion arranged, 2) process refers to the way the discussion is held, 3) ending is to draw the discussion to a close, 4) feedback refers to valuable information about what language is actively known, what is used rightly, and what needs correction and practice. thus, chat room that became the communication media in this present study would be implemented as follows: 1) made some rules to be followed by the participants of english interaction room., 2) made an appointment with all the participants related to the time off discussion, therefore the participants could be online to join the discussion, and 3) organized the discussion by preparing the topic of discussion, introducing the topic to the participants, holding the discussion, giving feedback, making a conclusion of the discussion to end the discussion. for many english learners, especially english department students, to reach the goal in learning english which is to be able using english is quite difficult. it needs high efforts to communicate using english written or spoken; mastering the vocabulary, the pronunciation, the grammatical rules. the big obstacle is when learners do not have any courage to try or practice their english skills. by practicing over and over will help learners to be more fluent in using english, indeed. this study was aimed to explain how the communicativity of english department students in using their english knowledge and communication skills. the activity of this group was held online through whatsapp chatroom group which labelled as english interaction room (eir). this chatroom group was used as a room to interact and discuss using english for all participants. ayu silvana faradilla rochim & dwi rukmini / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 82 methods this study used a qualitative research approach which was categorized as a descriptive case study. it focused on explaining the communicativity of english department students through english interaction room, which the result was analysed based on the four competence of communicativity. in short, this present study used descriptive qualitative research approach. the population of this study was english department students, while participants of this study were the fourth semester of english department students. the sample was taken randomly eight students. this study focused on the communicativity in using english. therefore, the object of this study was to explain the communicativity in using english through english interation room. this study used qualitative data to explain the communicativity of english department students. the result of the chatroom group labelled english interaction room would be analysed based on brown’s communicative competence theory (2000). in analysing the data, this study used the book entitled principles of language learning and teaching by brown (2000). in collecting the data, the researcher made a group on whatsapp named english interaction room. i inputted the participants’ number into the whatsapp group. there will be third activities in eir. as the instructor, firstly i held the first activity in eir as the introduction. i introduced myself, gave the rules of eir and asked the participants to introduce themselves. then i would make an appointment related to the time that all the members could be online and joined the group discussion before i held the next activity. the second activity we would talk about their hobby and their achievement from their hobby. and the third activity would discuss about modern technology. the findings of this study were analysed in order to explain the communicative competence components of english department students in using english through eir based on brown’s communicative competence. follows were some steps to analyse the data after holding the discussion: 1) transcribing : the researcher would transcribe all the utterance from the first until the third activity of english interaction room, 2) classifying : the researcher would classify four categories, those are grammar, discourse markers, the understanding of social context, and the ability in negotiating with other participants. 3) analyzing : the utterance of english interaction room would be analyzed by describing based on four criteria of communicative competence: 1) grammatical competence referred to the ability to use the phonological rules, morphological rules, syntactic rules, semantic rules and lexical items, 2) discourse competence referred to the ability to arrange sentences related to the context discussed by considering the topic, style, logical ordering, coherence and cohesion, 3) sociolinguistic competence referred to the ability to use the understanding of language used in the social context by considering the role of the participants, the shared information, the function of the information, politeness and naturalness, and 4) strategic competence referred to the ability to enhance the effectiveness of communication. findings and discussion the research findings were explained based on students’ communiative competencies. first, the grammatical competence : it focused on how the participants used their english grammar knowledge in english interaction room which was referred to the phonological rules, morphological rules, syntactic rules, semantic rules and lexical items. thus, the utterances ofthe participants were analyzed based on the grammaticality and acceptability. based on the research findings, the utterances of the participants were acceptable, eventhough those were ungrammatical. the reason is because the grammaticality relies on the rules of a language. while acceptability is determined by the grammaticality and the meaningfulness of the sentence or the discourse. second, the discourse competence : it explained the communicativity of the participants based on their ability to the participants’ ability to arrange sentences related to the context discussed by considering the topic, style, logical ordering, coherence and cohesion. it focused on the cohesion and coherence of the utterances of eir. based on the research findings, most of the participants responded appropriately with the instruction given by the instructor in the first activity. the participants responded to introduce ayu silvana faradilla rochim & dwi rukmini / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 83 themselves. in the second activity, there were three participants who were out of the topic discussed. in the third activity, the participants responded based on the topic discussed in eir. the participants’s ability to construct a unified discourse were developed. in the first activity, the utterances of each participants were similar. in the second activity, some utterances of the participants did not showed the cohesion and coherence. while, in the third activity, the participants’ utterances were more cohesive and coherent. third, the sociolinguistic competence which refers to the markers of social relations, politeness conventions, expressions of folk-wisdom, and register differences. therefore, in the term of sociolinguistic competence, the utterances of eir participants were analyzed by considering the role of the participants, the shared information, the function of the information, politeness and naturalness. in the first activity, the participants started with greeting before introduced themselves. it showed the naturalness in the conversation between the instructor and the participants. the language used less formal, therefore it seemed to be casual interaction. in the second activity, the interaction between instructor and participants, and also each participants were developed. the language used was still less formal which formed casual interaction. some participants held the conversation by using jokes and giving encouragement. in the third activity, the interaction between the participants was more formal than the second activity. in delivering the opinion, some of them used the expression, “in my opinion” and “in my view”. they turned taking to convey their argument showed their naturalness in using language. fourth, the strategic competence : it refers to the participants’ knowledge strategies related to the enhance the effectiveness of communication. the utterances of the participants were analysed bassed on the participants’ strategies in order to the reach the effectiveness of communication. there are two basic strategies used in holding interaction: avoidance strategy and achievement strategy. the result showed that most of eir participants’ utterances used achievement strategy. the communicative competence of the eir participants in using english based on four components were explained as follows: 1) p1 was communicative viewed from the competence of discourse, sociolinguistic, and strategic. she was responsive, interactive and dominant. she could interact and make a simple conversation with other participants. she could construct cohesive and coherent ideas. she could also present her ideas attractively and persuasively using her experience and jokes. but some of her utterances were ungrammatical in syntax and morpheme. 2) p2 was responsive and interactive. she could construct cohesive and coherent ideas by using varied discourse markers. she stated her ideas using her own experience to convince other participants. mostly, her utterances were syntactical ungrammatically. 3) p3 could construct cohesive and coherent ideas. he was responsive, becuase he only responded what the instructor asked. he stated his ideas using achievement strategy by stating his own experience and knowledge to convince other participants. grammatically, his utterances were good and easy to understand. only a few number of utterances were ungrammatical. 4) p4 could construct coherent ideas by using varied discourse markers. she was responsive. she stated her ideas using her own experience to convince other participants (achievement strategy). her utterances were less ungrammatical 5) p5 could construct coherent ideas. she was responsive. she stated her ideas using her own experience to convince other participants. her utterances were less ungrammatical; 6) p6 was responsive. she stated her ideas using her own experience and made it coherent bu using discourse markers. ungrammatical in syntax and morpheme were found in her utterances. 7) p7 was responsive, interactive and dominant. he could interact and made a simple conversation with some participants. he could also present his ideas attractively and persuasively by using hiw knowledge and experience. but he was less cohesive in constructing his ideas. he overused a certain discourse marker in his utterance. his utterances were quite difficult to understand. most of his utterances were ungrammatical both in syntax and morpheme, and 8) p8 was responsive and interactive. she could make a simple conversation with other participants. she stated her ideas using her own experience to convince other participants and responded by giving certain jokes in order to make the interaction flow. she could construct cohesive and coherent ideas by using varied discourse markers. the ungrammatical utterances were mostly in syntac. ayu silvana faradilla rochim & dwi rukmini / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 84 conclusion according to the research findings and discussions, the communicative competence of the nine participants english interaction room (eir) were explained by analysing their four competencies in communication: grammatical, discourse, sociolinguistic and strategic competence. the most problem found in their utterances was their grammatical competence. mostly the ungrammatical was found in the syntax and some were in morphology. the discourse, sociolinguistic and strategic competence of the participants were developed from the first activity until the third activity. in the beginning, the interaction between all the participants were monotonous. the utterances were also quite simple. while in the second activity, the participants began more communicative and interactive by giving encouragement, making a joke, talking about a certain movie and also giving response to others’ argument. to sum up, most of participants of english interaction room tend to be communicative. their communicative competence were good viewed from the discourse competence, sociolinguistic competence and strategic competence. in term of grammatical competence, they seemed to improve their competence in grammatical. acknowledgements the researcher would like to give the special honor to the advisor prof. dr. dwi rukmini, m.pd. who guided me to conduct this study. the researcher would also give special honor to the participants of english interaction room, as the result i could collect the data for my study. references akilandeswari, v., kumar, a. d., pavithra, m., mariyam, a. t., & banu, j. n. (2015). elements of effective communication. international journal of multidisciplinary research and modern education (ijmrme) , 154-156. andrasyah, a. (2009, 08 01). the grammaticality versus the accepatability. retrieved from linguistic: https://arieandrasyah.wordpress.com/2009/08/01/the-grammaticality-versus-the-acceptability/ awada, g. (2016). effect of whatsapp on critique writing proficiency and perceptions toward learning. information & communications technology in education , 1-25. beal, v. (2008, april 18). all about online discussion forums. retrieved march 29, 2018, from webopedia: https://www.google.co.id/amp/www.webomedia.com/didyouknow/internet/forum_etiquette .asp brown, h. d. (2000). principles of language learning and teaching. new york: a pearson education company. cuellar, m. t. (2013). process writing and the development of grammatical competence. a colombian journal for teachers of english, 11-35. ellis, r. (1997). second language acquisition. oxford: oxford university press. hornby, a. s. (2010). oxford advanced learner's dictionary. oxford: oxford university press. mariani, l. (1994). developing strategic competence towards autonomy in oral interaction. journal of tesol, 41-57. marta, m. m. (2016). discourse competence in written academic discourse. convergent discourses: exploring the contexts of communication, 152-158. richards, j. c., & schmidt, r. w. (1983). language and communication. new york: longman group. ayu silvana faradilla rochim & dwi rukmini / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 85 rickheit, g., & strohner, h. (2008). handbook of communication competence. berlin: walter de gruyter gmbh & co. kg. ritchie, m. (2011). developing sociolinguistic competence through intercultural online exchange. second language teaching and learning with technology: views of emergent researchers, 123-141. rouse, m. (2013, june). definition whatsapp. dipetik march 30, 2018, dari searchmobilecomputing: https://searchingmobilecomputing.techtarget.com/definition/whatsapp ryan, r. s. (2013). the effect of online discussion forums on student learning and student perception of learning in a science course at the community college level. retrieved march 29, 2018, from aquila: http://aquila.usm.edu/dissertations/207/ trujillo, f. (2010). discourse competence dealing with texts in the efl classroom. tefl in secondary students, 515-545. ur, p. (1981). discussions that work . new york: the press syndicate of the university of cambridge. microsoft word 2. 128 the use of cue card in cooperative learning for teaching vocabulary parmi  english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 21 july approved in 29 november published in 30 november 2019 ________________ keywords: cue card; cooperative learning; english vocabulary. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ vocabulary is the basic of english that is very important and difficult to master. vocabulary will help students to master the four skills of language. therefore, teacher have to make creative and interesting a way for teaching vocabulary. this study concern about how cue card and cooperative learning is used for teaching vocabulary. this study focused on the use cue card as learning media and cooperative learning as learning method. the subject of this study was seven grade student of smp n 41 semarang. the aim of this study was to describe the implementation of cue card with cooperative learning in teaching vocabulary to the students in the classroom. this study was a qualitative case research. the observation, questionnaire, interview, and document analysis was used to collect the data. the questionnaire was given at the end of the study. the observation sheet used to monitor the students and teacher’s activities during the teaching learning process. the interview was done at the end of the meeting. based on the result, the researcher concluded that the use of cue card for teaching english vocabulary is interesting, effective, efficient, and affordable. in addition, cooperative learning was helpful to increase the student’s confidence. © 2019 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b8 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: e.teacher.ichsan@gmail.com elt forum 8 (2) (2019) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt parmi / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 129 introduction english as international language is very important to the society because english is used in several aspects such as education, social, culture etc. as brown says that language is a system of arbitrary of conventionalized vocal, written, or gestural symbol that enable members of a given community to communicate intelligibly with one another (brown, 2000:5). indonesian curriculum has stated that english is one of the compulsory subjects that have to be taught in junior and senior high school. base on curriculum 2013 junior high school student will get english at the first time because some of them do not get english in elementary school. there are four skills in english. they are listening, speaking, reading, and writing. to be competent in english, the students should have a good skill especially those four skills. without those four skills student will not be able to communicate and write. to be competent in those four skills student must master vocabulary. mastering english vocabulary as foreign language is not easy as mastering indonesia vocabulary. the fact that english is considered as inconsistence language is very crucial since its spelling is different from its pronunciation. in addition, memorizing is also claimed as a bored and difficult activity for some junior high school student. based on those opinions, the teacher should be creative and active. vocabulary is the most important component language because it affects the four language skills. that is why students should improve their vocabularies. according to nugroho et al (2012), that matter is indicated from two indicators; first is viewed from vocabulary mastery and second is viewed from the student’s motivation during teaching-learning process. in addition, i find several problems about student’s vocabulary mastery such as difficulties in understanding the meaning of words, difficulties in pronouncing words correctly, and they could not spell the words correctly. with regard to vocabulary mastery, it also connects to the student’s motivation. according to purnama (2016) junior high school students are different from adults or senior high school students. they need more motivation from the teachers to mastering vocabularies. the indicators are: a) some students were busy talking with their friends when learning process was occurring; b) some students were busy drawing picture to their books; c) the students were not actively involved in the leaning process; they tended to be passive; d) some students ignored the teacher’s instruction. base my experience in training practice in junior high school 41 knows why those problems arose. one of them is that the teacher often teaches by doing the task on lks, so the students did not have enough experience in learning vocabulary. it also made the students bored and they were not interested with the lesson. based on the facts above, it can be concluded that the main reason causing the problem is the teacher not creative to use media in teaching vocabulary mastery. in order to improve student’s vocabularies, a teacher should concern about the students’ motivation, and interest. the use of media, however, would help the students to reach the objective of teaching and help the students in understanding and learning a particular lesson. according to sofwan (2013) these strategies hoped can help students to understand the materials and to stimulate student’s interest during teaching learning activities. there are several techniques concerning in teaching of' vocabulary if they want to present a new vocabulary or lexical items to their students that want students to remember new vocabulary. for instance, if we want to mention name of animal, media like dolls, realia, pictures, and so forth might help the students in visualizing the shape of those animals easily. some previous studies show that pictures and game give much contribution to the teaching vocabulary. the students will more active and interesting in picture. they will more understand and easy to remember the words. therefore, i decide to use cue card to teach vocabulary. cue card is card with picture and word. budiastuti (2007) point that cue card is card with words or picture on, which is used to encourage the students to respond. cue card is interesting due to its simplicity and attractiveness. the use of media is significant as it would help the students in understanding and learning particular lesson. we are so familiar with pictures. we can find many pictures in every corner of the street. cue card is claimed as the simple and attractive card. in this research i use cooperative learning as learning method. cooperative learning model focuses on student’s cooperative learning which means every student is accustomed to share their knowledge, experience, duty and responsibility. the teacher is only the facilitator but the student is the subject of the study. sofwan (2013) said that using cooperative learning is effective to increase the students’ vocabulary. it was proved that result of students’ average score increase, from 64.1 in cycle 1, to 84.2. in cycle 2. vocabulary is the basic of english that will help to master the four skill of language. junior high school students are different from adults or senior high school students. they need more parmi / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 130 motivation and guidance from the teachers to mastering english vocabulary. without mastering vocabulary, student will not be able to mastering the four english skills. the difficulties that are faced by the student in mastering vocabulary are difficulties in memorizing and less motivation in classroom activities. according to those statements i have mention above, i would like to use cue card as learning media to take the student attention and cooperative learning is learning method in improving student’s vocabulary to make interesting atmosphere in the classroom. i sought to answer how cue card used with cooperative learning for teaching english vocabulary in junior high school efl classroom. i would like to analyze the teaching and learning process using cue card and cooperative learning. methods the research method that i used is a qualitative method. i used qualitative case study since the main purpose of this study is to explore the used of cue card in cooperative learning for teaching vocabulary. the research was conducted at sma n 41 semarang in the academic year of 2018/2019. i choose grade vii a in smp n 41 semarang. it consists of 32 students that are 17 girls and 15 boys. in conducting the study, i collaborated with miss miming in preparing lesson plans, choosing the class, and designing the media. the instruments of this study were observation guideline, questionnaire guideline, interview guideline, and document analysis guideline. in order to collect the data efficiently, i firstly did an observation at the class. the purpose of observation is to know the students’ behavior and teacher’s performance in the teaching-learning process. it helped me to observe the class situation. in terms of the chosen the classes, we choose them randomly. secondly, i interviewed the teacher to get deeper information about the students’ interest, like and dislike, and also an opinion about the use of cue card and cooperative learning for teaching vocabulary. i did the interview at the end of the meeting. i did semi-structured interview. i was recording and write the result of the interview. the interviews were used in order to get information from the english teachers whether (1) they found difficulties in teaching and learning using cue card and cooperative learning, (2) what kinds of problems they faced, (3) what caused the problems, (4) how they solved the problems, and also (5) what the different between using media and without media for the student. third, i gave the questionnaire to the students. the questionnaire was an open ended question. there are 10 questions. the questions were related to the student knowledge about cue card and cooperative learning and their opinion about teaching learning using cue card and cooperative learning. the questionnaire collected data information from the students based on the needs, interest, like and dislike about the teaching learning process. the questionnaire was given to the students at the end of learning process. the document analyzed was the lesson plan of the english teachers. i and miss budi made the lesson plan together. however, i took some pictures as another supporting data. the purpose is to find the evidence of what the observation sheet stated. it means whether or not the student interest, like or dislike in the use of cue card during the lesson. it also means whether or not learning activities of cooperative learning help the students develop student vocabularies. the steps of data analysis in this study are data reduction, data display, conclusion drawing and verification. data reduction can be interpreted as the process of selection, simplification, and transformation, of the data to the field note. data display includes many types of columns, tables and charts. the data display of this research is provided in the descriptive form. i drew the conclusion throughout the course by verifying the data. the conclusion was be gained based on the data obtained. findings and discussion findings the research findings are purposed to answer the research question of the study that is how cue card in cooperative learning is used for teaching english vocabulary, specifically in smp n 41 semarang. the data were gathered from the classroom observations, the questionnaires, the interviews, and document analysis. since this research was a qualitative case study, i would present the findings in the form of a rich description of the studied phenomenon. parmi / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 131 cue card as interesting media cue card is an interesting method for teaching english vocabulary. it helped the student to remember the word more easily. based on the result of student’s questionnaire was conducted on 8th augustus 2018, the students were happy. they said that cue card and cooperative learning were more interesting rather than remembering. it helped them to understand the meaning, the pronunciation, and remember the word easier. it was also easy to use and simple. by using cue card, they will be more understood not only meaning but also the pronunciation of the word. there were a picture and word in each card. it was difficult for them to understand the materials without understanding the meaning and knowledge in the picture or the thing as stated by one of the students: the student said that they are very happy and want to study using cue card and cooperative learning (student’s questionnaire). media is very important in teaching and learning process. they were bored since the teacher did not use any media for the teaching and learning process. miss budi often uses media for teaching and learning process. she thought that cue card is very useful for teaching and learning english. it can attract the student’s attention. miss budi as a teacher stated that: media is number one. it can take student attention. the student will be less motivation and concentration when she did not use media (teacher’s interview, 08082018). first of all miss budi introduce the cue card to the student and how to use it. she used cue card by showing the picture and pronouncing its expression fluently, the students repeat it after her. miss budi distributed five cue card and student’s worksheet to the leader of the group. the cue card contains a picture and dialog that express the picture and situation. the teacher and the student discuss about the materials. the student asked to match the picture with the correct expression and situation. the teacher gave question and answer to the students. the students discussed with their groups. they practice some expression on the cue card. the teacher used the cue card to give example to the student about the vocabulary, the pronunciation, and the expression. by using cue card and cooperative learning, the teaching and learning process run very well and the students looked interested on it. the students were very enjoyed and confident. based on the observation that was conducted on 25th july 2018, there is one student did not come. the total of the student were 32 students. since most of the students were less concentration and make noisy, she tried to get the student attention by using cue card. it is effective to use cue card to take student attention. after getting the student attention, she gave instruction to look at the paper. the students were active in a group and their self. they were able to read and remember the expression in the cue card. in doing duty, they divided the duty with their groups to answer the question. after that, they write the answer in the paper. in this time, they were very interesting and easy to arrange. they were very interesting to come forward. they confident to read the expression even they still fell shy (observation, 01082018). the students look enthusiastic and enjoy in the teaching-learning activity using cue card in cooperative learning for teaching english vocabulary. most of the student paid attention to the teacher. they followed the teacher’s instruction. they were able to make a group quickly. they were active in response to the teacher’s questions. some of them were able to answer the questions. they had been able to discuss in a group. they looked enjoy and interesting. they read the book and expression loudly. they were able to response the expression individually. they did the work in groups. they had known the roles of the activities (observation, 06082018). they look enthusiastic to the teaching-learning activity using cue card in cooperative learning for teaching vocabulary. they asked the teacher to use a cue card again. they were able to follow the teacher’s instruction. they were able to make a group quickly and needed only a few minutes. they were active in response to the teacher’s question. they were able to discuss in a group. they were able to response the expression individually. they did the work in groups(observation, 08082018). based on the student’s questionnaire was conducted on 8th augustus 2018, i also found that this is the first time the student study using cue card. they had studied in a group in elementary parmi / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 132 school but it was not frequency. most of them are enjoyable and interesting teaching and learning using cue card in cooperative learning. they enjoyed with the picture and the materials. in sum, we know that a cue card is an interesting method. students enjoy and they were happy to use it. they looked very happy and interesting in teaching and learning process using cue card in cooperative learning. in the first meeting may be they feel difficult the role but after a few meeting, they have known the role. they looked like understand the role of activities and be able to enjoy the activities. they are more relaxed and confident in teaching and learning process. they were more relaxed when they studied with their friends. teacher’s and students’ perceptions of cue card as a teaching medium based on the teacher’s and students’ perceptions, cue card is effective and easiest media. we know that there are some methods in teaching and learning process. one of them is a cue card. according to harmer (2001) cue card is cards with words or picture on that, which are used to encourage the students to respond in pair or group work. this is the first time miss budi used cue card. she thought that cue card was an effective and efficient method. it was very cheap and simple. she usually used lcd, flash card, and realia. she ever used cooperative learning. she thinks that using cooperative learning student would be able to work together. by doing work together, they would also be able to share their knowledge and ability with their friend. the student ability would be more spread evenly. she also said that cue card and cooperative learning were efficient and effective to teach english vocabulary and it is also easy to use. she said that the teacher did not need much cost to make it. they only need to look for the materials and print it the buffalo (interview, 08082018). in the second meeting, there were some students that were very noisy. they talked with their friend out of the topic. the teacher tried to get student attention using cue card. most of them paid attention to the teacher but there were some of them that were playing with their groups. the teacher gave stimulation to make them more active and confident. they followed the teacher instruction to make a group (field note, 30072018). some of them were able to come forward. actually, they were afraid to make mistake but they continue to come forward and read the expressions. the teacher gave motivation to all of the students. the students did not be able to change their mind yet. they did not be able to remember all the expression yet but they were able to guess the expression by looking at the picture. they were very enthusiastic about teaching and learning process (field note, 30072018). based on the result of the interview was conducted on 8th august, she said that cue card and cooperative learning is a complete package. in one time we can use the cue card for a deeper understanding of the material and use cooperative learning to teach social aspect. cue card is easy to make and easy to use. we can take the picture from the magazine, paper, and also the internet. it is very cheap. we only need to print it and the media is ready to use. we can use it not only to teach vocabulary but also improved their speaking skill. it is very useful. based on the student’s questionnaire was hold on 8th augustus 2018, i found that this is the first time they studied using cue card. when in the elementary school they only used the picture. they also had studied in a group when they were in elementary school but it was not frequency. they said that they sometimes studied in the pair when they in elementary school. they word with their friend beside them. they said that study using it was more effective and easy to understand. they said that they are very happy and want to study using cue card and cooperative learning. cue card helped them to remember and know the meaning. they said pictures help them to remember than without picture. by illustrating the object they can understand the meaning quickly. by understanding the meaning they fell more easily to remember the word and expression (student’s questionnaire, 08082018). most students think that cue card and cooperative learning gave some profit. those are easy to use, effective to use, and easy to understand. the teacher explained the role of cue card one by one. all the material was taken from the book. the materials were appropriate for them. they enjoy using cue card in cooperative learning for teaching vocabulary. i know that cue card helps the student to remember the word and expression. cue card makes them easy to understand the meaning. in another side, grouping makes the student more confidence to express their knowledge and ability. base on those statements, we know that cue card is effective and easy to use in teaching and learning english vocabulary. it helped the student to understand and remember the meaning. it also helped to take the student attention. parmi / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 133 based on the teacher’s questionnaire, cue card are affordable media. there were some media in the teaching and learning process. some of them were very expensive that take much cost. cue card was cheap and easy to make. miss budi used cue card which is very cheap and easy to make. she only needed buffalo’s paper for the media. she also needed cut to make the card. in this research, i did an interview on 8th augustus 2018. based on the result of the interview, miss miming said that cue card in not only interesting but also cheap and easy to use. the purpose of the interview was to get deep information from the teacher. how the teacher thought about using cue card in cooperative learning for teaching english vocabulary. miss budi also said that this is the first time she used cue card as media. she realized that media is very important, useful, and helpful in teaching and learning process. it could take student attention. she usually uses lcd, video, audiovisual, and ppt. from those four media, she commonly uses video (teacher’s questionnaire, 08082018). based on the result of interview on 8th augustus 2018, miss budi said that student will be more interesting and active if she used media. when she did not use media, the student will say “yahhh, why did not we use a picture?” using media can improve student knowledge and take their attention. it is not must, but it is very important and useful. in sum, cue card is easy, practical, and cheap. it is a complete package. we only need to look for the picture and the media from the internet, book and the other source after that we can print it. it was not expensive. it is very cheap and easy to make. difficulties in using cooperative learning based on curriculum 2013, we need to use cooperative learning as the learning method. harmer (2001) said about different models which people have used to describe teaching such as ppp (presentation, practice, and production), task-based learning (which puts first and language study last) and communicative language teaching (with its twin emphasis on appropriate language and activation methodology). it shows that models in teaching such as cooperative learning are more active to improve the student’s vocabulary. hence, i and miss budi tried to use cue card in cooperative learning for teaching and learning process. based on the observation was held on 30th july 2018, there were two students that did want to join their group. the teacher tried to persuade them, but they still did not want to joint. the teacher tried to go on the show. even most of the students were afraid, actually, they were able to read and practice the expression. they were only less confident. most of the student did not able to work in the group yet. they were more concentration to the talk with their friend rather than the materials. in this time, there were four students that able to answer the teacher’s questions even though that were wrong. they tried to read the dialog their self, but they were not able to remember the expression yet. they look very interesting in teaching and learning using cue card in cooperative learning. in this research, miss budiused the lesson plan that we made for each meeting. instead of english, the lesson planused the indonesian language. cooperative learning method was stated in the lesson plan. she used cue card as media and cooperative learning as the method. at the beginning of the lesson, she explains the procedure using cue card with cooperative learning for the teaching learning process. based on the document analysis, she implemented the techniquewith the right steps during the teaching and learning process. first, miss budi opened the class and explained the purpose of the learning and teaching process. next, she asked the students to make five groups in a class. and then, the studentjoint to their own groups. she gave the example to the student how to read the expression, what the meaning is, how to pronounce, and the last try to remember some expression. miss budi asked the student to discuss the expression from the cue card with their groups. miss budi took the student attention and supported them.in the first meeting, the student feels afraid and shy. after a few meeting, thestudents were not afraid to ask a questionif there was something that they did not understand. many students had to be chosen by the teacher in order to answer the question, yet there were some students who were brave enough raising their hand and coming forward to give their ideas about their answer. there were some skills that were used in class activities. for instance, writing skill when the students wrote the answer in the paper. then, speaking skill was applied when the students came in front of the class to present their answer with the reason. during the lesson, the teacher often used indonesian even javanese instead of english. parmi / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 134 based on all of the data i obtained and analyzed, it was found that cooperative learning is very good but sometimes we need to manage the student first. she said that it is difficult to make a group. some student did not want to join with some people. some of them talked with their friend in a group. there were gaps between them. some of them talked aloud with their group member. discussion in this section, i discuss the result of research. this study was conducted in smp n 41 semarang. this study was conducted in vii a. it consisted of 15 girls and 17 boys. in this research, miss budi taught the student used cue card as media and cooperative learning as the method. the purpose of this research was to find out how cue card in cooperative learning was used for teaching english vocabulary on seventh-grade student of junior high school 41 semarang in academic years of 2018/2019. based on the observation, it showed that the students were interesting on using cue card for teaching and learning process. they looked enjoyed and confident during the teaching and learning activity. it means that cue card in cooperative learning was effective to attract the students’ interest to and help them in remembering some word and expression. on the other hand, the result of the interview showed that cue card was effective to take the student attention. miss budi said that cue card helped her to take the student interest and attention. from the first meeting until the last meeting, the student showed some progress. they were more active to speak up. vocabulary is basic of the english. the student must mastery vocabulary to be mastered in english. to mastering vocabulary, they need to enjoy and interest on it. this result in line with a study conducted by nation (2001) that vocabulary items play a vital role in all language skill (i.e. listening, speaking, reading, and writing). vocabulary is central to language teaching and learning english. the result of the observation also shows that cue card was effective and easiest to teach english vocabulary. in the first meeting, they needed guidance to use it. they need to behave to understand the role of the activity. in the third meeting, they have understood the role and able to follow the role. they were happy and enjoy in teaching and learning process. base on the result of the interview, miss budi said that cue card is very useful. it is a complete package. it is easy to make and use. the picture helped the student to remember the verb. it could be said that cue card in cooperative learning was effective to attract the students’ interest to and help them in remembering some word and expression. this result in line with rizki, rukmini, sutopo (2013) that picture game can improve student motivation. the student felt happy so that the student motivation and achievement were improved. based on the researcher’s observation during teaching practice in smp negeri 41 semarang, i know that in every meeting there is an increase. in the first meeting, the students look very confused and less concentration. they still confuse about the roles. there were still gaps between them. most of them were afraid and less active. in the next meeting, they have understood the role and look confident. they know what they should do. they are more manageable. their ability to remember is improved. it means that the student needed habituation. it also means that the cue card is effective to improve student vocabulary. every meeting there is an increase. in the first time they still confused, but after that, they enjoy and interested in it. they were less confident before but now they can read and understand the expression confidently. they were able to come forward and they did not afraid again. they feel competitive. in the first meeting there is a gap between girls and boys but in the second meeting, there is no serious gap between the students. they can work with anyone. this is the goal of grouping. this is in line with fekri (2016) that cooperative learning improved student vocabulary and made a competitive situation in teaching and learning process. based on the result of the interview, miss budi said that cue card is a complete package. it is simple, easy to make and very cheap. she only needs a paper and printout. based on the questionnaire, the students thought that cue card and cooperative learning are easy to use. even this is the first time they used it, but they did not find any serious difficulties. when used cue card in cooperative learning, they can easily to understand the meaning and remember it. it is very useful to improve vocabulary. so, cue card in cooperative learning is very simple, useful, easy, and interesting for teaching and learning english vocabulary. according to the result of the interview, this is the first time the teacher use cue card. she usually uses ppt, video, and realia. cooperative learning in here refers to the grouping that is so familiar for the teacher. she sometimes used cooperative learning for teaching and learning process. she thought that cooperative learning sometimes was difficult to apply because the student parmi / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 135 sometimes did not pay attention to the teacher and material. they talked to their group member that was out of the topic. cue card in cooperative learning is an interesting, effective, easiest, and cheap method but we need to manage it carefully. especially, we need to manage the student to act in their own group and pay attention to the materials. conclusion based on the research finding and discussion, i draw some conclusions. firstly, i conclude that the use of cue card for teaching english vocabulary is interesting, effective, efficient, and cheap. it can be seen from the result of observation and questionnaire, almost all of the students were interested in teaching and learning using cue card, therefore teaching and learning process become more interesting. in addition, cue card helped the student to memorize new word or expression more permanently. they will more easy to remember when they illustrate the picture. they not only know the word but also the meaning. secondly, i conclude that a cue card in cooperative learning can improve students’ vocabulary. however, cue card with cooperative learning was more effective, easy, and cheap to practice. moreover, the student usually will be more confident to share their problem with their friend rather than their teacher. the student will study to work together and try to change their mind with their friend. it will improve student knowledge, society, and mental. it meant that cue card in cooperative learning is very helpful for students. bibliography brown, douglas. (2000). principles of language learning & teaching(4th ed.). new york: longman. budiastutu, riana eka. (2017). the use of cue cards in teaching spoken descriptive text: the case of eighth year students of smp n 13 semarang academic year 2006/2007. semarang: semarang state university. fekri, neda. (2016). investigating the effect of cooperative learning and competitive learning strategies on the english vocabulary development of irania intermediate efl learners. canadian center of science and education. english language teaching; vol. 9, no. 11; 2016 issn 1916-4742 e-issn 1916-4750. harmer, j. (2001). the practice of english language teaching (rev. ed). london: longman. nation, i. s. p. (2001).learning vocabulary in another language. cambridge: cambridge university press. nugroho, yosephus setyo. (2012). improving student’s vocabulary mastery using flashcards. surakarta: sebelas maret university.pamela, baxter and susan jack. 2008. qualitative case study methodology: study design andimplementation for novice researchers. the qualitative report volume 13 number 4 december 2008 544-559 available at http://www.nova.edu/ssss/qr/qr13-4/baxter.pdf purnama, kartika dewi. (2016). improving students’ writing ability through the use of cue card at grade eight of smp n 4 yogyakarta in the academic year of 2015/2016. yogyakarta: yogyakarta state university. rizki, m. syaeful, dwi rukmini, and djoko sutopo. (2013). the use of picture games to improve students’ motivation in learning vocabulary. eej 3 (2) (2013). available at http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/eej sofwan, imam. (2013). improving vocabulary through cue cards in cooperative learning: thecase study of seventh year students of smp n 2 satu atap alian in theacademic year of 2012/2013. purworejo: muhammadiyah university of purworejo. ika oktavianti / journal of economic education 1 (2) (2012) elt forum 7 (1) (2018) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt learners’ ability to negotiate meaning in interactional conversation nuki nurazizah, helena i. r. agustien, djoko sutopo  putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) n. nurazizah, h. i. r. agustien, d. sutopo / journal of english language teaching 7 (1) (2018) english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia 15 22 article info ________________ article history: received in april 2017 approved in may 2017 published in july 2017 ________________ keywords: negotiation, negotiate meaning, conversation, interactional conversation. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ negotiation is one kind of ways in order to interact with other people. doing negotiation means that participants are able to reveal what they feel and think. for this study, observation was done before recording. audio recording is the primary data besides there was also note. the note is about the class’ situations that were not included in the recording. then, the data is transformed into transcription. after the transcript is made, the data is able to be analyzed. results indicate that the learners mostly negotiate well. they produce statements in compliance with mood elements. they also have various kinds of mood types in the conversation. the ways that the students negotiate meaning in order to get the meaning across are countering the interlocutors’ responds, responding the teacher by giving statement that exactly suit to the teacher’s questions, and having equal turns reciprocally to convey their ideas in a conversation. in order to compensate their language problems, the students use some strategies such using minor clause, speaking in their native language, and doing non-verbal communication. in addition, there are also some grammatical problems hinder the negotiation of meaning. they ellipse a certain element of the clause. another grammatical problem is that the students do not use fit correspondence between finite and other elements. © 2018 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: nukki.nurazizah.nn @gmail.com introduction english is one of the foreign language subjects in indonesia. according to my experiences, when i got my first english lesson in elementary school, i had difficulties in both making meaning of words and pronouncing words. in junior high school, i had my first english course in which i started to learn about using english in daily class conversation. unfortunately, it did not work well because not only me but also some of my friends sometimes stopped talking. the teacher should give clues in order to guide students to continue their talks. when i joined practice field experience program, it also showed that some students find it difficult to understand english as their foreign language. students who do not understand yet about what people say in english will not be able to get people’s intention. when it comes to students to take their turn in a conversation, they are just quiet because they run out of words or use their mother tongue to respond their counterpart. eggins and slade (1997: 6) argue that negotiation is very helpful in delivering our thoughts and opinions about our feelings. negotiation also helps us in taking turns when we are in a conversation. why the researcher uses this definition? goal of conversation is not always to get something. conversation has aims both to build a connection between people and to keep conversation going. so, negotiation is a capability in responding to any statements to get the conversation going. brown & yule (1983) suggest that conversation has two different objectives. it is about exchanging information and focusing on the things being exchanged. on the other hand, the conversation has a purpose in maintaining social relationships and personal attitudes. it relates to speakers’ interaction. the first is called transactional, whereas the second is referred to as interactional. this study is going to investigate the students’ ability in negotiating meaning in casual conversation. process of negotiation refers to a role among students in which they take turns and exchange turns in a conversation to convey their ideas so that the conversation keeps going. the conversation is followed by question and answer, giving opinion, or adding arguments in order to make the conversation alive. methodology of the research this study is going to have an audio recording for the primary data. then, the data is transformed into transcription so that the analysis can be done. 1. observation the researcher should observe the class before recording. the observation is about the condition of the class such as the amount of students, the class’s rules and the class activity. the students are divided into a small group or in pairs. the teacher gives assignments to them based on the instruction in the book. then, each groups or pairs have to make a conversation or dialog. after that, they practice their dialog in front of others. in order to have a good object for the study, the researcher needs to let the class’s situation as natural as possible. the students are free to talk so that the interaction happens naturally. marshall and rossman (2006) stated that observation is a fundamental and highly important method in a qualitative inquiry. it is used to discover complex interactions in natural social settings. observation entails the systemic noting and recording of events, behaviors, and artifacts (objects) in the social setting chosen for study. for studies relying exclusively on observation, the researcher makes no specific effort to have a particular role in the setting. the researcher has classroom observation that is often found in education. it is going to have documents and describe actions and interactions that are complex: what they mean can only be offered without other sources of information. 2. recording the teacher permits the researcher to record in parts, only on students’ activities. the recording is an audio. 3. taking notes the note is about the class’s situations that are not included in the recording. the researcher has to make such kind of notes for supporting data. 4. making transcripts the researcher makes transcription based on the data recording. after the transcript is made, the researcher might move to discourse analysis. after collecting the data, the data are ready to be analyzed. there are some steps in analyzing data. 1. define the interpersonal meaning elements (mood elements, residue, polarity, and modality) in each sentence. 2. identify the mood types in each sentence (declarative, interrogative, and imperative). 3. describe its text and context (context of situation and context of culture). result and discussion this analysis deals with a conversation between students and teacher in a conversational classroom to investigate learners’ ability in the negotiation of meaning. negotiation refers to a role of students and teacher in which they take turns and exchange meaning in a conversation to convey their ideas so that the conversation keeps going. class interaction usually makes the teacher more dominant than students. it is because the teacher is the one who only does talking and gets to be the speaker for most of the time. yet, class conversation makes students freer to access the speaker role. the teacher only gives clues and hints. he/ she let students talk more frequently than teacher so that there is a greater sharing of ideas from each student. 1. the way that the students negotiate meaning in order to get the meaning across: 3.1 the students counter their interlocutors’ responses. example: 559 vaniani (i) umm how about umm going to stadion to watch umm soccer match with main persib and persija? nv35 all [laughing] 560 arvi (i) that sounds great. (ii) i bet persija will win the competition. nv36 all [laughing] 561 arvi (i) why not? 562 aulia (i) but i think umm persib win it. 563 arvi (i) oh, no … nv37 all [laughing] 564 arvi (i) persija will win this competition. 565 aulia (i) i’m afraid. nv38 all [laughing] 566 vaniani (i) equal. (ii) i think it would be equal. nv39 all [laughing] 567 aulia (i) no no i think persib will win. 568 vaniani (i) okay, see you this evening guys. 569 aulia (i) see you. 570 arvi (i) bye. the data provides powerful evidence that language being used as a resource to negotiate meaning. it involves participants who are the teacher and the students in exchanging meanings and ideas. the evidence reveals an interesting correlation between the reciprocity in the interaction and the choice of clause types. although the overall clauses produced by both parties are almost the same amount, the students are sometimes countering other interactants’ statements. čulo & skendrović (2012) mention about three characteristics used to negotiate as an infinite variety of negotiation.. they define in a conflict of interest between two or more parties, an established set of rules to develop their own solution, and a search for an agreement. negotiation in such a common problem solving process is in everyone’s interest. it becomes familiar with negotiation dynamics and skills. 3.2 the students respond the teacher by giving statements that exactly suit to the teacher’s questions. example: 313 teacher (i) what does he do? 318 dimas (i) he is umm the chairman of petronas project. 321 teacher (i) what is spe? 322 dimas (i) umm like organization pembuatan, something like that. the teacher always gives the students chances to speak in english by asking questions. the questions are in the complete form of interrogative. the students answer them elliptically or only in one-two words. the answer corresponds to the teacher’s questions. this is in line with rahnimian (2013). he says when the english foreign language learners use their second language knowledge to communicate with their interlocutors, they tend to modify their interlanguage and make it more target-like. the learners produce modified output without interlocutors’ request and appeal for clarification. the output effect and its subsequent potential modification might be a learners’ attempt to automize and gain mastery second language forms. 3.3 the students have the equal turns reciprocally to convey their ideas in a conversation. example: 536 lady (i) hai, hanny. (ii) do you have any plans tonight? 537 hanny (i) yaa, i’m free. (iii) why? 538 lady (i) wait umm let’s go get some coffee together. 539 hanny (i) wah! that sounds good. … 552 vaniani (i) hallo, guys. 553 arvi == (i) hai. 554 aulia == (i) hai. 555 dimas == (i) hai. besides, when the teacher gives them time to make a dialogue or to answer the question given from the book, the students will have good sentences. they are listening to the teacher’s instruction and their counterparts’ statements. the following excerpts are the evidence from the data. there are two groups of students. they are taking in turns so they will get the meaning across. according to maksimović, et all (2013), listening facilitates receiving and understanding the message and determining its meaning. listening can be internal which refers to our own voices (i.e. thoughts) and external which involve the world around us. when interactants listen carefully, they show understanding for their interlocutors, care, and compassion. when the interlocutors listen actively in any kind of communication, they gain mutual trust. it will be easier to communicate and solve a problem than speech without listening 2. the strategies used by students include: 2.1 the students use minor clauses such as umm, ooh, and yeah. example: 174 albert (i) would you like to see our factory? 175 rivaldi (i) umm sounds interesting. … 540 lady (i) okay umm do you have any favorite place like coffee shop? 541 hanny (i) yeah of course, let’s go to starbucks. 542 lady (i) yaa, that’s a great idea. (ii) i’d love that, too. … 590 aulia (i) ooh, actually i want umm to (ii) i want you to accompany me go dinner in italian restaurant. 591 arvi (i) oh, i’m sorry. (iii) i have to accompany my mom to to go to an affair. 592 aulia (i) oh, okay. 593 vaniani (i) umm, and me umm, (iii) i have umm (iv) i have plan with my boyfriend now. the significant example of the strategy of the language problems is found in the minor clauses produced by the students. they often use minor clauses such as umm, ooh and yeah in order to give additional time to them to respond their counterparts. somehow, minor clauses occur in reciprocated pairs as responding contribution in the conversation. 2.2 the students sometimes speak in their native language. example: 347 teacher (i) yes okay, i will play it. 348 aulia (i) ini gimana? 349 lady (i) tulis aja disini. 350 aulia (i) lha ini bener? … 429 teacher (i) is that right? 430 aulia (i) kayanya sih .. 431 arvi (i) yaa miss. 432 adit (i) itu kayae cara. 433 lady (i) banquet. 436 dimas (i) apa sih? another strategy used by the learner is that they are sometimes speaking in their native language. it is around 61 turns in which the learners use their native language. even though they are not accustomed to speaking in english, they are trying to do it. the learners might have difficulties in translating some terms in their native language to english. but, the teacher keeps speaking english in order to wheedle and to stimulate the learners in using their english. cook (2015) states that some learners are struggling with input, though it is unclear why. they might have difficulties in understanding the sentence meaning or are enable to comprehend its structure in english. negotiation leads the learners to modify their output. in these cases, negotiation of meaning aim to resolve problems related to these aspects of language. the students’ uses of their native language are followed by feedback in order to affect the success of comprehension. 2.3 the students are doing non-verbal communication. example: 74 adit (i) let’s go to date. nv11 all [laughing] 75 teacher (i) i’m sorry. (ii) i’m busy. nv12 all [laughing] … 86 indira (i) yes. nv13 all [laughing] 87 teacher (i) just “yes”? 88 indira (i) apalagi? (ii) yes, i’m good. nv14 all [laughing] in addition, there are some non-verbal behaviors. the excerpt above is not a group university students chatting together. the students come from different confidence and gender. clues to different social roles can be found in the linguistic choices interactants make. one indication of gender differences between interactants is the non-verbal behaviors displayed by adit and albert (starting to joke and laugh), and it might be not matched by the girls. also, there are lots of jokes not only made by adit and albert, the other do also. it is because joking gives them time to think for a second to arrange sentence in speaking english. maksimović et all (2013) have stated that non-verbal signals show thoughts and emotions, attitudes and traits. they also support verbal communication or they are substitute for it. their essay explains the three types of non-verbal communication which are conscious, unconscious, and manipulative non-verbal communication. laughing is kinds of manipulative non-verbal communication because it is used in order to present a certain pattern of behavior that needs to seem natural and relaxed. also, expressive gestures, like laughter or smile, make communication casual, pleasant and natural. 3. the grammatical problems hindering the negotiations of meaning include: 3.1 the students ellipse a certain element of the clause. example: 285 arvi (i) miss umm when the promotion test? the learners are able to negotiate meaning and the conversation is going well. but, there are still some grammatical problems in it. for example, there is a student who has an ungrammatical sentence. she ellipses one element to make a good interrogative. the sentence should have been: miss, umm when is the promotion test? 3.2 the students’ utterances do not correspond to the finite. example: next, there is a grammatical problem that appears in the following dialogue. the teacher talks about one student’s presence last week so she has a sentence in the past form. the student responds it with the sentence in the present form. it makes that the student’s statement is not in line with the teacher’s. 264 teacher (i) but anyway, you didn’t come last week. 265 aulia (i) yeah because i umm (ii) i have umm tight schedule. another grammatical problem made by the student mentions below. 533 gina (i) umm i don’t know about car (ii) and i don’t interested about it, sorry. 535 teacher (i) not ‘i don’t interested’ but ‘i’m not interested’, yeah, okay. although the students have some grammatical problems, they negotiate well. they produce statements in compliance with elements of interpersonal meanings. conclusions this study investigates learners’ ability to negotiate meaning in interactional conversation by analyzing the students’ utterance in a class conversation both with their friends and the teacher as their counterpart. in order to answer the research problems, the conclusions are presented based on the data analysis from the previous chapter as follow. the first research problem is how students negotiate meaning. the way that the students negotiate meaning in order to get the meaning across is countering their interlocutors’’ responds. at first, the students do not make their own statement. they are just waiting for the others responds and adding them. besides, the students respond the teacher by giving statements that exactly suit to the teacher’s questions. the ideas and information that the students stated are the same direction as the teacher’s questions. in addition, the students have the equal turns reciprocally to convey their ideas in a conversation. the teacher always helps learners to speak in english. she gives chance to all students to say the words about what they are thinking and feeling so that the class is alive. although the students might have such kind of difficulties in conveying their ideas in english, they still keep practicing. it makes the conversation does not stop. the second research problem is that strategies used by students to compensate communication problems. the students use minor clause such as “umm”, “ooh”, and “yeah”. those expressions are used by the learners in order to give additional time to them to respond their counterpart. also, the students sometimes speak in their native language. when it is difficult to find terms in english, the students prefer speaking in their native language to saying nothing. furthermore, the students are doing non-verbal communication. they are making jokes and laughing the most often. even they doing so, it has a communication purpose which gives the students time to think to make a sentence in speaking english. those strategies are used by students in order to help them in negotiation. last but not the least is about the grammatical problems hindering the negotiation of meanings. in some cases, the students ellipse a certain element of the clause. they do not put the auxiliary because they are not accustomed to using such term in their native language. another grammatical problem is that the students do not use fit correspondence between finite and other elements. when they are talking about something happened in the past, they do not realize that they are still using finite that indicates present time. despite the fact that the students have some grammatical problems, they negotiate meaning well. they produce statements in compliance with elements of interpersonal meaning. references brown, g. and g. yule. 1983. discourse analysis. cambridge: university press. čulo, k. and v. skendrović. 2012. communication in the process of negotiation. communication in negotiation 11/2, 323-327. cook, jiyon. 2015. negotiation for meaning and feedback among language learners. journal of language teaching and research, vol.6 no.2, march 2015 250-257. eggins, s. and d. slade. 1997. analyzing casual conversation. london: creative print and design wales. maksimović, mlađan. et al. 2013. negotiation skills and non-verbal communication. economics management information technology, vol.2 no.1 33-40. marshall, c. and g. b. roosman. 2006. designing qualitative research (4th edition). california: sage publications, inc. nuki nurazizah, et. al. / journal of english language teaching 7 (1) (2018) rahimian, mehdi. 2013. negotiation of meaning and modified output elicitation across two task. english language teaching, vol.6 no.12, 5th november 2013 114-126. 23 image2.jpeg image1.png putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 73 elt forum 7 (2) (2018) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt analysis of the generic structure of news item on the most viewed voice of america (voa) learning english videos in february 2016 ayun bekti saparena, galuh kirana dwi areni, seful bahri  english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in october 2018 approved in november 2018 published in january 2019 ________________ keywords: generic structure, news item, voice of america learning english ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this final project focuses on the analysis of the generic structure and lexicogrammatical features of news item text found in the most viewed voice of america learning english videos in february 2016. the main purposes of this study are to identify how the construction of generic structure and significant lexico— grammatical features of news item are applied in voice of america (voa) learning english videos based on news item text structure analysis. this study is descriptive qualitative research. the research data are the transcripts of ten most viewed videos sorted during february 2016. the result of analysis of the generic structure shows that all texts implemented the generic structure of news item text. all of them used the appropriate standard of generic structure of news item text stated by gerot and wignell. the result of analysis of the lexico-grammatical feature shows that all of the elements realized in the texts are well structured. all the texts have been arranged and written based on the complete requirements of lexico-grammatical feature of news item text stated by experts. however, the researcher found some deviations in the text related the use of generic structure and lexico-grammatical features of news item. based on the explanation above, the researcher concludes that news item text found in voice of america learning english videos generally have completed standard generic structure and language features of news item text. © 2018 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: rasaparena@gmail.com a. b. saparena, g. k. d. areni, s. bahri / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 74 introduction video is an easy-to-use digital technology that features in many people’s daily lives. according to hornby (1995), video is a copy of film or movie, program, etc. that is recorded on videotape. in this modern era, video is not only recorded on videotape or in the form of compact disc. people of all ages can easily enjoy it by streaming via internet, downloading from youtube, or even by watching from a video compact disc. only by clicking play icon on screen, or play button on our remote control, people can directly enjoy the video. video is one of the products of technology development. the existence of video takes in charge in the progress of development of modern era. videos contain many kinds of meaningful science and information that can make people have a wider conception about many things in their surroundings. video has some strengths which can be used for learning-teaching process, they are: first, demonstrating procedures, changes, and process. learning can be especially effective when the learner can control the video with features, including playing or replaying as needed. second, teaching attitudes and values. emotional materials and / or real life examples can be shown. text may be needed to help explain the attitudes or values. third, making abstract concept concrete. fourth, classifying and comparing information. for classifying and comparing information, video is particularly valuable when the information can be instantly accessed (peter fenrich, 2005). talking about video, it is not only about something appeared on screen but also the content it has. most of video makers do not make video for no reason. they absolutely make them for something meaningful, even though in a short-length duration. each video has something which is important for the viewer. video consists of motion pictures and the content related to the topic spoken by the speaker. so, a video can be classified as a spoken text. as we know, every text has its own structure, which is usually called text structure. in this study, the writer focuses on analyzing the text structure of news item in some videos published by voice of america (voa). learning english is voa’s multimedia source of news and information for millions of english learners worldwide. its audio programs and captioned videos are written using vocabulary at the intermediate and upper-beginner level. the programs are read one-third slower than normal english speed. learning english began as special english, which voice of america launched in 1959. special english newscasts and features were a primary fixture of voa’s international shortwave broadcasts for more than half a century. in 2014, its line of products was expanded to include more english teaching materials, and the service became known as learning english. as the source of news and information, voa learning english can be mentioned as spoken news item text. gerot & wignell develop a simple explanation about the term news item. news item is factual text which informs readers about events of the day which are considered newsworthy or important. in this era, there are still many people who do not know about the generic structure of the text including the social function of the text, the schematic structure of the text, and its significant lexico—grammatical features of the text especially for news item. news item text is one of text genres which has certain social purpose. its social function is to provide information to the readers, listeners or viewers about events of the day which are considered newsworthy or important (gerot and wignell, 1994). in line with it, hammond, burn, joice, brosnan, and gerot (1992) explain that news item text has function to inform readers or listeners about events of the day which are considered newsworthy or important. a. b. saparena, g. k. d. areni, s. bahri / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 75 the schematic structures to construct news item text are divided into three stages as follows: first, newsworthy event which recounts the event in summary form. this is like the summary of the news in few clauses. second, background event which elaborate what happened to whom in what circumstances. in this structure, the events in the news are explained, what the event is, how it happens, why it happens, when it happens and who gets involved. the third is sources. it consists of comments by participants in, witnesses to and authorities expert on the event. according to gerot and wignell, the language features of news item text are short telegraphic information about story captured in headline, the existence of material process to retell the event, the use of projecting verbal processes in sources stage and focusing on circumstances. studying the content of the video is important since it can build up our ability to comprehend what is delivered and presented on screen, especially for news item. we will be able to understand more deeply about what we watch and listen. a group of people perhaps do not watch videos only for a pleasure, they must be able to get meaningful information inside. generally, news item is varied in case of its field. it can be about technology, economics, education, health, science, entertainment, politics, world news, business, etc. in our daily lives, news item is considered as a significant thing. for instance, to be able to adapt to this modern era, people need to update and enrich their knowledge and understanding about some information concerned with new events of the day. so, it is important to learn more and analyze what the core of news item is. it is in line with the objectives of this study that are to identify how the construction of generic structure and lexico-grammatical feature of news item which are applied in voice of america (voa) learning english. methods the study employs qualitative approach to analyze the data. all of the data in this study are in the form of words. miles and huberman (1992:15) stated that the qualitative data are usually in the form of words, and not in the form of numbers. quantitative data is numerically while qualitative data cannot be put into a context that can be graphed or displayed as a mathematical term. creswell (1994:1) stated that this study is defined as an inquiry process of understanding a social or human problem, formed with words, reporting detailed views of information, and conducted in a natural setting there are two units of analysis in this study. those are generic structure analysis and language features analysis. in news item, the generic structure consists of three components; newsworthy event, background event and sources. according to gerot and wignell, language features or significant lexico-grammatical features analysis consists of short information about story captured in headline, use material process to retell the event, use of projecting verbal processes in sources stage, and focus on circumstances. there are several steps taken to collect the data in this study. the first thing the writer to do is sorting and listing the videos according their interests. the writer monitors and makes sure how many videos published and how many viewers for each published video during the beginning of the year until the end of february 2016. in the end of february 2016, the writer finds the final results of which videos that have most viewers for each interest. the writer makes a list of chosen videos that then will be used as objects of analysis. the chosen videos are listed in a table like below. since the writer uses the qualitative approach in analyzing the data, all the data will be in the form of words. additionally, the results of the investigation will be presented in a narrative form. a. b. saparena, g. k. d. areni, s. bahri / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 76 text number name of the video total viewers interest date of publication duration of the video the name of video announcer table 2.1 lists of videos in collecting the data, the next step to do is to download the videos. the videos of voa learning english are not only broadcasted on radio and tv satellite, but also posted in the internet. it makes easier for the writer to download the videos since voa posted the whole broadcasted videos on both radio and tv satellite in its official youtube channel. after downloading the videos, the writer watches the videos frequently. to make the process of analysis easier, the writer carefully transcribes all chosen videos into paragraphs. the writer also rechecks the accuracy of the transcripts. to answer the statement of the problem, the researcher used descriptive qualitative method in analysing the data. in the process of analyzing data, the writer did several steps. the very first thing that the writer do is reading and re-reading the transcripts to make deeply understand about the texts. after that, the writer underlined some important words and broke down the transcripts into smaller parts, sentence by sentence, and clause by clause. the next is analyzing the generic structure of news item text the table below is the table analysis of generic structure of news item texts found in voa learning english videos. the data that had been identified were then classified based on their elements. position of the sentence element text tx, sx newsworthy event tx, sx background event tx, sx sources table 2.2 table analysis of generic structure of news item there are three columns in the table above. the first column is used to the position of data. t is for text, while s means the position of sentences in the text. the second column is used for the element of news item text. there are three elements in news item text, newsworthy event, background event, and sources. the next column is used to place the part of the text which is included into the elements. the data that had been analyzed in the table were then reported into words. in explaining the generic structure tables, the writer also referred to the theoretical review stated by gerot and wignell. the analysis of the language features of news item texts found in voa learning english videos was presented in the table 3.3. the texts were broken down into clauses as the broader elements to be classified. a. b. saparena, g. k. d. areni, s. bahri / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 77 position of the clause clause short information about story captured in headline material processes verbal processes circumstances tx, cx table 3.3 table analysis of lexico-grammatical features of news item the first column is for the position of the clause in the text. the second column is for placing the clause that is analyzed. the next four columns are used for the analysis of lexico-grammatical features realized in news item texts. all data in the tables become the findings of this study. results and discussions there are two components that need to be analyzed by the researcher to reveal how the constructions of the generic structure and lexico-grammatical features of news item text are. there are 10 video transcripts to be analysed. the result of analysis about the generic structure of news item text found in voa learning english is that all the texts implemented the generic structure of news item text. all of them shows the appropriate standard of generic structure of news item text. there are newsworthy event, background event, and sources in each text. almost all the newsworthy events of the texts are in the first sentence or in the beginning of the text since it tells us what the texts are about. however, the writer found that there are two texts which newsworthy events are not in the very first sentence or in the very beginning of the text. the newsworthy event is in the fourth and fifth sentence of the text. the first sentence until the third sentence do not summarize the event of the day. they do not give the summary of the event. so, they cannot be called as newsworthy event of the text even though they are in the beginning of the text. since newsworthy event recounts the event in summary form, it is like the summary of the news in few clauses. all the texts shows that the newsworthy events are only in few clauses. however, the writer found that there is one newsworthy event that seems to have many clauses. it consists of three sentences and has seven clauses. they are connected each other in terms of meaning so they cannot be separated. those clauses refers to the summary of the event about the study. in background event, the researcher can also find some information about how the events of the texts happened. the second element of the generic structure of news item text tells the reader the elaboration of what happened, to whom, in what circumstances. in this structure, the events in the news are explained, what the event is, how it happens, why it happens, when it happens and who gets involved. the positions of the background events telling about what happened in the text are varied. generally, all texts tell what the event is about and what happened in the event. in the background event of generic structure of news item text, there are some sentences that mention who get involved in the event. they tell whoever are in charge of occurring to something or event. the results show that the people, company or organisation, or group of people who get involved in the event are mentioned in the element of generic structure called background event. who get involved in the events for each text are varied. there are names of company like the new ford escape, the heedful audio alert system, sober steering, and alibaba group, names of a. b. saparena, g. k. d. areni, s. bahri / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 78 people like reed hastings, sunny jung, walter willett, frank hu, lamar alexander, patty murray and joe tsai, and a name of group of people like the engineering students. nonetheless, the findings shows that background event in text 6 does not tell who is involved in the event of text. it has been mentioned in newsworthy event element of the text. the newsworthy event of text 6 has completely mentioned that the subject the u.s. department of agriculture and the department of health and human services is determined as an organisation who get involved in the event. generally, the background event element exists in each text. background event in each text tells the elaboration of what happened in the event. the third element of the generic structure of news item text is sources element. sources element contains the comments by participants in, witnesses to and authorities expert on the event. the sources stage of the text can be easily recognized by looking at the existence of verbal processes. some examples of the texts show some comments and opinions saying by participants, experts or the witnesses who are related to the event. based on the findings, we can found the sources element in each text. generally, all the text implemented the elements of generic structure of news item text stated by gerot and wignell. the writer found that all texts have newsworthy event, background event, and sources. as a general rule, the construction of the generic structure of news item text is started from newsworthy event as the first element, background event as the second element, and the sources as the third element. surprisingly, the findings show that the constructions of the generic structure found in the texts are varied. not all texts are arranged based on the chronological order of the generic structure of news item text which is started with newsworthy event then followed with its background event, and closed with sources element. the results of analysis show that the constructions of the generic structure found in ten texts are varied. the analysis of generic structure of news item in text 1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 and 10 shows that those texts are arranged based on the chronological order of the generic structure of news item text. nonetheless, the generic structures found in all those texts have some repetition of the elements. for instance, the construction of generic structure in text 1 is started with newsworthy event. it is then followed with background event and the sources. after the sources, there are some background events again followed the sources. the diagrams of the constructions of the generic structure element in text 1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 and 10 are as follows: (1) ne → be → s → be (4) ne → be → s → be (5) ne → be → s → be → s → be → s → be → s → be → s → be → s (7) ne → be → s → be → s → be → s → be → s → be → s (8) ne → be → s → be → s → be → s → be → s (9) ne → be → s → be → s → be → s (10) ne → be → s → be → s → be → s → be → s → be ne is for newsworthy event. be means background event. s is for sources. another three texts show the different chronological orders of the generic structure of news item text. as we know that commonly the generic structure of news item is started with newsworthy event, then followed with background event and ended with the sources. the analysis of generic structure of news item in text 2, 3, and 6 are not like that. the text 2 is started with background event in the very beginning of the text. it is followed with newsworthy event. it is then followed with sources. after the sources, there is a background event. it is followed with sources, background event, sources, background event, and sources again and finally ended with background event. the diagram of the construction of the generic structure element found in text 2 is as follows: a. b. saparena, g. k. d. areni, s. bahri / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 79 be → ne → s → be → s → be → s → be → s → be based on the analysis, the construction of the generic structure element in text 3 is started with newsworthy event. it is then followed with sources. after the sources, there is background event. it is then followed with sources, background event, sources, and ended with background event. the diagram of the construction of the generic structure element found in text 3 is as follows: ne → s → be → s → be → s → be the construction of the generic structure found in text 6 is started with background event then followed with newsworthy event. it is then followed with background event again. after background event, it is followed with sources, background event again, sources again, background event again, and finally closed with sources stage. the diagram of the construction of the generic structure element found in text 6 is as follows: be → ne → be → s → be → s → be → s generally, all the text implemented the elements of generic structure of news item text stated by gerot and wignell even though each text has the different chronological order of the generic structure. the writer found that all texts have newsworthy event, background event, and sources. all elements of generic structure are available in the text. nonetheless, the researcher found a deviation of element in text 7 which shows an ambiguity. it is in the first sentence of the text. it brings an ambiguity for the element of generic structure of news item text. since it is in the very beginning of the text, it can be called as newsworthy event. however, it is difficult to be called as a newsworthy event since it does not recount the event in summary form. the writer cannot find the summary of the event in that sentence. the newsworthy event should give simple and short summary of the event in the text. however, we can call it as sources element, since it used the word ‘says’ which indicates the process of saying and gives information source for the topic of the text. the second finding of this study is about how the lexico-grammatical features of news item realized in the texts. the elements of lexico-grammatical feature of news item text are divided into four elements. they are short information about story captured in headline, the use of material processes and verbal processes, and focusing on circumstances. generally, the headlines of the texts captured short information about the event. there are some headlines that are written in the form of sentence. there are also found some simple headlines which are only in few words. it does not matter if the headlines are written in the form of sentence, in the form of simple clause or even in the form of noun. the most significant thing is that the headline of the text captures short and telegraphic information about the event or story in the text. the words such as changes, streams, plays, curl, bring, developed, studies, makes, leads, signed, bought, and set up are the examples of process of doing realized in the texts. material processes take both the active and passive voice. the words such as are designed, were sent, were published, is exposed, is linked, are updated, was approved, was sold, and is created presented material processes realized in the texts in passive form. both material processes in active and passive voice found in the texts actually have the same function that are to tell or retell the event in the text. verbal processes are process of saying, or more accurately, of symbolically signaling. verbal processes in news item text can be easily found in the sources element of generic structure of the text. the existence of verbal processes is also used to indicate which part of the text belongs to sources element. in verbal processes, there are two kinds of function, verbal processes used for quoting and verbal processes used for reporting. for instance, the word ‘says’ in sample (68) and in sample (69) are quite different. in sample (68), the word ‘says’ is for quoting since there is a quote saying by someone in double quotations. while in sample (69), the word ‘says’ is for reporting, since it is used to report someone saying. the fourth part of the lexico-grammatical features of news item text is circumstances. circumstances answer such question as when, where, why, how, how many, and as what. they a. b. saparena, g. k. d. areni, s. bahri / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 80 realize meaning about time, place, manner, cause, accompaniment, matter and role of the text. the researcher found some samples which are considered the statements about when something is started and created. the existence of the year indicates that the sentence contains time circumstances. there is also found an adverb of time answering how often. it tells the reader how often something is updated. according to the findings, there are also found some circumstances answering question where. there are found some adverbs of place telling where the event happened. the existence of the name of cities around the world indicated the adverbs of place of an event. in addition, meaning about manner answering question how, in the form of comparison is also realised in the text. the researcher found the word ‘like’ which tells like what and is probed by what like. here, subject x is compared to something else or subject y in terms of particular behaviour. the result of analysis found that there are some circumstances answering question why implemented in some texts. the writer found two kinds of cause circumstances, the first is purpose and the second is reason. purpose tells the reason why something is done or used and is probed by what for. the existence of the word ‘for’ can be used to indicate the purpose of why something is done. different with purpose, reason contains a statement or fact that explains why something is the way it is, why someone does, thinks, or says something, or why someone behaves a certain way. the researcher found a sentence with conjunction ‘because’, and it shows the reason answering why something is the way it is. because is one of the conjunction which is usually used to tell a reason. in the circumstances, there is an element called accompaniment. it tells with(out) who or what and is probed by who or what else. the researcher found the sentence which tells the construction of something ‘with’ something. it show that the text implemented the circumstances of accompaniment. another circumstances found in the texts are matter and role. matter tells about what or with reference to what and is probed by what about. the examples of matter are presented in some sentences of the text. the researcher found that the word ‘about’ is used as the sign of the existence of matter. role in circumstances tells what as and is probed by as what. role is a part that someone or something has in a particular activity or situation. the existence of the word ‘as’ can be used to see that there is role in circumstances in the text. the conjunction ‘as’ indicates the existence of role in the sentence. generally, four elements of lexico-grammatical features of news item text mentioned above are realized in the texts. for the construction of the lexico-grammatical features, the researcher found some deviations. the example of deviations is presented in the headline of text 3. the headline of the text does not give short information about the event. it is not a simple sentence that captures what happened related to the story. since it is a question sentence, it actually does not tell a certain information about something. it seems to ask for the audience’s opinion about something. the headline has not completed the element of lexico-grammatical features of news item text in which the headline captures the short information about the story. in short, based on the results of analysis, the findings of this study show that all of the elements of lexico-grammatical feature used in the text are well structured. generally, all the elements are realized in each text. it can be said that all the texts has been arranged and written based on the complete requirements of lexico-grammatical feature of report text stated by gerot and wignell. a. b. saparena, g. k. d. areni, s. bahri / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 81 conclusions based on the results and discussions in this study, the researcher can conclude that all the elements of generic structure are implemented in the texts. generally, all the texts completed the requirement of the generic structure as stated by gerot and wignell. the deviation of the generic structure element is also found in the text. there is one element which considered bring an ambiguity whether it is called newsworthy element or sources element of the text. overall, all the texts are well-structured in terms of generic structure. the results of analysis show that the constructions of the generic structure found in the texts are varied. not all texts are arranged based on the standard chronological order of the generic structure of news item text which is started with newsworthy event then followed with its background event, and ended with sources element. seven texts show that they are arranged based on the standard chronological order of the generic structure of news item text. the other three texts shows the unusual chronological order of the generic structure of news item text. however, all elements of the generic structure are realized in each text. the result of data analysis on how the construction of significant lexico—grammatical features of news item text shows that all the elements are implemented in the texts. they are mostly well-structured. in contrast, there is a text which headline does not give short and telegraphic information about the story. this deviation makes the text does not complete the requirements of language features found in news item text. references cresswell, j. w. 1994. research design qualitative and quantitative approaches. california: sage publication, inc fenrich, peter. 2005. creating instructional multimedia solutions: practical guidelines for the real world. canada: informing science press. gerot, l. and p. wignell. 1994. making sense of functional grammar. australia: macquire university. hammonds, j, burns, a, joice, h, brosnan, d, and gerot l. 1992. english for social purpose. sidney: marquarie university. hornby, a.s. 1995. oxford advanced learner’s dictionary. oxford: oxford university press. miles, b and huberman, m. qualitative data analysis. sage publication, inc, dan terjemahannya oleh rohidi rohendi, t. 1992. analisis data kualitatif. jakarta: universitas indonesia. elt forum 7 (1) (2018) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the consistency of textbook “pathway to english for sma/ma grade x” with the 2013 curriculum noor laili, c. murni wahyanti  putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) noor laili, c. murni wahyanti / journal of english language teaching 7 (1) (2018) english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia 92 103 article info ________________ article history: received in april 2017 approved in may 2017 published in july 2017 ________________ keywords : abstract ___________________________________________________________________ the aim of the study is to analyze whether the textbook “pathway to english for sma/ma grade x” publisehd by erlangga pass the bsnp assessment and the content is consistent with the 2013 curriculum. this study used qualitative content consistency analysis as its research method. the data were collected from the english textbook “pathway to english for sma/ma grade x” written by th. m. sudarwati et al., published by erlangga in 2016. the data analysis used two instruments: the assessment based on ki-kd of the english syllabus of 2013 curriculum and the rubric assessment by bsnp textbook evaluation. the discussion was focused on the content consistency of the materials in the textbook. there are two main findings. first, by using ki 3-4 and kd of the syllabus 2013 curriculum the percentage obtained is 94% (very good). based on the assessment, it is discovered that all the materials in the textbook are consistent with the ki 3-4 and the kd of the syllabus 2013 curriculum. second, by using bsnp assessment the percentage obtained is 81.25% (very good). based on bsnp assessment, it revealed that all the materials in the whole chapters of the textbook are consistent with the criteria of the 2013 curriculum. © 2018 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: noorlaili76@gmail.com introduction language is a way to communicate with other people. there are so many languages that exist in the world. one of the languages that must be learned by indonesian is english. english is an important language because it becomes one of the international languages. most people in the world use english as their language to communicate with people from different countries. as the progress of globalization, how important of english is clearly proven. nowadays, information is provided in the english language, started from spoken and written information. in the indonesian education, english becomes one of the important subjects. the learning of english starts from elementary school, junior high school until senior high school. the process of teaching english continue to evolve along with the times. the english teaching in indonesia has been based on the curriculum designed by the central government throughout curriculum policies provision. the change of the curriculum is based on the ministry of education and culture, republic of indonesia regulations to find the better curriculum which is suitable for indonesia. the newest curriculum in indonesia is the 2013 curriculum. the implementation of the 2013 curriculum is one of the government’s efforts to resolve the various problems being faced by the world of education today. (see for further details the regulation of the ministry of national education number 59 the year 2014 for sma/ma). the government tries to develop education in line with the globalization development. at the beginning of its implementation, the 2013 curriculum still have deficiencies so that ministry of education and culture republic of indonesia carries out the 2013 curriculum revision. on march 23, 2016, ministry of education and culture republic of indonesia has officially launched the final revision of the 2013 curriculum. based on the revision by the ministry of education and culture republic of indonesia (2016), english language subject for sma/ma/smk/mak aims to develop potential learners to have the communicative competence of interpersonal, transactional, and functional texts using various english texts both oral and written. the structure of the 2013 curriculum consists of two competencies: core competence and basic competence. core competence (ki) is the skill level to achieve the standards competence of graduates who should be obtained by students at any grade level or program that became the base of the development of basic competencies. (ministry of education and culture republic of indonesia, 2013: 67). basic competence (kd) is the skill level in the context of learning content, learning experience, or subjects that refer to core competencies. (ministry of education and culture republic of indonesia, 2013: 68). the changing of the former curriculum to the last revision of the 2013 curriculum makes many publishers offer textbooks based on the newest revision of the 2013 curriculum. as it is known that textbook is urgently needed by the students as a source of learning and materials provider for teachers, so it must be proper with the curriculum. hutchinson and torres (in awasthi, 2006:1) explain that a textbook is an almost universal element of teaching and guidance for a teacher, a memory aid for pupils, and a permanent record for measuring what has been learned. the importance of the textbook as a source of learning is also stated by cunningsworth (1995: 7) that in english teaching-learning, the textbook has some functions and roles as: 1) a resource for presentation materials (spoken and written), 2) a resource of activities for learner practice and communicative interaction, 3) a reference source, 4) a source of stimulation and ideas for classroom language activities, 5) a syllabus, 6) a resource for self-directed learning or self-access work, and 7) a support for less experienced teachers. the ministry of education and culture republic of indonesia provides a textbook that compiles with the 2013 curriculum for senior high school. however, some schools still use other books from famous publishers. one of the chosen books is from erlangga entitled “pathway to english for sma/ma grade x”. erlangga published this textbook in 2016. in order to know whether the textbook is proper or not, it requires an analysis to prove that the textbook is consistent with the 2013 curriculum. the researcher is interested in describing the content of the textbook and explaining whether the textbook passes the bsnp assessment and the syllabus (core competence and basic competence) of the 2013 curriculum, especially the textbook for the tenth-grade students of senior high school entitled “pathway to english for sma/ma grade x” by erlangga. methodology of the research the study focused on analyzing the content of the textbook which compiles the 2013 curriculum. the researcher used a qualitative research design. according to cresswell (2010:4-5), qualitative research is a method to explore, describe and understand the meaning of a case. in this study, the data were not described in number. the researcher purposefully chose a textbook entitled “pathway to english for sma/ma grade x” by erlangga. the textbook was chosen as the object of the study since it is used in some schools. the researcher analysed the content of the textbook to find whether the textbook is relevant to the 2013 curriculum or not. instruments in this research, there were two instruments. the first one was the instrument from the syllabus of english for the first grade of senior high school using the core competence (ki) 3-4 and basic competence (kd) by ministry of education and culture republic of indonesia and the second one is the instrument from bsnp textbook evaluation about the feasibility of book content. procedures the procedure of collecting data was one of the important aspects of research. it needs one or method uses. the detailed procedures of getting data were as follows: 1. choosing the textbook that is “pathway to english for sma/ma grade x” published by erlangga. 2. reading the materials in the whole chapters of “pathway to english for sma/ma grade x” published by erlangga. 3. scrutinizing every detail of the chapter in the textbook. 4. gathering the data from the whole chapters (chapter i to chapter x) using a noting technique. data analysis after collecting the data, the next step was analysing the data by following these major steps: 1. selecting the data by reading intensively the whole chapters of the textbook. (there were ten chapters altogether, chapter i to chapter x). 2. categorizing the data from the whole chapters of the textbook. the researcher categorized the data from chapter i to chapter x. 3. comparing the data with the assessment rubric published by bsnp textbook evaluation and the syllabus (ki3-4&kd) of the 2013 curriculum. the researcher analysed chapter i to chapter x using bsnp textbook evaluation (8 points feasibility of content). then, the chapters were analysed using the syllabus (ki3-4&kd) of the 2013 curriculum. 4. evaluating the materials in the textbook to find out its relevancy with the 2013 curriculum. then, the researcher made conclusions of the result of the data analysis in the form of percentages. the researcher evaluated the materials in chapter i to chapter x using bsnp textbook evaluation and the english syllabus (ki3-4 and kd) of the 2013 curriculum. after that, the researcher described the results of the evaluation in the form of percentages following yudoleksono (1999). level of suitability = the level of suitability of the textbook: 0% 25% = barely relevant (poor) 26% 50% = slightly relevant (fair) 51% 75% = adequately relevant (good) 76% 99% = approximately relevant (very good) 100% = completely relevant (excellent) (yudoleksono, 1999:15) 5. interpreting the results of the data analysis based on the level of suitability. the interpreting step was written in the form of words description. 6. drawing conclusions on the textbook evaluation using the two instruments. lastly, the researcher drew conclusions based on the results of the analysis. result and discussion the researcher analyzed the data using two instruments. the first instrument is rubric assessment using ki 3-4 and kd in the first grade english syllabus of the 2013 curriculum and the second is bsnp (badan standar nasional pendidikan) textbook evaluation. the findings contain two main sections: the first is the syllabus (ki3-4 and kd) analysis and the second is the bsnp analysis. 1. the ki 3-4 and kd syllabus of the 2013 curriculum secondly, the content relevancy aspect with the syllabus (ki 3-4 and kd) of the 2013 curriculum is to find out whether the materials in the textbook cover all the materials that become the criteria of ki 3-4 and kd in the syllabus of the 2013 curriculum. below are detailed analyses of the second instrument using english syllabus (ki 3-4 and kd) of the 2013 curriculum. the assessment is explained in every chapter because one basic competence (kd) presents one chapter of the textbook. in the english syllabus, core competence (ki) 3 is understanding, applying, analysing factual, conceptual, and procedural knowledge based on the interest in science, technology, arts, cultures, and humanities with humanistic, nationalistic, and civilized insights in relation to the causes of phenomena and events; applying procedural knowledge in desired specific field of studies in solving problems. in its implementation, the ki 3 is explained in detail through basic competence (kd) 3.1 until 3.9. chapter 1 (kd 3.1) the kd 3.1 is fulfilled by the chapter 1 of the textbook. the writer gives score 5 for this chapter because chapter 1 presents all materials which are determined in the kd 3.1. the implementation of the social function, text structure, and language feature is explained through the spoken and written transactional texts material about self-introduction. it can be seen on page 09, 17 and 18. chapter 2 (kd 3.2) the kd 3.2 is presented in chapter 2 of the textbook. the writer gives score 5 because all the criteria in kd 3.2 are fulfilled in chapter 2. the application of the social function, text structure, and language feature in spoken and written transactional texts about expressing and responding to extended compliments according to the contexts. chapter 3 and 4 (kd 3.3) the writer gives score 5 to the chapter 3 and 4 because of chapter 3 and 4 present all materials that are determined in kd 3.3. the social function, text structure and language feature in spoken and written interpersonal texts about giving and asking intentions/plans according to the texts are explained in chapter 3. moreover the language feature “be going to” and “would like to” are explained in detail in chapter 4. chapter 5 (kd 3.4) the kd 3.4 is presented in chapter 5 of the textbook. the writer decides to give 5 because the chapter explains clearly all materials that are determined in kd 3.4 about spoken and written descriptive texts. the social function is explained in chapter 5 on page 80. the text structure in the descriptive text is presented clearly on page 85. therefore, the language feature is explained on page 85 (to be and to have), page 87 (relating verbs), and etc. chapter 6 (kd 3.5) in chapter 6 of this textbook, the writer gives score 5 because criteria of the kd 3.5 are fulfilled in chapter 6 about an announcement. the social function of the announcement is presented clearly in chapter 6. furthermore, the text structure is explained on page 113 and 114. the language feature is also explained in detail on page 114 (conjunctions) and page 116 (adverbs of time and place). chapter 7 (kd 3.6) the writer gives chapter 7 score 5 because chapter 7 of the textbook presents all materials correspond to the kd 3.6. this chapter discusses simple past and presents perfect tenses. the social function of chapter 7 is fulfilled on page 123 of this textbook. therefore, the text structure is presented in chapter 7 on page 128. the language feature is also explained on page 130. chapter 8 (kd 3.7) the kd 3.7 is presented in chapter 8 of this textbook. the chapter 8 of this textbook has the complete materials that are determined in kd 3.7. the material is about spoken and written recount texts about historical events. the social function is fulfilled in the whole materials in this chapter, the text structure is explained clearly on page 144 until page 146, and the language feature is explained in several pages. from that reason, the writer gives score 5. chapter 9 (kd 3.8) in chapter 9, the writer gives score 5. the reason, all the criteria from kd 3.8 is fulfilled in chapter 9. the chapter is discussed spoken and written simple narrative texts about legends, the social function is fulfilled on page 165 until page 166, the text structure is presented on page 187 and the language feature is described on page 178, 180, and etc. chapter 10 (kd 3.9) the writer gives score 3 for chapter 10 because all materials in the kd 3.9 are partially fulfilled in chapter 10. this chapter discusses song lyric related to the teenage life. the explanation about the social function is less obvious in chapter 10. the text structure and language feature are also not complete in this chapter. it can be seen, there are not samples song lyric as a material in this chapter. in english syllabus, core competence (ki) 4 is processing, analyzing, presenting developments of the concrete and abstract domain of the learner’s materials; being able to apply various methods according to scientific principles. the implementation of core competence (ki) 4 is explained in detail through the basic competence (kd) 4.1 until 4.9. chapter 1 (kd 4.1) the kd 4.1 is a skill competence in constructing spoken and written a transactional text about self-introduction. the implementation of the kd 4.1 is presented on several pages in this chapter for example on page 17, 18, 23, and etc. it means that this chapter is fulfilled the criteria of kd 4.1, so the writer gives score 5. chapter 2 (kd 4.2) the writer gives score 5 for the chapter 2 because it presents the criteria of kd 4.2. the kd 4.2 is a skill competence in constructing spoken and written transactional texts about extended compliments. the implementation is fulfilled in chapter 2. the evidence can be seen on several pages 36, 38, 39 and 47. chapter 3 and 4 (kd 4.3) the implementation of kd 4.3 is explained in chapter 3 and 4. the kd 4.3 is a skill competence in constructing spoken and written transactional texts about giving and asking intentions/plans of actions/events according to the appropriate social function, text structure, and language features as well as the contexts. the implementation of kd 4.3 is fulfilled in chapter 3 and 4. it can be seen through the exercises on pages 58, 59, 71 and 76. as a result of the fulfillment, the writer gives score 5. chapter 5 (kd 4.4) the kd 4.4 is a skill competence in constructing simple spoken and written descriptive texts about tourist attraction and historical building. the implementation of the kd 4.4 is fulfilled in chapter 5. the evidence can be seen through the exercises on page 102, 104 and etc. from the evidence, the writer gives score 5. chapter 6 (kd 4.5) the chapter 6 of this textbook present exercises correspond to the criteria of the kd 4.5. the kd 4.5 is a skill competence in constructing simple spoken and written texts in the form of announcement. the implementation of the kd 4.5 is explained through some exercises on page 114 and 119. it can be concluded that the kd 4.5 is implemented in chapter 6 of this textbook. therefore, the writer decides to give score 5. chapter 7 (kd 4.6) the kd 4.6 is a skill competence in constructing spoken and written transactional texts to tell and ask about past experiences/activities/events when it happened and afterward, according to the appropriate social function, text structure and language features as well as the contexts. the implementation of kd 4.6 is partially fulfilled in chapter 7. the reason is because some exercises in chapter 7 are not clear enough to be understood. it makes difficult to differentiate whether it is spoken or written exercises. furthermore, the writer gives score 3 for this chapter. chapter 8 (kd 4.7) the kd 4.7 is a skill competence in constructing simple spoken and written texts about recount-related to historical events. the implementation of this kd is partially fulfilled in this chapter because many exercises just point to construct written texts not spoken texts. it can be seen on several pages (159 and 160). from the reason, the writer only gives score 3. chapter 9 (kd 4.8) the implementation of kd 4.8 is presented by the chapter 9. it contains the skill competence in catching meaning contextually about spoken and written narrative texts related to legends. the application of the kd 4.8 is fulfilled by the chapter 9. it can be seen through some exercises are clearly explained on several pages (182, 187, 188, and 190). from the reason above, the writer gives score 5 for this chapter. chapter 10 (kd 4.9) in chapter 10 of this textbook, the kd 4.9 is presented clear and complete. the kd 4.9 is a skill competence in catching the meaning contextually about song lyric. the implementation of the kd 4.9 is fulfilled by this chapter. the evidence can be seen on several pages (194, 196, 197 and 198). moreover, the writer decides to give score 5. the analysis description of the textbook above shows that every chapter has each score. based on the analysis of the content consistency above, it can be seen that the textbook is assessed with the syllabus (ki 3-4 and kd) of the 2013 curriculum. in the newest english syllabus for first-grade senior high school of the 2013 curriculum, the ki 3 and ki 4 are translated into several kd (basic competences) as follows. the ki 3 becomes nine kd (basic competence) that is kd 3.1 until 3.9 and the ki 4 becomes nine kd (basic competences) also that is kd 4.1 until 4.9. most of them are elaborated clearly in 10 chapters of this textbook. kd (basic competences) 3.1 until 3.8 are fulfilled by chapter 1 until chapter 9 of the textbook and given score 5 for every chapter. however, for kd 3.9 are partially fulfilled by chapter 10 and given score 3 for chapter 10. moreover kd 4.1 until 4.9, there are 8 chapters that are fulfilled scored 5 and 2 chapters are partially fulfilled scored 3. all of them make up the total of 48 from 50 for ki 3 and 46 from 50 for ki 4. the analysis description explains that the ki 3 has conformity 96% and ki 4 has conformity 92%. then the total conformity can be known as follows: p = = 94% furthermore, it can be concluded that 94% of the content materials in the textbook “pathway to english for sma/ma grade x” are consistent with the ki 3-4 and kd of english syllabus for first-grade senior high school of the 2013 curriculum. 2. the bsnp analysis firstly, the data analysis is focused on the content of the textbook, so the writer chooses one of the bsnp criteria for assessing the textbook that is the feasibility of content that evaluates the materials develops within the textbook based on the criteria from bsnp textbook evaluation. below the detailed analyses of the eight categories of the feasibility of content in the textbook using the scoring guidance from bsnp textbook evaluation are explained by the writer. a. completeness according to the first indicator, the data material shows that the completeness of the textbook is fulfilled in the textbook entitled “pathway to english for sma/ma grade x”. the completeness of the materials in the first assessment can be shown in three points; interpersonal text, transactional text, and functional text can be shown as follows: the interpersonal text is explained in chapter 2 that discusses expressing and responding to extended compliments according to the content. the transactional text contains in some chapters in the textbook. chapter 1 of the textbook explains about self-introduction then chapter 3 and 4 are discussed expressing intentions/plans and language features (modal: be going to and would like to). the last, chapter 7 discusses telling and asking about past experience/activities/events when it happened and afterward. the functional text consists of specific functional text and functional text. in the textbook, the specific functional text is explained in the two chapters. the first, chapter 6 is about text structure and language features of announcements. the second, chapter 10 presents the language features of song lyrics. moreover, the functional text is explained in three chapters of the textbook. chapter 5 discusses descriptive text about tourism destinations and famous historical buildings. next, chapter 8 explains recount text about historical events and chapter 9 discusses sample narrative texts in the form of legends. from the assessment above, it can be concluded that the completeness of the materials that consists of three types are fulfilled in the textbook by erlangga. therefore, the writer gives score 4. b. in-depth the second criterion is in-depth of the materials of the textbook. the materials which are presented in the textbook can fulfill the in-depth of the materials criterion. it can be shown in all 10 chapters in the textbook, in assessing the in-depth of the materials, those are three points that should be fulfilled; exposure (pajanan), retention rules (aturan retensi) and production (produksi). in the exposure (pajanan), the materials in the textbook should be relevant to daily life. the textbook “pathway to english for sma/ma grade x” represents the materials completely in every chapter. in the retention rules (aturan retensi), the materials relate to an explicit understanding of the elements of the formation of text type (social function, elements and meaning structure, linguistic feature). in the textbook, the elements are fulfilled every chapter of the textbook. the production is related to produce the oral and written texts. in this point, the textbook are fulfilled the production. from the explanation above, it can be concluded that all the materials in the textbook correspond to the in-depth category. however, some chapters only provided texts less than 2. moreover, the in-depth category in the textbook scores 3. c. social function texts which are provided by the textbook should direct to the attainment of social functions that related to daily life. the materials in the textbook fulfill the social function criteria. the attainment of social functions can be seen in every chapter of the textbook. in chapter 2, the social function of the interpersonal communication can be seen in the materials about expressing and responding extended compliment. therefore, in chapter 1, 3, 4 and 7, those social functions about transactional communication for asking/giving services/goods/facts/opinions which are related to student’s daily life can be found in several dialogues and texts in the whole chapters. in addition, the functional communication has the social function according to each type of texts such as the social function of announcement is explained on the chapter 6 page 113, the social function of song lyric in chapter 10, the social function of recount text that is mentioned on chapter 8 page 146, the social function of descriptive text found on chapter 5 page 106, and the narrative text has the social function which is explained in chapter 9 page 173. from the explanation above, it can be concluded that the social functions category is consistent; however most of chapter in the textbook only provided text less than 2 so the writer gives score 3. d. generic structure the accuracy of materials in the elements and meaning structure in the textbook is good in directing the students to develop the thinking ability coherently and systematically. in interpersonal text and transactional text, interactive activity that consists of initiation of communication and response in asking/giving information/goods/services has been fulfilled. it can be seen in chapter 1, 2, 3, 4, and 7. as for the functional text, the textbook has elements of meaning as follows: 1. recount, it is explained good and clearly in chapter 8. the generic structure of recount text is explained chronologically. 2. narrative text in chapter 9 also explains the generic structure very well. some narrative texts in the textbook are written completely that covers orientation, complication, and resolution. 3. descriptive texts in this textbook are explained accurately, it can be proven in chapter 5. some texts in chapter 5 have fulfilled the criteria that cover identification and description. from the analysis above, it can be concluded that the accuracy of the generic structure in the materials is fulfilled completely in the textbook. however most of the chapter in the textbook only provided 1 text for every chapter. therefore, the writer gives score 2. e. linguistic feature the language feature criterion is fulfilled by the textbook. it can be seen through the use of language in the whole chapters are good and acceptable. most of the languages are used in student’s daily conversation. the texts are developed in an effective way. most of the exercises are written using acceptable and polite language. the topic of the dialogues in every chapter of the textbook is also commonly found in student’s daily conversation. the texts are also commonly found in the student’s daily life story. furthermore, the language of texts is easy to understand by the students. from the elaboration above, the textbook is given score 4 by the writer. f. relevance as for relevance criterion, the illustrations of the whole chapter are good. materials in the form of dialogues, texts, pictures, and tables are well developed. it is also relevance with the topics covered. the textbook also contains some current materials that customized with the need of the students, such as the tables and pictures in every chapter can motivate the students. in every chapter of the textbook also provides good examples of what will be learned for students. texts are also based on the actual news that has already happened. therefore, the source of the current materials is written in the page 201 and 202 of the textbook. it is not explained clearly because it was not written in the materials of every chapter. furthermore, the references in the textbook are not relevance because the references taken are from year 1912 and 2006 means too old. from that explanation, the writer decided to give score 3. g. development of life skills the next criterion is the development of life skills. it consists of four skills that are personal skill, social skill, academic skill and vocational skill. the development of life skills in the textbook is mentioned through the texts, exercises, and tasks that developed within the whole chapters. development of student’s skill in personal skill is fulfilled in every chapter of the textbook. it can be achieved through the “self-reflection” and individually tasks. through those tasks, directly the students will develop themselves in achieving the personal skill. then, for developing student’s skill in social skills, the textbook provides group exercises in the whole chapters of the textbook. the group exercises can improve their cooperation, tolerance, and interaction with others. moreover, the development academic skills can be achieved through the project tasks. through the personal tasks, students achieve the academic skill with finding information, solve the problem and make a decision. the last, development of student’s skill in vocational skill is also fulfilled in the whole chapter of the textbook. vocational skill can be achieved through abilities, attitudes, and skills shown to perform certain activities. in developing the vocational skill, the textbook provides several practice tasks. from the explanation above, it can be concluded that many exercises/ tasks in the textbook provide a good development of life skill in vocational skill. the whole exercises/tasks are useful and helpful to develop student’s skill in vocational skill. however, most of the chapter in the textbook only provided less than 2 texts so the writer gives score 3 h. development of diversity insight as for the development of diversity insight, the materials in the textbook should motivate the students in developing the diversity attitudes. in the whole chapters, it can be seen that the textbook fulfills the development of diversity insight criterion. the textbook provides an explanation box in each chapter with title “cultural awareness”. the box explains the difference using english in indonesia and another country. it means although students learn about english, however, the textbook gives an explanation how to learn the material without ignoring the indonesia culture. therefore, in chapter 5, 6, 8, 9, and 10 the materials were given also develop the diversity insight. it can be shown in chapter 5 there are some descriptive texts about places are known as famous places in indonesia. then it also can be seen in chapter 6, the textbook provides the announcement materials about legend stories from indonesia and batik which are known as the icon of indonesia culture. in chapter 8, the materials also can motivate students to appreciate the democratic values that are explained in some historical events in indonesia in form of recount texts. in chapter 9, the textbook provides some materials of narratives texts about legend stories from indonesia. the last, a famous singer from indonesia named agnes monica is added in chapter 10 as a material for the song lyric. those texts can motivate students to develop diversity attitudes in understanding the concept of nationalism. from that analysis, it can be concluded that the textbook provides materials that can motivate the students in developing diversity insight. therefore, the writer gives score 4. from the analysis description about eight points of the feasibility of content above, the assessment and evaluation have been done. the research findings of the feasibility of content are shown in the eight points of the feasibility of content. based on the table of the feasibility of content above, there are eight points of the feasibility of content. all of them make up the total of 26 from 32. then the total feasibility can be known as follows: p = = 81,25% moreover, it can be concluded that 81,25% of the materials, texts, and exercises/tasks in the textbook “pathway to english for sma/ma grade x” are fulfilled the rubric assessment of feasibility of content from bsnp textbook evaluation. conclusions based on the results of the data analysis, the writer concludes that the textbook entitled “pathway to english for sma/ma grade x” published by erlangga in 2016 in the implementation of the 2013 curriculum has fulfilled the standard of the textbook used in indonesia. after assessing the textbook uses two instruments, it is obtained high scores that mean fulfilled very good categories. it is shown through the results of acquisition score in the each instrument as follows: 1. after assessing the textbook by using ki 3-4 and kd of english syllabus for first-grade senior high school, the obtained percentage of the content consistency in the textbook “pathway to english for sma/ma grade x” is 94% (very good). based on bsnp assessment, it was known that all the materials in the whole chapter of the textbook are consistent with the criteria of the 2013 curriculum by bsnp. 2. after assessing the textbook by using the rubric assessment by bsnp textbook evaluation, the obtained percentage of the content consistency in the textbook “pathway to english for sma/ma grade x” is 81.25% (very good). based on the assessment, it is known that all the materials in the textbook are consistent with the ki 3-4 and the kd of the syllabus 2013 curriculum. based on the result of the study obtained, the writer proposes several suggestions for improving the textbook and teaching quality in the classroom as follows: 1) for teachers: teachers have an important role in using a textbook in the classroom. therefore, in choosing the suitable textbook that is appropriate to the standard textbook in indonesia, teachers should be selective in choosing the materials contained in the textbook. the textbook “pathway to english for sma/ma grade x” fulfills all the requirements, the materials of the textbook matches with the 2013 curriculum and it is suitable textbook based on bsnp textbook evaluation. by choosing and using this textbook, hopefully, it will improve the quality of the teaching and learning process. 2) for publishers: as for publisher, before publishing the textbook, they should notice the materials in it. the materials of the textbook should be corresponding to the syllabus of the newest curriculum. the author should create and develop the materials based on students need in the 2013 curriculum. it also should be relevant to the ki (core competence) and kd (basic competence) in the syllabus of the 2013 curriculum. from this analysis, the writer hopes that this study can be a reference in creating and publishing the better even the best textbook. ika oktavianti / journal of economic education 1 (2) (2012) references arikunto, s. 2010. produser penelitian. suatu pendekatan praktik. jakarta: rineta cipta. bsnp. 2006. standar isi untuk satuan pendidikan dasar dan menengah: standar kompetensi dan kompetensi dasar sma/ma. jakarta djuandi. 2014. instrumen penilaian buku teks pelajaran tahun 2014. [online] available at www.bsnp-indonesia.org [accessed 11/28/2016] creswell, john w. 2010. research design: qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods approaches (3rd ed). los angeles: university of nebraska lincoln. cunningsworth, a. 1995.choosing your coursebook. great britain: heineman. ministry of education and culture republic of indonesia. 2013. kurikulum 2013: kompetensi dasar: sekolah menengah pertama (sma)/ madrasah aliyah (ma). [online.] available at www.kemendikbud.go.id [accessed 11/24/2016]. ministry of education and culture republic of indonesia. 2016. silabus mata pelajaran (sma/ma/smk/mak): mata pelajaran bahasa inggris. [online] available at sudarwati, t. m., & grace, e. 2016. pathway to english for sma/ma grade x kelompok wajib. jakarta: erlangga. image2.jpeg image1.png putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 47 elt forum 7 (2) (2018) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the effectiveness of listen-read-discuss (lrd) and graphic organizer combination technique to teach reading comprehension of descriptive text akhmad maemun, sri wuli fitriati, alief noor farida  english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in october 2018 approved in november 2018 published in january 2019 ________________ keywords: combination technique, listen-readdiscuss, graphic organizer reading comprehension, quasi-experimental research. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this paper is to investigate the effectiveness of the combination technique of lrd (listen-read-discuss) and graphic organizer in teaching reading comprehension. i used quasi-experimental design in this research. the population of this study was the eighth year students of smp negeri 1 dukuhwaru,tegal in the academic year of 2016/2017. meanwhile, the sample consisted of 70 students from two classes. the study was started by giving pre-test, treatments, and post-test to both groups. the experimental group (viii d) was taught by lrd and graphic organizer combination technique, while the control group (viii f) was taught by using conventional method. the data were obtained by giving a reading test to both groups. in addition, the questionnaire and observation were also conducted for the experimental group to obtain more data. the result of the study indicated that the group taught by lrd and graphic organizer combination technique has better score in the test than the group taught by conventional method. in the pretest, the mean score of the control group was 56.65 and the experimental group was 58.11. the mean of posttest of experimental group (82.05) was higher than control groups (70.11). then, the t-test showed that the tvalue (5.756) was higher than ttable (1.998). it can be concluded that the working hypothesis is accepted. it means that there is a significant difference of effectiveness and reading comprehension achievement in reading descriptive text of students who are taught by lrd and graphic organizer combination technique and those who are not taught by using that technique. therefore, that combination technique is effective and convenient for students to improve their achievement reading comprehension of descriptive text. © 2018 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: amanzsyoi@gmail.com a. maemun, s. w. fitriati, a. n. farida / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 48 introduction english is international language. in this globalization era, english has been scattered all over the world. it plays an important role in the global communication. in learning english, we need to have at least ability in writing, speaking, listening and reading. people learn english because they have their own motivation that depends on their needs, interest and sense values. in order to master english, people should sharpen those four basic skills. one of those skills which is primary to master is reading skill. it is not simply identifying and translating written words but also understanding and acquiring. according to finnochiaro (1984:10), „„for many students around the world, reading is the most important of four skills in a second language, particularly in english as a second or foreign language‟‟. as one of language skills, reading skill plays a central role in the teaching and learning process at all educational stages. moreover, trelease (2010:30) states reading is the key of the world and key of the success. he claims “the more we read, the better we get at it, the better we get at it, the more we like it, and the more we like it, the more we do it”. the reading skill becomes very important in educational field. the reading focused in this study is that reading descriptive text. descriptive text is one of the reading materials taught at eighth grade of junior high school. it becomes the focus of this research because the comprehension of students in reading is low. based on my observation in smpn 1 dukuhwaru kab.tegal, i interviewed the english teacher and some eighth year-student. in smpn 1 dukuhwaru, a teacher especially who teaches eighth grade use conventional methods (lecturing and reading aloud) to teach reading. the students said that the teacher just asked the students to read the text and pointed several students to read aloud. in addition, the classroom situation was not alive during the teaching and learning process. most of the students did not actively participate in class discussion and they were not active to respond to the teacher‟s questions. they are not used to facing new vocabulary and structures that are different from their mother tongue. moreover, they were afraid to ask the teacher about the difficulties in reading. based on this preliminary finding, they frustrated and lose their motivation to learn reading. from this situation, the teachers should try to motivate the students to read and to develop skills aimed at improving their reading ability. i assume that by providing an appropriate reading technique to teach reading, it would be very useful to improve students reading comprehension. as a medium for teaching and learning process, appropriate techniques also make teachers have new experience in their career as a teacher. based on the background above, i am interested in introducing lrd (listen-read-discuss) and graphic organizer combination technique to the teachers to teach reading comprehension. lrd is a method developed by manzo and casale in 1985. listen-read-discuss (lrd) is a comprehension strategy that builds students‟ prior knowledge before they read a text. during the first stage, students listen as we present the content of their reading through a lecture, often paired with a graphic organizer. graphic organizers are visual representation of knowledge that structures information by arranging important aspects of a concept or topic into a pattern using labels bromley, devitis & modlo (1999). their main function is to help presenting information in concise ways that highlight the organization and relationships of concepts. next, students read the text and compare what they learned during the lecture to their understanding of reading the text on their own. finally, students discuss their understanding of the text with other students in their small group or large group. in this study i used combination between lrd and graphic organizer technique for teaching english especially for teaching reading descriptive text. from the finding of some previous studies, l-r-d helped students to better recall and develop relevant background information and appropriate anticipation, both of which are of great value in effective comprehension. those students lacking prior knowledge about the content gaining. during a. maemun, s. w. fitriati, a. n. farida / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 49 the listening stage, allowing them to more easily comprehend the text during the reading stage. it helped students comprehend material presented orally. it built students' prior knowledge before they read a text. it engaged struggling readers in classroom discussions. therefore, using graphic organizers is effective in reading questions like (1) identifying the main idea, (2) finding the supporting details, (3) dealing with vocabulary and (4) fact and opinion and (5) making inferences. this simple, flexible strategy can be used across all curriculum areas with almost any text. graphic organizer improves students‟ reading comprehension a content learning in both weak and proficient. by designing this study, i hope that by using the lrd (listen-readdiscuss) and graphic organizer combination technique, students‟ reading comprehension can be achieved and the result of this investigation will give the answer to the problem above. by designing this study, i hope that by using combination technique of listen-read-discuss (lrd) and graphic organizer, the students enjoy teaching and learning process and through the technique they improve their achievement in reading comprehension of descriptive text. methods in this study i used the form of quasi-experimental research. in this method i divided one group as the experimental group and another as the control group. both of the groups received pretest to obtain first data. then, twice treatments were given to both groups. the experimental group received treatment while the control group received another treatment. the experimental group used combination of lrd (listen-read-discuss) and graphic organizer technique and the control group used conventional method to improve students’ reading comprehension. finally, both of the groups were given a post-test to obtain the second data and the results were computed statistically. the subjects in this study were the students of smp negeri 1 dukuhwaru, tegal in the academic year of 2016/2017. in this study, i used cluster random sampling. this technique needs groups or clusters in choosing the sample based on the groups that have already existed in the population. the sample was chosen based on some considerations: (1) the students were taught by the same english teacher, (2) there was no superior class, the placement of the students in each class were set randomly without considering the level, gender, or strata. i took two classes of eighth year students as experimental group and control group. the first group as the experimental group (eg) and the second one as the control group (cg). the sample of this research was the students of viii d and viii f of smp n 1 dukuhwaru. the total sample is 70 students. they were divided into two groups. the first group was viii d as the experimental group (eg) which consisted of 35 students, and the second one was viii f as the control group (cg)) consisted of 35 students. in this study, i used some research instruments to collect the data. the instruments are: 1.1 test based on the research problems, i used reading test as an instrument. in this study, the students‟ achievement in reading descriptive text was measured by using tests, namely pretest and posttest. the pretest was used to find out the students‟ reading achievement before the treatment and posttest was used to find out the students‟ reading achievement after the treatment. the instrument used in this research is a multiple choice test type. it was chosen because it made scorer reliability is nearly perfect. moreover, it was easy to administer and could be scored quickly. i used the multiple choice test type in chosen forms of “a, b, c, d” and the total number were 25 questions. 1.2 questionnaire this present study used two checklist questionnaires in which respondents just directly put check mark (√) on the given statement whether they agreed or disagreed. the questionnaire was given to the students after they finished doing the post test. there are some questions used to a. maemun, s. w. fitriati, a. n. farida / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 50 analyze the students‟ interest and achievement in teaching and learning process by using lrd (listen-read-discuss) and graphic organizer technique. this questionnaire was given to the experimental group. 1.3 observation sheet i used observation sheets in order to get the detail description of the study. i used three observation sheets which were filled by the english teacher. the observation sheets were used to find out the students‟ performance in the classroom, students‟ behaviors during the teaching and learning process, and the students‟ response in the teaching and learning process through listen-readdiscuss (lrd) and graphic organizer combination technique. results and discussions the course of this study is to answer the research problems. generally, this study explains how effective the combination of listen-read-discuss (lrd) and graphic organizer technique to teach reading comprehension, and the second is the description of the students‟ responses towards the listen-read-discuss (lrd) and graphic organizer combination technique. in this study, after giving the treatment by using listen-read-discuss (lrd) and graphic organizer combination technique for experimental group, i analyzed the data of the post-test result. the post-test was administered to measure the students‟ reading comprehension after getting the treatment. the post test was similar to pre-test in the present study. there were 25 questions that related to descriptive text in this post-test. the students did the post-test in 40 minutes. the results showed that the total mean score of experimental group posttest (82.05) was higher than that control group (70.11). through a brief observation, there was a significant difference in students‟ reading comprehension between the experimental group and control group after getting the treatment by using listen-read-discuss (lrd) and graphic organizer combination technique. based on the result of post-test score between experimental and control group, it can be seen that lrd and graphic organizer combination technique was more effective than lecturing and reading aloud technique (conventional method). besides, to give the additional proof of the significant difference in the experimental and control group post-test score, if tvalue was higher than ttable, it indicated that there were significant differences between the result of treatment in control and experimental group. before that, i determined the score of df (degree of freedom). the number of participants in each group were 35, so df = 35 + 35 – 2 = 68, with the level of significance (α) = 5%. then, i got the ttable 1.996. based on the paired sample test result, tvalue was 5.756, it showed that there was a significant difference on post-test result between experimental and control group because tvalue was higher than ttable (5.756 > 1.996). since tvalue > ttable, the null hypothesis (ho) was rejected and the alternative hypothesis (ha) that stated, there is significant difference of reading comprehension in descriptive text of students who are taught by using listen-read-discuss (lrd) and graphic organizer combination technique and those who are not taught by using that technique was accepted. finally after analyzing all of the results of t-test calculation, it can be concluded that teaching reading descriptive by using listen-read-discus (lrd) and graphic organizer combination technique is more effective to improve reading comprehension of the eighth grade students of smpn 1 dukuhwaru, tegal in the academic year of 2016/2017. the questionnaire was given to the students of the experimental group after giving treatments. it was given after the students had the post-test. there were nine questions related to english and the treatments which they had got. the questionnaire was written in bahasa indonesia in order to help the students understand in responding to the questions. furthermore, the observation was undertaken for the purpose of getting supporting data for the primary data of the study. observation in this study was held on each treatment in the experimental group. then, the english teacher played role as an observer, the job of the observer was to observe the students‟ performance in the a. maemun, s. w. fitriati, a. n. farida / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 51 classroom, students‟ behaviors during the teaching and learning process, and their responses in the teaching and learning process through listen-read-discuss (lrd) technique. the observer only gave checkmark in the observation sheet. the result of the questionnaire and observation were described and analyzed. i divided into four aspects to describe the result of questionnaire and observation. the aspects are suitability, enjoyment, responsibility, and improvement. those aspects are representative of the students‟ response towards the teaching and learning process using combination of listen-read-discuss and graphic organizer technique to teach reading comprehension of descriptive text for the eighth year students of smp n 1 dukuhwaru, tegal in the academic year of 2016/2017. the analyses of the result could be shown as follows: 1) suitability all the students of experimental group agreed that listen-read-discuss and graphic organizer are suitable for teaching reading. (questionnaire, 14 november 2016). the students seemed enthusiastic about the researcher‟s instruction. the result showed that from two meeting were high see appendix 18. almost all students paid attention when i gave instructions. i guided the students to follow the steps of lrd technique in reading descriptive comprehension, they obeyed the instruction carefully. (observation sheets, 7 and 9 november 2016) 2) enjoyment 33 from 35 students chose yes which meant almost all the students enjoyed learning process about descriptive text material using listen-read-discuss (lrd) and graphic organizer combination technique and they agreed by using listen-read-discuss (lrd) technique learning process about descriptive text became more fun. (questionnaire, 14 november 2016). most the students showed initiative during the teaching learning process when i was treating them using lrd technique. for example when the students found a new word in reading, they immediately tried to find the meaning on the dictionary without the researcher asked. they showed good response towards the learning reading descriptive text that i did. (observation sheets, 7 and 9 november 2016). 3) responsibility almost all the students did not experience difficulties in learning reading descriptive text using lrd and graphic organizer combination technique. they followed the steps of lrd technique carefully. (questionnaire, 14 november 2016). based on observation which done by the english teacher, they followed my instruction. i asked the students to write down what they got in graphic organizer while i was reading the descriptive text. then, the students were asked to compare their work with the descriptive text that i gave after listening step. in doing those activities, almost all students did their work appropriate with the instruction. (observation sheets, 7 and 9 november 2016). 4) reading comprehension improvement 34 from 35 students chose yes column which meant there was any improvement about their reading comprehension in descriptive text after listen-read-discuss (lrd) and graphic organizer combination technique being applied in their class. (questionnaire, 14 november 2016). the objective of this study was to find out whether the listen-read-discuss (lrd) and graphic organizer combination technique was effective to improve the students‟ reading comprehension of descriptive text or not and to identify and explain what the student‟ responses towards listen-read-discuss and graphic organizer combination technique at the eighth yearstudents of smp n 1 dukuhwaru,tegal to master reading comprehension. a. maemun, s. w. fitriati, a. n. farida / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 52 first, i would like to see the quantitative data analysis. the quantitative data analysis showed the score of students‟ reading comprehension improved after they got the treatment. in the pre-test both of groups got average scores which were not quite different. it was 58.11 for experimental group and 56.65 for control group. the average score of both groups score was slightly different and not too significant. it could be said that both of the groups had almost same ability in reading comprehension of descriptive text before the treatment. then, after the students received treatments, the average scores of the two groups were increased. nonetheless, the mean score of experimental group post-test was higher than the control group. the experimental group post-test score was 82.05 meanwhile the control group was 70.11. the percentage of students‟ improvement in experimental group was 41.30% and in control group was 23.86%. the score showed that after getting a treatment by using listen-readdiscuss (lrd) and graphic organizer combination technique, the experimental group achieved a better score than the control group. then, to determine the significant score between the two groups, i calculated the scores using t-test. the result showed that the score of tvalue 5.756 was higher than ttable 1.996 and sig. (2 tailed) value 0.000 was lower than 0.05. it was proven by using spss. in line with the computation above, it can be concluded that there is a significance improvement of the students‟ achievement dealing with reading comprehension mastery after receiving the treatments by using listen-read-discuss (lrd) and graphic organizer combination technique. the next was the result of qualitative data analysis which was the result of observation sheet and questionnaire. while teaching reading comprehension of descriptive text using listen readdiscuss (lrd) and graphic organizer combination technique, the students showed positive behaviors. their motivation in the first meeting and the second meeting showed the improvements on every indicator. the students also enjoyed the activities that made them love the reading learning. it can be proved by the positive responses that they had given along the study. from the questionnaire given, the data showed that most of the students in experimental group enjoyed the process of the study. they were really enthusiastic with the listen-read-discuss and graphic organizer combination technique and expecting to get the similar technique for the other subject. overall, there were improvements on student‟s motivation using listen-read-discuss and graphic organizer combination technique as an appropriate technique to teach reading comprehension of descriptive text. listen-read-discuss is a strategy that helps students comprehend text by building their prior knowledge of the topic in advance to reading the text, moreover listenread-discuss and graphic organizer technique is good alternative technique for teaching reading. conclusions based on the analysis, i make some conclusions. first, the prominent objective of this study was to find out whether or not the listen-read-discuss (lrd) and graphic organizer combination technique was significantly effective to improve the eighth year students‟ reading comprehension of descriptive text . the result showed that the mean scores of the experimental group pre-test and post-test increased significantly from 58.11 to 82.05. it increased 41.30%, while the control group which was taught by conventional method increased only from 56.65 to be 70.11. it increased 23.86%. second, there is a significance improvement of the students‟ achievement dealing with reading comprehension mastery after they received the treatments by using the listen-read-discuss (lrd) technique. it is showed in the calculation by using t-test in spss 16.0 program. the result indicated that the score of tvalue (5.756) was higher than ttable (1.996). then, the result from independent t-test showed that sig. (2 tailed) value 0.000 was lower than 0.05. therefore, the use of a. maemun, s. w. fitriati, a. n. farida / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 53 listen-read-discuss (lrd) technique is effective for teaching reading and improving students‟ reading comprehension of descriptive text. the findings of questionnaire and observation also indicated the listen-read-discuss (lrd) and graphic organizer combination technique can be applied in teaching reading comprehension of descriptive text to the eighth grade of junior high school students. listen-read-discuss (lrd) and graphic organizer combination technique made students interested in learning reading descriptive text. in addition, using this technique to teach reading comprehension made the students enjoyed more and facilitated their tasks associated with the reading materials because they learned not only individually but also in group. from the analysis result in the previous chapter that the students‟ motivation on reading comprehension was excellent. it is shown by the students‟ behavior while learning. according to the questionnaire, most of the students in the experimental group felt that the listen-readdiscuss technique were interesting, so it can be conclude that lrd technique improves their motivation to learn reading comprehension of descriptive text. references bromley, k., devitis, l. i. and modlo, m. (1995). graphic organizers: visual strategies for active learning. new york: scholastic professional books. finnochiaro, m. (1984). english as a second language from theory to practice. new york: regent publishing company. manzo, a. v., & casale, u. p. (1985). listen-read-discuss. a content reading heuristic. journal of reading, 28: 372-734. trelease, j. (2013). the read-aloud handbook : seventh edition . new york: penguin books. microsoft word 9. 184 textual meaning of english textbook instruction (a case of buku bahasa inggris kelas x by indonesian ministry of education and culture) iftita kharisma rosi, yusnita sylvia ningrum  english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 16 august 2019 approved in 29 november 2019 published in 30 november 2019 ________________ keywords: textual meanings; theme choice; textbook instructions; students’ english textbook. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this study is about analysis of textual meanings in english textbook instructions. the main purpose of this study is to analyse the textual meanings found in the textbook instructions to support the learning objectives. textual meaning is indicated by theme and rheme within the clauses. halliday and matthiessen (2014) said that theme is coded by three elements, they are topical, textual and interpersonal. the student textbook entitled bahasa inggris kelas x 2017 revision published by the indonesian ministry of education and culture was chosen as the object of the study because it is the most widely used textbook in state shools in indonesia. meanwhile, the data were the instruction clauses in chapters 1-7 (the first semester) of the textbook. the findings show that the english textbook instructions in chapters 1-7 contains unmarked topical theme (76%), textual theme (17%), marked topical theme (5%), and interpersonal theme (2%). unmarked topical theme is the most dominant type of theme found in the clauses which is realized by verb. it is in line with the dominant mood type of the instruction, that is imperative which thematized verb in the clauses (halliday and mattheissein, 2014). it can be inferred that the instructions are clear and concise which meant that the instructions were good enough to support the learning objectives (flake, 2017). thus, it is concluded that instructions in chapters 1-7 have good choices of theme which meets the characteristics of good instructions to support the learning objectives. © 2019 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b8 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: e.teacher.ichsan@gmail.com elt forum 8 (2) (2019) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt iftita kharisma rosi / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 185 introduction in a teaching and learning process, media are used by teachers to support and help the teaching process. they may be in various forms, such as textbooks, power point, video, or even flashcards. brown (2001) argued that the most supportive materials for elt (english language teaching) is textbook. moreover, a good textbook should contain clear instruction, systematic coverage of syllabus, and adequate guidance for the teacher (ur, 1996). clear instruction plays a signifanct role since it also helps students to achieve the learning objectives based on the curriculum (tyler, 2013). considering the importance of instruction and, to my knowledge, there has not been any studies on the analysis of textbook instruction, this study focused on the investigation of the textbook instruction from systemic functional linguistics (sfl) point of view specifically textual function. instruction in textbook is significant for learners. it is mentioned by reigeluth and carrchellman (2009) who state that instructions show how to help learners learn, which means identifying ways to help learners construct knowledge. so, it helps the learners a lot in achieving the learning objectives based on the curriculum because instructions and curriculum has an intimate relationship (flake, 2017). therefore, the good instructions are necessary, and the characteristics are mentioned as follows. 1) story (a progression of the telling of events) (levy, 1996). 2) carrying out activities clearly and concisely but adequately articulated (tomlinson, 2003). 3) a thorough understanding of the procedure in all its technical detail. 4) our ability to put ourself in the place of the reader, the person trying to use our instructions. those characteristics of good instructions should be had in the textbook instructions including in the english textbook. the english textbook used by the indonesian students to learn english at schools is the english textbook published by indonesian ministry of education and culture, entitled bahasa inggris (hasmiati et al, 2015). some english textbook investigations had been conducted in terms of instructions, tasks, and activities. however, one of the research found that the english textbook instruction was not good enough for students since it did not help them to build their critical thinking (maharani et. al, 2018). therefore, this research aims to analyse the english textbook instructions more based on another point of view which is textual function. textual function is regarded as an enabling or facilitating function since both the others–construing experience and enacting interpersonal relations – depend on being able to build up sequences of discourse, organizing the discursive flow, and creating cohesion and continuity as it moves along (halliday, 2014). the textual function has the main systems which are theme and rheme (halliday, 1994). according to halliday and matthiessen (2014) say theme is the element that serves as the point of departure of the message; it is that which locates and orients the clause within its context. moreover, gerot and wignell (1994) agreed that theme can be divided into a number of categories: ideational, textual and interpersonal. methods this study is objectively to describe the social phenomena in the textbook through the researcher’s point of view. it uses discourse analysis in analyzing the data, and it is also helped by quantitative data in the findings. moreover, this study is using multiple perspectives in a research project about sfl analysis of english textbook. this study uses the student textbook entitled bahasa inggris kelas x 2017 revision published by indonesian ministry of education and culture as the object of the study. it is analyzing the instruction clauses in chapter 1-7 (the first semester). in analyzing the data, first, the researcher identifies the clauses of instruction part in chapter 1-7. second, the researcher is coding the identified clause with theme and rheme under the clause in form of table. then, the researcher calculate the percentages of each theme type in the instruction clauses. finally, the researcher analyses how the textual meanings within the instruction part of english textbook support the learning objectives. iftita kharisma rosi / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 186 in analysing the data, the researcher uses tables to code the clauses with theme and rheme. for example. listen to your teacher explanation theme rheme findings and discussion the analysis of theme rheme in the english textbook instructions are done by using m.a.k. halliday’s theory, 2014. this part consists of theme choices and theme choices and learning objectives. theme choices according to halliday (2014), there are three types of theme: ideational (unmarked and marked), textual, and interpersonal theme. those types of theme are found in the english textbook instructions as follows. table 2. theme choices in english textbook instructions chapter topical textual interpersonal total marked unmarked 1 3 3% 92 78% 23 19% 0 0% 118 2 3 3% 73 78% 17 18% 1 1% 94 3 4 6% 52 79% 9 14% 1 2% 66 4 13 8% 109 71% 28 18% 4 3% 154 5 2 2% 67 77% 16 18% 2 2% 87 6 4 7% 45 75% 11 18% 0 0% 60 7 5 7% 58 77% 10 13% 2 3% 75 total 34 5% 496 76% 114 17% 10 2% 654 as showed in the table above, all types of theme were found in the clauses of instruction part in the english textbook. the types of theme are topical (marked and unmarked), textual, and interpersonal theme which occurs differently in each chapter of the textbook.the most frequent theme choice is unmarked topical theme (76%). halliday (2014) mentions that imperative moods commonly use unmarked topical theme. it occurs in the data analysis with verbal group as the most frequent thematized element in the unmarked topical theme, for examples: 1) listen to your teacher’s explanation; 2) write down the english words for the following indonesian words. then, the next frequent theme is textual theme (17%). textual theme works cohesively to relate the clause to its context. it occurs in the textbook instruction to connect one clause to another. the most frequent thematized element in the textual meaning is structural, for examples, 1) and show you how to play chinese whisper; 2) then answer the questions following that. the next frequent theme is marked topical theme (5%). marked topical theme is when a clause is started with adverbial group or prepositional phrase or complement. while the most frequent thematized element in marked topical theme is prepositional phrase, for examples, iftita kharisma rosi / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 187 1) at the end of this chapter, ask yourself the following questions to identify how effective your learning process is; 2) in turns, give a compliment to your classmates. last, the least theme choice is interpersonal theme (2%). interpersonal theme has three elements, they are finite, modal adjunct, and vocative. while in the english textbook instructions, interpersonal only occurs 10 times and the most thematized element is finite, for examples, 1) don’t hesitate; 2) do you know these places? theme choices and learning objectives thus, all theme types occur in the english textbook instructions. those theme choices will define the main point of the message in the clause that the writer wants to deliver. it becomes important in instruction clauses because it supports the learning objectives of the english textbook. it is explained by flake (2017) that it helps the learners a lot in achieving the learning objectives from the curriculum since it has an intimate relationship. from the findings, it is found that in the instructions, the most frequent theme is unmarked topical theme (76%) which thematized the verbal group. instructions has the main characteristics which are clear and concise (tomlinson, 2003), and it is imperative. it has the theme choice in the initial part of the clause which commonly becomes unmarked topical theme (halliday and mattheissein, 2014). therefore, the english textbook instructions support the learning objectives because it is clear and concise based on the unmarked topical theme found. the next finding, it shows that the textual theme is also found (17%) in the english textbook instructions. textual theme indicates the way clauses link inherently (halliday, 2014). while the good instructions which support the learning objectives should indicate ‘story’ or a progression of an events (levy, 1996). therefore, it is reasonable if the textual themes are also found in the instructions. it means that the english textbook instructions fit into the good and supportive instructions to the learning objectives. furthermore, marked topical theme is also found (5%) in the english textbook instructions. marked topical theme in imperative sentences may be found when adjuncts are found in the clause with an explicit subject (halliday, 2014). it is used to organise the text explicitly from the perspective of time, emphasising the chronological sequencing of the instructions. instructions needs a thorough understanding in all its technical detail to support the learning objectives in the textbook. thus, the english textbook instructions are considered to be supportive for the learning objectives since it also contains marked topical theme. then, interpersonal theme is found least of all (2%). interpersonal theme projects the writer’s angle on the value of what the clause is saying (halliday, 2014). in instructions, the ability to put ourself in the place of the reader, the person trying to use our instructions, is needed. thus, it is reasonable why the interpersonal theme is found least of all in instructions. to make a supportive instructions for achieving the learning objectives, it is not regularly used because the writer wants to deliver the instructions for all the readers, not for a certain person only. from the explanation above, the relation of the english textbook instructions and learning objectives can be considered as a good relation. the instructions which consist of unmarked topical, textual, marked topical, and interpersonal themes with its own percentage fit the characteristics of good instructions which support the learning objectives of the english textbook. the results of theme rheme analysis from the english textbook instructions revealed interesting thematic choices. the instructions of english textbook entitled bahasa inggris for tenth graders senior high school published by indonesian ministry of education and culture contains all theme types. however, each theme type has different percentage. the most significant and frequent theme choice is unmarked topical theme. it is common to happen in instructions since it is imperatives (halliday, 2014). it indicates the clearness and conciseness of the instructions to support learning objectives. while the least frequent theme choice is interpersonal theme. it indicates that the instruction writer is able to understand the position of the readers/students. thus, it can be revealed that the instructions in the english textbook for tenth grade published by the indonesian ministry of education and culture have good instructions to achive learning objectives. moreover, it can be also supported by another studies conducted by sari (2018), and ayu and indrawati (2018) which revealed that the english textbook activities and tasks are considered as a iftita kharisma rosi / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 188 good level. their results support the current study because clear instruction and varied activities and tasks cannot be separated from the good textbook categories (ur, 1996). the results of this analysis is different from the previous study conducted by maharani et.al (2018) which cocluded that the instructions in the english textbook is considered as not good instructions based on how it builds students’ critical thinking. it is different because they used bloom taxonomy, tomlinson (2003), and richard (2001) theories to evaluate the instructions of english textbook. they concluded that the english textbook instructions were considered not helping the students’ critical thinking enough. in short, based on the textual meaning analysis, the instructions of english textbook is classified as good instructions. from the explanation above, the results of this study contribute in education field especially for the english students, teachers, and english languange teaching. it can help the students in learning english or to achieve the learning objectives in elt. students are demanded to be more active than the teacher as the use 2013 curriculum. they have to explore by themselves more than depending on teacher’s explanation. thus, they will be helped by the good instructions in english textbook to understand the materials and do the activities/tasks well. the results can also be inferred that good instructions from textual meaning point of view is important since it helps the readers to more focus to the main topic of the clause message. for the english teachers, it can help them to understand about the english textbook instructions and to create good instructions especially based on textual meaning. moreover, it also contributes in supporting the succeed of elt since the good instructions means a lot in achieving the learning objectives. conclusion the study analyzes theme choices in chapter 1-7 of english textbook instructions for tenth grade published by the indonesian ministry of education and culture. according to the data analysis and the results of the study in the previous chapter, the conclusions can be drawn as follows. first, the english textbook instructions in chapter 1-7 consist of unmarked topical (76%), textual (17%), marked topical (5%), and interpesonal theme (2%). the unmarked topical theme is the most frequent theme choice in the english textbook instructions. while the interpersonal theme is the least of all. second, the theme choices in the english textbook instructions in chapter 1-7 meet the characteristics of good instructions. the instructions are commonly imperatives, and regularly using unmarked topical theme (halliday and mattheissein, 2014). moreover, the textual theme is also needed since the good instructions should link inherently to indicate the progression of the events (levy, 1996). then, the marked topical theme is found because the good instructions should be organized chronologically because it needs a thourough understanding in all its technical detail. last, interpersonal theme also exists as the good instructions requires the ability of the writer to put themself in the position of the readers. thus, the theme choices found in the analysis meets the characteristics of good instructions which supports the learning objectives (flake, 2017). from the conclusions above it can be inferred that the english textbook instructions is significant to support the learning objectives. furthermore, it can be analyzed through the textual meaning underlying in the instruction clauses. thus, the english textbook instructions in chapter 17 for tenth grade published by the indonesian ministry of education and culture are categorized as good instructions from the textual function point of view. references brown, h. (2001). teaching by principles: an interactive approach to language pedagogy. englewood cliffs: prentice hall. ur, p. (1996). a course in language teaching:practice and theory. uk: cambridge press. tyler, r. w. (2013). basic principles of curriculum and instruction. chicago: the university of chicago press. reigeluth & carr-chellman. (2009). instructional design theories volume iii. uk: routledge. flake, lee hatch. (2017). a look at the relationship of curriculum and instruction and the art and science of teaching. asian journal of education and training, 3(2), 82-85. iftita kharisma rosi / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 189 levy, steven. (1996). starting from scratch: one classroom builds its own curriculum (1st ed.). portsmouth, new hampshire: heinemann tomlinson, b. (ed). (2003). developing materials for language teaching. london: continuum. powell, t., arnet, j., logan m., race c., reardon t., lance l., james m. (2017). sexy technical communication (2nd ed.). georgia: galileo, university system of georgia hasmiati, et al. (2015). designing an english course book for high school students based on 2013 curriculum with local content materials. journal of language teaching and research, 6(6), 1240-1249. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17507/jltr.0606.11 maharani, s., syafei, a. f., & fatimah, s. (2018). an evaluation on the instructions in the english textbook for 10th grade students entilted bahasa inggris published by ministry of education and culture of indonesia. e-journal of english language & literature , 7 (3), 520-530. halliday, m.a.k. (1994). systemic functional grammar (2nd ed.). london: hodder arnold publication matthiessen, c., & halliday, m. (2014). systemic functional grammar (4th ed.). london & new york: routledge. gerot, l. and wignell, p. (1994). making sense of functional grammar. sydney: gerd stabler. sari, i. p., syafei, a. f., & fatimah, s. (2018). an analysis of the activities in bahasa inggris textbook for 10th grade students published by the indonesian ministry of education and culture. journal of english language teaching , 7 (3), 426-235. ayu, m., & indrawati, r. (2018). efl textbook evaluation: the analysis of tasks presented in english textbook. teknosastik , 16 (1), 21-25. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 29 elt forum 7 (2) (2018) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt cohesion in students’ speeches (the case of the third semester english language students of unnes) sri maryati, sri suprapti  english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in october 2018 approved in november 2018 published in january 2019 ________________ keywords: textuality, cohesion, cohesive devices, speech ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ cohesion is the first criterion of textuality which is very important because it is the links that hold text together and give it meaning. this study aims to identify whether the speeches produced by english major sophomores are cohesive or not and to describe the kinds of cohesive devices found in the speeches. the object of this study is the speeches produced by the third semester students of english department, which then were transcribed into written. the data collected were analyzed based on discourse analysis using cohesive devices based on halliday and hasan‟s theory (1976). the findings show that there are 1040 ties found in the ten speeches which reveals that the five types of cohesive devices occur in the speeches although the distribution of each type is significantly different. based on the findings, it can be concluded that the ten speeches are cohesively produced. in addition, all of five types and sub-types of cohesion are found in the monologues except verbal ellipsis. © 2018 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: srmaryati@gmail.com s. maryati, s. suprapti / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 30 introduction a text or discourse has texture or textuality which distinguishes it from something that is not text. in other words, texture or textuality is entirely appropriate to express the property of being text (halliday and hasan: 1976:2). according to renkema (2004: 49-51), “textuality has formulated into seven criteria that are cohesion, coherence, intentionality, acceptability, informativeness, situationality, and intertextuality”. from those criteria, cohesion is the most important criterion because cohesion can distinguish between text and non-text. cohesion distinguishes texts from non-texts and enables readers or listeners to establish relevance between what was said, is being said, and will be said, through the appropriate use of the necessary lexical and grammatical cohesive devices. halliday and hasan remark that: cohesion occurs where the interpretation of some elements in the discourse is dependent on that of another. the one presupposes the other, in the sense that it cannot be effectively decoded except by recourse to it. when this happen, a relation of cohesion is set up, and the two elements, the presupposing and the presupposed, are thereby at least potentially integrated into text. (halliday and hasan, 1976:4) from this idea cohesion can be defined as the links that hold a text together and give it meaning. it can be said that cohesion is used to analyze discourse on how the connection between elements make such unified text since it functions as a device to keep cohesiveness within a text. cohesion is divided into grammatical cohesion and lexical cohesion. grammatical cohesion is subdivided into reference, substitution, ellipsis, and conjunction. while lexical cohesion is subdivided into reiteration and collocation. 1.1 reference one of the options that grammar of english offers creating surface links between sentences is reference. halliday and hassan (1976) pointed out that reference features cannot be semantically interpreted without referring to some other features in the text. pronouns are the most common linguistic element as referring devices in a textual environment. however, there are other linguistic elements used to fulfill the same function such us: articles, demonstratives, and comparatives. reference can be accounted as “exophoric” or “endophoric” functions. “exophoric reference directs the receiver „out of‟ the text and into an assumed shared world” (mccarthy 1991: 41). for example, „that must have cost a lot of money‟ in this example we have to look out of the situation to retrieve the meaning of the sentences (halliday and hassan: 1976). endophoric function refers to the text itself in its interpretation. brown and yule (1983:192) pointed that “where their interpretation lies within a text they are called „endophoric‟ relations and do from cohesive ties within the text”. endophoric reference is subdivided into three kinds: anaphoric, cataphoric, and esphoric. the first two are the most common types of endophoric ties found in a text (suprapti: 2009). anaphoric relations is all kinds of activities which involve looking back in texts to find the referent. for example: “it rained day and night for two weeks, the basement flooded and everything was under water, it spoilt all our calculations” (mccarthy 1991: 36). here the first “it” refers to the discourse itself, the second “it” refers to the event of two weeks, or the fact that it rained or flooded; i.e., the whole situation rather than an event in particular, whereas cataphoric relation looks forward to their interpretation, to exemplify the cataphoric reference “she was terribly afraid. all kinds of black memories of her childhood came up to her mind. she could not fight against them as had been her custom because simply mary brown was dying at that moment”. this short text displays a number of cataphoric reference items which involve looking forward to determining what they refer to. in this example, all the pronouns (she /her) refer to mary brown. s. maryati, s. suprapti / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 31 in this cataphoric reference, the referent has been withheld to the last sentence in order to engage the reader‟s /the listener‟s attention. there are three types of reference. they are personal, demonstrative, and comparative reference (halliday and hasan 1976:37). 1) personal reference it means reference by means of function in the speech situation, through the category of person. the category of personals includes the three classes: personal pronouns (i, you, we, he, etc), possessive determiners (usually called possessive adjectives, such as my, your, his, etc), and possessive pronouns (mine, your, his, etc). 2) demonstrative reference it is reference by means of location, on a scale of proximity it is essentially a form of verbal pointing. it includes neutral and selective demonstrative. neutral demonstrative represented with the. while selective demonstrative has more item: this, that, these, those, here and there. 3) comparative reference it is indirect reference by means of identity or similarity. there are two kinds of comparison in comparative reference. they are general and particular comparison. general comparison means comparison that is simply in terms of likeness and unlikeness, without to express to any particular property: two things may be the same, similar or different. general comparison is expressed by a certain class of adjectives and adverbs. particular comparison means comparison that is in respect of quantity or quality. it is expressed by means of ordinary adjectives and adverbs in some comparative form. 1.2 substitution halliday and hassan (1976) stated that substitution takes place when one feature (in a text) replaces a previous word or expression, for instance: “i left my pen at home, do you have one?” in this example, “one” is replaced or substitution for “pen”. there are three types of substitution nominal, verbal, and clausal substitution. 1) nominal substitution the substitute one/ones always functions as head of nominal group, and substitute only for an item which is itself head of a nominal group. for example: “i shoot the hippopotamus with bullets made of platinum because if i use leaden ones, his hide is sure to flatten „em.” here “bullets” is head of nominal group “bullet made of platinum” and “ones” is head of the nominal group “leaden ones”. 2) verbal substitution the verbal substitution in english is “do”. this operates as head of a verbal group, in the place that is occupied by the lexical verbs; and its position is always final in the group. for example: a) …….. the words did not come the same as they used to do. b) i don‟t know the meaning of half those long words, and, what‟s more, i don‟t believe you do either! the first do, in (a), substitutes for „come‟; that in (b) substitutes „know the meaning of half those long words‟. a) did you sing? s. maryati, s. suprapti / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 32 b) yes, i did. the answer “did” substituted for sang. 3) clausal substitution clausal substitution is one type of substitution which what is presupposed is not an element within the clause but an entire clause. the words used as substituteds are “so” and “not”. for example: a: is he going to pass the exam? b: i hope so. in the example, “so” substitutes for “he is going to pass the exam”. the negative form of the clausal substitution is “not”, as in has everyone gone home? – i hope not. (“not” substutes for “everyone has not gone home) 1.3 ellipsis the relation between substitution and ellipsis is very close because it is merely that ellipsis is “substitution” by zero (0). according to hatch (1994), ellipsis can be thought of as a “zero” tie because the tie is not actually said. what is essential in ellipsis is that some elements are omitted from the surface text, but they are still understood. thus, omission of these elements can be recovered by referring to an element in the preceding text. harmer defines it: “(…) words are deliberately left out of a sentence when the meaning is still clear.” (harmer 2004:24). the example of ellipsis: “penny was introduced to a famous author, but even before, she had recognized him.” it appeared that the structure of the second clause indicates that there is something left out “introduced to a famous author”, the omission of this feature kept the meaning still clear and there is no need of repetition. there are three kinds of ellipsis that are nominal, verbal, and clausal ellipsis. 1) nominal ellipsis it means ellipsis within the nominal group, where the omission of nominal group is served a common noun, proper noun or pronoun. for example: a: how did you enjoy the exhibition? b: a lot (0) was very good, though not all. in the example, the omission concerned with “the exhibition”. 2) verbal ellipsis it means ellipsis within the verbal group where the elliptical verb depends on a preceding verbal group. for example: a: have you been swimming? – yes, i have (0). b: were you typing? – no, i wasn‟t (0). here, the omission of the verbal group depends on what is said before and it is concerned with “been swimming” and “typing”. 3) clausal ellipsis clausal ellipsis functions as verbal ellipsis, where the omission refers to a clause. a: why did you only set three places? paul‟s, staying for dinner, isn‟t he? b: is he? he didn‟t tell him (0). in this example the omission falls on the “paul‟s, staying for dinner”. 1.4 conjunction s. maryati, s. suprapti / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 33 the final types of cohesive relation that we find in the grammar is that of conjunction which is rather different in nature from the other cohesive relations; reference, substitution, and ellipsis. halliday and hasan (1976: 226) point out that “conjunctive elements are not primarily devices for reaching out into the preceding (or following) text, but they express certain meanings presuppose the presence of other components in the discourse”. conjunction is the semantic system whereby speakers relate clauses in terms of temporal sequence, consequence, comparison, and addition. according to halliday and hasan (1976:238), there are four types of conjunction that are addictive, adversative, causal, and temporal. williams (1983) summarized the different kinds of conjunctions in a text, based on the work of halliday and hassan (1976) in the following table. family external/ external relationship example additive adversative causal temporal additive „proper‟ negative expository exemplification similar adversative “proper” avowal correction of meaning dismissal dismissal causal, general reversed causal reason result purpose conditional (direct) conditional (reversed polarity) respective (direct) respective (reversed polarity) sequential summarizing past present future durative interrupted simultaneous and , in addition, moreover or, else, alternatively that is, in other words i.e. for instance, for example, such as likewise, similarly, in the same way. yet, though, but, however, nevertheless, whereas in fact, actually, as a matter of fact on the contrary, instead in any /either case at any rate so ,then ,hence, consequently, for, because, for this reason it follows as a result, in consequence, for this purpose, to this end, then , that being the case under the circumstances otherwise ,under other circumstances , therefore in this respect /regard otherwise, in other respects (at) first, to start with, next, finally, in conclusion to sum up, in short ,briefly previously, before this /that hitherto ,at this point, here from now on, hence forward meanwhile, in the meantime soon, after a time just then, at the same time. table 1.1. different types of conjunctions 1.5 lexical cohesion s. maryati, s. suprapti / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 34 lexical cohesion is created for the choice of a given vocabulary and the role played by certain basic semantic relations between words in creating textuality (halliday and hasan: 1976). thus, they divide lexical cohesion into two main categories: reiteration and collocation. 1) reiteration reiteration is a form of lexical cohesion which involves the repetition of a lexical item at one end of the scale; the use of general word to refer back to a lexical item, at the other end of the scale; and a number of things in between the use of a synonym, neat synonym, or superordinate. halliday and hasan (1976: 279) have categorized reiteration into repetition, synonym or near-synonym, superordinate, and general word. a) repetition restate the same lexical item in a later part of the discourse. e.g.: what we lack in a newspaper is what we should get. in a word, popular newspaper may be the winning ticket. (the lexical item “newspaper” reiterated in the same form). b) synonym it is used to express a similar meaning of an item. e.g.: you could try reversing the car up the slope. the incline isn‟t all that steep (“slope” refers back to “incline” of which it is a synonym) e.g.: i turned to the ascent of the peak. the climb is perfectly easy. c) superordinate it involves the use of general class words. e.g.: henry‟s bought himself a new jaguar. he practically lives in the car. from the example, “car” refers back to “jaguar”. car is a name for a more general class (as “vehicle” is a superordinate of car, spoon of teaspoon cut of pare, and so on). d) general word it is used to refer back to a lexical item such as: person, people, man, woman for human nouns; things, object for inanimate, concrete countable nouns; stuff for inanimate, concrete uncountable; place for location …etc. e.g. a: did you try the steamed buns? b: yes; i didn‟t like the things much. the word “things” is general word that refers back to “buns”. e.g. there‟s a boy climbing that tree. the idiot‟s going to fall if he doesn‟t take care. 2) collocation collocation is the tendency of some words to co-occur together. the syntactic relations of words in which we have a combination of words by expectation; i.e., we predict the following items of a given combination by looking at the first item. the co-occurrence of certain words from a chain to ensure unity and centrality of the topic of this text. these words in chain form the lexical cohesion of the text. nunan argued that: lexical cohesion is, in many ways, the most interesting of all the cohesive categories. the background knowledge of the reader or listener plays a more obvious role in the perception of lexical relationships than in the perception of other types of cohesion. collocation patterns, for example, will only perceived by someone who knows something about the subject at hand. (nunan 1993: 30) s. maryati, s. suprapti / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 35 thus, collocates can be words used in the same context or it can be words that contribute to the same area of meaning (kennedy: 2003). for example, a text dealing with the chemical treatment of food contains lexical chains such as: fruit, skin, citrus, lemon, orange, chemicals, products, laboratory …etc. these words can be said to belong to the same register and contribute to the same topic. sophomores are students in the second year of study at college. in other word, english major sophomores are the third semester of english departent‟s students. in indonesia, the third semester of english department‟s students are expected to make a good monologue since they have been trained to make cohesive monologue from junior high school. brown points out that there are 16 microskills of oral communication which one of them is using cohesive devices in spoken discourse. it means that cohesion is taught to make a good monologue. however, although cohesion is taught from junior high school, the students of english department still face problem in applying cohesive devices. it was proved by sri suprapti (2009) who did the research by using the junior students of english department of unnes as the subject. in the research, she concluded that there were some cohesive problems in the investigated data both of grammatical cohesion and lexical cohesion. the problems in the grammatical cohesion could be sub-categorized into: (a) wrong use of conjunction; (b) wrong use of demonstratives; (c) wrong use of pronominals. then, the lexical cohesion problems are in forms of (a) lexical repetition with irretrievable referents within the texts; (b) naming: the use of a more specific term (subordinate term) in place of a more general (super-ordinate) one. the present article will look into the english students‟ ability in using cohesive devices to make their monolog cohesive both the grammatical and lexical cohesion based on halliday and hassan‟s theory. methods the method used to collect the data was by administering a test which was speaking for general purposes final test. the test was meant to get the students‟ speeches to be scored as their final exam in the subject. the students were given some choice of topics which could be used in creating the speeches. they were asked to choose one of five topics as the topic of their speeches. one week was time which was given to them to prepare their speeches before present it in front of class. when presenting the speeches, they were recorded one by one by using camera recorder. after all of the students had been recorded, i transcribed the data into written. ten out of twenty speeches were chosen to be analyzed because some reasons. first, the sounds of the recorded data could not be heard clearly. second, it was not possible to rerecord the speeches which were not clear because it would be quite difficult to make them made the speeches twice. then, the ten speeches are labelled a to j with each clause/clause complexes. in analyzing the data, the observation is done in seven steps; dividing and numbering the sentences into clauses, identifying the cohesive devices within the clause, applying the codding system as suggested by halliday and hassan (1976), putting the text types into tables based on the types, calculating the cohesive devices used in all the percentage of each device, triangulation, and interpreting the findings. results and discussions the findings and the discussions indicate that the five types of cohesive devices occurred in the speeches although the distribution of each type is significantly different. there are totally 1040 ties found in the speeches. the most occurrences are on lexical cohesion, which mostly reiteration type are 575 cases (55.3%). repetition of the same words have the bigger number rather than s. maryati, s. suprapti / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 36 synonym or general words. it is because the intention in making emphasis on the certain topics that the speakers talking about. for example in speech d the speaker repeated the word „resolution‟ many times because her topic is about new year resolution. the second dominated cohesive device belongs to reference with 223 cases (21.44%). in this case personal reference frequently used by the speaker such as it which refers to the particular object which has been stated in the preceding clause. next is conjunction that is 197 cases (18.94%). the addictive conjunction often occurs which is expressed by the words and, for example and or. meanwhile the occurrences of substitution is higher than ellipsis. there are 19 cases (1.82%) of substitution which is higher than the occurrence of ellipsis with 13 cases (1.25%). the first types of cohesion is reference, the findings reveal that there are 223 occurrences of reference which subdivided into personal reference, demonstrative, and comparative. there are many personal reference found in the speeches. the first item which is used in the speeches as personal reference is i which is anaphoric in speeches b clause 28 and d clause 32. they are included as cohesive devices since they are in quoted speech which anaphorically refer to „the cyber dating user‟ and „listener‟. another example is using you as personal reference which make the speech cohesive like in speech i clause 39. in addition, the personal reference it, they, their, them, she, he and her are also found in the speeches which the first item is the dominant. demonstrative reference is expressed by the words the, this, that, these and those which is the word the is commonly used than others. the example the can be found in the speech (a) clause 31 which is functioned as modifier only. another demonstrative reference that, this, these and those can be functioned as head or modifier. for example, the word that which used as head can be seen in the speech (a) clause 11, while that in clause 12 is functioned as modifier which modifies the word „question’. besides, the third subtypes of reference also occurs in the speeches which is expressed by the word healthier and more which indicate comparison. second type of grammatical cohesion is substitution. substitution is the replacement of an item by another. there are totally 19 occurrences of substitutions which divided into nominal, verbal, and clausal. the nominal substitution is expressed by the word one which can be seen in the speech (d) clause 29. the occurrences of verbal substitution are expressed by the word do like in the speech (d) clause 21 and 50. the last is the occurrence of clausal substitution which is expressed by the word not in speech (e) clause 33. next, ellipsis is the lowest type of cohesion which is found in the speeches. however, only nominal and clausal ellipsis are found. nominal ellipsis is expressed by numerative such as the first, the second, and etc. functioned as head like in the speech (b) clause 8, 9, 10 and 15. clausal ellipsis means ellipsis which misses not only an element within the clause, but it needs the whole clause to complete the clause. clausal ellipsis can be found in the speech (c) clause 18 and (d) clause 21 expressed by the word why and no. the last type of grammatical cohesion is conjunction. there are 197 cases of conjunction in the speeches which exist in addictive, adversative, causal and temporal conjunction. the speakers use and, or, for example and i mean to add information to previous clauses which are categorized as addictive conjunction. adversative conjunction is also found in the speeches expressed by the word but to give a contrary connection to previous clause. then, there are only two kinds of causal conjunction found in the speeches that are so and because. for example, the word so in (a) (12) and (b) (13) which are functioned as a form of simple clausal relation. they clearly show that they provide cohesive relation with previous clauses. the last, temporal conjunction is found which is expressed by the words then and enumeration: first, second, and etc. moreover, another type of conjunction is also found which do not belong to the four categories. it is called as „continuatives conjunction‟. the words well and of course are used to express continuatives conjunction in the speeches. s. maryati, s. suprapti / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 37 the last type of cohesion is lexical cohesion which is commonly used in the speeches. there are two types of lexical cohesion which are reiteration and collocation. reiteration includes repetition, synonym, and general word. repetition in the same word is happened at the most because in spoken discourse, it commonly happens to keep the cohesiveness of the speeches. synonym and general word also exist in the monologues although they are in small cases. the second type of lexical cohesion is collocation. it is achieved through the association of lexical items that regularly co-occur. furthermore, it deals with the relationship between words on the basis of the fact that they occur in the same surroundings. it means that when someone thinks about something, he or she will also thing about the elements that build the thing. the example of collocation can be found in the speech (b) (37) and (38) which show that there is relation between the word man and woman in the preceding clause. there is obviously a systematic relationship between woman and man which are related by a particular type of oppositeness called complementarity. this relation constitutes as collocation and it provides cohesive relation. thus the text above is cohesive. collocational relation is not limited to a pair of words. it can be a long cohesive chain in a text. and they are freely both within the same clause and across clause boundaries because they are not dependent on grammatical structure. it can be seen in the speech (b) (18), (19), (20), (25), (28) and (29). there is connection among „cyber dating…internet…chatting…long distance’. those items are related to each other because they occur in the same context. likewise, in (b) clauses (25), (28) and (29), the word „relationship…single...got engaged’ also associated one to another because they occur in a same context of cyber dating. conclusions finally, i come up with some conclusions which can answer the research questions of this study. the findings show that the speeches produced by the third semester students of english department are cohesive since there are many cohesive ties found. it is supported by the findings of the unstructured interview which indicate that they have ability to make cohesive speeches. second, the students use both grammatical cohesion which are reference (personal, demonstrative and comparative), substitution (nominal, verbal and clausal), ellipsis (nominal and clausal ellipsis), and conjunction (additive, adversative, causal, and temporal) and lexical cohesion which covers reiteration and collocation. references alterman, g. 2005. creating your own dialogue. new york: allworth press. bagarić, v. 2007. defining communicative competence. metodika, vol.8, page 94-103. boardman, c. a. 2001. writing to communicate: paragraph and assays. new york: university of clifornia berkeley extention. brown, g. and g yule. 1983. discourse analysis. cambridge: cambridge university press. brown, h. d. 2001. teaching by principles: an interactive approach to language pedagogy. san fancisco: addison wesley longman. celce-murcia, m. 1995. communicative competence: a pedagogically motivated. issues in applied linguistics, vol. 6, no.2, 5-35. s. maryati, s. suprapti / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 38 cook, g. 1989. discouse. oxford: oxford university press. eggins, s. 1994. an introduction to systemic functional linguistics. london: pinter publisher ltd. gerot, linda and peter wignel. 1994. making sense of functional grammar: an 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language circle journal of language and literature vol. iv, 1-10. s. maryati, s. suprapti / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 39 thompson, g. 1996. introducing functional grammar. london: arnold. wibowo, a. h. 2010. cohesion in students' hortatory exposition texts ( a case of the texts produced by eleventh grade students of sma negeri 1 pati). semarang: final project english department fbs unnes. widdowson, h.g. 2007. discourse analysis. uk: oxford university press. williams, r. 1983. teaching the recognition of cohesive ties in reading a foreign language, in reading a foreign language. a journal of the language studies unit, university of aston in birmingham, v.1 n. 1 march 1983 p.p35-52. wikipedia. available at (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/textuality) zaenudin, m. 2012. cohesive devices in hortatory exposition texts posted in class blog by eleventh grade students of sma negeri 1 temanggung. semarang: final project english departments fbs unnes. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 155 elt forum 6 (2) (2017) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the effectiveness of mind mappingsilent card shuffle combination in teaching writing narrative text puspa merah rahmawati, indrawati, sri wuli fitriati  english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in october 2017 approved in november 2017 published in december 2017 ________________ keywords: mind mappingsilent card shuffle, writing, quasi-experimental research. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this paper is based on the quasi-experimental research which aims to find out the effectiveness of mind mapping-silent card shuffle combination to improve students’ achievement in narrative writing skill. the subject of this study was the eighth grade students of a state junior high school in semarang in the academic year of 2015/2016. the sample consisted of 64 students from two classes. the data were derived from test, interview, and documentation. the data were then measured and analyzed by the statistical and interpretation. the result showed that after the students were given treatment by using mind mappingsilent card shuffle combination,the mean scores of the experimental group increased about 28.49%. the ttest showed that tvalue (3.839) was higher than ttable (1.998). it can be concluded that the working hypothesis (ha) which states that “there is a significant difference of effectiveness and learning achievement in writing narrative story of students who are taught by using mind mapping-silent card shuffle combination technique and those who are not taught by using that technique” is accepted. therefore, a mind mapping-silent card shuffle combination technique is effective for students to improve their achievement in narrative writing skill. © 2017 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: unnes_english@yahoo.com p. merah rahmawati & indrawati & s. wuli fitriati / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 156 introduction in indonesia, english is taught as a foreign language (efl) and it is implemented inside its education curriculum. even though most of the indonesian students are efl learners, they are demanded to keep in touch with english so that the goal of learning english that is for communication can be gained. for the sake of communication, the way people communicate nowadays is not only from speaking, but from a written form as well. according to harmer (2011:4), writing is used for a variety of purposes and produced in many different forms. they can communicate through their writing in many forms of text according to its aim. however, writing is the most complex skill to develop. heaton (1990:135) mentions that, “the writing skills are complex and difficult to teach, requiring mastery not only of grammatical and rhetorical devices but also of conceptual and judgment elements”. writing needs a long process from finding out the ideas, deciding the genre and text construction, generating it and exploring knowledge through that. writing always involves making choices about how best to get one’s meanings across effectively to particular readers by writing in ways they will recognize and understand (hyland, 2004:88). the writer must have a clear purpose in stating the idea through writing so that the readers can understand it well. thus, the aim of the communication in a written form between the writer and the readers can be attained. in terms of teaching writing for students, harmer (2011:32) asserts that, “writing has always been used as a means of reinforcing language that has been taught.” it means that sometimes teachers use writing as a tool to measure students’ understanding of a certain material in language teaching and learning. usually, in the classroom the teachers will ask the students to do the writing activity after they are explained about a certain topic; for example, they have to write some grammatical sentences, or even a wider task such as a paragraph or simple essay writing. the students also will understand that to have the ability in writing, they need to expose themselves with the writing activities and use the target language in writing as much as possible. furthermore, the writing skill is needed in each stage of education level. especially in junior high school; according to the school-based curriculum 2006 or ktsp 2006 (kurikulum tingkat satuan pendidikan) the students are demanded to write some genres of text such as procedure, descriptive, recount, narrative, and report text. a genre can be defined as a culturally specific text-type which results from using language (written or spoken) to (help) accomplish something (gerot & wignell, 1994:17). in this research, i concern with teaching and learning narrative text. this text is chosen because through this genre, the junior high school students who are in the teenage stage can extend their imagination. the narrative text contains narration which entertains them and it will, of course, attract their attention to be focused on. anderson & anderson (1997:8) explain narrative text as a piece of text which tells a story and, in doing so, entertains or informs the reader or listener. narrative text has four generic structures. they are: 1) orientation: the introduction of the characters, setting, and time of the story; 2) complication: the stage when the problems arise; 3) resolution: the complication may be resolved for better or worse; 4) re-orientation: it is optional. anderson and anderson (1997) also mention the language features of narrative text. they focused on specific characters, time words that connect events to tell when they occur, verbs to show the actions that occur in the story, descriptive words to portray the characters and setting. the language features and generic structures are developed as the part that need to be focused on making narrative to be a text which is not merely entertaining but also based on the construction. so, it is important for the students to build their understanding in the aspect of generic structure of the text and language features. but, the students still find that to write this genre is not that easy. they need to engage in the step by step process to produce a good narrative work. p. merah rahmawati & indrawati & s. wuli fitriati / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 157 however, based on my experience during the teaching internship program in a state junior high school in semarang, i also found that most of the students faced some difficulties in writing. it happened when they were given an essay assignment. they ran out of idea and said that they did not know what they should write, or how to start their writing. the students learn only from classical class teaching and learning process and most of the teachers ask them to directly make a product of writing without giving guidance, let alone an interesting technique which can attract their interest to write. in addition, the students were drilled only from doing the assignments on the copied handout or students worksheets. that thing may lead the students into the monotonous activity which later on can limit their potential in learning english especially in developing their writing skills. meanwhile, the teachers should not see writing as a finished product, which means they need to integrate this skill in the form of a writing process that involved many aspects. they can decide what genre will be used, tenses will be applied, and also sources which can help them boosting their knowledge and material for their writing. students should learn to plan, draft, revise, edit, present and also evaluate their writing. it is also mentioned in department for education and employment (2000:11) that effective teaching will focus on particular aspects of the process, e.g. planning a story, an explanation, an argument, or revising a draft to change or improve it. so, it is clear that any good paragraph or essay goes through many stages before it is finished (meyers, 2005:2). besides, the teachers can also combine the process approach with the genre learning approach. the concept of genre enables teachers to look beyond content, composing processes, and textual forms to use writing as an attempt to communicate with readers (hyland, 2004:5). by looking through genre, the writers or students are able to learn that they are not just writing but also trying to achieve the purposes of writing itself in order to convey the meaning to the readers. the genre-process approach will make students write step by step from planning to editing and also know more about the genre by imitating the given text, reading some examples of the same genre, and exploring different kinds of model. the teachers also can lead students to be more focused in a certain genre when they are writing with this approach. so that by teaching using genre-process approach the effectiveness of the two approaches can be applied in the classroom. the challenge is teachers should be able to control the class because this approach will create a different atmosphere than the classical writing class. the students will engage in some steps which need their active self-learning, cooperation, and of course teachers’ contribution to guide them. to realize the implementation of genre-process approach to teach writing in the class, teachers need a technique to facilitate them teaching writing genre and encouraging students to start writing. hyland (2004:89) views that by working with others in activities that have a purpose, students come to see that the target language is a resource they can use to make meanings when they write. the students can work in a kind of group activity which can help them boosting their ability and eagerness to start and involve in the writing process. they also must be supported to use the target language during the process of their activities. so, cooperative learning can be the best solution to help students to learn better with their partner or group. it is defined by mandal (2009:97) that cooperative learning is a successful teaching strategy in which small teams, each with students of different levels of ability use a variety of learning activities to improve their understanding of a subject. there are many of cooperative learning which are introduced as techniques of learning. some examples of them are: jigsaw, three-step interview, think-pair-share, solve-pair-share, number-heads together, round table, team-pair-solo, round robin brainstorming, talking chips, group grid, and silent card shuffle. nevertheless, the cooperative learning is usually applied as a single technique and students still find themselves get bored with that. the role of teachers to actualize the interesting technique is really needed here. p. merah rahmawati & indrawati & s. wuli fitriati / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 158 in this study, i consider the combination of mind mapping and silent card shuffle to solve the students’ problem in writing. mind mapping is a technique which helps students arranging their ideas and concept from the main topic spreading into the major subtopics. according to murley (2007) in fiktorius (2013:2), “mind map is a visual tool that can be used to take notes, generate idea, organize thinking, and develop concepts.” mind map is an effective way to take notes and brainstorm essay topic. consequently, mind mapping technique seems to be particularly suited to helping students in planning their writing as the approach encourages students to reach for and adopt a deeper level of understanding of the writing topics (fiktorius, 2013:14). in brainstorming the writing, students can use symbols, keywords, and also pictures to display the story. it must be arranged properly and flow in sequences of correct structure. in addition, the teachers can create the teamwork in the mind mapping activity by arranging it as a group work. by doing the different stage in group mind mapping, students can feel different atmosphere of learning compared with usual individual mind mapping work. the creativity may develop better and the level of understanding the material may increase because they solve the problem inside mind mapping together. additionally, for the flexibility in application, goodnough & woods (2002:10) suggest mind maps may be combined with other approaches such as cooperative learning, on-line learning, and computer-assisted learning. thus, the teacher can realize the combination technique by combine a mind mapping with an appropriate cooperative learning. meanwhile, new zealand curriculum (2010:1) in safitri (2014:3) explains that, “silent card shuffle is a learned centered, cooperative strategy useful for classroom activities that require small group to classify, sort, sequence, map and match.” there are five steps in the process of silent card shuffle technique: 1) silent card shuffle, 2) justify and refine, 3) circle and observe, 4) return and refine, and 5) teacher debriefing. generally the silent card shuffle deals with the classification, sequencing, and mapping the cards. but, the technique can be modified by replacing the cards with the topics and branches of mind mapping. then, in justify and refine stage, the students must arrange them in the form of mind map. thus it is not merely classifying or mapping the card, but creating a whole mind map. so, the combination happens there. moreover the cards which usually stand for pictures and vocabularies now are replaced not only as pictures but also phrases, keywords, and symbols in mind mapping. then, the steps of combination technique are described as following: 1) silent card shuffle: the cards are spread and arranged but the members may not talk; 2) justify and refine: the members may talk to each other and ask for an explanation or justification for the positioning of mind map. 3) circle and observe: one member stays, other members must move and visit other groups; 4) return and refine: return to the home table, make a refinement based on the observation; 5) teacher debriefing: teacher shows the correct arrangement of the mind map. so, according to the reasons of the similarity and flexibility of the two techniques they are combined for the betterment of application. this paper describes the process of implementing the combination of mind mapping and silent card shuffle in improving the narrative writing skill of the eighth grade of a state junior high school in semarang and find out how effective the mind mapping-silent card shuffle combination technique in developing students’ narrative writing skill. according to the explanation above, hopefully the mind mapping-silent card shuffle combination can solve the problems of students in writing narrative text. methodology of the research this study was a quasi-experimental research. particularly, the pre-and posttest design was chosen as the research design. in this design, subjects were assigned to the control group and experimental group. the research was conducted with the eighth grade students of a state junior high school in semarang in the academic year of 2015/2016 as the subject of the study. there were eight p. merah rahmawati & indrawati & s. wuli fitriati / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 159 classes of the eighth grade and each class consisted of 32 students. two classes were chosen as the sample. the sample was chosen by the technique of simple cluster random sampling. this technique requires groups or clusters in taking the sample based on the groups that have already existed in the population. this technique was chosen based on the some considerations: (1) the students were taught by the same english teacher, and (2) the placement of the students in each class were set randomly without considering the level, gender, or strata. then, to determine the control and experimental group i chose it randomly. the first class was viii e as the control group and viii f as the experimental group. the experimental group (viii f) was taught by using mind mapping-silent card shuffle combination, meanwhile the control group (viii e) was taught by the teacher by using pair group activity. in this study, the written test, interview, and documentation were used as the instruments of data collection. then, the result of the test (pre-test and post-test) was analyzed by using t-test formula. the t-test was calculated to find out the significant difference of effectiveness and learning achievement in writing a narrative text of students who are taught by using mind mapping-silent card shuffle combination technique and those who are not taught by using that technique. if the tvalue is higher than ttable, it means that there is a significant difference between the two means. but, if tvalue is lower than ttable, it means that there is no significant difference between two means. before computing the t-test value, i had to find the normality and homogeneity of experimental group and control group pre-test and post-test to find out that the data were normally distributed and homogenous. result and discussion results of the test the data were obtained from the students’ score in writing narrative text. the scoring guidance was adopted from heaton (1990) and brown’s analytic scale (2004:244-245) for rating composition task. there are some aspects that were used to consider the score: 1) grammar which refers to appropriate tenses and conjunction, 2) vocabulary which refers to diction and reference, 3) mechanic which refers to the use of capitalization and punctuation, 4) fluency which refers to the style and quality of expression, 5) relevance which refers to the structure and content in relation to the task demand of the students. group mean of pre-test mean of posttest the improvement of pre-test and post-test (%) experimental 63.19 81.19 28.49% control 60.50 74.69 23.45% table 3.1 the result of pre-test and post-test mean scores of the experimental and control groups table 1 showed the information about the mean score of pre-test of experimental group was 63.19 and the mean score of post-test was 81.19. meanwhile, in the control group, the mean score of pre-test was 60.50 and the mean score of post-test was 74.69. the difference of mean scores and also the improvement between both groups were shown in the following chart : p. merah rahmawati & indrawati & s. wuli fitriati / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 160 diagram 3.1 mean score difference between experimental and control group the chart 1 described the result of post-test of both groups increased. the chart above showed that the mean score of the pre-test in the experimental group was 63.19. besides, the mean score of the post-test was 81.19. the percentage of the students’ improvement in the experimental group was 28.49%. therefore, there was a significant improvement between the pre-test and post-test scores of students in the experimental group. on the other hand, the mean scores of control group also showed an improvement. the pre-test was 60.50 and the post-test was 74.69. in the control group, there was less improvement than the experimental group. the improvement was only 23.45%. it can be inferred that the difference of mean score in the experimental group was higher than in the control group. thus, i concluded that there was better improvement of experimental group’s achievement after they received treatment by using mind mapping-silent card shuffle combination technique in writing narrative text. after analyzing the improvement of mean scores of both groups, the normality of the data was analyzed in order to know whether the data had normal distribution or not. based on the pre-test data in the experimental group, the x2value was 8.6025 and x2table was 11.070. since x2value was lower than x2table (8.6025 11.070), then the pre-test of experimental group was said to be normally distributed. besides, based on the pre-test data in the control group, the x2value was 3.5727 and x2table was 11.070. since x2value was lower than x2table (3.5727 11.070), so the pre-test of control group also was said to be normally distributed. furthermore, i also computed the normality of both groups’ post-test. the post-test normality computation of experimental group showed x2 value was 4.9169 and x2table with = 5% and df = 6 – 1, was 11.070. since x2 value was lower than (4.9619 < 11.070), the post-test of experimental group was considered to be normally distributed. in the control group, the normality computation showed x2 value was 2.8610 and x2table with = 5% and df = 6 – 1, was 11.070. since x2 value was lower than x2 table (2.8610 < 11.070), the post-test of control group was considered to be normally distributed p. merah rahmawati & indrawati & s. wuli fitriati / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 161 after finding out if the test is distributed normally or not, it is important to know whether the test is homogenous. the homogeneity (f) was used to measure the equality of two groups in pre-test and post-test. if fvalue ≤ f table it means that both groups were homogeneous. from the pre-test homogeneity computation of both groups, i found the fvalue was 1.184 and ftable was 1.822. since fvalue (1.184) ftable (1.822), it could be concluded that the population between experimental and control group were homogenous. it meant that the study could be continued. the homogeneity of the two groups could be caused by the similar characteristics of both groups since they came from the same level. meanwhile, from the post-test homogeneity of both groups, the fvalue was 1.238 and ftable was 1.822. the result of the post-test homogeneity computation showed that the experimental group and the control group were homogenous since fvalue was lower than ftable (1.238 1.822). by considering the homogeneity of the post test result, i concluded that the population of both groups was homogenous. thus the t-test could be counted. t-test formula was used to examine the hypotheses of this study because the significant improvement of the experimental and control group needed to be tested. the result of t-test becomes the quantitative proof whether there is significant difference of two groups’ results or not. before analyzing t-test, the standard deviation of experimental group and control group should be counted first. the calculation showed the standard deviation of post-test experimental group was 6.403 meanwhile the standard deviation of post-test control group was 7.123. the standard deviation of both groups also was counted and it resulted 6.773. then, the result of standard deviation was inputted in the t-test formula. the calculation showed the result of tvalue was 3.839. next, tvalue was consulted with ttable. before that, i determined the score of df (degree of freedom). the number of participants in each group were 32, so df = 32 + 32 – 2 = 62, with the level of significance ( = 5%. then, i got the ttable 1.998. based on the criteria, if tvalue higher than ttable (tvalue ttable), it meant that there was a significant difference in writing ability achievement of experimental group and control group. then, the tvalue exceeded the ttable (3.839 1.998). so, the null hypothesis (ho) was rejected and the working hypothesis (ha) that states there was a significant difference of effectiveness and learning achievement in writing narrative story of students who were taught by using mind mapping-silent card shuffle combination technique and those who were not taught by using that technique, was accepted. discussion the objective of this study was to find out whether the mind mapping-silent card shuffle technique was effective to improve students’ achievement and writing skill of narrative or not. after analyzing the quantitative and also qualitative data, it was proved that the students’ writing skill of narrative text improved significantly. even though the initial data showed that most of them got bad score of narrative writing, later on after the implementation of mind mapping-silent card shuffle combination technique they made better result in their work. first, the qualitative data analysis which was the result of interview was discussed. from the result of interview with five students of experimental group, it was found that narrative was students’ most favorite text. however, the teacher used to teach them writing without giving any guidance so that they felt writing narrative text was not an interesting task to do and quite difficult. they also stated that before using the combination technique, it was quite hard for them to generate idea and to have a clear imagination about what they were going to write. besides, they stated that it was not easy to connect one sentence into another one. it was also difficult to write by using past tense and determine the appropriate vocabulary when they were writing. but, after they were taught by using mind mapping-silent card shuffle combination technique, they said that there was an improvement in their writing skill. they started enjoying writing narrative text. they were easier to generate the p. merah rahmawati & indrawati & s. wuli fitriati / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 162 idea and arrange the plot because of pictures and symbols which helped a lot. additionally, it made them easier to connect the sentences. they also said that it was an interesting technique because they liked how the pictures, symbols, and keywords were arranged and decorated. it was a fun group work. thus, by using the technique they found themselves more practical to broaden their imagination and determine the generic structure when they were writing. so finally, they concluded that mind mapping-silent card shuffle combination was an effective technique which can help them writing narrative text with the better result. meanwhile, it could also be seen from the result of student’s narrative writing work where there was an improvement from the pre-test to post-test. their writing works were corrected based on the points of grammar, vocabulary, mechanic, relevance, and fluency. in the pre-test work the result showed that the student still found the difficulties with the grammar, therefore there were many mistakes in the simple past tense usage. but then in the post-test, the student could write the story with the better simple past tense and there were only several errors which did not obscure the meaning. besides, it could also be found in the pre-test that the student had quite serious problem with diction and reference. the student chose some inappropriate words in the context. however, later in the post-test there were only fewer mistakes in the terms of vocabulary. there were several distracting errors in conjunction and capitalization of pre-test work and later lower errors of mechanic could be found in the post-test. the other aspect was fluency which consisted of style and quality of expression in the narrative text. it showed that the writing in the pre-test was confusing. on the other hand, in post-test result the writing was clear and the meaning was conveyed well. the last aspect was relevance which consisted of structure and content. in pre-test showed that the idea of the topic was incomplete. but then the post-test indicated that the idea was well developed and the sentences well linked. the post-test showed that the writing really had an improvement after the given treatment. from the post-test it can be seen that the student could write with correct generic structure and chronological order properly. furthermore, the quantitative data analysis showed the statistical improvement of students’ writing skill before and after they got the treatment. in the pre-test both of groups got average scores which were not quite different. it was 63.19 for experimental group and 60.50 for control group. the average score of both groups score was slightly different and not too significant. it could be said that both of the groups had almost same ability in writing narrative text before the treatment. after the students received treatments, the average scores of the two groups were gradually increased. however, the mean score of experimental group post-test was higher than the control group. the experimental group post-test score was 81.19 meanwhile the control group was meanwhile the control group was 74.69. the percentage of students’ improvement in experimental group was 28.49% and in control group was 23.45%. the score indicated that after getting a treatment by using mind mapping-silent card shuffle combination technique, the experimental group achieved a better result than the control group (see table 1 and chart 1). in the t-test, the tvalue was higher than ttable. tvalue obtained 3.839 and ttable was 1.998. it meant that the use of mind mapping-silent card shuffle combination technique to improve students’ achievement in writing narrative text was effective. so, there was a significant difference between the group which was taught by using mind mapping-silent card shuffle combination technique and group which was taught by conventional pair group activity (single cooperative learning technique). the research findings revealed that the result of the treatment was contrary to the null hypothesis (ho). thus, the working hypothesis (ha) which stated that “there is a significant difference of effectiveness and learning achievement in writing narrative story of students who are taught by using p. merah rahmawati & indrawati & s. wuli fitriati / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 163 mind mapping-silent card shuffle combination technique and those who are not taught by using that technique” was accepted. finally, based on the result of quantitative data analysis, qualitative data analysis, and also the finding of the improvement in grammar, vocabulary, mechanic, relevance, and fluency of the student’s narrative text, the mind mapping-silent card shuffle was effective to develop the narrative writing skill of the eighth grade students of a state junior high school in semarang in the academic year of 2015/2016. conclusions based on the research findings, i conclude that the students of experimental and control groups have equal achievement in writing narrative text before getting treatment by using mind mapping-silent card shuffle combination technique. it could be seen by the slightly difference of the result of the experimental group and control group pre-test. thus, the two groups were homogenous before getting the treatment. secondly, after computing the t-test, it can be inferred that there was a significant difference of achievement in writing narrative text of the students who were taught by using the mind mappingsilent card shuffle combination technique and those who were not taught by using that technique. it was significant because the result of tvalue was higher than ttable. so, the null hypothesis (ho) of this study was rejected and the working hypothesis (ha) was accepted. the last, it can be concluded that the mind mapping-silent card shuffle combination technique gave a great significance to improve students’ achievement in writing a narrative text. it could be seen from the mean scores differences of both groups and also the result of interview. then, the combination technique was very convenient for students. moreover, they also improved their writing in terms of grammar, vocabulary, mechanics, relevance, and fluency. by comparing the mean score differences of the two groups and analyzing the result of interview, i come to a conclusion that the mind mapping-silent card shuffle combination technique was effective for teaching writing and improving students’ narrative writing skill. references anderson, m., & anderson, k. 1997. text types in english 1. australia: macmilan education australia pty ltd. brown, h.d. 2004. language assessment: principles and classroom practices. new york: pearson education department for education and employment. 2000. the natioal literacy strategy: grammar for writinghead teachers and teachers at ks2. london: crown. online. available at https://www.hamiltontrust.org.uk/system/files/page_files/ grammar_for_writing.pdf [accessed 27/03/16] fiktorious, t. 2013. the use of mind mapping technique in the efl classroom: a critique and demonstration of methods. postgraduate study of english language education teacher training and education faculty university of tanjungpura, pontianak. online. available at https://www.academia.edu/3823093 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learning strategies to enhance writing skill. the modern journal of applied linguistics, 94-102. online. available at: http://www.mjal.org/removedprofiles/2013/coop.pdf [accessed 27/03/16] meyers, alan. 2005. gateways to academic writing. new york: pearson education. microsoft word 2. flávius almeida dos anjos 14 appropriate pedagogy to teach english: contemporary tendency focusing on non-native flávius almeida dos anjos  center of culture, language and applied technologies, recôncavo of bahia federal university (ufrb), brazil article info ________________ article history: received in 17 december 2018 approved in 29 july 2019 published in 29 july 2019 ________________ keywords: pedagogy; english language; non-native ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this paper is about the teaching of english. it takes into account the global role this language gains today, to reflect on how it should be taught. the main objective of it is to defend a current tendency concerning the teaching of english. in the pursuit of an appropriate pedagogy to teach english, i propose the focus on non-native speaker, since i undestand that english is a world language, spoken by a great number of people, from different cultures, what has recreated this language in many aspects. that is why this language should not be only taught based on the hegemonic cultures. the reflection proposed here is, especially, anchored on freire´s (1996) ideas on education, mainly when he defends learner’s autonomy. thus, to teach english through an appropriate pedagogy, teachers should allow students to have ownership of it as well, but starting from a local perspective, avoiding, this way, bad feelings on the part of students. © 2019 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: flaviusanjos@gmail.com elt forum 8 (1) (2019) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt flávius almeida dos anjos / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 15 introduction to get into the appropriate pedagogy world for the teaching of english, it is necessary, first, to reflect upon some features of this language. because of the indisputable global role the english language takes now, several studies have emerged in the last few years. many of them bring relevant data on the rise of this language, outlining its historial trajectory, as old english, middle english until the modern english. (graddol, 2000; 2004). there are some that highlight the trajectory of english as colonial, imperial and global language. (graddol, 2000, lacoste; rajagopalan, 2005, kumaravadivelu, 2005, crystal, 2012). others are more delimiters, such as the one of kachru (1985), that, to explain the expansion, acquisition and the role of english, displays three circles, the inner, the outer and the expanding one. today, some terms have also been used to make reference to the english language: english as a global language, english as an international language, world english, englishes and english as a língua franca. there are also the varieties inglish, chinglish, espanglish, singlish. these varieties reflect the spread of english around the world. bhowmik (2015), about this, highlights that with the emergence of new varieties of english, the teaching of this language can not be based either on the british or american models only. concerning this, harmer (2007) says that upon concentrating the teaching of english, on the british and american varieties, it ignores the others, such as australian english, canadian english and irish english. but this author remind us that even these varieties are irrelevant in a setting where the number of world englishes also have the status of variety, mentioning english as a lingua franca as one with its own right. what, in fact, is happening is that english has broken off from its origins and it has been ressignified by a great number of speakers, giving origin to new englishes. thus, in several communication settings, english speakers are using more the varieties of english they know and they have employed several pragmatic strategies to communicate with other speakers of english. (marlinda, 2014). this points to the fact that english takes a global feature, because of its reinless expansion, reaching, virtually, all territories. for crystal (2012), this global feature of english occurs because it has played a special role in many countries. but for marlina (2014), english as an international language, as a paradigm, acknowledges the international functions of this language and its use in a variety of cultural and economic arena, where speakers of different linguacultures establish communication and they do not speak each other language. in this line of thought, mckay (2009) agrees that english as an international language is used by people of diverse cultures. mackay’s tenet aligns with the one of jenkins (2006), because when the latter defines english as a lingua franca, she says it is about a common language used by people who do not share the same cultural background. this new language acquires features of certain social groups, with several linguistic innovation, in léxicon, grammar and in terms of phonology, different from the native version. (jenkins, 2014). another term is “world english” (we), used by rajagopalan (2005) to make reference to the english language in an expanding process around the world. this author characterizes we as a linguistic phenomenon that emerges from the contact of 2/3 non-native users. this linguistic contact does not happen based on the pattern of the hegemonic cultures, however, it emerges articulated with these speaker’s identity and with the influence of their culture, mainly non-native. the term world englishes can be defined as the norm that includes all varieties of this language. (farrel & martin, 2009). the “s”, added to english, signals the plurality of this language, that not being local any more, it turned into new versions, it has become the language of the world, that is why the word “world”, as an adjective. this term was, in the truth, coined by kachru, in early 1979, to evidence how the english language works in different settings in the world. in this sense is that for kumaravadivelu (2005), english has, inevitably, given origin to a great number of local varieties and flávius almeida dos anjos / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 16 these varieties have multiplied themselves to the point of pluralizing it as world englishes. bhowmik (2015) reflects about this, when he says that: the continuous spread of english worldwide has put it in a unique situation. for example, because of its spread over time, english has become more hybridized and diverse, phenomenon captured by the term world englishes. (bhowmik, 2015, p. 143). actually, the sociolinguistics of english has been more complex than the ones of other languages (marlina, 2014), what has required more critical eyes on how to teach this language, thinking of practices that ensure its character of “world language” and that make possible the assumption of new learners/users.the aim of this paper is to reflect on a viable educational alternative for english brazilian students. i intend to deconstruct wrong notions that overestimate the mythical image of the native speaker, that feed, even today, the elt1 powerful industry, because although english non-native speakers outnumber the native ones, the latter still enjoys the privilege of being “native”. (bhowmik, 2015). therefore, it is necessary to understand the character of world language that english takes in the contemporaneity. although, there are people who do not take this fact into account, it affects deeply the pedagogy to teach and learn this language, if we have the commitment with our students, to teach them english for life. regardless of the issues that leaded english to this status, it is necessary to think of alternatives that can support learners of this language, in order to favor the learning process, making possible that learners may use this language more autonomous. the term “pedagogy” mentioned here should be understood as an approach that ensures the learning consolidation. however, in the specific case of learning/teaching english, this approach is defined according to the speakers of this language, mainly based on the old fashioned labels “native” and ‘non-native”. in fact, what exists are speakers of a language! because of this, this paper signals, in someway, a brake of paradigms with these patterns. it is anchored is assumptions that also authorize new speakers of english to use it with ease, without being tied in patterns that inferiorize learners, what, many times, hinder them to go ahead and get progress as english users. thus, based on this linguistic reality, briefly outlined here, how does the teaching of english should happen nowadays? before trying to answer this question, that is about the pedagogy of english, i want first to say something about the current pedagogy to teach english used in many settings, based, exclusively, on the native speaker. after, i reflect on a pedagogy, i think, it is appropriate for brazilian learners, for example. i want to say as well, that my idea is to write about the appropriate pedagogy to teach english, but it is closely linked to freire´s (1996) view of education. appropriate pedagogy for english brazilian learners before making comments on the appropriate pedagogy to teach english, i start saying some words on the inappropriate one. traditionally, the pedagogy to teach english has been that one based on the native speaker. in my opinion, the problem here is with the exclusivility that embraces only the two hegemonic cultures. about that, kumaravadivelu (2012a) highlights that, historically, the pedagogy to teach english has been dominated by the assumption that english bilingual users’ goal is to conquer the native competence. such practices have made possible to erase the identity of many learners, because in many contexts, institutions and teachers still believe in the native speaker’s supremacy fallacy and his culture and adopt methodologies that subvert the attempt to maintain learner’s identity and the exposure of his culture. concerning this, mota (2010) remind us that, in 1 english language teaching. flávius almeida dos anjos / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 17 1970, there were pedagogical practices that engedered actions in the classrooms, aiming at memorizing the foreign culture values, what favored the development of a superiority atmosphere on the part of the native speaker. in practice, for example, this happened when learners were stimulated to change their names by a foreign one; to imitate characters of a book or movies, making them believe that they had a new (but false) identity. and, in this sense, it is necessary to be cautious not to allow that the teaching of a foreign language be solely a fiction universe, making learners abandon or erase their identities. mackay (2009) questions this (wrong) conception that the target pedagogy to teach english should (or must) be based on the native speaker’s norms. in this sense, this author argues about reasons to reject the native speaker model as a pedagogical practice to teach english. she believes that this rejection should occur because the pragmatic nature of communication should be considered, that is to say, for her, english as a global language is used in several social settings, by many speakers of english legitimized. in this line of thought is that kumaravadivelu (2012a) suggests an epistemic break of our indelible colonial dependence. he suggests a careful reconceptualization and organization of knowledge. thus, it seems that kumaravadivelu (2012a) proposes a descontinuity of the way english has been taught, since new guidelines have emerged in light of the role this language gains today. in practical terms, kumaravadivelu (2012a) puts in check the native speaker’s competence as model to be reached. he also puts in evidence that the center based knowledge system, somehow, spreads issues such as native accent, native teachers, native speaker competence, methods from western universities, researches based on hegemonic cultures etc. because of these issues, that still bring problems and impede the teaching/learning process, is that kumaravadivelu (2012a) proposes to break our dependence with terminologies such as esl, efl, eal, we, elf e eil2, so that we can undo the ties with the native speaker episteme. he also suggests to break our dependence of the compentence based on the hegemonic cultures and, that is why, it is necessary to spread the conception of the english language plurality and the understanding that this language is not property of a specific culture or community solely anymore (baker, 2009). thus, if we truly agree with kumaravadivelu (2012a), concerning the fact of breaking with these conceptions, especially regarding the terminologies that frame us in patterns, almost confinable, we have to admit that our generations can not stand anymore the adoption of inappropriate pedagogies to teach/learn english. besides that, nobody should go on carrying the burden of having to try to equal to the native speaker, what has been a[n] (unreachable) goal of many institutions, without thinking of the consequences of this prerrogative for learners. almost always these pedagogies put us in patterns, such as learners and speakers of english as a foreign language, who aim to reach the standard of speakers of english as a first language, or the english of the native speaker, or the english from the inner circle, that is, from the hegemonic cultures. thus, it is clear that learners of a “foreign language”, in brazil, suffer, even without knowing it, a comparative exam. (grigoletto, 2005). this brings out unpleasant consequences, when a serious inferiority feeling emerges on the part of the students. (harmer, 2007). that is why ramathan and morgan (2009) draw the attention to inadequate pedagogies to teach english for speakers of other languages, that are in evidence, even today. in this sense is that matsuda (2009) warns as well to the fact that teaching english as an international language requires practices different from the traditional, that is to say elt, that places 2 esl – english as a second languag, efl – english as a foreign language, eal – english as a asian language, we – world english, elf – english as a lingua franca e eil – english as na international language. flávius almeida dos anjos / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 18 english as the language of the united kingdom or the united states. this approach is outdated and, for some experts, it might bring negative consequences for learners. farrel and martin (2009) point that this might happen because: 1. to insist in teaching the (supposed) standard english might devalue other varieties of english in the world, because it still persists this notion that any form of english different from this standard is inferior and 2. teaching the standard english might provoke discrimination, because some employers, for instance, might discriminate speakers of other varieties of english, which are not hegemonic. thus, it is clear, by the ideas raised thus far, that my thought about the appropriate pedagogy to teach english aligns with that one that may benefit the learner. the appropriate pedagogy to teach english in brazil is the one that acknowledges the learners in their individualities, with their own brazilian identities. in another text (anjos, 2019), i argue about which english variety one should teach in brazil, in the future. i answered that it could be the brazilian english version, since the wrong idea, that the only model considered pedagogically appropriate would be the standard english, does not find resonance among experts anymore. (rajagopalan, 1999). in this sense, it is necessary to acknowledge the idiosyncratic form that brazilans speak english. and there is someone who does this, because in his own words: brazilian portuguese english, for example, i define as the kind of english i need to know about when i go to brazil, otherwise i will be unable to converse efficiently with local people in english. it would be amazingly useful to have a glossary of the english language of brazilian cultural references. (crystal, 2010, p. 2). crystal (2005) believes that when a great number of people use english in a country, they end up developing their own english. this way, in several parts of the world, the english language receives a natural charge from the local context it is being used and the users’ mother tongue ends up exerting influence in the syntatic and phonological organization as well. this happens because the new speakers opt to keep their identities, transfering, thus, features of their own mother tongue. (jenkins, 2007). in this option, there is a natural language appropriation attitude. based on that, we should make efforts to understand that the appropriate pedagogy to teach english should also be the appropriation pedagogy; the one that can prepare learners to be both local and global speakers, so that they can feel comfortable to use this language with national and international cultures, so that they can have control of this language as well. (kramsch & sullivan, 1996). methods this paper presents some data of the research3 i conducted with a group of undergraduate students, in brazil. i define the methodology i used as of ethnographic stamp. as an ethnographic researcher, i tried to interpret the meaning of social experiences, analysing learners’ evaluative reactions, in the english language classroom. i followed the line that to understand a culture, it is necessary to describe it, and that is what i did. i took note of students’ attitudes and also interviewed them with the objective to find out their reactions behind their speeches. to do that, i based myself on bortoniricardo’s (2009) inquiries, that researchers should answer: a) what is happening here?, b) what these actions stand for people who are involved with these actions and c) how these actions which have a 3 this research was properly protocoled at plataforma brasil, as the current academic formalities require, and it had approved opinion by the ethic committee, from the federal university of bahia (ufba), which number of certification is (caae) é 59915516.7.0000.5531. the proceedings adopted in this research obey the ethic criteria concerning research with human beings, according to the resolution cns n° 466 de 2012. flávius almeida dos anjos / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 19 place in a microcosm as the classrooom are related with dimensions of macrosocial nature in several levels, starting from the local system where the school in inserted, the city and the national community? for this purpose, it was used three instruments to collect the data: 1. questionnaire, 2. interview and 3. fieldnotes. thus, it is a qualitative study, developed under the light of applied linguistics, which tried to to find out some answers for questions that emerge from an epistemological curiosity.the research took place in one of the centers of the recôncavo of bahia federal university and 91 (ninety-one) learners took part in it. next, i briefly present some findings and my interpretation of them. findings and discussion to be aligned with the objectives of this paper, in the next lines, i comment the findings based on some scholars. (matsuda, 2009; mackay, 2009; kumaravadivelu, 2012, 2012a; harmer, 2007). let us start with matsuda (2009), when he says that to teach english today requires (new) practices, different from the traditional ones. old fashioned practices to teach english have a strong relation with demotivation to learn this language. about this anjos, scheyerl [in press] say it seems obvious that the teacher’s methodological choices influence learning, because they might cause motivation or demotivation. the teaching/learning sources and methods ensure not only the studies continuity or waiver, but success or failure as well. as a proof of this, i share three statements, where it is clear that the teaching methodology, somehow, was causing demotivation. question: do you feel yourself motivated to learn english here at this university? a31: no. because the university doesn’t aim the teaching of english to embrace the deficiencies of all students, mainly those who didn’t have contact with the language. the university “throw” the language as if all learners were fluent in it. besides that, it teaches a “mechanic”, boring english, the one which does not stimulate the learner to go deeper in the knowledge. when i studied the subject, at ufrb, i studied the verb to be the whole semester, what i studied my whole school life. a39: no. i believe that the university does not use attractive methods so that learners can have access to english. conversation practice and courses continuity are lacked. a89: i don’t feel myself motivated. during my academic life i took part in some courses offered by the university, but they didn’t have a level parameter and i didn’t get to follow the group, the methodology was not good and the tutor frightened who didn’t have knowledge. a31’s statements is relevant for this analysis, because though there are people who believe that this attitude (“i studied the verb to be the whole semester”) is typical of the elementary education system, i can assure that it occurs in higher education as well. that is why it is necessary to rethink the teaching of english together with the university, its board, with professors and learners, in order to pursuit alternatives that may make viable the english language learning consolidation, with methods and approaches sensitive to the learners’ reality, what may extinguish from this setting a high number of beliefs and negative attitudes. (anjos & scheyerl, [in press]) these last statements signal, somehow, almeida filho’s (1993) coherence, on the fact that the inconsistency between the leaner’s culture to learn and the teacher’s culture to teach may cause resistance and demotivation to learn a new language. secondly, mackay (2009) questions whether the pedagogy to teach english should be based on the native speaker´s norm. about this, many leaners still think they should learn to speak english just like an american, for example. however, as i mentioned, kumaravadivelu (2012a) alerts on the need to break our colonial dependence, upon proposing the descontinuity of the way english has been taught, based on the hegemonic cultures exclusively. in this sense, it is of crucial importance flávius almeida dos anjos / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 20 teachers’ action, in order to make learner’s aware on the fact that any english learner can speak english keeping his/her own identity, his/her sense of nationality. next, i share some learners’ statements, which show how learners changed their way of thinking about this issue: a71: i think that we should not imitate [the native speaker], as we discussed in classroom. there are regional particularities. languages are merged, they are influenced by many other languages, other people, but if we get to speak in a way that others can understand our message, i think it is essential. i think what matters is to establish communication. it is not a priority, in english, in my point of view, to speak english just like a native. a4: i thought like this, but later, when the teacher explained in classroom, that he knows a teacher who has a brazilian northeast accent, i got quite happy, because we “print” our own identity. it is about what teacher said on língua franca, to bring what is not only of them, but what is ours as well. a25: actually, i thought like this before, in the beginning of the classes. i believed we had to get closer at most of the target language. but we learned and i understood it is not necessary. we can speak with a [brazilian] northeast accent, with our own particularities. as we could realize, there was an attitude change concerning the native accent, as the only model to be followed, taught and learned. thus, it is evident, the need of linguistic educators ready to contribute with attitude changes, what, in many contexts, underestimate non-native speakers of english, influencing their motivation to learn this language. thirdly, harmer (2007) mentions unpleasant consequences, such as inferiority feelings on the part of learners, because of a pedagogy based on the hegemonic cultures norms. in the research, i also asked the participants about their feelings when speaking english with other people. next i share some of their answers: a12: an illiterate in a language extremely used, which is part of our everyday life. a40: i feel myself inferior. but i know its importance! a52: i have a feeling of “superiority” of that person, i think he/she is a step ahead of me. in this sense, several foreign language learners feel themselves decreased in their self esteems, because they attend learning settings which spread the hegemonic cultures sovereignty in detriment of the learners, product of a macabre ideology, which makes students feel ashemed of their own linguitic condition (rajagopalan, 2003). however, the great majority of the participants did not see the native speaker as superior, because of the fact of being born in developed countries, quite different from what i found out in the data of my master’s thesis (anjos, 2013), when a great number of the participants showed to have overvaluing attitudes toward the native speaker, when they said the native speaker is superior, putting themselves in a inferiority position, giving support to the supremacy of the developed countries, which have english as their official language. and thus such overvaluing attitudes have put the native speaker in a pedestal, immune of any critic, idealized, the perfect model to be follwed, but that can never be reached. thus, i have said that an appropriate pedagogy to teach english should be that one which respects learners individuality and their national idiosyncrasies. in practical terms, about this, for instance, i have verified, in my classes, the emergence of sentences such as “i have 19” instead of “i am 19”; “i am married with mary” instead of “i am married to mary” as well as “she work” instead of “she works”. look at my note: flávius almeida dos anjos / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 21 class 7, october 10 th, 2017, english laboratory 1 the topic of the class today was ‘talking about age’, to teach them to talk about age, years and months. firstly, i showed them some slides with this question: ‘how old are you?’ and some possible answers. also, i showed them some brazilian people and asked them to guess their ages. they tried well. next, i asked all of them ‘how old are you?’ i could realize that most of them used the verb ‘to have’ instead of ‘to be’, as an influence of our native language [portuguese], in which we use the verb to have to talk about age (eu tenho 19). [...] this excerpt is an inequivocal proof of an idiosyncratic way of speaking english in brazil. that is why i draw attention to the fact that teachers should take into account local and idiosyncratic issues to teach english. in this line of thought, kumaravadivelu (2012b), in a post-method perspective, describes what he calls particularity. it is about the fact that teachers should take into account features of the learners and the context of learning. for kumaravadivelu (2012b), any pedagogic knowledge, to have local relevance, must emerge from daily teaching practices. an example of this is in the ethnographic note i did: class 1, may 10th, 2016, english language laboratory the class started at 12. the topic was “talking about family”. initially, i showed them some slides with definitions of term ‘family’. next, i asked them some questions: what is family for you? what are the types of family?, what are families for? and how can a person form a family? theses questions provoked a great reflection among the group, with different opinions on the conceptions of family. one of the students, for instance, said to be bisexual, and that she has not decided whether she will form a family with a man or a woman. another learner said to be evangelical, and that family is only the union of a man and a woman. later, i showed them images of different types of families, traditional, modern, nuclear etc. and thus we established a very interesting dialog. they talked about their families and what they thought about contemporary families formations. at last, i showed them a slide with the biggest family in the world: ‘ziona family’, from india, with 181 members. the class went on quite interesting and it was finished with an activity about family to be revised in the next class. thus, to me, it was evident an atmosphere favourable to reflection, when learners got engaged in the learning process, expressing their opinions, from their own perspectives, resulting in positive attitudes toward learning english, because of a teaching/learning based on local and global perspectives. next, i offer my final considerations on this reflection. conclusion in many english teaching/learning context, a language approach, in a sociofunctional perspective is applied. however, quite distant from learner’s reality, because many teachers still opt to “sell” exclusively images of beautiful and successful artists, from families without problems, harmoniously happy (scheyerl, 2012) and they have forgotten to make a local approach. that is why kramsch and sullivan (1996) defend that the appropriate pedagogy to teach english should be a process of appropriation both local and global. and i think there should not be privilege, to avoid division of worlds. i would like to emphasize what kramsch and sullivan (1996) defend, because when they say that language pedagogy should be based on a global thinking, but as a local practice, they, somewhat, touch in a fundamental tenet of the freirian critical pedagogy. relating their thought with a local reality to teach english, i realize the importance to focus on non-native, since critical pedagogy advocates that the classroom should be an arena to discuss social reality with learners, seeking to provoke an intimacy with their social experience (freire, 1996). but how can teachers conduct this task? to make that happen, teachers need to be familiar with what they propose to share with their students. richards (2017) calls this of “teacher knowledge flávius almeida dos anjos / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 22 teaching” and also “pedagogic content knowledge”, what for him includes the knowledge of the subject the teacher will teach, the set of techniques it will be applied together with theories, beliefs, tenets, values and ideas, so that he/she can prepare learners for the world outside classroom. this can also be done through a foreign language, since we understand education is a form of intervention in the world. (freire, 1996). thus, we need to provide our students with the best tools we are able to. however, readers can also ask: what does he mean whe he says “focusing on non-native”? as teachers, we should grasp the idea that english is not the same anymore! this way, the appropriate pedagogy to teach english should take into account the role of english in the world, but especially who are the learners, their origins, their local perspectives. i mean, as teachers, we need to humanize the teaching/learning process. but how? being sensitive to our students. listening to them. supporting them, to make them progress. it means to teach english respecting the idiosyncratic way of this non-native speaks english, mainly. it is to understand that non-natives’ mother tongue and their particular cultures will influence in the production and the communication through english, because their monther tongue grammatical and phonological structure probably will influence in the production of the new language. it is to accept these facts as creative contingent samples. so, with the focus on non-native, given the current status of english, the process will produce better outcomes. this is my hope! references almeida filho, j. c. p. 1993. dimensões comunicativas no ensino de línguas. campinas, sp: editora pontes. anjos, f. a. 2013. “pra que aprender inglês se não vou para os estados unidos”: um estudo sobre atitudes de alguns alunos da escola pública em relação à aprendizagem do inglês como língua estrangeira. salvador: ufba. 2013. 152 f. dissertação de mestrado. mestrado em língua e cultura. instituto de letras, universidade federal da bahia (ufba). anjos, f. a. 2019. desestrangeirizar a língua inglesa: um esboço da política linguística. cruz das almas: edufrb. anjos, f. & scheyerl, d. 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(org.). a geopolítica do inglês. são paulo: parábola editorial, p. 7-11. marlina, r. 2014. the pedagogy of english as an international language (eil): more reflections and dialogues. in: marlina, r., & giri, r. a. the pedagogy of english as an international flávius almeida dos anjos / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 24 language: perspectives from scholars, teachers, and students, springer international publishing switzerland, p. 1-19. mckay, sandra lee. 2003. toward na appropriate eil pedagogy: re-examiningcommon elt assumptions. in: international journal of appliedlinguistics, vol 13, no. 1, p. 1-22. mckay, s. l. 2009. pragmatics and eil pedagogy. in: sharifian, f. english as na international language, perpspectives and pedagogical issues. great britain, m matsuda, aya. 2009. desiable but not necessary? the place of world englishes as na international language in english teacher preparation programs in japan. in: sharifian, farzard. english as an international language, perpspectives and pedagogical issues. great britain,multilingual matters, p. 169-189.atilingual matters, p. 227-241. mota, k. 2010. incluindo as diferenças, resgatando o coletivonovas perspectivas multiculturais no ensino de línguas estrangeiras. in: mota, kátia, scheyerl, denise. 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(org.). a geopolítica do inglês. são paulo: parábola editorial, p. 7-11. ramanathan, v., & morgan, b. 2009. global warning? west-based tesol, class-blindness and the challenge for critical pedagogies. in: sharifian, f. english as an international language, perpspectives and pedagogical issues. great britain, matilingual matters, p. 169-189. richards, j. c. 2017. teaching english through english: proficiency, pedagogy and performance. in: relc journal, vol. 48(1) 7–30. scheyerl, d., & siqueira, s. (orgs.) 2012. materiais didáticos para o ensino de línguas na contemporaneidade: contestações, proposições. salvador: edufba. microsoft word 6. ehsan namaziandost 60 texts with various levels of hardness, reading comprehension and reading motivation ehsan namaziandost, mehdi nasri, fariba rahimi esfahani  department of english, faculty of humanities, islamic azad university, shahrekord, iran article info ________________ article history: received in 21 june 2019 approved in 29 july 2019 published in 29 july 2019 ________________ keywords: comprehensible input; extensive reading; foreign language reading motivation; input; reading comprehension; text difficulty level ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ considering the vital role of comprehensible input, this study attempted to compare the effects of input with various difficulty levels on iranian efl learners’ reading comprehension and reading motivation. to fulfil this objective, 54 iranian preintermediate efl learners were selected from two intact classes (n = 27 each). the selected participants were randomly assigned to two equal groups, namely “i+1” (n=27) and “i-1” group (n=27). then, the groups were pretested by a researcher-made reading comprehension test. after carrying out the pre-test, the treatment (i.e., extensive reading at different levels of difficulty) was practiced on the both groups. the participants in “i+1” group received reading passages beyond the current level, on the other hand, the “i-1” group received those reading passages which were below their current level. after the instruction ended, a modified version of pre-test was conducted as posttest to determine the impacts of the treatment on the students’ reading comprehension. the obtained results indicated that there was a significant difference between the post-tests of “i+1” and “i-1” groups. the findings showed that the “i+1” group significantly outperformed the “i-1” group (p < .05) on the post-test. moreover, the findings indicated that “i+1” group’s motivation increased after the treatment. the implications of the study suggest that interactive type of input is beneficial to develop students’ language skills. © 2019 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-maile.namazi75@yahoo.com elt forum 8 (1) (2019) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt e. namaziandost, m. nasri, & f. r. esfahani / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 61 introduction there is a consensus of agreement among the researchers that input is vital for language learning to come about but they may not have analogous opinions about the way it is utilized by learners (gass & selinker, 2008). input may be operationally described as “oral and/or written corpus of target language to which second language (l2) learners are subjected via different sources, and is perceived by them as language input” (kumaravadivelu, 2006, p. 26). according to ellis (2012), input-based instruction “includes the utilization of the input that learners are presented to or are needed to process” (p. 285). in this procedure, through presentation to language input, if students discover the way language works or the way language is rehearsed in workplace, or handicraft target condition, learning will be occurred (basturkmen, 2006). thus, it can be deduced that input is of fundamental significance for language learning abilities particularly reading. reading is seen as “an essential expertise for efl learners to enhance their language ability” (chiang, 2015, p. 11). reading is characterized as “a fluent process of readers joining information from a text and their own background knowledge to fabricate meaning” (nunan, 2003, p. 68). it gives chances to foreign language learners to be presented to english in circumstances that language input is entirely restricted (lao & krashen, 2000; namaziandost, rahimi esfahani, & ahmadi, 2019; wu, 2012). in recent years, extensive reading (er) has gained particular consideration as an impressive and undertaking way of expanding foreign language skills (yamashita, 2013). er aims “to progress good reading habits to form knowledge of vocabulary and grammar and to encourage a liking for reading” (richards & schmidt, 2010, p. 194). the major purpose in er is to reach at a general understanding of what is read (richards & schmidt, 2010). er is for general comprehending in which “the minimum 95% comprehension figure” (meng, 2009, p. 134) is admissible and the reading velocity is below 100 to 150 words per minute (mikeladze, 2014). truly, some studies (e.g., bell, 2001; chiang, 2015; hitosugi & day, 2004; iwahori, 2008; leung, 2002; namaziandost & ahmadi, 2019; tanaka, 2007) have presented that er significantly enhanced foreign language reading comprehension and general proficiency. one of the best bountiful sources for providing language input for efl learners is through extensive reading (er) (day & bamford, 1998; krashen, 1982; nasri, biria, & karimi, 2018). as indicated by krashen (1982), the input to which learners are presented ought to be a little above their current level of competence, ‘i + 1,’ in which ‘i’ alludes to the present language capacity of learner, though ‘1’ alludes to the input that is somewhat above the learners’ present language ability. on the other hand, day and bamford (1998) suggested a diverse model on the hardness level of the input. based on this hypothesis, “er is efficacious if it furnishes students with input which is marginally beneath their current level of competence (i.e., ‘i-1’)” (day & bamford, 1998, p. 36). this way language learners can swiftly develop their reading certainty, reading fluency and construct sight words and high-frequency words. however, a glance to the prior literature divulges that there are rare studies on the impacts of these two viewpoints (i.e., ‘i + 1’ and ‘i 1’) on efl learners’ reading comprehension and reading motivation. to cover the extant gap, the current study tried to focus on this theme by inspecting how krashen’s input hypothesis through ‘i + 1’ and ‘i 1’ materials may impress efl students’ reading comprehension and reading motivation. reading comprehension has been defined by researchers as "a critical part of the multifarious interplay of mechanisms involved in l2 reading" (brantmeier, 2005, p. 52). for many students, reading is presumed as the beneficial dexterity that they can utilize inside and outside the classroom. it is additionally the skill that can preserve the lengthy time. according to allen and valette (1999), “reading is not only allotting foreign language sounds to the written words, but also the comprehension of what is written" (p. e. namaziandost, m. nasri, & f. r. esfahani / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 62 249). miller (2008) characterized "reading comprehension as the ability to comprehend or to get meaning from any kind of written materials” (p. 8). furthermore, papalia (2004) believed that reading comprehension in prevalent utilization and more particularly in referral to training and psychology has approximately identical meaning as comprehending the massage of the text. grellet (1981) guaranteed that "reading comprehension is getting written text means extricating the needed information from it as effectively as feasible" (p. 3). grellet additionally believed that “reading comprehension is not sufficient to comprehend the epitome of the text but further voluminous information is indispensable too” (p. 13). wood (2005) confirmed reading included understanding meaning from the written words. janzen (1996) declared that “reading comprehension as the capacity to learn lexical data (i.e., semantic data at the word level and infer sentences and discourse elucidations but reading on graphic regarding development touching through the eye” (p. 8). webster's collegiate dictionary considered reading comprehension as "the valence of mind to see and comprehend the meaning imparted by the content." regarding the mentioned points, reading widely is an individual movement which depends on the students' fondness (nasri & biria, 2017; nation, 1997). extensive reading (er) boosts reader’s reading aptitudes and it is shortsighted to urge efl students to peruse better through er which is enchanting to them (azadi, biria, & nasri, 2018; nuttal, 2000). the principle objective of an extensive reading plan is to give a circumstance to students to appreciate reading a foreign language and new real messages quietly at their own velocity and with satisfactory comprehension (day & bamford, 1998). “er is bolstered by krashen’s (1982, 1994) input hypothesis, affective filter hypothesis, and delight hypothesis” (bahmani & farvardin, 2017, p. 6). reading extensively is an individual activity which is based on the learners’ interest (nation, 1997). er enhances reader’s reading skills and it is easy to teach efl learners to read better through er which is enjoyable to them (hosseini, nasri, & afghari, 2017; namaziandost, nasri, & rahimi esfahani, 2019; nuttal, 2000). the fundamental objective of an er program is to provide a situation for learners to enjoy reading a foreign language and unfamiliar authentic texts silently at their own pace and with sufficient understanding (day & bamford, 1998). er is supported by krashen’s (1982, 1994) input hypothesis, affective filter hypothesis, and pleasure hypothesis. according to krashen’s (1982) input hypothesis, adequate exposure to comprehensible input is essential for language learners to learn the language. according to this hypothesis, the input to which learners are exposed should be a little beyond their current level of language competence, i.e., ‘i+ 1.’ based on this hypothesis, when learners frequently and repeatedly meet and concentrate on a large number of messages (input) which is a little beyond their level of competence, they gradually acquire the forms. furthermore, based on krashen’s affective filter hypothesis (1982), language acquisition occurs in lowanxiety situations. foreign language learners with a low affective filter (e.g., anxiety) will attain the language acquisition or comprehension more easily (huang, 2001; namaziandost, abedi, & nasri, 2019). in the same vein, krashen (1994) proposed the pleasure hypothesis, arguing that the pleasurable activities are effective and facilitating for language and literacy development. based on this hypothesis, er provides a low-anxiety situation for learners to learn a foreign language. krashen’s hypotheses have encouraged different universities and institutions to do research in er and utilize er programs in foreign language teaching (chiang, 2015). the input hypothesis directs the question of how we get language. this speculation expresses that we obtain (not learn) language by comprehending input that is a little past our current level of procured capability (krashen & terrell 1983; namaziandost, rahimi esfahani, nasri, & mirshekaran, 2018). this has been lately declared perspicuously by krashen (2003a): “we procure language in just one way: when e. namaziandost, m. nasri, & f. r. esfahani / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 63 we comprehend messages; that is, when we acquire “comprehensible input” (p. 4). this potent allegation is rehashed in different spots where krashen expresses that ‘comprehending inputs is the main way language is obtained’ and that ‘there is no individual variety in the key procedure of language procurement’ (krashen 2003a, p. 4). consequently, krashen frequently utilizes the term ‘comprehension hypothesis’ (2003a) to allude to the input hypothesis, contending that ‘perception’ is a superior depiction as only input is not sufficient; it must be comprehended. thus, based on krashen’s (1982) input hypothesis, adequate presentation to understandable input is essential for language students to learn language. in light of this speculation, the input to which students are uncovered ought to be a little past their current level of language ability, i.e., ‘i + 1’. considering krashen’s perspective, when learners constantly and repeatedly confront and concentrate on an expansive quantity of input which is a little higher than their level of capability, they inchmeal obtain the structures. krashen’s input hypotheses have motivated different universities and institutions to accomplish researches and studies in er and utilize er programs in teaching tefl (bahmani & farvardin, 2017; chiang, 2015; hashemifardnia, namaziandost, & sepehri, 2018). day and bamford (1998), in particular, suggested a modern scheme which is diverse from krashen’s (1982) input hypothesis. based on this scheme, “er is advantageous if it furnishes the students with input which is somewhat beneath their current level of competence (i.e., ‘i-1’)” (bahmani & farvardin, 2017, p. 4). moreover, “‘i-1’ creates a condition for automaticity educating and extending a huge sight vocabulary rather than learning new target structures” (mikeladze, 2014, p. 5). truth to be told, ‘i-1’ is considered as the learners’ tranquility zone where they can rapidly construct their reading certainty and reading fluency (chiang, 2015; namaziandost & nasri, 2019). all of researchers and teachers accepted that motivation is a basic factor to enhance reading comprehension. as indicated by dornyei (2001), the meaning of motivation is very intricate and obscurant because it is t is made out of various models and hypotheses. as discussed by protacio (2012), “reading problems occur partly due to the fact that people are not motivated to read in the first place” (p. 11). moley bandré, and george (2011) explain that, motivation happens when “students develop an interest in and form a bond with a topic that lasts beyond the short term” (p. 251). furthermore, guthrie and wigfield (2000, p.405) propound that “reading motivation is the individual’s personal objectives, values, and beliefs regarding the topics, processes, and outcomes of reading”. considering this delineation, one would come to two principle consequences: the first is that reading motivation refers to putting together of various dimensions of motivation in an intricate route. the second is the type of agency people have over it since they can manipulate, unify and divert their motivation to read in terms of their credence, worthiness and objectives (wigfield & tonks, 2004). “not only does reading motivation relate to reading comprehension, but it also relates to both the amount of reading and students’ reading achievement” (guthrie & wigfield, 2005, p. 76). guthrie et al. (2006, p.232) elucidate that “reading motivation correlates with students’ amount of reading”. for this purpose, guthrie and wigfield (2005) emphasize the perspective that “reading motivation is domain-specific as it belongs to a status that necessitates an emotional reaction particular to a reading material, and that would metamorphose based on the diversity of activities inaugurating it” (p.89). pachtman and wilson (2006) expressed that it is crucial to propel students to read by giving them chances to choose their interest materials. in other words, readers need to read more when they are allowed to choose their reading materials since they should find out that reading is a pleasurable action. as indicated by hairul, ahmadi, and pourhosein (2012), reading motivation is the substantial measure of motivation that learners need to focus their positive or negative feelings about reading. for example, students who read for joy and utilizing ways to help their understanding are amazingly roused readers. e. namaziandost, m. nasri, & f. r. esfahani / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 64 students of this sort regularly view reading as a vital factor in their daily exercises, acknowledge difficulties in the reading procedure and are probably going to be effective readers. hairul, ahmadi, and pourhosein (2012) believed that reading motivation greatly affects reading appreciation. the researchers proceeded with that reading motivation impacts all parts of motivation and reading appreciation procedures in various conditions. they additionally accentuated that learners' inspiration totally influences their understanding; it implies that learners with more stronger reading inspiration can be relied upon to read more in more extensive territory. as indicated by hairul, ahmadi, and pourhosein (2012), a standout amongst the most essential components which help students read more is reading inspiration and it importantly affects reading perception. in this manner, numerous researchers have been very much aware of the noteworthiness of inspiration in the objective language learning and how inspiration expands appreciation among language students. prior researches have checked the impacts of er on efl reading comprehension and vocabulary learning. bell (2001) carried out a two-semester study on young adult students at the elementary level in yemen to compare the impacts of er and intensive reading on reading speed and reading comprehension. this study was run over two semesters. the researcher divided students into two groups: an experimental group (n = 14) and a control group (n = 12). the experimental group received an er program and read graded readers; these students had access to 2000 graded readers in the british council library. on the other hand, the control group received the intensive reading program, read short passages and filled the tasks. the researcher measured students’ reading speed by utilizing two reading tests, and for measuring their reading comprehension he utilized three various texts with three types of questions (cloze, multiplechoice, and true-false). the two groups enhanced both in speed and reading comprehension, but the er program based on graded readers was much more effective to the enhancement of reading speed than the intensive reading program. the outcomes of the reading comprehension test also indicated that the learners in the extensive group got higher scores than students in the intensive group. chiang (2015) researched the impacts of different text difficulty on l2 reading perceptions and reading comprehension. to give the ideal test to l2 reading, comprehensible input hypothesis hypothesizes that selecting text somewhat more difficult than the student's present level will improve reading perception. fifty-four freshman from one college in central taiwan were arbitrarily separated into two groups. level 3 and level 4 oxford graded readers were given to the learners in the ‘i -1’ group while students in the ‘i + 1’ group were equipped with level 5 and level 6. quantitative data were collected through the english placement test and the reading attitudes survey. findings from the pretest and posttest of the reading attitudes survey propose that the i-1 group has achieved significantly in reading attitudes, while no difference in reading attitude was recognized with the i + 1 group. the outcomes additionally indicated that diverse hardness levels of reading text did not significantly influence participants’ reading comprehension. bayat and pomplun (2016) aimed to indicate how several eye-tracking features within reading are influenced by different primary agents, as individual discrepancies, the hardness level of the text, and the topic of the text. to this end, they directed an eye-following experiment with 21 participants who read six sections with various points. for each topic, metamorphosis in three factors were assessed: the mediocre obsession term, the student estimate, and the normal rapidity of reading. the flesch reading ease score was utilized as a measurement for the hardness level of the content. examination of difference is utilized as a part of request to break down determinant factors related with content attributes, containing the difficulty level and the point of the content. the findings showed that during the reading of entries with comparable difficulty levels, the point of the content has no noteworthy impact on mediocre obsession e. namaziandost, m. nasri, & f. r. esfahani / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 65 span and mediocre understudy estimate, though a critical effect overall speed of reading is watched. additionally, individual properties have a primary effect on eye-movement demeanor. ahmadi (2017) attempted to consider the effect of reading motivation on reading comprehension. in his paper, he explained the terms reading motivation, different types of motivation, reading comprehension, and different models of reading comprehension. the review of this study showed that reading motivation had a considerably positive effect on reading comprehension activities. recently, bahmani and farvardin (2017) examined the impacts of various text difficulty levels on foreign language reading anxiety (flra) and reading comprehension of english as a foreign language (efl) learners. to fulfil this objective, 50 elementary efl learners were chosen from two intact classes (n = 25 each). one class was considered as ‘i + 1’ and another as ‘i-1’. the participants in each class practiced extensive reading at diverse levels of difficulty for two semesters. a reading comprehension test and the flra scale were administered before and after the treatment. the outcomes indicated that both text difficulty levels significantly enhanced the participants’ reading comprehension. moreover, the results revealed that, the ‘i + 1’ group’s flra augmented, while that of the ‘i 1’ group diminished. however, to the best of the researchers’ knowledge, rare studies, if any, have been carried out on the impacts of krashen’s input hypothesis (i.e., ‘i + 1’ and ‘i 1’) on efl learners’ reading comprehension and reading motivation. to reach the purposes of the study, this study attempted to response the following research questions: rq1: are there any significant differences between and within the ‘i + 1’ and the ‘i 1’ groups’ reading comprehension after implementing the treatment? if so, which group has higher reading comprehension in english? rq2: are there any significant differences between and within the ‘i + 1’ and the ‘i 1’ groups’ reading motivation after implementing the treatment? if so, which group has higher motivation towards reading in english? methods design a quasi-experimental approach was utilized in this study gather data from 54 efl learners to check the potentially various impacts of using ‘i + 1’ versus ‘i 1’ readers on reading motivation and reading comprehension. to this end, the reading motivation and reading comprehension of the participants were quantitatively measured prior to and after the intervention of er through the foreign language reading motivation and the fce (first certificate in english). participants fifty-four efl learners (25 males and 29 females) from a private language institute in ahvaz, iran, took part in this study. the participants’ ages ranged from 16 to 21. american headway 1 (soars & soars, 2010) was the textbook taught to the participants. according to the common european framework of reference (cefr) classification, american headway 2 is appropriate for the b1 level. to ensure the participants’ proficiency level, cefr headway placement test (2012) was performed to all participants, and their score ranged between 66 and 74, which is equal to b1 level. the participants were chosen from two intact classes. each class was assigned to a group (i.e., ‘i + 1’ or ‘i 1’). the ‘i + 1’ group (n = 27) read graded readers stories which were beyond their level of proficiency, whereas the ‘i 1’ group (n = 27) read graded readers stories which were below their level of proficiency. the participants read graded readers e. namaziandost, m. nasri, & f. r. esfahani / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 66 along with their classroom materials. per week, 35 minutes of class time was devoted to the participants’ narration of the novels they had already read. instruments cefr headway placement test cefr headway placement test is designed to provide a useful tool to estimate the participants’ level at which they should begin or continue their english language studies (bahmani & farvardin, 2017). this test was selected because the participants were studying american headway. moreover, the american headway book, cefr headway placement test (2012) and oxford bookworm series (the graded readers in this study) were classified based on cefr. it could be a big help to determine the probable ‘i’ of participants (bahmani & farvardin, 2017). cefr headway placement test (2012) comprised of 100 multiple-choice items with three sections, including 50 vocabulary, 25 grammar and 25 reading comprehension items. the findings were compared with the band score of cefr headway placement test (see table 1). table 1 band score of cefr headway placement test test result cefr level 0-40 a1low 41-48 a1high 49-56 a2low 57-65 a2high 66-74 b1low 75-83 b1-low-medium 84-92 b1medium-high 93-100 b1high graded readers the reading materials in this study were the oxford bookworms series published by oxford university press. the oxford bookworms series classifies books into seven levels. table 2 indicates the word counts and cefr levels in the oxford bookworms series. table 2 word counts and cefr levels in the oxford bookworms series book levels word counts cefr levels starter 250 a1 level 1 400 a1/a2 level 2 700 a2/b1 level 3 1,000 b1 level 4 1,400 b1/b2 level 5 1,800 b2 level 6 2,500 b2/c1 to make sure what level is appropriate, nine efl learners at the pre-intermediate level and four efl teachers were asked to read the oxford bookworms series at various levels. after studying the books, all teachers agreed that for the pre-intermediate level learners, starter, level, and level 2 were really easy, e. namaziandost, m. nasri, & f. r. esfahani / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 67 and levels 4, 5 and 6 were both grammatically and lexically difficult. according to the teachers, level 3 was considered suitable for the pre-intermediate level. the learners also reported that level 3 was comprehensible for them. level 3 equals to levels b1 in cefr. therefore, level 3 was determined as the appropriate level for the participants. accordingly, the ‘i 1’ group was proposed to read levels 1 and 2 and the ‘i + 1’ group was suggested to read levels 4 and 5. the participants were required to read two books at each level throughout the study. reading comprehension test the reading comprehension part of the cambridge first certificate in english (fce, 2008) was used to measure the participants’ reading comprehension ability. this part comprised of three reading passages which include both macro and micro questions, such as the expression of opinion, attitude, purpose, main idea, detail, tone and gist. the reading section of the fce includes 30 items that should be replied in 30 minutes. this study utilized two equivalent versions of the fce, one as a pretest and the other as a posttest. a parson correlation coefficient between the two equivalent forms of the fce was calculated as 0.936 which indicated a high reliability between the two versions of the test. the motivation for reading questionnaire (mrq) another instrument utilized in the present study was a modified sample of motivation for reading questionnaire (mrq). mrq was expanded by dr. allan wigfield and dr. john guthrie from university of maryland in 1997. wigfield and guthrie utilized the mrq on a group of students at one mid-atlantic state school during implementation of concept-oriented reading teaching. factor analyses carried out by wigfield and guthrie affirmed the essence of construct validity which backups eleven factors for the total 53 -item in this mrq. there was an affirmative relevance of maximum segments of reading motivation with low to high levels. they additionally asserted that their questionnaire has a reliability range from .43 to .81. in this research, the researchers had selected 30 items of the entire 53 items in the questionnaire because solely eight aspects of total eleven aspects of reading motivation were identified to measure. they are: reading efficacy, reading challenge, reading curiosity, reading involvement, importance of reading, reading word avoidance, social reasons for reading, and reading for grades. mrq was a five-point likert scale questionnaire made up of five options: 1 for ‘i strongly agree’, 2 for ‘i agree’, 3 for ‘i don’t know’, 4 for ‘i disagree’, and 5 for ‘i strongly disagree’. the mrq was given to participants twice, one before the treatment and once after the treatment. data collection procedure fifty-four pre-intermediate efl learners were participated in this study. in the first week, the cefr headway placement test was performed to specify the participants’ proficiency levels. this test additionally helped the researchers detemine the probable participants’ ‘i.’ in the second week, the mrq and the reading comprehension test were carried out in 80 minutes. based on the outcomes of the cefr headway placement test (2012), the ‘i + 1’ group were assigned to read graded readers at levels 4 and 5, and the ‘i 1’ group were assigned to read level 1 and level 2 graded stories. there was a small library and bookstore in the language institute to provide the participants with the graded readers. it was also proposed that if they would not find the book of their interest, they could find them from other libraries and bookstores outside. the number of pages the participants required to read was specified at the outset of each week. at the end of each week, 20 minutes of the class was allocated for their reports. the participants were given e. namaziandost, m. nasri, & f. r. esfahani / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 68 time to talk about various parts and the characters of the novels, their ideas about the end of the novels, and even provided some comments regarding the novels. in the first semester, the ‘i + 1’ group read two graded readers at level 4 which were one level beyond their ‘i’, and in the second semester, they read two graded readers at level 5. on the other hand, in the first semester, the ‘i 1’ group read two graded readers at the level 1 which was two levels below their ‘i’ and in the second semester, they read two graded readers at level 2 which was one level below their ‘i.’ finally, after a three-month involvement in this study, the findings of these two various ways were compared with each other. in the last week of, the participants received an immediate posttest. they responded the mrq and an equivalent version of the reading comprehension test in one session. the procedure was like the pretest. data analysis collected data through the aforesaid procedures were analyzed by using statistical package for social science (spss) software version 25. firstly, kolmogorov-smirnov (k-s) test was run to check the normality of the data. then, two independent samples t-tests were done to figure out if there was any significant difference between the ‘i + 1’ and the ‘i 1’ groups in terms of reading comprehension and mrq. at the end, two 2 x 2 mixed analysis of variance (anovas) were run to discover significant interaction impacts between time and group from the reading comprehension test and the mrq. furthermore, independent samples t-tests were run to test the simple main impacts of group on the pretests and the posttests. paired samples t-tests were also done to further follow up on the simple main impacts of time on mrq and reading comprehension for both groups. to indicate the practical significance, for all of the t-tests, effect sizes (cohen’s ds) were computed. findings and discussion the previous section included a delineation of the methodology which was utilized to respond the research questions of this study, which are rewritten here for reasons of convenience: (a) are there any significant differences between and within the ‘i + 1’ and the ‘i 1’ groups’ reading comprehension after implementing the treatment? if so, which group has higher reading comprehension in english? and (b) are there any significant differences between and within the ‘i + 1’ and the ‘i 1’ groups’ reading motivation after implementing the treatment? if so, which group has higher motivation towards reading in english? results of normality tests before conducting any analyses on the pretest and posttest, it was indispensable to peruse the normality of the distributions. thus, kolmogorov-smirnov test of normality was run on the data acquired from the above-mentioned tests. the consequences are presented in table 1: table 3. one-sample kolmogorov-smirnov test (groups' pretests, post-tests, and mrq) kolmogorov-smirnova statistic df sig. i+1 pretest .165 27 .058 i+1 posttest .192 27 .298 i-1 pretest .215 27 .098 i-1 posttest .223 27 .092 i+1 mrq (before treatment) .186 27 .187 i+1 mrq (after treatment) .220 27 .086 e. namaziandost, m. nasri, & f. r. esfahani / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 69 i-1 mrq (before treatment) .218 27 .772 i-1 mrq (after treatment) .173 27 .183 a. lilliefors significance correction the p values under the sig. column in table 3 determine whether the distributions were normal or not. a p value greater than .05 shows a normal distribution, while a p value lower than .05 demonstrates that the distribution has not been normal. since all the p values in table 1 were larger than .05, it could be concluded that the distributions of scores for the pretest, posttest, and mrq obtained from both groups had been normal. it is thus safe to proceed with parametric test (i.e. independent and paired samples ttests and mixed-anova in this case) and make further comparisons between the participating groups. table 4 displays the means and standard deviations of the participants’ scores on the reading comprehension tests and the mr questionnaire before and after the study. table 4. descriptive statistics of the ‘i 1’ and ‘i + 1’ groups’ responses to reading comprehension test and mrq pretest posttest reading comprehension mrq reading comprehension mrq groups n mean sd mean sd mean sd mean sd i+1 27 9.37 1.66 52.96 4.72 13.07 2.05 58.11 5.83 i-1 27 9.22 1.05 51.07 6.89 11.48 .096 50.37 3.66 to answer the first research question, one mixed 2 x 2 anova with two main factors, time (i.e., reading comprehension pretest and posttest) and group (i.e., ‘i + 1’ and ‘i 1’) was run to examine whether there were significant interaction effects between difficulty levels. furthermore, independent samples ttests were run to check the simple main impact of group on the reading comprehension pretest and the posttest, respectively. finally, paired samples t-tests were done to investigate the simple main impact of time for each group. tables 5and 6 shows the results of the mixed anova on the reading comprehension tests. table 5. results of mixed-anova on reading comprehension pretest and posttest with time and group factors tests of within-subjects contrasts source type iii sum of squares df mean square f sig. partial eta squared time 240.009 1 240.009 107.445 .000 .674 time * groups 14.083 1 14.083 6.305 .015 .108 error(time) 116.157 52 2.234 tests of between-subjects effects source type iii sum of squares df mean square f sig. partial eta squared e. namaziandost, m. nasri, & f. r. esfahani / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 70 intercept 12566.898 1 12566.898 5496.122 .000 .991 groups 20.454 1 20.454 8.945 .004 .147 error 118.898 52 2.287 the results indicated that the main impact of the text difficulty level was not significant [f (1, 52) = 8.945, p = .004, partial eta squared = .147], proposing a significant difference in the reading comprehension scores of the ‘i + 1’ and the ‘i 1’ groups. moreover, there was a significant interaction between difficulty level and time [f (1, 52) = 6.305, p = .015, partial eta squared = .108], suggesting that over the course of two semesters, the changes in scores from the reading comprehension differed significantly between the ‘i + 1’ and the ‘i 1’ groups. there was also significant main impact of time [f (1, 52) = 6.305, p = .000, partial eta squared =. 674], suggesting a substantial difference in the reading comprehension scores across two periods. next to a mixed anova, two independent samples t-tests were run as follow-up tests to check the simple major impact of group on the pretest and the posttest, respectively (table 6). table 6. independent samples t-tests on reading comprehension pretest and posttest scores mean difference std. error difference t df p cohen’s d pretest .14815 .37924 .391 52 .698 0.106358 posttest 1.59259 .43705 3.644 52 .001 0.991757 as table 6 illustrates, the findings indicated that there was no significant difference between the two groups on the pretest (t = .391, p = .698, d = 0.106358), showing that both the ‘i + 1’ and the ‘i 1’ groups were at a similar baseline prior to the experiment. moreover, the outcomes show a significant difference between the two groups in their posttests (t = 3.644, p = .001, d = 0.991757) after the intervention. furthermore, paired-samples t-tests were run as follow-up tests to check the simple main impact of time for each group (table 7). table 7. paired samples t-tests of both groups (reading comprehension pretest and posttest) mean differences sd sem t df p cohen’s d i+1 3.70370 2.64306 .50866 7.281 26 .000 1.978905 i-1 2.25926 1.39622 .26870 8.408 26 .000 2.239838 as illustrated in table 7, the findings propose that both groups’ reading comprehension was significantly progressed at the end of this study (t = 7.281, p = .000, d = 1.978905 for the ‘i + 1’ group’s reading comprehension; t = 8.408, p = .000, d = 2.239838 for the ‘i 1’ group’s reading comprehension). that is, the reading comprehension of the ‘i 1’ and the ‘i + 1’ groups significantly enhanced after the intervention of er. cohen (1988) expressed that the impact size (cohen’s d) of 0.2 is small; 0.5 is moderate; and 0.8 is high. cohen’s effect size values of the ‘i + 1’ and the ‘i 1’ groups’ paired samples ttests are d = 1.978905 and d = 2.239838 for reading comprehension, respectively, proposing high practical significance. to response the second research question, first, a mixed anova was run to assess the impact of two discriminatory text difficulty levels (‘i + 1’ vs. ‘i 1’) on participants’ scores from the mrq before and after the treatment (table 8). e. namaziandost, m. nasri, & f. r. esfahani / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 71 table 8 results of mixed-anova on mrq before and after treatment with time and group factors tests of within-subjects contrasts source type iii sum of squares df mean square f sig. partial eta squared time 133.333 1 133.333 3.355 .073 .061 time * groups 231.148 1 231.148 5.816 .019 .101 error(time) 2066.519 52 39.741 tests of between-subjects effects source type iii sum of squares df mean square f sig. partial eta squared intercept 304857.815 1 304857.815 16089.782 .000 .997 groups 625.926 1 625.926 33.035 .000 .388 error 985.259 52 18.947 as table 8 indicated, there was significant interaction between difficulty level and time [f (1, 52) = 5.816, p = .019, partial eta squared = .101], suggesting that over the course of the treatment period, the changes in scores from the mrq differed significantly between the ‘i + 1’ and the ‘i 1’ groups. there was no significant main effect of time [f (1, 52) = 3.355, p = .073, partial eta squared = .061], proposing no substantial difference in the mrq scores across the two periods. moreover, the major impact of the text difficulty level was significant [f (1, 52) = 33.035, p = .000, partial eta squared = .388], suggesting a difference in the mrq scores of the two text difficulty levels. after the mixed anova, two independent samples t-tests were run to check the simple main impact of group on the pretest and the posttest, respectively (table 9). table 9. independent samples t-tests on mrq before and after treatment mean difference std. error difference t df p cohen’s d pretest 1.88889 1.60963 1.173 52 .246 0.319386 posttest 7.74074 1.32528 5.841 52 .000 1.589669 as table 9 shows, the findings indicated that there was no significant difference between the two groups before the treatment (t = 1.173, p = .246, d = 0.319386), suggesting that both the ‘i + 1’ and the ‘i 1’groups were at a similar baseline of mr prior to the experiment. the outcomes also show a significant difference between the two groups in their posttests (t = 5.841, p = .000, d = 1.589669) after the treatment. in other words, the ‘i + 1’ group was found to have greater increases in their mrq scores. furthermore, cohen’s effect size value of the groups’ independent t-tests on the posttest is d = 1.589669 showing high practical significance. paired-samples t-tests were also conducted as follow-up tests to check the simple main impact of time for each group (table 10). e. namaziandost, m. nasri, & f. r. esfahani / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 72 table 10. paired samples t-tests of both groups (mrq before and after treatment) mean differences sd sem t df p cohen’s d i+1 -5.14815 8.86525 1.70612 -3.017 26 .006 0.969698 i-1 .70370 8.96495 1.72531 .408 26 .687 0.127414 as illustrated in table 10, the findings propose that the ‘i + 1’groups’ reading motivation was significantly progressed at the end of this study (t = -3.017, p = .006, d = 0.969698), whereas the ‘i 1’ groups’ flra was significantly decreased after the intervention (t = .408, p = .687, d = 0.127414). cohen’s effect size values of the ‘i + 1’ and the ‘i 1’groups’ paired samples t-tests are d =0.969698 and d = 0.127414 for reading motivation, respectively) proposing high practical significance for the ‘i + 1’ group and moderate practical significance for the ‘i 1’ group. in summary, the text difficulty significantly affected the ‘i + 1’ and the ‘i 1’ participants’ flra. the findings imply that the ‘i + 1’ group had greater increases in their mrq scores. in brief, the present study aimed to see whether using the i+1 and i-1 could improve the reading comprehension of efl learners, and whether there was a difference between the learners’ motivation in this regard or not. the outcomes of the study indicated that this i+1 significantly improved reading comprehension of the learners in the experimental group; moreover, the motivation of the experimental group (i+1) was increased after the treatment. consistent exposure to the input (i.e., graded readers) over the treatment period seemed to have had an important effect on improving participants’ reading comprehension. it could be possible that consistent exposure to written input facilitated the participants’ incidental vocabulary learning (mikeladze, 2014; waring & takaki, 2003). the obtained results may be due the significant role of inputs which the students had received before they produced the language. the comprehensible inputs which the students were subjected to before producing the language greatly helped the students to be able to read english more efficiently. it can be deduced that comprehension proceeds the production. students of the experimental group had improvement on the post-test thanks to the treatment they had received. the researcher found that the classes were more challenging and the students were more involved in learning to understand the reading texts. the improvement of the students can be attributed to the ‘i + 1’ reading texts as krashen (1982) states input which is somewhat above the present level of competence of the language learner can be conducive to learning. if i is the language learner’s current level of competence in the foreign language, then i+1 is the following prompt advance along the improvement continuum. accordingly, if the objective is to help the language student advance in their task, it is basic to furnish the learner with comprehensible input [i +1]. the researcher observed that the students were more motivated to read and understand the texts that were more difficult for them, they seemed curious to know the meaning of unfamiliar words and phrases, consequently, they asked the researcher to provide the meaning of unknown words, phrases, and sentences, and this attempt led to their success in reading comprehension. more significantly, based on the comparison made between two groups of varying text difficulty, the i+1 group performed better in reading comprehension and gained better results at the end of the study. this finding is in line with krashen’s (1982) input hypothesis. according to krashen (1982), it was expected to observe the development of reading comprehension only in the ‘i + 1’ group. for that reason, the similar development in the ‘i 1’ group’s reading comprehension seems skeptical. the results of statistical analysis accepted such an idea and showed that reading the ‘i 1’ materials did not improve e. namaziandost, m. nasri, & f. r. esfahani / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 73 participants’ reading comprehension. this finding is in contrast with chiang’s (2015) research in which the ‘i 1’ group’s reading comprehension was developed. the results can be due to using ‘i + 1’ materials which provided a situation for participants to expand their reading comfort zone in which they had the opportunity to build up their reading confidence and develop a large sight vocabulary rather than learning new linguistic elements (day & bamford, 1998). this study is supported by bahmani and farvardin (2017) who discovered the effectiveness of different text difficulty levels on flra and reading comprehension of efl learners. the final findings uncovered that both text difficulty levels significantly enhanced the participants’ reading comprehension. the outcomes additionally revealed that, the ‘i+ 1’ group’s flra enhanced, while that of the ‘i 1’ group lessened. the results of this study also revealed that there was significant effect of time suggesting substantial difference in the reading comprehension scores across two periods. however, regarding the other previous studies, time might be less crucial in affecting participants’ reading comprehension. whether the time of intervention was two months (mason & krashen, 1997), five months (tanaka, 2007) or even one year (chiang, 2015), reading comprehension increased. it might be possible to identify more obvious differences in reading comprehension between the two groups if the duration of participation in er could be extended. to sum up, the positive effect of i+1 viewed in this study can be ascribed to the vital role of comprehensible language input providing learners with linguistic data that they are able to understand. in the field of sla, there is a mimic metaphor about language input proposed by vanpattn (2003) “input is to language acquisition what gas is to a car”. there is language input that is better than other input, just like there is high octane gas that is better than low-octane gas. the “better input” here is comprehensible and meaning bearing. the more comprehensible and meaning –bearing the input is, the more likely it will be turned into intake that learners are able to internalize into their cognitive systems. in contrast to the common belief that easy materials may increase the motivation of efl learners, this study proved that the more difficult materials could increase iranian efl learners’ motivation towards reading english. it can be claimed that difficult materials have discovery nature, meaning that, students want to discover and understand new things. in addition, students may do not have much more motivation to learn easy and ordinary materials without rich content. these results are congruent with former study (chiang, 2015; tanaka, 2007). constant offering to the input (i.e., i+1) over times appears to have had a significant impact on developing learners’ reading comprehension. conclusion this study compared the effects of i+1 and i-1 materials on iranian efl learners’ reading comprehension and reading motivation. the findings revealed that i+1 group outperformed the i-1 group. i+1 material increased reading comprehension and reading motivation of the participants. in addition, it can be concluded that the materials of efl english textbooks should be one level higher than the current level of the students to motivate and challenge them. this study comes to the conclusion that the input hypothesis of krashen (1982) “learners progress in their knowledge of the language when they comprehend language input that is slightly more advanced than their current level” is valid. the other conclusion which can be drawn from this study is the importance of the efl learners’ motivation. the motivation of the students should be increased to learn english language more easily since motivation directs behavior toward particular goals, it will augment students' time on task and is additionally a momentous factor having effect on their learning and development. e. namaziandost, m. nasri, & f. r. esfahani / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 74 motivation boosts cognitive processing. motivation specifies whether a student will pursue a task (even a difficult one) with enthusiasm or a lackluster attitude. so, it is important to recognize aspects that foster internal motivation in english language learning. this study provides some implications for teachers who are interested in using er in their classes. teachers can take benefit of the ‘i + 1’ or the ‘i 1’ in er as a supplementary activity in english courses. this study suggests that er is effective in improving efl learners’ reading comprehension, and helpful in enhancing vocabulary, grammar and reading speed regardless of the level of materials learners choose. this study indicates whether the learners choose easier or harder er materials, they gain more or less similar results in reading comprehension. according to this study, choosing novels based on the participants’ own interests can encourage them to eagerly participate in er program. ideally, teachers should consider the value of self-selected materials as a key to a successful implementation of er. there are, however, some limitations in the study. first, there were 54 participants in the current study. in order to gain more evidence about the influence of text difficulty on participants’ flrm and reading comprehension, more participants are recommended. second, lack of random sampling was one of the limitations of the study. random sampling will provide more concrete evidence for the effects of text difficulty on flrm and reading comprehension. it is recommended to invite larger samples of learners in order to provide an opportunity for selecting them randomly. third, future research can be replicated in esl contexts. fourth, in the current study, participants read four novels. future research needs to provide a big stock of books and also ask participants to read more to maximize the effects of er. fifth, future research can focus on the effects of the ‘i + 1’ and the ‘i 1’ hypotheses on other areas of language learning like grammar. finally, time commitment is important for er to be reasonably successful; this study lasted for three months which may not be enough for full benefits of er. future studies can gain better results if learners participate in er program for a longer time. references ahmadi, m. r. 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(2013). effects of extensive reading on reading attitudes in a foreign language. reading in a foreign language, 25, 248–263. microsoft word 3. nudiya afiya farha 25 improving students’ reading comprehension of report text using kwl strategy nudiya afiya farha, rohani rohani  english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 8 may 2019 approved in 29 july 2019 published in 29 july 2019 ________________ keywords: quasi-experimental; kwl strategy; reading comprehension; report text ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this research attempted to find out the translation techniques and grammatical errors in students’ indonesian-english text translation. the objectives of this research were to describe the choice of translation techniques and grammatical errors of the students’ translation of a narrative text. this research used descriptive qualitative method. the translation techniques analysis was done by using molina and albir's (2002) classification of translation techniques while grammatical errors of the students’ translation were analyzed using the guide for correcting writing errors by betty azar (1941). the translation technique analysis was done by comparing the students’ translation work with the source text of a narrative entitled lari kepagian then grammatical errors analysis was done to find out their errors in the use of grammatical rules. the result of the study found that there were 3012 data of translation techniques and 429 grammatical errors. the data showed that the most used translation techniques were literal translation technique (30.1%) and modulation technique (22.6%) and the most grammatical errors made were capitalization (18.2%) and verb tense (16.6%). the most used translation technique that resulted in most grammatical errors was modulation technique (17%) in the translation done by 24 students. © 2019 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: nudiya.farha@gmail.com elt forum 8 (1) (2019) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt nudiya afiya farha & rohani / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 26 introduction reading is one of the essential skills for learning language. it is a receptive skill which is important to be mastered in learning english as a second language. reading is the process of connecting written symbols with reader’s knowledge to comprehend the content of the text. so, the reader can get the information of the text. according to spratt, pulverness, and williams (2003), reading is a relationship between the writer and the reader through a text and a process to connect the text with the readers’ knowledge to understand the whole-text (p.21). it is the process of gaining information from text by connecting words, sentences, even paragraphs with meaning and information that are already known to understand the text (grabe and stoller, 2002, p.9). this is supported by the definition from clark and silberstein (as cited in simanjutak, 1988) stating that “reading is an active cognitive process of interacting with print and monitoring comprehension to establish meaning (p.15)”. furthermore, reading comprehension is the process blending of the readers’ several kinds of knowledge and the interaction of the reader and the text. in addition, woolley (2011) also stated that “reading comprehension is the process of making meaning from text.” there is text, reader’s background knowledge, and reader’s language ability in the process of making meaning. based on the structure of the senior high school curriculum in 2013 revised 2017, the total hours of teaching and learning english for eleventh grade is 2 hours (2 x 45 minutes) a week. it means the intensity of students in learning english is quite a bit, because students learn english in the classroom activities only once in a week. it is undeniable that sometimes students do not enjoy in joining english learning process especially in learning reading comprehension text. therefore, teacher should consider the important of finding the right method and strategy to make the material easy to be accepted and understood by students. according to sabouri (2016) there are some effective strategies that can improve students’ reading skill especially in comprehending text those are (1) activating and using background knowledge (2) generating (3) making inferences (4) predicting (5) summarizing (6) visualizing (7) comprehension monitoring. from the various of reading comprehension strategies above, ercetin (2010) found in his experimental research that activating and using background knowledge was one of the important factor that affect students’ understand and use such text resources. recht and leslie (1988) confirm the important of background knowledge. likewise, osman and ali (2002), they support the result of those two studies before. the result of their study said that topic familiarity and background knowledge are effective in reading test for students. in addition, al-jahwari (2015) said that many teachers realized prior knowledge can prepare students for reading. knowledge is one of the important factors that affect someone in understanding something. moreover in the process of reading text, because reading is activity of gaining information. according to mikulecky & jeffries (2003), our brain looks for connection to our knowledge when our brain notices new information (p,15). the connection of our knowledge and the new information will become a part of long-term memory. knowledge that readers’ have is usually called as background knowledge or prior knowledge. according to fletcher (as cited in woolley, 2011) in his book stated that background knowledge is one of a top-down focus that need to be considered in the process of making meaning or understanding text. the important of background knowledge also stated by grabe and stoller (2002) in their book that there are somethings that have to be activated in reading processes when someone read. those are mentioned in the table below. nudiya afiya farha & rohani / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 27 table 1: reading processes that are activated lower-level processes higher-level processes lexical access syntactic parsing semantic proposition formation working memory activation text model of comprehension situation model of reader interpretation background knowledge use and inferencing executive control processes ausubel (as cited in hattan et al, 2015) stated that background knowledge is the existing knowledge structure that used to assimilate new information by connecting it with the new material in learning process. therefore, from some studies above can be said that background knowledge is good to use as strategy in teaching and learning comprehension text. there are many strategies in reading that using knowledge as the best factors in improving reading comprehension skill such as through answering questions, prediction, debate and discussion, field experience, semantic mapping, advance organizers, previewing, brainstorming, and kwl strategy. fisher and frey (2010) stated that kwl strategy is one of the most common reading strategies. the definition of kwl strategy according to ogle (as cited in riswanto et al, 2014) stated that “kwl (know, want, learned) strategy is one of teaching and learning strategies used mainly for information text. kwl strategy is a teaching and learning strategy using three-column organizer, those are what i know, what i want to know, and what i learned. according to ogle (as cited in strangman, hall, & meyer, 2004) stated that this learning strategy is begun with discussion session. based on the diagram above, in the discussion session the teacher leads students to reflect their knowledge about a topic and brainstorming ideas and information of the topic. next, the students fill the first two-column. the students fill the first column with statement they get after reflecting their knowledge about a topic. whereas, they have to fill the second column with some questions about a topic they want to answer. the next session is reading session. students read the text about a topic that has been told before. in this session, students are expected to find the information that can answer their questions in the second column. the answers of questions are written at the third column. table 2 is the table of kwl strategy. there are some previous studies wich applied this strategy. fengjuan (2010) said that kwl strategy becomes a very effective strategy to achieve goal in all-round development in learning language skills. dieu (2016) supported that study. he found in his study that kwl strategy encourages students’ academic success because they can more connect their knowledge to class and topics or subjects matter. in addition, karang (2014) had applied kwl (know-what-learn) strategy to activate students’ knowledge. she found that the kwl strategy improved the students’ ability in reading comprehension and increased students’ learning motivation, interest, and attitude in their reading. it is supported by sinambela, manik, and pangaribuan (2015) in their research. they found that students’ who were taught with kwl strategy achieved higher score than those who were taught without kwl strategy. in addition, the students’ were taught with kwl strategy were more active in learning activities. riswanto, risnawati, and lismayanti (2014) also agreed with the results of that research, they also added that students who were taught with kwl strategy were more enthusiastic, active and enjoy in reading activities. the results of those researches showed that the implementation of kwl strategy was effective in teaching reading comprehension. thus, kwl strategy was effective strategy of teaching reading. this was supported by the statement nudiya afiya farha & rohani / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 28 by the national school improvement network’s bulletin (2002) in the paper about effective learning stated. “the effective learning involves outcomes such as more connected knowledge, wider range of strategies, greater complexity of understanding, enhanced action appropriate to goals and context, increased engagement and self-direction, more reflecting approach, more positive emotions and affiliation to learning, more developed vision of future self as a learner, greater facility in learning with others, and more sense of participation in a knowledge community.” in other researches, hamdan (2014) conducted a research about kwl strategy in two different schools (public and private school). he found that although private school that became the control group adopts an international curriculum where english is used as instruction in learning process, the students from public school who were taught with kwl –plus strategy achieved a higher performance in reading than the students in control group. therefore from the previous studies which have been mentioned above it can be concluded that kwl strategy is the good ways to improve students’ reading comprehension. table 2 kwl instructional scheme k (what i know) w (what i want to know) l (what i learnt) students are brainstorming everything they know about the topic of study. the students list what have they got when they are brainstorming. students tell what they want to know about the topic. after students finished their reading, they list what they have learned about the topic. they can see k column to connect what have they known and what have they learned. then, they can also check the w column to see which questions were answered and which were left unanswered. reading is one of the important language skills in learning english. two mainly language skills in the national examination of english subject are listening and reading. the reading section has more questions than the listening section. in addition, report text is the kind of text which commonly became the questions in the national examination. report text is the kind of text which presents information about something in general. it is as a result of systematic observation and analysis. sometimes, students are difficult in understanding report text because the language used in this kind of text is not always in the elementary level. thus, students should have good ability in comprehending text. therefore, teaching reading is not only providing the text and then asking students to translate word by word, but also asking students to understand the content of the text. nudiya afiya farha & rohani / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 29 based on the background above, the writer is interested to conduct an experimental study entitled “improving students’ reading comprehension of report text with kwl strategy (a quasi-experimental study at the eleventh grade students of sma negeri 1 bae kudus). the research questions of the study were formulated in the following: 1. how is the implementation of kwl strategy in improving students’ reading comprehension of report text at the eleventh grade students of sma negeri 1 bae kudus in the academic year 2018/2019? 2. is there any significant achievement difference of students taught with and without kwl strategy in reading comprehension of report text? methods the writer used quantitative research with description in this study. based on creswell (2014), quantitative research was an approach for testing objective theories by examining the relationship among variables. this was experimental research which has purpose to know the effectiveness of the method or technique that the teacher used in teaching and learning process. in this study, the writer used quasiexperimental research design in the type of nonequivalent (pre-test and post-test) control-group design to analyze the data. the population of this study was the eleventh grade students in mathematic and natural science of sma 1 bae kudus in the academic year 2018/2019. there were 7 classes. each class consisted of 36 students. therefore, the total number of the students was 252 students. while in this study the writer choose two groups of class randomly to be the subject of the study. one was as an experimental class (xi mipa 6). the other one was as a control class (xi mipa 5). therefore, the total subjects of this study were 72 students. the instruments of this study were lesson plans, observation list, and reading comprehension test. the lesson plans used to observe the implementation of kwl strategy in learning reading comprehension text. the writer used multiple-choice reading comprehension test to check the effectiveness of kwl strategy and to measure the significant achievement difference between experimental and control group. the observation list has been prepared to be the teacher orientation in observing the classroom learning process using kwl strategy. meanwhile, the observation was used to find out the progress of students’ characters during the learning process. the content of the observation list uses guideline which is made by me based on permendikbud 104 (2014). it will be analyzed using likert scales as scaling technique. one reading comprehension test would be given in the first week as a pre-test. and the other would be given as the post-test after the both groups getting treatments. the reading comprehension test consisted of reading passage with the length of the text was about 250 words. the test consisted of 20 multiple-choice comprehension questions. the data collection of this study was obtained from the eleventh grade students of sma n 1 bae kudus. the data of the study was quantitative data. there were some processes that have to be done by the writer to make sure that the instrument was good, those were try out, validity, reliability, item difficulty, discriminating power, pretest, treatment and posttest. the data from reading comprehension test then can be analyzed to find if there is any significant achievement difference between experimental and control group by using independent sample test in spss 22.0 program. in addition, the paired-sample t-test is also used to analyze if there is any improvement from pre-test to post-test in both group or not. nudiya afiya farha & rohani / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 30 findings and discussion the implementation of kwl strategy this quasi-experimental study implemented kwl (known-want-learn) strategy in learning reading comprehension. the purpose was to prove its effectiveness in improving reading comprehension of report text of the eleventh graders of sma n 1 bae kudus in the academic year of 2018/2019. the experimental study was conducted in class xi mipa 6 as the experimental group and class xi mipa 5 as the control group. the experimental group was given treatments by using kwl strategy in learning reading comprehension, while the control group was given treatments by brainstorming strategy. both experimental and control groups got three meetings for the treatments. the material of report text which given to both groups was same. in addition, the students of both groups learned the same topic of report text. both experimental and control groups got the first treatment after carrying out the pre-test. they learned the same material of report text with the different strategies. the first treatment was conducted on monday, 11th february 2019 both in the experimental and control group. according to the schedule, i came to class xi mipa 5 as the control group and then after that i came to class xi mipa 6 as the experimental group. in the first treatment, i gave the students of both groups know about the purpose of the material which would be learned. after that, i explained the classroom activities in that day briefly. in the experimental group i also explained about kwl strategy as the strategy which would be implemented during the learning process. the classroom activities during treatment were presented in appendix 19. the students of the experimental group were enthusiast when i explained about kwl strategy, because that was the first time kwl strategy in their classroom learning process. they learned the definition, generic structure, and the language feature of report text. in the treatment, students of both groups made small groups consisted of 6 students. then, they tried to comprehend the report text and answer the following questions with their group. the topic of report text which was discussed in both groups was same. the experimental group answered the questions following the text and comprehended the text using kwl strategy, while the control group answered the questions and comprehended the text by brainstorming and translating the text into indonesian. the second meeting, both groups still learned a text of report with the new topic. the students of experimental group made a small group consisted of six students. they make a discussion with their group by using kwl strategy to answer and comprehend the text. in the other side, the control group also made a small group consisted of six students. each group discussed the text by brainstorming strategy. in the end of the learning activities, both the students experimental and control groups made a summary about the information they had learned from the text. in the second treatment, the differences between experimental and control groups could be seen from the participation of the students of both groups and their summary of the text. the students’ participation of experimental group was higher than the students’ participation of the control group. almost all the students of the experimental group were more interested to follow the learning activities in kwl strategy. while, there were only a few students of the control group who actively participate during learning activities. in the other hand, the summary of the students in experimental group were more complete than the summary of the control group. in addition they could present the information that they got clearly. the third meeting, both groups still practiced to comprehend the report text with the new topic. both experimental and control groups discussed the text in a small group which consisted of six students. in addition, they also answered the quizzes related to the text they had discussed by nudiya afiya farha & rohani / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 31 playing number had together. in the end of the learning activities the students of both groups also told about the information they had learned from the text. to support the explanation of the treatments, i also collected the data using observation list which i have made based on the criterion of permendikbud 104 (2014). the students attitudes during the learning process which observed are the students are enthusiast when the teacher explains about kwl strategy, the students are not afraid to share their ideas or opinions to their friends, the students do not bother or even judge their friends false or true, each student has at least one question about what they want to know related to the topic being discussed, the students are enthusiast to share what they want to know about the topic to their friends, the students keep on reading the text to understand the content of the text and to answer the questions they have made, the students learn something from the text after they had read the passage, the students are not afraid in telling their comprehension of the text, the other students keep on listening when their friends are telling their comprehension of the text being studied, and the students are motivated and interested in reading text from other sources. the observation used likert scale to analyze the data. so, it used some number to give the value. those numbers are 4 which means very high, 3 means high, 2 means low, and 1 means very low. based on finding of the observation and the meaning of numbers above, the number of ideal scores (criteria) for all items is 4 x 10 = 40. the number of scores obtained from observation is 37. therefore, based on the data, the level of students participation in the learning process using kwl strategy is (37 : 40) x 100% = 92,5 % than expected (100%). after the treatments, both groups carried out the post-test to know if there was any difference achievement of the students after getting the treatments. the result of the study showed that the implementation of kwl (known-want-learned) strategy is effective in teaching reading comprehension of report text. the difference of students’ achievement result of pre-test the pre-test was given to the experimental and control group. the results of the experimental group showed that the average pre-test score was 74.58. while, the average pre-test score of the control group was 72.77. the independent sample test in spss 22.0 program was used to analyze the data. according to the analysis, the value of sig.(2-tailed) was 0.470. it was higher than 0.050. it could be said that both the experimental and control group had the equal level of ability. therefore, ho was accepted, in short, the students’ reading comprehension level of both groups was equal. result of post-test the post-test was given after the students of both groups getting the treatments. the average posttest score of the experimental group was 90.97. while, the average post-test score of the control group was 87.77. the average of both groups had a higher increase than the pre-test. the analysis showed that the value of sig.(2-tailed) was 0.076. ho was accepted because the significant value was higher than 0.050. it could be concluded that there was no significant achievement difference between the experimental and control group in post-test. the difference of pre-test and post-test between experimental and control group the analysis of pre-test and post-test between two groups was done to know whether there was improvement after getting the treatments or not by using the paired-sample t-test. the analysis of paired-sample t-test of the experimental group showed that the pre-test mean was 74.58, while the post-test mean was 90.97. in the other side, the analysis of the control group showed that the pre-test mean was 72.77, while the post-test mean was 87.77. the average value of the experimental group had a higher increase than the control group. in addition, paired-sample ttest of the experimental group showed that the significance value, sig. (2-tailed) was 0.000. it was nudiya afiya farha & rohani / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 32 lower than 0.05. while, the analysis also showed that the significance value, sig. (2-tailed) was 0.000. it was higher than 0.05 (sig.(2-tailed) < 0.05). it meant that both the experimental and control group had improved their score after getting the treatments. therefore, ha was accepted, in short, there was significant achievement difference between pre-test and post-test for both groups. discussion this study was to elaborate whether the implementation of kwl strategy was effective to improve students’ reading comprehension report text or not and to know the significant achievement difference between the students who were taught using kwl strategy and those who were taught using brainstorming strategy. after holding three times of reading comprehension text treatments in the experimental and control group, i found the differences between the students of those groups. the students of experimental group who taught using kwl strategy were more active than the students of control group. the activities of kwl strategy made the students enjoy the learning process. students’ participation, motivation and interest in reading learning process increased. therefore, the atmosphere of the classroom became more fun. the results of the implementation of kwl strategy in teaching reading and learning process in experimental group showed that students were more active. their participation, motivation, and interest in reading learning process increased. it was similar with several previous studies. dieu (2016) supported this study. he found in his study that kwl strategy encourages students’ academic success because they can more connect their knowledge to class and topics or subjects matter. in addition, karang (2014) had applied kwl (know-what-learn) strategy to activate students’ knowledge. she found that the kwl strategy improved the students’ ability in reading comprehension and increased students’ learning motivation, interest, and attitude in their reading. it is supported by sinambela, manik, and pangaribuan (2015) in their research. they found that the students’ who were taught with kwl strategy were more active in learning activities. riswanto, risnawati, and lismayanti (2014) also agreed with the results of that research, they also added that students who were taught using kwl strategy were more enthusiastic, active and enjoy in reading activities. moreover, it was supported by the result of observation showed that students’ participation was very high during the learning process. the study conducted by cholifah (2015) supported this result. in the learning process of the experimental group which implemented kwl strategy, the goals of reading learning stated by appleget & appleget (as cited in kaya 2014) were reached. the teacher had explained the material and guided the students to follow the activities of learning process well. according to ogle (as cited in strangman, hall, & meyer, 2004) there were three sessions in implementing kwl strategy in reading learning process, those were reflecting, brainstorming, and reading. the students’ interest had growth since the process of reflecting and brainstorming students’ knowledge about the topic that was being discussed. in this session, the report text was not given to the students yet. therefore, when the teacher guided them to reflecting their knowledge about the topic of report text such as ‘giraffe’, they discussed it with their small group. then, they participated in filling out the first column. the students alternately represented the group mentioning what they have known about the topic with great enthusiasm. moreover, in the second session they began to enjoy the learning process. the teacher guided the students to make questions related to the topic being discussed. the students’ curiosity arises in this session. they could share knowledge about the topic with members of their group. it was one of the effective learning outcomes stated in the national school improvement network’s bulletin (2002), namely participation in a knowledge community. in the last session, the teacher gave the report text to each group. the students were eager to read and understand the text to prove their knowledge and look for answers to the questions nudiya afiya farha & rohani / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 33 they had made. not all questions that they had made had answers in the text. this case made students looked for answers from other sources such as reading books and articles from the internet. it also related to the second goals of effective reading teacher stated by appleget & appleget (as cited in kaya 2014) namely to foster a love of reading. therefore, it was showed that the implementation of kwl strategy was effective in reading learning process. in addition, i also conducted the pre-test and post-test to prove how effective is the kwl strategy in improving students’ reading comprehension of report text statistically. the result of the data analysis showed that the students’ reading comprehension of report text has improved significantly. the pre-test results of the experimental group showed that the mean score was 74.58. while, the pre-test mean score of the control group was 72.77. in addition, the t-test analysis by using independent sample t-test in spss 22.0 program was done to know the significant achievement difference. according to the analysis, the value of sig.(2-tailed) was 0.470. it was higher than 0.050. it could be said that both the experimental and control group had the equal level of ability. the post-test was given after the students of both groups getting the treatments. the post-test mean score of the experimental group was 90.97. while, the post-test mean score of the control group was 87.77. the post-test mean score of both groups had a higher increase than the pre-test. in addition, the analysis of independent sample t-test found that the value of sig.(2-tailed) was 0.076. it could be concluded that there was no significant achievement difference between the experimental and control group in post-test. the result was same with the previous study conducted by hana, warsono, and faridi (2015). the absence of significant achievement difference can be caused by several things, such as situation and time ineffectiveness. the students of experimental group worked on the post-test together with the socialization for the eleventh graders, therefore their focus might not be entirely on the post-test. the analysis of paired-sample t-test which used to know whether both the experimental and control group improved their score after getting the treatments or not found that the significant value of the experimental group, sig. (2-tailed) was 0.000. it was lower than 0.05. while, the analysis of the control group also showed that the significance value, sig. (2-tailed) was 0.000. it was lower than 0.05 (sig.(2-tailed) < 0.05). it meant that there was a significant achievement difference between pretest and post-test for both groups. in short, both the experimental and control group had improved their score after getting the treatments. in the correlation of the mean score, the experimental group showed that the pre-test mean was 74.58, while the post-test mean was 90.97. in the other side, the analysis of the control group showed that the pre-test mean was 72.77, while the post-test mean was 87.77. although both groups improve their mean score after getting treatments, but the mean score of the experimental group was higher than the control group. it meant that kwl strategy was better in improving students’ reading comprehension to report text. finally, the research findings revealed that the alternative hypothesis (h1) which stated that “kwl strategy is effective to improve students reading comprehension of report text” was accepted and the null hypothesis (h2) was rejected. however, the second alternative hypothesis (h3) which stated that “there is a significant difference of the students’ achievement between those who taught with and without kwl strategy” was rejected and the null hypothesis (h4) was accepted, because the result of independent-sample test of post-test was higher than 0.05. conclusion the objectives of this study were to measure the effectiveness of the implementation of kwl strategy to improve students’ reading comprehension of report text of the eleventh graders of sma negeri 1 bae kudus in the academic year of 2018/2019, and to know significant achievement nudiya afiya farha & rohani / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 34 difference of the students who were taught using kwl strategy and those who were taught using brainstorming strategy. according to the research findings and discussion in the previous chapter, the implementation of kwl strategy was effective in teaching reading comprehension of report text. the observation showed that students who were taught using kwl strategy were more active and participative during the learning process. almost all the students of experimental group participate in every steps of learning activities. they had more motivation to read the text after the teacher guided them to reflecting their knowledge and brainstorming what they had already known and what they wanted to know. in addition, they also could recall the information they got from the text more complete than the control group. the data analysis showed that the result of pre-test and post-test mean scores of the experimental group increased (from 74.58 to 90.97), than the control group (from 72.77 to 87.77). it could be concluded that the experimental group had a higher increase than the control group. in addition, the pre-test and post-test mean scores of both groups also analyzed by using paired-sample t-test to know if there was improvement after getting the treatments. the result of paired-sample t-test showed that the value of sig.(2-tailed) of experimental group was 0.000, then the value of sig.(2-tailed) of the control group was 0.000. those significances were less than ߙ = 5% (0.05). it could be concluded that there was improvement from pre-test and post-test of both groups. however, according to the analysis of independent sample test of both groups, there was no significant achievement difference in post-test between the experimental and control group. the independent sample tets of post-test experimental and control group showed that the significant value of sig.(2-tailed) was 0.76. it was higher than ߙ = 5% (0.05). therefore, h3 was rejected, while h4 was accepted. the absence of significant achievement difference can be caused by several things, such as situation and time ineffectiveness. finally, i concluded that prior knowledge is important in reading comprehension text, and the implementation of kwl strategy in eleventh graders of sma negeri 1 bae kudus is effective for teaching reading comprehension of report text. moreover, it gives a good effect to improve students’ reading comprehension of report text. refferences al-jahwari, y. 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(2011). reading comprehension: assisting children with learning difficulties. doi 10.1007/978-94-007-1174-7_2, © springer science +business media b.v. 2011 putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 59 elt forum 6 (1) (2017) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the effectiveness of pre-questioning technique to teach reading comprehension of narrative text indira puruhita utami  english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in june 2017 approved in july 2017 published in august 2017 ________________ keywords: pre-questioning technique, reading comprehension, narrative text ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this article is based on a study which investigated the tenth grade students’ achievement in reading comprehension of narrative text. the objectives of this study is to find out whether pre-questioning technique is effective or not, and to find out it effects on the students’ reading comprehension of narrative text after being taught by using pre-questioning technique. the research design was a quasi-experimental research with non-equivalent control group design. the data were pre-test and post-test scores. based on the result, the average score of pre-test for the experimental group was 75.78, and for the control group was 75.89. the average score of post-test for the experimental group was 84.89, and for the control group was 77.81. based on the statistical analysis, it showed that sig. (2-tailed) was 0.000, it meant that it was lower than 0.05. therefore, ho was refused and ha was accepted. there was a significant difference of students’ achievement in reading comprehension of narrative text between the students taught by using the prequestioning technique and by using translation technique. by applying pre-questioning technique, the students are able to predict the content of the text before reading the whole text. moreover, the students to be more active and think critically in reading, get the gist of the text, improve their reading comprehension, and build their interest and motivation. it could be concluded that pre-questioning is an effective technique than translation technique to teach reading comprehension of narrative text. © 2017 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: unnes_english@yahoo.com i. puruhita utami / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 60 introduction the use of english language is becoming very widespread. not only in the native countries, but also in non-native countries english is used in almost every aspect of life. according to crystal (2003: 9), “a language becomes global language if it is accepted in every country”. in line with it, as a global language, english is very important and has many interrelationships with various aspects of human life. english is used as a means of communication both oral and written. mastering english as a global language in this modern era is a crucial need since language has an important role as a means of communication among others. in indonesia, english is taught and learned as a foreign language which is taught formally from elementary school until university level. the aim of teaching english, as adopted by government, is to develop communicative competence of the learners. english is not only given as compulsory subject which is examined in the national final examination (uan), but it is also given to prepare students facing the global era for now and their future life. therefore, the students are hoped to improve their ability in english. in teaching and learning english, students are expected to master four integrated skills; such as listening, speaking, reading, and writing. nunan (2003: 69) states that reading is an essential skill for learners of english as a second language. from these four skills, reading is still regarded as the prime focus in higher education because it is a window to the world. without reading, people in the world will not have knowledge. therefore, reading is one of the important ways to improve general language skills in english. mickulecky and jeffries (2004: 3) define the importance of reading as follows: ”reading helps you learn to: think in english, enlarge your english vocabulary, improve your writing, a good way to practice your english if you live in a non english-speaking country, and as a good way to find out about new ideas, facts, and experiences”. reading is also a bridge for students to get the information needed in students’ education field, such as transferring information and knowledge from textbook. therefore, the students should have ability in reading comprehension. reading comprehension is fundamental for the learners in getting information and knowledge. in order to improve the skill of reading, students need to be critical readers through active activities. depdiknas (2003: 10) explains about reading in wide meaning as follows: “reading in wide meaning is a process of formulating the text in critical and creative way that is aimed to get comprehension about the text, the value, the function, and the impact of text itself, and also to get message and information that is hand-over by the researcher through written form”. however, reading is a process which develops a text critically and creatively in order that the reader can understand content of the text delivered by the writer. students should have mastery on reading skill and need to use their thinking to be critical readers. it means that they have to recognize what they read by interacting with their knowledge about the texts. in most of english testing, reading comprehension is still focused on measuring students’ ability. most of the questions in testing are about comprehension. we can find reading comprehension questions in many tests, such as; in mid-term and final-term tests, in national examination, toefl test, etc. students are supposed to be able to answer these questions based on their understanding of the texts. senior high school students are expected to reach information level because they are prepared to the university. teaching reading to adolescents is different from teaching reading to children because adolescents have wider knowledge than children. therefore, teaching reading to senior high school students, a teacher must choose some methods or techniques which are related to the topic and curriculum. i. puruhita utami / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 61 harmer (2001: 5) states “a teacher has to be able to perform as a controller, organizer, prompter, participant, resource, tutor, observer, and model”. there must be some varieties in classroom, such as variety of activity and variety of organization. teachers should have good combination so that the teaching and learning process is not monotonous. as a result, during teaching-learning process, they should let their students work individually, sometimes in pairs, and sometimes in groups. meanwhile, based on my personal interview with some tenth grade students in the school when i was starting to conduct my research, i found that the students still face difficulties in comprehending a text. there are many factors that can cause students have lack of comprehension in reading. the way of teaching reading implemented by the teacher may be monotonous so that students get bored easily because the teacher does not give any special technique to teach his students. students do not have high motivation in reading passage. it obstructs the students’ understanding the text. teaching is a complex process of communicating a subject or a lesson. according to harmer (2007: 23), teaching is not an easy job, but it is a necessary one and can be very rewarding when we see our students’ progress and know that we have helped to make it happen. there are many activities that can be doing especially when the process of teaching and learning in the classroom. teaching problem is actual problem that is always followed by any teachers. the main factor that influences the student’s achievement is the way of the teacher teaches the subject or lesson to their students. good achievement in reading is important for the students. to make the students have good reading ability, teachers should apply appropriate teaching technique as well as method to establish the effectiveness of english teaching. teaching reading can be done in many ways. the teachers can use prequestioning technique before learning process. brown (2001: 172) defines pre-questioning implicitly as some questions are provided before the students read the whole text, in order to build the students’ interest and motivation. the questions provided will help the students build knowledge and a view of what the text is going to discuss. the technique will make students more active in the classroom and understand the content of the text. genre of texts are taught in the senior high school. a narrative text is one of the genres that is taught at the tenth grade of senior high school in the second semester as specified by the curriculum. according to anderson and anderson (1997: 8), a narrative is a piece of text that tells a story and, in doing so, entertains or informs the reader or listener. hardy and klarwein (1990: 16) with the statement “some purposes of narrative text are to explain and account for the relationship between people and their world, and also to entertain the readers”. someone tells a narrative in order to entertain, to stimulate emotion or to teach. it belongs to non-factual text that is written or listened to tell stories or past events, and to entertain the readers or listeners. based on the considerations above, i am interested in conducting a research about the effectiveness of pre-questioning technique to teach reading comprehension of narrative text of the tenth graders of sman 1 sukoharjo. the objectives of this study are to find out the effects on the students’ reading comprehension of narrative text after being taught by pre-questioning technique and by translation technique, and to know which one is more effective between pre=questioning technique and translation technique. hopefully, by using pre-questioning technique, the students’ skill in reading comprehension will developed. methodology of the research a research method that was used to obtain the required data and information in this study was experimental research. arikunto (2010:207) states that experimental research is a research which has a purpose to investigate whether there is an effect of “something” that is treated to the i. puruhita utami / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 62 subject of research. in other words, an experimental research tends to observe whether there is the cause and effect relation or not. this study investigated a particular treatment whether it is beneficial or not. therefore, the research design is quasi-experimental which used the non-equivalent control group design. this design can as well be called partly-experimental because the format is experimental research. this research design can be seen as follows: this research design can be seen as follows: o1 x o2 o3 o4 quasi-experimental design (saleh, 2005: 40) where: o1 = pre-test for the experimental group o2 = post-test for the experimental group x = treatment (only for experimental group) o3 = pre-test for the control group o4 = post-test for the control group this research compared the two groups; one was as experimental group and the other was as control group. both groups were tested by pre-test and post-test. one group as the experimental group is taught by using pre-questioning technique as a treatment, and another one as the control group that is taught by the translation technique. the design of the research is shown in table 3.1. table 2.1 research design the experimental group was given the treatment by using pre-questioning technique. meanwhile, in the control group the teacher taught using translation technique. before the treatment was conducted, a pre-test was administrated to the two groups to ensure the homogeneity. after treatment, a post-test was administrated. in this study, population or the subject of the research was the tenth graders at sma n 1 sukoharjo in the academic year of 2015/2016. a sampling is selected randomly when every number of the population has equal, no zero chance being included in the sample. from the eleven classes of the tenth graders at sma n 1 sukoharjo in the academic year of 2015/ 2016. this study, i used simple random sampling. all the tenth classes of sma n 1 sukoharjo had the same chance to become the sample of the study. every students had the same probability to be chosen. i chose the sample randomly by writing the class names on a small piece of paper and then rolled it up and put it into box to make the paper rolls mixed. after that, i took two rolls of paper and the class names which i used to be my samples. the two rolls of paper that out from the box were x mia 7 and x mia 1. therefore, i chose x mia 7 as the experimental group and x mia 1 as the control group. there are two variables in this study, independent and dependent variables. the independent variable of this study is pre-questioning technique. then, dependent variable is students’ reading comprehension of narrative text. it is indicated by the score of reading comprehension. the instrument used to collect the data in this study was test. the method of collecting data should be applied in conducting the research in order to get the appropriate result of the research. the methods of collecting data in this research can be seen as follows: group pre-test treatment post-test experimental √ pre-questioning technique √ control √ translation technique √ i. puruhita utami / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 63 firstly, choose the population. the population was the tenth graders of sma n 1 sukoharjo. then, i conducted a try-out test to the students in another class in order to assess the test instrument’s quality before administering the real test (pre-test and post-test). in this test, the students were asked to do reading comprehension test in the form of multiple choice, true/ false, and essay. there were 30 items number that should be answered in the limited time 45 minutes. after try-out test, i took two groups of the population as control group and experimental group. then, i conducted the pre-test. the test was given to identify the students’ reading comprehension achievement before giving the treatment. there were 28 items number that should be answered in the limited time 45 minutes. next, the real experiment was given a treatment by using pre-questioning technique in teaching reading comprehension to the experimental group. this treatment conducted in order to determine whether there is a significant difference in reading achievement between the experimental group and control group. the last, data were obtained from the post-test. it was conducted to know the improvement of the students’ reading comprehension achievement after the treatments done. the test items were similar to pre-test items. the students were asked to answer some questions related to the material given. the result of treatments is known by the students’ achievement that obtained by comparing the result before (pretest) and after treatments (post-test) conducted. i used test as instrument, then analyzed the result of the tests (pre-test and post-test) using t-test formula. it is used to know whether there is any significant difference between the students taught by using pre-questioning technique and those who were not. before computing the t-test value, i had to find the normality and homogeneity of experimental and control groups’ pre-test to find out that the data was normally distributed and homogeneous. in this study, the researcher played the role as teacher, data collector, and data analyzer. as a teacher, the researcher provided the materials, taught the materials to the students, and tested the students’ achievement. as a data collector, the researcher collected the data obtained from test. finally, as a data analyzer, the researcher analyzed the collected data by using certain formula. result and analysis some activities to collect the data during the research were done. they were pre-test, two treatments, and post-test. all activities for each group had been held in four meetings. the schedule could be seen in the following table. no. activity experimental group control group 1. pre-test 16 may 2016 16 may 2016 2. treatment 1 20 may 2016 21 may 2016 3. treatment 2 23 may 2016 24 may 2016 4. post-test 27 may 2016 28 may 2016 table 3.1 schedule of the research the aim of this study is to find out whether pre-questioning technique is effective to teach reading comprehension and to find out the effects on the students’ reading comprehension of narrative text after being taught by using pre-questioning technique in the tenth grade students of sman 1 sukoharjo in academic year 2015/ 2016. pre-questioning was introduced in this study as a technique that was used when i was doing this research. before conducting this research, most of the students found some difficulties in reading i. puruhita utami / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 64 narrative text. they had difficulties to understand in reading narrative text, especially to get the gist of the text and to make the students easier in understanding the text before they read whole of the text. however, after using pre-questioning technique, the students were able to understand the text easier. before experiment was conducted, the students in both of groups were given pre test. the test that was used in the pre test was reading comprehension test. pre test was aimed to know the prior knowledge of students in reading comprehension of narrative text before the given treatments. in the test, the students were asked to do reading comprehension test in the form of multiple choice, true/false, and essay that consisted of 30 items. then, the treatments were also conducted two times. each meeting took 90 minutes. in experimental group, i taught the students by pre-questioning technique. in control group, the students were taught as usual by their english teacher. after that, the students were given the reading comprehension post-test which had the same questions as in the pre-test. after finishing, the result was analyzed. i used spss (statistical package for social science) to calculate the descriptive statistics analysis and inferential analysis of the data. in inferential analysis, i tested the normality and the homogeneity of the data. then the last but not least, i found out the final result of the data analysis using independent sample t-test. the results of the descriptive statistics analysis of the pre-test’s score were seen as follows: group n min max sum mean pre_experiment 36 65 87 2728 75.78 pre_control valid n (listwise) 36 68 87 2732 75.89 table 3.2 the descriptive statistics of pre-test’s score the table above shows that both the control and the experimental groups had the same maximum score but different minimum score, the differential between two means was almost similar. from the table 4.3, the total pre-test scores of the students in experimental group were 2728 and the mean was 75.78; with the minimum score was 65 and maximum score was 87. while the total pre-test scores of the students in control group were 2732 and the mean was 75.89: with the minimum score was 68 and maximum score was 87. if we calculated the difference of both means, the result would be 0.11 which indicated that the difference still could be tolerated. in order to find out the result of the data analysis, the descriptive statistics analysis of post-test score is also important. after conducting the descriptive analysis of the post-test score, the result could be seen as follows: n min max sum mean post_experimen post_control valid n (listwise) 36 36 36 76 70 93 90 3056 2801 84.89 77.81 table 3.3 the descriptive statistics of post-test’s score the result was different from the previous result, in this table all aspects show different result. the minimum, maximum, and the mean of the data were different even the number of the data were i. puruhita utami / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 65 same. the experimental group has higher result in every aspect than the control group. from the computation of the test result, the total post-test scores of the students in experimental group were 3056 and the mean was 84.89; with the minimum score was 76 and maximum score was 93. while the total post-test scores of the students in control group were 2801 and the mean was 77.81; with the minimum score was 70 and the maximum score 90. the difference means between the experimental and control groups was 7.08 which indicates the significant difference between experimental and control groups. thus, based on the significant difference from both groups, it can be concluded that after the treatment, the enhancement for each class is quite different. the following diagram shows the significant difference between both groups, the experimental group and control group in pretest’s and posttest’s score. from the diagram 4.1, the blue rectangular was maximum score result of pre-test and post-test, the red rectangular was minimum score result of pre-test and post-test, and the gray rectangular was the mean result of pretest and post-test. it showed that the line of experimental and control group’s pre test was almost the same, but the line of experimental group’s post test was higher than the control group’s one. the result can be illustrated in the following diagram: diagram 3.1 pre-test and post-test achievement of experimental and control groups from the diagram above, i concluded that after i gave the treatment for the experimental group, there is an improvement in students’ reading comprehension achievement the aim of this study are to find out the effects on the students’ reading comprehension of narrative text after being taught by using pre-questioning technique and by using translation technique, and to find out whether pre-questioning technique is more effective than translation technique to teach reading comprehension in the tenth graders of sman 1 sukoharjo in academic year of 2015/ 2016. pre-questioning was introduced in this study as a technique that was used when i was doing this research. in applying pre-questioning technique, i gave the students some questions related to the content of the reading text that given to them. in guiding the students to understand the text better, i connected between the students’ experiences and prior knowledge toward the content of the texts. before conducting this research, most of the students found some difficulties in reading narrative text. they had difficulties in understanding the content of narrative texts, especially to get the gist of the text and to make the students easier in understanding the text before they read whole of the text. however, after using pre-questioning technique, the students were able to understand the text easier. the result of the study showed that there is an improvement of students’ scores in pre-test 8 7 9 3 8 7 9 0 6 5 7 6 6 8 7 0 7 5 .7 8 8 4 .8 9 7 5 .8 9 7 7 .8 1 p r e t e s t p o s t t e s t p r e t e s t p o s t t e s t e x p e r i m e n t a l g r o u p c o n t r o l g r o u p experimental and control groups maximum minimum mean i. puruhita utami / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 66 and post-test. the students are able to predict the content of the text before reading the text. the use of pre-questioning technique makes them read more easily their english narrative texts. this technique helps the students to be more active and think critically in reading, get the gist of the text, improve their reading comprehension, and build their interest and motivation before they read the whole text. translation technique is used in control group by english teacher. before each session the teacher gave the students the example of narrative text, then asked the students to read and understand the story. after that, the teacher asked them to discuss together and asked them to translate one by one sentence from the text. the teacher facilitated the process by pointing out the grammar implied in each sentence and helped the students to translate those very sentences. translation method is also a good way in learning reading comprehension. it can increase one’s comprehension in reading. however, there is still the disadvantages in conducting the lecturing method in reading comprehension activity. since the students could read the text well, but they did not understand the content of the text. the technique also made the students get bored easily and the result of the learning is not maximum. therefore, translation technique is less useful for reading comprehension on narrative text. after doing the experiment and analyzing the result statistically, i can conclude that there is an improvement on the students’ reading comprehension of narrative text by using pre-questioning technique between the two groups. based on the computation result, it showed that the significance (2-tailed) 0.000 < α = 0.05. it proved that the difference is statistically significant. based on the analysis, the result of the experimental group is higher than the result of the control group. the pretest average scores of the control and experimental groups were 75.78 and 75.89. while, the post-test average scores of the control and experimental groups were 77.81 and 84.89. it can be said that after the treatment, the enhancement for each class is quite different. due to the fact that there is a significant difference in students’ reading comprehension achievement between two groups, the null hypothesis (ho) saying that “there is no significant difference in the students’ reading comprehension achievement between experimental group and control group” is rejected. on the contrary, the alternative hypothesis (ha) saying that “there is a significant difference in the students’ reading comprehension achievement between experimental group and control group” is accepted. in addition, this method has answered the problem of this study. therefore, it can be concluded that the use of pre-questioning technique is more effective than translation technique in teaching reading comprehension to the tenth graders of sman1 sukoharjo in the academic year 2015/2016. conclusions according to the result of the study that has been discussed in the previous chapter, i will convey some conclusions about this study. the conclusions of the research are drawn in accordance with the result of the data analysis in the previous chapter. the first conclusion, there were effects on the students’ reading comprehension of narrative text after being taught by pre-questioning technique. by applying pre-questioning technique, the students are able to predict the content of the text before reading the whole text. this due to the fact that some questions addressed by the teacher related to the content of the text. it helps the students to get better understanding during reading activities. moreover, the students tend to be more active and think critically in reading, get the gist of the text, improve their reading comprehension, and build their interest and motivation before they read the whole text. pre-questioning technique helps the students to have a better achievement of narrative text i. puruhita utami / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 67 second, translation technique is effective to teach reading comprehension. it can increase one’s comprehension in reading. however, the use of translation technique is still less effective compared to using pre-questioning technique. the students could read the text well, but they did not understand the content of the text. the technique also made the students get bored easily and the result of the learning is not maximum. therefore, translation technique is less effective for reading comprehension on narrative text. third, based on the data analysis, i concluded that there is a significant difference between the experimental group’s and the control group’s scores. the average scores for the experimental group were 75.78 for the pre-test and 84.89 for the post test, while the average scores for the control group were 75.89 for the pre-test and 77.81 for the post-test. the experimental group’s average increase was 9.11, while the control group’s average increase was only 1.92. each group had different achievement. the achievement of experimental group was higher than the control group. based on the calculation of the average of both groups, there is an improvement of students’ achievement in reading comprehension of narrative text. meanwhile, from the calculation of t-test analysis showed that sig(2-tailed) : 0.000 and rtable for α = 5% was 0.05. it meant that rtable was higher than sig(2-tailed) (0.05 > 0.000). therefore, it could be concluded that there is a significant difference and it could be said that using pre-questioning is more effective than translation technique to teach students’ reading comprehension of the tenth graders of sman 1 sukoharjo in the academic year of 2015/ 2016. based on the result of the study, there are some suggestions for students, english teachers, and further researchers. they are as follows: for students, i suggest that they should be more active and smart in reading texts especially narrative text in order to make them understand the gist of texts easier. for english teachers, it is necessary for them to take the students’ problems into account in teaching and learning activities. they should be able to use the appropriate technique in teaching reading comprehension, and group activities should be suitable to the students’ capability and interest. as the result of the research, it was found that pre-questioning technique could be appropriate technique in teaching reading comprehension of narrative text which implicitly as some questions are provided before the students read the whole text, in order to build the students’ interest and motivation. it makes the students more active in the classroom and understand the content of the text. finally, these suggestions also will be helpful for further researchers. they should explain about what the narrative text is before asking the students to understand it. the students can learn how to respect each other, to their friends who have different opinions with them. it is expected that the researchers will have more information about the use of pre-questioning technique, especially in teaching another text like descriptive text, so that it can be one of their references in conducting their research. for further, i also expect that this study can be developed and improved by the next researchers, considering it still has some weaknesses. references anderson, m. and k. anderson. 1997. text type in english 2. south yarra: macmillan education australia pty ltd. arikunto, suharsimi. 2010. manajemen penelitian (revised edition). jakarta: rineka cipta. brown, h douglas. 2001. teaching by principles: an interactive approach to language pedagogy, second edition. san fransisco: addision wesley longman, inc. a pearson education company. crystal, d. 2003. english as global language (2 nd ed.). cambridge: cambridge university. depdiknas. 2003. kurikulum 2004: standar kompetensi mata pelajaran bahasa inggris sekolah menengah atas dan madrasah aliyah. jakarta: depdiknas. i. puruhita utami / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 68 hardy, judi and klarwein, damien,. 1990. written genres in the secondary school, cairns: cairns education centre. harmer, jeremy. 2001. the practice of english language teaching. edinburgh. pearson education limited. harmer, jeremy. 2007. how to teach english. england: longman. mickulecky, beatrice s and linda jeffries. 2004. more reading power. london: longman pearson. nunan, david. 2003. practical english language teaching. new york: the mcgraw-hill companies. saleh, mursid. 2005. introduction to linguistics research. semarang: state university of semarang. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 116 elt forum 6 (2) (2017) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt translation techniques and readability of the culture specific items in the 2007 indonesian translation of alice’s adventures in wonderland martinda intan permatahati, mohamad ikhwan rosyidi  english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in october 2017 approved in november 2017 published in december 2017 ________________ keywords: culture-specific items, translation technique, readability, alice’s adventures in wonderland ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ translation techniques poses somewhat of challenge. addressing the potential problems existing in translation between english and indonesian, culture specific item (csi) is used to translate the untranslatable words in the process of translation into target language. the technique that is used to translate will affect to the readability level. this research has an objective to find and describe the translation techniques that are applied in translating culture-specific items (csi) in sri haryanto’s indonesian translated novel of alice’s adventure in wonderland entitled petualangan di negeri ajaib dan dunia di balik cermin by windi a in 2007 and to explain the readability of culture-specific items (csi) in this translated novel. qualitative method is used in observing and analyzing the phenomenon which affected as an impact of the readability of culture-specific items in the translated text that had found in the indonesian translated novel of alice’s adventures in wonderland and also making interpretations of the meaning of the readability level of culture-specific items in its indonesian translated novel through the readability rating-sheet. from this research, the researcher finds 16 translation techniques that are applied in translating the culture-specific items from alice’s adventure in wonderland novel into its 2007 indonesian translated novel by sri haryanto. established equivalent translation technique is the highest frequency of translation technique that is applied in this novel. it can be concluded that the readability of culture-specific items in sri haryanto’s indonesian translated novel of alice’s in wonderland is readable. © 2017 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: unnes_english@yahoo.com m. intan permatahati & m. ikhwan rosyidi / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 117 introduction translation of culture-specific items (csis), which becomes problems for translators, has been and still a largely debatable issue in translation study. since the concept of culture is essential to understanding the implications for literary translation and culture-specific items in translation, many translation theorists have dealt with the definition of culture. in 1984, larson defines culture as "a complex of beliefs, attitudes, values, and rules which a group of people share" (larson, 1984: 431). he notes that the translator needs to understand beliefs, attitudes, values, and the rules of the source language (sl) audience in order to adequately understand the source text (st) and adequately translate it for people who have a different set of beliefs, attitudes, values, and rules. in 1998, newmark remarks that culture is "the way of life and its manifestations that are peculiar to a community that uses a particular language as its means of expression" (newmark, 1998: 94). here, he asserts that each language group has its own culturally specific features. there are so many different cultures in the world that the exact number is impossible to declare (o‟neil 2006). in other words, there are no strict boundaries within the melting pot of the world‟s cultures. to find the best equivalent for culture specific items (csis) in translation is, thus, one of the main concerns and the hardest part for each translator. the translators need to find an equivalent with the same context in the target text (tt). one of the most difficult problems is how to find some words or sentences that are not known in the target text (tt). a translator should be able to find some possibilities that include the diversities of translation strategies which can solve the problem of translating csis. the cultural diversity may be noticeable in literary writings. in fiction, the created characters originated from certain culture. this is expressed it through various culture-specific items. fictional characters from different cultures may confront, and then, certain misunderstanding can occur due to the differences in cultures. moreover, the work of fiction is available for a multicultural society due to the numerous translations into other languages, which cause a clash between cultures because a reader with his/hers own cultural identity reads the book from a different perspective. hence, the writer choose alice in wonderland which will be compared with indonesian translation novel petualangan di negeri ajaib dan dunia di balik cermin by windi a in 2007 in order to identify culture-specific items in a literary text and be able to analyze them. there are so many fiction novels for children. one of them is the little prince. the two books are based on the concept of the naïveté and innocence of the minds of young children. the two novels are comparable to each other in many different ways. several of the notably comparable aspects of the two stories are detectable in the themes, writing style, character development, and voice or tone of the novels. other aspects include the “hero cycle” and symbolic elements of the two books. though the two stories are completely original in their own right, both authors have either similar mindsets or similar inspirations when writing the books. compared to the little prince, the symbolic representations of certain aspects of life is more prominent in alice in wonderland. in the story, most characters represent characteristics of alice’s personality. for example, such character as the caterpillar not only acts as a mentor, but also represents the part of alice's mind that is wise and can make good decisions. other characters like the queen, duchess, cook, represent the parts of alice’s personality that are not as helpful, such as greed, anger, jealousy, sadness, and worry. these feelings are usually hidden away in a child, as they really do not have any cause to feel them, not until they get older. in the little prince, the symbols serve a similar purpose to represent aspects of the mind. however, instead of a child's mind, the traits are of an adult mind, and rather than focusing on one individual, the traits are of all adult minds in general. each trait is represented as a much exaggerated form of what that trait should be, and those individuals, for the most part, do not really have any other m. intan permatahati & m. ikhwan rosyidi / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 118 unique personalities. the flower represents vanity and self-importance, characteristics that are found more in the minds of adults that children. all of the men on the planets represent other parts of the mind: excess vanity and self-importance, distraction from important matters, making bad choices, unfriendliness and, in the prince's words, “strangeness” overall. after reading both stories, it is possible to view the little prince as having been inspired by alice’s adventures in wonderland. both novels center on growing older, and more cynical and aware of the world‟s surroundings. they both state that childhood must be preserved, and not tarnished by the adult world until it is time. these two classic novels are turning points in the literary genre; classic examples of books that will be remembered for their wise and thoughtful insights into the minds of children, and how the rest of the world is affected by them. lewis carroll, the author of alice’s adventures in wonderland was mathematician, photographer, anglican deacon, and also logician (as cited from: www.encyclopedia.com/article1g2-3443000011/caroll-lewis-1832-1898.html). he lived in religious family. his best seller novel was dedicated for his childhood, alice liddell. carroll mentioned that naturally his novel made reference to bible. he wants to educate moral toward the children but in simple way through story. it claimed that some parts of the novel remind the reader toward bible. this rumor attracts the research to analyze this novel compare to others to prove the csi that lewis brought in his writing. methodology of the research the researcher had identified and analyzed the data from the novel and found 413 culture specific-items in alice‟s adventures in wonderland. those culture specific-items were divided into six categories based on newmark‟s categorization. those are: ecology, material culture, social culture, organization, gesture and habits, and proper name. based on those research result and analysis, 115 culture-specific items words categorized as ecology, 141 in material culture, 31 in social culture, 21 in organization, 49 in gestures and habits, and 56 from proper name. from these categories, the most frequent occurrence is the material culture with 141 data. in contrast to material culture category, organization is the fewest categories found with 20 data. the first research question of his study was what translation techniques were applied in translating the culture specific items (csi) in alice‟s adventures in wonderland into the 2007 indonesian translation of alice‟s adventures in wonderland. to answer the first research question, besides providing the result of categories and sub-categories of culture-specific items used in this research, the researcher also provided the complete result of what translation techniques that were used by khairi rumantati in translating the alice‟s adventures in wonderland. in this research, the researcher used eighteen translation techniques proposed by mollina and albir in analysing them. out of eighteen translation techniques proposed by mollina and albir, the researcher found that sri haryanto just applied fifteen of them in translating 413 cuture-specific items in alice‟s adventures in wonderland novel into the target language. the results of translation techniques applying classifications are: 30 data were translated using adaptation (7.21%), 17 data were translated using amplification (5.05%), 59 data were translated using borrowing (14.18%), 13 data were translated using calque (3.13%), one data were translated using compensation (0.24%), 3 data were translated using description (0.72%), 15 data were translated using discursive creation (3.61%), 211 data were translated using established equivalent (50.72%), 13 data were translated using generalization (3.13%), 7 data were translated using literal translation (1.68%), 7 data were translated using modulation (1.68%), 2 data were translated using particularization (0.48%), 21 data were translated using reduction (5.05%), 2 data were translated using transposition (0.48%), and one data were translated using variation (0.24%), 13 data were deleted (3.13%).the researcher found that m. intan permatahati & m. ikhwan rosyidi / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 119 the most used translation technique in translating culture-specific items in the 2007 indonesian translation of alice‟s adventures in wonderland; alice in wonderland is the established equivalent technique. result and discussion the research result showed that the translation technique that was mostly used by sri haryanto in translating culturespecific items in alice‟s adventures in wonderland into the target language was established equivalent technique with 211 (50,72%) of applying. while the most infrequently used were compensation and variation with one (0.24%) applying for each. in this research, material culture is the highest number of culture-specific itmes category with 34.14% and established equivalent translation technique is the most frequently used to translate the culture-specific items with 50,72%. established equivalence got the first position and became the most frequent translation technique to translate alice‟s adventures in wonderland novel. established equivalence occurs when the translator adapting the text to the target language syntactic rules, with minimal adjustments, so that it sounds both correct and idiomatic. the researcher found 211 (50.72%) in 2007 version of alice‟s adventures in wonderland, petualangan di dunia ajaib dan dunia di balik cermin by sri haryanto. the highest number was from ecology category. there were 73 out of 211 culture specific items, eleven from flora, fourty from fauna, eleven from plains, eight from geography, two from geology and one from winds. the second number was from material culture category. fifteen from food, eleven from clothes, twenty three from artifacts, and fifteen from houses and three from places sub-category. from social category, there were 15 culture specific items that translated using established equivalence. nine from education and 5 from occupation sub-category. ten out of 211 were from organization. there were one from customs, two from religious, and seven from institutional terms. 33 out of 211 were from gestures and habits category, 26 from gestures and the rest were from habits. proper name also translated using established equivalence technique. there were eleven from proper name. readability level in this research, the researcher used readability rating sheet to measure the readability level of the translated culture-specific items in the 2007 indonesian translation of alice‟s adventures in wonderland. the readability rating sheet was filled by 20 respondents after reading alice in wonderland. they were from high school. there were three indicators or more recisely the regulations of the readability rating sheet. if it was not difficult to understand the translated culture-specific items in alice in wonderland, they shoud give score 3 or give a sign of check in the column of number 3. if there was a little difficult to understand the translated culture-specific items in alice in wonderland, they shoud give score 2 or give a sign of check in the column of number 2. it meant that they did not really understand them. while if it was difficult to understand the translated culture-specific items in alice in wonderland, they should give score 1 or give a sign of check in the column of number 1 which meant that they did not understand at all. all of the respondents of in this research were asked to rate the translated culture-specific items in alice in wonderland. based on the readability rating sheet calculation result, the readability score of each culturespecific item category can be concluded as follows: ecology culture-specific item category got 1529 on high readability, 448 on the middle readability, and 243 on the low readability with 115 culturespecific items. by comparison, the material culture got 1837 on high readability, 615 on the middle readability and 368 on low readability with 141 culture-specific items. furthermore, the third m. intan permatahati & m. ikhwan rosyidi / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 120 category used in this study, the social culture got 411 on high readability, 120 on middle readability and 89 on low readability with 31 culture-specific items. the next category, the organization got 259 on high readability, 104 on middle readability, and 57 on low readability with 21 culture-specific items. the fifth category in this study, the gestures and habits got 604 on high readability, 210 on middle readability, and 106 on low readability with 49 culture-specific items. the last category, the proper name got 513 on high readability, 247 on middle readability, and 240 on low readability with 56 culture-specific items. the complete results can be seen in appendix 3. based on the research result above, each culture-specific items category got different readability level. it can be concluded that the culture-specific items in the 2007 indonesian translation of alice‟s adventures in wonderland, alice di negeri ajaib, overall was readable. relation among culture-specific items, translation techniques, and readability based on the connection among culture-specific items, translation techniques and readability analysis, the researcher found that every culture-specific items category required different translation technique. from the analysis, it can be found that established equivalent is more dominant and suitable in translating the items from ecology category, especially in fauna-sub category, and material culture category, especially in artifacts-sub category, there were also several word that the raters only gave one score. for example, the sentence in flora sub-category, “did you say „pig‟ or „fig‟?”. the word pig and fig were almost the same when we heard it, but it had different meaning and sri haryanto only translated the word pig and fig into bahasa. so the raters did not understand, thirteen person gave one score, five students gave two score and two students gave three scores. from this result, it can be concluded that using literal translation for the words “pig and fig” were not suitable and it was not readable. using established equivalence to translate institutional terms sub-category was suitable. the readers rated high readability for the institutional terms that translated using established equvalence. another research finding showed that using adaptation technique to translate health was very suitable. the raters gave high readability rating for this. three out of 4 borrowing technique were used to translate education sub-category used in translating the culture specific items from this category. there were 56 culture specific items categorized as proper name. 30 out of 56 were translated using borrowing technique. the translator used borrowing technique in translating the csi from this category, since it mostly consists of name of the characters. from the explanation above, it can be summarized that the readability of culture specific items in the 2007 indonesian translation of alice‟s adventures in wonderland, alice di negeri ajaib was measured by using readability rating sheet with total score 5153 on high readability, score 1744 on medium readability and score 1103 on low readability. based on the score, it can be inferred that the culture specific items in the 2007 indonesian translation of alice‟s adventures in wonderland, alice di negeri ajaib overall was readable. moreover, from the research results, it can be inferred that each subcategory also had its own translation technique suitability. conclusions based on the result of the research analysis, the researcher found 413 cultural-specific items from the alice’s adventures in wonderland novel which were classified into six categories. those item were translated eighteen translation techniques proposed by mollina and albir. the reseracher found that sri haryanto applied fifteen of them in translating those cuture-specific items into the m. intan permatahati & m. ikhwan rosyidi / journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 121 target language. the the mostly used translation technique in translating culture-specific items in the 2007 indonesian translation of alice’s adventures in wonderland; alice in wonderland is the established equivalent technique. based on those research result and analysis, the material culture category got the highest frequency with 141 out of 413 items while the lowest frequency was from organization with 21 out of 413 items. based on the research result, the culture-specific items in the 2007 indonesian translation of alice’s adventures in wonderland, alice di negeri ajaib got a high readability score, 5153 on high readability, score 1744 on medium readability and score 1103 on low readability. it can be concluded that those items were quite readable. references baker, m. (1992) in other words: a coursebook on translation. london and new york: routledege. cambridge electronic dictionary. 2008. version 3.0. cambridge university press. carroll, lewis. 1865. petualangan di negeri ajaib dan dunia di balik cermin. new york: tom doherty associates, and its translation by windy a. 2007. alice‟s adventures in wonderland. yogyakarta: penerbit narasi. carroll, lewis. 1988. alice‟s adventures in wonderland. new york: tom doherty associates. dira, ni kadek ayu tedja sari. 2013. directive illocutionary acts used by main characters in alice in wonderland movie script. espindola, e. &vasconcellos, l. m. 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[accessed 16/6/2015] newmark, p. 1988. a textbook of translation. new york: new york and prentice hall. nida, e. a. and taber, cr 2003. the theory and practice of translation. leiden: koninklijke brill nv, leiden, the netherlands. yifeng, sun. 2012. translation and strategies for cross cultural communication. chinese translators journal, 33(1):16–23. microsoft word 7. 47 the analysis of teacher talk and the characteristic of classroom interaction in english for young learner nurul khusnaini  english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 13 august 2019 approved in 29 november 2019 published in 30 november 2019 ________________ keywords: teacher talk; classroom interaction; flanders interaction analysis categories ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this study was aimed to find out the type of teacher talk and the characteristic of classroom interaction take place in the english language classroom of semarang multinational school.this study applied descriptive qualitative research. there were two activities in gathering the data of this study: observation and audio recording. in analyzing this study, the researcher used interactive theory proposed by flander (1989). the findings showed that based on flanders interaction analisys categories (fiav), the teacher indirectly influenced the students in teaching and learning process by relying hard on asking questions. besides asking questions to students, teacher also used (1) accepting students’ feeling, (2) praising or encouraging students, and (3) accepting or even using students’ ideas. in addition the pattern of content cross interaction tended to be more on asking questions than lecturing behavior. it indicated that teacher often relied on asking questions to students in the teaching and learning process rather than to introduce new learning material and help conveying information to students. in conclusion, the teacher indirectly influenced the students in the teaching and learning process. this kind of interaction indicated that teacher often relied on asking rather than lecturing the students. © 2019 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b8 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: e.teacher.ichsan@gmail.com elt forum 8 (2) (2019) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt nurul khusnaini / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 48 introduction there is no learning without teaching. so as a tool of implementing teaching plans and achieving teaching goals, teacher talk plays an important role in classroom activities. some researchers have discussed the relationship between teacher talk and language learning. nunan (1991) stated: "teacher talk is one of important aspect not only for the organization of the classroom but also for the processes of the acquisition." teacher talk is undeniably essential feature in relation to classroom interaction. gebhard (2006, p.81) stated that in english as a foreign language classroom, teacher talk is an important input for the students there has been a growing number of attention in regards to classroom interaction which involve teacher and students. brown (2006) notes that, “interaction is the collaborative exchange of thoughts, feelings, or ideas between two or more people, resulting in reciprocal effect on each other” (p.165). rivers (brown, 2000, p.65) previously states that through classroom interaction, students could enhance their language ability since they are exposed to teacher’s explanation or authentic materials teacher provides, group discussion, etc and students also has chances to practice the language that they possess. some studies about teacher talk and classroom interaction have conducted to overcome the problem. yanfen and yuqin (2010, p.77) denotes that appropriate teacher talk could create positive atmosphere in the classroom and make friendly relationship between teacher and student. many interactive strategies also appear in teacher talk to make more interaction with the students. they include repetition, prompting, prodding, and expansions, according to yanfen and yuqin (2010). inamullah (2005) wanted to explore patterns of classroom interaction at secondary and tertiary levels in the northwest frontier province of pakistan using flanders interaction analysis system. she found that it would be better to stimulate teachers to improve their teaching behavior to maximize students learning. in addition, by using flanders interaction analysis categories, li, shouhui, & xinyin (2011) found that the management of the english classroom and atmosphere during the teaching-learning process depended on the activities which are done by the teachers so that the students who were getting bored would become interested in participating in the class. dagarin (2015) based on fiac she stated that teachers could do a lot of things to make the students more interest in classroom activities. the classroom interaction could be more effective if a variety of teacher and student talk was applied in the classroom. all of the researchers above discussed the teacher talk and classroom interaction. almost all studies conducted their research at junior high school, few of those studies conducted a study at elementary school, there is a study from li, shouhui, & xinyin (2011), however, they focused in the implementation of fiac during classroom activities. therefore, the writer will try to analyze the teacher talk type and the characteristics of classroom interaction take place during classroom activities. problems investigated in this research are (1) what type of teacher talk take place in the english language classroom? (2) what is the characteristic of classroom interaction that occurs in classroom activities? objectives of this study are (1) to find out the type of teacher talk take that goes on english language classroom of semarang multinational school, (2) to find out the characteristic of classroom interaction that occurs in classroom activities. methods this study focuses on the teacher talk and classroom interaction during teaching and learning activities in the classroom. thus, the object of this study was teacher talk and classroom interaction during teaching and learning activitiess. especially all teachers from grade 1 until grade 6 in elementary school level of semarang multinational school. this research used qualitative method with descriptive research type. the rresearcher wants to describe the phenomenon in accordance with actual circumstances, the object of this research is an object that is natural and does not change either before the researchers enter the object or when the researcher is in the object or after the researcher is out of the object. “qualitative method is a research method used to examine the condition of natural objects, where researcher as a key instrument, techniques data analysis in qualitative research conducted in triangulation (joint), inductive analysis, and qualitative research results more emphasis on the meaning of the generalization” (sugiyono, 2013, p. 1). descriptive research describes what it is which involves description, recording, analysis, and interpretation of conditions that exist. it involves some types of comparison or contrast and attempts nurul khusnaini / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 49 to discover relationships between exiting non manipulated variables (best, 1981, p. 25). the purpose of descriptive research is to describe the facts and characteristics of the object or subject studied systematically the data used in this study are qualitative data. this research requires some data to be analyzed. there are observation and audio recording. observation is a person's ability to observe using the five senses of the eye and assisted with other senses (bungin, 2011). according to nurkancana (1986), observation is a method used to do direct and systematic research in which the data obtained in the study are recorded in the observational note. recording activity is an observation activity. sanafi faisal (1990) as cited by sugiyono (2008, p. 227), classify the observations into three that are participant observation, overt or covert observation, and unstructured observation. in collected the data, the researcher used overt observation. researcher said honestly to the data source that she would conduct the research, but the researcher did not involve with the activities carried out by the data sources (only as observers). the researcher observed how the ability of teacher talk in classroom activities. before doing an observation, the researcher would use guideline which is made by the researcher based on ‘flanders' interaction analysis category'. another tool for collecting the data in this research was an audio recording. according to etsu human research protection program (2017, p. 1) audio recording, video video recording, and digital recordings (avd) of research participants are considered identifiable data as they include images and/or voices of research participants. in addition to analyze the recording for this research study, the researcher needed to ask permission to the participants whether they willing to be recorded or not. after the researcher asks their permission, the participants agreed to be recorded. this method was used to investigate the characteristic of classroom interaction which happens in class. a cell phone would place during the class. it would record how the class takes place, the teacher and students interaction, and the teacher talk itself, this audio which would be analyzed by coding, pairing and put the data code in the calculation matrix. findings and discussion this phase explains the result of the study. it consists of two sub-chapters. they are findings and discussion of the findings. findings present the result of the observation and audio coding from elementary teachers and their students at semarang multinational school in the chapter of the detail explanation regarding the types of teacher talk and the characteristic of classroom interaction take place during the class and the perception of the students about their teacher talk in teaching english for young learners. moreover, the findings will discuss in the discussion of the findings. the type of teacher talk teacher talk was considered one of the essential features in classroom interaction. in this section, the result of the observations is elaborated. indirect influence in the type of indirect influence, there were four categories of teacher talk. they were accepting the feeling, praising or encouraging students, accepting and using students ideas, and the last asking questions. table 1. accepting feeling observation result no name indirect influence yes/no yes/no 1 k accepting/deals with feeling yes yes 2 r accepting/deals with feeling yes yes 3 p accepting/deals with feeling yes yes 4 l accepting/deals with feeling yes yes 5 y accepting/deals with feeling yes yes 6 j accepting/deals with feeling yes yes table 1 presents accepting or deals with feeling result. from the observation for two meetings of teaching and learning process in every class with the same teacher, it was found that almost all of teacher use their influence in accepting the students. this behavior was reflected from the teacher's action when they trid to make sure the condition of the students and also when they helped the nurul khusnaini / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 50 students in remembering the previous material before the lesson begins. in that situation, the teacher tried to build an interaction with students first. table 2. praises and encouragement observation result no name indirect influence yes/no yes/no 1 k praises and uses ideas of students yes yes 2 r praises and uses ideas of students yes yes 3 p praises and uses ideas of students yes yes 4 l praises and uses ideas of students yes yes 5 y praises and uses ideas of students yes yes 6 j praises and uses ideas of students yes yes table 2 presents praises and encouragement result. praises and encouragement appeared almost in every activity, almost 100% all of the teacher used this influence to make the students feel happy or proud of their work. the teacher praised or encouraged students often by repeating students' answers and giving words of praises, for example, "well done", "good job", "nice", and so on. besides giving praises and encouragement, the teacher sometimes accepted students' ideas or even used their ideas or their answer. some teachers used the student's ideas to build a new material like making a new sentence, phrase, and more. this kind of behavior was reflected by the teacher's elaboration, clarification, modification, and summary of students' responses (answers or ideas) to the teacher talk. table 3. asking question observation result no name indirect influence yes/no yes/no 1 k asking question yes yes 2 r asking question yes yes 3 p asking question yes yes 4 l asking question yes yes 5 y asking question yes yes 6 j asking question yes yes table 3 presents asking question result. it showed the category of teacher's talk which dominated the indirect influence type was asking questions. the teacher often asked questions when they wanted to begin the lesson, introduced new learning material, starting a new topic, and stimulated student's knowledge about the lesson. direct influence direct influence included the behavior of lecturing or giving information, giving direction, criticizing student's behavior and also criticizing student's responses. table 4. lecturing observation result no name direct influence yes/no yes/no 1 k lecturing/gives information yes yes 2 r lecturing/gives information yes yes 3 p lecturing/gives information yes yes 4 l lecturing/gives information yes yes 5 y lecturing/gives information yes yes 6 j lecturing/gives information yes yes table 4 presents lecturing and giving information result. based on the result above from two meetings for each class, we could see that all the teacher use this point of direct influence in guiding the students during class activities. some of the teacher's lectures were follow-ups to the teacher's response to students' answers. besides, the teachers also used their explanation before they get down to the material. in other words, when students gave the right answers to the teacher's question, the nurul khusnaini / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 51 teacher often gave praises to the student's answer. after praising the students, the teacher continues to explain the material, by giving questions when explaining the material it wa expected that students would find it easier to understand the material given. table 5. giving directions observation result no name direct influence yes/no yes/no 1 k gives directions yes yes 2 r gives directions yes yes 3 p gives directions yes yes 4 l gives directions yes yes 5 y gives directions yes yes 6 j gives directions yes yes table 5 presents the result of giving direction. after the observation results were obtained, it could be seen that all of the teachers used this point in the category of teacher talk. the direction was often given if the teacher wanted students to make a project, work in a group, come to the front of the class, exercise individually, etc. table 6. criticizes student's behavior observation result no name direct influence first meeting second meeting 1 k critizes student’s behavior yes yes 2 r critizes student’s behavior yes yes 3 p critizes student’s behavior yes yes 4 l critizes student’s behavior yes yes 5 y critizes student’s behavior yes yes 6 j critizes student’s behavior yes yes table 6 presents criticizes student's behavior result. after the observation was done, the researcher finds the result above. it could be seen that all of the teachers of the elementary level of semarang multinational school use the influence in criticizes student's behavior. the teacher would like to comment on students' behavior and then acknowledge them what was right to be done so that students did not make any more mistakes. this was done to control the behavior of students in the class and also to maintain the classroom condition so that it stayed quiet during the learning process. table 7. critizes student's responses observation result table 7 presents the result of criticizes student's behavior. after the observation result was obtained, based on the table above, it can be seen that there is some teacher criticizes their student's responses, but some of them did not do that. some of the teacher criticized their student's responses like reminding the students if their responses were not appropriate, and also when the student wanted to interrupt his or her teacher in the middle of the teacher's explanation. however, some teachers just gave a sign to the students for silent than gave an unnecessary response. the teachers have done all of the indirect influence to gain student's attention and also to make the students more active during the class activities. in addition, the category of teacher's talk, which dominated the indirect influence was asking questions. the teacher often asked questions when they wanted to began the lesson, introduced new learning material, starting a new topic, and stimulated student's knowledge about the teaching. in line with research by li, shouhui, and xinyin no name direct influence first meeting second meeting 1 k critizes student’s responses yes yes 2 r critizes student’s responses no yes 3 p critizes student’s responses yes no 4 l critizes student’s responses yes yes 5 y critizes student’s responses yes yes 6 j critizes student’s responses no no nurul khusnaini / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 52 (2011), the teachers of english could determine how english is to be taught to young learners– learning english through activities in social contexts. meanwhile, the management and the atmosphere of the english classroom depend on the activities done by the teachers, so that the students who were especially getting bored, will become interested and pay attention to the learning activities. asking questions seemed to be the essential features in the teaching and learning process. by asking questions, teachers were considered successful in getting students' attention, involved students' interaction, conveyed the learning material, and introduced new content without direct explanation. this finding was consistent with the results of yanfen and yuqin (2010). yanfen and yuqin (2010) found that asking questions was the most common way used by the teacher to invite pupils to talk and it found a valid invitation. by giving questions, it is hoped that it would encourage students to participate more in class, expressing their ideas or opinions on the material, rather than just listening to the teacher explanation. besides, the implementation of direct influence, including the behavior of lecturing, giving direction, and criticizing and justifying authorities, most of the lecturing process were follow-ups the teacher's response to students' answers. in other words, when students give answers to the teacher's questions, the teacher tended to give praises to the right answers. after praising students, the teacher managed to start giving some explanations to students, so students can more easily understand the material provided. this finding is in line with jones (2000), he found that increasing student participation with teacher support made teaching activities more effective. by giving questions, the teacher can trigger students to speak and simultaneously reduce the delivery of material directly. another teacher's talk category is giving direction or instruction. the direction often given when the teacher wanted students to work in a group, come to the front of the class, exercise individually, etc. the teacher was also likely to criticize her students when students answered her question incorrectly. they also criticized students' unacceptable behavior, and also acknowledged them what was right, so that students did not make any more mistakes. this finding is in line with amatari (2015, p.47) he stated that teacher needs to experiment with one's behavior, obtaining objective information about one's behavior, evaluating the data in terms of the teacher's role, in other words, attaining self-insight while acting as a teacher. the characteristics of classroom interaction classroom interaction characteristic was defined by making use of the audio recording. the audio recording that had been transcribed was then coded based on the coding procedure of fiac. the coding procedure was followed by pairing the code and then put into the interaction matrix. from the interaction matrix, the researcher was able to define the character of the interaction in the classroom. from all two meetings, it was discovered that the interaction pattern was content cross according to flanders’ interaction analysis categories.the content cross pattern marked by many appearances in the columns 4-5 and rows 4-5. code four represents asking questions categories, while code 5 shows the lecturing behavior of the teacher. table 8. audio coding result 1st meeting grade categories teacher talk pupils talk 1 42,1% 21,05% 2 36,8% 31,6% 3 31,6% 21,05% 4 31,6% 26,3% 5 36,8% 26,3% 6 36,8% 26,3% table 8 shows the result of audio recording from meeting one including the audio recording result from grade one until grade six. the audio recording was coded based on flanders interaction analysis categories (fiac). it showed the result between the content cross and the students' participation percentage. it could be seen that the teacher talk was more dominant than the student's participation in the action of the teacher often asked questions before they explained or introduced the material to the student. nurul khusnaini / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 53 table 9. the result of audio coding 2nd meeting grade categories teacher talk pupils talk 1 47,3% 26,3% 2 36,8% 26,3% 3 42,1% 36,8% 4 42,1% 26,3% 5 36,8% 31,6% 6 36,8% 26,3% as shown in table 9, after the audio recording result of the second meeting was obtained, it shows some differences with the previous meeting result. it culd be seen that both teachers talk either student's participation increased during the second meeting, it had occurred when the teacher introduced new material, the teacher often gave questions and explanations which triggered students to respond to questions and explanations given. based on the result above, in the first meeting, the percentage of content cross reached the total number of 35,9% while it turned to be 40,31% in the second meeting for the hole class. this characteristic of interaction was affected by the context of language teacher use in the teaching and learning process. here there is an increase in the second meeting since the teachers tried to introduce new learning material to students. the second pattern that dominated the classroom interaction was students' participation, which was in the number of 25,4%. in the second meeting, the students' involvement in the classroom was increased by 28,9%. students' participation characteristic identified since students were encouraged by the teacher to participate in the class by answering the teacher's questions, presenting the material, and giving their ideas to the class. the finding of classroom interaction pattern was consistent with the previous studies conducted by dagarin (2015) and sharma (2016). dagarin (2015) and sharma (2016) uncovered that the content cross pattern in their research tended to be more on asking questions rather than lecturing. in this research, the researcher also found that the discovered of the content cross pattern fell more on asking questions rather than teaching. it showed that teacher often relied on asking questions to students in the teaching and learning process either to introduce new learning material and help convey information to students. yanfen and yuqin (2010) support that most teachers make more use of asking questions to student to attract students' attention and make students talk. conclusion based on the data analysis in the previous chapter, the researcher found out that the result of the research denotes that teacher talk type in the classroom interaction is indirect influence based on flanders' interaction analysis categories (fiac). data from observation result highly show that the teacher indirectly influences the students in teaching and learning process by relying hard on asking questions. besides asking questions to students, the teacher also made use of accepting students' feeling, praising or encouraging students, and accepting or even using students' ideas based on the observation done by the researcher. the type of teacher talk also leads to classroom interaction pattern. by making use both of the audio recordings either the interaction matrix, the researcher can identify the interaction pattern in the classroom. it found that the interaction pattern that occurred in the classroom was content cross, which was marked by the emergence of code 4 (asking question) and code 5 (lecturing). however, the content cross characteristic could be more on to one of the categories. in this research, it discovered that the pattern of content cross tended to be more on asking questions than lecturing behavior. it indicates that teacher exceptionally depends on asking questions. this result is consistent with the observation result that the teacher often asking questions either to familiarize the students with a new chapter of the lesson and also attract students' attention either make 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(2007). case study as research method. jurnal kemanusiaan, 9, 16. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 176 elt forum 6 (2) (2017) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt group grid and roundtable for teaching writing of descriptive text silvia urunami, dwi anggani linggar bharati, abdurrachman faridi  english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in october 2017 approved in november 2017 published in december 2017 ________________ keywords: writing, quasiexperimental research, group grid and round table. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this paper is based on a research aiming to describe the effectiveness of group grid and round table technique in teaching writing descriptive text. by using a quasi-experimental design, the research involves the tenth grade students of sma taruna nusantara magelang in the academic year of 2016/2017. in this case, the experimental group is x ia 12 and the control group is x ia 10. the result shows that the mean score of the experimental group increases from 69.15 to 79.34 after several treatments applying the strategy. the t-test computation reveals that there is a significant difference between the two groups. it is proven by the tvalue (2.844) which is higher than the ttable (1.998). in addition, a questionnaire is administered to know the effect of implementing the technique to the students. the analysis shows that 59.37% of the students agree that the implementation of the strategy assists their comprehension and 31.25% of them even strongly agree towards the statement. therefore, group grid and round table technique is proven an effective strategy in teaching writing descriptive text. © 2017 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: unnes_english@yahoo.com s. urunami & d. anggani linggar bharati & a. faridi/ journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 177 introduction writing is one of the ways of people to communicate to each other for expressing their thinking and feeling. writing is unnatural act like speaking. writing needs more efforts than speaking does. writing needs hard effort to dig and manage the ideas which are from the writer’s mind and pour it into written form effectively so it will be readable. so, writing is one of the four skills which is considered difficult to be mastered. according to paul (2003:96), “writing is generally as the most difficult of the four skills”. besides, richard and renandya (2010: 303) stated, writing can be said as the most difficult skill among the four skills; listening, speaking, reading, and writing. seow (in richards and renandya 2010:304) states that “writing consists of four basic stages; planning, drafting, revising, and editing. three other stages could be inserted after the drafting stage; these are responding, evaluating and post-writing.” it means that writing is not an instant activity, it cannot be acquired easily. hence, it needs hard effort to master it. to improve this skill students need to do a lot of practices by using some steps/ stages. furthermore, teacher needs hard effort to teach writing because it requires many aspects in order to make students master the writing skill. therefore, teaching writing is not an easy job to do. in indonesia, english is used as a foreign language. english is taught as a compulsory subject in junior and senior high schools which becomes one of the requirement subjects that stated in the national examination. the objective of teaching english is to enable students to communicate both orally and in written form. meanwhile teaching and learning english as a foreign language is not an easy thing to do. as a matter of fact, the process of teaching and learning are commonly still using traditional method such as lecturing so that the achievement of the students are still low. moreover, by applying the new curriculum of 2013 students have to think deeply to succeed in doing scientific approach. of course, in doing so they face a lot of problems. among the four skills, one of the problems is in writing problem. students are not able to produce the correct written product in every genre of text because they have to consider many aspects. the aspects are grammar, generic structure, and lexicogrammatical order. sometimes students also find difficulties with the sentence structure and how the sentences are linked together and sequences. based on my observation at sma taruna nusantara mangelang, i found out that the students are still confused to write many kinds of genre which they have to master. as we know each genre has different grammar, generic structure, and lexicogrammatical order. the students have to write according the type of genre, so it goes without saying that they have to memorize all of them. especially, in writing descriptive text, some students said it was one of the easiest texts, however they could not write it well and differentiate it from report text. they were confused to find a key word in each sentence. in addition, they were lack of vocabulary in a certain register. i can say that they felt difficult even to write descriptive text which they have got in junior high school. as the mastery of descriptive text is one of the final exam’s requirements, the problem of understanding this text needs to get extra attention. furthermore, it is clearly stated in the 2013 curriculum the students have to master writing skill of descrptive text. considering the importance of mastering writing skill to produce descriptive text, the teacher should improve the teaching of writing especially in teaching descriptive text. one of the ways to improve it is that the teacher can use an interesting and succesful method. the method is called cooperative learning method. cooperative learning is a teaching method that offers “principles and techniques for helping students work together more effectively” (jacobs, power, & loh, 2002, p. ix). in other words, cooperative learning is much more than just putting students together in groups and asking them to work together. instead, cooperative learning principles help us understand what is involved in helping groups succeed, and cooperative learning techniques embody those principles in an attempt to provide structure for student interaction (baloche, 1998, johnson & johnson, 1999). i s. urunami & d. anggani linggar bharati & a. faridi/ journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 178 also find many benefits based on the reasearch done by the experts, they promote student learning and academic achievement, increase student retention, enhance student satisfaction with their learning experience, help students develop skills in oral communication, develop student’s social skills, promote student self-esteem, and help to promote positive race relations. as kagan states in his book, there are so many techniques that can be used by teachers in teaching and learning process, especially in writing. two of them are group grid and round table techniques. in the study, i used the combination of those two techniques. first group grid, in applying this technique, students are divided into some groups. each group consists of four-five students. the teacher gives each group an envelope which consists of many pictures. the students are asked to clasify each picture into some categories in a limited time. then, both teacher and students discuss it together. the group that get many correct items will be given a reward from the teacher. second, round table tecnique, the students are divided into some groups. each group consists of four-five students. each person writes one idea for an issue or task and then passes their paper to the person on the right. the paper circulates around the entire group at least once. each time a person receives the paper, they should write a different task. then, whole class discussion should follow. therefore, all students will participate in teaching learning process. in teaching writing, based on harmer (2004:41) teachers have a number of important tasks to do when helping students to become better writer. the tasks which teachers have to do before, during, and after student writing are the following: 1. demonstrating teachers have to be able to explain the text specifically. teachers have to make the students know the layout of the text and language used in a certain text. 2. motivating and provoking the teachers help students to get the ideas when the students get stuck in writing. it is better if the teachers prepare amusing and engaging ways in teaching and learning process so can get the students’ involvement in writing task. for example, students can be asked to do the reassemble jumbled texts on the board. sometimes, teachers can give them the words to start writing. 3. supporting students need a lot of help and reassurance when they are writing, both with ideas and how to carry them out. teachers need to support the students when they are writing in class, always available for them, and prepare to help students overcome difficulties. 4. responding in order to respond students’ writing, the teachers may give comments or suggestion for its improvement. it is better to react to what they have said rather than filling their work full of correction symbols. 5. evaluating teachers indicate where students work well and where they made mistakes, and of course give award for them who work well. teachers should highlight the students’ error and try to put them right before handing back the marked scripts to the students. according to anderson and anderson (1997: 86), descriptive text is included in information reports, an information report usually contains facts about the subject, a description and information on its parts, behaviour, and qualities. “this kind of paragraph is used to describe a particular person, place, or thing.” (gerot and wignell, 1994: 208). they added the generic structure of descriptive text can be defined as identification and description. (a) identification: identifies phenomenon to be described. (b) description: describes parts, qualities, characteristics, etc. group grid and round table techniques used in this research were designed for teaching writing descriptive text. therefore, it is expected that group grid and roundtable are effective and s. urunami & d. anggani linggar bharati & a. faridi/ journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 179 efficient to learn the material, yet it has not been proved by any preliminary study. therefore, this research is aimed to describe the effectiveness of implementing the technique in teaching writing descriptive text through an experimental research entitled “the effectiveness of using group grid and roundtable for teaching students’ writing skill of descriptive text”. methodology of the research applying creswell preand post-test design, below is the design of this research. preand post-test design time select cg pre-test no treatment post-test select eg pre-test experimental treatment post-test this research was conducted at sma taruna nusantara magelang in academic year of 2016/2017. the population of this research was 392 tenth grade students of the school in the academic year. because there were some reasons, the researcher took purposive random sampling of two group. the two groups were x ia 9 and x ips 7. the experimental group was x ips 9; while, the control group was x ipa 7. there were two kinds of instruments used in this research. those are test and questionnaire. the test used was written test method. the researcher analyzed the data collected from both of the groups’ pre-test and post-test scores. before the test, the researcher checked the validity and reliability condition of the test. below was the procedure of analyzing the data; 1. analyzing try-out test; 2. analyzing pre-test and post test scores of both groups; 3. analyzing questionnaire. by calculating the validity and the reliability of the test instrument, the researcher analyzed the condition of the test. after analyzing the try-out test, the pre-test and post-test scores were analyzed, independently. the following were the procedures of analyzing the test scores; 1. scoring students’ works; 2. analyzing the normality of the test scores; 3. analyzing the homogeneity of the test scores; 4. analyzing the t-test of the test scores; 5. analyzing the paired-samples t-test of each group scores. nonetheless, in order to analyze the pre-test and post-test scores, the researcher used the spss 18.0. through the program, the normality, homogeneity, and t-test were analyzed. the significant difference between the two groups’ scores is accepted if the value of sig.(2-tailed) on the t-test is less than 0.05. in addition, the effectiveness is proven if the t value is more than the t table. thus, if the prerequisites are fulfilled, it is concluded that there is a significant difference between students who were taught by using group grid and round table and those who were taught by using group work brainstorming. in order to support the result of tests, students were given questionnaire in the end of the posttest. it was used to further describe the effect of group grid and round table for the experimental group. through the questionnaire, the researcher intended to analyze the responses of students towards the implementation of group grid and round table. the format of the questionnaire was likert-type items. they were ten question written in indonesian, it was supposed to gain students’ s. urunami & d. anggani linggar bharati & a. faridi/ journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 180 better understanding in fulfilling the questionnaire. thus, they could easily share their opinions. the likert-type items were completed with four likert scales. the four scales were strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree and strongly agree. each of the scales represented different scores; strongly disagree = 1, disagree = 2, agree = 3, and strongly agree = 4. next, the questionnaire was administered to describe the effect of implementing the technique towards the students. it supports the result of the test. in this case, the questionnaire was analyzed by calculating the mean scores of each test-item. result and discussion results of the test based on the try-out analysis, the test instrument was reliable and valid to be used. since the test given was based on the syllabus and the result of the try out test showed 0,81, for α = 5% with n = 32. the r-table = 0.344. since the result values (0,81) were higher than critical value (0.344), the instruments were reliable because it was supported with a clear rubric of scoring scale that used to guide assessors in marking the essay. due to the try-out analysis, the researcher was confident to use the written test for pre-test and post-test. the achievement of pre-test in the control group was 69.71 and the experimental group was 69.15. the test was aimed to investigate students’ initial level of ability to write descriptive texts. the distribution of test in both group was normal, because the value of asymp. sig.(2-tailed) of experimental group was 0.999 and control group was 0.300. those were higher than 0.05. meanwhile, the significance value was 0.295. the hypothesis was accepted if the significance value was more than 0.05. the pre-test scores of both groups were homogeneous; since the significance value was higher than 0.05. by using independent sample t-test in spss 18.0 program, the result showed that the students of both groups were initially in the same level of ability. it was proven by the value of sig.(2-tailed) which was 0.681. based on the results; hence, ha was accepted. therefore, the initial levels of both groups were equivalent. a satisfying result was achieved on post-test. the post-test was conducted to investigate students’ achievement after treatments were given. on one hand, the mean score of the experimental group was 79.34. on the other hand, the mean score of control groups was 77.40. both of the mean scores showed that both of the groups were enhanced after the treatments. the distribution test of both group was also normal. it was proven by the value of asymp. sig.(2-tailed) of experimental group was 0.688and control group was 0.522. in addition, the significance value showed 0.082 so that the homogeneity for both group was homogeneous. the independent sample t-test on the table also showed that there was a significant different between the post-test scores of both groups. it was proven by the result of sig.(2-tailed) which was 0.003 and 0.004. those were below than 0.05. thus, it could be concluded that there was a significant difference on both groups after the treatments. hence, the implementation of group grid and roundtable technique in teaching writing descriptive text resulted satisfying result to students’ achievements. in addition, the analysis of paired-sample t test showed that both of the groups were improved after the treatments. for control group improvements from pre-test up to post-test, the result showed that the mean scores difference was 7.68. in addition, the t-value was 5.873 and the sig.(2-tailed) was 0.000. ha was accepted since the value of sig.(2-tailed) was lower than. 0.05. thus, the scores of post-test was higher than the pre-test. for experimental group improvements from pre-test up to post-test, the result showed that the mean scores difference of the experimental group was 10.18. moreover, the t-value was 8.042 and the sig.(2-tailed) was 0.00. ha was accepted since the value of sig.(2-tailed) was lower than. 0.05. thus, there was improvement on the post-test after the treatment. finally, after completing the procedures of analyzing the result of test, it showed that there was a significant difference on tenth grade students of sma taruna nusantara magelang in the s. urunami & d. anggani linggar bharati & a. faridi/ journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 181 69.15 79.34 69.71 77.4 60 65 70 75 80 85 pre-testpost-test experimental group academic year 2016/2017 who were taught by using group grid and roundtable technique compared to those who were taught by using group work brainstorming. thus, the working hypothesis (ha) was accepted. in order to make the analysis to be more comprehensible, the comparison result of pre-test and post-test scores would be presented on this chart below: according to the chart, group grid and roundtable technique was proven to be an effective technique for teaching writing descriptive texts. by using the technique, tenth grade students of sma taruna nusantara magelang in the academic year 2016/2017 gained significant achievement in writing descriptive text. results of the questionnaire in order to investigate the effect of implementing the technique, several statements were provided in the questionnaire. the students had to give check mark () based on their degree of agreements. the test-items of the questionnaire were about: 1. interest in learning english; 2. interest in writing; 3. difficulty of writing descriptive text; 4. initial interest towards group grid and roundtable technique; 5. feeling easier after applying group grid and roundtable technique for writing descriptive texts; 6. interest towards group grid and roundtable techniques for writing descriptive texts; 7. feeling bored after applying group grid and roundtable techniques for writing descriptive texts; 8. effectiveness of applying group grid and roundtable techniques for writing descriptive texts; 9. motivation to write descriptive text after applying group grid and roundtable techniques; and 10. consideration of applying the technique for teaching writing other kinds of text in english. the following is the results of the questionnaire. t es t it em st ro n gl y d is a gr ee d is a gr ee a gr ee st ro n gl y a gr ee m ea n s. urunami & d. anggani linggar bharati & a. faridi/ journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 182 1 0 2 16 14 3.37 2 0 5 23 4 2.96 3 7 14 6 5 2.21 4 0 2 20 10 3.25 5 1 2 19 10 3.37 6 0 2 18 12 3.18 7 10 21 1 8 1.71 8 0 1 27 4 3.09 9 0 7 21 4 2.90 10 0 4 18 10 3.18 the result of the questionnaire showed that more than a half number to the total respondents like english (mean: 3.375), there were thirty of the respondents who like learning english. furthermore, twenty-three students of the total respondents also like to write in english. even so, many of them twenty-two (68.75%) students found difficulty in writing especially writing descriptive text in this case. at the beginning of the treatment, students were interested towards group grid and roundtable techniques for writing descriptive text (mean: 3.25). they recognized that the implementation of the technique for writing descriptive texts made them so happy and interesting (agree: 56.25% and strongly agree: 37.5%). after the treatments, twenty-five students were motivated to apply the technique. they argued that the strategy assisted them to write descriptive texts (mean: ). moreover, twenty-seven or 84.37% students of the total respondents agreed that it was effective to write descriptive text after applying group grid and roundtable technique. the last item, eighteen students agreed to apply group grid and roundtable technique in writing other kinds of text in english material (56.25%) and ten students were strongly agree to apply it (31.25%). finally, the result of questionnaire above further elaborated how group grid and roundtable technique gave effects on tenth grade students of sma taruna nusantara magelang in the academic year 2016/2017 in teaching writing descriptive such as students get more happy and interested in following the material, they also feel easier in writing descriptive text, and they thought the techniques can be applied in other material, especially in writing a text. conclusions the first objective of conducting the research was to describe the significant difference between tenth grade students of sma taruna nusantara magelang in the academic year 2016/2017 who were taught by using group grid and roundtable technique and those who were taught by using group work brainstorming. by determining the significant difference, the effectiveness of group grid and roundtable technique could be proven. the research findings from pre-test and post-test mean scores of experimental group showed that it statistically increased from 75.81 to 82.68. meanwhile, the scores of control group only increased from 76.34 to 79.18. the data were analyzed by using independent sample t-test. the mean scores comparison of both groups in posttest proved that the working hypothesis (ha) was accepted. the analysis showed that the value of s. urunami & d. anggani linggar bharati & a. faridi/ journal of english language teaching 6 (2) (2017) 183 sig.(2-tailed) (0.03) was less than the value of α = 5% = 0.05. in addition, the data were also investigated by using paired-sample t-test. the analysis showed that both of the groups improved after the treatments. however, the mean scores differences indicated that the experimental group (6.87) improved better than the control group (2.84). through the mean scores differences, the tvalue of the experimental group was 4.785. meanwhile, the t-value of the control group was 1.858. based on the results, it can be concluded that there was a significant difference between the two groups, after being given several treatments. thus, the analysis of significant difference revealed that group grid and round table technique was effective in teaching writing descriptive texts for the subjects of this research. the second objective, in order to describe further about how the strategy effects on the objects, the researcher gave a questionnaire. the questionnaire was used to recognize the responses of students towards the implementation of group grid and round table technique. the questionnaire with likert-type items was delivered to fill in. the analysis showed that 59.37% of the students agreed that the implementation of the strategy assisted them to write descriptive texts. in addition, 31.25% of them even strongly agreed towards the statement. references anderson, m. and anderson, k. 1997. text types in english. south yarra: macmillan education australia pty ltd. baloche, l. (1998). the cooperative classroom: empowering learning. upper saddle river, nj: prentice hall. creswell, john w. 2012. educational research: planning, conducting and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research. boston: pearson. harmer, j. 2004.how to teach writing. new york: longman group. ltd. jacobs, g. m., power, m. a., & loh, w. i. (2002). the teacher's sourcebook for cooperative learning: practical techniques, basic principles, and frequently asked questions. thousand oaks, ca: corwin press. johnson, d. w., & johnson, r. t. (1999). learning together and alone: cooperative, competitive and individualistic learning (5th ed.). boston: allyn & bacon kagan, s. 1994. cooperative learning. san clemente, ca: kagan publishing. online. available at www.kaganonline.com. [accessed on 12/03/2016] paul, david. 2003. teaching english to children in asia. hong kong: longman asia elt. richard, jack c and renandya, willy a. 2010. methodology in language teaching. cambridge: cambridge university press. microsoft word 1. muhammad ichsan andi wahyono 1 students’ translation techniques and grammatical errors in translating narrative text muhammad ichsan andi wahyono, issy yuliasri  english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 25 july 2018 approved in 29 july 2019 published in 29 july 2019 ________________ keywords: translation; translation techniques; students’ translation; grammar; grammatical errors; narrative text.____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this research attempted to find out the translation techniques and grammatical errors in students’ indonesian-english text translation. the objectives of this research were to describe the choice of translation techniques and grammatical errors of the students’ translation of a narrative text. this research used descriptive qualitative method. the translation techniques analysis was done by using molina and albir's (2002) classification of translation techniques while grammatical errors of the students’ translation were analyzed using the guide for correcting writing errors by betty azar (1941). the translation technique analysis was done by comparing the students’ translation work with the source text of a narrative entitled lari kepagian then grammatical errors analysis was done to find out their errors in the use of grammatical rules. the result of the study found that there were 3012 data of translation techniques and 429 grammatical errors. the data showed that the most used translation techniques were literal translation technique (30.1%) and modulation technique (22.6%) and the most grammatical errors made was capitalization (18.2%) and verb tense (16.6%). the most used translation technique that resulted in most grammatical errors was modulation technique (17%) in the translation done by 24 students. © 2019 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b8 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: e.teacher.ichsan@gmail.com elt forum 8 (1) (2019) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt muhammad ichsan andi wahyono & issy yuliasri / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 2 introduction translating is not only translating text from source language to target language. it is also not out of translator’s skill to divert meaning and its aesthetic elements-including in this case is the style of language. as stated by nida and taber (1982: 12) that there are two processes in translation. the processes are to reproduce both message and style equivalence from the source language. however, translation in terms of style is something complicated. nababan (2008: 59) states that the stylistic complexity is one of the factors causing the difficulty. to produce a good translation, the translator has to know almost perfectly the language translate from, and above all, the language to be translated into. there has to be no mystery for the translator in the original text, has to understand every nuance. otherwise, he will lose pieces of information. in other words, translation is not merely the transfer of words in l1 into those l2 or vice versa. most translators used to do equivalence rather than did any theoretical status. translating from source language to target language is determining the most appropriate equivalence in the target language. baker (1992) proposes that equivalence of translating source language into the target language often face difficulties for the translator. she divides the equivalence into six levels; they are equivalence at the word level, equivalence above word level, grammatical equivalence, textual equivalence, and pragmatic equivalence. as stated by molina and albir (2002), in order to classify the equivalencies, translation techniques can be used as the tool to analyze and classify the translation equivalence. in addition, the use of translation techniques will help in-depth translators determine the form and structure of words, phrases, clauses, and sentences of translation. in order to translate a text properly, a translator requires certain skills in translation or often referred to as translation competence. process of acquisition of translation competence and evaluation (pacte) (2011) states that the translation competence consists of several subcompetencies, namely: bilingual competence, extra linguistic competence, translation knowledge competence, instrumental competence, strategic competence, & psycho-physiological competence. the bilingual competence to use two languages well is very much determined by the communicative competencies they have, which include grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence, strategic competence (bell, 1991: 41). grammatical competence is knowledge of language rules which refers to the vocabulary, word formation, pronunciation and sentence structure. knowledge of grammatical rules and skill of using translation techniques are very much needed in understanding and producing translation. however, foreign language learners often make errors in the use of english grammatical structure. due to first language grammatical structure interference, indonesian students tend to produce the grammatical errors in almost all of english grammatical aspects. based on richards (1971: 182-88), there are many categories of grammatical errors. the grammatical error classification proposed by betty s. azar (1942) in a guide of guide for correcting writing errors are singular-plural, word form, word choice, verb tense, add a word, omit a word, word order, incomplete sentences, spelling, punctuation, capitalization, article, meaning not clear, & run-on sentence. this study was done to answer the following questions: (1) what translation techniques are used by students in translating narrative text? (2) what kinds of grammatical errors are made by students in translating narrative text? (3) which translation technique does cause most grammatical error? muhammad ichsan andi wahyono & issy yuliasri / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 3 methods this research was a case study which investigated the students’ translation work. this study focused on students’ translation techniques and their grammatical errors. this research used descriptive qualitative method, using a content analysis approach. the data were collected by assessing students to translate a narrative text, which were around 3 pages. in order to collect students’ translation work, contacting the lecturer was chosen to ask their permission to conduct the research of collecting data from indonesian – english translation class of english department of universitas negeri semarang. there were twenty four students. for the execution, first, the indonesian short story entitled "lari kepagian" was given to the students. after the text was given, they were asked to read the text carefully and asked to translate the text into english. after their translation result was collected, then analyzing their translation results was started in a lot of varieties of translation techniques proposed by molina and albir (2002) they used and occurred grammatical errors proposed by betty azar (1992). then, the students' translation works were classified to represent the general findings because it was impossible to presents all of the translation techniques and grammatical errors were founded. the translation technique analysis was conducted by using a translation technique proposed by molina and albir (2002). there are adaptation, amplification, borrowing, calque, compensation, description, discursive creation, established equivalent, generalization, literal translation, modulation, particularization, reduction, substitution, transposition, and variation. the grammatical error analysis was conducted using a guide of guide for correcting writing errors proposed by betty azar (1941). there are singular-plural, word form, word choice, verb tense, add a word, omit a word, word order, incomplete sentences, spelling, punctuation, capitalization, article, meaning not clear, & run-on sentence. findings and discussion the data analyzed in this study were the translation techniques and grammatical errors found in the translated short story written by the fifth semester of english education program in indonesianenglish translation class of english department 2017/2018 which had taken a part of their learning experience in translating text from indonesian into english. there were 24 students had made their own translation by their self as the subjects of the research. after the data were identified, it was found that the majority of the subjects made errors in the use of grammar (subject, verb, tenses and pronoun) in their letters. the names of the applicants were pseudonyms. below are the examples of the errors analysis of motivation letters. this part shows the result of data analysis, which is expected to be the answer to problems in this research. this analysis will answer the question of types of translation techniques and grammatical errors aspects which are occurred in indonesian-english class of english department 2017/2018. the number of translation techniques founded can be shown in the table below: table 1. translation techniques used technique % literal translation 30 modulation 22.6 reduction 10.9 established equivalent 8.4 borrowing 6.7 linguistic amplification 5.7 amplification 4.3 muhammad ichsan andi wahyono & issy yuliasri / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 4 adaptation 3.8 linguistic compression 2.7 transposition 2.3 compensation 1.4 particularization/ generalization 1.3 the table 1 above was the result of the counting the number of all the translation techniques analyzed that was founded. the most used translation technique by the students is literal translation technique (30%), followed by modulation technique (22.6%) and the others. the lowest used translation technique is particular/generalization technique (1.3%). table 2. grammatical errors occurred grammatical error % capitalization 18.2 verb tense 16.6 punctuation 11.4 word form 11.2 spelling 8.6 word choice 8.2 add/omit a word 7.5 article 5.4 word order 4.9 meaning not clear 2.6 singular plural 2.4 incomplete sentence 2.1 run-on sentence 1.2 the table 1 above was the result of the counting the number of all the grammatical errors analysis that was founded. the most used translation technique by the students is capitalization error (18.2%), followed by verb tense error (16.6%) and the others. the lowest occurred grammatical error is run on-sentence (1.2%). the combination of the translation techniques and students’ grammatical errors might not be simple or so easy correlated. therefore, the fact was one of translation technique could have many counts of grammatical errors more than its translation technique count. in other words, one translation technique could have many grammatical errors. the followings are the detailed description of each translation technique found in the students translation. the detailed description is also provided with some examples. literal translation according to molina and albir’s (2002), the literal translation is a technique that the translator translates a word or an expression in sl by word for word. there were 905 times or about 30.05% of literal translation was found in analyzing the translation technique. an example of the literal translation data is presented below: muhammad ichsan andi wahyono & issy yuliasri / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 5 (1.) student number 4, datum number 101 st : ia berlari pagi saat orang-orang masih tertidur lelap. tt : he ran early while the people were still slept soundly. reconstruction : he ran early when the people still slept soundly. the sentence in st above was translated using the word by word techniques into tt. the translator translates the sentence ‘ia berlari pagi saat orang-orang masih tertidur lelap.’ (he was running in the morning while people was still sleeping) into ‘he ran early while the people were still slept soundly.’ by literal translation technique. the one should be emphasized by an explanation was ‘tertidur’ that was being got asleep by something or someone translated as ‘sleep’ passively which was ‘slept’ & ‘were’ to adjust the source text grammar into target text grammar, so the translation became ’the people still slept’. it still belonged to literal translation because the source text was directly translated word by word. this translation was in one way with the explanation of literal translation by molina and albir (2002). the grammatical use of both phrases in the simple past tense and the simple past tense in the passive form were considered that the translator must use ‘when’ since both the 2 clauses are in the simple past form & the function of the ‘while” as the time reference. the sentence should be “he ran early when the people were still asleep soundly.” modulation modulation is a technique that is the change a point of view, focus or cognitive category of the translator; it can be lexical or structural (molina and albir, 2002). the researchers finds out there are 679 times or about 22.54% of modulation in analyzing the translation technique. the following data are some examples of modulation. capitalization is the most frequent errors made by the students fifth semester of english department with the percentage 19.18% in the modulation technique. and meaning not clear, word order, and spelling is the least frequent error made by the students with a percentage of 2.74%%. the change of focus, the point of view, & cognitive categorization in modulation technique was found in some samples below: for the first mention by the researcher, i would like to mention is the modulation which is the change of focus. the students from the translation class change the source text main focus into the other focus on the target text such as below: (2.) student number 2, datum number 39 st : bayangan itu berjalan menuju ke arahnya! (the shadow walks toward him) tt : the shadow approached him close and close! reconstruction : the shadow approached him closely and closely! (3.) student number 5, datum number 61 st : “ooh, jadi kamu yang meleparku yaa?” ujar nenek ranta. tt : "ooh. so you're the one who threw the pebble at me, aren't you?" said grandma ranta. reconstruction : "ooh. so you're someone who threw the pebble over me, aren't you?" said grandma ranta. in sample 7, the phrase ‘berjalan menuju ke arahnya’ (‘walked into her’) is translated into ‘approached him close and close’ and in sample 8,the phrase ‘jadi kamu yang meleparku’(ooh, so you throw me, don’t you? said granny ranta.) is translated into ‘the one who threw the pebble at me’. although the meaning of the translation will be affected with shifting a little bit in a different way, the manner of both phrase use is still enough appropriate with the target language. therefore, the muhammad ichsan andi wahyono & issy yuliasri / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 6 translator changed the focus of the source text becomes ‘approached him close and close’. this translation is in accordance with the definition of modulation by molina and albir (2002) that changes the focus in translation. reduction the next technique used is reduction, which occurs 13 times. in this translation technique, the information item in the tl is compressed by the translator (molina and albir, 2002). the translator omits word(s) or phrase because probably he thinks it is not important. the researcher finds out there are 328 times or about 10.89% of reduction in analyzing the translation technique. word choice is the most frequent errors made by the students fifth semester of english department with the percentage 25% in the reduction technique. an example of the reduction technique data presented below: (4.) student numbers 1, datum number 39 st : bayangan itu berjalan menuju ke arahnya! tt : the shadow walked to him. reconstruction : the shadow walked into him! in the sample above, the word ‘menuju’(‘aim’) is not translated into the target language. the translator omitted the word because the meaning is still conveyed in the target language. the translation above does have some grammatical error. it can found in the particle of phrase ‘walked to’. the students might think that s/he is possible to use the particle ‘to’ in the ‘the shadow walked to him.’ then, some grammatical errors were founded. they are punctuation and word choice. the particle of ‘walked’ should be ‘into’ and the punctuation of the end sentence should be ‘!’ as the emphasizing of the source text message story. established equivalent according to molina and albir (2002), in established equivalent translator uses a familiar term or expression (according to dictionaries or language in daily use) as an equivalent in the tl. the researcher finds out there are 254 times or about 8.43% of established equivalent in analyzing the translation technique. here are several established equivalent used. word form, word choice, & verb tense are the most frequent errors made by the students fifth semester of english department with the percentage 13.79% in the established equivalent technique. spelling and word order are the least frequent error made by the students with the percentage 3.45%. an example of the established equivalent technique data can be shown below: (5.) student number 6, datum number 35 st : tapi seorang diri di kebun yang gelap begini, siapa tahaan? tt : but if he had to be alone in the dark garden, who braved? reconstruction : but if he was alone in the dark garden, who braved? the student of the translation sample above chose to translate the phrase ‘siapa tahan’(who can stand it?) into ‘who braved’ by establishing the equivalent. the student might thought that the ‘who braved’ was common used as the target language meaning transfer, so the reader could understand s/he translation. then, it might be reconstructed as the right grammatical translation in the correct grammatical form. the reconstruction is ‘but if he was alone in the dark garden, who braved?’ muhammad ichsan andi wahyono & issy yuliasri / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 7 borrowing according to molina and albir (2002), borrowing is to take a word or expression directly from sl text. the borrowing can be pure or naturalized. if the translator uses pure borrowing, he takes the word exactly the same without any changes. the naturalized borrowing is adjusted the phonetic and morphology in tl. the researcher finds out there are 201 times or about 6.67% of borrowing in analyzing the translation technique. the following data are the examples of borrowing found. capitalization is the most frequent errors made by the students fifth semester of english department with the percentage 40.48% in the borrowing technique. and spelling is the least frequent error made by the students with the percentage 2.38%. in the analyzing the borrowing technique in the students’ translation, i found that some students translated some source text by directly translated it without changing the spelling of the word. then, the word that was translated by some students by borrowing is just ‘serabi’. they translate the word without change into another word or modify the word’s morpheme. then, a sample of data contained borrowing technique is below: (6.) student number 15, datum number 60 st : setiap pagi nenek ranta berjualan kue serabi di pertigaan jalan kampung. tt : every morning grandmother is selling “kue serabi” at a intersection in the village road. reconstruction : every morning grandmother was selling “kue serabi” at the intersection in the village road. there are some grammatical errors in the sentence ‘every morning grandmother is selling “kue serabi” at a intersection in the village road.’. they are verb tense and article. like the other students, this student translates the sour text into the target text in inappropriate tenses form. s/he might think that every tense in the narrative text can be present tense and the use of determiner and article is the same. then, the sentence should be reconstructed to be ‘every morning grandmother was selling “kue serabi” at the intersection in the village road.’ . the reason is as the narrative text as the target text, the context of the text should be using past tense, and for the determiner of the explained object should use determiner. linguistic amplification according to molina and albir (2002), linguistic amplification is adding linguistic elements in the tl. this technique is often used in consecutive interpreting and dubbing. the researcher finds out there are 170 times or about 5.64% of linguistic amplification in analyzing the translation technique. here are some examples of this technique found in this short story. verb tense is the most frequent errors made by the students fifth semester of english department with the percentage 20.83% in the linguistic amplification technique. and singular plural, article, and meaning not clear are the least frequent error made by the students with the percentage 4.17%. an example of the linguistic technique data can be shown as below: (7.) student number 12, datum number 5 st : berarti sudah pagi. tt : it meant morning was coming. reconstruction : it meant that the morning was coming. the student translated the phrase ‘berarti sudah pagi.’(‘means it was already morning’) was translated into ‘it meant morning was coming.’. the translation can be seen that the student was trying to give clarification from the source text by giving ‘coming’. the student added some muhammad ichsan andi wahyono & issy yuliasri / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 8 linguistic element to clarify the meaning from the sour text into the target text. the student tried to make the target text clear and understandable for the target text reader. s/he can add a clause conjunction and determiner in the target text as ‘it meant that the morning was coming.’. the reason is the use of the conjunction and the determiner can make the target text to be making sense. the function of determiner in this reconstruction is to refer a thing in general or to explain someone mean and ‘that’ as apart to introduce part of sentence. amplification according to molina and albir (2002), amplification is a technique that adds the detail information that does not exist in the sl text such as explicative paraphrasing. amplification is the opposite of reduction. the researcher finds out there are 129 times or about 4.28% of amplification in analyzing the translation technique. the following data are some examples of amplification. word form is the most frequent errors made by the students fifth semester of english department with the percentage 35.29% in the amplification technique. incomplete sentence is the least frequent error made by the students with the percentage 3.33%. an example of the amplification technique data can be shown as below: (8.) student number 4, datum number 25 st : rasa heran piyun muncul lagi. tt : piyu’s sense of wonder come up some more again. reconstruction : piyun’s sense of wonder came up some more again. the student of this sample translated the source text ‘rasa heran piyun muncul lagi.’ (it was a wonder piyun appeared again.) into ‘piyu’s sense of wonder come up some more.’ it was seemed using amplification techniques because the student translate the phrase ‘muncul lagi’ into ‘come up some more again’. s/he did paraphrase to clarify the meaning. then, the grammatical error should be solved to be ‘piyun’s sense of wonder came up some more again.’. the changes are in the verb tense of the target text and the spelling of the character name. adaptation adaptation is to replace the cultural element in sl text with another acceptable and familiar term in tl (molina and albir, 2002). the researcher finds out there are 114 times or about 3.78% of adaptation in analyzing the translation technique. the following are several example used of adaptation in the students’ translation. word form is the most frequent errors made by the students fifth semester of english department with the percentage 20.83% in the adaptation technique. an example of the adaptation data can be shown as below: (9.) student numbers 16, datum number 2 st : kukuruyuuuuuuk…..!! tt : cock a doodle doo……!!! reconstruction : cock-a-doodle-doo……!!! the onomatopoeia of chicken sound ‘kukuruyuuuuuuk…..!!’ in indonesian version translated into english version ‘cock a doodle doo……!!!’ it was belonged to adaptation technique according to the definition of amplification by molina and albir (2002). the translation above seems having one grammatical error in the onomatopoeia word. it is punctuation error which is losing hyphens. generally, hyphens are used to connect two words or muhammad ichsan andi wahyono & issy yuliasri / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 9 parts of a word while avoiding confusion or ambiguity. opening the dictionary is important to make sure whether a hyphen is needed in compound words. linguistic compression according to molina and albir (2002), in linguistic compression the translator compresses linguistic elements in the tt. this is often used in simultaneous interpreting and in sub-titling when using this technique. the researcher finds out there are 81 times or about 2.69% of linguistic compression in analyzing the translation technique. the following data are some examples of linguistic compression. capitalization is the most frequent errors made by the students fifth semester of english department with the percentage 35.90% in the linguistic compression technique. an example of the linguistic compression data can be seen as below: (10.) student number 5, datum number 21 st : tapi sekarang tak seorang pun yang terlihat,” kata piyun dalam hati. tt : but now, no one does,“ said piyun silently. reconstruction : but now, no one does.“ said piyun silently. the context of the text can be understood with the previous sentence. then, the student translate the phrase ‘tak seorangpun terlihat’ (no one is seen, into ‘no one does’. s/he tried to reduce some words into the simpler one. the student was synthesizing existing linguistic elements to be simpler because it can be understood. it was belonged to linguistic compression technique according to the definition of amplification by molina and albir (2002). then, it can be reconstructed to be ‘but now, no one does.“ said piyun silently. ’. it has been fixed by adding the capital letter and full stop punctuation. transposition based on molina and albir’s translation technique, the grammatical category in the sl is changed into another form of grammar in the tl. the researcher finds out there are 70 times or about 2.32% of transposition in analyzing the translation technique. the following data are some examples of transposition. capitalization is the most frequent errors made by the students fifth semester of english department with the percentage 35.90% in the transposition technique. an example of the transposition techniques can be seen as below: (11.) student number 3 initially gat, datum number 20 st : “aneh, biasanya setiap hari minggu banyak orang lari pagi. tt : “it’s weird; usually there are lots of people do the morning every sunday reconstruction : “it’s weird, usually there are lots of people do the morning run every sunday the translation above changed the function of word ‘minggu’ (‘sunday’) from initially as the noun into adverb of time. there is a change. this change is in line with the definition of transposition by molina and albir (2002) that is a change of grammatical category. for overcoming those grammatical errors, the target text might be reconstructed to be “it’s weird, usually there are lots of people do the morning run every sunday’. the correction is on the word ‘run every sunday’ and addition of some punctuation, then they makes the meaning clear. muhammad ichsan andi wahyono & issy yuliasri / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 10 compensation it is to introduce st (source text) element of information or stylistic effect in another place in the tt (target text) because it cannot be reflected in the same place as in the st (source text). there are 42 data found or about 1.39% using compensation technique. the following data are some examples of amplification. capitalization is the most frequent errors made by the students fifth semester of english department with the percentage 30.00% in the compensation technique. an example of the compensation techniques can be seen as below: (12.) student number 1 initially hh , datum number 73 st : “iya. kamu bukan lari pagi, tapi lari kepagian! tt : “yes, you didn’t run in the morning, but you run while a lot of people still asleep tightly! reconstruction : “yes, you didn’t run in the morning, but you run while a lot of people still were asleep tight! the phrase ‘lari kepagian’(running too early morning) is translated into ‘but you run while a lot of people still asleep tightly!’. the translation changed the stylistic effect by attaching information elements or other stylistic effects to the target text because it is not placed in the same position as the source text. the translation is still good enough to understand in order to correct the grammatical errors that are occurred, the target text is reconstructed to be “yes, you didn’t run in the morning, but you run while a lot of people still were asleep tight!’ it has been fixed the verb tense error and word form error. particularization/generalization particularization is used when the translator transferences the term in tl that is using more specific, suitable, concrete or special (molina and albir, 2002). this technique is the opposite of generalization. generalization is defined as using a more general/common or neutral term in the target language. the researcher finds out there are 39 times or about 1.29% of particularization/generalization technique in analyzing the translation technique. the following data are some examples of particularization/generalization technique. spelling and punctuation are the least frequent error made by the students with the percentage 8.33%. one of the examples of the particularization/ generalization techniques can be seen as below: (13.) student numbers 2 initially p , datum number 32 st : bulu tengkuknya berdiri .(his nape hair stood.) tt : his hair stand end on. reconstruction : his hair stood on end. the sentence above is translated using generalization technique when it was transferred into tt. the translator translates the phrase ‘bulu tengkuknya’(his nape hair) into ‘his hair’ by generalization technique. moreover, translator may translate it into other words but s/he still want to make the proper translation which more easy to understand in the target language. this translation is one way with molina and albir’s generalization technique. the grammatical use of the sample sentence was considered that the translator must use ‘stood’ in order to make the sentence in the past tense which more appropriate. and also the position of ‘end’ or the word order should be ‘stood on end’. the sentence should be “his hair stood on end.” the relation between translation techniques and grammatical errors needs to be spread out their counts. then counting table below will clearly show how the errors occurred in the translation techniques occurred in the students translation. muhammad ichsan andi wahyono & issy yuliasri / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 11 tabel 3. the relation between error and translation techniques t (f) grammatical errors sp wf wc d ao wo is s p c a mnc rs ad 24 0 5 0 2 3 0 0 3 4 3 2 2 0 am 30 0 6 5 5 0 3 1 4 3 0 3 0 0 bo 42 0 2 0 6 3 2 2 1 4 17 5 0 0 co 20 0 3 0 3 2 2 0 2 2 6 0 0 0 es 29 3 4 4 4 2 1 0 2 3 2 2 2 0 li 24 1 1 3 5 3 0 0 3 4 2 1 1 0 lic 44 0 5 3 5 5 3 0 2 6 9 2 2 2 lit 70 2 7 2 19 7 2 0 15 7 9 0 0 0 mo 73 0 5 11 9 4 2 6 2 11 14 4 2 3 pg 12 0 0 0 4 0 2 0 1 1 2 2 0 0 re 22 4 2 5 2 3 2 0 2 2 0 0 0 0 tr 39 0 8 2 7 0 2 0 0 2 14 2 2 0 ∑ 429 10 48 35 71 32 21 9 37 49 78 23 11 5 note : ad : adaptation lc : linguistic compression sp : singular plural s : spelling am : amplification lt : literal translation wf : word form p : punctuation bo : borrowing mo : modulation wc : word choice c : capitalization co : compensation re : reduction d : verb tense a : article tr : transposition es : established equivalent ao : add/omit a word mc: meaning not clear la : linguistic amplification wo: word order rs : run-on sentence pg : particularization/ generalization is : incomplete sentence t : technique the total grammatical errors that were founded are 429. then it will be simplified as the table below: tabel 4. techniques resulting error technique % modulation 17 literal translation 16.3 linguistic compression 10.3 borrowing 9.8 transposition 9.1 amplification 7 established equivalent 6.8 adaptation 5.6 linguistic amplification 5.6 reduction 5.2 compensation 4.7 particularization/ generalization 2.8 muhammad ichsan andi wahyono & issy yuliasri / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 12 it can be seen from the table above that the most translation techniques occurred grammatical errors is modulation technique (17%). the table also shows that he lowest translation technique occurred grammatical error is particularization/generalization technique (2.8%). discussion the most used technique is literal translation occurred 905 times and represented 30.05%. the lowest used translation techniques are particularization & generalization occurred 39 times and represented 1.29%. therefore, those percentages would be 100% in total. comparing this finding with the other researcher, lestiyawati (2014), the findings indicate that, after analyzing and interpreting 225 sentences, literal translation is dominantly used as a technique in translating the source text with the highest used technique in which 149 of 225 sentences applied the technique. the result is same with this research found, which is the most used translation technique is literal translation. in order to find the relation with the other research, the educational translation product research, a’yun (2013) conducted a research about translation techniques that used in academic product, the result were 113 complex sentences found in chapter five and six of the bilingual textbook biology 1 for senior high school year x published by yudhistira. there were only nine translation techniques; they were literal translation, borrowing, adaptation, reduction, particularization, amplification, generalization, transposition, and description. it can be concluded that literal translation dominated the translation techniques used by the translator. the researcher found is same with this research found which is the most frequent of using techniques is literal translation. based on the calculation above, it can be explained that the total errors of capitalization was the most frequent errors was made by the students’ fifth semester of english department with the percentage 18.18%, and incomplete sentence and run-on sentence were the least frequent error were made by the students with the percentage 2.10% and 1.17%. the result of the analysis showed is almost same with the research result conducted by koman (2019). the result of his research showed that there were 21 translation errors of 26 error categories according to ata’s framework for standardized error making. in conclusion, the three most prominent error categories made by the students were grammar, syntax, and faithfulness error. in addition, grammatical error was also an errors that almost made by students. this finding is different with the other research whereas grammatical errors in translation are also can be found in not only the students’ product but also in the translation machine. the research conducted by adam (2016) also showed that statistical method of google translate, the inability of google translate to understand the contexts of the texts beyond sentence, and errors in the source texts that carried into translation errors in the target texts were the causes of translation errors found in the data. from the finding, we could find out that the most used translation technique that have a lot of errors was literal translation technique in the first place and then followed by modulation technique in the second place. furthermore, this finding is not be found the comparison and relation with the previous studies because there is no previous research discuss this kind of research which means this is the new research. conclusion the types of translation techniques and the types of grammatical errors were made by the students in translating indonesian text into english were classified as follows: the most used type translation technique was literal translation (30%) and modulation technique (22.6%). the most frequent error made by the students in translating indonesian text into english text is errors in capitalization muhammad ichsan andi wahyono & issy yuliasri / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 13 (18.2%) and verb tense (16.6%). furthermore, the translation technique that is mostly occurring grammatical errors was modulation technique (17%). suggestion hopefully, the results of the study may be useful for future researchers in translation study. the researcher hopes that this research can be the source for making research in the future. bibliography azar, b. s. 1989. understanding and using english grammar: second edition. new jersey: prentice hall regents. baker, m. (1992). in other word: a course book on translation. london: routledge. bell, r. t. 1991. translation and translating: theory and practice. london: longman. albir, l. m. (2002). translation techniques revisited: a dynamic and functionalist approach. meta, xlvii, 498-512. beekman, j. c. (1989). translating the word of god. michigan, usa: zondervan publishing. brown, h. douglas. principle of language learning and teaching, 5th edition. new york: pearson education, inc., 2007. cambridge. (2008). cambridge advance learner’s dictionary. cambridge university press. creswell, j. w. (2003). research design: quantitative, qualitative, and mixed method. . united states of america: sage publications. ellis, rod.( 2005) analysing learner language. new york: oxford university press,. fedora, l. (2015). an analysis of procedures in translating cultural words and their meaning shift found in the indonesian novel laskar pelangi. . vivid journal, 4(1), 1-8. hubbard, peter, et.al. (1983). a training course for tefl. new york: oxford university press. larson, m. l. (1984). meaning based translation: a guide to cross language equivalence. . london and new york: university press of america. mangatur nababan, a. n. (2012). pengembangan model penilaian kualitas terjemahan. artikel kajian linguistik dan sastra, 24, 39-57. mujiyanto, y. (2011). petunjuk penulisan skripsi. semarang: unnes press. newmark, p. (1998). a textbook for translator. united kingdom: prentice hall international (uk) ltd. salar, m. a. (2004). a function-based approach to translation quality assessment. journal of translation studies, 1, 31-52. trisakti agriani, m. n. (2018). translation quality on words containing spelling, punctuation and grammar error. international journal of multicultural and multireligious understanding , 224240. microsoft word 10. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 190 elt forum 8 (2) (2019) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt vocabulary acquisition (incidental) through watching subtitled video material alvin rosales  department of language and literature, far eastern university-manila, philippines article info ________________ article history: received in 22 august 2019 approved in 29 november 2019 published in 30 november 2019 ________________ keywords: subtitle; incidental vocabulary learning; receptive vocabulary knowledge; productive vocabulary knowledge; vocabulary knowledge scale. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ subtitle refers to the time-synchronized text on a video that translates the spoken audio to another language. this research deals with the effect of watching subtitled video material on the vocabulary acquisition (incidental) of the filipino learners of english with an emphasis on the receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge. the study was participated by 100 university students in a private higher education institution in the philippines. the study used a pretest and posttest design in which the vocabulary knowledge scale developed by paribakht and wesche (1993) was employed. the results show that there is a significant difference between the pretest and the posttest performance in vocabulary acquisition in terms of receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge of the participants. the findings imply the integration of subtitled video material in the teaching of vocabulary in philippine classrooms because of its effectiveness which, up to this point, is not yet realized. © 2019 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 132 capillan street, san antonio quezon city, metro manila 1105 e-mail: arosales@feu.edu.ph alvin rosales / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 191 introduction in learning english, students need to see that it covers the macro skills: reading, writing, listening, speaking and viewing; and to effectively learn all these, they need to see the importance of vocabulary as a language component because it can really affect the skills mentioned. in other words, without vocabulary, learning cannot be achieved. the question then lies on whether filipino students are motivated to learn english or even just learn vocabulary. one assumption would be “no” for some part, and the researcher being a language teacher has noticed such problem. some would say that one cause of that is that english teaching is more teacher-centered. the researcher came across students who shared their experiences inside the classroom as far as language teaching is concerned. they tend to withdraw themselves from it because how it is done is contrary to their interest. in other words, they get bored easily with the lesson and that they need something like attractive images or animations. one means by which these needs can be well served is multimedia technology. multimedia can appeal to many types of learning preferences – some students profit more from learning by reading, some by hearing and some by watching. writing for unesco institute for information technologies in education, andresen and brink (2013) state that some learners can consider multimedia as a means to acquire more knowledge and effective in improving learning (e.g. by enhancing motivation). this is probably because it promotes a greater involvement in the learning situation. also, learners can represent multimedia as a way of speeding the learning process and reducing information overload. multimedia technology includes motion media, music, text material, graphics, illustrations, photographs and digital software (“educational technology,” 2017). motion media, like videos, is one common multimedia technology which the students are exposed to. they may watch it for academics, but most of the time for entertainment. since their first appearance, motion pictures have still got the interest of all people, from young to old. in the case of filipino students, they now get hooked on watching subtitled films. hollywood movies are not the only ones saved in their computers; there are also anime films from japan and telenovelas from south korea which are watched with subtitles in most cases. filipino students being movie lovers is what prompted the researcher to conduct the present study with the assumption that people can achieve learning from pleasurable activities, and since it is evident that subtitled video materials have become a part of their lives, the researcher used it as a main variable in connection to language learning, particularly to vocabulary learning. sabouri and zohrabi (2015) concluded that the use of subtitled films can promote students’ engagement in language learning and can improve retrieval of new vocabulary words in learning english among foreign learners. baltova (1999) found that watching subtitled video material helped the learners acquire more vocabulary. gorjian (2014) stressed that learners of english as a foreign language have improved their comprehension of the content of the video, and have increased their vocabulary knowledge through the subtitles, especially if the video is watched significantly. though there are already foreign researches conducted on subtitle or subtitling or the like, the researcher also considered that there is only a few studies known to the researcher on the effect of watching a subtitled video material on second language vocabulary learning, and there is no study in the philippines as far as the researcher’s record is concerned on the effect of watching a subtitled video material on vocabulary acquisition with an emphasis on the two aspects of vocabulary knowledge: receptive and productive. receptive vocabulary refers to the words that learners recognize and understand, while productive vocabulary is the utilization of the words. though the latter can be written or spoken, yet in the study, the written production was only considered. methods participants the participants of the study were 100 tertiary students, mostly aged 18-20 and enrolled in the technical writing classes of the researcher in a private hei in manila, philippines. technical writing is the last english subject to be taken in the institution. thus, it was assumed that the students enrolled in this subject are at least knowledgeable about the fundamentals of english which they have already taken in the previous semesters. they may not be highly proficient on the target language, but when compared to the other students who are yet to take the subjects that they have already taken, they are more knowledgeable for the most part. this consideration has something alvin rosales / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 192 to do with the written production of the participants which was an important element in the pretest and posttest. the instruments one subtitled film and the vocabulary knowledge scale (for the pretest and posttest) were employed in the study. subtitled film as for the subtitled film, the researcher used “el pasajero, a 37-minute spanish short film which he downloaded from youtube. el pasajero, first released in 2008, is an award-winning film in the international film festival. it was directed by andres faucher and starred by jorge palacios and dimas gonzalez. el pasajero (“the passenger” in english) is about a taxi driver and his passenger. using a gun, the desperate taxi driver attempts to rob his passenger who offers to buy the gun which will lead to an event that no viewer will ever expect. the researcher purposefully selected the film because no one among the participants has ever watched it prior to the testing. the vocabulary knowledge scale for the pretest and posttest, the researcher used the same instrument which was the vocabulary knowledge scale developed by paribakht and wesche (1993) to measure the vocabulary knowledge of the participants along with their receptive and productive knowledge. this scale is a control scale of how well words are known and what control one has over them. the vocabulary knowledge scale format falls into the following five categories: 1. i don't remember having seen this word before. 2. i have seen this word before, but i don't think i know what it means. 3. i have seen this word before, and i think it means __________. (meaning/synonym/translation) 4. i know this word. it means _______. (meaning/synonym/translation) 5. i can use this word in a sentence: ___________. (if you do this section, please also do category in scoring the vocabulary knowledge scale, the researcher used the rubric showed in table 1. table 1. the rubric in scoring the vocabulary knowledge scale receptive vocabulary knowledge score meaning of score 0 the word is not familiar at all. 0 the word is familiar but its meaning is not known. 0 an incorrent meaning or synonym or translation is given. 1 a correct meaning or synonym or translation is given. productive vocabulary knowledge score meaning of score 0 the word is not used in sentence writing. 0 the word is not used with semantic appropriateness in a sentence. 1 the word is used with semantic appropriateness in a sentence. alvin rosales / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 193 data gathering procedure the procedure was carried out in three phases: first, administering the pretest; second, watching of the video material, and third, administering the posttest. first phase the vocabulary knowledge scale was used in administering the pretest to measure vocabulary knowledge of the participants, along with their receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge. the test has five target vocabulary words from the film which are low frequency words. two of them are adjectives; another two are nouns; and one is a verb. regarding the pretest, the researcher told the participants not to use any kinds of dictionary, and not to talk to any participants during the test. this could make sure that their answers are actually based on their background knowledge of the vocabulary items. after they answered the pretest, the participants were told not to check the words in a dictionary and not to discuss them among themselves inside and outside the testing area. this could make sure that their answers on the posttest later would be based on the vocabulary knowledge gained from watching the subtitled video material presumably. second and third phase the second (watching the subtitled video material ) and the third phase (posttest) took place a month later. yuksel and tanrıverdi (2009) suggested that a pretest and a posttest must be separated by a longer period. to achieve the objective of the study which is on the subconscious learning of the vocabulary items from watching the subtitled video material, the researcher made sure that the participants were unaware that they would be tested after watching (posttest). the participants watched the film twice, however on the second time there are few scenes that were skipped or disregarded like in the opening and in the end which do not actually detract from the purpose of the study. sabouri and zohrabi (2015) stated that subtitled movies could have an effect on vocabulary recognition if learners watch the movie more than once. after watching, the vocabulary knowledge scale with the same vocabulary items was used in administering the posttest to measure the receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge of the participants. in the study, the researcher used a basic statistical tool, the mean. he also used the frequency and percentage distribution of the participants based on their pretest and posttest performance in vocabulary acquisition in terms of receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge. for the statistical hypothesis test, the researcher used the z-test, a basic inferential statistical tool to see if there is a difference on the receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge of the participants before and after watching the subtitled video material. results and discussions the performance in vocabulary acquisition before watching as shown in table 2 below, the mean score for the receptive vocabulary knowledge of the target words of the participants was 1.51. the result shows that half of the participants was able to give the correct meaning of the word ‘salsa’. this means that ‘salsa’ having the highest frequency is the least difficult word that could be given a correct meaning. salsa in the study refers to a type of music or a form of dancing. an example of that in a sentence is ‘hector and alfredo are dancing salsa’. out of the 5 target words, ‘temperamental’ got the lowest frequency that no participant or 0% of the participants got its correct meaning/synonym. in the study, temperamental refers to a performance being unpredictable. an example of that in a sentence is ‘his temperamental computer always annoys him; sometimes it would start and sometimes it would not’. alvin rosales / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 194 table 2. students’ receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge (pretest) receptive productive target words f % f % temperamental 0 0 0 0 salsa 50 33.11 12 42.86 fleeting 10 6.62 4 14.29 tropic 43 28.48 4 14.29 devalue 48 31.79 8 28.57 total 151 100 28 100 mean 1.51 0.28 for the productive vocabulary knowledge, the participants were tested if they could write the five target words: temperamental, salsa, fleeting, tropic and devalue with semantic appropriateness in a sentence. and as shown, the productive vocabulary knowledge of the target words of the participants has the mean score of 0.28. the result shows that only twelve of 100 participants were able to write the word ‘salsa’. next to that is ‘devalue’ which was used by only 8 of the participants. ‘tropic’ and ‘fleeting’ were used by only 4 participants and for ‘temperamental’, no one was able to use it with semantic appropriateness in a sentence. the performance in vocabulary acquisition after watching after watching the subtitled video material, the mean score of the receptive vocabulary has increased to 3.39 while the mean score of the productive vocabulary has increased to 2.93 as shown in table 3. table 3. students’ receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge (posttest) receptive productive target words f % f % temperamental 28 8.26 25 8.53 salsa 97 28.61 92 31.40 fleeting 36 10.62 26 8.87 tropic 83 24.48 4 22.53 devalue 95 28.02 8 28.67 total 339 100 293 100 mean 3.39 2.93 the result shows that for on the receptive vocabulary knowledge of the participants, ‘salsa’ got the highest frequency of 97 while the lowest is ‘temperamental’ with the frequency of 28. on the productive vocabulary, salsa also got the highest frequency of 92, while the lowest is still ‘temperamental’ with the frequency of 25. the difference between the pretest and posttest on the receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge as shown in table 4.1, the z-test value of -13.20 was obtained for the receptive vocabulary knowledge, and is smaller than the alpha value, and is significant. alvin rosales / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 195 table 4.1. differences between the pre-test and posttest (receptive) test mean sd alpha value z value pretest 1.51 1.06 0.05 -13.20 posttest 3.39 0.95 decision: rejected remark: significant on the difference between pretest and posttest performance in terms of productive vocabulary knowledge of the participants, table 4.2 shows the z-test value of -19.84 which is is smaller than the alpha value of 0.05, and is also significant. table 4.2. differences between the pre-test and posttest (productive) test mean sd alpha value z value pretest 0.28 0.62 0.05 -19.84 posttest 2.93 1.81 decision: rejected remark: significant the results on both the receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge of the participants after watching the subtitled video material mean that there is significant difference between the pretest and the posttest performance in the receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge of the participants of the target words. thus, the null hypothesis is rejected. discussions watching subtitled video material, as shown in the results of the study, has a positive effect on the vocabulary acquisition of the learners of english as second language in terms of their receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge which is also translated as “there is a significant difference between their pretest and posttest performance in both receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge”. another significant thing shown in the results is that the performance in the receptive vocabulary knowledge of the target words of the participants is greater than their productive vocabulary knowledge. this is what exactly songbo (2010) pointed out that receptive vocabulary knowledge is usually larger than the productive. receptive vocabulary being larger in size than the productive vocabulary was identified by harmer (2001) as passive vocabulary of words. passive vocabulary of words, though known by the learners, yet they cannot produce them, and in the case of this study, in writing. speaking of receptive vocabulary being larger than productive, loewen and sato (2017) concluded that knowledge of the different word knowledge aspects seems to be more robust and be acquired earlier than productive knowledge. the mean score that the participants gained for their productive vocabulary knowledge of the target words was 0.28. this result actually shows what loewen and sato (2017) pointed out, and if it would be tried to see the difference between the receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge of the participants of the target words in the pretest, 24.6% would be the result, so it would mean that the receptive knowledge of the participants is 24.6% larger than their productive vocabulary knowledge. in other words, receptive vocabulary knowledge is four times larger than productive vocabulary knowledge. from the results gathered, it can be inferred that because the learner recognizes and understands the word does not necessary mean that he or she can produce it. however, it should be noted that after watching the subtitled video material, the productive vocabulary knowledge of the participants was so close to their receptive vocabulary knowledge which can be considered a substantial increase. alvin rosales / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 196 conclusions it was revealed that the receptive vocabulary knowledge of the participants was larger than their productive vocabulary knowledge which is also pointed out in the past studies. this is the case before and after watching the subtitled video material. in the results obtained, it was found out that there was a considerable improvement on both the receptive and productive knowledge of the participants after watching the subtitled video material. and, it was revealed that there is a significant difference between the pretest and the posttest on both receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge; thus, the null hypothesis is rejected. this study also suggests multimedia facilities to be provided in both private and public schools in the philippines which are needed in the use of subtitled video material in the teaching of vocabulary. references ahmad, j. 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(2009). effects of watching captioned movie clip on vocabulary development. the turkish online journal of educational technology – tojet, 8(2), 48–54. microsoft word 6. 37148-article text-93274-2-15-20200319.docx putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 55 elt forum 9 (1) (2020) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt theme-rheme configuration in recount texts produced by indonesian efl students kiki meiarista, widhiyanto english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 3 february 2020 approved in 13 july 2020 published in 30 july 2020 ________________ keywords: textual meaning; thematic structure; thematic development pattern; the problem of thematic development; recount text ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ the topic of this study is the textual meaning in recount texts written by the fourth semester students of english department universitas negeri semarang in the academic year 2018/2019. this study is conducted since there are still limited research that is conducted in indonesia which analyses the problems of thematic development because most of indonesian researchers are only analyses the thematic structure and thematic development pattern. this study aimed to figure out the thematic structure, thematic development pattern, and the problems of thematic development in students’ recount texts. the text analysis of qualitative method was employed to enhance the results. the result of the thematic structures showed that the unmarked topical theme was frequently used than the marked one in terms of topical theme, the conjunctions became the mostly used element in textual theme, and the modal adjuncts became the frequently used constituent in interpersonal theme. in the case of thematic development patterns, the theme re-iteration (constant theme pattern) became the mostly used pattern since the function is to keep the text focused. it has been found that there were three problems of thematic development in students’ recount texts: (1) the problem of the brand-new theme, (2) the problem of double rheme, and (3) the problem of empty rheme. the results of this study indicate that the students belong to beginner (inexperienced) writer. © 2020 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: kikimei96@gmail.com kiki meiarista & widhiyanto/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 56 introduction in learning language, people have to master the four main skills of language: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. listening and reading are considered into receptive skills because people only receive information either through listening or reading. whereas speaking and writing are considered into productive skills because people produce sounds in speaking and symbols in writing. writing is considered as a difficult task for english as a foreign language (efl) students because of the complexity of the writing process. during the writing process, students need to organize ideas into a good sentence, then arrange sentence by sentence into a good paragraph, and link paragraphs into text. students also need to pay attention on vocabulary, spelling, punctuation, grammar, cohesiveness, and coherence of a text in order to make the text is readable, acceptable, and meaningful. most of the students find difficulties in starting ‘what to write’, generating ideas, choosing the proper words, and relating each clause into a cohesive and coherence text. it happens because they do not know about theme and rheme. the students are not familiar or even do not know about the systemic functional linguistics (sfl). sfl is a theory that is developed by m. a. k. halliday in the 1960s. it focuses on the purposes and the uses of language as a system for making meaning. in sfl, meaning is divided into three: ideational/experiential, interpersonal, and textual. textually, the clause contains a message; interpersonally, clause is seen as an exchange; and experientially, clause is seen as a representation. ideational meaning is a meaning which construing human experience. interpersonal meaning is a meaning that enacting personal and social relations, this meaning expresses attitudes and judgements. textual meaning is a meaning which relates to the construction of a text. those meanings are also called metafunction (halliday & matthiessen, 2014, pp.30-31). one of the meaning that is going to figure out in this study is textual meaning. the textual meaning is realized through the theme and rheme. theme is the point of departure to guide the addressee in developing an interpretation of the message and rheme is the part where the theme is developed (halliday & matthiessen, 2004, 2014). theme is realized by initial position in the clause and rheme follows (martin, matthiessen, & painter, 1997, p.21). in short, theme is the beginning of the clause which contains the information and rheme is the rest of the clause which contains new information. the theme elements are divided into three: ideational/topical theme, interpersonal theme, and textual theme (halliday & matthiessen, 2004, 2014). the ideational/topical theme is the first constituent that is either participant, circumstance, or process. it is divided into two: marked and unmarked topical theme. the unmarked topical theme is theme on to subject, while the marked topical theme is theme other than subject. the ideational/topical theme occurs in all clauses although it might be ellipsis. the interpersonal theme is an element that occurs before the topical theme, includes modal/comment adjunct, vocative, and finite verbal operator. the textual theme occurs before the interpersonal or topical theme which relates the clause to its context. it includes continuative, conjunction, and conjunctive adjunct. the theme which contains more than one element is called multiple theme (halliday & matthiessen, 2014, p.107). the development from theme to rheme shows the flow of information. it is common to put an old information (the information from the previous sentence or clause) followed by a new information in order to maintain the cohesiveness and coherence of a text. there are three main patterns in developing a text: theme reiteration, the zig-zag pattern, and multiple-rheme pattern (eggins, 2004, pp.324-325). in the theme reiteration (constant theme pattern), re-iterate an element is a way to keep the cohesiveness or the focus of a text. this pattern is found when the same element appears regularly in the beginning of the clause (theme). the repetition of the same element of theme provides a clear focus of the text. the zigzag/linear pattern occurs when the element that is introduced in the rheme of the previous clause becomes the theme of the next clause. in this pattern, the cohesiveness of a text is achieved by building on the newly introduced information. the last pattern is multiple-rheme pattern. in this pattern, the rheme of the previous clause is divided into a number of different pieces’ information, each of them becomes the theme of other clauses afterwards. the thematic structure can be used as a tool to analyse how the construction of a text and also to diagnose language weaknesses in writing product. there are three common problems of thematic development, those are the problem of the brand-new theme, the problem of double rheme, and the problem of the empty rheme (bloor & bloor, 1992). the problem of the brand-new theme frequently occurs in writing product of inexperienced writer. this problem occurs when the new kiki meiarista & widhiyanto/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 57 information is put on theme position (bloor & bloor, 1995). the next problem is the problem of double rheme. it happens when a sentence has two rhemes, one of which has never been mentioned previously (bloor & bloor, 1992). the last is the problem of empty rheme. it refers to the clause which fails to present new information in the rheme position (bloor & bloor, 1992). in communication, people produce a text either spoken or written and convey a meaning. the text means any connected stretch of language that is doing job in some context (halliday & hasan, 1985, p.10). a text is created when some words are put together which contains a meaning in order of communication. creating a text requires us to make choices about the words used and how to put them together depends on the purpose and surrounding (context). the texts that were analysed in this study is recount texts. recount text is a text that retells past events in the order in which they happened (anderson & anderson, 2003, p.48). this type of text demands the writer to arrange some events into chronological order. in recount text, learners must retell the sequence of events or experiences which they have ever got in the past (nafisah & kurniawan, 2007, p.65). the generic structure of recount text consists of orientation, record of events, and re-orientation (anderson & anderson, 2003, p.50). the orientation provides the background information of a text, such as who was involved, what happened, where the events took place, and when it happened. the record of events contains a series of events in a chronological sequence. the re-orientation consists of closure of events or the end of the story, usually stating personal comment of the writer to the story. since recount text deals with sequence, the textual analysis of theme-rheme is suitable to be used. the textual meaning builds up sequences of discourse, organizing the discursive flow, and creating cohesion and continuity as it moves along (halliday & matthiessen, 2014, pp.30-31). there have been numerous studies on sfl in the field of textual meaning analysis. in this case, several researchers conducted studies on the textual meaning analysis of various kinds of texts. some of the indonesian researchers are interested in analyzing textual meaning on students’ recount texts (dewi & kurniawan, 2018; febriyana, sofwan & farida, 2018; safitri & bahri, 2017; yunita, 2018). moreover, some studies from another country were focused on the types and problems of theme-rheme in efl students’ texts (arunsirot, 2013; ridha, 2014). based on those studies, the study that is conducted in indonesia which analyses the problems of thematic development is considered as the limited study. in short, the theme is essential to determine the point of departure in a text. the development of the theme-rheme is also essential because it shows the flow of information to maintain the cohesiveness of a text. meanwhile, in constructing a text, efl students do not pay attention on the thematic structures and thematic development, so it leads them to produce the problem. undertaking the opportunity that there are still limited studies in indonesia which analyses the problems of thematic development, this study is conducted in order to explain how the thematic structures and thematic development patterns of recount texts written by the fourth semester students of english department universitas negeri semarang is realized. further, this study also tries to uncover the problems of thematic development in recount texts written by the fourth semester students of english department universitas negeri semarang in the academic year 2018/2019. methods this study investigates how the thematic structure, thematic development pattern, and the problems of thematic development that are found in students’ recount texts. therefore, the qualitative approach was used to figure out the realization of the meaning. the object of this study is students’ recount texts, so the text analysis is employed. the researcher collected the data from the genre-based writing course of english education programme which consists of five classes. the researcher only took two best texts of each class based on the lecturers’ selection, so there were ten texts. the best text is chosen because of this study aims to figure out the real problems that students’ face in terms of textual meaning. in analysing text, there are three level of analysis: the text as a whole, the sentence level, and the word or phrase level (huckin, 1997, pp.81-84). the sentence level is chosen as the unit of analysis in this current study. before analysing the data, the researcher read the texts and identifying clauses which representing textual meaning. after that, breaking down the texts into clauses. then, the clauses were numbered and analysed into three steps: analyse the thematic structures, analyse the thematic development patterns, and analyse the problems of thematic development. first, the data were given kiki meiarista & widhiyanto/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 58 codes based on the categories of theme elements. there are three elements of theme: ideational/topical, interpersonal, and textual (halliday & matthiessen, 2014, p.107). after the thematic structures are analysed, the next step is identified the thematic development patterns. there are three patterns: constant theme/reiteration pattern, zigzag/linear pattern, and multiple-rheme pattern (eggins, 2004, pp.324-325). the thematic structures analysis is used to figure out the point of departure of each clause whereas the thematic development patterns analysis is used to see the flow of information in the texts. the last step is investigating the problems of thematic development in students’ recount texts. there are three common problems of thematic development: the problem of the brand-new theme, the problem of double rheme, and the problem of empty rheme (bloor & bloor, 1992). after analysing the texts, the researcher presented the results by using tables. then, the results were put into the discussion part in order to discuss and review the meaning realized in students’ recount texts. after that, the researcher drew the conclusion of the results. in order to know the validity of the data in qualitative research, the triangulation technique is employed. the type of triangulation technique that is chosen is investigator triangulation as an alternative observation from different expert of textual meaning. findings and discussion this study investigated the textual meaning of recount texts written by the fourth semester students of english department universitas negeri semarang in the academic year 2018/2019. there were ten best texts taken from genre-based writing course of english education programme. the findings of this study were derived from the theme-rheme system of each clause. there were three kinds of analysis: the thematic structures analysis, the thematic development patterns analysis, and the problems of thematic development analysis. the thematic structures were analysed to figure out the types of theme that is used by students in order to show the point of departure of the message in each clause. the thematic development pattern analysis is used to see the flow of information in students’ recount texts. the problems of thematic development analysis is used to uncover the common problems of misusing theme-rheme in students’ recount texts that indicates the students’ writing ability. thematic structures realized in students’ recount texts the thematic structure plays an important role in organizing the message and enhances connectivity between ideas in the text (halliday & matthiessen, 2014). theme is divided into two: simple theme and multiple theme. simple theme is a theme which contains the experiential elements either participant, circumstance, or process which refers to topical theme (halliday & matthiessen, 2014, p.105). furthermore, the other elements may occur before the topical theme, either textual, interpersonal, or both of them. the table below shows the thematic structures in students’ recount texts. table 1. summary findings of thematic structures recount texts ideational/ topical textual (textualtopical) interpersonal (interpersonaltopical) textualinterperson al-topical sum ∑ % ∑ % ∑ % ∑ % ∑ % text 1 18 4.8 17 4.5 0 0.0 1 0.3 36 9.6 text 2 8 2.1 2 0.5 0 0.0 0 0.0 10 2.7 text 3 26 6.9 14 3.7 0 0.0 0 0.0 40 10.7 text 4 30 8.0 17 4.5 0 0.0 1 0.3 48 12.8 text 5 18 4.8 18 4.8 0 0.0 0 0.0 36 9.6 text 6 15 4.0 20 5.3 0 0.0 0 0.0 35 9.3 text 7 25 6.7 22 5.9 5 1.3 1 0.3 53 14.1 text 8 28 7.5 31 8.3 1 0.3 0 0.0 60 16.0 text 9 26 6.9 15 4.0 0 0.0 0 0.0 41 10.9 text 10 7 1.9 7 1.9 2 0.5 0 0.0 16 4.3 sum 201 53.6 163 43.4 8 2.1 3 0.9 375 100.0 kiki meiarista & widhiyanto/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 59 as showed in the table 1, the ideational/topical theme is frequently used by students (53.6%) followed by the textual theme (43.4%), interpersonal theme (2.1%), and the rarest used is textualinterpersonal-topical theme (0.9%). thematic development patterns in students’ recount texts there are three main patterns of thematic development namely constant theme/reiteration pattern, zigzag/linear pattern, and multiple-rheme pattern (eggins, 2004, pp.324-325). the table below shows the thematic development patterns in students’ recount texts. table 2. summary findings of thematic development patterns recount texts constant theme pattern zigzag theme pattern multiple rheme pattern sum ∑ % ∑ % ∑ % ∑ % text 1 6 2.7 10 4.5 1 0.4 17 7.6 text 2 1 0.4 2 0.9 0 0.0 3 1.3 text 3 14 6.3 11 4,9 0 0.0 25 11.2 text 4 9 4.0 13 5.8 2 0.9 24 10.7 text 5 11 4.9 12 5.4 0 0.0 23 10.3 text 6 16 7.1 2 0.9 1 0.4 19 8.5 text 7 20 8.9 16 7.1 2 0.9 38 17.0 text 8 22 9.8 14 6.3 4 1.8 40 17.9 text 9 18 8.0 8 3.6 0 0.0 26 11.6 text 10 7 3.1 2 0.9 0 0.0 9 4.0 sum 124 55.2 90 40.3 10 4.4 224 100.0 as showed in the table 2, the constant theme pattern is mostly used by students (55.2%) followed by the zigzag pattern (40.3%), and the rarest pattern that is used by students is multiplerheme pattern (4.4%). the problems of thematic development in students’ recount texts there are three common problems of thematic development resulting from the misuse of themerheme, those are the problem of the brand-new theme, the problem of double rheme, and the problem of the empty rheme (bloor & bloor, 1992). the problems of the brand-new theme the new theme is introduced in the text causing a lack of organizational skill in the writing. here are some examples of the brand-new theme found in students’ recount texts: (a) all of the students, except a boy who was my rival in the subject, agreed that it was the right answer. (b) then, the time that had been anticipated finally came, the teacher’s justification. (c) when i was looking for boarding house, unexpectedly i met my best friend, … the sentences (a) and (b) belongs to the problems of the brand-new theme since the text is focused on ‘i’ and ‘the teacher’, so the theme ‘all of the students, except a boy who was my rival in the subject’ and ‘then, the time that had been anticipated’ include into new themes that have been introduced. meanwhile, in the clause (c), the theme ‘when i was looking for boarding house’ introduced as a new theme since the text is focused on ‘i’. the problems of double rheme this problem occurs when the sentence has two rhemes with one of the rhemes is not mentioned previously (bloor & bloor, 1992). below are some examples of the double rheme found in students’ recount texts: (a) at that time men and woman workers rallied demanding justice for workers… (b) … so that good working condition and working hours became reasonable not too long. (c) at that time my friend and i were practicing football with our teacher. kiki meiarista & widhiyanto/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 60 each of the example above contains two rheme which is the second rheme is not mentioned previously. the problems of empty rheme the empty rheme refers to the clause which fails to present new information in the rheme position (bloor & bloor, 1992). there is an example of the empty rheme found in students’ recount texts: (a) after considered a lot of things which course i would choose. the example above is a sentence that considered into dependent clause and does not have independent clause until the full stop, so it is considered as a problem. discussion this part presents the interpretation of the findings compared to the previous studies and the theories used. thematic structures realized in students’ recount texts theme is the point of departure while the rheme is the part which the theme developed (halliday and matthiessen, 2014, p.89). based on the amount of the theme in a clause, theme can be divided into two categories: simple theme and multiple theme. simple theme is a theme which contains the experiential elements, either participant, circumstance, or process which refers to topical theme (halliday & matthiessen, 2014, p.105). multiple theme is a theme which contains more than one element, the other elements either textual, interpersonal, or both of them preceding before the topical theme (halliday & matthiessen, 2014, p.107). the findings show that students tend to use simple theme than the multiple theme (see table 1). this finding in contrast with arunsirot’s (2013) study. this could be happened due to the fact that the object in arunsirot’s study has different genre with this current study. arunsirot analysed argumentative texts while this study analysed recount texts. in argumentative texts, students are attempted to persuade the readers by adding textual theme and interpersonal theme before the topical theme in order to link logical steps of their arguments. whereas in recount texts, students do not need to persuade the readers, they only tell the readers about the past experiences through the series of events, so they often used circumstance of time and place which belong to topical theme. furthermore, the occurrence of simple theme mostly found on descriptive and recount text (yunita, 2018). it is not surprising if simple theme which contains the topical theme became the most frequently used theme in students’ recount texts. it is because of each clause contains one topical theme, in turn, is one nominal group, adverbial group, or prepositional phrase (halliday & matthiessen, 2014, p.92). topical theme is divided into marked and unmarked. unmarked topical theme is more dominant than the marked one. it is found that the use of nominal group occurs in great quantities than the other groups. almost all of students’ recount texts use pronoun ‘i’ in the beginning of the clause, for example i’m very excited and enthusiastic.; i went to kediri by train.; finally, i held back my pee.; i felt very embarrassed…; etc. the students emphasized on the nominal group as the point of delivering the message since it is about their personal experience. it is also easier to begin a clause using nominal group than adverbial, complement, or prepositional phrase. it is in line with the findings of the study conducted by febriyana (2017) since the genre of the object of the study is the same. she also assumed that it is an ordinary case for those who belong to beginner writers. based on the similarity of the tendency of the chosen component in the beginning of a clause, it can be said that as ‘a writer’, the students are considered to the beginner writers. the marked themes are chosen by skilful writers or speakers to add the coherence and emphasis their texts (eggins’s, 2004, p.320). the next type of theme realized in students’ recount texts is textual theme (see table 1). based on the findings, the most used element is conjunctions. for example, … and the ritual was held on may 1.; …and sometimes she was crying.; … because i had not been accepted…; etc. the use of conjunctions is the easiest way to link one clause to another than the other elements. it is not surprising because the function of conjunction is to link clauses in order to maintain the coherent and cohesiveness of a text. it is in line with the study conducted by arimafrida (2016) although it has different genre with this object of the study. students tend to choose conjunctions than continuatives or conjunctive adjunct. it indicates that the students are aware of the important role of the conjunctions and have been trying to maintain the coherent and cohesiveness of their text. in kiki meiarista & widhiyanto/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 61 contrast with conjunctions, there is only one continuative found in students’ recount texts since it is associated with the spoken features. it happens because continuative element is mostly used in spoken text as a set of words which signal a move in the discourse: a response, in dialogue, or a new move to the next point if the same speaker is continuing (halliday & matthiessen, 2014, p.107). the last and the rarest type of theme found on students’ recount texts is interpersonal theme (see table 1). students tend to use modal adjunct than the other elements. some examples of the used of modal adjuncts in interpersonal theme such as… unfortunately, that is not apply…; … unexpectedly i met my best friend, …; … maybe at 8 p.m. we decided to leave…; etc. the rare used of the interpersonal theme in students’ recount texts is acceptable since it commonly occurs in the conversation (eggins, 2004). it happens because the interpersonal theme often found in spoken texts for students to join and sustain their interaction (butt et al., 2000). and also confirms by halliday & matthiessen’s (2004, p.84), statement as follows. “if there is a vocative in the clause, or a modal or comment adjunct, it is quite likely to be thematic: these items are characteristic of dialogue, in which the speaker may be calling the attention of the listener, or else expressing his or her own angle on the matter in hand, whether probable, desirable, and so on, and hence they tend to be brought in as key signature to the particular move in the exchange – in other words, as theme of the clause.” from those statements, it can be concluded that interpersonal theme tends to be used in spoken text. meanwhile, the conversation or spoken interaction is rarely used in the recount texts, thus it may lead the background of infrequent number of occurrences of the interpersonal theme in students’ recount texts. the analysis of textual meaning clause by clause gained by an insight that the students made clear to the reader their underlying concerns and how they developed it. the theme-rheme analysis showed that the students presented their concerns of their story and provided the details by presenting the definition, giving example, stating the value, and elaborating the sequence of event. based on the tendency of the chosen component in the beginning of a clause, the students are considered to the beginner writers although they have been in the fourth semester college students (see eggins, 2004, p. 320). thematic development patterns in students’ recount texts after the thematic structure of each clause is analysed, it is needed to know how theme of each clause related each other in order to be cohesive and coherent. then the analysis of thematic development employed to know the flow of information in which how meanings are packaged in order to make it easier to understand (martin & rose, 2007, p. 187). an analysis of the thematic development in each clause is important since it is particularly sensitive to the staging of genre (martin & rose, 2007, p. 198). there are three patterns of thematic development: constant theme pattern; zig-zag pattern; and multiple-rheme pattern (eggins, 2004, pp.324-325). based on the findings, the constant theme pattern became the most used pattern followed by zig-zag pattern and the last is multiple-rheme pattern (see table 2). it happens because ‘one basic way to keep a text focused (i.e. cohesive) is simply to re-iterate an element’ (eggins, 2004, p. 324). constant theme pattern is considered to be the easiest way to provide the text with a clear focus. this can be examined in the following examples. theme rheme since then, i had been traumatized by that moment until i didn’t want to answer teacher’s question anymore because i was afraid in case i would have been yelled again if i gave the wrong answer. although begin with different conjunctions, the point of departure is still same in which the repetition of the topical theme ‘i’. the repetition of the subject ‘i’ represents that the focus of the kiki meiarista & widhiyanto/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 62 message is about ‘i’. since the text contains reiteration of the element, it is considered to have the constant-theme pattern in the text development. theme rheme we continue our trip by visiting zoo near there. we walked around and (we) saw various kinds of animal. we also fed them and (we) took photos with them. all of the clauses above use pronoun ‘we’ as the topical theme. they reiterate the point of the departure in order to keep the text focused. the text is also containing the repetition of the conjunction ‘and’ to connect a clause with the previous clause in order to maintain the coherence of the text. even though the subject ‘we’ after the conjunctions was ellipsis, the point of departure is still the same. thus, the focused message of the text is about ‘we’. the next pattern appears in students’ recount texts is zig-zag pattern. the zig-zag pattern reached cohesion of the text by building on newly introduced information (eggins, 2004, p.325). in other words, the rheme of the previous clause is taken into the theme of the next clause. from the findings, the writers used zig-zag patterns as the second way to make new clauses besides constant theme pattern (see table 2). here is an example of zigzag pattern found in students’ recount texts. theme rheme first, “bukit pananjakan” to enjoy the sunrise, second, “gumuk pasir berbisik” and the last “bukit telletubies”. in "bukit pananjakan", we could see and enjoy the sunrise, it was very amazing. in "gumuk pasir berbisik", we could take some pictures with background of bromo mountain behind us which was very close and clear. from the text above, the rheme of the first clause ‘bukit pananjakan’ is elaborated as a theme in the fourth clause. it is the same with the second clause and the sixth clause. the rarest pattern that is students used is multiple-rheme pattern. there are only 2 patterns appear among 10 texts. the pattern belongs to multiple-rheme pattern when the rheme of a clause is elaborated into some themes for the next clauses. here is one of the examples. theme rheme there are three points that we would visit. first, “bukit pananjakan” to enjoy the sunrise, second, “gumuk pasir berbisik” and the last “bukit telletubies”. this part of the text contains the multiple-rheme pattern in which the rheme ‘three points’ in the first clause is elaborated in the theme of the next clauses as the points which are mentioned. each of text-types tends to deal with the particular types of thematic development, these are re-iteration (constant), zigzag (linier), and multiple (split). the constant continuous themes tend to be used mostly in such texts as narratives, recounts, and reports while simple linier pattern or crossreferential thematic theme mostly used in descriptive and reports (rosa, 2013, p.223). therefore, re-iteration (constant) pattern is the most frequent pattern used in the texts since recount text is a text-type which mostly uses constant pattern as the thematic development. moreover, it is also kiki meiarista & widhiyanto/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 63 found the combination of re-iteration, zigzag and multiple patterns in students’ recount texts as it is uncommon to have only one pattern in a whole text. there is always a possibility to use all types of thematic development pattern in a particular type of text, but the text must have one dominant type of thematic development pattern (rosa, 2013). the problems of thematic development in students’ recount texts thematic structure plays an important role in organizing the message and enhances connectivity between ideas in the text (halliday, 2014). it is used as a tool to analyse how the texts are constructed and to diagnose language weaknesses in the student’s writing product. there are three common problems of thematic development resulting from the misuse of theme-rheme, those are the problem of the brand-new theme, the problem of double rheme, and the problem of the empty rheme (bloor & bloor, 1992). through those categories, it is found several problems in students’ recount texts. several problems in terms of the brand-new theme were found in students’ recount texts. in this case, the new theme is introduced in the text causing a lack of organizational skill in the writing. for example, the writer talks about her embarrassing experience in english class in text 6. the themes of almost all sentences in the body paragraph refers to the writer by using the pronoun ‘i’ and ‘the teacher’, except the seventh and ninth sentences. in this case, the themes ‘all of the students, except a boy who was my rival in the subject’ and ‘then, the time that had been anticipated’ were introduced in the text. here, these themes are first mentioned among the text. it happens because the students are considered as the beginner writer as mentioned in the previous part of discussion. the occurrence of this problem indicates that the writer, in case student, showing inability in developing a coherence text. it can be said that the problem of a brand-new theme occurs in the work of inexperienced writers who put new information in the theme position (bloor & bloor, 1995). the next problem occurs in students’ recount text is the problem of double rheme. this problem occurs when the sentence has two rhemes with one of the rhemes is not mentioned previously (bloor & bloor, 1992). this problem causing confusion since the rheme that is mentioned previously will seem as not related to the remains. in the analysis, it is found that there are three clauses having this problem. one of them is ‘… so that good working condition and working hours became reasonable not too long.’. it can be seen that the rhemes are ‘good working condition became reasonable not too long’ and ‘working hours became reasonable not too long’. the occurrence of the second rheme will make the previous rheme seem as not related to the remains of the rheme (became reasonable not too long). this problem did not occur in the study that was conducted by arunsirot (2013) and ridha (2014). it may happen because the genre of the analysed texts is different. the empty rheme refers to the clause which fails to present new information in the rheme position (bloor & bloor, 1992). in other word, the rheme is not further developed. it only found one sentence having this problem. the sentence is ‘after considered a lot of things which course i would choose.’. this sentence is considered into dependent clause and does not have independent clause until the full stop. the sentence contains a theme, but does not have rheme, that is called empty rheme. it causes confusion for the readers because the writer of the text does not mention what happens after the course is chosen. this problem occurs in the study conducted by arunsirot (2013) and ridha (2014), but in different case. conclusion this study aimed to figure out the thematic structure, thematic development pattern, and the problems of thematic development found in recount texts written by the fourth semester students of english department universitas negeri semarang. the result of the thematic structures show that the unmarked topical theme is frequently used than the marked one in terms of topical theme, the conjunctions became the mostly used element in textual theme, and the modal adjuncts became the frequently used constituent in interpersonal theme. in the case of thematic development patterns, the theme re-iteration (constant theme pattern) became the mostly used pattern since the function is to keep the text focused followed by the zigzag pattern, and the last is multiple-rheme pattern. it has been found three problems of thematic development in students’ recount texts, there are the problem of the brand-new theme, the problem of double rheme, and the problem of empty rheme. the results of this study indicate that the students belong to beginner (inexperienced) writer. any kiki meiarista & widhiyanto/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 64 analysis of sfl needs more linguistic evidence to make judgement rather than intuition, thus research on different kind of text may reveal additional findings. references anderson, k. & anderson, m. (2003). text types in english (2nd ed.). australia: macmillan ed. arimafrida, t. (2016). textual meanings realized in students’ narrative texts (a case of the eleventh grade students at senior high school 1 jepara in academic year 2014/2015) (unpublished final project). universitas negeri semarang, semarang, indonesia. arunsirot, s. (2013). an analysis of textual metafunction in thai efl students’ writing. novitasroyal (research on youth and language), 7(2), pp.160-174. bloor, m. & bloor, t. (1992). given and new information in the thematic organization of text: an application to the teaching of academic writing. occasional papers in systemic linguistics, 6, pp.3344. bloor, m. & bloor, t. (1995). the functional analysis of english: a hallidayan approach. london: arnold. butt, d., fahey, r., feez, s., spinks, s., & yallop, c. 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(2014). an introduction to functional grammar (4th ed.). london: routledge taylor & francis group. huckin, t. n. (1997). “critical discourse analysis”, in miller, tom (ed). functional approaches to written text: classroom applications. washington dc: united states information agency, pp.7892. martin, j. r., matthiessen, c. m. i. m., & painter, c. (1997). working with functional grammar. london: arnold. martin, j. r. & rose, d. (2007). working with discourse: meaning beyond the clause (2nd ed). new york: continuum. nafisah, n. & kurniawan, e. (2007). writing english for general communication. bandung: upi press. ridha, n. s. a. (2014). theme and rheme: types and problems in efl university students’ written texts. pp. 93-114. rosa, r. n. (2013). thematic progression as a model used to keep cohesion in writing an exposition text. proceedings of iselt fbs universitas negeri padang, 1, pp.220-228. safitri, i. & bahri, s. (2017). thematic progression on students’ recount texts. journal of english language teaching, 6(1), pp. 69-82. microsoft word 8. 38676-article text-100301-1-6-20200709.docx putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 75 elt forum 9 (1) (2020) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt english teachers’ methods in teaching reading comprehension of procedure text akidatul yusmalinda, puji astuti  english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 12 may 2020 approved in 12 july 2020 published in 30 july 22020 ________________ keywords: english teacher; teachers’ methods; teaching reading; reading comprehension; procedure ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this study focuses on english teachers’ methods in teaching reading comprehension of procedure text. the main purpose of this study is to describe the methods used by english teachers and reveal the strengths and weaknesses of those methods used for teaching reading comprehension of procedure texts. the research was a qualitative case study. the participants of this research were two english teachers at one of junior high schools in semarang in the academic year of 2019/2020. in collecting data, several data collection instruments were used, including: interview, observation guideline and document analysis checklist. the findings showed that english teachers planned the teaching materials and strategies in advance. they also used various methods in teaching reading of procedure text. both teachers almost used the same methods which were audio-visual method, scaffolding, grammartranslation method, and project-based learning. the difference was in the step of the strategy implementation. in addition, the findings showed that the most appropriate method in teaching reading comprehension was grammar-translation method since it helped students comprehend the procedure text. there were several students who still had a hard time following the lessons. teachers are supposed to make sure that all students have understood the whole text or not and they should observe the students’ situation and needs so that the teaching and learning is contextual. © 2019 universitas negeri semarang correspondent address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: yusmalinday@gmail.com akidatul yusmalinda & puji astuti/elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 76 introduction it is a fact that english has been chosen as an international language because of widespread use among all countries in the world. therefore, it is obviously significant for all people to learn english in every level by considering the importance of daily life in all skills. therefore, people have to master all the required skills in english such as listening, reading, speaking, and writing. these four skills cannot be separated, they are linked to each other and related to receptive skills and productive skills. while listening and reading are receptive skills, writing and speaking are productive skills (harmer, 2001). due to the fact that reading is a receptive skill, it means reading is one of the ways to get the knowledge in english, because when we read a text we can obviously get the knowledge what exactly the text tells to us, in addition, we can get a lot of vocabularies that will help us in speaking and writing. hence, reading skills is very important especially for students to collect as many as possible the vocabulary from the text they have read. by reading, students can use their time in a good way to get information, knowledge, as well as enrich their vocabulary, and improve their ability in english. according to dean (2013), reading is more than seeing words clearly, more than pronouncing printed words correctly and more than recognizing the meaning of isolated words. reading requires you to think and feel. reading is not just looking and pronouncing words in the text but comprehending all the components of a text. in short, the goal of all reading is the comprehension of meaning that is conveyed in the written text. students in junior high school are supposed to learn several genres of text. according to indonesia curriculum education 2013, there are several texts that must be studied such as descriptive text, narrative text, procedure text, and so on. each of them has different generic structure, aim, and also language features. hence, it would make students difficult either to identify or differentiate the text. since we know that they must understand the whole text; what the writer tries to inform and tell the readers. moreover, students must get the knowledge and information of the text, they have to be able to think critically, so whenever they are asked to answer some questions based on the text they have read, they can answer it correctly. in addition, as we know, nowadays the national examination (un) is not a key to determine whether the students pass or fail in junior high school. yet, the function of the un has changed, it becomes the standard of education quality of indonesia. besides, for students, the result of their national examination will be a consideration of entering the next level of education which is senior high school and the next after is university. if they do not succeed in answering the whole question means they might have difficulty in the future for students who want to apply for school in their out zone since their final marks will be a consideration for its school. according to the pos, all the questions of un are from the material from seventh to ninth of junior high school which means the students need to brush up on their memory of all materials. due to the importance of english and national examination, students were worried about having a bad score in national examination. therefore, students had to work hard to pass the national examination. nevertheless, those things are not easy because one text contains of a lot of vocabulary, grammatical structure and also its story which has differences with other texts. the students need an extraordinary effort to comprehend all the text, so they can master the whole text and answer the questions related to the text. that understanding text is called by reading comprehension. hence, the teacher should help the students with all their difficulties. the teacher must consider what the best way to teach reading. in teaching reading, a teacher may use many different methods. according to brown (2002) method is a generalized set of specifications in the classroom for achieving linguistic objectives. methods main concern is to teachers and learners’ role and behavior. besides, the concern of method is to linguistic and subject matter objectives, sequencing and materials. this is the key of success of the reader. a teacher needs to select which one that must be implemented in teaching certain text so that students can easily get the knowledge of that text. preparing students for what they are going to read can make comprehension much easier. teacher as a mediator in teaching at school is supposed to help students getting the best education in their life. if the students faced a difficulty in studying, it is teacher’s obligation to help them. based on the reason that i have been mentioned, students need teachers’ help in mastering all skills of english, especially in reading comprehension. however, teaching reading is not as easy as we think, because it is not only asking the students to read the whole words in the text but akidatul yusmalinda & puji astuti/elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 77 encouraging them to understand the text even conduct a critical thinking. hence, teacher should consider what method or strategy that could make a reading text easier. on the other hand, most of the previous researchers conducted their studies in order to find out what the difficulty that were facing the students and teachers in reading (masadeh, 2015) and what teachers’ perception on reading method (ness, 2016). as well as some of them found that reading strategies will help students in improving their reading comprehension. in addition, in teaching reading teachers have used an interactive method and strategy in order to make the reading text easier for students, whereas other teachers still used a traditional method and questions in textbook as a media for teaching reading comprehension. there were many previous studies that discussed about teachers strategies and methods in teaching reading comprehension such as done by soleimani and hajghani (2013), ferdila (2014), souhila (2014), almasri and alshumaimeri (2016), and muslaini (2017). soleimani and hajghani (2013) found that reading strategy instruction can lead to the use of an extended range of reading strategies by the learners. besides, the reading strategies are able to enhance students’ reading performance. ferdila (2014) found that teachers should find an appropriate technique to encourage students’ interest instructions in various levels of indonesian school dominantly adjust to intensive reading. thus, this study was to investigate the benefits of using extensive reading in teaching reading and as well as students’ attitudes toward it. the result showed that hence, extensive reading can be used as one of the method or strategy to teach reading. it can be a resource or an option for the teacher when they want to teach a certain genre. souhila (2014) found that students had some difficulties in approaching reading strategies task. it confirmed that reading is a challenging and complex skill because students showed that they have a great awareness about reading, but unfortunately they have lacked some of reading strategies. the result showed that there was a strong relationship between the students' knowledge (whether linguistic and background) and their success in applying strategies of reading about the text (whether general or specific).almasri and alshumaimeri (2016) found that the performance of the students in the control and the experimental group improved significantly in reading comprehension scores. however, the strongly significant differences occurring in the experimental group’s post-test comprehension performance when compared to the pre-test indicate that using web-quest can improve students’ reading comprehension performance. the authors suggest that the teacher’s experience of the web-quest tool, and the challenges to its integration in the blended learning classroom, should be investigated further. muslaini (2017) conducted a study with the objective were to find out how reading comprehension was taught at an islamic boarding school in pidie jaya, the strategies that were used by the teachers for teaching reading comprehension, and the responses of the students towards the teaching-learning of reading comprehension. based on the observations, both of the teachers used various strategies to teach reading comprehension. they were both very creative in handling their classes and they made the students actively involved in the teaching-learning for english reading comprehension. from those studies that have been conducted, it was just a few studies examining about how the teachers teach reading comprehension in class. this is a gap in the literature. the previous researchers have not investigated yet what the strategies that are used by teachers in teaching reading comprehension. for instance, how the teachers find the appropriate method for teaching reading, how they conduct their lesson plan, whether they teach reading based on curriculum or not. the notes above show that teachers play an important role in teaching their students in order to make them comprehend and master the reading skill. a good and appropriate method is really needed for students in comprehending the reading text, medina (2012). as a teacher, they have to choose and select which best method that is good to be implemented in class and also the teaching method must be modified depending on the students’ needs. based on these gaps, the study focused on conducting a research which aimed to find out what the strategies that are used by teachers in teaching reading comprehension. one main reason for conducting this research because there were just few studies discuss about that topic since we know that reading method is essential for teaching reading and also by conducting this topic we can know whether the teachers’ strategies are appropriate or not for the students in learning reading comprehension especially in procedure text. akidatul yusmalinda & puji astuti/elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 78 methods this section describes the research approach used, respondents involved in the study, if any, which should be kept confidential, instruments, procedures of collecting the data, and ways of analyzing the data. the blueprint of the instrument may be provided if necessary. commonly used statistical formula should not be putin this section. in the present study, it used qualitative approach as the research design. according to creswell (2003), a qualitative approach is one in which the inquirer often makes knowledge claims based primarily on constructivist perspectives or advocacy/participatory perspectives or both. it also uses strategies of inquiry such as narratives, phenomenologies, ethnographies, grounded theory studies, or case studies. the researcher collects open-ended emerging data with the primary intent of developing themes from the data. in this present study, we used qualitative case study research since this study focused in answering “what” questions. this research used that method because it was also appropriate to the objectives of the research which focused on teachers’ strategies in teaching reading comprehension. the results of the research emphasized in the form of words and it was presented in narrative. the results of the research emphasized in the form of words and it was presented in narrative. the data taken from the interview answered the questions from the interviewer while the observation examined the correlation between the interviewee’ answer and his/her action in class. in addition, the use of document analysis help the data more accurate and valid. the data was also recorded in a form of audio which later on would be examined and re-examined to minimize the mistakes in analyzing the data. respondents the research participants of this study were two english teachers at one of junior high schools in semarang in the academic year 2019/2020. data collection methods procedures an instrument is a tool for measuring, observing, or documenting data. it includes interview, questionnaire, observation, and test (saleh, 2012). to generate findings in a systematic way, it is needed to have some instruments in the research. the instruments that used to collect the data from the research participants were interview, observation and document analysis. data collection procedures this research used in-field analysis gibson and o’connor model (2017) to analyze the data. data analysis in qualitative research, conducted at the time of data collection took place, and after completion of data collection in a certain period. the process of analyzing data consists of five steps, there are organizing the data, finding and organizing ideas and concepts, identify patterns and connections within and between categories, and interpretation. therefore, in this study, we used methodological triangulation was applied in this study because there were three data techniques used which were interview, observation and document analysis. interview and observation correlated to each other, which meant the two data supported each other in drawing the data to the conclusion. the document analysis made the study more accurate. we used the triangulation technique in order to get the most valid data as possible. using triangulating data, it attempt to provide ‘a confluence of evidence that breeds credibility’ (eisner, 1991). by examining information collected through different methods, the researchers could corroborate findings across data sets and thus reduced the impact of potential biases that can exist in a single study. findings and discussion the main purpose of this research is giving the readers detail information about strategies used by english teachers in teaching reading comprehension especially in procedure text. moreover, the strengths and weaknesses of each strategies will be explained as well. after doing the research, i found that there are three strategies mostly used by english teachers in teaching procedure text. those strategies are scaffolding and audio visual method, grammar translation method and project based learning. besides, the findings are divided into two parts. akidatul yusmalinda & puji astuti/elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 79 three methods used by english teachers’ in teaching reading comprehension of procedure text scaffolding and audio visual method in attaining the goal of comprehension, mrs. gea and mrs. nia had done a scaffolding method in advance. they had similar thought in gaining students’ attention but they did it in a different way. mrs. gea created attracted-materials such as colorful photos and videos related to procedure text which often about food in order to be showed and seen by students on lcd screen. this method aimed to gain the students’ attention and build a concept of the material that are going to be taught in class. on the other hand, mrs. nia also did scaffolding in different way. she began the class by giving a text or asking the students to open the book and read a certain text about procedure text. the teacher would read the text first, sentence by sentence then the students would repeat. the objective of such activity was to make the students reading aloud the text so that they are accustomed to the vocabulary and the text. after read the text, she also played a video in order to make the students more understand about what the procedure text is since it will be difficult to comprehend the text by only reading it. grammar-translation method mrs. gea and mrs. nia did the grammar-translation method after asking the students to read the text. she said that grammar-translation method is a must since the students learnt foreign language which absolutely was difficult to be mastered. at class, she asked what point they did not understand, and difficult words of the text. the teacher opened a question and answer section and discussion within the method which aimed to ask the students about the difficult words in such text. if they did not know the meaning, teacher explained the certain word by giving a movement such gestures to represent the meaning of the word. the students were enthusiastic in mentioning the words and got the idea of the content of the text. it help the students mastering the content of the text (see appendix 1). mrs. gea and mrs. nia used grammar translation method in order to help students converting the words from english into bahasa so that they can easily comprehend the content of procedure text. in translating the words teachers used some gestures to represent the meaning of the text to stimulate the students’ mind in guessing the word. that such method was really effective for students in comprehending the text. so that they can easily answer the questions related to the text. project-based learning according to teachers’ interview, they both said that procedure text often related to how to make something. so, they wanted the students not only able to read and understand the text but also practice and implement the content of text in real life. so, both teachers used project based learning as final assignment to be done in the last meeting. mrs. gea divided their students into some groups and each group were asked to choose one of the recipes to be demonstrate in front of class. she recorded the performance as a reflection of the learning process. moreover, mrs. nia also did the same method as mrs. gea. she grouped the students in order to train their skill in performing the recipe in front of the class. most of them demonstrated the menu or food the next meeting, and then mrs. nia assessed their performance. the strength and weaknesses of three methods used in teaching procedure text scaffolding and audio-visual method from the data of interview and observation that i got, this method had some strengths and also weaknesses. first, when mrs. gea used scaffolding by showing pictures and videos all students were enthusiastic in watching the video, the pictures could attract students’ attention. so, they were really enjoy the learning process through media such as power-point and video. on the other hand, when teacher asked the students some questions related to the video, not all students were active in answering those questions. some of them understood the content of the text, but others just focused on images which showed up on screen. besides, the position of the screen was not on the center of class, so the students who were sitting at the back corner of class could not see the power point clearly. it also had impact on their reading comprehension. when they read the text on the screen, they might miss some words, so their understanding of the content were less than others. akidatul yusmalinda & puji astuti/elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 80 besides, when mrs. nia used scaffolding by giving all the students printed text, they all seemed seriously read the text since the reason mrs. nia gave the strategy was because she wanted the students got used to in reading procedure text. reading the text made the students understood in pronouncing new vocabularies that came up in text, yet they might not pay attention to the content of the text. so when she asked some questions related to the text, students must read again the text in order to build the comprehension of the text. grammar-translation method this method is really helpful since first language of the students is bahasa, they needed a certain strategy to make them understand the whole text. mrs. gea and mrs. nia used grammar translation method in order to help students converting the words from english into bahasa so that they can easily comprehend the content of procedure text. from observation, i saw that students can understand the whole text easily since they succeed in finding the meaning of difficult words that came up in the text. besides, in translating the words teachers used some gestures to represent the meaning of the text to stimulate the students’ mind in guessing the word. that such strategy was really effective for students in comprehending the text. so that they can easily answer the questions related to the text. in addition, from the interview, i have asked both teachers about the weakness of using grammar-translation method in teaching procedure text. the result showed that grammar-translation method is the only one method which has not any weaknesses from teachers’ point of view. this strategy was appropriate in teaching reading comprehension about procedure text. project-based learning the third method that used by english teacher in teaching reading procedure text was project-based learning. this method was very effective in training students skill in speaking since they were supposed to perform in front of class. nevertheless, the aim of using such strategy was to assess students understanding of procedure text. this method was effective because it would stimulate students’ ability in speaking so that all students have the same opportunity to demonstrate the recipe of certain food. yet, the speaking skill can be achieved if the students master the whole text. if the students have mastered the whole text, they can perform properly. this method was effective in stimulating students in order to understand the text, so that they can train their speaking skill in front of class. yet, this method used so much time because one group may perform more than 15 minutes and the effect was not all students can perform properly. discussion in teaching and learning process teachers had designed such the lesson plan so that they know what should do in class. they set such activities and decided what methods which are suitable and appropriate to be implemented. they had written step by step in teaching procedure text, start from the beginning of class by preparing students to pray, motivating, giving a material and assessing the students’ comprehension and skill. in class, they had done such activities they planned in advance, but sometimes they did improvisation due to the class and students’ situation. nevertheless, each teacher had difference in beginning the materials in class. mrs. gea showed the video and pictures to introduce the materials, so that students could guess and grab the idea of the materials. besides, mrs. nia began the class by giving a text or asking the students to open the book and read a certain text about procedure text. the teacher would read the text first, sentence by sentence then the students would repeat. the objective of such activity was to make the students reading aloud the text so that they were accustomed to the vocabulary and the text. afterward, what she had done in continuing the teaching and learning process almost the same as with mrs. gea. both teachers discussed the materials such as asking the unfamiliar words in text which made students difficult in comprehending the text then teachers translated those words together with the students. teachers used to call the process as grammar-translation method. krashen (1987) the aim of language learning in this method is described as to help students attain the ability of reading the literature of the source language by studying its structures and akidatul yusmalinda & puji astuti/elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 81 lexicon, with a special weight on grammar rules, vocabulary memorization and written translations into and out of the target language, with a strong focus on the form and meaning. students learn new vocabulary and grammatical rules through their own native language. it is also widely used in explanation about new concept. meaning of the target language items is made clear via translation into students’ native language. as my observation, students are involved in translating the reading text from their book into bahasa after reading aloud by lines or sentences. as i have seen in the experience, individual students do the translation orally, yet the teacher can also ask students to write down their translation in their notebooks, as well. teachers also did not forget to explain the materials more detail and deeper as they explained what the text was and video told about, the function, generic structure and also the common words which often appear in procedure text. while explaining, teachers also often gave several oral questions, and students answered it orally. at the end of the discussion, teachers gave written question to the students so that the teacher would know how the process of understanding the material especially in procedure text in each students. yet, mrs. nia added some task from the questions of national examination. she wanted her students familiar with each kind of questions, because sometimes the question about procedure text can be unfamiliar for students due to the use of words. for example, the question would be about the function of the text, yet the writer used the synonym of the word “objective” like goal or aim. by giving the different type of questions, students are supposed to train in understanding what the question wants to ask. after giving a lot of explanation and task related to procedure text, teacher wanted the students to use their comprehension in real life. this will be happened by asking the students to perform. teachers divided the students into some group and ask them to find a recipe or any kind of procedure text that related to their life, and after that they asked them to perform in front of class. teachers will assess their performance and also knowledge by measuring their pronunciation, intonation, teamwork and their performance whether they gave the explanation of their project by reading the text or they have mastered the text so they can do it without reading any text. this process is called project based learning. according to jalinus, nabawi and mardin (2017) in project-based learning, students are the center of learning who are learning actively to improve their competences. teachers act more as a guide since it is student-centered. project based learning focuses on a real-world problem in this case, the students’ work related to their life such as an easy recipe that can be made in their real life. the significant improvement that occurred in ability doing project work could be seen from skilled student in preparing the materials, the materials and ingredients in accordance with procedure, managing of work, managing of time, cooperation with team work more solid and show better work attitude. the most important thing is the ability of comprehending the text. teacher chose and prepared such strategies and methods because they thought those were appropriate in teaching reading comprehension in particularly procedure text. the use of scaffolding aimed to build a concept of procedure text, stimulate students’ mind, and also attract students’ attention. when students had focus on the teacher and materials, teachers gave warming-up material by discussing about what the video was, what the text was and guessing the content. it can motivate the students to learn new materials. while learning new materials students surely got some obstacle in learning. thus the teacher helped them by asking difficult words, translating so that students felt helped and easy to understand the materials. discussing in question and answer session was a way to know whether the students have understood the material or not, if the students can answer the whole questions and know the whole text or what the content of the text, teacher can move forward to the next step. the goal of the use project based learning as final project in procedure text was to make each individual student not only able to read aloud and translate the words from english into bahasa, but also understand and comprehend the content of the text. the result was they could implement their understanding into skill by performing a certain text in front of class. they thought that by demonstrating a certain procedure text into performance means they were able to understanding and comprehension the text, especially when they performed without text. it concluded that they comprehend the text well. by doing so, teacher could assess students’ comprehension and also skill through performance, besides giving a certain text with some questions to be answered in order to know the students’ comprehension in reading procedure text. giving a text and some questions relate to text can be a training for students to achieve reading comprehension as the more they read, the more they know and feel familiar about the words which often appear in procedure text. akidatul yusmalinda & puji astuti/elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 82 nevertheless, mrs. gea and mrs. nia did not mention the name of each strategy either in class or in lesson plan they conducted. they both only gave materials, instruction as they set in advanced. they just simply wrote discovery learning as approach and learning method without writing detail each strategy that will be used in class. they should have written all methods and activities in lesson plan in order to measure whether what they have done in class as same as with the lesson plan or not. in addition, mentioning the strategy in class is also important since the students will know what they are going to do in that learning process. it can be done by changing the name of strategy with any easy term which make students understand the aim of learning activities in class. observing the students’ respond, actually not all students were active in learning process even teachers had set and prepared such materials and methods using medium, some students seemed not focus so that when teacher asked, they could not answered it. it also happened when teacher gave an exercise and asked them to write the answer, they were wrong in finding the correct answer. from five questions, most of students could not answer one question that was about implicit question, for example the question was about “how long does it take to cook rice?”, most students answered the written-minutes, but actually the answer was implicit. on the other hand, when it came to question and answer section orally, they seemed enthusiastic and scrambling in answering the meaning of words. from the result of study showed that project based learning has been implemented in teaching procedure text, yet it just focused on how the implementation of such strategy at class and the process of students’ activity. students were encouraged to collaborate in teamwork duty, stimulated to master their portion of duty in group. it can be concluded that project based learning has been used to teach procedure text. the result of this observation related to the study conducted by tan (2016) he said that grammar translation method and task based language teaching were two effective teaching methods in reading and they did improve chinese college students’ reading comprehension over a certain period of time. based on two previous studies, those two methods were appropriate in teaching. that is the reason why i choose to examine the methods used by english teacher in teaching reading comprehension in particular procedure text because there are some methods and strategies which proven effective in teaching reading. krashen (1982) the second way to develop competence in a second language is by language learning. the term "learning" henceforth to refer to conscious knowledge of a second language, knowing the rules, being aware of them, and being able to talk about them. in non-technical terms, learning is "knowing about" a language, known to most people as "grammar", or "rules". some synonyms include formal knowledge of a language, or explicit learning. those points mean that reading comprehension is one of the input in acquiring english especially for indonesian students as the second language. those point of krashen meant that reading comprehension help students in acquiring english as their second language. by knowing new vocabulary that came up in text as many as possible make them collect those word in memory so the library of words will increase day by day. in the end, they could master english well. in line with the result of the study i did at one of junior high schools in semarang, teachers had prepared and chose the best methods in teaching reading about procedure text. hence, they did some activities in class using three best method that they thought can build students’ reading comprehension. what i saw in my observation, teachers did not only pay attention on how students could understand the text well, but also how the students can use and apply the procedure text in real life which can be achieved if the students have really comprehend the content of the text. if students have understood what the text is going to tell, they can implement that meaning and aim of the text, they can show or perform it in front of their friend and others. thus all activities that had been done in class were connected one to another. the most important thing is students must achieve the reading comprehension of procedure text if they want to train other skills such as speaking and writing. the result of my observation showed that the teachers had drilled the students to read and understand the text using three methods i had mentioned. so, they get accustomed to reading procedure text and understanding the context of the text. at the end, they all have mastered the reading comprehension of procedure text, it also can be seen from their performance in class. akidatul yusmalinda & puji astuti/elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 83 conclusion the strategies used by english teachers can be concluded as, mrs. gea conducted the lesson plan in advance, then did audio visual method by showing video and pictures, and scaffolding by showing the text related to the video. after that she did grammar translation method, then giving question and answer session by discussion and also as individual work. the last she implemented the project based learning to know the students’ comprehension into performance. on the other hand, mrs. nia conducted lesson plan in advance, then reading aloud the text, did scaffolding after that, showed video used audio visual method, then grammar translation method, thus giving question and answer session and the last she implemented the project based learning to know the students’ comprehension into performance. in short, those english teachers had used various strategies in teaching reading comprehension. they did not only use one method to teach all students. the three strategies that most used by english teachers were scaffolding and audio visual method, grammar-translation method and project based learning. moreover, the most appropriate method in teaching reading comprehension according to english teachers was grammar-translation method as it really helped students understanding the text easily. second, project based learning, it stimulated the students to work in group and trained their speaking skill which obtained from the result of reading and comprehending the procedure text. the last but not least, scaffolding and audio-visual method since it really worked on attracting the students to focus on the materials and introduced them what kind of text they were going to learn. the use of different methods is good in order to make students understand the materials due to the fact that students have difference ability, needs and background knowledge. by using miscellaneous strategies may help teacher in teaching process, because we never know which method that appropriate to such students. the result may be different from one students and others. from that point a view means teachers had made and conducted the materials and strategies as good as possible yet the point of success and effectiveness of the use of a certain strategies can be achieved not only from the teachers’ side but also from the students’ side, since each students has difference background knowledge, needs, ability, the situation of students in class at that day can be influenced as well. so, that is difficult to know whether a particular method is effective or not. it has to be done in a long time to prove it. moreover, for further researcher could ask and interview students’ whether what teachers did in class related to teaching reading comprehension in procedure text has made them understand the materials and text or not. besides, post interview after doing an observation class is good to be done. this method can be used as reflection in teaching and learning process. so, for the next researcher can do this method to make the research more valid. acknowledgment i would like to give my deepest gratitude to my advisor puji astuti, s.pd., m.pd., ph.d. for her patience in giving me guidance and meaningful suggestions during the consultations for this final project. moreover, the twenty six participants who belong to those abstracts. in addition, they were willing to become the participants of this final project. references almasri, meshail m. & alshumaimeri, yousif a. 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(2017). a step by step guide to qualitative data analysis. a journal of aboriginal and indigenous community health, 1 (1). akidatul yusmalinda & puji astuti/elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 84 harmer, jeremy. 2001. the practice of english language teaching. united kingdom: longman. jalinus, nizwardi., nabawi, azis rahmat., & mardin, aznil. (2017). the seven steps of project based learning model to enhance productive competences of vocational students. education and humanities research. padang: universitas negeri padang. krashen, s. d. (1982). principles and practice in second language acquisition. university of southern california. krashen, s. d. (1987). principles and practice in second language acquisition. london. prentice hall international. masadeh, thouqan saleem yakoub. (2015). performance of saudi english language teachers in reading comprehension classes. sage open, 1–10. medina, sergio lopera. (2012). the effects of strategy instruction in a efl reading comprehension. colombia: universidad de antioquia. muslaini. (2017). strategies for teaching reading comprehension. english education journal, 8(1), 6778. banda aceh: syiah kuala university. ness, m. k. (2016). reading comprehension strategies in secondary content area classrooms: teacher use of and attitudes towards reading comprehension instruction. reading horizons: a journal of literacy and language arts, 49 (2). soleimani, hassan & hajghani, sajadeh. (2013). the effect of teaching reading comprehension strategies on iranian efl pre-university students' reading comprehension ability. international research journal of applied and basic sciences, 5 (5), 594-600. souhila, rouai. (2014). the use of reading strategies in improving reading comprehension. university kasdi merbah ouargla. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 121 elt forum 9 (2) (2020) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt periodic assigment: exploring students’ perception and their academic achievement husnul khatimah1, miftahul jannah2, khairil razali3 1iain langsa, indonesia 2,3uin ar-raniry, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 28 september 2020 approved in 29 november 2020 published in 30 november 2020 ________________ keywords: periodic assignment; students’ perception; academic achievement; english for academic purpose ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ determining the perception of english department students toward the periodic assignment and how it develops students’ academic achievement was the aim of this study. the correspondents were 42 students who experienced periodic assignments in english for academic purposes subject at english department of uin ar-raniry, banda aceh. this study used a quatitative descriptive research design. the data were collected through questionnaires as the researcher used a four-point likert scale questionnaire adapted from turanli (2009) as the instrument. the scale was taken for exploring respondent’s personality. frequency distribution was used to analyze the obtained data and it would be presented in percentage. from 16 questions, the findings revealed that many students expressed positive perception towards periodic assignments in learning english for academic purposes. the students also expressed that the periodic assignments had developed their academic achievement. this study was not only useful for teachers’ practical teaching, but it provided the base for future research about periodic assignment. © 2020 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 lambirah village, no.10, suka makmur, aceh besar, aceh, 23361 e-mail: husnul@iainlangsa.ac.id http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& husnul khatimah, miftahul jannah, khairil razali/elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 122 introduction in educational sectors, assignment is considered as a common tool which has value to assess students' improvement in mastering learning resources. teachers, students, and parents share the same perspective about it as an assessment tool. simply, assignment could be a task or a homework that must be done by the students. it facilitates the students not only in internalizing information that has been presented in the class, but also in encouraging students to practice materials that have just been learned. in fact, the main actor who has a significant role in assigning the assignment is a teacher or a lecturer in this research context. for instance, a lecturer is a planner, facilitator, and evaluator. in order to optimize the assignment as the assessment tool, the lecturer must consider paulu’s (1998, as cited in mousavi et al, 2012) suggestion about varying the assignment types to make it pleasant and enjoyable for the students. besides, after providing the assignment, the lecturer shall not leave his/her students to accomplish the assignment given on their own without further guidance. if appropriately treated, assignment will work beyond the tool, as collier (2007, as cited in costley, 2013) had explained that the assignment can improve students’ retention and understanding of the materials, and “reinforce it” pytel (2007). in addition, bas, senturk, and cigerci’ (2017) stated that assignment has positive effects on students' academic achievement. each lecturer has different ways in assigning the assessment, either the types of assignment or the due date of it. some lecturers assigned the assignment frequently, while others assigned minimal assignments. the periodic assignment is a frequent task given to students with precise time to submit. periodic assignment has many advantages, such as to teach target skills, to increase the students' independence and their participation, and to avoid the students from doing the procrastination. in a study conducted by trautwein (2007) noted that students' learning achievement developed more favorably in classes in which the teachers set frequent (but not necessarily lengthy) rather than infrequent assignments. moreover, research was done by zhang (2002) also showed that assignments are able to develop students’ cognitive competency. for this research context, based on writer’s preliminary research observing english for academic purposes (eap) subject, the lecturer gave the assignments periodically, especially one assignment every week. honestly, the students expressed a different reaction towards the assignments. for some students, the assignments were a piece of cake. hence, trough doing the periodic assignments, they had chance to practice the materials that had been presented in the class every week. therefore, they could recall the information that had been learned in each meeting. besides, it estranged the students from doing procrastination since the due date was already set. as the lecturer checked the assignment at the beginning of the week before the one was given for next week, the students were able to identify their mistakes through feedbacks (hashemnezahd and mohammadnejad 2012). on opposing side, other students believed the periodic assignments were hard to execute. for them, assignments cause learning to be unpleasant or worthwhile. in a study, kohn (2007) stated that students did not need many homework assignments because doing more tasks would not increase students' grades. he also added that for undergraduate students, time was precious, so to assess their learning perhaps was enough through the test score. to be more specific, periodic is occurring or recurring at regular intervals; occurring repeatedly from time to time (meriam webster dictionary, 2017). assignment is an out-of-class activity that a teacher assigns to students, for both including task and homework. hong and milgram defined assignment as ‘tasks assigned to learners by their teachers that are to be done outside the class without concomitant teacher direction’ (2000, p.5). in addition, cooper et al. (2006, as cited in booth, 2010) stated that homework assignments are meant to extend and supplement in-class activities. peng et al. (1997) defined the periodic task as “the baseload" invoked at fixed time intervals. in this research, periodic assignment was the assignment given by the english for academic purposes (eap) lecturer after explaining the course material. as in eap subject, four skills had been taught; speaking, listening, reading, and writing, so did the assignment, for example, after presenting the material about speaking, the lecturer assigned the assignment such as speech, drama, role play, or oral presentation. in fact, different university sets diverse assignment types, but they have comparable structures and features. indeed, to elucidate the types of university assignment, the writer focuses on the four skills assignments that had been taught in eap subject such as reading, speaking, listening, and writing. the writer took example of reading assignments types from harvard university, in which they often husnul khatimah, miftahul jannah, khairil razali/elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 123 used types of reading assignment, such as weekly reading, close reading, case reading, scientific reading, reading for context, and reading for research (honor.fas.harvard.edu, 2018). besides, the writer also adapted brown’s (2003) types of listening assignments, such as (1) listening cloze; in this assignment, the students listen to a story, monologue, or conversation and simultaneously read the written text in which selected words or phrases have been deleted. (2) information transfer; after listening to some information, the students are asked to transfer the information to a visual representation, such as labeling diagram, identifying an element in a picture or completing a form. (3) communicative stimulus-response tasks; the students present a stimulus monologue or conversation and then they are asked to respond to a set of comprehension questions. (4) authentic listening task; such as note-taking, editing paragraph, paraphrasing, and retelling the information. furthermore, for speaking assignment types, it was taken from university of mary washington, those are (1) presentational speaking; this assignment encourages students to understand course material well enough to communicate it to others. (2) learning groups and class discussion; learning group activities give students specific oral tasks, such as analyzing a problem or examining the textual material. the assignment is designed so that collaboration by group members is essential to make progress on the task. (3) task group project; in these assignments, students work together for longer periods of time and may be expected to produce a final report of some sort. (4) interpersonal communication; these assignments involve projects in which two students communicate together for the purpose of achieving some common goal. typical formats include role-playing cases. (university of mary washington, 2018) therefore, according to the writer’s preliminary research in english for academic purposes class, types of the periodic assignments were essay, annotated bibliography, reflective journal or thesis, news report, tourism place report, role play, and writing a business plan. as society shares the common belief that learning in the class is not enough for teachers to teach all materials, it is necessary for lecturers to ask the students to learn outside the class through assignments. it is aline with the assigment purposes to support students’ learning in increasing their capabilities and practical skills to develop their academic achievement (mulyasa, 2005; bishop, 2008; and susana, 2010), and to prepare them for the next lesson (hong and milgram, 2000). indeed, many studies have examined the impact of assignments on students’ academic achievement at the elementary and secondary education levels, but only a few studies have investigated this issue in a university-level setting. cooper (1989, as cited in latif and miles, 2011) provided an excellent about this in elementary and secondary school. he conducted a review of nearly 120 empirical studies of homework assignment's effects and the ingredients of the successful homework assignment. his study revealed that homework assignment enhances students’ academic achievement. trautwein’s carried out research (2007) about homework assignments-achievement relation on 2.216 students in classes participating in a large educational assessment. the result of his research showed that students' learning achievement developed more favorably in classes in which teachers set frequent (but not necessarily lengthy) rather than infrequent homework assignments. moreover, hallam (2004) believed the students like the teachers who assign regular and reasonable amount of assignment. similarly, zhang (2002) investigated 82 hong kong university students and found that critical and creative thinking assignment types develop stduents’ achievement. based on the previous elaboration, the researcher would like to explore deeper on the students’ perception towards periodic assignment and to determine whether it develops students’ academic achievement in learning english for academic purposes subject. methods this study employed the quantitative method. it was a method used to explain phenomena by collecting numerical data that will be analyzed through mathematically based method (aliaga and gunderson: 2002, as cited in muijs 2004). the questionnaire was used for the research instrument. it was conducted at department of english language education, faculty of education and teacher training, ar-raniry state islamic university (uin), banda aceh. ar-raniry state islamic university is the islamic university under the administration of the ministry of religious affairs. the former name of uin ar-raniry was iain (the state institute of religious affairs) ar-raniry. department of english language education provides many subjects; one of them is english for academic purposes (eap) subject which lecturers usually give the periodic assignment. therefore, english language husnul khatimah, miftahul jannah, khairil razali/elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 124 education was chosen as the research location and the respondents were taken from semester vii as eap subject was setting for them, in order to know their perception about the periodic assignment and whether it develops students' academic achievement. additionally, the population of this study was 168 students in the 7th semester in academic year 2018/2019. the researchers used a purposive sampling method. the sample of this research was taken based on the number of students who took english academic purposes subject and given periodic assignment by the lecturer. according to sugiono (2008), if the population is large, then the sample can be taken between 10-15% or 20-25%. there were six classes of english for academic purposes, among them only two classes that were given the periodic assignment. therefore, the sample of the questionnaire was 42 students at english language education department of ar-raniry state islamic university. furthermore, to gain intended data, the questionnaire was distributed to 42 respondents. the researchers used a four-point likert scale questionnaire adapted from turanli (2009) as the instrument to find out the students’ perception toward periodic assignments. the scale was taken for exploring respondent’s personality as hadjar has explained (2006, as cited in taniredja & mustafidah, 2012) “it usually uses the likert scale which aims to take a gauge of people's characteristic" (p.44). the questionnaire was close-ended questions with 4 points wherein the level was made up from one to four; (1) strongly disagree; (2) disagree; (3) agree; and (4) strongly agree. it consisted of 16 questions that asked the students' perception toward periodic assignment and the benefits of periodic assignment on students' academic achievement. in analyzing the questionnaire data, researchers followed kasiram’s advice (2018) as there were several crucial steps to accomplish; checking, editing, coding, and tabulating the data. the researchers first checked all questionnaire items of missing characters or words to avoid any misunderstanding issue, then distributed those questionnaires to the participants. after distributing the questionnaire, the researchers collected the questionnaires from respondents and all data were gained, the researchers analyzed the collected data by using the statistical simple formula, it was appliying frequency distribution. the data would be presented in percentage by using the following formula (sudjono, 2008) p = f n 𝑥 100%. this percentage was grouped based on the scale so that the researcher were able to find out the students’ perception towards the questions. after analyzing the data from questionnaires, the data were presented in a table and it will be followed by brief explanation to describe the students’ perception. findings and discussion after collected the data through the questionnaire, the researchers acquired the findings as there were 42 students filled the questionnaire. findings the data analysis of the questionnaire were displayed in the following table. table 1. the result of questionnaires no statements strongly agree agree disagree strongly disagree 1 i am happy if the lecturer gives periodic assignment 14.3% 64.3% 21.4% 0% 2 the periodic assignment is helpful for me to understand the related topic 14.3% 64.3% 11.9% 9.5% 3 i find periodic assignment helps me in increasing my academic achievement 16.7% 71.4% 11.9% 0% 4 i find periodic assignment facilitates my learning 16.7% 76.2% 7.1% 0% 5 i find periodic assignment in eap class is fun because it has a various form of assignment 31% 47.6% 21.4% 0% 6 i find periodic assignment is interesting 6.5% 61.9% 26.2% 2.4% 7 i find periodic assignment helps me to deal with many resources in doing assignment 28.6% 66.7% 4.7% 0% 8 i find periodic assignment useful for my short term goals 14.3% 78.6% 7.1% 0% husnul khatimah, miftahul jannah, khairil razali/elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 125 9 i find periodic assignment useful for my long term goals 16.7% 61.9% 21.4% 0% 10 i find periodic assignment help me to understand the next course material 21.4% 59.5% 16.7% 2.4% 11 i find periodic assignment help me to become more innovative 14.3% 59.5% 23.8% 2.4% 12 the due time to submit the assigned assignment is usually enough to do it properly 14.3% 64.3% 19% 2.4% 13 i have enough resources/books to use for my assignment 0% 76.2% 21.4% 2.4% 14 the lecturer checks regularly if i have done my the assigned assignment 4.7% 73.8% 19% 2.4% 15 the lecturer usually help me correct my mistakes 9.5% 66.7% 21.4% 2.4% 16 the lecturer assigns too much assignment in teaching english for academic purposes 16.7% 50% 28.6% 4.7% in accordance with the table above, question number 1 displayed that 14.3% of the students answered strongly agree and 64.3 % of the students answered agree. it indicated that, most of the students were happy if the lecturer assigned them the periodic assignment. on the other hand, 21.4% of the students chose to disagree which meant they did not like to be given the periodic assignment. the percentage of agreement was above 50% which presented that the happy feeling the students had toward periodic assignment. then, question number 2 pointed out that 14.3% of students marked strongly agree and 64.3% of them marked agree. meanwhile, few other students also marked disagree for 11.9% and strongly agree for 9.5%. however, it still designated that most of the students agreed that periodic assignment was helpful for them to understand the related topic. furthermore, 16.7% of students chose strongly agree and 71.4% of students chose to agree for question number 3. it displayed that the periodic assignment help in increasing their academic achievement. on contrary, 11.9% of students chose to disagree which meant that periodic assignment did not help them in increasing their academic achievement. their ‘above 50%’ agreement manifested the help that was provided by periodic assignment towards students’ academic achievement. in addition, the question number 4 pointed out that 16.7% of students chose strongly agree and 76.2% of the students chose to agree. it reflected that most of the students agreed that periodic assignment facilitated their learning. meanwhile, only 7.1% of the students who found that periodic assignment did not facilitate their learning. based on the answer of 5th question, 31% of the students answered strongly agree and 47.6% of the students answered agree. it revealed that most of the students found periodic assignment was fun because it had a various form of assignment. yet, 21.4% of the students found that the periodic assignment in eap class was not fun. indeed, this question was the highest percentage of students’ choice on strongly agree among other question listed. it revealed the strong positive feeling students experienced during accomplishing the periodic assignment that was given. in addition, the answer of question number 6 about students’ interest, it emphasized the former discussion as 9.3% of the students marked strongly agree and 61.9% of them marked agree, and only few other students also marked disagree for 26.2% and strongly agree for 2.4%. it confirmed the pleasant perception the students had towards periodic assignments as disagreement percentage was still below 50%. furthermore, the next answer of question number 7 pointed out that 28.6% of the students chose strongly agree and 66.7% of the students chose to agree. it designated that the majority of the students found that periodic assignment helped them dealing with many resources when accomplishing the assignment, only 4.7% of them who disagreed that periodic assignment helped them dealing with many resources. for question number 8, the table above displayed that 14.3% of the students chose strongly agree and 78.6% of the students chose agree. at the same time, 7.1% of the students disagreed that periodic assignment useful for their short-term goals. 78.68% was the highest percentage of the agreement that students revealed among other question listed. it reflected the most positive perception students had toward periodic assignment as it was useful for their short-term goals in learning eap subject. husnul khatimah, miftahul jannah, khairil razali/elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 126 in exploring about the students’ long term goals, the table above displayed that 16.7% of the students chose strongly agree and 61.9% of the students chose to agree. it indicated that students found that periodic assignment useful for their long-term goals. despite, there were 21.4% of students who found that periodic assignment was not useful for their long-term goals. as the disagreement was below 50%, the positive perception still dominated the answer. besides, the answer of question number 10 (about dealing with next course materials) showed that 21.4% of the students marked strongly agree and 59.5% of the students marked agree. it expressed that periodic assignments helped students to understand the next course material. on the other hand, 16.7% of the students marked disagree and 2.4% of the students marked strongly disagree which displayed that periodic assignment did not help them to understand the next course material. in accordance with the table above, for question number 11, it could be seen that 14.3% of the students answered strongly agree and 59.5% of them answered agree. it showed that more than half students agreed that periodic assignment made them innovative. on the other hand, 23.8% of the students chose to disagree and 2.4% of them chose strongly agree which showed that periodic assignment did not make them innovative. below 30% percent of disagreement did not distracted the positive perception that had been shown before. additionally, the answer of question number 12, it could be studied that 14.3% of the students marked strongly agree and 64.3% of the students marked agree. it showed that most of the students agreed the due time to submit the assigned assignments was enough to do the assignment appropriately. yet, still 19% of the students marked disagree and 2.4% of them marked strongly disagree which indicated that the due date was not enough to the assigned assignment properly. it also can be seen that from the question number 13, even though there were 0% of students’ strongly agreement, but 76.2% of the students agreed that they had enough resources/books to use for their assignment. this number was the second highest result of students’ agreement among the questions that had been listed in the table above. conversely, 21.4% of the students disagreed that they had enough resources/books to use for their assignment. since the disagreement was below 50%, the indication of students’ positive perception was accepted. for number 14, the table above stated that 4.7% of the students marked strongly agree and 73.8% of them marked agree. it indicated that the lecturer checked regularly if they had done the assignment. nevertheless, 19% of the students marked disagree and 2.4% of them marked strongly disagree. this showed that there were some students who did not agree if the lecturer checked regularly if they had done the assignment. in the next answer, it can be seen that 9.5% of the students answered strongly agree and 66.7% of the students answered agree. it indicated that most of the students found that the lecturer usually helps them corrected their mistake. meanwhile, 21.4% of the students answered disagree and 2.4% of the students answered strongly disagree which showed that the lecturer usually did not help them corrected their mistake. the disagreement was below 50%, the positive perception was also reflected. besides, question number 16 illustrated that 16.7% of the students marked agree while 50% of the students marked disagree. nonetheless, 28.6% of the students marked disagree and 4.7% of them marked strongly disagree. it showed that more than half students agreed that the lecturer assigned too much assignment in teaching english for academic purposes. this was the highest number of students marked on disagreement among the questions listed, somehow it indicated the students negative feeling towards ‘too much assignment’ given. however, since the disagreement was still below 50%, otherwise the agreement was more than 70%, thus most of the students’ perception about periodic assignment was positive. honestly, during the process of collecting data, the researcher found three students who did not submit their assignments. when comparing their answer in the questionnaires, they agreed that the lecturer usually assigned too much assignment but the due time to submit the assigned assignment was not enough to do the assignment properly. hence, the researcher assumed that they did not submit the assignments because it burdened them and they did not have enough time to finish it. discussion regarding the table and brief explanation above, it revealed the result of students' perception toward periodic assessment. the percentages of the questions were almost 100% on agree option. the highest result was 95.3 % on question number 7. this reflected the students’ agreement having many resources helped them in accomplishing the assignment. the second highest percentage was 92.9% on question husnul khatimah, miftahul jannah, khairil razali/elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 127 number 4 and number 8. they agreed that periodic assignment helped them in the learning process. besides, they found enough resources to finish the assignment on time. furthermore, the percentages were almost all above 50% agree on the question except for question number 5 which only 47.6%. however, question number 5 was the highest percentage of strongly agree answer, 31%, which profusely emphasized the fun feeling students had towards periodic assignment. additionally, the highest result on agree answer was for question number 8, about usefulness of periodic assignment on the students’ short-term goals. this designated that periodic assignment provided real benefit in supporting students to visualize, identify and pursue their shortterm goals. the second highest result on agreement were for question number 4 and question number 12. question number 4 was about periodic assignment facilitates the students learning and question number 12 about the appropriate resources/books available for students’ usage to accomplish their assignment. for both questions, the percentage was akin, 76.2%. this reflected that periodic assignment facilitated the students’ learning as there were enough books and sources to be used. indeed, the data exposed that most students agreed with the statement which was provided in questionnaire. otherwise, there were seven questions which had 0% percentage on strongly disagree. those questions were about; the students’ happy feeling towards periodic assignment, their though about periodic assignment was fun, the help that was provided by periodic assignment in dealing with many resources, it facilitated the students’ learning, it helped them dealing with their short-term and their long term goals, and the last but the most important one, the students’ marked 0% for strongly disagree option on the question about the periodic assignment helped them to develop their academic achievement. this 0% manifested that all of the students agreed on the questions (which elaborated about the students’ feeling and the help that was provided by the periodic assignment) that had mentioned above. however, the highest percentages on disagree option could be seen on question number 14. the data showed that 33.3 % of participants disagreed on the statement. they minded if the lecturer gave many assignments for them. it signalled that most of the students did not mind about all questionnaires statements, especially statement number 14. it meant students still bared the positive perception on periodic assignment. according to 16 statements on questionnaires which was answered by the correspondents, the first concern in the questionnaire was about how students feeling toward periodic assignment. the finding from the study manifested that more than half of the students (78.6%) were pleased when the lecturer gave them periodic assignment. besides, 71.4% of students also found that the periodic assignment was interesting. according to hallam (2004), teachers who assign regular and reasonable amount of assignment are liked by students comparatively more than other teachers. in other words, the respondents seemed to be happy and enjoy when the lecturer assigns the periodic assignment. the second concern in the questionnaire was about how helpful the students found the periodic assignment and what benefits they obtained from the assignment towards their academic achievement. most of the students (78.6%) agreed that periodic assignment helped them to understand the related topic. it was in line with the result of a study by turanli (2009) which indicated that the students believe the assignment helps understand the topics in learning. pytel (2007) also added that the main reason for assigning the assignment is to reinforce material that has already been presented in class. indeed, the participants approved that the periodic assignment was helpful to understand the subject matter. when students understood the subject materials, their learning process became convenient and smoother for them in performing better academic achievement. furthermore, this finding emphasized the purpose of the assignment that was elaborated by bishop (2008), which was to teach students to concentrate, to write a report, to spend time alone, and to develop a curiosity to be a continuous learner. all of those purpose ended up to one path, the development of students’ academic achievement. it also supported the explanation of susana (2010) and mulyasa (2005) about the assignment purposes such as; academic as the major purpose and nonacademic as the minor purpose. the major purposes of the assignment are to practice and to improve student's academic achievement; to stimulate the students about the topic proposed or taught, to know to what extent the students’ mastery of the proposed assignment, and to see the weaknesses and shortage of students in their work. meanwhile, the minor purpose of the assignment is closely related to self-oriented goals. it is to help students develop time-management, self-confidence, and accountability; to develop initiative and learn to work independently, to gain a sense of personal responsibility for learning, and to develop self-belief and moral. husnul khatimah, miftahul jannah, khairil razali/elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 128 further, the majority of students (88.1%) maintained that assignment contributes to the students' learning. many students agreed that periodic assignment helped them in increasing their academic achievement. latif & miles (2011) and trautwein (2007) reported that periodic or frequent assignment has positive effects on students’ academic performance and improves student’s learning achievement. by all means, the students believed that the periodic assignment was necessary for their academic achievement. another concern of this study was to identify whether periodic assignment facilitates students’ learning. almost all of the students (92.9%) agreed that periodic assignment facilitated their learning such as helped them to prepare and understand the next course material (80.9%) and to deal with many resources in doing the assignment (95.3%). it was in line with the purposes of assignment proposed by pytel (2007) as assignment prepares the students in learning new materials so that they get the benefit while the new material is introduced in the class. in addition, hong and milgram (2000) mentioned that by doing the assignment, students are asked to review, practice, and drill material that has been learned at school and university. besides, assignment also provides the students with the opportunity to amplify, elaborate, and enrich previously learned information. this emphasized by susana (2010) that was by doing the assignment, students are expected to review and study over what they have already learned, to prepare for the next meeting, and to utilize the available sources such as library and laboratory. the next question in the questionnaire aimed to identify how necessary students found assignments for students' short-term and long-term goals (such as weekly quizzes, mid-terms, and final examination). it was discovered that 92.9% of students agreed that periodic assignment useful for their short-term goals while 78.6% of students also agreed that periodic assignment useful for their long-term goals. turanli (2009) said that students believed that doing the assignment is necessary to help them achieve their short-term and long-term goals. simply stated, students agreed on the usefulness of assignments for their short-term and long-term academic goals. the students who were concious about their learning goals would have better chance to pursue the goal than those who were not. this awareness was needed for shaping their academic achievement. the enjoyable moment in completing the assignment was one of the factors that must be considered by the lecturers when assigning the assignment. the students were conveniently felt boring if assignments types were all similar. for this reason, the lecturer should highly put the effort in varying the assignment types. the majority of students (78.6%) agreed that periodic assignment in eap class was fun because it had a various form of assignments such as a written assignment, video assignment, and project assignment. paulu (1998, as cited in mousavi et al, 2012) suggested that to vary the assignment in order to make the assignment is pleasant and enjoyable to do. as commonly suggested, monitoring assignments (whether and how well the students had been doning) may contribute positively to students' achievement. most of the students (78.5%) agreed that the lecturer checked regularly if the students had done the assigned assignment. somehow this activity motivated the students to do not deny the assignment that had been given. while 26.2% of the students also agreed that the lecturer helped them correct their mistake. it was in accordance with the study by hashemnezahd and mohammadnejad (2012) which found that when the lecturer checks the student’ assignment and gives the feedback, it will facilitate the students’ skill to identify the existence of their mistake. understanding their mistakes promoted students to revise and relearn the materials as the washback impact of the assignment was available for them. summing up, first, based on the finding of this research, the periodic assignments had helped students to internalize information that has been presented in the class and to practice materials that had just been learned. second, periodic assignment also had provided students’ preparation for the next lesson, had motivated students to pay attention in class, and had given the students’ chance to receive the teacher’s feedback on students’ strengths and weaknesses, so that the students had understood how well they have comprehended the lesson. in addition, it had helped the students to develop self-discipline and time management skill as well. however, the researcher also found some factors that inhibited the process of the periodic assignment facilitated the students' academic achievement. the first factor was the lecturer assigned too much assignment in a week. this resulted in the negative feeling as students received the assignment as the burden. it led to some students did not collect or finish their assignment. 66.7% of students mentioned in the questionnaire that the lecturer assigned too much assignment they could handle. kohn (2007) asserted that there is not enough evidence to claim that assignment contributes to academic achievement and students’ academic performance will not decline even if they are not husnul khatimah, miftahul jannah, khairil razali/elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 129 given any assignment. similarly, bennet & kalish (2006) and buell (2004) revealed that too much assignment negatively affect family life, overburden many students, and cause negative emotions in parents and students. the second factor was the students did not have enough time for preparation. although 78.6% of students agreed that the due time to submit the assigned assignment was usually enough for them to do it properly, still in the reality there were some students who were late or even did not submit the assignment. 21.4% of students answered that they did not have enough time to submit a well-prepared assignment. it was in line with the result of a study by turanli (2009) which stated that lecturer should give the students enough time to prepare their assignment properly before they submit it. therefore, in order to promote students’ academic achievement toward periodic assignment, teachers or lecturers need to consider about the length of time for students to accomplish their assignment, as well as the amount and the quality of assignment. when lecturer chose to provide many assignment at one time, lecturer needed to lower the difficulties level of the assignment, otherwise when lecturer assigned some assignments, the level of the difficulties had to be increased. summing up, based on the questionnaire result that had explore the students’ perception towards periodic assignment, it could be concluded that the periodic assignment had developed the students’ academic achievement in learning english for academic purposes (eap) subject. conclusion the research was conducted to explore deeper on students’ perception toward periodic assignment and whether this type of assignment can develop students’ academic achievement. the participants were 42 students who were given periodic assignment in english for academic purposes (eap) subject at english department of uin ar-raniry. the researchers used quantitative method and the data were collected through questionnaires. to analyze the collected data, the researchers used the statistical simple formula. it was the statistical method applied by frequency distribution and presented in percentage. based on the finding of study, it could be concluded that most of the participants showed positive perception towards periodic assignment in learning english for academic purposes subject. it was very helpful for their learning progress, for example, periodic assignment helped students to understand the related topic, to increase students' academic achievement, to understand the next course material, and to deal with many resources in doing the assignment. all of this process had provided the development of students’ academic achievement. the researchers suggest, the research findings should be used for practical process of teaching and learning, not only in english for academic purposes subject but also in many other subjects. beside for practicing, the findings also could be utilize for further research for example by gathering more extensive data and by analyzing more types of periodic assignments. references baş, g., sentürk, c., & ciğerci, f. m. 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(2012). penelitian kuantitatif. bandung: alfabeta. trautwein, u. (2007). the homework-achievement relation reconsidered: differentiating homework time, homework frequency, and homework effort. learning and instruction, 17(3), 372-388. turanli, a. s. (2009). students’ and parents’ perceptions about homework. education and science, 34(153), 61-73. university of mary washington (2015). speaking intensive program. retrieved on october 9, 2018, from https://academics.umw.edu/speaking/resources/sample-assignments/. zhang, l.f. (2002). thinking styles and cognitive developmant. journal of genetic pschology, 163(2), 179-195. http://educationalissues.suite101.com/article.cfm/homework_what_research_says https://academics.umw.edu/speaking/resources/sample-assignments/ putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 212 elt forum 10 (3) (2021) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt challenges of teaching and learning grammar in online classes at the tertiary level tanzina halim1, rizwana wahid2, shanjida halim3 1,2,3faculty of languages & translation, king khalid university, abha, saudi arabia article info ________________ article history: received on 4 july 2021 approved on 8 november 2021 published on 24 november 2021 ________________ keywords: attitude; challenges; learners; online classes; perspective ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this paper investigates the attitude of teachers and students towards the teaching and learning of grammar for online classes. the current study aims to identify the difficulties that the students face when learning grammar through online sessions. the paper also gives an insight from teachers’ perspectives who had conducted grammar classes online. for this, 20 male and female teachers and 80 female undergraduate students of a public university in saudi arabia were chosen as participants to carry out the study. to find out the benefits of this shift from face-to-face classes to online classes, the instruments used were questionnaires distributed to the teachers and students who experienced online sessions for almost two semesters. based on the findings of the results of the study, the paper concludes and gives some recommendations on how both teachers and students can cope with the challenges faced during online classes while teaching and learning grammar. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 king abdullah road king khalid university, abha, saudi arabia 62318 e-mail: rizuwahid@gmail.com http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& mailto:rizuwahid@gmail.com tanzina halim, rizwana wahid, shanjida halim | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 213 introduction grammar is indispensable to language learning. without it, no language can be learned properly. when learning english, some learners might have numerous difficulties and problems (eltayef & hussain, 2017). from time to time, they struggle with pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary. in a study conducted by souisa and yanuarius (2020), it is stated that in an efl context, teaching grammar should be focused on teaching the pattern of language, and it should be taught properly so that students can have practical application in their speaking and writing. it is also mentioned that various strategies and meaningful activities should be incorporated when teaching grammar. as morelli (2003, pp. 33-34) pointed, multiple approaches and methodologies are needed to cater to the needs and requirements of students based on their individual styles of learning. it is a well-known fact that there are many difficulties faced by teachers and students with regard to grammar instructions in an esl/efl context (al-mekhlafi, 2011). in recent years, the use of technology to impart lessons in any course is imperative. the technology has grown at a fast pace and overtaken many aspects of education. the shift from face-to-face classes to online classes have benefitted students immensely because it has widened the door for all learners. apart from students, teachers have also had the opportunity to experiment with new strategies to engage and motivate learners through online sessions. however, online classes have their own challenges for both teachers and students. students nowadays cannot think of studying without using technology. as soon as they come across a course or subject they have to choose, and they will immediately take the help of technology to guide them. however, students and teachers or instructors might not get the information to its fullest. figueroa (2015) states that second language learning and instruction become more technology-based and that conducting a class without technology is taken as something unacceptable. it is possible that the more technology's use is being incorporated in the lessons, the better the outcome will be. without laptops/tabs and smartphones in class, students would easily get bored and lose interest in the lessons. they might get distracted quickly and lose their focus. pullen, swabey, abadooz and singh (2015) come to the same conclusion that in higher education, the use of technology such as laptops, smartphones, or other devices must be used to engage students. since they are growing up in a digital world, they do not find traditional classes interesting and they do not have so much patience and concentration to focus on lecture-based classes. students expect that teachers will come up with new and innovative ideas with the help of technology and keep them engaged in every lesson. in a study conducted by singh and harun (2016), it is stated that many practitioners have seen immense progress in students' learning because of lessons imparted online prior to class. however, the shift from traditional classes to online classes makes learners and teachers who had been used to having face-to-face classes for years face a tremendous change in the whole system of giving and receiving instructions. both teachers and students who are familiar with the traditional system of meeting, interacting, communicating face-to-face, are suddenly being challenged with adapting to the system of online instructions. before the shift from traditional classes to online classes, only a few teachers and students were familiar with online instructions. a complete switch in the scenario where all classes were 100 percent online was something new for both parties. as stated by oraif and tariq (2021), "education has changed dramatically, with a distinctive rise in e-learning, whereby teaching is undertaken remotely or virtually and on digital platforms." (p.1). hence, efl/esl learners in recent times expect that online learning will broaden their horizons for them and solve all issues related to language learning through online classes. however, these expectations cannot be indulged when students have to rely on technology to learn materials, and they are also required to finish the syllabus within a restricted period. in recent times due to the sudden shift from face-to-face classes to online classes, conducting online classes for a course like grammar has become more challenging for both students and teachers. they realized that online classes also have their benefits. however, in teaching grammar, engaging the students online for grammar exercises is quite difficult for teachers because they cannot monitor their students’ distractions and fairness in doing exercises like the face-to-face setting. even for students, taking online lessons requires a lot of time, skill, practice, and patience. in a study conducted by mohamed and halim (2021), it is stated that teachers should also be well-trained to conduct online classes. based on the experiences of both teachers and students regarding face-to-face classes, students feel more comfortable interacting with teachers. furthermore, it would be easier to engage students more in a face-to-face class. tanzina halim, rizwana wahid, shanjida halim | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 214 there is a huge difference between conducting the same course in face-to-face class and online class. the following positive and negative sides of teaching and learning grammar online are given based on the observations of teachers. some of the positive sides show that students’ attendance is satisfactory. participation of students in the class is satisfactory and most students are highly motivated to know about the course. moreover, students can easily engage in pair work or group work in completing their tasks. they can immediately ask teachers about any problem they face regarding any rules, structures, or patterns. in a face-to-face class, teachers can monitor whether all students bring their textbooks to class. they can demonstrate a variety of examples and practical application of the rules and structures is more effective and helpful. finally, students get the benefit of getting feedback on their practice/learning grammar attentively. on the other hand, the researchers observed that with the shift from face-to face classes to online classes, the whole scenario changed. attendance of the students was not satisfactory and they participated less in the discussions. only a few students were interested to learn the course and there was a lack of motivation on the students’ side. it became difficult to monitor if all the students had the textbook with them and if they followed it. some students only attended classes without participating or following teachers’ online instructions. there was also less practical application of the structures and rules discussed in the lessons. finally, if students failed to understand anything, they were reluctant to ask teachers. in a regular face-to-face class, students would be introduced to a topic first. then, they would be given a couple of minutes to come up with some ideas based on their background knowledge. then the next step would be that teachers would elicit some examples from the students. however, with the shift from face-to-face class to online class, some of these things were not possible to monitor at all. first of all, teachers are not even sure if all the students have the text in front of them. second, whether all the students are following the lessons in the text cannot also be ensured. finally, while responding to the teacher's questions, only a couple of students would respond. in this case, teachers do not have access to monitor all the students and ask them to participate. based on these observations, the researchers were interested in conducting a study from teachers' perspectives and learner's perspectives regarding online classes of grammar. literature review grammar is indispensable to language learning and it is necessary to acquire a language properly. numerous studies have been conducted on the challenges and difficulties which both teachers and students face while giving and attending grammar classes. according to a study, grammar was perceived as more important than other language skills, especially for l2 learners (widodo, 2006). however, it had been observed that use of technology in any efl/esl class heightened the motivation level of students (al-mekhlafi & nagaratnam, 2011). yet, it remains questionable how far or to what extent it has an effect on student's performance level. they can do well in classroom activities, but when it comes to completing a full course for the entire semester online without ever meeting the instructor or the classmates is something to be reflected upon. in a study conducted by aljarf (2005), it is stated that the use of technology has varying effects on students' attitudes towards foreign/second language instruction. the study focuses on the fact that the online grammar course was helpful for the students and helped them to learn english grammar and assist them in their homework. it also gave them confidence. however, in the same study, it is also pointed out that the glamour of technology does not ensure students' success compared to a traditional classroom environment. the research conducted by al bataineh, banikalef and albashtawi (2019) shows the effectiveness of blending online instruction in in-class instruction for students' achievement in grammar. the study does not focus on teaching and learning grammar completely online, and assessing students' performance levels. moreover, the grammar course which is taught is only a supplementary course. therefore, students did not have to worry about their grades. apart from the study mentioned earlier, some researchers have promoted concordance-based learning and teaching of grammar. in the studies conducted by tang (2011) and turkmen and aydin (2016), they mention that concordance-based learning and teaching help students to become independent learners. they are exposed more to the authentic language. however, it is seen that several key skills that contribute to successful study online are organization, time management, study skills, and digital competencies (andrews & tynan, 2012; brown, hughes, keppell, hard & smith, 2015). many online students struggle to cope with a regular study schedule due to the challenges of balancing work, family, and study (blackmon & major, 2012; brown et al,.2015; zembylas, theodorou & tanzina halim, rizwana wahid, shanjida halim | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 215 pavlakis, 2008). learners feel stressed out when they have to balance family, social life, study, and professionalism. (brown et al., 2015; o’shea, stone & delahunty, 2015; zembylas et al., 2008). hence it is observed by o’shea (2015), “when shifting to online contexts, engagement takes on different manifestations, due to the lack of face-to-face contact and the ways in which teaching and learning are mediated through technology” (p.43). it is also stated that teachers should organize and arrange the language teaching environment in relation to technology (aydin, 2013). figueroa (2015) states that in the 21st century, the field of second language learning and instruction is becoming more technology-based. this view is similar to the views expressed by pullen et al., (2015) therefore, many practitioners expect students to gain exposure to resources before attending classes through flipped classrooms (singh & harun, 2016). the study also discusses the benefits of having flipped classrooms from learners' perspectives. it makes students think positively and adapt to new learning styles, active learning, collaboration, communication, and flexible learning. a similar view is shared in the study by turkmen and aydin (2016) that online instructions increase and improve the performance level of students. they also mention that online instructions along with traditional classes can play a significant role in improving students' performance levels. however, shifting from traditional to online teaching happens to be new and challenging for teachers as well. in research conducted by sun and chen (2016), it is stated that effective online instruction is dependent on well-designed content, motivated interaction between the instructor and learners, well prepared and fully supported instructors, etc. rahayu and wirza (2020) state in their study that online classes make teachers more creative. in their research, they demonstrate that teachers have a very good attitude towards online classes. it makes teachers use the best applications to conduct online classes. however, this contradicts the view expressed by kulal and nayak (2020), who express that from teachers' perspectives online classes are not much preferred. according to them, online classes fail to fill up the emotional attachment between teachers and students. similarly, oraif and elyas (2021), point out that the physical medium that previously gives presence to the teacher and students, and ways of enacting authority and control gradually becomes obsolete. as a result, teachers struggle to cope with the new medium. the remote-learning medium places students and teachers equally in terms of control. the online classes create the problem of not being able to monitor learners completely. furthermore, oraif and elyas (2021) claim that teachers who are used to traditional teaching methods find themselves no longer needed by their students. the studies above have discussed the benefits and the challenges of having online classes from both teachers’ and students’ perspectives. by having these views observed, the researchers conclude that students prefer the use of technology in class in recent years rather than listening to teachers' lectures in traditional classrooms. in some cases, the practice of online teaching is very much encouraged from both teachers' and students' perspectives. however, there are still certain issues to be resolved, especially when attending online grammar classes. in the face-to-face class, teachers can easily guide and monitor the students throughout the classes. students can listen to the lectures, and directly interact with the teacher and classmates to comprehend the lessons more thoroughly. however, in online classes, some of these practices are not possible. the present study focuses on teaching and learning grammar online for two semesters and the difficulties and challenges teachers and students face while having online classes. therefore, the researchers had observed and monitored the performance of students critically for two semesters. the main objective of this paper is to overcome the problems of having grammar classes online. hence, the study is aimed to fill the gap in the literature by answering the questions: what difficulties do teachers and students face while conducting grammar classes online? do attending online grammar classes affect students' level of understanding and concentration? what strategies do teachers and students follow to cope with the problems of conducting and attending online classes? how can those difficulties and challenges be solved? method participants in conducting this study, 20 teachers who had taught grammar online to efl/esl learners were chosen. the teachers had the experience of teaching for more than five years. the chosen teachers had conducted grammar classes online for two semesters. at the same time, 80 students were chosen to participate. these students had attended online grammar classes for two semesters as well. they were tanzina halim, rizwana wahid, shanjida halim | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 216 students of level 2 and 3 (first and second-year bachelor’s program). there were only 80 participants who were available at that time of writing. instruments the research participants who were teachers were given a questionnaire consisting of 10 closed items. all ordinal variables in the questionnaire were prepared on a 5-point likert scale starting from strongly disagree to strongly agree. the questionnaire was based on the experiences of teachers who had taken grammar classes online for two semesters. similarly, the research participants who were students, were given a questionnaire consisting of 7 closed items. all ordinal variables in the questionnaire were prepared on a 5-point likert scale starting from strongly disagree to strongly agree. the questionnaire was based on the experiences of students who had taken grammar classes online for two semesters. data collection procedures the questionnaire contained 10 questions, which was constructed on google forms. the link was forwarded to teachers and students through course messages, emails and sms mobiles. approximately in 10 days, the data were collected. hypothesis the research validated the negative impacts of online classes and the difficulties both teachers and learners faced in web-based teaching and learning. based on the experiences of both teachers and students, the researchers formulated this hypothesis-online grammar classes, carrying several negative impacts with its positive sides. if these negative impacts were not resolved, the whole teaching and learning process might get affected and teaching and learning would become doubtful. the aims of the whole pedagogy are lost and there are many challenges to achieve its goals. limitations of the study the study had some limitations. the study was conducted at only one university in saudi arabia. not to mention that some of the teachers who had taught online grammar classes did not participate. similarly, some students who took grammar classes online did not participate in the study. the questionnaire was distributed only to female students. if male students had participated and the study had been conducted in other universities where grammar course were taught online, the results might have differed. ethical consideration the names of the participants in the study were kept anonymous. the participants were assured that the confidentiality of the respondents would be maintained. this questionnaire would be used only for data collection and analysis. there will be no pressure if the questionnaire was unfilled. analysis after gathering the data, it was analyzed statistically by using spss (version 26.0). a tabulation of descriptive statistics: minimum, maximum, mean and standard deviation was prepared to identify the views of teachers and students regarding having online grammar classes. table 1. descriptive statistics for students n minimum maximum mean std. deviation 1. i feel that face-to-face instructions from teachers are more helpful than taking instructions online for grammar. 80 1 5 3.75 .987 2. taking instructions online from teachers affects my concentration level. 80 1 5 3.20 1.237 3. i think face-to-face classes for a course like grammar keep me more on track and focused. 80 1 5 3.53 1.331 4. i believe that engaging in pair/ group discussion in a classroom environment helps me to be more engaged. 80 1 5 3.80 .986 tanzina halim, rizwana wahid, shanjida halim | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 217 5. i feel hesitant to ask teachers for explanations and clarification while attending classes online. 80 1 5 3.06 1.325 6. i feel that i have less scope of applying grammatical knowledge in online settings than in face-to-face settings due to the technicalities of online classes. 80 1 5 3.15 1.244 7. i think that preparing online assignments and tasks is time-consuming and affects grammar learning and practice. 80 1 5 3.05 1.252 out of 7 variables (see table 1) all of them agreed that online classes did have some effects on their performance compared to face to face classes. the participants supported this idea as they scored 3 or above 3 out of a 5-point likert scale. these are as follows1.1. (m= 3.75, s.d.= .987), 2 (m= 3.20, s.d.= 1.237), 3. (m= 3.53, s.d.= 1.331), 4. (m= 3.80, s.d.= .986) 5. (m= 3.06, s.d.= 1.325), 6. (m= 3.15, s.d.= 1.244), 7. (m=3.05, s.d.= 1.252). it had to be mentioned that no variable scored less than 3, which meant participants agreed to all the responses. the data revealed that participants were not much satisfied with online grammar classes because they found it difficult to concentrate during the online classes. they also had less involvement in pair/group work because of the online classes. therefore, their dissatisfaction was evident. table 2. descriptive statistics for teachers n minimum maximum mean std. deviation 1. i feel that giving face-to-face instructions to students is more helpful than giving instructions online for grammar. 20 4 5 4.60 .503 2. taking instructions online from teachers affects learners' concentration levels. 20 3 5 4.40 .681 3. i think face-to-face classes for a course like grammar keeps learners more on track and focused. 20 2 5 4.30 1.031 4. i believe that engaging in pair/group discussion in a classroom environment helps learners to be more engaged. 20 1 5 4.40 1.231 5. i feel that learners are hesitant to ask teachers for explanations and clarification while attending online classes. 20 1 5 3.60 1.392 6. i feel that learners have less scope of applying grammatical knowledge in online settings than face-to-face settings due to the technicalities of online classes. 20 1 5 3.60 1.231 7. i think that preparing online assignments and tasks is time-consuming that affects the teaching of grammar. 20 2 5 3.60 1.046 8. i think that online classes for a course like grammar does not give learners a deep and proper knowledge of grammar structures. 20 1 5 3.50 1.395 9. i think attending grammar classes online does not help the students to be confident. 20 2 5 3.60 1.231 10. i think online classes make the instructors more alert and cautious. 20 2 5 3.70 1.129 on the other hand, the teachers' perspectives (see table 2) were not much different from students’ perspectives. out of the 10 variables, 4 variables were responded that face-to-face classes were more helpful than online classes. the participants scored above 4 points only for 4 variables on a 5point likert scale. these are as follows1. (m= 4.60, s.d.= .503), 2. (m= 4.40, s.d.= .681), 3. (m= 4.30, s.d.= 1.031), 4. (m= 4.40, s.d.= 1.231). the rest 6 items scored less than 4, indicating that participants also agreed with these variables. these are as follows 5. (m= 3.60, s.d.= 1.392), 6. (m= 3.60, s.d.= 1.231), 7(m= 3.60, s.d.= 1.046), 8. (m= 3.50, s.d.= 1.395), 9. (m= 3.60, s.d.= 1.231), tanzina halim, rizwana wahid, shanjida halim | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 218 10. (m= 3.70, s.d.= 1.129). it was mentioned that no variable scored less than 3, which means participants agreed with all the responses. the data revealed that participants were not much satisfied with online grammar classes because they found it quite challenging to conduct them online. they felt that face-to-face classes are more helpful and effective for students. findings and discussion the findings of this study show that teachers and students face more challenges in online grammar classes than the traditional classes. the problems occur when teachers try to give while students receive instructions online. in face-to-face classes, teachers can demonstrate examples on the spot. it cannot always be predicted what kind of problems or queries learners may have. while delivering the lessons and the students’ questions, teachers are physically present there to answer them. moreover, some learners feel confident when they can see the teachers in front of them. their tone, facial expressions, body language all contribute to the learning process. in addition, teachers can pick up students easily and assign a task to them. students can directly get involved in a face-to-face lesson. in some cases, though students log in for the online sessions, they don't respond to teachers' questions and are reluctant to participate. this shows that face-to-face instructions seem to be more helpful and effective for both teachers and students. this is similar to the view expressed by al-jarf (2005), who states that the glamour of technology does not ensure students' success compared to the traditional classroom environment. this is very much true because in online classes, a lot of time is spent preparing for the lessons. teachers try to make use of different applications to make the classes engaging and interesting. in such cases much time is spent on preparing for the class and in the end with the 'glamour of technology' the total aim of the lesson might be lost. apart from this, the findings also show that many students feel that taking instructions online can affect their concentration level. during online classes students might get distracted when they attend the classes from home and they may not be in a proper learning environment. this is similar to the view stated in the study by (blackmon & major, 2012; brown et al,.2015; zembylas et al., 2008). their study pointed out that many online students struggle to cope with a regular study schedule due to the challenges of balancing work, family and study. it is seen that learners who were used to attending faceto-face classes for a long period find it difficult to suddenly switch to 100 percent online classes. in such cases they have to adapt to the new learning environment and learn to manage time, work, and organizational skills. moreover, it is seen that some students face technicalities every now and then during online classes. also, all the learners may not be familiar with all types of technologies used. it is true especially in case of beginners because they are sometimes not familiar with all types of technology. this is similar to the view expressed by (andrews & tynan, 2012; brown et al., 2015) who state that several key skills contribute to successful study online organization, time management, study skills, and digital competencies. even if students are well aware of the technologies being used, but it cannot be expected that all learners will be equally competent to handle all kinds of technology. the internet also plays a significant role in many cases. many students live in areas where getting an internet connection can be an issue. during online sessions, teachers might split students into separate rooms to get engaged in pair work/group work. in such a situation, due to technicalities, it may not be possible to have interaction with the assigned group members. hence, students feel a classroom environment keeps them more engaged. some students also find it time-consuming to prepare for online assignments. meeting deadlines can become challenging for some learners as well. in such cases, it keeps them more focused and on track to interact with teachers and friends directly. this is similar to the view expressed by turkmen and aydin (2016) that online instructions increase and improve the performance level of students. however, in the same study it is also mentioned that online instructions and traditional classes greatly improve students' performance levels. this shows that to make teaching and learning effective, both online and face-to-face interactions are required. from teachers' perspectives, the level of dissatisfaction felt among them is far greater than what the students feel. teachers who were mostly used to conducting face-to-face sessions found it difficult to keep pace with the classes being 100 percent online. the sudden shift from face-to-face classes to online classes made the teachers also encounter certain technicalities. a similar view is shared by sun and chen (2016), who state that effective online instruction is dependent on well-designed content, motivated interaction between the instructor and learners, well prepared and fully supported instructors, etc. online sessions make it difficult on the instructor's part to involve the learners and monitor them. they observed that taking instructions from the teachers online affected the learners' concentration tanzina halim, rizwana wahid, shanjida halim | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 219 level. in traditional classes, learners are more engaged in the tasks and are enthusiastic about participating. they feel that for a course like grammar, students should have face-to-face interaction. it is seen that some students are shy to ask teachers for explanation when they attend online classes. faceto-face classes keep them more focused and they can apply grammar rules more in traditional classes than online classes. due to online classes, learners sometimes feel less motivated to participate and interact with the teachers (mohamed & halim, 2021). teachers have also expressed their views that due to online sessions, sometimes students face problems to have the deep and proper knowledge of the grammar structures. as a result, they sometimes lack the confidence to apply the grammar structures properly. it is true that technology has spread its wings in all the fields, but it cannot be expected that all teachers will be well-trained to handle technology. it is seen that in the findings, some teachers have opined that preparing lessons for online classes is time-consuming. this view is supported by mohamed and halim (2021) in their study, stating that teachers should be well trained to manage online classes. they state that teachers should have the proper knowledge and experience to guide, motivate and monitor students for online classes. this is similar to the view kulal and nayak (2020) who expressed that online classes are not much preferred from teachers' perspectives. according to them, online classes fail to fill up the emotional attachment between teachers and students. in some circumstances, the physical presence of the teachers can motivate students to participate more than when students are left on their own to participate in the online sessions. however, this view is opposed by rayahu and wirza (2020), who discuss in their study that online classes make teachers more creative. in their study, they have pointed out that teachers have very good attitude towards online classes. it makes teachers use the best applications to conduct online classes. the findings of this study show that teachers favour traditional classes because they prefer to give instructions face-to-face because teachers believe that direct interaction is required when teaching grammar. sometimes students hesitate to use and apply grammar structures. this is true in the case of beginners who lack the confidence to apply whatever they learn being isolated from their friends and classmates. being away from a proper classroom environment might make them feel at a loss. it is good to be autonomous learners, but sometimes being too much autonomous can have also have disadvantages. this might be the case for learners as the majority of them are used to the traditional classes. this is similar to the notion expressed in the study of oraif and elyas (2021), who discuss that teachers who were used to traditional teaching methods find themselves suddenly lost because they need to use different approaches. in their case, they feel that their presence is not required at all. the medium of remote learning placed students and teachers on almost equal levels of control which may always not be accepted positively by teachers. they might feel that learners are taking control and that they are being excluded. similarly, it may always not be positive for beginners as they still need proper guidance and mentoring from teachers. conclusion this study identifies benefits offered through online classes for both teachers and students, but there will always be certain issues that need to be resolved. online teaching and learning definitely have their benefits, but when it comes to varying perspectives, they also have their challenges. virtual lessons can be conducted in certain situations but not for a long period, especially for beginners who require a lot of skills and training to manage time and must have organizational skills. at the same time, teachers should be properly trained and be familiar with setting up a totally technology-based learning environment. some teachers feel that technology can make the lessons more interesting and engaging, but it is seen that to make learning and teaching effective, both the face-to-face class and web-based learning are important. no matter how autonomous learners become due to online classes, there will still be learners who prefer face-to-face interaction with instructors. they would prefer to sit in a proper classroom environment rather than being isolated from the rest of the classmates and learn a course. there are students who always feel motivated and confident when they see their instructors in front of them. the physical presence of the teachers in a proper learning environment will continue to enhance the learning process. however, based on all these observations and discussions, the researchers have come up with some recommendations on how both students and teachers can face the challenges of learning and teaching grammar online. teachers should be more trained to conduct online classes and they should be familiar with various applications to make the learning process effective. next, they should try to tanzina halim, rizwana wahid, shanjida halim | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 220 engage students more in the online sessions and make attendance mandatory to take online classes seriously. students should attend and participate more instead of attending it only to pass 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(2008). the role of emotions in the experiences of online learning: challenges and opportunities. educational media international, 45(2), 107-117. https://doi.org/10.1080/09523980802107237 http://doi.org/10.11591/ijere.v9i4.20643 https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12462/3834 http://education.waikato.ac.nz/research/files/etpc/2006v5n1nar1.pdf https://doi.org/10.1080/09523980802107237 putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 12 elt forum 10 (1) (2021) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt identifying the teaching of english to early young learners at stepping stones school surabaya margareta desi restuti stepping stones school surabaya, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 8 december 2020 approved in 16 march 2021 published in 26 march 2021 ________________ keywords: early young learners; teaching english; teyl ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ in indonesia, learning english becomes one of the important parts of the process of learning at the school. there are notes to be considered in introducing english as a second language to young learners. the research was conducted to find out that there are key factors to be considered dealing with teaching english to early young learners. as a qualitative descriptive case study research, the research was conducted at stepping stones school surabaya as it is a school for very young learners. the method of the research is qualitative descriptive research. the research found out that a full english school and a school with a fun learning environment are important for young learners. besides identifying the key factors of teaching english to young learners, the research also aims to identify the underlying methods of teaching english at the stepping stones school surabaya as the school has a preschool and kindergarten level program with a well-designed curriculum; the school also support the programs with well-qualified teachers; the school pays attention to the age of the students especially in applying the full english method; the school involves the parents to be in part of the learning by having similar ways in treating the children at home. this research was conducted as a way to give insight, especially to the opinion of worrying about introducing english as a second language too early young learners and for the parents who do not have english skills to accompany their children's process of learning. © 2021 universitas negeri semarang correspondent address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: margaretadesirestuti@gmail.com http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& margareta desi restuti / elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 13 introduction the influence of english in indonesia can not be prevented, (sadtono, 2013) english has become a subject in lessons of the educational process of the students in indonesia that was managed by the state through the educational ministry (septy, 2000). the experience of the researcher shows that the curriculum of the school and the teacher's role are important to apply the curriculum (restuti, 2017) of teaching english to indonesian students especially the young learners. for example, one of the characteristics of the early young learners is they have a short attention pan, here the teachers should makea creative lesson where it shows the various activities to be presented or done together with the children. the curriculum of the school must consider this as a very important thing then the teacher must apply it in daily based planning and teaching. the other characteristics of early young learners are enjoying imitating and are skillful in listening accurately so the teachers should master english especially in the term of pronunciation that the learners are accustomed to hearing the correct pronunciation of english words. this supports the statement that language (english) is a good example of an area in which children come to preschool and the importance of teachers' role to recognize the language children have and to provide the use of the language with its growth and meaningful conversation so the children have many opportunities during the preschool to interact with new peers and adults (clark, 2000). meanwhile, many people realize that english has become an important language to be used nowadays school should consider carefully how to teach english to the students, especially to the young learners. there were questions and worries if english is introduced earlier to the students such as an opinion that the english teaching would ruin the first language acquisition of the early young learners, while as stated that the children's brain is programmed to learn the language (matthews, 2005). about teaching english to young learners especially in indonesia, other researchers have found out important findings such as the teachers teaching english to young learners in lampung were not ready to teach english that they teach english fully in bahasa indonesia (apriliana, 2018). the findings of the previous researchers mostly about the readiness of the teacher that they need further training in the using of english though those teachers were confident enough to teach english to the young learners (mutiah et al., 2020) as also stated by the other researcher (nufus, 2019). in west sumatra, a researcher found out that there were some essential requirements in teaching english to young learners such as curriculum, teacher competency, media, and method used (pransiska, 2016). another researcher also highlighted the teachers' readiness in teaching english to young learners in the field of pedagogical values that the teacher should know the principles and should be able to do things to facilitate children learning english as a foreign language in indonesia by determining who children are, how children learn, how children learn a language, and how children learn english as a foreign language (musthafa, 2013). the researcher expected that the research would help on how to teach english to early young learners especially the technical things to be done and applied in teaching english to young learners in indonesia as a portrait at the stepping stones school of surabaya that has run the system since the year of 2000. one of the researcher's experiences at the stepping stones school was she found that the children did not find it difficult to speak bahasa indonesia while they are exposed to english fully at school from a year old to four years old of age. literature review the research was conducted to find out the key factors of teaching english to young learners at stepping stones school surabaya by describing the teaching english at the school and the key factors underlying the methods of it. to support the research, there were many literature reviews about teaching english and young learners. about the young learners, montessori has become an important expert to be cited that she said that education is to be focused on the children to help them during the development in the process to be a complete adult human being that has the competence and to contribute to the society and humanity generally. the montessori approach is centered on supporting the human being's natural development. this concept could support the development of language in young learners especially about english (restuti, 2017). other expert stated that in the areas of vision, hearing, social attachment, language, motor skills, math/ logic, music, and foreign languages where the windows of opportunity for brain development, and so there are important things to be done to develop the children's capacities to guide them to bea fine adult (stiles & jernigan, 2010). montessori has thought about the substance of the human being including the integration of the character development and the whole personality that should be instilled into the child. this has margareta desi restuti / elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 14 changed the paradigm of education for centuries especially that the children could guide their development, even to guide the educators in supporting the children (nicholas, 2014). montessori stated that the role of the adults is to help the children meet their potential. montessori supported the idea that the children possess great constructive energies that would support the formation of the children's mind and body. montessori's approach has been seen as the appropriate tool to develop education for early young learners (sacks & ruzzi, 2005). one of the results of the approach is that the children should become the center of the education process such as the class and its environment should support the children, for example with the multi-sensory equipment, and enough space for motor development. those are to provide rich experiences to support the 'wiring' process in the children's brain. in early education for young learners, a school should provide a suitable curriculum to fully support the children's growth and development. the curriculum should provide the multi-sensory experience with repetition that would strongly support the brain connections (matthews, 2005). a discussion about teaching english as a second language can be related to bilingual education where the use of languages focused on the teaching of subject matter content, not merely the use of the language itself (damico, 2010). in that book section, cummins (2010) explained that there are types of bilingual educations focusing on the goals of the program, organizational structures, and characteristics of students in the program. according to cummins, bilingual education carries a positive impact on the children especially on the aspect of the development of linguistic of the children involved in the program and on the aspect of the development of the children's education themselves. he concluded that the positive development could be seen in the children continuing to develop their abilities in two or more languages, it has been comprehended through the program that has been followed by the children since their primary level including the early learner stage of the education. the benefit of the program could be seen in the term of gaining a deeper understanding of the used language and how to use the language effectively. the children have the chance to process the language, to apply the language in the literacy process in both languages. the children also would be able to compare and contrast the ways of using both languages separately in daily practice. the result of the bilingual program has supported what goethe ever stated that the person who knows only one language does not truly know the language (cummins, 2001). on the other hands, bilingual children develop more flexibility in the way they are thinking as a result of information processing the experiences, they have in a bilingual education program. the stage of human growth and development that now becomes a very important thing is the young stage of human or even the early young stage of human being development. many countries are now (or has paid) attention to anything needed to deal with the early young generation. human development especially brain development is very significant to determine someone's future. it happens dominantly in the golden age of an individual. it was mentioned that the foundations for thinking, language, vision, attitudes, aptitudes, and other characteristics are laid down during the preschool period especially the first three years of life (kotulak, 1997). . the other experts mentioned the importance of the early life of the human being especially during the first ten years of life especially related to the development of the language at the acquisition stage. once again it was related to the development of the brain, the 'wiring' process that could be happening in the sound aspect of the language. again the repeated exposure of the language becomes an important aspect in this stage. it was also noted that the existence of the adults around the children play a very important role in the children's language development and so the brain development (graham & forstadt, 2011). the role of english as a second language will innate the children's ability to use the language when the language is presented within a context that is meaningful and communicative. the environment for l1 and l2 acquisition can be quite different although children may use similar processes for acquiring l1 and l2 (karavas, 2010). so, in teaching l2, the teacher needs to remember to provide the language itself in very rich contexts that are meaningful and communicative. as required that the teaching should provide highly contextualized language, the use of authentic language in the real world, and the highly motivated learners; as the young learners can learn l1 (restuti, 2017). margareta desi restuti / elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 15 methods the research design refers to a qualitative descriptive case study research that this research focuses on covering the background information and accurate descriptions of the tcase in question (johansson, 2007). the purposes of this research are mainly stated as to describe the teaching of english to young learners at the stepping stones school surabaya and to describe the key factors underlying the methods of teaching english at the stepping stones school surabaya. the source of data of the research was from the documents of the school, the students, the parents of the students, and the teachers of the school. parents are the closest resources to observe and to realize the children's development on the students. they are not only the parents of the current students but some parents are the parents of the alumni (baxter & jack, 2008). the data resources were the school documents, the recorded interview with some parents of the students, and also the teachers. there were also the parents' notes and observations when they attend the open class program. there was an important thing related to the research that the researcher has got permission from the school founder and the school manager to reveal the name of the school in the research and its related publication. the unit of analysis is related to the fundamental problem of defining the case; that the case might be an individual or individuals that might also involve the influence of early childhood or the role of peer relationship; the case also can be some events, decisions, programs, the implementation of process and about organizational change (yin, 2013), the unit of analysis of this research would cover the key factors of teaching english to young learners at the stepping stones school surabaya: the school curriculum, the teaching by the teachers, the learners' experience, the classroom context, the materials and resources, the learners and the parents of the learners. there are many approaches in the way of teaching english to young learners. the most important thing is the fun things, young learners should have fun with english (kang shin, 2006), here, the design of the teaching is important. hence curriculum of the stepping stones school and the way teachers plan the english teaching would become one of the units of analysis to this research. the curriculum would cover also the learning and teaching style at stepping stones school surabaya especially that the tagline of the school is where learning is fun. as mentioned, that the curriculum should emphasize communicative competence in teaching english to young learners (copland & garton, 2014). many aspects that should be seen and considered deeply such as approaches to language teaching, recruitment, and training, teacher's level of english proficiency, the classroom context, examinations and assessment, materials and resources, learners (garton et al., 2013), beside the curriculum represented by the school documents of the stepping stones school of surabaya, there would be the teachers' comment about the stepping stones school, the parents' comments about the stepping stones school and the students of stepping stones school itself, the students' learning result, and the field observations that also covers the class observations done at the stepping stones school as the unit analysis of this research. to sum up the methods of the research, here are the steps were taken by the researcher: 1) read and comprehend the school documents as the guidance of the curriculum of the school. 2) observed the running of the class to see how the teachers plan and conduct the class. 3) conducted discussion and evaluation with the teachers about the running of the class. 4) together with parents the researcher observed the running of the class of the school. 5) conducted discussion and evaluation with the parents about the running of the class. 6) during those observations, the researcher also observed the students of the school. 7) the researcher did the data analysis. subjects/ participants the subjects of the research are the students, the parents, and the teachers of stepping stones school surabaya. in 2017 there were around 70 students at the school with 15 teachers involving in the educational process at the school. instruments the instruments that were used in the research area in a form of taking notes upon the related documents: the school documents that cover the curriculum and the learning result of the students. other note-taking would be also about the field observation that covers the class observation (baker, 2006) and (allen, 2017). here the students became the observation target when the researcher took notes about the students’ performance, attitude, response, knowledge, language skills, habit, and margareta desi restuti / elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 16 relationship with peers, teachers, parents, and other people at the school. the other instrument would be on interview guidance or questions for the parents beside the form of observation with certain theme or rubrics of evaluation or assessment related to the application of the curriculum of the school specially to facilitate the students’ learning and the school already have those documents as the school property that the researcher adopted from the literature and reflected them into research object. the researcher expected that those instruments would help the researcher to get suitable data for the research. data collection procedures to conduct this research, the data collection procedures done by the researcher were: 1) the researcher collected the data by reading and comprehending the school documents since 2011 about the school. 2) the researcher also collected the data using a scheduled observation and the incidental observation to the classes of the school. 3) there was the recording of the interview to parents and the teachers that would be the data collection of the research. 4) the observation was done by recording the class activity and taking notes during the observation of the class. in terms of the rubric of evaluation used during the open class program, the questions or the rubric have been prepared as the school property. the open class program was conducted every 3 months with random parents to be invited. the invited parents came to attend the process of learning of each class in a day. the parents might observe and give notes about the whole activities in the class including the interaction between the teachers and the children, the teachers' preparation, and also the teacher's language fluency. then the parents might fill the form based on their observation as the result of an evaluation or in case input for the teacher specifically and to the school generally. this data collection was the activities done by the researcher since 2011 when she joined the school and needed to know and comprehend the school well. data analysis the data analysis activity was to analyze the primary data and the secondary data. the primary data that the researcher got was the result of observations of the class including the observation of the students, discussion, and evaluation result with the teachers and the parents of the students. the secondary data was documents both the documents about the stepping stones school and the document from the government about early young learners' education. findings and discussion table 1. findings of the research finding 1 finding 2 • stepping stones school surabaya is a school with a full english system. • the school should become a high-quality preschool program • to be a high-quality pre-school, one of the important ways is that the schools for young learners need qualified teachers. • stepping stones school surabaya sets the fun learning reflected in the entire program of the school that can be found in its history and profile. • dealing with teaching english to young learners, the schools themselves have to be a full english school by considering the period of age of the students to support the children in having a rich english exposure environment. • dealing with the young learners, the schools need to remember to always involve the parents of the students. . following the characteristics of young learners, they enjoy imitating and are skillful in listening accurately; interpret meaning without necessarily understanding the individual word; understand margareta desi restuti / elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 17 language as units, not as separate words. it is important to provide a rich environment that exposes english more. it is also suitable to support the characteristics of early young learners who are very active and imaginative and enjoy learning through playing, acting, making, and doing. that four key factors are underlying the methods of teaching english at the stepping stones school surabaya, first, the school should become a high-quality preschool program, because the schools would cause positive long-term improvements in participants' school performance and social outcomes. the school should be ready with a very well-designed curriculum. a well-designed curriculum is a curriculum that is suitable for the early young learners, fulfills the young learners' needs, and research-based curriculum. remember also that the brain wiring would be affected by the early interactions, so it is very important to give rich experiences to early young learners to have a great effect on their brain wiring by providing the required environment of learning for them. it is also a matter of fact that a child's brain is two and half times as active as an adult, this is important to do something not to lose the chance (sacks & ruzzi, 2005). second, to be a high-quality pre-school, one of the important ways is that the schools for young learners need qualified teachers. these teachers are the ones interpreting the curriculum to be daily based practices in teaching. moreover, as the main resource of the students, the teacher should have qualified english skills. there is evidence also that the non-native speaker teachers can be trusted to deliver a very good english skill as long as the teachers have qualified pronunciation, rich vocabularies, and the ability to deal with young learners. third, dealing with teaching english to young learners, the schools themselves have to be a full english school in such period of the age of the students to support the children in having a rich english exposure environment. as stated, that preschools have the greatest impact on children living in poverty and those who do not speak english at home, there is evidence that the children have the capacities to learn english and to apply their english in communicative ways. there is no reason to be afraid that the students would undergo the loss of the first language skill because the right bilingual education would make the students master the languages well (sacks & ruzzi, 2005). fourth, dealing with young learners, the schools need to remember to always involve the parents of the students. the parents are the basic need for every child. by involving the parents, the schools communicate well with the parents, so the parents may have similar ways of treating the children at home. on the other hand, the parents have the right to know and comprehend things delivered by the schools to every child they send to the schools. discussion in designing or conducting the teaching of english to young learners, it is important to pay attention to the characteristics of young learners. they are different from teenagers and adults (bessie, 2014) ) for example young learners have a short attention span. it is applied by the school that the teacher must be creative in designing their lesson plan where there are many activities to attract the students' attention and in order not to make the students get bored in the class with a specific period. time becomes a very important consideration when the teachers designing their lesson plan as the daily based application of the school curriculum. the next characteristic of young learners is understanding language as units not separate words, at the stepping stones school surabaya, it is applied by providing the full english environment with fun learning where the teachers are challenged to design a creative lesson plan and apply it in the class activity. dealing with teaching english to young learners, schools for early young learners need to use the opportunity well. the school should become a high-quality preschool program. the schools would cause positive long-term improvements in participants' school performance and social outcomes (sacks & ruzzi, 2005). the school should be ready with a very well-designed curriculum. a welldesigned curriculum is a curriculum that is suitable for the early young learners, fulfills the young learners' needs, and research-based curriculum. it is important to remember also that early interactions also affect brain wiring, so it is very important to create such an environment to support the early young learners to have their best experience to have a great effect to their brain wiring and it is also a matter of fact that a child’s brain is two and half times as active as an adult, this is important to do something not to lose the chance of stimulation to wire the brain of early young learners. to be a high-quality pre-school, one of the important ways is that the schools for young learners need qualified teachers. these teachers are the ones interpreting the curriculum to be daily based practices in teaching. moreover, as the main resource of the students, the teacher should have qualified english skills. there is evidence also that the non-native speaker teachers can be trusted to deliver a margareta desi restuti / elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 18 very good english skill as long as the teachers have qualified pronunciation, rich vocabularies, and the ability to deal with young learners. dealing with teaching english to young learners, the schools themselves have to be a full english school in such period of the age of the students to support the children in having a rich english exposure environment. preschools have the greatest impact on children living in poverty and those who do not speak english at home (sacks & ruzzi, 2005). there is evidence that the children have the capacities to learn english and to apply their english in communicative ways. there is no reason to be afraid that the students would undergo the loss of the first language skill because the right bilingual education would make the students master the languages well. the schools need to remember to always involve the parents of the students. the parents are the basic need for every kid. by involving the parents, the schools communicate well with the parents, so the parents may have similar ways of treating the children at home. on the other hand, the parents have the right to know and comprehend things delivered by the schools to every child they send to the schools. conclusion the conclusion of the research as stated below as the methods of teaching english to young learners at stepping stones school surabaya are full english schools with the fun learning process that is applied in all aspects of the educational process for the children. the important key factors to be considered as following: 1) the set of curriculums that consider the characteristics of early young learners including the certain ground rules, certain programs with the guidance of lesson plans and observation chart, the set of clear scope and sequence for each specific range of age of early young learners.2) the application of the curriculum by the competent teacher to reach the students' ability in using english and provide the fun process of learning. there was also discussion and evaluation among the teachers to provide the appropriate process of learning for the students besides the creative ways of the teachings to walk in line with the tag line of the school which is where learning is fun. 3) english environment. it is important to create an english environment for the young learners such as the lessons were delivered in english.4) involving parents is a great resource of the process of learning and the most important support part needed by each child. 5) get the research or information about young learners learning and teaching especially also the government document to make sure the path is taken by the school. for teachers and future researchers dealing with teaching english to young learners the researcher would suggest some matters first, the well-designed curriculum for early young learners is very important to set a consistent and continuous learning environment such as the full english system. the curriculum also needs to be interpreted in daily based activities by the teachers. involving the parents during the process of learning is also a crucial thing to do. the bilingual education research would help the researcher in understanding that properly learning other languages would not ruin the mother tongue is important for those who are interested in developing the teaching english to early young learners. it should be noted that there are some effects on this kind of education when school is trying to introduce more than one language in the classroom. it is also important to be remembered that bilingualism has positive effects on children's linguistic and educational development. when children continue to develop their abilities in two or more languages throughout their primary school years, they gain a deeper understanding of language and how to use it effectively. they have more practice in processing language, especially when they develop literacy in 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(2013). applications of case study research. applied social research methods series, 34, 173. https://doi.org/10.1097/fch.0b013e31822dda9e microsoft word 10.docx putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 96 elt forum 9 (1) (2020) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt teachers’ reinforcement and students’ perception to the teachers in english classroom maria ana mei lestari english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 2 january 2020 approved in 23 july 2020 published in 30 july 2020 ________________ keywords: interaction; teachers’ reinforcement; students’ perception ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ the study focuses on the positive reinforcement that is used by the teachers in each class and students’ perception towards reinforcement itself. this research involved two english teachers and two different classes of year ten students in sma kristen yski semarang. to describe the use of reinforcement by the teachers, their teaching process were recorded and observed. questionnaire and interview were done at the end of the lesson to describe how the students perceive reinforcement. this study is qualitative research. the data showed that the teachers used various types of reinforcement based on the theory of reinforcement by moore (2007). they are verbal, non-verbal, vicarious, delayed, and qualified reinforcement. they used almost all types of reinforcement, except the delayed reinforcement. in general, non-verbal reinforcement was mostly used by the teachers. the interview results showed that the students agreed that reinforcement is important and useful for them during teaching and learning process. © 2020 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: mariaanamei19@gmail.com maria ana mei lestari / elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 97 introduction english is one of the subjects that is taught in indonesian school and becomes one of the important subjects in school. however, indonesian school still face some problems in having english as the subject in the school. it is because the students have no interest in english, they lack english skill, or even they do not understand at all. as english is an obligation in most of the school in indonesia, their motivation to learn this subject is to be questioned because they live in a country that the knowledge of english is not compulsory (marcellino, 2008). furthermore, most of the students have no life experience using english and are not expected to use english in their future (astuti, 2013). thus, teachers’ contribution is hardly needed for this problem. teachers’ interaction is particularly critical for students who are learning english as the second language (marchant & anderson, 2012). one of the problems that is faced by the teachers is the students’ motivation in learning english. based on the researcher’s experience and preliminary research, the students seemed not too interested in english and they tended not to follow the teachers. because teaching and learning is a main activity at the classroom, the teachers, therefore, are responsible to make the class becomes more interesting and effective. the teachers are to maintain the teaching and learning process in an effective way, so that the students will feel interested. the effective teacher is one who is able to help students learn more in ways that can be measured (cruickshank et al., 2012). to make the students get involved and interested in study english, the teachers can do something to achieve that. one of them is motivating the students. motivating students may increase students’ interest in study english if the teacher applies it properly. one of the most important part in educational setting is motivation, of the students are not motivated enough, they will be unlikely to learn and there will be no chance for increasing the effective instruction (abbasi et al., 2015). one of the extrinsic motivation that can be applied by the teachers is reinforcement. according to turney (1983) positive reinforcement means positive response by one person to another’s behavior so that probability of that behavior occurring again is increased. “reinforcement is one of the most powerful techniques we have at our disposal for directing or motivating the actions of other people or animal.” (walker, 1975). in other words, reinforcement can be meant to give motivation to people or animal. in this case, the teacher can give motivation to the students in order to get them interested in learning english. reinforcement can be applied during teaching and learning process because the students will feel their efforts are valuable and also will make them to keep trying if they do some mistakes. there are some types of positive reinforcement that can be used by the teacher in general classroom according to moore (2007). there are verbal reinforcement, this reinforcement occurs when the teachers gave positive comments verbally to the students’ desired behavior. for example, “good”, “excellent”, “great”, “very nice”, “good job”, “that’s right”, etc. next is non-verbal reinforcement. this reinforcement refers to the use of some physical action for responding students’ action or desired behavior. for example, eye contact, a nod, a smile, a thumb up, moving closer to the students, etc. vicarious reinforcement is a reinforcement that needs people to observe others. it means that when others do something desirable, then they will probably follow others’ behavior. for example, when the teachers say, “i like the way mary raise her hand before talking”. delayed reinforcement is a reinforcement that does not mean to forget students’ actions or behavior, but to give them in a proper time. for example, a question can be given to the students who have known the prior knowledge in the subject before they start the lesson. the teacher might say, “i believe john can answer this, since he did a boall right review last week”. the last but not the least is qualified reinforcement. this reinforcement only occurs when the teachers only reinforce what the teachers want from the students, if the students do not do what the teachers want, at least the teacher will reinforce students’ effort, or the way they answer. for example, when students a answers a question incorrectly, but the teacher praises her effort to answer the question (moore, 2007, p.203). however, the teachers are to know and understand the appropriate time and appropriate reinforcement they will give to the students, especially in giving rewards as the reinforcement to the students. the reward should be related to the students’ behaviors that are most important to the teachers (emmer et al., 2006). in addition, the teachers are to consider whether it affects the students’ behavior or not, because the aim of giving reinforcement is to engage students’ interests and make them follow the material well. based on my preliminary research, the teachers used reinforcement to make students got involved in the lesson. after being given the reinforcement, the students seemed interested and they tried to answer some questions given by the teacher. maria ana mei lestari / elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 98 the aim of this study are to describe the use of reinforcement by the english teachers in sma kristen yski semarang, find out which type of reinforcement that mostly used by the teachers, and to describe the students perception towards reinforcement used by the teachers in the classroom. a large body of research has been carried out to find out the use of reinforcement to support the current study. a study conducted by pintel in 2006. the purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of positive reinforcements on the performance of third grade students in their spelling test. she hypothesized that third grade students who experience positive reinforcement in the form of rewards will have significantly higher grades on the end of the week spelling post-test, than when the same students did not receive positive reinforcement in the form of rewards for the end of the week spelling post-test. the participants of this study was fourteen students in third grade of elementary school in southern new jersey. she conducted the research for 8 weeks consecutively (four weeks without positive reinforcement and four weeks with positive reinforcement). students who got 92 above would be given a gift as the reward. she compared the test result for four times. based on the result of the t-test, there was significant improvement in the achievements of the students’ grades in their friday spelling test when they received positive reinforcement in the form of rewards, than when these same students did not receive positive reinforcement for the friday spelling test. the researcher concluded that positive reinforcement in the form of rewards was able to improve the achievement of 3rd grade students in their end of the week post spelling test. next study was from hoque in 2013. he wanted to find out the effect of positive reinforcement in teaching and learning process. the researcher hypothized that there was no significant difference in the unit test result of the control group and experimental group and there was no significant difference in the attendance of the control group and experimental group. the researcher chose five school to be the subject of the research. one hundred students were chosen randomly from those five school. fifty students were the control group, the rest were the experimental group. the researcher used statistical technique for analyzing the data, there were mean, standard deviation, and t-test. based on the result of the study, there were significant difference between control group and experimental group. the experimental group performed better than the control group and had a higher interest of learning than the control group. the researcher concluded that he supported the importance of skinner’s theory about operant conditioning in teaching learning process. next study was conducted by latifah in 2016. the researcher wanted to find out what kinds of positive reinforcement that was used by the teacher, to find out how the teacher used positive reinforcement to maintain and motivate a good behavior of their students in learning english. the researcher collected the data by observing and interviewing the observed teachers. she used video recording in order to make the observation was valid. based on the result of the analysis, the researcher concluded that the observed teachers almost used all kinds of positive reinforcement. the teachers gave the reinforcement whenever the students answered the teachers’ questions or did the assignment well. however, in this study the researcher did not find out what the students perception toward reinforcement is, because of that the researcher will find it out. since most of the study above only focused on the used of reinforcement, the current study also investigated the students’ perception about the reinforcement used by the teachers. not to mention, furthermore the current study used a theory from moore (2007) who suggested five types of positive reinforcement that can be used in english classroom. methods this study used qualitative design which focused on analyzing and describing the data in form of sentences. this research was naturally conducted and involved human behavior in its natural settings, as cresswel (1994) states that qualitative research occurs in natural setting where human behavior and events occur. participants of the study the participants of the study were two english teachers and students in grade ten in the academic year 2018/2019 in sma kristen yski semarang. maria ana mei lestari / elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 99 the object of the study the object of the study was the types of reinforcement used by the teachers and students perception toward reinforcement that the teachers used during classroom. instruments to collect the data, observation sheet, quetionnaire sheet, audio-video material, were used in this study. the observation sheet was used to record everything ahppen in the observation on the field notes. questionnaire sheet was used to gather information from the student. the questions were close-ended questions. i took some pictures, and record videos during the observation and also during the interview process. data analysis procedures to analyze the data the researcher used some steps from siedel (1998). the first is transcribing. the researcher transcribed the data got from audio-video recording. next is noticing things, in this step i did “code” step which means naming or labeling something. table 1. code of reinforcement. no types of reinforcement code 1. verbal reinforcement vr 2. non-verbal reinforcement nr 3. vicarious reinforcement vcr 4. delayed reinforcement dr 5. qualified reinforcement qr next step is collecting and sorting instances of things. in this step, i sorted the data based on the types of reinforcement by moore (2007). the next is thinking about things, in this process i examined the things i have collected. i counted the percentage of the use if reinforcement. the last step is describing. i described the result of the analysis in thinking process. the description was also supported by the result of students’ questionnaire and interview. findings and discussion the use of reinforcement during teaching and learning process based on my observation, the teachers used various types of reinforcement and almost used all types of reinforcement. the researcher classified the types of reinforcement based on moore (2007) theory. there are verbal, non-verbal, vicarious, delayed, and qualified reinforcement. verbal reinforcement the teachers praised the students orally for what they have done during teaching and learning process. here is the extract: extract 1: s there is the date. t ya, good. there is the date, there is the place atau venue. pasti kalau event harus ada tempatnya dimana, kapan, eventnya apa, sudah ya? s iya, miss extract 2: t oke, before we listen to the song, lagu itu kan banyak unsurnya, nah kalo tulisan kan ada paragraf, kalo lagu ada apanya? s verse, miss t oke, good! ada versenya, atau baitnya. kalo yang diulang-ulang? s reff, miss t oke, good! ada refrainnya. nah, kadang itu dilagu ada kata-kata yang memiliki arti bukan arti sesungguhnya. maria ana mei lestari / elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 100 based on the extract 1 and 2, the researcher found that every time the students answered correctly, the teachers would give verbal praises directly, as can be seen in extract 1 line 2 and extract 2 line 4 and 6. during observation, the researcher also found that the teachers sometimes used two types of reinforcement at the same time, as can be seen in extract 3 and 4: extract 3: t jadi kalo kalian bikin tugas itu jangan hanya sekedar you finish the assignment trus kalian ngga tau apa-apa ya. jadi kalian juga belajar dari assignment kalian. sayang loh. s iya, miss. t oke thank you. (the teacher was smiling and nodding). oke, lanjut grup berikutnya. s (students were preparing for the presentation) t yuk, are you ready? s yes, miss. (students did the presentation) extract 4: t oke, next group? (the teacher came closer to the students) ayo gapapa maju duluan saja. silahkan dipersiapkan. soalnya jam terakhir dipakai buat remidi ya? jadi kita harus manfaatkan 2 jam ini. s (one group came forward to do the presentation) oke friends, we will present our song ........ t don’t forget to introduce yourself. from extract 3, the teacher applied verbal reinforcement and followed by non-verbal reinforcement at the same time. furthermore, extract 4 showed that the teacher used non-verbal reinforcement and then followed by vicarious reinforcement. non-verbal reinforcement this reinforcement refers to the use of some physical actions for responding students’ action or behavior. here is the extract: extract 5: t ya it’s oke. come on. (the teacher nodded). s oke, is there only one symbol in both songs? s2 yes, kalo aku sih.... t try to use english. s2 yes, we only find one symbol here. if you find another one you can add. t (the teacher smiled and gave point to the student) extract 6: s (the students were quiet) t come on, what we have learnt? (the teacher came closer to the students) extract 5 and 6 showed that the teachers often gave non-verbal reinforcement to the students. the teachers simply gave nod or smile to show their appreciation to the students. vicarious reinforcement this reinforcement needs people to observe others. the students will probably do the same thing if their partners have done it previously. thus, this type of reinforcement is expected to be able to help students do something desirable. the use of vicarious reinforcement can be seen in extract 6: extract 6: t nah, bahaya. nah thomas, gimana ini artinya? udah dibantu sama teman-temanmu lo ini. s jadi, pas di laut itu ada gelombang besar gitu miss. t iya, artinya apa? masa ini lagu ngomongin tentang laut? ayo coba di hubungkan dengan maria ana mei lestari / elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 101 kehidupan. jadi gelombang ini itu kaya melambangkan apa kalo dikehidupan? s masalah miss. t oke, masalah. kalo gelombang tinggi berarti masalahnya? s besar. t oke, bagus, gelombang tinggi artinya masalahnya besar. (the teacher spoke louder to one student). in line 1 we can see that the teacher tried to encourage the students to do something by observing other’s behavior. when the other students did something desirable, perhaps the others also did the same thing. delayed reinforcement based on the result of transcription, the researcher did not find any delayed reinforcement applied by the teachers. it was because the teachers tended to give praises directly to the students every time they do something desirable. qualified reinforcement the teachers tried to encourage the students to do what the teachers wanted. the teachers sometimes reminded the students to keep speaking english in her classroom. here is the extract: extract 7: t oke, jadi gimana itu? hidup kaya layang-layang itu gimana? s (students were only quiet) t oke, coba explain using your own words. try to use english. s (students were discussing about the answer) t nah, kalian bisa analisa itu, artinya kalian bisa jelasin dong. itu kan simbolnya, ya kalian jelasin pake kalimat kalian sendiri. ayo coba gimana? s (students were only quiet) t oke, try to think about that, ok? oke next please. extract 8 (lines 1 to 3): t oke, next group? (the teacher came closer to the students) ayo gapapa maju duluan saja. silahkan dipersiapkan. soalnya jam terakhir dipakai buat remidi ya? jadi kita harus manfaatkan 2 jam ini. s (students were preparing for the presentation) oke friends, we will present our song.. in extract 7 line 3, the teachers tried to encourage the students to speak english. even though the students did some grammar mistakes, the teachers still appreciated their effort to try. extract 8 line 1 and 2 above showed that the teacher was trying to make the students to be confident when they did the presentation. types of the reinforcement used by the teachers each teacher applied reinforcement the way they preferred. this part presents the findings of types of reinforcement used by each teachers. table 2. the types of reinforcement used by the teachers no types of reinforcement code teacher a teacher b frequency percentage frequency percentage 1. verbal reinforcement vr 17 36.17% 21 36.21% 2. non-verbal reinforcement nvr 24 51.06% 19 32.76% 3. vicarious reinforcement vcr 1 2.13% 3 5.17% 4. delayed reinforcement dr 0 0% 0 0% maria ana mei lestari / elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 102 5. qualified reinforcement qr 5 10.64% 15 25.86% total 47 100% 58 100% from the table above, teacher a and teacher b used various types of reinforcement. they reinforced they way they preferred. the researcher found that they used different amount of reinforcement according to the students’ need. both teachers did not use any delayed reinforcement, since they used reinforcement spontaneously in their classroom. teacher a used non-verbal reinforcement mostly in her classroom, it is showed in the table that 51.06% of reinforcement is non-verbal reinforcement. whereas, teacher b had different result. she used verbal reinforcement mostly in her classroom, since she used 36.21% verbal reinforcement in her classroom. table 3. the general result of the use of reinforcement in general, the researcher found that non-verbal reinforcement was mostly used by the teachers followed by verbal reinforcement in the second place. students perception towards reinforcement the questionnaire and interview were done by the researcher to gain data about students’ perception towards teachers’ reinforcement. the questionnaires were given at the end of the lesson. the students’ comments may vary from one class to another class, depending on the teacher that taught them in the class. table.4 the students’ comments on teacher’s reinforcement no pupil’s comments reinforcement 1 when i made effort during the lesson the teacher took notice of what i did told me i was right or wrong didn’t take any notice 7 18 0 2 i found this lesson quite interesting the same as usual rather boring really interesting 7 15 1 2 3 i like to say something never in very lesson from time to time no types of reinforcement code frequency percentage 1 verbal reinforcement vr 38 36.19% 2 non-verbal reinforcement nvr 43 40.95% 3 vicarious reinforcement vcr 4 3.81% 4 delayed reinforcement dr 0 0% 5 qualified reinforcement qr 20 19.05% total 105 100% maria ana mei lestari / elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 103 12 6 7 4 when i made a comment in the lesson the teacher praised me didn’t comment nodded or smiled didn’t seem to notice 3 4 18 0 5 the teacher was interested in all i did or said listened to some of what i said was not at all interested to me seem to think anything i did was good 7 14 4 0 6 i felt i really worked hard in this i did what i was supposed to i didn’t try at all 6 16 3 7 has your teacher given you the reinforcement properly? yes no i don’t know 0 15 10 8 how often does your teacher give you reinforcement in the classroom? never in every lesson sometimes 1 4 20 9 has your teacher given you reinforcement personally? yes never 9 16 10 do you always respond the reinforcement given to you? yes, always never sometimes 7 3 15 11 is reinforcement important for you? yes no i doubt it 19 1 5 12 do you think the reinforcement given by the teachers is useful for you? yes, really useful nope i doubt it 17 0 8 the table above is the table of students comment for teacher a. there were 25 students. from the table above, we know that the students found the lesson was the same as usual, nothing special with the lesson. there were only 2 students said that the lesson was “very interesting”, and 7 students said the lesson was “quite interesting”. and only one student felt the lesson was “rather boring”. the students thought that the teacher has implemented reinforcement appropriately, but few of them were not aware about reinforcement used in the classroom, it is proven by 10 students chose “tidak tahu” as their answer. even though the teacher had given the proper reinforcement for the students, as found in the table above, the reinforcement had only been given rarely to the students, since 20 out of 25 students chose “rarely/kadang-kadang”. on that table, 19 students thought that reinforcement is important and useful for them in classroom. even though only few of the students (9 out of 25) have been given personal reinforcement by the teacher. interview was done to gain more information about their perception towards reinforcement. the interview was conducted after the lesson. the researcher chose the students randomly. from general result of the interview, all of them agreed that reinforcement is something useful and important for them in the classroom. they thought it was one of the way the teachers used, to build their enthusiasm in learning english. maria ana mei lestari / elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 104 based on their opinion, giving additional score for them was one of the effective way to reinforce them. they agreed that it could make them to be more active in the classroom, so that they expected that reinforcement should be given to all students. discussions teachers’ reinforcement an effective classroom must have an effective teacher who takes part in every process of learning. cruickshank et al., (2012) suggested that an effective teacher is one who is able to help the students to learn more in ways that can be measured. the teachers are to help the students to feel acceptable as individuals and recognize effort and potential. one of the way to make them feel acceptable is giving reinforcement. from general result of the study, the teachers had implemented the reinforcement quite well. they could apply it in a proper time and sometimes the students responded it well. based on the findings above, the teachers used reinforcement as the way to appreciate students’ efforts and enthusiasm. “positive reinforcement in practice can build self-positive concept, develop an attitude of success, and enhance instructional motivation for the students” (mcdaniel, 1987). each teachers must have different preference of reinforcement since they have different style of learning. not only did the teachers use one type of reinforcement but also they used two types of reinforcement at the same time. they sometimes combined it because it was very effective to show their respect and appreciation to the students. for instance, the teachers gave thumbs up while saying “good” or “nice”. this is the combination of verbal reinforcement with non-verbal reinforcement. delayed reinforcement is one of the types of reinforcement that was not used by the teachers, based on the findings above. giving reinforcement directly to the students may raise their confidence as they had done well in the classroom. this result is not in line with the result of the study conducted by hanjayani (2010), since her study showed that all types of reinforcement were applied by the teachers. types of reinforcement used by the teachers non-verbal reinforcement was the types of reinforcement that mostly used by the teachers. the teachers simply gave smile or nod to show their respects the students. ”most teachers eventually learn to use smiles, nods, and touch, to show approval” (mcdaniel, 1987). this findings latter in line with study conducted by adibsereshki et al., (2014) which showed that tangible reinforcement is more effective than social reinforcement. tangible reinforcements are concrete objects that a student needs or wants, it refers to the use of extrinsic rewards, such as, stickers, food, award certificate, or points (cruickshank et al., 2012). on the other hand, this findings contrast with the study by hanjayani (2010). her study showed different result, which was verbal reinforcement that had the highest frequency during teaching and learning process. students’ perception during teaching and learning process, there must be interaction happened between students and teachers. based on the students’ perception above, they all agreed that reinforcement positively helped them in the classroom. this is in line with the result of study conducted by pratiwi (2015) which showed that more than half of students agreed it helped them improving students’ grade. this is also supported by the study by hoque (2013) which showed that students treated by positive reinforcement was performing better. in addition, the students perceived that reinforcement is important and useful. this one is supported by the study by burnett and mandel (2010), the students perceived that they felt good inside when they were praised. thus, this study supported praises as one of the verbal reinforcement that are important and positively help the students to work harder. most of the students agreed that giving additional score was often used by the teachers. they thought that it will help them to be more enthusiastic. this finding is supported by the study of pintel (2006) which showed that there was improvement in students’ achievement who had been given positive reinforcement in form of rewards. the tangible reinforcement was effective to be implemented in the classroom compared with social reinforcement, as showed in adibsereshki’s study. maria ana mei lestari / elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 105 conclusion there are five types of reinforcement that are suggested by moore (2007), there are verbal reinforcement, non-verbal reinforcement, vicarious reinforcement, delayed reinforcement, and qualified reinforcement. based on the result of this study, it can be concluded that both teacher a and teacher b used reinforcement the way they preferred in the classroom. from the result findings, the teachers used various types of reinforcement. teacher a used non-verbal reinforcement the most during lesson, whereas teacher b used verbal reinforcement the most. in general after the researcher did the recapitulation, it can be concluded that non-verbal reinforcement was mostly used by the teachers. based on the result in chapter iv, most of the students agreed that reinforcement is a way that is used by the teachers to motivate the students. they thought that reinforcement is similar to motivation. they also agreed that reinforcement is very useful and important for them, especially when they made some effort during classroom. they felt appreciated and motivated. furthermore, it can be concluded that the teachers have already implemented reinforcement properly during teaching and learning process. from the result of students’ interview, it can also be concluded that non-verbal reinforcement, such as, giving additional score for the task, was mostly responded by the students. from the interview result, they preferred non-verbal reinforcement as the most useful reinforcement for the students. references abbasi, a., ghanbari, b., zare, m.h. 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(2013). effect of positive reinforcement – learning process. journal of humanities and social science, 7, 13-16. retrieved from www.iosrjournals.org/iosr-jhss/papers/vol7issue1/c0711316.pdf?id=5960 latifah, t.u. (2016). positive reinforcement used by the teacher in teaching english. final project, universitas negeri semarang. marcellino, m. (2008). english langugae teaching in indonesia: a continuous challenge in education and cultural diversity. thesis, universitas katolik atma jaya jakarta marchant, m., & anderson, d. h. (2012). improving social and academic outcomes for all learners through the use of teacher praise. beyond behavior, 21(3), 22-28. doi: 10.1177/107429561202100305 mcdaniel, t. r. (1987). practicing positive reinforcement: ten behavior management techniques. the clearing house: a journal of educational strategies, 60(9), 389-392. doi: 10.1080/00098655.1987.9959382 moore, k. d. (2007). classroom teaching skill (6th ed). new york: mcgraw-hill. maria ana mei lestari / elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 106 pintel, l. (2006). the effect of positive reinforcement on the achievement of 3rd grade students’ spelling. thesis, rowan university. retrieved from https://rdw.rowan.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1923&context=etd pratiwi, i.m. (2015). an analysis of students’ perceptions toward the use of positive reinforcement in the english classroom. final project, universitas kristen satya wacana. siedel, john v. 1998. appendix e: qualitative data analysis. available at http://www.qualisresearch.com/downloads/qda.pdf. turney, c. et al. 1983. sidney micro skill redeveloped series1: reinforcement, basic questioning, variability. adelaide: grifin press limited. walker, s. 1975. learning and reinforcement. retrieved from http://lib1.org/_ads/38fe082dff3a81b6aa6ab25a89068d63 putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 140 elt forum 9 (2) (2020) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt syllabus design in business english based on the needs of economics students tiara nove ria1, djamaludin malik2 1,2universitas pandanaran, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 13 october 2020 approved in 29 november 2020 published in 30 november 2020 ________________ keywords:syllabus; business english; needs analysis ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________ business english is one branch of english for specific purposes. in determining the abilities to be achieved in learning objectives, material selection, and learning methods in this course, the syllabus design must be tailored to the needs of students and it is better to combine with the real work situation. therefore, a need analysis is essential to use for designing the syllabus however, the recent syllabus did not match students need so that the aim of this study was to conduct need analysis to develop the business english syllabus design for economics students. it was based on two situations, learning needs and target situation needs. the subjects were students, lecturer, graduates and employers. the instruments to collect the data in this study were questionnaire and interviews. this study used quantitative and qualitative method. the results showed that students mostly need speaking skills to be emphasized to learn, while mastering vocabularies was the weakness that the students need to improve. moreover, they tended to have drilling as the learning method. while the most materials of english business used in workplace was reading instruction related work and documents. based on the findings of this study, it can be used for designing the new syllabus. © 2020 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: tiaranoveria@unpand.ac.id http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& tiara nove ria, djamaludin malik/elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 141 introduction english is a language that must be mastered by most people today. english language skills are seen to support self-development. in today's world of work, many companies have implemented english language skills to support their work. a study conducted by (setiawan, 2014) stated that english is highly essential used in the world of work and this skill helps the workers enhance their career. consequently, universities as places that produce people to compete in the world of work must provide english learning facilities. the economics faculty of universitas pandanaran seeks to produce graduates who can compete in the world of work. therefore, the study program facilitates students by providing english courses, one of which is business english. this course is given to students in semester 2. in order to achieve learning objectives, a course syllabus is compiled. the syllabus contains the course achievements, the course objective, the learning materials, the learning methods and time allocation. in pre observation, the researcher observed by asking students about business english learning and teaching process, then students gave information that was based on their experience. some materials that were given by the lecturer were not tailored to their needs at work. the students’ background was part time employers, so they had already known the use of english in their company. it happened because the syllabus and materials were design by the lecturer itself. it was designed only by putting the material that the lecturer felt was appropriate to give. based on this case, the lecturer eager to find the solutions. business english is one branch of english for specific purposes (esp). as stated in (hutchinson, t., & waters, 1987), esp is the way the learners learn english for the needs of specific fields. the use of english varies from one field to another. an engineer needs the knowledge of english about their engineering field, and it will be different in english used by the people who work in the economic environment. the specific terms used are different to each other. it brings the nonnative to learn english for specific purposes. english for specific purposes (esp) are subjects that are designed based on the specific needs related to the work or academic of students, and the subjects offer a description of the use of language in the discipline or job they serve (basturkmen, 2010). so it is clear that english is only designed for material specifically to suit the learner's scientific background. business english is a branch of esp apart from others such as english for police, english for nurses, legal english and so on (richards, 2001). in this case, the students of economics need to focus their learning in business english as their knowledge to be ready in their future work. according to (basturkmen, 2010), a need analysis can be the way to develop what the need to teach and learn english for specific purposes. need analysis was an essential component to design and develop the course. this is the chance for the lecturer to do a need analysis so the course can meet the students’ goals. determining learners’ needs in learning english is called needs analysis or needs assessment (hossain, 2013). needs analysis is the process of gathering information and improving language planning. as concluded by alfehaid in his dissertation, the findings from the needs analysis are analyzed to propose improvements so that academic needs and workplace language can be integrated, thereby increasing future student achievement (alfehaid, 2011). according to hutchinson and waters in (diana & mansur, 2018), need analysis is divided into two, target situation needs and learning needs. the target situation needs can specify goals and objectives. it is like a compass for learners to know the road to their goals. on the other side, the learning needs specify the learners’ situations (background, motivation, skills, strategies). the syllabus design is the necessary process of planning the teaching, while needs analysis is the primary guide of the phases that are passed to design (li, 2014). therefore, in the process of syllabus development planning, a needs analysis is carried out. according to (chunling, 2015), needs analysis is the first thing to do in designing a business english course. the things that are needed in developing syllabus design based on the needs analysis are knowing the learning needs, learning objectives, final abilities to be achieved, determining the learning method and the suitable time that should be allocate in each meeting. in several studies, it was stated that to design material and syllabus was essential to conduct need analysis. according to (diana & mansur, 2018), in her study, the design of the syllabus for ict students was based on the lecturer’s perception so that the syllabus did not meet the students’ need. then she conducted the need analysis to find the appropriate materials needed by ict students. in line with diana & mansur's research, (aflah & rahmani, 2018) stated that needs analysis plays a tiara nove ria, djamaludin malik/elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 142 vital role in teaching and learning students majoring in nutrition because it would improve the learning process. students, lecturers, learning objectives, learning materials, and learning methods would be well connected because they know the learning needs. another study by (remache & ibrahim, 2018), suggested that english teachers conducted a similar study using needs analysis for designing better syllabus. the result of the study was syllabus design that suits with students’ needs, wants, desires and expectations of the students. according to (dzięcioł-pędich, 2014) her research presented possible suggestions for business english course design and stressed the importance of needs analysis for developing an esp syllabus in the context of polish education. from several kind of research that have been conducted, it concerns only on the students situation. it has not been investigated in the real work situation. the employers and the graduates who already face the real situation can be the external factors besides students who know and feel the needs based on their own. the employers and graduates can give the information of the needs which can be verified. hence, the researcher wants to conduct the research of need analysis to get the best design of syllabus that is taken from two situations so that the students of economics at universitas pandanaran central java indonesia reach the goal of studying business english course. methods this study's participants were 52 students in the second semester of economics faculty of universitas pandanaran, an english lecturer who teaches in this institution, 50 graduates, and two employers from hospitality and manufacture companies. the students consist of 35 females and 17 males that had already taken general english in the previous semester. the students' age was between 19 to 25 years old. the english lecturer (el) had been working in universitas pandanaran for three years. graduates who work in various companies. the employers' position was a sales manager (sm) of hotel horison semarang and a manager hrd (h) of holi karya sakti semarang. in need analysis, there are some instruments that can be used to conduct a need analysis such as interviews, questionnaires, or observation (basturkmen, 2010). in this study, the instruments consist of questionnaires and interviews. the questionnaires were distributed to 52 students and 50 graduates of economics faculty. the students were the 2nd semester who took business english course and the graduates of economics faculty were taken from the convenience sampling technique. at the same time, the interview was conducted to an english lecturer who teaches in this institution, graduates and employers. the interview employed semi-structured interview. the questionnaire consists of several questions, including the students' background, the students' perception of learning business english, the students' lacks and wants in learning english, students' preference of learning method during the class, and students' need for time allocation. while the graduates' questionnaire includes the importance of english language, the frequency of english skills used in the workplace, and the materials used in the workplace. the types of questions in this questionnaire are closed questions and multiple-choice questions. the interview employed semi-structured interviews that were asked to the lecturers, the graduates, and employers. the procedures of data collections were from questionnaires submitted by students and graduates then classifying the results. then the interview that was conducted to the english lecturer, graduates and employers to get deeper information based on the questionnaire. the qualitative and quantitative methods were used to analyze the result after the researcher collected the data. the questionnaires were tabulated using quantitative by writing the percentage then it was displayed to words for showing the result and the last the researcher drawn the conclusion. the interview was analyzed qualitatively to interpret the result of the study objectives (creswell, 2002). the semi-structured interview was conducted by the researcher to support the data from questionnaires that were distributed to the students and graduates. findings and discussion the first sources are based on questionnaires of the students and semi-structured interviews with the lecturer. in the questionnaire, the first information was about the students' backgrounds. the students who participated in this study were 52 consists of 35 females and 17 males. they were 39 (75%) students of management and 13 (25%) students of accounting. the range of students' age was varied. they were from 19 to 30. the 24 students in the age of 19-21, at the age of 22 to 24, were 18 students, at 25 and above were 10 students. next was about their assessment self. it was conducted in the questionnaire questions, which showed the students' level of english proficiency. the level ranged from low (6), fair (38), good (7), tiara nove ria, djamaludin malik/elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 143 and very good (1). it indicates that the students were mostly in the average level of english. these students' backgrounds must be the lecturer's concern to know how to treat the students. the students' age was majority mature. it will influence the way they learn. as stated by (palea & bostine-bratu, 2015), age cannot be used as a benchmark between adolescents or adults in foreign language learning. learning achievement depends on how the lecturer creates situations and motivates students to achieve what they are aiming for. it also applies to the level of english proficiency, that learning strategies are the main thing that lecturers must consider in improving students' english skills (kunasaraphan, 2015). the second information, the questions were about the students' perception of the business english course. there were three questions asked to the students for supporting the students' perception. they are (1) english language skills are needed for their future work, (2) business english course is needed to be taught for students and (3) business english course supports their english task at work. for the first question, there were using scales with range "strongly agree," "agree," "disagree," and "strongly disagree." table 1. english language skills are required for your future work choices answer percentage strongly agree 27 52% agree 24 46% disagree 1 2% strongly disagree table 1 above shows the response from the participants. more than half of participants strongly agree (52%) and agree (46%) that english language skills are required for their future work. it is only 2% or one student said disagrees. the second question also scales by the same range. the question about the participants’ perception of the business english course, whether it was needed for the learners. table 2. business english courses need to be given to students choices answer percentage strongly agree 30 58% agree 22 42% disagree strongly disagree the response was 58% strongly agree, and 42% agree that business english needs to be given to students. the next question was about the participants’ perception of the business english course to support their future work. table 3. the business english courses that are taught will support your future work choices answer percentage strongly agree 27 52% agree 24 46% disagree 1 2% strongly disagree 52% or 27 participants strongly agree with the perception that the business english course will support their future work. this result followed by 46% of participants agreeing with the perception and only 2% or one participant who disagrees with the perception. the finding of the perception above indicates that students had already realized the importance of english skills and english business for their future careers or work. they have tiara nove ria, djamaludin malik/elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 144 positive perceptions and motivations in learning english business. the english lecturer (el) supports this finding. based on the interview, the el said: “….mahasiswa perlu diajarkan kemampuan bahasa inggris bisnis yaitu bahasa inggris yang memang khusus untuk menyiapkan mahasiswa di pekerjaannya nanti…” the translation: “…students need to be taught business english, specifically for prapring the students in their future workplaces…” based on the results above, it is in line with what was said by (meenu & pandey, 2014) that speaking english is essential because it is in high demand in the workplace. therefore, business english courses need to be taught as a provision for students in their future workplace. the third information was the participants’ lack and wants in english learning. the results of the data were shown in the table below: table 4. students' difficulties in english mastery difficulties yes no has a limited vocabulary of english 49 (94%) 3 (6%) cannot speak english well 40 (77%) 12 (23%) difficult in pronouncing english words 40 (77%) 12 (23%) cannot understand conversation in english well 33 (63%) 19 (37%) difficulty in writing english sentences 28 (54%) 24 (46%) difficult in understanding english texts 24 (46%) 28 (54%) based on the result above, it was shown that the most difficulty in english skills was in the limitation of vocabulary. there were 94% of participants, while only 3% showed that they did not have a limited vocabulary. the next result was the difficulties in speaking well. there were 77% of the students found difficulty speaking english, and 23% of students stated that there were no difficulties in this skill. following it, 77% of participants found that pronouncing english words was difficult. in percentage, 63% of participants had difficulties cannot understand english conversation well and found it challenging to write english sentences (54%). the last rank was 46% of the participants had difficulties in understanding english text. table 5. students wants in learning english skill reading 25 48% writing 35 67% listening 30 62% speaking 45 86% table 5 showed the result of students' want to learn english skills. the speaking skill was the most wanted to be learned. there are 86% of participants needs this skill. in the second position needs by the participants was writing, 67%. then, there were 62% wanted to learn to listen, and the last was reading, in which only 48% of students want to learn the reading skill. according to the lecturer, the students need all four english skills because it was english skills are interrelated with each other, so that all need to be learned. it is in line with what the lecturer wants: the el said that “…buat saya kemampuan berbicara harus diajarkan di urutan pertama karena memang tujuan dari perkuliahan ini, jadi tiap pertemuan harus wajib ngomong ...” the translation: “…speaking is the first sequence to learn, followed by listening then reading and finally writing…” the above research results can be used as guidance for lecturers in teaching the business english courses. students' weaknesses and desires become a reference for lecturers in choosing english skills that will be emphasized in class. as stated by (huh, 2006), teaching business english tiara nove ria, djamaludin malik/elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 145 should meet the learners' lacks and wants. it must be balanced so that it can meet the needs of students. the fourth information was about the students' preference for learning methods. table 6 below showed the results. table 6. learning methods that suitable drilling 38 73% games 9 17% discussion 20 38% role play 10 19% lecturing 1 2% there were 73% of participants agree to use drilling as the learning method during the course. the second rank was discussing methods in learning english business (38%). then 19% agree that role-playing was a suitable learning method. following by gaming, 17% of participants wanted to use this method, and the last was lecturing, only 3%. based on the el, she said: “…untuk pembelajaran bahasa inggris bisnis akan lebih mudah diserap oleh mahasiswa jika metode yang digunakan adalah drilling atau bermain peran, kadang juga dengan model diskusi atau berkelompok…” translation: “…for learning business english it will be more easily absorbed by students if the method used is drilling or role playing, sometimes also with discussion or group models…” as stated by (montero et al., 2017), learning strategy is an important step that supports students in achieving their learning. the lecturers’ concern is to follow what learning strategies fit the class to achieve the students’ learning goals. in line with montero, (fatmawati et al., 2018) stated that teaching and learning activities would help students achieve the learning objectives. the fifth information was about the time allocation for the business english course. the result showed the high motivation of students in learning business english. more than half of students or 60% stated agree, and 29% of students strongly agree that the time allocation of the business english course should be added. so far, the business english course's time allocation was only two credits points x 45 minutes in the 2nd semester. it indicates that they had a more profound desire to learn business english. it is known that motivation is an essential factor in foreign language learning. therefore, the lecturer needs to identify the students' motivation in learning (tambunan & siregar, 2016). the last information was about the skills use and materials use in the workplace. the data sources taken from the questionnaire spread to graduates and interview to get the more in-depth information to graduates and employers. the graduates work in various companies such as manufacture, hospitality industry, distributor, education fields, and finance. it can provide information on the use of english in various fields, and the information comes from employers who understand the duties of their staff. the graduates consisted of 22 females and 28 males. they mostly work in semarang and surrounding areas. while the employers were two males where the company is located in semarang. the result of the questionnaires and interviews were presented below. the first question was about the importance of english skills. table 7. the importance of english skills total % strongly agree 28 56 agree 19 38 disagree 2 4 strongly disagree 1 2 tiara nove ria, djamaludin malik/elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 146 the data showed that graduates are mostly strongly agreed on the importance of english skills in the workplace (56%), followed by 38% that agree that graduates have to master english skills. however, there were 4% disagree, and 2% strongly disagree with having english skills. it indicates that the graduates strongly agree that english skills were vital because they often used these skills in their workplace, while the graduates who disagree and strongly disagree because they did not use english frequently so that they did not master english. as stated by the manager hrd of holi karya (hr) about the importance of english in the workplace. the hr said: “….bahasa inggris harus bisa, bahasa inggris menjadi dasarnya, apalagi jika bekerja di situasi yang lingkungannya berhubungan dengan pihak luar..” translation: “….english is a must. english is the basis, especially if you work in a situation where the environment is related to foreign parties…” based on the data above, english skills are essential. english language skills are needed in the world of work, especially now that many companies are associated with foreign parties or even companies owned by foreigners. according to (clement & murugavel, 2018), english is essential for requiring a job, and these skills can effectively support the employees' career. in line with (khan, 2017) that english is the dominant language globally because of globalization, it is essential to understand english skills and how we use it to communicate. the english skills often used in the workplace can be seen in the table below. table 8. the frequency of english skills used in the workplace total % speaking 30 60 listening 28 56 reading 36 72 writing 29 58 the questionnaire results showed that reading and speaking were mostly used at work through writing, and listening skills were needed in supporting their works. it was supported by an interview with graduates (g1) who work in fuel and basic chemical distribution. the g1 said: “….bahasa inggris banyak bu dipakai, seperti mendengarkan dan membaca istilah-istilah yang digunakan di pekerjaan, jika di level tertentu seperti manager harus komunikasi karena direkturdirekktur ada yang dari luar…” translation: “…english is often used, such as listening and reading the terms used at work, if at a certain level, such as manager, they have to use their speaking skill because there are directors who are a foreigner…” compared to the students' results, the students' and lecture's preference for learning english skills was quite different from the real situation. the graduates' responses were based on the use of their work places. though the learning process was based on student needs as stated by (hutchinson, t., & waters, 1987), it must be combined with the real situation of target situations (mahardika, 2014). the materials used in the workplace are listed below: table 9. the use of english in the workplace total % verbal instructions related to work 20 40 written instructions related to work 27 54 tiara nove ria, djamaludin malik/elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 147 business presentations 17 34 job interview 12 24 business letter 14 28 business email 18 36 proposals (projects, plans, etc.) 6 12 expression of opinions at business meetings 11 22 work-related literature 16 32 serving customers orally 23 46 documents report (meetings / sales / finance, etc.) 24 48 business conversation over the phone 17 34 job application letter and personal data 12 24 negotiation 14 28 the results showed the activities in english used in the workplaces of the graduates. these findings can be the reference of the lecturer to choose material for the students in each meeting. verbal instructions related to work, written instructions related to work, business presentations, job interview, business letter, business email, proposals (projects, plans, etc.), expression of opinions at business meetings, work-related literature, serving customers orally, documents report (meetings/sales/finance, etc.), business conversation over the phone, job application letter and personal data, negotiation. the data above was supported by the interview from the sales manager of horison hotel and graduates who work in a manufacturing company. the next interview came from the sales manager (sm). the sm gave information about the use of english at work. the sm said: “…. di awal mendaftar pekerjaan saya mendaftar di perusahaan ini menggunakan surat lamaran dan wawancara dalam bahasa inggris...kalau penggunaan bahasa inggris sendiri di dalam pekerjaan seringnya digunakan dalam menulis surat atau email seperti guarantee dan confirmation letter karena saya di bagian reservasi, tapi di bagian lain seperti sales itu biasanya melakukan meeting dengan pelanggan dari luar negeri…” translation: “….at the beginning of applying for this job, i was asked to use application letter and interview in english ... if the use of english at work is often used in writing letters or emails such as guarantees and confirmation letters because i am in the reservation section, but in the section others such as sales usually hold meetings with customers from abroad..” then the information from the graduate (g2) who worked in manufacturing company as purchasing staff. g2 said: “…pada bagian pekerjaan saya di purchasing, saya biasanya menggunakan bahasa inggris itu untuk membaca dan menulis email, surat bisnis dan laporan penjualan. pekerjaan lainnya yang kadang menggunakan bahasa inggris itu melayani complain dari customer, kadang lewat email atau lewat telepon jika memang dari customer menelepon…” translation: “…in my part of the job at purchasing, i usually use english to read and write emails, business letters and sales reports. other jobs that sometimes use english serve complaints from customers, sometimes via email or by phone if the customer calls …” the course objective can be the guidance of the lecturer to decide the topic that will be taught to students. as what (remache & ibrahim, 2018) concluded in his study, that this was an opportunity for the lecturer to design better materials that meet the students’ language need. tiara nove ria, djamaludin malik/elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 148 conclusion based on the result, the lecturer should concern all english skills, explicitly speaking and listening, that students mostly need to learn. however, the skill of writing and reading should be emphasized too in order to achieve the target needs. students' wants and lacks in mastering english language skills are the central guides for the lecturer in motivating students to achieve learning goals. also, the learning methods have to suit the students' needs to motivate them to acquire their language skills. the last is the time that should be allocate based on the needs of students in learning. the graduates' information about the language activity that often used can be the guidance for the lecturer to design a syllabus of business english course that fits with the students' and targets' needs. for further research, this need analysis is essential for the lecturer in designing the syllabus based on students' needs in another esp field. the combination sources from the learning and the target needs can be a good overview for improvement at esp class. acknowledgement the authors would like to express special thanks for directorate of research and community service (drpm) kemenristekdikti who has supported the funding of this research with the scheme of hibah penelitian 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(2016). students’ motivation in learning english language (a case study of electrical engineering department students). the journal of english language studies, 01(02), 63–70. https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.30870/jels.v1i2.956 putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 146 elt forum 10 (2) (2021) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt teaching strategies: how do teachers in remote area survive during remote learning? rini amelia1, tia nur istianah2 1politeknik negeri banjarmasin, indonesia 2institut agama islam cirebon, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 30 june 2021 approved in 26 july 2021 published in 28 july 2021 ________________ keywords; teaching strategy; remote area; remote learning ____________________ abstract during the pandemic of covid-19, remote learning has been very highlighted. this environment creates huge challenges especially to those teaching in remote areas. drawing on them, this descriptive qualitative study aims to explore teaching strategies applied there. in collecting the data, interviews and questionnaires were given to two english teachers of a junior high school in aranio, banjar regency. the results show that they have to face some challenges such as the limitedness of internet access and low motivated students when implementing remote learning. due to this condition, they need to survive by making some efforts such as creating and using interesting teaching modules, coordinating with the related parties, carrying out blended learning, conducting home visit and setting up offline classes because of no possibility for online learning. through this study, other teachers are kindly informed on the applicable teaching strategies to create effective remote learning experiences in remote areas. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 jl. brig jend. hasan basri, pangeran, kec. banjarmasin utara, kota banjarmasin, kalimantan selalatan, indonesia 70124 e-mail: rini.thabrani@gmail.com http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& rini amelia, tia nur istianah/ elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 147 introduction the pandemic of covid-19 declared as a global pandemic has affected many sectors including education. a number of schools are closed and students are sent home in order to prevent the spread of corona virus. then the concept of studying from home are newly introduced by the circular of the ministry of education and culture no. 4 of 2020. consequently, remote learning becomes a big necessity. remote learning brings some challenges and urge teachers to find some applicable teaching strategies to deal with it. it is then brought to the surface and highligted since it must be carried out to keep teaching and learning process going. the covid-19 pandemic does shift face-to-face interaction in physical classroom to remote learning. some other significant impacts are also seen in education. the rise of virtual learning contributes to the emergence of several online teaching platforms which soundly offer their free services. also, a number of webinars, online courses, workshops and trainings starts mushrooming. they all offer feasibility for all educators around the world, including indonesia. as an archipelagic country, indonesia owns special geographical condition in which the infrastructure development is still considered uneven. consequently, some areas are called developed and others are underdeveloped. those in developed areas get some feasibility in many aspects of life. they are very familiar with many sophisticated technologies. meanwhile, those living in underdeveloped areas, also called remote areas, find it difficult to catch up. it is no wonder that the quality of education in developed or urban areas is claimed much better than that of remote areas. this factor also makes some differences and gives certain impacts on the implementation of remote learning during the pandemic of covid-19. in regard to remote learning, it is frequently seen as an obvious choice for many students with access limitation (macintyre & macdonald, 2011). in addition, rizaldi & fatimah (2020) state that remote learning is an effective solution to continuing the learning process during the covid-19 pandemic when it does not allow direct learning in the classroom. those experts claim the importance of remote learning as one alternative way to implement. dealing with remote learning environment, belastock (2020) says that transitioning a school community to a remote learning environment involves long-range strategic planning, allocation of resources, focused sustainable professional development and equitable access to devices and connectiviy for students. moreover, ray (2020) states that remote learning should provide an opportunity for students and teachers to remain connected and engaged with the content while working from their homes. paolini (2015) adds some points to be concerned in order to create or enhance wellorganized learning such as communication, class environment, students’ engagement, teaching material, and teaching strategy. the previous statements explicitly tell several essential elements should be included when implementing remote learning. it is surely not an easy task for teachers. the necessity for conducting remote learning does challenge teachers especially those teaching in remote areas. as it is known, remote area is a geographic area located far from the city and hard to reach (due to limited means of transportation) and difficult to access because of its geographical conditions (archipelago, mountainous, or swamp areas). besides, the internet connection and electricity are frequently nowhere to be seen. drawing on these conditions, they are certainly not capable of doing online activities since they have limited or no access to the internet. this inability may cause other teaching obstacles emerge. nevertheless, the teachers must ensure the continuity of teaching and learning activities. they need to make some efforts to deal with the hardships they face. although all learning activities are not able to be carried out online, the effectiveness of teaching and learning and the expected students’ outcomes must be considered by the teacher. what teacher has prepared before teaching can determine the learning results. in conclusion, it is compulsory for teachers to make learning organization or planning before a given class on the subject of teaching strategy which is also the focus of this study, paolini (2015) states that teaching strategy can create effective teaching. besides, (kistner et al., 2015) argue that teaching learning strategy is one important aspect of the consistenly claimed promotion of self-regulated learning which involves planning, executing, and evaluating learning process. many educational institutions design their teaching strategy to be used during remote learning because they want the essence of learning to be implemented in remote learning as well. concerning teaching strategy, teachers must coordinate well with parents. during remote learning, the students are allowed to learn anytime and anywhere systematically, according to teacher’s instructions (pratiwi & chasanah, 2018). in accordance to the learning situation during covid-19, rini amelia, tia nur istianah/ elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 148 students have to study by the help of their parents. in other words parents take responsibility for their children learning at home. therefore, parents have the opportunity to observe and evaluate their children learning (carpenter & dunn, 2020). besides parents’ reliance, the use of technology becomes the most powerful means in current educational condition. online learning or remote learning is created along with technological advancement. this learning utilizes the internet and sophisticated media that assist its process from explaining the material, giving the task, and also assessing students’ competence. according to munir (2017), online learning is the use of information and communication technology developments in education that can reach all levels of society. another assumption also states that technology opens up learning opportunities for all students because it helps them to access, provide, and express their knowledge in a variety of ways (torrey, 2018). in addition, several online platforms for teaching and learning are exposed. a lot of webinars, online trainings and workshops are set up. those are designed to assist teachers to go through remote learning successfully. there have been a lot of studies on remote learning done such as learning with online activities: what do students think about their experience? by abdallah in 2009, the effectiveness of online learning: beyond no significant differences and future horizons by nguyen in 2015, the online learning activities during the covid-19 pandemic by lubis and sari in 2020, etc. those studies mainly focus on teaching techniques or online classroom activities potentially done when implementing remote learning. but what about teaching strategies used in remote learning settings? how do teachers, especially those in remote areas, survive when they are incapable of conducting online teaching and learning activities? thus, this present study is significantly conducted to reveal the challenges faced and the teaching strategies applied by remote school teachers during the implementation of remote learning. methods the method used in writing this study is descriptive qualitative method, to expose how teachers in remote area survive in remote learning environment during the covid-19 pandemic. the challenges and teaching strategies applied are two central themes in this study. in order to get rich information regarding what the researchers are looking for, this study was guided by the following questions: table 1. list of interview questions theme questions challenges during implementing remote learning during the covid-19 pandemic, how was the teaching and learning process going on there? are you conducting remote learning? what are the challenges you face in remote learning environment? based on your experience, what is the biggest obstacle when implementing remote learning? teaching strategies applied in remote area what has been prepared by the school in implementing remote learning? what teaching strategies have you used in remote learning environment? in accordance to students’ motivation to take part in this remote learning, what tips have you done to get their attention and interest during learning process? are there any advantages and weaknesses of the teaching strategies that you have applied? respondents and instruments those questions, set in a form of questionnaire and interview, were given to two english teachers of junior high school. these two teachers were selected because the researchers got their phone number and could easily contact them. thus, it definitely increases the feasibility of this study. they teach at a school which is located in aranio, one remote area in banjar regency, south kalimantan. data collection procedures at the beginning, the questionnaire was administered in the form of google form to help the researchers to take and organize the responses. meanwhile, the interviews were addressed in the form rini amelia, tia nur istianah/ elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 149 of semi-structured interviews which were searching for information related to participants’ name, age, and also school’s name, then followed by the same main research questions mentioned but in a deep review. the data gained from the interviews were taped and transcribed via whatsapp (wa). this is because our distance between the participants and the researchers is beyond the reach. collecting the data was held on 27th april 2021, and the data were immediately analyzed after all the data from both techniques were collected. data analysis a 5-step process that was used to analyze the data includes narrative, coding, interpretation, confirmation, and presentation (merriam, 1998). in order to increase credibility and validity of the findings, the researchers used data triangulation. rugg (2010), the chief of unaid, defines this as the use of a variety of data sources, including time, space, and person in a study. the data obtained from the questionnaires and interview are compared. it is then found out that both data sources yield the same result. the final findings of this study will present the summary of the two central themes of this study in a detailed description. findings and discussion as discussed earlier, the data in this study were obtained from the questionnaires and interviews. the questions are set up to answer two central themes: challenges and teaching strategies applied during implementing remote learning. challenges based on the result of the interview and questionnaire, it is found out that their school which is located in aranio is categorized into a remote area. this is viewed from sk bupati document of banjar regency no.390 of 2013. the teachers, hr and n, state that during covid-19 pandemic their school has implemented remote learning. they acknowledge that this remote learning environment has challenged them to keep teaching and learning process going well. they also notice that their students seem to be thriving with this new environment. there is no internet access and electricity here, so we couldn’t carry out online teaching and learning activities to implement remote learning. if we have to, we need to find the signal in certain locations such as on the hill or in higher areas. (n) being far away from the city, it is no wonder that this area has limited or no electricity and no internet access. they said that, although their school has coordinated to some parties such as teachers, a headman, and also students’ parents for funding internet data packages, remote learning still could not run well without internet access. this then becomes their main obstacle when implementing remote learning. consequently, there are no online teaching activities such as video conferences, online quizzes or exercises and even no teaching materials shared online. even though they have had workshops on creating videos for teaching, there is no medium to share those with their students. we have to visit their (students) home, door to door, to distribute the learning assignment and evaluation, and we take them back. because of the limitedness of the internet access, it is difficult to implement remote learning so that we ask every class representative to take the assignments and learning materials at school. we even had to do face-to-face learning by following the health protocol due to this condition. (hr) it could not be denied that the use of media in teaching and learning is very important as tools to enhance the meaning of active learning. however, the implementation of remote learning will use several digital applications to support the learning system. based on the teacher’ statements, it is clear that they lack the main vehicle to run remote learning program. their students could access education at their home by studying the learning materials given through home visit and face-to-face sessions at school. blended learning can be held every week, if the internet can be accessed. it is a learning system that combines remote learning with face-to-face learning. the teachers also argue that they could not pack their online teaching materials with interesting pictures or videos to attract their students. in addition, they could not explain the teaching materials rini amelia, tia nur istianah/ elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 150 and give an assignment to their students online. meanwhile, english is one subject that really needs teachers’explanations, they add. they believe that this case has triggered their students to be less motivated in studying english in remote learning environment. not only those who live in remote area with its limitations, students in downtown also have low motivation during remote learning amid the current covid-19 pandemic. students who do not get used to this learning system will get difficulties in following the process. remote learning could be one new thing for some schools especially those in remote area, and the use of sophisticated technologies is feeling odd for them. furthermore, other obstacles stated previously such as limited internet access and learning media can trigger students to be less motivated to learn. then what the main point when implementing remote learning is that the environment needs to be accessible and empowering so that students’ motivation in learning could be optimized. the previous paragraphs illustrate how remote learning activities done in remote area with many challenges that they have to face. in the next section, the researchers explore several teaching strategies applied by the teachers and school in remote area to survive during remote learning. teaching strategies the teachers need to respond well and fast to this learning transition. the need to develop teaching strategies for creating good teaching learning and for motivating students to learn online is imperative. drawing on the challenges faced in remote area, the teachers took several ways to deal with this remote learning environment. the major challenge that participants mentioned during remote learning was limited or even no internet access. connections that should be made using online forum, email, and virtual meeting during remote learning cannot work well in their environmental conditions. therefore, they create selfstudy modules for their students. what i’ve done to handle the limited internet access is giving a learning modul to my students, then i will ask them to do the exercise or assignment on it. (hr) the teachers said that they pack their materials with some interesting pictures, simple explanations and exercises. those are designed to help the students to study the materials and motivate students to learn. interesting and simulating teaching media is one of many factors that influence students’ motivation. (filgona et al., 2020) state that the use of variety teaching methods and aids is needed to revive and maintain students’ interest in learning. then we coordinate with some parties involving pembakal, paman kapal, and a few teachers living in that village to distribute modules or teaching materials to the students. (n) to regulate their own learning, the teachers distribute the modules and teaching materials to the students and make sure every student has one as their learning source that should be learned at home. they ask paman kapal (the one who controls the small ship/helmsman), pembakal (the head of the village/ headman) and teachers who live in the village to distribute their teaching materials to their students. since the area is surrounded by water, kapal and kelotok (small local ship) are the means of transportation to get to the area. the students live separately in three different islands there. as the results, headman, helmsman, and the teachers living there work together taking the responsibility to deliver the materials to the students every week. a module is very important in online or remote learning environment because of its function as an aid for the presentation of the teaching and learning process. considering students’ difficulty to access the internet, providing modules for them can be one of many solutions that are used when materials cannot be delivered through online applications or online learning platforms. the teachers in this remote area just give the instructions on what students should do during the meeting through whatsapp group. then students’ work will be submitted once a week at school. creating learning modules is a simple teaching strategy used during remote learning. also, teachers could ask their students to explore the content in the modules in any order and at their own pace. for example, the students are asked to describe one of the learning topics in a brief summary with some pictures to complete their own description. this is what the teachers experience when creating a learning module to support remote learning activities. rini amelia, tia nur istianah/ elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 151 besides distributing learning modules, the participants also stated that they conducted offline classes with a limited number of students. however, it did not last long since the pandemic became rampant and the teaching and learning process was redirected to remote learning. then, recently they carry out blended learning. in this pandemic situation, blended learning can be an alternative solution in implementing teaching and learning processes, especially for schools that cannot only depend on online or remote learning system. the learning is not only held through face-to-face interaction at school but also combined with online learning or other media. first of all, what the teachers do is arranging the schedule of face-to-face interaction. the teachers get to standby all day long waiting for the students. then the students in turn come to consult the teachers on the materials that are hard for them to understand. the implementation of their blended learning must be student-oriented. therefore, supporting learning videos, textbooks, and other communication media provided by the school are used simultaneously during face-to-face meeting. it aims to increase the quality of students’ learning. blended learning is not unfamiliar in this educational era. for schools that are located in remote areas, there are many advantages offered while implementing this learning method. face-to-face interaction which is done once a week certainly saves our time, money, and energy. the students do not have to pay for going to school, and save the cost of learning quota. the students also get proper and comfortable teaching because they are guided individually by the teachers. basically, the implementation of blended learning in junior high school is quite different from that in university. looking how teachers as our reasearch participants conduct blended learning, it is a good step for them to do face-to-face interaction because students in junior high school tend to be more dependent learning and are not more adaptable to this kind of learning rather than those in university. in summary, one of the benefits when implementing this learning method in remote areas is that it is wellorganized and relatively pays attention to students. teaching and learning media in this method are relative. it means the media used can be accessed and students get all learning materials. in this context, blended learning could be one appropriate learning method that can be implemented during remote learning in remote areas. another teaching strategy, besides blended learning, that we used during remote learning is home visit. both strategies gives us (teacher and students) the opportunity to communicate with each other. (n) the need of teachers to find out students’ learning development is by conducting home visit programs. the teachers come to their students’ house to advise students and their parents on the learning progress they experience. the teachers believe they need to work together with parents to control the students. the teachers have established ties with students and their parents through home visit activities. these program are believed to build positive relationship, especially, between teachers and students that give good impacts for students’ learning. without solid relationship and trust among them, no good learning outcome and no quality learning will happen. however, if positive relationship is created, it will help students keep engaging in learning, encourage best behaviour, and develop students self-worth. when the teachers have positive interaction, praise the students, and give them positive feedback, the students are directly motivated and give more attention on learning that may potentialy produce good learning outcomes. positive relationship also helps teacher to improve students behaviour. the teacher can share about their personal lives in order to allow students to know them and the students likewise. so they will feel more comfortable and receptive. for this reason, it is important that sudents in junior high school have good role model, namely their teachers to emulate and shape their good behaviour. as a result, these conditions produce good learning environment where every student feels wanted, appreciated, and loved. and then students feel more confident taking risk and pushing their intellect to higher levels. as teachers, they can also observe, interview, and listen to their students’ problems related to learning facilities, materials, and completing the assignment given. in other words, home visit activities are their effort in building positive relationship between teachers and students during remote learning environment, and the result of these activities can be an evaluation of teaching learning system. the importance of building relationship between teachers and students was also declared by varga (2017). he comments that a positive relationship between teachers and students is fundamental in succeeding teaching and learning process. in addition, the advantages of home visit activity or program for young students have been reported by many schools or educational institutions. for examples, a school in washington dc has rini amelia, tia nur istianah/ elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 152 implemented home visit program. the program has been claimed very beneficial since it has successfully improved attendance, reading proficiency and parent engagement for children in more than 12,000 families visited. moreover, another report also states that the parent teacher home visits (prhv) organization has the same opinion that this strategy can reduce inaccurate assumptions among teachers and help them build relationships with families. the teaching strategies above have been carried out by the english teachers of junior school in aranio. those certainly provide opportunities and enable their students to remain connected while studying from home. in addition, for the teachers, this remote learning environment with many complex elements in it has been considered as one interesting individual experience that can be shared with other teachers with the same condition. although the strategies surely have some limitedness, those all they can do to keep up with the condition now. the findings of this study go hand in hand with several studies. one study concerning distance learning remote areas is conducted by rayuwati (2020). she states that some handicaps appearing during implementing remote learning are experienced by students specially those in remote areas. moreover, adnan & anwar (2020) claim that distance learning could not produce desired result since the vast majority of the students are not capable of accessing the internet. they also highlight some issues on the lack of face-to-face interaction with teachers, response time and absence of traditional classroom socialization in implementing remote learning. furthermore, a study conducted by (octaberlina et al., 2020) declare that providing online class is one of the difficulties in implementing virtual english teaching. another study completed by (ferri et al., 2020) also reveals similar findings. they claim that the unreliability of internet connectios and students’ lack of electronic devices are the technological challenges which exist in emergency remote teaching and learning. the results of those studies indicate the same major issue in remote learning environment. conclusion the purpose of this study is to expose the challenges and the teaching strategies used by the english junior high school teachers of remote area during implementing remote learning. the researchers explored the variety of ways in which the teachers work really hard to convey the lessons when there is no possibility for online teaching and learning activities. location might be required as the main consideration in implementing remote learning and it is still one major issue for them. the challenges faced by the participants of this research indicate that implementing remote learning in remote areas needs more considerations and efforts. despite their efforts, there certainly remains limitedness. nevertheless, other teachers in many other different remote areas could adopt their ideas and adjust them to their environment. further research is required to explore how remote learning in remote areas is implemented and how they experience remote learning within that condition. in relation to the context of this study, the findings suggest that the schools must provide supporting remote learning facilities so that students have their best learning experience. besides, assessing students’ learning and giving motivation when attending face-to-face interaction are needed to enhace education quality. also, a kind suggestion is given to many other researchers to find out some potential ways to deal with the implementation of remote learning in remote areas where internet access is still as the major issue. acknowledgement the researchers would like to express their sincere gratitude to some parties including the teachers and colleagues for their valuable support and help while conducting the research and producing this research paper. hopefully, the result will give positive contribution to the educational development and the readers. references abdallah, salam. 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(2017). the effect of teacher-student relationship on the academic engagement of students. goucher college. https://edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2020/07/how-improve-remote-learning-experiences https://edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2020/07/how-improve-remote-learning-experiences https://doi.org/10.1080/15582159.2020.1822727 https://doi.org/10.3390/soc10040086 https://doi.org/10.9734/ajess/2020/v10i430273 https://doi.org/10.33258/birci.v3i4.1407 https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v12i4.847 https://www.techlearning.com/how-to/what-is-remote-learning https://www.techlearning.com/how-to/what-is-remote-learning https://doi.org/10.21744/irjmis.v7n6.1032 https://doi.org/10.46966/ijae.v1i3.42 https://doi.org/10.1080/21532974.2018.1442073 microsoft word [article 4]_38404-research results-99388-1-15-2020 putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 38 elt forum 9 (1) (2020) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt potential relationship between self-efficacy beliefs and proficiency in grammar among tertiary efl learners achmad kholili institut ilmu keislaman zainul hasan genggong, probolinggo, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 21 april 2020 approved in 1 july 2020 published in 30 july 2020 ________________ keywords: self-efficacy; english; grammar ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ a multitude of studies on self-efficacy beliefs have been undertaken to date, especially in language learning. however, little evidence is given on looking into the relationship between self-efficacy and english grammar. to this end, the present study goes about identifying to what extent the correlation between learners’ self-efficacy and their achievements in the grammar test is. drawing on the correlational design, an english grammar test was administered to the learners to know the learners’ acquaintance with the english grammar. meanwhile, a self-efficacy questionnaire was performed by the researcher to the learners to figure out to what extent their efficaciousness is. a pearson-product moment correlation was performed to analyze the relationship between such variables. the result demonstrates that there is a high positive significant correlation between learners’ self-efficacy and their attainments in the grammar test, displayed by r correlation = +1. this finding brings a recent insight in the field of language learning. © 2020 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 department of english, faculty of tarbiyah kraksaan, probolinggo, east java, indonesia, 67282 e-mail:achmadkholili93@gmail.com achmad kholili/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 39 introduction notable success from learners is, among other things, considerably influenced by their beliefs in themselves, including the achievements in academic settings. a set of the beliefs is strengthened and combined with their ability to cope with something they are dealing with. in this regard, this perceived beliefs are summoned as selfefficacy, referring to the beliefs one has about their ability to perform a task or behavior (bandura, 1997). this puts strong emphasis on the way a person should address the problems, including how people or learners overcome their difficulties in learning english, one of which is grammar. to date, a mass of evidence has emerged that self-efficacy has a dramatic impact on one’s achievement. this has been accounted for by numerous studies carried out by some researchers. first, a study was undertaken by bai et al. (2018). they conducted a study on the relationship between social supports, self-efficacy, and english language achievement in hong kong. employing a correlational study, (bai et al., 2018) found that social supports (teachers, parents, and peers), self-efficacy, and english learning achievement are closely related to each other from the weak to moderate strengths. looking back to several years ago, the co-relational study was also ever made by (wang, 2005). he examined the relationship between language learning strategies and language self-efficacy. seventy-four graduate esl pre-service teachers (13 males, 61 females) of a teacher’s college in kuching, sarawak, malaysia took part in this study. by distributing self-efficacy questionnaire and interview, the finding demonstrated that there is a positive correlation between language strategies and language self-efficacy. the high selfefficacy of the pre-service teachers reported more frequent use of more number of language learning strategies than did low self-efficacy pre-service teachers. quite recent research was also carried out by (ivars et al., 2014), especially on the correlation between self-efficacy and language proficiency in interpreter trainees. drawing upon the sample of 281 participants enrolled as the final year students in the translation and interpretation degree program at university of jaume i, spain, over three consecutive academic years-i.e. approximately 90 subjects per year, all of the students, obtained the same training in interpreting-approximately 160 contact hours ranging from 18-24 in age. the findings of his study exhibit that self-efficacy relevant when predicting performance only in trainees with high linguistic competence. however, high linguistic competence trainees lacking self-efficacy offered poorer interpretation renderings. while a bulk of former studies on self-efficacy have been done by the researchers, there is a paucity of the study on the relationship between self-efficacy and the grammar performance. to this effect, the researcher devotes his full attention to the correlation between learners’ perceived self-efficacy and performances in the grammar test. this study is aimed at examining whether or not there is a correlation between both of the variables. literature review self-effiacy self-efficacy has been defined as one’s beliefs about one’s ability to perform a task or behavior (bandura, 1997). in this regards, the belief becomes a critical factor detemining one’s success, say, in academic settings. therefore, the performance of the task may differ markedly depending on the belief of their efficacy in that task (bandura, 1997, 1986, 1997) cited in (sala& redford, 2012). furthermore, magowwe & oliver (2007) notes that this selfefficacy may mediate the effects of other influences, including aptitude, previous achievement, or subsequent achievement. bandura (2010) further emphasizes that the stronger the perceived self-efficacy, the higher the objective challenges ones set for themselves and the stronger is their commitment to them (bandura,2010). accordingly, this factor has a huge impact on how people accomplish their goals. this self-efficacy indeed contributes significantly to the ways people lead to their success. the scenario they set to achieve the goal may be enormously affected by self-efficacy they construct in themselves; and therefore, those who have a high sense of efficacy visualize success of scenario that gives positive guides and supports for performance. on the other hand, those who doubt their efficacy portray failure scenario and dwell on the many things that can go wrong. as a result, it is difficult to achieve much while fighting self-doubt (bandura, 2010). grammar grammar which has been continuously studied by both efl and esl learners still becomes problematic for learners in particular. while the methods and approaches have been executed, the learners still grapple with some complexities, such as tenses, adjective clauses, the use of preposition, conjunction usage, and etc in constructing a sentence. greenbaum & nelson (2013) note that grammar is set of rules which allow us to combine words in english into larger units. achmad kholili/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 40 grammar, however, is still deemed as a complex rule which makes efl learners fail to achieve success in studying it. for instance, the use singular and plural may be different each other in terms of combining it with verbs in the sentence. a case in point is that the verb used in a sentence is “come”, and when it is used in a sentence, it will definitely be relied on what the subject the one uses. if the subject is i, then the sentence becomes ‘i come’, and may slightly differ from the sentence employing a singular form, say, “he”, then it will become “he comes”. this complexity makes some efl learners bored in learning english grammar. as a consequence, they fail to achieve good in english, as has been stated by rimmer (2006) that difficulties of grammar can be found in the form and structure. methods this study draws on the correlational research for which participants, data collection, and data analysis are accounted in the following. the correlational research, in this case, was carried out to examine the relationship between the students’ perceived self-efficacy and their performance in the grammar test. participants the study elicited 30 english major students from univeristy of islam zainul hasan genggong, probolinggo, east java, indonesia. the learners were taken out with the simple random sampling. at first, all of the learners majoring in english department at the university were 60 students: 30 in class a and 30 in class b. however, the researcher subsequently selected one of them randomly as the sample of this study and it was found class a to be the sparticipants. to this end, 30 learners in class a voted for their efficacies and accomplished the grammar test. data collection the researcher sought to gather the data by delivering a general self-efficacy questionnaire and the grammar test to the learners. the general self-efficacy questionnaire was used to investigate their beliefs of their ability to complete a task, and the grammar test was used to know their knowledge of grammar. there were 10 questions in the grammar in which all are in the form of multiple choice tests taken from (http://esl.fis.edu/grammar/q7m/1.htm), whereas 10 statements of the general self-efficacy questionnaire adopted from jerusalem & schwarzer (1995) were distributed to the students, determining to what extent the learners’ efficacies towards the grammar test. the data were garnered after the students studied a tefl in their class in which it occurred approximately at 11 a.m. in the daylight. during the time, the learners began completing the self-efficacy questionnaire and the grammar test. data analysis after the data were gathered, the researcher subsequently calculated the data by counting up the results revealed by the students in the self-efficacy questionnaire and in the grammar test. it was counted up based on to what extent their self-efficacies were and how many students received the correct answers from the grammar test. a person-product moment correlation was afterwards performed to identify the relationship between the selfefficacy and their grammar performance. therefore, the hypotheses are formulated in the following. there are two hypotheses proposed in this study, namely the alternative hypothesis and null hypothesis: 1. h1 (alternative hypothesis): there is a significant correlation between learners’ perceived self-efficacy and their grammar performance. 2. h0 (null hypothesis): there is no significant correlation between learners’ perceived self-efficacy and their grammar performanc following that, the formula for person-product moment correlation is presented in the following: =ݕݔݎ ݊∑ܻܺ− (∑ܺ)(∑ܻ) ඥ{݊∑ܺ2 − (∑ܺ)2 }{݊∑ܻ2 − (∑ܻ)2 } where: rxy : pearson r correlation coefficient n : numbers of samples x : independent variables y : dependent variables meanwhile, the formula for calculating the results of the grammar test is presented in the following: achmad kholili/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 41 where: y : the result of the correct answers n : the total number of answers finding and discussion the finding of this study demonstrated that self-efficacy has a remarkable correlation with the performances in grammar. this finding indeed reports a straightforward fact that learners’ efficaciousness confirms a definite prediction in terms of how learners notch up their success in completing the grammar quiz. the following is the r calculation result. in this case, the two variables are correlated using a person product moment correlation. no x y x2 y2 xy 1 37 70 1369 4900 2590 2 40 80 1600 6400 3200 3 38 85 1444 7225 3230 4 40 95 1600 9025 3800 5 36 75 1296 5625 2700 6 40 95 1600 9025 3800 7 38 80 1444 6400 3040 8 37 90 1369 8100 3330 9 29 50 841 2500 1450 10 34 65 1156 4225 2210 11 31 45 961 2025 1395 12 35 70 1225 4900 2450 13 32 50 1024 2500 1600 14 33 60 1089 3600 1980 15 39 90 1521 8100 3510 16 15 60 225 900 450 17 27 50 729 2500 1350 18 30 60 900 3600 1800 19 32 60 900 3600 1920 20 38 75 1444 5625 2850 21 40 85 1600 7225 3400 22 38 80 1444 6400 3040 23 18 45 324 2025 810 24 37 80 1369 6400 2960 25 40 95 1600 9025 3800 26 39 75 1521 5625 2925 27 35 80 1225 6400 2800 28 40 80 1600 6400 3200 29 23 20 529 400 460 30 28 65 784 4225 1820 total 1019 2080 35.857 154.900 173.870 they were then calculated using the formula of person-product moment correlation as follows: gramar test n= ࢅ ࢔ ૚૙૙࢞ achmad kholili/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 42 notes: the degree of freedom r table r calculation correlation 0.361 882.65 significant the result above indicates a surprising finding with r correlation = 8. it means that this is more than 0.01 or > 1 and is therefore categorized as the highest positive significant correlation between learners’ perceived self=ݕݔݎ ݊∑ܻܺ− (∑ܺ)(∑ܻ) ඥ{݊∑ܺ2 − (∑ܺ)2 }{݊∑ܻ2 − (∑ܻ)2 } =ݕݔݎ (30.73870)− (1019)(2080) ඥ{30.3585 − (1019)2 }{30.154900 − (2080)2 } =ݕݔݎ 2.216.100− 2.119.520 ඥ{1.075.710 − 1.038.361 }{4.647.000− 4.326.400 } =ݕݔݎ 96.580 ඥ{ 37.349 }{ 320.600 } =ݕݔݎ 96.580 √11.974.089.400 =ݕݔݎ 96.580 109,42 =ݕݔݎ 882,65 achmad kholili/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 43 efficacy and their proficiency in grammar. therefore, h1 is accepted and h0 is clearly rejected. in brief, the higher the students’ self-efficacy they have, the better they perform in a certain task or behavior. discussion the present study is predicated on the idea that successful language learners, including in grammar performances are, among other things, by dint of beliefs and cognitive factors, such as self-efficacy. the students, in this case, was required of completing both the general self-efficacy questionnaire and the grammar test to identify the extent to which the relationship between self-efficacy and learners’ performances in grammar. what follows is a quick view on the relationship between both of the variables. along with the research questions addressed in the former chapter, that is, is there a significant correlation between learners’ perceived self-efficacy and performances in grammar? the findings have come up with the full attention that self-efficacy is significantly correlated with the academic performances, particularly in grammar, with the view of (r): 0.80, categorized as high significant correlation. the learners with high selfefficacy could pass the test well, reflected by their marks on the subject, ranging from 70, 80 up to 100. those with high self-efficacy attained the grammar test between 80 and 100 on average, whereas those who have low self-efficacy got hold of 30 and 50 evenly. those with high self-efficacy believe firmly in the grammar test that they could perform correctly in grammar rather than those with the low ones. as has been claimed by schunk & pajares (2010) that self-efficacy beliefs heighten human accomplishment and well-being in countless ways. they affect the choices people make and the courses of action they pursue. the finding carries a profound implication that learners should have high self-efficacy in learning to reach a satisfying result, including english grammar. bandura and his colleagues have undertaken an experiment on the power of self-efficacy and found that this variable has a considerable impact on students’ level of performance, task choice, effort, persistence, thought patterns, and stress reactions (bandura, 1986), cited in (word & locke, 1987). this self-efficacy becomes a key determinant in academic success, including the success of learning english grammar as has been depicted in the finding earlier. beliefs and confidence in copying with particular task or exhibiting a behavior may significantly come to fruition. it encompasses the academic success in college. no matter what the tests are, self-efficacy factor enormously predisposes learners to their levels of performance in the academic settings. chemers, hu, and garcia, (2001) affirmatively argue that it must be acknowledged that high school gpa itself is closely correlated to academic self-efficacy and that high school performance is likely to have been affected by the levels of academic self-efficacy that existed at the time. furthermore, bouffard bouchard, parent, and larivee (1991) also claim that those self-efficacies wield great influence on various aspects, such as self-regulation, task persistence, and performance further studies in terms of self-efficacy are strongly suggested. the ensuing researcher may carry out a study on other dimensions, such as on toefl test, placement test, and several similar teststhat can be administered using larger samples in different spots. conclusion the findings of this study stress the importance of drawing on self-efficacy in english learning, for instance, grammar as stated above. the students, above, with high self-efficacy engender greater confidence than those who are not. those categorized as highly efficacious learners gained better in the grammar test than those with the low ones. this definitely proves that self-efficacy contributes heavily to the achievement.. in brief, the higher the students’self-efficacy the learners have, the better they perform in the grammar test. notes on the contributor: achmad kholili is an english lecturer at the universitas islam zainul zainul hasan genggong, probolinggo, indonesia. formerly, he has published his research articles in international journal of research in english education, lingual: journal of language and culture, and veles: voice of english language education society. his research interests fall within the area of elt and applied linguistics. references bai, b., chao, g.c.n., & wang, c. (2018).the relationship between social supports, self efficacy and english langauge learning achievement in hong kong.tesol quarterly, 0(0), 245-269. bandura, a. (2010). perceived self-efficacy in cognitive development and functioning.educational psychologist, 28(2), 117-148. bouffard-bouchard, t., parent, s., &larivee, s. (1991). influence of self-efficacy on self regulation and perfromance among junior and high school age students.international journal of behaviorial development, 14(2), 153-164. achmad kholili/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 44 chemers, m.m. hu, l. & garcia, b.f. (2001).academic self-efficacy and first year college student performance and adjustment.journal of educational psychology, 93(1), 55-64. greenbaum, s., & nelson, g. (2013).an introduction to english grammar(3rd ed.). new york: routledge. ivars, a.j., catalyud, d.p. &fores, m.r.i. (2014).self-efficacy and langauge proficiency in interpreter trainees.the interpreter and translator trainer, 8(2), 167-182. magogwe, j.m. & oliver, r. (2007). the relationship between language learning strategies, proficiency, age, and self-efficacy beliefs: a study of language learners in botswana. system, 35, 338-352. pre-sala, m. & redford, p. (2012). writing essays: does self efficacy matters? the relationship between self efficacy in reading and in writing and undergraduate students’ performance in essay writing.educational psychology, 32(1), 9-20. rimmer, w. (2006). measuring grammatical complexity: the gordanian knot. language testing, 23(4), 497519. schunk, d.h. &pajares, f. (2010).self efficacy beliefs.in elsevier ltd. schwarzer, r. & jerusalem, m. (1995). generalized self efficacy scale. in j.weinmen, s. wright, & m.johnston. measures in health psychology: a user’s portfolio. causal and control belifes (pp. 35-37). windsor, uk: nfeer-nelson. wong, m.s.l. (2005). language learning strategies and language self-efficacy: investigating the relationship in malaysia. relc journal, 36(3), 245-269. wood, r.e. & locke, e.a. (1987).the relation of self-efficacy and grade goals to academic performances. educational and psychological measurement, 1(47), 1013-1024. microsoft word 9. tri widi kurniawan 101 the effectiveness of split dictation as a teaching strategy to improve students’ listening skill tri widi kurniawan, c. murni wahyanti  english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 27 november 2018 approved in 29 july 2019 published in 29 july 2019 ________________ keywords: split dictation technique; listening skill ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ the objectives of this study are to find out whether or not split dictation technique is an effective technique to improve students’ listening skill and to find out whether or not there is a significant difference between students who were taught by using split dictation and those who were taught by using a conventional method. this study is a quantitative research using quasy experimental as the method of collecting data. the subject of this research was 72 students of the tenth-grade students of sma n 1 sukorejo. in obtaining the data, the researcher conducted the pre-test, treatments, and the post-test. the results of this research showed that the mean score of the experimental group is 82,7 and the control group is 77,638. by using ibm spss 23th version program, the computation of t-test which the score of the sig (2 tailed) is (0.000) lower than (0.05), and the result of t-value (4.189) is higher than the t-table (1.994). in conclusion, there is a significant difference between the students’ listening test achievement. the students who were taught by using split dictation has higher achievement, this indicated that split dictation is effective enough to improve students’ listening achievement. © 2019 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: kurniawanw1813@gmail.com@gmail.com elt forum 8 (1) (2019) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt tri widi kurniawan & c. murni wahyanti / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 102 introduction listening is one of the most important areas to teach english learners. every learner has to focus on their listening skill because listening is a process how to understand others. according to nunan (2001, p.23) listening is the process of understanding, learners have to analyze the meaning of what they have heard and understand symbols they have seen and heard. how to understand language is through sound, that is why the listening should come first. the listening processes actually should come through, first they hear the sounds, second, they try to recognize the words they are listening as the input, and the third they can process the word in their brain to realize the meaning and understand the speaker means. based on the writer’s observation in teaching practice last year, the writer found that so many students have difficulties in understanding the english language as their foreign language. when listening comprehension was taught in the class, students seemed still face difficulties in listening to auto media. it could be seen from the students’ score in listening comprehension was still low than the teacher expected. as a result of this activity, some of the students seem difficult to answer the questions because the rate of conversation is fast enough, the speaker speaks unclearly. they accustom by their teachers’ method, listening on recording and answering the question. students seem to be bored because the recording material was given since they were at elementary school and they want something new and different. based on the statement above, the writer wants to use a different technique to improve the students’ listening ability. using dictation technique could be one of the ways to improve their listening skills in understanding english content. dictation is a technique to decode or to translate sounds into written form. davis and rinvolucri (1998) claim that dictation contains a wealth of new techniques to extend the traditional language-learning activity. kidd (1992) stated in his book entitled teaching esl students through dictation, dictation is interesting, motivating, communicative, and specifically designed for the teaching listening. students performing split dictation exercises are generally required to transcribe the text as accurately as possible. in the previous studies (sari, 2014), found that dictation can stimulate students’ active participation and enhance students’ listening ability. it proven by previous researchers such as (kiany, 2012; aini, 2015; dwinalida, 2012), found that there is a significant improvement of the students’ score after they are being treated by using dictation techniques. in line with the explanation above the researcher chooses a dictation technique called split dictation technique. kidd (1992) stated that one of the dictation techniques, split dictation can help students to diagnose and correct these kinds of errors as well as others, and the purpose of split dictation for the students is to practice listening skills and spelling skills. according to kidd (1992, p.53) split dictation is often acts as a memorization exercise or a spelling-checking activity where teacher dictates a particular passage by splitting the students into two groups in the classroom. it is an activity where students reconstruct the text, combining the two "half-texts" they have written down to produce a complete version, it can increase their ability to notice aspects of the language while they are listening, and realize some mistakes which they commonly make. therefore, the objectives of this study are to find out whether or not split dictation technique is an effective technique to improve students’ listening skill and to find out whether or not there is a significant difference between students who were taught by using split dictation and those who were taught by using a conventional method. methods the type of this study belonged to a quasi-experimental design. based on montgomery and douglas (1997, p.1), experimental design is the process of planning a study to meet specified objectives and to answer the research question as clearly and as efficient as possible. as stated by bhat (2013, p.5) a tri widi kurniawan & c. murni wahyanti / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 103 quasi-experimental research design is similar to experimental research but is not exactly that. in this research design, an independent variable is manipulated but the participants of a group are not randomly assigned as per conditions. the independent variable is manipulated before calculating the dependent variable and so, the directionality problem is eliminated. the subject of this study was the tenth-grade students of sma n 1 sukorejo in the academic year 2017/2018. class x mia 1 was chosen as the experimental group taught by using split dictation technique, while x mia 2 was chosen as the control group taught by using conventional method. each group consisted of 36 students. the type of data used in this research was quantitative data. as stated by mertler ( 2015, p.215) the quantitative data is related to numeral form. the quantitative data of this study were the students’ results in a listening test using split dictation technique. it was obtained by giving a pre-test and a posttest to measure students’ ability before and after the treatments. before the tests were conducted, the tryout test must be done in order to find out the validity, reliability, difficulty level, and discriminating power of the test items. the primary instrument used in this study was a test. as stated by brown (2004) a test is a method of measuring a person’s ability, knowledge, or performance in a given domain. in this study, the writer used an achievement test. achievement test was a test which had a role to determine whether course objectives had been met and appropriate knowledge and skills acquiredby the end of a period of instruction ( brown 2004, p.48). after collecting the data, the researcher analyzed the data by using some method. first, the researcher analyzed the result of pre-test and post-test to get the measure of central tendency (mean). second, the researcher was calculating the normality of the test. normality test was used to measure whether the obtained data was normal or not ( basrowi and soeyono, 2007, p.85). the data were classified into normal when the p-output was higher than 0.05. in measuring normality test, shapirowilk in ibm spss 23th version was used. third, the researcher was calculating the homogeneity of the tests. homogeneity test was used to measure the obtained data whether it was homogeneous or not. according to basrowi and soeyono (2013, p.106), the score is categorized homogeneous when the p-output was higher than the significant difference at 0.05 levels. in measuring homogeneity test, levine formula in ibm spss 23th version was used. after analyzing the normality and homogeneity, the researcher calculated paired samples ttest and independent samples t-test by using ibm spss 23rd version in order to find out whether or not the means between the experimental and the control group was statistically significant. this t-test measures the significant difference between the two set of data that gathered. statistically, the result compares between t-value and the t-table and the significant difference level (2-tailed). when the tvalue higher than t-table, and significant difference level (2-tailed) was lower than 0.05, it could be concluded that h1 is accepted and h0 is denied. it also meant that there was a significant difference between the two data. findings and discussion the result of this research was organized based on the technique of gathering the data the test result after observing the whole test results from the pre-test, post-test, and the result of the questionnaire the writer could make a conclusion that students’ achievement increased after received the treatment. the result of the whole test can be seen in the table below: tri widi kurniawan & c. murni wahyanti / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 104 table 1 test result control group experimental group pretest posttest pretest posttest n 36 35 36 36 total score 2395 2795 2425 2980 mean 66,527 77,638 67,361 82,7 in the pre-test, the table shows that mean score of the experimental group is 67,361, while the mean score of the control group is 66,527. it could be concluded that there was only a slight difference both experimental and control group before getting treatments. after getting the treatments, the students’ listening achievement of the experimental and control group was increased. it could be seen from the mean score of the two groups. the average score of the experimental group was 82,7, while the control group average score was 77.638. the conclusion drawn from the table above was after getting the treatments, the students’ listening achievement of the experimental and control group was increased. it could be seen from the mean score of the two groups. before calculating the t-test, the researcher used ibm spss 23rd version to find out the normality test. this test used the shapiro-wilk test with significance level 0,05. the normality test result of the pre-test and post-test between the experimental and the control group could be seen in the following table: table 2 pre-test normality of experimental and control group shapiro-wilk statisti c df sig. pretestcontrol .924 36 .016 pretestexperi mental .923 36 .015 a. lilliefors significance correction from the calculation of the table above, it could be concluded that the pre-test in this research was normally distributed since the sig value of the two groups were higher than 0.05. the sapphirowilk sig (significance) value of the experimental group in the pre-test was 0.015, while, the sapphirowilk sig value of the control group in the pre-test was 0.016. table 3 post-test normality of experimental and control group shapiro-wilk statistic df sig. posttestcontrol .870 36 .013 posttestexperime ntal .935 36 .056 a. lilliefors significance correction tri widi kurniawan & c. murni wahyanti / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 105 from the calculation of table 3, it could be concluded that the post-test in this research was normally distributed since the sig value of the two groups were higher than 0.05. the sapphiro-wilk sig (significance) value of the experimental group in the post-test was 0.056, while, the sapphiro-wilk sig value of the control group in the post-test was 0.013. after calculated the normality of the test, the researcher used ibm spss 23th version to find out the homogeneity of the pre-test and post-test for both experimental and control group. the homogeneity of the pre-test and post-test of both groups could be seen in the table below table 4 pre-test homogeneity of experimental and control group based on the calculation of the data above, the sig value of levene statistics was 0.831 higher than the level of significant (0.05). thus, it could be concluded that the population between the experimental and control group were homogenous. table 5 post-test homogeneity of experimental and control group based on the calculation of the data above, the sig value of levene statistics was 0.680 higher than the level of significant (0.05). since the pre-test and post-test data that have been collected higher than the level of significant (0.05), thus it could be said as the homogeny data. then, the t-test could be counted. then, the researcher calculated t-test in independent samples t-test, the researcher used the ibm spss 23rd version to find out whether or not the post-test result between both groups was statistically significant. results of the computation could be seen in the table below: table 6 post-test independent samples test levene’s test for equality of variances t-test for equality of means f sig t df sig (2tailed) result of equality post-test variances assumed equality post-test variances not assumed .172 .680 4.189 4.189 70 67.668 .000 .000 levene statistic df1 df2 sig. .046 1 70 .831 levene statistic df1 df2 sig. .172 1 70 .680 tri widi kurniawan & c. murni wahyanti / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 106 since the tvalue (4.189) was higher than ttable (1.994) for α = 5% and df = 70, and the score of the sig (2 tailed) was 0.000 lower than 0.05, it could be concluded that h1 is accepted and h0 is denied. in this research, h1 means that the use of split dictation technique was effective to improve students’ listening skill, while h0 means the use of split dictation technique was not effective to improve students’ listening skill. discussion after observing the whole test results from the pre-test, post-test, and the result of the questionnaire the writer could make a conclusion that students’ achievement increased after received the treatment. the result of the whole test can be seen in the figure below: figure 1 pre-test and post-test results based on the chart above, the average score of the experimental group was 67.3 and the control group was 66,5. after both of groups received different treatments, the average score of the experimental group increased 15.4 points to be 82.7 whereas the control group increases only 10.8 points to be 77.3. this indicated that after getting the treatments, the experimental group got greater improvement than the control group. from the calculation above, it could be concluded that after received treatments by using split dictation technique, the students’ achievement on the listening test was increased. as a result, the use of split dictation successfully improved the students’ achievement in the listening test. the result was also proved by the computation of t-test which the score of the sig (2 tailed) was 0.000 lower than 0.05. it was also supported by the result of the t-test. the result showed that tvalue was 4.189 while the ttable was 1.994. it showed that the t-value > the t-table. in conclusion, there was a significant difference between the students’ listening test achievement. this finding revealed the previous studies done by (kiany, 2012; aini, 2015; dwinalida, 2012) that the use of dictation technique is effective to improve the students’ listening skill. in conclusion, the writer concluded that split dictation technique really gave a good contribution to improve students’ listening skill, besides it also changed the students’ learning behavior to be better. the students have gained both confidence and skills in the listening activity. another valuable thing that the students learn from split dictation was that the technique helped them sharpen their handwriting and spelling. conclusion the objectives of this study are to find out whether or not split dictation technique is an effective technique to improve students’ listening skill and to find out whether or not there is a significant difference between students who were taught by using split dictation and those who were taught by 66,527 67,361 77,368 82,7 control experimental pre-test post-test tri widi kurniawan & c. murni wahyanti / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 107 using a conventional method. from the data obtained in this research, there are some points which could be taken as a conclusion. firstly, the use of split dictation technique is effective to improve students’ listening skill. it is proven by the improvement of the students’ score in the pre-test and the post-test. the result showed that the implementation of split dictation technique could improve students’ listening skill. the mean of students’ score in experimental class improved from pre-test to post-test, from 67,361 to 82,7 while the control group improved from 66,527 to 77,638. after both of groups received different treatments, the average score of the experimental group increased 15.4 points to be 82.7 while the control group increased only 10.8 points to be 77.6. this indicated that after getting the treatments, the experimental group got higher improvement than the control group. secondly, there is a significant improvement of the students’ achievement after they had received the treatments by using split dictation. it is showed in the calculation of the t-test by using spss program. the result showed that the score of the t-value (4.189) was higher than the t-table (1.994) for α = 5% and df = 70; sig (2 tailed) value 0.000 was lower than 0.05. since the t-value was higher than the t-table, and sig (2 tailed) value was lower than 0.05, it could be stated that there was a significant difference between the students’ who were taught by using split dictation and those who were taught by using a conventional method. suggestion based on the conclusion of the research, there are some suggestions that could be taken to enhance students’ listening skill. theoretically, the finding of this study is expected to develop further research. for next researchers who are interested in the same field are recommended to implement the actions in a longer period of time to get more maximum results so that the improvement will be more significantly seen as a literature when they have similar research. the researcher also hopes that the next researcher can explore other kinds of dictation technique as a new teaching strategy to improve students’ listening skill. practically, the result of the study is expected to help students to be more active in the learning process. they should improve their understanding and achievement in learning english especially in listening. they can use audio passage, music, article, or video as a medium to help them understand the english language. they also should study harder and practice english they have learnt. pedagogically, it is hoped that the result of this study will be useful for english teacher. the english teacher should prepare various and different media for teaching and learning process to avoid students’ boredom. it is important for the teacher to maintain students’ focuses which play important role in the teaching learning process. once students keep their focus they will be interested, and after they get interested in the teaching and learning process they will be better at the class in every classroom activities. references arikunto. (2002). metodologi penelitian suatu pendekatan proposal. jakarta: pt rineka cipta. basrowi, & soeyono. (2007). metode analisis data sosial. kediri: cv jenggala pustaka utama cangara hafied. bhat. (2013). experimental design. experimental research design, 13. brown. (2004). research methods for applied linguistics. san fransisco: state university press. burns. (2010). doing action research in language teaching : a guide for practitioners. the canadian journal of action research. davis, p., & rinvolucri, m. (1998). dictation : new methods, new possibilites. cambridge: cambridge university press. tri widi kurniawan & c. murni wahyanti / elt forum 8 (1) (2019) 108 kidd, r. (1992). teaching esl students through dictation. toronto: tesl canada. montmogery, & douglas. (1997). design and analysis of experiments. design and analysis of experiments, 1. mertler. (2015). introduction to educational research. 215. mcerlain. (1999). the nature of listening : the need for listening in english for academic purposes. quoted on august 2018, from www.aelfe.org/documents/text1-mcerlain.pdf. montalvan. (2006). dictation updated: guidelines for teacher-training workshops. quoted on august 2018, from http://exchanges.state.gov/education/engteaching/dictation.html. nunan, d. (2001). listening in language learning. teaching english as a second or foreign language, 23. microsoft word 3. 136 the use of puppet and flashcard as media in teaching vocabulary for children with special needs nining candra wahyuni  english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 21 july 2019 approved in 29 november 2019 published in 30 november 2019 ________________ keywords: puppet; flashcard; teaching vocabulary; quasi experimental research. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ teaching vocabulary to children with special needs is not easy. there are some problems faced by teachers when they taught english vocabulary to the children with special needs, they did not pay attention to the teacher, and they lost their interest in english subject. this quasi experimental research attempted to describe what extent puppet and flashcard lead the children with special needs to the vocabulary development and to discuss students’ attitude towards puppet and flashcard media in learning vocabulary. the participants were students of eighthgrade of slb negeri ungaran and slb widya bhakti semarang. there were two instruments; test and questionnaire. the results showed that the significance between post-test score of puppet group and flashcard group was 0.000 with significance 0.000 < 0.05. furthermore, according to result of the questionnaire, students perception towards both media were positive, yet their interests in flashcard was higher than those in puppet media. it is suggested that flashcard media was more effective to be used in teaching vocabulary for children with special needs. © 2019 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b8 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: e.teacher.ichsan@gmail.com elt forum 8 (2) (2019) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt nining candra wahyuni / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 137 introduction teaching vocabulary to children with special needs is not easy. there are many problems faced by teachers when they taught english vocabulary to the students with special needs, especially in special junior high school, for example the students never been taught english in elementary school, they are not pay attention to the teacher, and they lost their interest in english subject. based on the interview by asking some questions to three teachers of special junior high school, there are some problems in teaching english especially vocabulary. the first problem is the students did not pay attention when teacher gives explanation about vocabulary, they did not focus on the lesson. the second problem is the students felt bored when learning english because they think english is hard to learn. the writer tried to use puppet and flashcard as media in teaching vocabulary to overcome students’ problem in learning vocabulary. some previous studies have been conducted dealing with teaching to children with special needs. such as, lin and nzai (2014) about using ipad apps to teach vocabulary. some findings of the study are ipad can enhance literacy skills, not only that it can motivate students using technology. to do this, teacher would gain information how to incorporate ipad apps into their daily teaching practice and curriculum design. kokkalia and drigas (2016) studied about teaching strategy in english. the findings of the study are mobile learning support children with special needs to be familiar with common nouns and verbs signs. applications can help children with autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (adhd) and also children who face mental and physical disorder. yahya, yunus and toran (2013) also conducted a research about a technique to learn vocabulary. in their research, they used teachers’ practice and voice to teach vocabulary for students with special needs. in other words, teacher teaches vocabulary to his students with giving clear explanation or object and also uses his voice to make the explanation clearly. moran (2012) in her thesis stated that using vak learning styles to teach english vocabulary is affective. he found that the use of vak learning help the students to mastering english vocabularies. meanwhile, the learning style were a complete contribution focused on the improvement and development of a pedagogical methodology used for the acquisition of english vocabulary related to the learning process and learning context of a learner with mental retardation. in addition, there is a study conducted by surujlal (2013). in this study, using music and dance as learning interventions for children with special needs is effective enough. he found that the use of music and dance not only help the students be active and enjoyable in learning process but also improve vocabulary quite a lot. moreover, children are acting the song so their vocabulary improves a lot. similar with the study above, a study relating to vocabulary is also carried by noori and farvadin (2016). their study has an objective to examine the effect of using audio-visual and pictures in teaching vocabulary. the result of the study shows that students give positive responses toward the media used by researcher. the students are motivated, so they can learn vocabulary easily. however, the use audio-visual aids can be more effective than pictures in learning vocabulary. evi, zainal and dewi (2016) on their research about “teaching vocabulary by using picture for autism students” it revealed that the picture is effective to be used as an alternative media in teaching vocabulary. the use of picture can minimize the students’ difficulties in vocabulary. rismanti (2017) on her research found it was positive effect of using flashcard in teaching english vocabulary for dyslexia students. other finding showed that there was increasing on the average of post test. in pre test the average score was 58.64 and in post test was 77.95. in other words the use of flashcard was effective to teach english for dyslexia students. bennett (2002) on his research it was found that the benefits of the use of puppets in the classroom are many and varied. such as provides an opportunity for student expression through the social aspects of communication. students who are working in a group to prepare and present a puppet show are learning to work cooperatively with others, where there is give and take and sharing of ideas. this offers the students the advantage of making group cohesion. all of the studies above concern with teaching english for children with special needs which is similar with the topic brought by the writer. some of those studies discuss about media or techniques used to teach english. a few studies analyze learning media used by teacher in teaching vocabulary. therefore, this study aimed to to describe what extent puppet and flashcard lead the children with special needs to the vocabulary development and to discuss students’ attitude towards puppet and flashcard media in learning vocabulary. it was expected that the findings of this study would help teacher to teach vocabulary for children with special needs. nining candra wahyuni / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 138 methods research design and participants this research was a quantitative research especially quasi experimental. six students participated in this research. the sampling technique was used in this study is purposive sampling that is a nonprobability sample that is selected based on characteristics of a population and the objective of the study they were students of eighth grade of slb negeri ungaran and slb widya bhakti in academic year 2018/2019. instruments in this research, the writer used tests and questionnaire. the writer used them to obtain data of students’ development in learning vocabulary and students’ perception towards the media. the type of test used was pre-test and post-test. in this test, students were asked to do 20 questions. the test was conducted twice that was pre-test and post-test. regarding with the questionnaire, it was used to know what students’ perception about the use of puppet and flashcard in teaching vocabulary. the writer gave a set of statements related about students’ perception toward the media. they included: 1) students’ interest, 2) students’ relevant, 3) the advantages of using puppet and flashcard media, 4) students’ sustainability. questionnaire was given after doing post-test. it was to support the primary data in this research and to know how far the results effected on the students. treatment the writer conducted this research at slb negeri ungaran and slb widya bhakti semarang. this research was started from november 19th 2018 until november 28th. the treatment for both puppet and flashcard media was done at the same time. each treatment needs five meetings. in the first meeting, the writer came to the class and got acquainted with the students. second meeting, the writer gave a lesson using the media with material that have made. in this meeting the writer taught eight vocabularies. in third meeting, the writer did the same thing as in the second meeting with taught 8 vocabularies. in the fourth meeting, the writer taught the students with 5 vocabularies. in the fifth meeting, the writer gave post test to the students and questionnaire. data analysis in order to check whether or not the difference between the means of the control group and the experimental group was statically significant, the writer used a t-test in spss 16.0. a t-test is a statistical test used to compare two means to determine the probability that difference between the means is a real difference rather than a chance difference. in this study, it was used to see the difference in students’ achievement between those were taught using puppet and those were taught using flashcard was significant or not. from the result of calculation above, if obtained t value is higher than the critical r value, it could be inferred that there is significant difference in vocabulary achievement between experimental group, control group and vice versa. before administering pre-test and post-test, test reliability and test validity for each item of the tests were also included. in testing the validity and reliability with 4 samples and the level of significance 0.05, the rtable was 0.632. in order to be valid and reliable, each item should have rxy>0.632. meanwhile, the questionnaire was analyzed using likert scale response anchors then reported in the form of descriptive statics. findings and discussion vocabulary was defined as the collection of words that an individual know. it means that students should have a lot of vocabularies to make easier the communication with others (linse, 2006). hornby (2006) argued that vocabulary as the words that people use when they are talking about particular object. in addition, farqi (2014, p. 27) every word that is learnt in the foreign language belongs to vocabulary. teaching english vocabulary is not easy. berne and blachowics (2008) implied that few research indicate that teaching vocabulary can be considered as problematic, as some teachers are not really sure about the best practice in the teaching and sometimes not really aware how to start forming an instructional emphasis on vocabulary learning. however, teachers have to know the students’ character and style they learn. besides that, teachers have to know the right way to teach english vocabulary. in line with thornbury (2002) the development of vocabulary teaching depend how the teacher present of new word in vocabulary learning, so the teaching and nining candra wahyuni / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 139 learning vocabulary can improve students’ knowledge but it should be assisted through media to make students more understand. many teachers use interactive media to enhance students’ understanding. so, the students understanding well. in teaching vocabulary for students with special needs, teacher starting with simple vocabulary such as animals, colors, objects, and activities that surround them. it is needed a media to encourage student to learn vocabulary. in line with wallace (1982) that teaching vocabulary should consider with some factors. they are aims, quantity, need, frequent exposure and repetition, meaningful presentation, situation and presentation. the purpose of teaching english vocabulary for students with special needs is to introduce simple vocabulary which they use in their life. one of the research findings showed that the use of puppet and flashcard media in teaching vocabulary for students with special needs. flashcard media was effective to be used in teaching vocabulary for students with special needs. it was very useful for students to remember english vocabulary. the students pay attention when the writer taught them using flashcard media. they saw the flashcard media, and said the word enthusiastically. it was in lines with evi, zainal and dewi (2016) it revealed that the picture as visual media is effective to be used as an alternative media in teaching vocabulary, the use of picture can minimize the students’ difficulties in vocabulary. flashcard media could improve students’ vocabularies mastery in two aspects. first, flashcard gave an impact to students in remembering vocabularies. when teaching using flashcard, students see the picture and the name of noun. so, they became more familiar with english vocabulary. second, this media helped students to communicate with their friends even though in simple sentence, for example my book, your pencil, my shoes. it was in line with bennett (2002) stated that the benefits of the use of puppets in the classroom are many and varied. such as provides an opportunity for student expression through the social aspects of communication. students who are working in a group to prepare and present a puppet show are learning to work cooperatively with others, where there is give and take and sharing of ideas. this offers the students the advantage of making group cohesion. table 1 the independent sample t-test of post-test independent samples test levene's test for ev t-test for equality of means f sig. t df sig. (2-tailed) mean dif. sed 95% cid lower upper post-test ev1 .500 .506 2.178 6 .000 8.750 4.018 18.582 1.082 ev2 2.178 5.534 .000 8.750 4.018 18.786 1.286 note 1: ev1 = equal variances asssumed note 2: ev2 = equal variances not assumed note 3: mean dif. = mean difference note 4: sed = std. error difference note 5: cid = confidence interval of the difference in addition, puppet media was effective to be used in teaching english vocabulary. after the treatment, the students from puppet group were practice with their pair. they play puppet with dialogue that made by them. not only that, they also pointed thing and said the english vocabulary. both puppet and flashcard media were effective to improve students’ mastery english vocabulary. while puppet media focused on the use of sentence in dialogue, flashcard focused on the common vocabulary. however, these two media had different influence on students’ achievement. in independent t-test, it was showed that the sig (2-tailed) score was 0.000, which was less than 0.05. it meant that the hw was accepted. there was a significant difference between students who were taught by puppet and those who were taught by flashcard. moreover, the mean difference was 8.75. it resulted in positive meaning that flashcard was more effective to improve nining candra wahyuni / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 140 students’ vocabulary mastery than puppet media. the result in line with rismanti (2017) stated that it was positive effect of using flashcard in teaching english vocabulary for students with special needs, in her case dyslexia students. other finding showed that there was increasing on the average of post test. in pre test the average score was 58.64 and in post test was 77.95. in other words the use of flashcard was effective to teach english for students with special needs. figure 1 comparison of puppet and flashcard group score regarding with students’ attitude, both of the media had a lot of positive responses. they were more than 80%. however, flashcard media had more positive responses. flashcard media was more applicable and effective in teaching english vocabulary for students with special needs. this result could be seen between the post-test and the questionnaire responses. figure 2 students’ attitude towards puppet and flashcard media conclusion teaching english for students with special need is not easy. it is need a media to encourage them to learn english. a media that can help students to remember common vocabularies easily. the writer tried to use puppet and flashcard as media in learning english. using puppet and flashcard in learning english can help students to remember common vocabulary that they have found in their live. based on the computation using spss, both puppet and flashcard can use in learning vocabulary. however, flashcard is considered more effective since the improvement of students’ achievement of flashcard group is higher than puppet group. nining candra wahyuni / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 141 on the other hand, students’ attitude towards the media shows a different result. students are more interested in flashcard media than puppet. one possible explanation is flashcard is more applicable to learn vocabulary than puppet media. a further investigation about media in learning english for students with special needs should be done. because of the time limitation, a huge amount of time to conduct a research is needed to measure the improvement of students’ achievement in learning english vocabulary. it is because students should learn more vocabularies that related with their school material. in addition, it would be better if the number samples is bigger so the finding of the research is more valid. thus, learning english for students with special need can be done with suitable media with their ages and their school materials. this study is limited to media and instruments. in which the media that used were puppet and flashcard, while the instruments made by the writer. for the next researcher can be more explore media in learning vocabulary for students with special needs. it is also hoped that the further research can investigate this topic with different students in different ages and grades. bibliography alqahtani, mofareh. (2015). the importance of vocabulary in language learning and how to be taught. international journal of teaching and education, iii, 21-34. arikunto, s. (2002). prosedur penelitian suatu pendekatan praktik.jakarta: rineka cipta. best, w. j., & kahn, v. j. (2006). research in education (10th ed.). usa: pearson education inc. brown, h. douglas. (2004). language assessment: principles and classroom practices. new york: pearson education creswell, j. w. (2012). educational research: planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research (4th ed.). new jersey: pearson education inc. doff, adrian. (1992). teaching english, a training course for teachers, trainers’s handbook. united kingdom: cambridge university press. farqi, bahresi fazat. 2014. charades game in teaching vocabulary to the seventh grade students of mtsn sewulan dagangan madiun in academic year 2013/2014. available at http://etheses.stainponorogo.ac.id/1150/1/abstrak,%20bab%20i-v.pdf haycraft, john. (1978). an introduction to english language teaching. london: longman group limited. hornby. (1995). oxford learner’s dictionary (5th ed.). oxford: oxford university press. kimtafsirah. (1998). media pembelajaran pendidikan. bandung: depdikbud. kokkalia, georgia k., and athanasios s. drigas. (2016). mobile learning for special preschool. ijim, 10(1), 60-67. lewis, j. (1973). types of puppet. london: longman, group ltd. lin, l.c., and nzai v.e. (2014). using ipad apps to enhance literacy skills of english language learners with special needs. international journal of languages and literatures. 2 (1), 21-29. linse, caroline t. (2006). practical english language teaching: young learners.new york: mc graw hill. munifar, umi yuyun. (2017). the use of charade game as a technique in teaching vocabulary (a quasiexperimental study of the fourth graders of sd gajahmungkur 01 semarang in the academic year of 2016/2017). universitas negeri semarang, english education department. mehrens, a.m. and i.j. lehmann. (1978). measurement and evaluation in education and psychology (2nd ed). new york: holt, rineheart and winston in saleh, mursyid. 2005. introduction to linguistic researchhandout. semarang: unnes. nining candra wahyuni / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 142 murtie, afin. (2014). ensiklopedia anak berkebutuhan khusus. yogyakarta: maxima. moran, jaime b.y. (2012). using vak learning styles to teach english vocabulary to mentally disable learners. final project english and french program. university of narino. noori, z.s. & farvadin, m.t. (2016). the effect of using audio-visual aids versus pictures on foreign language vocabulary learning of individuals with mild intellectual disability. journal of special education and rehabilition, 17, 1-2. rehymer. 1997. play with a puppet. new york; mc. graw-hill book company. republik indonesia. (2003). undang-undang no. 13 tahun 2003 tentang pendidikan nasional. lembaran negara r1 tahun 2003, no. 20. sekretariat negara. jakarta rismanti, firianita p. (2017). the effect of using flashcards in teaching english vocabulary for dyslexic students. final project department of english education. fitk uin syarif hidayatullah. saleh, m. (2012). beginning research in english language teaching. semarang: widya karya. sugiyono. (2014). metode penelitian kuantitatif dan kualitatif dan r & d. bandung: alfabeta surujlal, jhalukpreya. (2013). music and dance as learning interventions for children with intellectual disabilities. mediterranaen journal of social sciences. 4 (10), 68-75. thornbury, scott. 2002. how to teach vocabulary. oxford: longman. wallace, l. marry. (1982). vocabulary building and word study. new york: mc.graw-hill book company. yahya, soraya., yunus, melor md., toran, hasnah. (2013). facilitating esl students with autism learn sight vocabulary: teachers’ practices and voices. international journal of sciences: basic and applied research (ijsbar), 11 (1), 90-98. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 131 elt forum 9 (2) (2020) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt cohesion and coherence in the final project abstracts written by undergraduate students ilham setiawan arifin1, alief noor farida2 1,2universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 26 february 2020 approved in 29 november 2020 published in 30 november 2020 ________________ keywords: abstract; cohesion; coherence; cohesive devices; theme and rheme; thematic progression ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ writing an abstract was not different from writing other kinds of text. as a part of the final project, an abstract should be written clearly, cohesively and coherently. this study aimed to examine cohesion and coherence of the students’ final project abstracts. it also focused to reveal the factors which influenced the quality of the students’ final project abstracts. this study concerned with text analysis. the investigation approach of this study used written discourse analysis. the data of this study were thirty abstracts which were taken from final project abstracts of english department undergraduate students of universitas negeri semarang in the academic year of 2017-2018. the findings showed that the students did not utilize the five types of cohesive devices to build cohesion in their abstracts. however, it was sufficient to utilize at least three types of cohesive devices to make the abstracts cohesive. based on theme and rheme theory by halliday, the abstracts were written coherently because they applied the use of cohesive devices. this research also found that there were two factors which influenced the quality of the abstracts. they were the usage of cohesive devices to build cohesion in the abstracts and the usage of theme and rheme and thematic progression to build coherence in the abstracts. in conclusion, it was clear that the usage of cohesive devices and theme and rheme helped the students write the abstracts cohesively and coherently.the abstract should be written in one paragraph of 150-250 words. calisto mt font size 9 single spacing. it should containgeneral statement about the primacy of the topic under investigation, research gap, the objectives, method, main findings, and the conclusions. © 2020 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: ilhamsetiawan909@gmail.com http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& ilham setiawan arifin, alief noor farida/elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 132 introduction writing ability is very important for everyone especially students of the english department. one of the reasons is that they are going to write their own final project in english as one of the graduation requirements. they also learn how to write well from the beginner level to the advanced one to improve their writing ability. for example, the students learn how to create a good paragraph in paragraph based writing. on the next level, they learn how to compose good texts based on generic structures in genre-based writing. for the final, they learn how to write an essay and critical review based on an article in academic writing. writing in english also has some characteristics. they are cohesion and coherence. cohesion defines as all the supporting sentences connect to each other in their support of topic sentence (boardman, 2008). the ways of connecting sentences to each other are called cohesive devices. cohesive devices have four important things. they are connectors, definite articles, personal pronouns, and demonstrative pronouns. in addition, cohesion is the tie and connection that exist within the text (yule, as cited in poudel, 2018). while coherence, when the supporting sentences are ordered according to a principle and the sentences are put in order so that the reader can understand your ideas easily. furthermore, the capacity of a text to make sense is called coherence (thornbury, 2005). since the concepts are interconnected and meaningful to the readers, that is the objective of cohesion and coherence in a text. poudel (2018) indicated to help the readers in constructing meanings from the text, cohesion and coherence have a significant role as they create a text such that it has a contextual adjustment of ideas connectedly in an orderly sequence. furthermore, a text with cohesive ties and coherence is more comfortable for the readers to comprehend and interpret the message of the writer as well. besides helping the readers in comprehending the text, cohesion and coherence should occur in the text in order to achieve good writing. thus, the writer is able to develop the paragraph in a clear and coherent way by using cohesive devices and the theme & the rheme. however, for some reason, it is not easy to be able to write well. the lack of grammar and vocabulary may assume the complexity of the foreign language. this assumption is correct enough since the vocabulary and grammar in english are exactly different from them in indonesian. the difficulty in mastering these language components will cause to write well. in addition, the early learners of a new language were dominated by difficulty in vocabulary, while the advanced learners as students in universities are dominated by genres and rhetorical organization problems. consequently, the text they write often does not show its unity or incoherent for they do not know much how to link one sentence to the other or one paragraph to the other cohesively (kern, as cited in suwandi, 2016). thus, not all students are able to write cohesively and coherently. the fact that writing an abstract is not different from writing other kinds of text. an abstract is a concise summary of a research paper or the entire thesis (koopman, 2010). as a part of the final project, an abstract must be written clearly, cohesively and coherently. furthermore, it must be fully self-contained and make sense by itself, without further reference to outside sources or to the actual paper. nevertheless, it is informative and completely clear, not to mention cohesive and coherent. hence, the students must pay attention to their abstracts. it should be written coherently and cohesively. they need to study the use of cohesive devices and theme and rheme theory in order to help them in writing the paragraphs coherently and cohesively. andayani & marjohan (2013) all stated that cohesive devices are linguistic features which tie sentences together. these can make a text an efficient means of understanding and help the reader create a meaningful semantic unit of the text for textual interpretation. in addition, khoirunnisa, jufrizal, & marlina (2018) all indicated that cohesive devices are the most important in writing. since there is no relation between one sentence to another sentence there is no idea from text or sentence itself. besides, cohesive devices, in approaching coherence and cohesion, some researchers show that theme and rheme also influenced in constructing texts to be cohesively and coherently. leza (2012) indicated that by implementing the theme and rheme technique, the teacher or lecturer can stimulate and enable the students to produce good and coherent writing. in addition, le (2013) stated that the effectiveness of theme and rheme in analyzing esl learners' writing is useful to help them see their writing problems concerning cohesion within texts and master a good command of english writing skills. moreover, it is necessary to know the factors which influence the quality of student’s abstract in term of cohesion and coherence. since they are absolutely important for a good writing. saragih & septiani (2017) all stated that cohesion and coherence were important elements for good writing. they were certainly important to the linkage between reader and writer in readable writing. ilham setiawan arifin, alief noor farida/elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 133 thus, this study aims to find out how well the coherence and cohesion of the students’ final project abstracts. in addition, it also focuses to reveal the factors which influence the quality of the students’ final project abstracts. methods this study is concerned with texts analysis as the data analysis. it aimed to describe the cohesion and coherence final project abstract. therefore, the investigation approach of this study used the descriptive qualitative method. qualitative research involves the analysis of data such as words, pictures, or objects (neil, 2007, p.74). furthermore, qualitative research is an exploratory approach emphasizing words rather than quantification in gathering and analyzing the data (bryman, as cited in devetak, 2010, p.79). the object of this study was the final project abstract of the english department undergraduate of universitas negeri semarang in the academic year of 2017-2018. this study used cohesive devices by halliday and hasan as the tools to measure the cohesion of the text, and the theme and the rheme analysis as the tools to measure the coherence of the text. furthermore, the thematic progression by eggins was used in order to show the pattern which was used by students in writing an abstract. in addition, a questionnaire was utilized to find the factors which influence the quality of students’ final project abstracts in terms of cohesion and coherence. there were some steps in analyzing the data. first, the researcher read and re-read the final project abstracts to find the cohesion and coherence. second, in analyzing the coherence and cohesion, the researcher focused on the investigation of the logical relationship by breaking up the paragraphs of the final project abstract into sentences and looking the cohesive devices which were used in connecting one sentence to the others. third, after the process of analyzing the coherence and cohesion in the final project abstracts was done, the researcher made a conclusion as the end of a written report. findings and discussion cohesion based on the taxonomy of cohesive devices by halliday and hasan, the data analysis showed that the students did not use the five types of cohesive devices to build cohesion in their abstracts. the findings showed that the use of reference was the most dominantly used. next, the use of substitution was rarely used. then, the use of ellipsis was not found. finally, the use of conjunction was occasionally higher than reiteration in the abstracts. table 1. the occurrence of cohesive devices used in the abstracts text reference % subs. % ellipsis % conj. % lexical cohesion % 1 37 70 13 24 3 6 2 38 53 29 40 5 7 3 40 65 16 26 5 8 4 47 65 20 28 5 7 5 35 67 14 27 3 6 6 29 54 3 5 16 30 6 11 7 41 71 12 21 5 9 8 34 62 17 31 4 7 9 24 70 6 17 4 12 10 54 54 34 34 11 11 11 54 76 10 14 7 10 12 34 64 11 21 8 15 13 37 66 17 30 2 4 14 45 64 19 27 6 9 15 37 63 14 24 8 14 16 31 55 16 29 9 16 17 30 53 18 32 9 16 18 17 57 6 20 7 23 19 25 59 9 21 8 19 20 17 57 7 23 6 20 21 63 58 24 22 24 22 22 23 45 3 6 17 33 8 16 ilham setiawan arifin, alief noor farida/elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 134 23 34 56 12 20 15 25 24 37 57 21 32 7 11 25 35 47 20 27 19 26 26 37 51 18 25 17 24 27 21 41 16 31 14 27 28 35 65 10 19 9 17 29 24 46 11 21 17 33 30 31 50 15 24 16 26 total 1,046 6 468 267 reference the findings indicated that reference was mostly used by the students to make their abstracts cohesive. there were 1,046 references which occurred in the thirty abstracts. they consisted of personal reference and demonstrative reference. based on the findings, it was able to be assumed that the students know very well in using references in their abstracts. abdurahman (2013) indicates that the students are more familiar with the use of reference although they are able to use other types of grammatical cohesive as well. in addition, nugraheni (2017) stated that learners will not avoid the use of the words when they are familiar with the use of words. personal reference there were a lot of personal references which occurred in the abstracts such as personal pronouns and possessive pronouns. they were presented in the example below. this final project is based on the condition of the students that have some problems in pronouncing –ed ending in regular past verb. it is focused with the use of odd one out game in teaching students’ pronunciation of –ed ending in regular past verb. the word ‘it’ is called personal pronouns and possessive pronouns. it is also called anaphora because it refers to the word in the preceding sentence. therefore, the word ‘it’ in the example above made the text cohesive. demonstrative reference there were also a lot of demonstrative references which occurred in the abstracts such as this, there and the. they were presented in the example below. this research is an experimental one using two groups with pre-test and post-test design. therefore, the word ‘this’ in the examples above made the text cohesive by a form of verbal pointing. substitution the findings indicated that substitution was rarely used by the students to make their abstracts cohesive. there were 6 substitutions which occurred in the thirty abstracts (see appendix 1). they consisted of nominal substitution and clausal substitution. it was probably the lack of the students’ understanding of substitution to make their writing cohesive. mawardi (2014) indicated that substitution and ellipsis were not used much in the essays because of the fact that the students overused the repetition of lexical items, or they were confused between ellipsis and substitution since there is no clear cut between them. however, it is not that way. nilopa, miftah & sugianto (2017) all stated that substitution and ellipsis are more characteristically found in spoken discourse dialogue. nominal substitution in nominal substitution, the item which occurred as the substitute was one. it is functioned as the head of nominal groups. it was presented in the example below. the average score of the pre-test for the experimental group was 67.47, and the control one was 66.10. ilham setiawan arifin, alief noor farida/elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 135 the word ‘one’ substitutes only for an item which is itself as the head of the nominal group. it also made the simple sentence and avoids repetition in the sentence. clausal substitution the other type of substitution which occurred in the abstracts was clausal substitution. it occurred only in one abstract which was ‘so’. it was presented in the example below. judy was the one who strong enough to bear the double-edge side of ambition and utilized it into her achievement, while bellwether was the one failed to do so. the word ‘so’ substitutes the whole previous clause. the complete sentence is ‘bear the double-edge side of ambition and utilized it into his achievement’. therefore, the use of substitution made the text cohesive because it showed a relation between linguistic items, such as words or phrases in the text. conjunction the findings indicated that the occurrence of conjunction was occasionally higher than lexical cohesion in the abstracts which were 468 conjunctions (see appendix 1). they consisted of additive, adversative, causal, and temporal. while the type of conjunction which mostly occurred was additive. it happened because this conjunction marked any additional information added by the students to complete the ideas. afrianto (2017) stated that the most occurring type is additive conjunction which appears 6 times, it happens because the student describes and elaborates a topic by often giving more additional information. in addition, linda & ismail (2018) all indicated that the use of additive devices is a very simple and staple use of a cohesive device which can indicates that the writer is still at the novice level. furthermore, the use of additive conjunction is similar to the use of conjunction in indonesian. additive the additive conjunction mostly occurred in every abstract which was expressed by the words and, or, moreover, besides, furthermore, and in addition. they were presented in the example below. the study was started with initial pre-test and ended with final post-test. based on the example above, it can be said that the additive conjunction is functioned to give additional information to the related sentences as a complex sentence and to link one sentence to another. the students used this conjunction to make the text cohesive by linking one sentence to another or give additional information. adversative the adversative conjunction was expressed by the words yet, but, however, and nevertheless. they were presented in the example below. the results of this study showed that the mean score of the pre-test in the experimental group was 59.8, while in the control group was 58.5. however, the result of post-test is increased. based on the example above, it can be said that the adversative conjunction is functioned to give a contrary connection which means that it indicates the contrary to the preceding clauses. causal the causal conjunction was expressed by the words for this reason, then, therefore, consequently, because. they were presented in the example below. the result was that limited human imagination happened because the lack of knowledge that the person had. ilham setiawan arifin, alief noor farida/elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 136 based on the example above, it can be said that the causal conjunction is functioned to link the causal connection in one clause to another. it provided a cohesive relation with previous clauses. it also can be interpreted as the reason related to the clauses that have been said in the previous ones. temporal the temporal conjunction was expressed by the words finally, at last, then, next, first, second, after and before. they were presented in the example below. firstly, the processes found are relational, mental, material, existential, verbal, and behavioral process. secondly, the dominant participants found in this study are carrier, attribute, senser, and phenomenon. based on the example above, it can be said that the temporal conjunction is functioned to link sentences with a sequence of time. it can be interpreted that the second sentence happened after the preceding sentence or clause. reiteration the findings indicated that the occurrence of reiteration was occasionally lower than conjunction in the abstracts which was 267 (see appendix 1). it was a form of lexical cohesion which involved the repetition of a lexical item or the use of a synonym. the repetition provided continuity and creates coherent in the text. nurul (2017) indicates that lexical cohesion contributes to the coherence of the text. the cohesive relations that occur in the text contribute to the continuity and also set up the context for the interpretation. the examples were presented in the sentences below. this research is about using alphabet island game in hyponymy technique for teaching vocabulary in the first grade of junior high school. alphabet island game in hyponymy technique is an interactive technique that encourages the participants to be more creative and active in team work. this research aimed to find out whether or not alphabet island game in hyponymy technique is effective to teach vocabulary at the first graders of smp n 6 blora in the academic year of 2016/2017. the research design used was quasi experimental research. the repetition in this sentence was ‘this research’. this type of repetition was a nominal repetition. it was one of the attempts to make sentences cohesive and coherent in the text by the authors. it clearly showed that the bold items above some kinds of repetition such as this research, this research design, the purpose of the study, and the study were repeated continuously. they occurred to make the text more cohesive and coherent. the repetition helped the text to be consistent with the context. coherence based on theme and rheme theory by halliday and hasan to show the coherence of the text, it indicated that the abstracts are written coherently (see appendix 2). besides, the coherence theory by halliday and hasan to support the coherence in the text, it is necessary to show the pattern which is used by students in writing an abstract. some researchers showed that thematic progression contributed to the cohesive development of a text and it can strengthen the text’s coherence and cohesion. xiao (2017) stated that thematic progression is the movement of theme and rheme in the sentences to develop into a cohesive text. it is important for a good writer to consciously control the flow of information from theme to rheme in the writing process. in addition, jing (2015) also indicated that thematic progression helps students become aware of how information and ideas should flow in a text so that it could be easily understood by the reader. table 2. the occurrence of thematic progression used in the abstracts no. thematic progression type number of occurrence 1 reiteration 26 2 zig-zag 16 3 multiple 18 total 60 ilham setiawan arifin, alief noor farida/elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 137 the findings showed that the pattern which was the most dominantly used was reiteration. however, the multiple and zig-zag pattern was used as well in the abstracts. the pattern of theme and rheme indicated that it was correlated to make the coherence in the text. the example was presented in the sentences below. this final project is an experimental study to find out whether there is any learning achievement of students who are taught writing descriptive text using photographs as media which is significantly different from those who are taught without photographs. on the first paragraph, the theme and rheme showed the correlation between one sentence to the other and also consistent with the context. the first sentence explained the objective of the study. then, the second sentence explained the subjects of the study. while the pattern of the thematic progression on the first paragraph showed that the students used the zig-zag pattern. it was presented in the analysis below. this final project is an experimental study to find out whether there is any learning achievement of students who are taught writing descriptive text using photographs as media which is significantly different from those who are taught without photographs. the subjects of the study were the 8th year students of smp negeri 1 ungaran. the factors which influence the quality of the abstracts based on the questionnaire answers, they indicated that some factors influenced the quality of the students’ final project abstracts. there were two factors which influenced the quality of the abstracts. first was the usage of cohesive devices to build cohesion in the abstracts. second was the usage of theme & rheme and thematic progression to build coherence in the abstracts. andayani & marjohan (2013) all stated that cohesive devices are linguistic features which tie sentences together. in addition, theme and rheme also influenced in constructing texts to be cohesively and coherently. leza (2012) indicated that by implementing the theme and rheme technique, the teacher or lecturer can stimulate and enable the students to produce good and coherent writing. the findings showed that the usage of cohesive devices was the most dominantly used to build cohesive in the abstracts. however, the usage of thematic progression and theme and rheme were used as well to build coherence in the abstracts. the factors indicated that they were correlated to make the cohesion and coherence in the abstracts. table 3. the occurrence of factors which influence the quality of abstracts question response total yes no 1 30 0 30 2 10 20 30 3 30 0 30 4 30 0 30 5 2 28 30 6 0 30 30 7 30 0 30 8 30 0 30 9 10 20 30 10 10 20 30 11 10 20 30 12 12 18 30 13 6 24 30 14 28 2 30 15 25 5 30 16 19 11 30 17 16 14 30 18 20 10 30 19 17 13 30 20 18 12 30 21 24 6 30 ilham setiawan arifin, alief noor farida/elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 138 22 17 13 30 23 15 15 30 24 15 15 30 25 14 16 30 26 11 19 30 the findings indicated that the usage of cohesive devices was the most dominantly utilized to build cohesion in the abstracts. the factors which influence the quality of the abstracts were the usage of reference, substitution, conjunction, and lexical cohesion. however, only two students utilized substitution within their abstracts. based on the questionnaire answers, it was caused by the students’ comprehension of using cohesive devices. it showed that the students learned the cohesive devices in writing class. however, not all students had a deep knowledge of cohesive devices even though their lecture explained the material clearly. to improve the comprehension in learning cohesive devices, they did the exercise as well. in addition, they have enough sources to learn cohesive devices. moreover, the findings indicated that the usage of thematic progression and theme and rheme were utilized to build coherence in the abstracts. however, not all students utilized them within their abstracts. based on the questionnaire answers, it was caused by the students’ comprehension in using theme and rheme or thematic progression. it showed that the students learned theme and rheme or thematic progression in writing class. however, they faced some difficulties in learning theme and rheme. in addition, not all students had enough sources to learn the theme and rheme. the result showed that the students do not have a deep knowledge of cohesive devices and theme and rheme because they face some difficulties in learning theme and rheme. it was possible that the students lacked knowledge about writing in english. ghasemi (2013) stated that it could be emanated from the lack of nonnatives’ english language proficiency, especially, because nonnatives may lack knowledge of what makes a written material a meaningful english text. thus, it was clear why not all students utilized cohesive devices and theme & rheme in the abstracts. conclusion based on the findings, the conclusions were able to be drawn. first, the students did not utilize the five types of cohesive devices to build cohesion in their abstract. however, it is sufficient to utilize at least three types of cohesive devices to make the abstracts cohesive. second, based on theme and rheme theory by halliday and hasan to show the coherence of the text, it indicated that the abstracts are written coherently because they apply the use of cohesive devices and it is consistent with the context in which it is created. besides, the coherence theory by halliday and hasan to support the coherence in the text, it is necessary to show the pattern which is used by students in writing an abstract. it is called thematic progression. the findings showed that the pattern which was the most dominantly used is reiteration. third, there are two factors which influence the quality of the abstracts. they are the usage of cohesive devices to build cohesive in the abstracts and the usage of theme & rheme and thematic progression to build coherence in the abstracts. references abdurahman, n. h. 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http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt “success is in your hand”: digital literacy to support students’ autonomous learning in speaking class girindra putri dewi saraswati1, galuh kirana dwi areni2, destya anellysha3 1,2,3 universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 2 march 2021 approved in 30 march 2021 published in 31 march 2021 ________________ keywords: digital literacy; autonomous learning; transactional conversation ____________________ abstract __________________________________________________________________ the objectives of this study are to obtain a concrete picture of students 'digital literacy mastery in the transactional conversation course and to find out the effect of students' digital literacy mastery on the quality of autonomous learning in the transactional conversation course. in particular, this study will examine theories on digital literacy and autonomous learning in the transactional conversation course. the approach to be applied in this research is interdisciplinary using qualitative methods. the research design implemented in this study is case study. the technique of collecting data uses participatory observation techniques, interviews, and documentation studies. the data validity technique used triangulation, which mainly consisted of source data triangulation, methodological triangulation, and theory triangulation. the results show that there is a relationship between digital literacy mastery and the quality of autonomous learning which in the same time is influenced by students’ motivation and belief in terms of oral skill mastery. the role of the lecturer as a facilitator invites students to have the courage to evaluate the quality of their own learning. © 2021 universitas negeri semarang correspondent address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: girindraputrids@mail.unnes.ac.id http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& girindra putri dewi saraswati, galuh kirana dwi areni, destya anellysha/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 71 introduction trends about autonomous learning are being rediscussed in the world of education because of technological advances in the world of digital literacy which allow a person to learn independently through various internet facilities in cyberspace. in various universities both in indonesia and abroad, learning is not only focused on face-to-face but also on distance learning. in addition to distance learning that serves students remotely, lectures can also be carried out by online learning to refer to learning using the internet and blended learning when learning is mixed between face-to-face and online teaching. autonomous learning in language education according to jack c. richards (2012) is a principle which provides opportunities for learners to be more independently responsible for what they learn and how they learn it. it is said that autonomous learning can make students more focused and can get better learning outcomes. this is because there is no coercion from the instructor on what learners should learn and how learners should learn it. the digital literacy skills of students in the era of distance learning should be researched because most students who enroll in indonesian public universities assume and expect face-to-face learning where lecturers provide material and students understand and practice in class. learning using digital methods is still new for indonesian’s students and lecturers since the implementation seems suddenly obliged because of the covid-19 pandemic. however, learning using internet should be more helpful for students in terms of application and theory. the role of the teacher is a bridge for the uncertainty and confusion of learners when trying to find sources of knowledge independently in cyberspace. digital literacy skills according to eshet-alkalai (2004) are not just about certain software mastery nor about operating certain digital communication tool; beyond that, it also includes complex cognitive, motor, social, and emotional abilities including understanding complex instructions on internet pages and evaluating information from the internet pages. abundant of information presented on the internet requires filters to ensure the validity of knowledge given. mistakes in understanding an instruction in cyberspace can lead to misunderstandings in interpreting the science or broader the information contained in the internet. since the beginning of 2020 in particular, the world of education has been faced with the challenges of distance learning due to the covid-19 pandemic which requires teachers/ lecturers and students to learn from home using internet. of course, this requires education activists and students to have digital literacy skills that are pursued individually through experience. the problem is, with the abundance of information on the internet, and the lack of preparation for educators and those being educated for distance education, it requires a conscious personal effort to research and filter the information that is widely circulating on the internet. thus, the need for digital literacy mastery, specifically, the ability to understand and sort out the sources of knowledge provided online and use those sources legally is needed by both students and lecturers. at universitas negeri semarang, since about a decade ago, online learning has actually started with the introduction of elena, which facilitates student e-learning. in the last three years, learning using the online method has been obliged by the policy to conduct online lectures at at least 4 lecture meetings. while, the rest of meeting can be done face to face. the university named this activity as blended learning. online lectures itself can be conducted by providing online material, face-to-face via video conferencing and online assignments with multiple choice and descriptions. in the english department, there are various courses, both theoretical and practical. for the english education study program in particular, in addition to theoretical material about pedagogy and language, there are also materials that are skills based, namely listening, speaking, reading, and writing. especially in speaking lectures, students' digital literacy skills are not yet fully known because of the lack of learning activities in this course to be able to be conducted online. lectures still tend to practice speaking with performance and practicing roles during class. for this reason, when the online lecture obligation is enforced, the activities provided by teachers or lecturers to students are still limited to recording activities or uploading video conversations between students on the unnes online page. this activity is sufficient as an introduction to online speaking activities, but it does not yet support autonomous learning which should be accepted by students through this online learning effort. in this study, researchers aim at finding out students' digital literacy skills in transactional conversation classes and how the digital literacy skill of the student plays a significat role in maximizing the students’ autonomous learning efforts. the problem to be examined in this study is a novelty because the previous researches available which have discussed a lot about the relationship between girindra putri dewi saraswati, galuh kirana dwi areni, destya anellysha/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 72 autonomous learning and digital literacy are not yet discussing any proofs about relationship between the digital literacy and autonomous learning in the area of oral teaching and learning, especially transactional conversation. thus, this study is conducted to obtain a concrete picture of students 'digital literacy mastery in the transactional conversation course and to determine the effect of students' digital literacy mastery on the quality of autonomous learning in the transactional conversation course. digital literacy skills in language learning digital competence and digital literacy in universities are increasingly being discussed because of the widespread use of blended learning or online learning in universities. martin & grudziecki (2006) define digital literacy as an individual's awareness, attitude, and ability to appropriately use digital tools and facilities to access, organize, and evaluate digital resources to learn new knowledge and reflect on the process. chan, churchill, and chiu (2017) have researched digital literacy learning in higher education by introducing a method called digital storytelling. chan, et. al. conducted a study by examining three (3) participants, namely cindy, rita, and alex. those three subjects were students in multimedia technology and applications class who had been selected by purposive sampling. the research objective is to find out how students in higher education develop digital literacy skills through an activity called digital storytelling. as a result, this approach succeeded in developing students' abilities in digital competence, digital use, and digital transformation. pedagogically, research also shows that this approach is successful in increasing students' willingness to learn, motivation in learning, including the ability to make narrative stories through narrated videos. autonomous learning in language learning and teaching autonomous learning in language is a new thing. autonomous learning has been a subject matter in the field of language, especially english since the 1990s when nunan in 1997 introduced the five stages of the autonomous learning model, namely learner action/ awareness, involvement, intervention, creation, and transcendence. learners are believed to have succeeded in becoming independent learners after they have the awareness to learn, they involve themselves in learning, they have critical thinking for certain learning, they have an intention to try new innovation by creating new things, and finally they have the ability to master the material being studied. benson (2006) coherently and in detail has explained the development of the study of autonomous learning in language learning. benson said that the development of autonomous learning in english is closely related to the communicative approach in english and its relationship with sociocultural theory where a person can learn language on their own because of technological developments and the desire to master the language. autonomous learning is defined and closely associated with the independence of a learner, namely “learner independence”, “self-direction”, and “independent learning” (masouleh & jooneghani, 2012). autonomous learning is then the ability of a learner to independently learn and strive to master the desired knowledge. although, some experts had argued about the role of teachers in autonomous learning, in fact, until now, autonomous learning is often still associated with goals or indicators of learning success. kumaradivelu (2006) states that the role of the teacher in autonomous learning in the classroom is as a motivator, a guide for students, and a facilitator for students so that what is learned is effective, efficient, and right on target. thanasoulas (2000) added that autonomous learning can be achieved more quickly if learners have the awareness to (1) evaluate their own learning abilities, (2) dare and consciously always record their own learning progress, and (3) communicate actively and persuasive with the facilitator. digital literacy in autonomous learning in transactional conversation courses the current demand for distance learning, online learning, and so on, directly or indirectly directs students or learners to become autonomous learners. even though the material has been presented online by the teacher or facilitator, the limitations in face-to-face meetings force learners to interact more with the virtual world in looking for supporting sources and looking for other learning sources. the study of digital literacy and/ or autonomous learning in speaking or conversation courses is rarely done. it can also be said that the source of literacy is still rarely found. in essence, learning to speak includes many factors, namely fluency which contains contractions, vowel reduction, elision, etc., pronunciation or accuracy in pronouncing words, intonation, and other elements (brown, 1994). girindra putri dewi saraswati, galuh kirana dwi areni, destya anellysha/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 73 in the english class, several variations of learning activities are carried out to train students' fluency in speaking. as stated in lazaraton (2001), activities in learning to speak generally include discussion, giving speeches, role playing, and conversation. although, it does not rule out many other activities that are often carried out in class. risdianto, et al. (2019) conducted a study on the possibility of implementing autonomous learning in speaking classes, namely by teaching drama to learners or college students. with the demand for students to master drama scenarios, students will independently learn how to pronounce vocabulary, intonation, and pronunciation. context information this study was conducted in english department of universitas negeri semarang specifically on the teaching speaking. teaching speaking in english department of universitas negeri semarang usually conducted on a practical basis. it means the students will take turn in practicing speaking in class and will get a direct feedback after practicing. it based on the belief that learning oral skill will be more effective when the students able to implement what they know directly by talking to their friends in english, and that they will receive feedback as the source of oral skill improvement. with the covid-19 virus outbreak, since march 2020, students are obliged to attend their classes online through several virtual teaching platforms, i.e. zoom, google meet, jitsi, etc. and some moodle based teaching platforms including the one provided by the university named unnes’ elena (e-learning platform owned and developed by universitas negeri semarang). the problem arose when transactional conversation as one of course subject taught in the second semester required students to keep practicing english yet the fact that the students are not able to meet face to face to practice with friends become one of the boundaries. one attempt done by the lecturers was to ask students to practice in virtual class. it works for some students with good internet access, but it did not quite work for those with limited access to the internet. thus, one way to make students keep practicing is by giving them task to listen to some videos and give assignments to them to record their own speaking. here, the responsibility for the success of the speaking class did only lay on the teachers’ responsibility, but also on the students’ themselves. finally, when it comes to give grade to the students, the variety of abilities and skills are shown. some students who had an average skill in speaking in the beginning of the speaking class, suddenly is improved in terms of speaking ability and some are in constant ability. the researchers come up with the idea of creating this study to check whether the ability and motivation of students in doing self study by becoming an autonomous learner does give impact to the succeed of the students in producing oral skill. methods the data collection technique applied in this study used participatory observation techniques, interviews, and documentation study. the participatory observation technique was chosen because the researcher was involved as a research subject because the researchers were lecturers of the transactional conversation course in the class to be studied. kawulich (2005) states that participatory observation allows researchers to participate as subjects and simultaneously observe the object under study. this is used to obtain a deeper understanding of the object of research being researched. after collecting data through participatory observation techniques, interviews were conducted to complete the data. attending transactional conversation course. in an effort to complement the data from the results of observations and interviews, it will be seen that documentation relating to the teaching and learning process and related to research theory. data analysis techniques in this study will apply the descriptive qualitative used by nasution (1996) in analyzing natural learning phenomena. likewise, such data analysis in the writings of miles and huberman relates to learning in the context of educational psychology (see miles and huberman in rohidi, trans. 1992). further in analyzing the data, interactive model analysis which includes data reduction, data presentation, and conclusion/ verification are implemented in this study. the main data to be analyzed is the application of students’ ability in digital literacy and autonomous learning. data which was analyzed were portfolio of student work results during the research process, as well as the results of interviews and observations, all of which is linked with digital literacy and autonomous learning theories. girindra putri dewi saraswati, galuh kirana dwi areni, destya anellysha/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 74 the questionnaires this study conducted on a qualitative basis. here, the questionnaire is important since the analysis is based on the questions given to the interviwees. the questions are related to how students master the students’ literacy, including what media they use to search on material related to speaking. the second question is related to the influence of students’ ability in digital literacy and how it impacts to their motivation for becoming an autonomous learners, the last one is related to students’ own belief and motivation for they need to uphold during the online learning as they have to find learning sources themselves to keep up with the materials and to make sure that their ability on speaking is upgraded though they might not have peers to practice english conversation. findings and discussion findings mastery of student digital literacy students' mastery of digital literacy in learning to speak, especially transactional conversation subject, was researched starting with asking students' general opinions about what the students' definition of mastery of digital literacy was. even though the answers of the students differed in the way they express their statements, it can be concluded that as many as 20 students had an understanding that mastery of digital literacy was related to the ability of students to find learning resources on the internet and understand the contents of knowledge pages on the internet. source 1 (s1), source 7 (s7), source 15 (s15) said that: “s1: literasi digital itu seperti melek digital. artinya bisa menggunakan internet. bisa mencari sumber untuk belajar. s7: literasi digital itu seperti paham dengan website-website yang ada di internet-internet. mencari internet untuk belajar. mencari internet untuk upload-upload tugas untuk belajar. s15: literasi digital itu mengerti dengan internet, isinya internet, dan cara menemukan sumber-sumber untuk belajar sendiri. karena sekarang kan online. jadi harus belajar sendiri dan juga dosen kadang memberi link. kemampuan untuk buka link, mengumpulkan tugas.” "s1: digital literacy is like digital literacy. this means that you can use the internet. can find resources to learn. s7: digital literacy is like understanding websites on the internet. search the internet to study. search the internet to upload assignments for study. s15: digital literacy means understanding the internet, the content of the internet, and how to find sources for self-study. because now it's online. so you have to study on your own and the lecturer sometimes provides a link. ability to open links, collect assignments. " from the example of the interview results above, it can be concluded that students already understand what is meant by digital literacy. the definition of digital literacy according to students is students' ideas and ideas about what they understand about digital literacy and not the explanation they receive in class considering that distance learning is a sudden activity that inevitably has to be done in learning due to the covid-19 pandemic. knowing the explanation from the students, then they were asked how far the students' mastery of digital literacy was. what is unique here is the fact that no student can confidently measure their own digital literacy skills. so that the answer given is an answer to a description of what students can do, such as: opening websites, looking for links and websites based on keywords on google, olinks provided by lecturers, collecting assignments according to the links given. referring to the notion of digital literacy according to martin & grudziecki (2006) defines digital literacy as an individual's awareness, attitude, and ability to appropriately and appropriately use digital tools and facilities to access, organize, and evaluate digital sources for learning new knowledge and reflecting on the process, it can be concluded here that students already understand and have an understanding of digital literacy. on the questions related to how students master the students’ digital literacy, including what media they use to search on material related to speaking, most students answered that they did not have any direct intentions to master a certain ability on digital literacy. student number 8 for example, mentioned that his willingness to open his laptop, browse on some websites, youtube links, or social girindra putri dewi saraswati, galuh kirana dwi areni, destya anellysha/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 75 media was because of his attempt to finish the assignments given by the lecturers well. another answer from student number 20 for example, mentioned that his ability was from the discussion he had before with his pears through whatsapp chat. when they decided to do a certain assignment, then they decided to follow a certain topic of speaking, he and his pears decided to browse as much as video sources to be used as examples so they can finish their work. from there, it will be hundreds of links, and these links will connect one website to another websites. when the topic is interesting, he can indirectly learn from the content that he saw and heard. about the websites that the students usually visited to support their oral skills, the students agree to mentioned youtube as their top choice in finding learning sources. in youtube, almost all contents that the students were searching were available, starting from the video-taped lessons about certain english expressions taught in transactional class up to the example of assignments of previous students or students from other universitites. student number 7 mentioned that he enjoys to surf on youtube because not only the content that explaning and providing example about certain expressions in teaching speaking, but some similar assignments are provided so they can get insights from the sample they found on youtube on how to start formulating their ideas and do their own assignments. some other sources were websites from big language courses like british council which actually provided with some video examples of conversation in english which also can be used in this course. the rest are some social media like facebook or twitter where some students were trying to connect themselves and communicate with native speakers. the influence of digital literacy and its relation to autonomous learning the effect of digital literacy and its relation to autonomous learning is also discussed in this study. it was asked by researchers about the influence of digital literacy and autonomous learning. before discussing its effects, it was asked about autonomous learning according to students. students understand autonomous learning as self-learning, independent learning, and there are some students (s3, s6, s13, s19) who do not know what autonomous learning is. in relation to the influence of digital literacy and autonomous learning, it is conveyed that the ability to search for material on the internet helps students to learn independently. "s5: i go to the internet, search the web to study on my own." it was actually not understood by students that what they were doing when attempting to browse and learn from the internet was an act of digital literacy enhancement and that when they were studying by themselves was actually an autonomous learning activity. what they were aware was that they wanted to be succeed in their study by doing the assignments as perfect as possible and submitting assignments on time. however, among the students being interviewed, there were some students who were actually enjoyed and liked to hear native speakers speaking. their intention to be one of the native speakers and to be as fluent as them, led them to browse deeper and learned as much as possible about english eventhough they have no assignments to do (s5, s7). here, actually, the students belong to the outstanding students. their good marks were not only shown in speaking classes but also other classes like grammar, reading, and writing. their digital literacy was developed because they could understand instructions provided in the internet and their hobby in mastering and understanding native speakers of english makes them one step ahead nearer to what so called as autonomous learner, to be able to indepentlu learn and be succeed in mastering the learning itself. on the other hand, for students with lower grade in transactional conversation, the activity to autonomously learn the teaching material was rarely done. the act of enhancing digital literacy is possible when the students are active in surfing or browsing some materials online in the internet. however, some students are rarely do so because they only read the dialogue provided by their peers when doing the assignment of transactional conversation. his peer was the one trying to ‘cultivate’ the internet, meanwhile, he is just waiting for the dialogue and read that for video assignment purposes. he mentioned that the assignment was for peers to do together. his friend must need him to be the peers, and his friend is smarter. thus, he convinced that he will be able to do the assignment just by reading the dialogue provided by his friend. when researchers try to look at the grade this student got last semester, it shows that his grade was not as good as his other classmates in terms of pronunciation and fluency. girindra putri dewi saraswati, galuh kirana dwi areni, destya anellysha/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 76 the relationship between autonomous learning and motivation and belief in english learning here, the questions are related to students’ motivation and belief in english learning, especially speaking skill. some students who are succeed in achieving high score in transactional conversation were actually belief that they have to speak with native to be able to become a fluent english speaker. these motivations and beliefs let them to volunteerily looking for peers from other countries through some social media and to be friend with them in order to keep sending chats using english. on the other hand, for students who were not successful in achieving good score in speaking were less motivated because they are not confident enough in delivering oral english. it is influenced by their belief that english will be understandable when the grammar used is correct. as a result, when the students feel that they are not mastering english grammar very well, they choose not to speak because they are afraid that their interlocutors will find them not understandable. most of the students mentioned that they knew that to be succeed in achieving grades or mastering english skill was by doing independent works, however some students are not doing so because they are less motivated. with the current situation, since the covid-19 outbreak requires students to learn from home, students also feel confused on how to start learning which cause them stuck in doing nothing. some other students feel burdened with some house works and to help their parents to work. they argue that learning independently requires time to study alone and not to be disturbed or burdened with other businesses. from the interview that had been conducted related to students’ own belief and motivation they need to uphold during the online learning, we found that the best motivator is actually the assignment itself. the feeling of insecurity and afraid of being failed in speaking class has given them motivation to learn from many sources as the belief that teaching and learning online is not optimal. students are aware that they have to find learning sources themselves to keep up with the materials and to make sure that their ability on speaking is upgraded though they might not have peers to practice english conversation directly or offline. the integral part which cannot also be separated from the existence of autonomous learning and the one which impacts motivation of the students is internet connection. in the era of online learning, we indeed cannot separate ourselves with the internet connection. here, most all of the students mentioned that the availability of internet connection actually play a significant part in making the success of autonomous learning. the students mentioned that when the internet was too difficult to access, then they have no choice rather to stop learning. having internet connection is in line with providing themselves money to buy the credit for data connection. it means when there is no internet connection, then there is no learning. for some students who believe that successful learning needs sacrifation, they will go downtown or to public area which provides students with free wifi. their belief says that success will never come without any sacrifation (s2, s16). discussion the relationship between autonomous learning and motivation and belief in learning is the most important point we get from this research. we can conclude that students who have good grades in transactional conversation courses have the will or motivation and a belief in themselves that they have to learn to be better, especially in the covid-19 pandemic outbreak when learning is conducted full online. on the other hand, students who have lower grades in transactional conversational subjects have less motivation to learn to speak autonomously. self-study is very important especially for learning to speak because speaking is a skill that can be achieved when it is practiced frequently. to support students' mastery of the material, and to be able to learn more autonomously, the role of the lecturer as a facilitator is needed. kumaradivelu (2006) states that the role of teachers in autonomous learning in the classroom is as a motivator, a guide for students, and a facilitator so that students know how to learn effectively, efficiently, and on target. meanwhile, for students, in order to become autonomous learners, they must be learners who can evaluate their own abilities, be brave and honest in recording personal experiences of their independent learning activities, as well as actively and persuasively in communicating with the facilitators. in its relation to the success of autonomous learning for students in online teaching era, it turns out that even the teachers’ instruction is important. it is essential to give students assignments that allow students to learn independently and also which can motivate them to learn more and deeper. as it was discussed in the finding section, most students felt the need to learn by themselves and to find many sources when they think they want to succeed in doing the assignments or tasks provided by the lecturers. therefore, it is important to make sure that assignments given by lecturers girindra putri dewi saraswati, galuh kirana dwi areni, destya anellysha/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 77 are not only act as an obligation for students but also a lead for them to get better understanding of a certain topic or teaching material. it was mentioned by johnson and aragon (2003) that educators must see teaching and learning as means of knowledge construction and discovery, rather than seeing it as knowledge transfer as the students only act as passive receivers. thus, in giving assignment, lecturers should think of the activity which can motivate students to be more advance in terms of digital literacy which will then let them to become a more autonomous learner. from the students’ perspectives, autonomous learning should also come from students’ own intention and belief in which success is in their own hand; that the lecturers or other parties cannot take part in the way students want to maximize themselves in cultivating their potential. while leacturers have play their parts in giving a more motivational assignments and tasks, students should motivate themselves to belief in the success that they will reach when they are learning automously. as mentioned by kitsantas (in steiner, 2016), “to be successful in the academic challenges they will face, college students must gobeyond surface-level learning, taking ownership of learning by choosing and using the best resources and strategies for the task, as well as reflecting upon and monitoring their progress toward learning goals”. it needs two dancers to play a tango. thus, the role of lecturers and students are integral to ensure the autonomous learning in speaking class to happen. back to what has been mentioned by martin & grudziecki (2006) about digital literacy as an individual's awareness, attitude, and ability to appropriately use digital tools and facilities to access, organize, and evaluate digital resources to learn new knowledge and reflect on the process. with the online learning that has been widely done in all over the globe, we think there will be more attempts from the government or policy maker to try implementing online learning as part of education system. thus, this ability of digital literacy will be beneficial of future 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(2019). empowering english language learners through digital literacies: research, complexities, and implications. media and communication, 7(2), 128-136. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 154 elt forum 10 (2) (2021) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt teaching esp during emergency remote learning (erl): best practices yuyun putri mandasari, eka wulandari poltekkes kemenkes malang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 1 july 2021 approved in 27 july 2021 published in 28 july 2021 ________________ keywords: esp, erl, best practice abstract ________________________________________________________________ after a year more of living with covid-19, the teachers’ and students’ resilience is still demanding, particularly regarding language online learning. both parties must keep struggling to fulfill the learning requirements in times of crisis. one of the challenges in language issues is teaching english for specific purpose (esp) in higher education during emergency remote learning (erl) including teaching esp at poltekkes kemenkes malang in 2020-2021. at these times, esp teachers have to design the materials by taking a lot of consideration regarding the students’ needs, goals, learning model, activities, tools, and feedback that met the emergency due to coronavirus outbreak. they planned, implemented, and evaluated the learning process until they can find the best ones for the students. this study was a survey research with 23 participants of esp lecturers. this article presented some best practices of teaching esp in the online mode during erl as the best experience of esp lecturers, in the hope that it will be able to give some new insights for fellow educators to help them to provide better learning experiences for the students. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 jalan besar ijen no. 77c malang, indonesia e-mail: yuyunputri1984@gmail.com http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& yuyun putri mandasari, eka wulandari / elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 155 introduction emergency remote learning (erl) is such a crucial situation in which the english language teaching (elt) is employed as a temporary response in the middle of crisis and restriction. unesco (2020) stated that remote learning strategy is a key element in ensuring continued learning, it is also characterized as the way of teaching interactively through videoconference and the replacement of face-to-face (waicekawsky et al., 2020). erl is a short-term solution to the emergent problem and the online courses that are conveyed should not be reflected as a long-term process (hodges et al., 2020; misirli & ergulec, 2021). after a year more of living with covid19, the teachers’ and students’ resilience is still demanding, particularly regarding language online learning. both parties must keep struggling to fulfill the learning requirements in times of crisis, including the english for specific purposes (esp) teaching in higher education. at these times, esp teachers have to design the materials by taking a lot of consideration regarding the students’ needs, goals, learning model, activities, tools, and feedback that met the emergency due to coronavirus outbreak. the increased popularity of online esp teaching and learning during covid-19 pandemic has forced changes regarding how to deliver the lessons and optimize student participation (iswati, 2020). the teachers planned, implemented, and evaluated the learning process until they can find the best ones for the students during the online remote learning. these best practices owned by the lecturers became one of the best sources or references to have a successful teaching and learning during online setting in the times of pandemic. teaching esp in a normal situation is very challenging and requiring strong effort from the teachers themselves, and in times of emergency during this pandemic, it is getting harder and more challenging. teaching esp have to use a special topic appropriate to the occupied areas of learners’ study (kultsum & arsadani, 2014) and there is a deep dissimilarity between designing remote learning or hybrid course, and having to promptly adjust on-campus courses to bring them accessible (cor & coutherut, 2020). students’ need analysis is being the prior step that the teachers of esp should be taken as an important consideration to design material and select the best teaching method or technique, particularly selecting the best practice of teaching esp during covid-19 outbreak. erl demands circumstances different from common situations since the students had not been prepared in terms of technical infrastructure and digital literacy. lack of preparation by the schools, students, and their parents is the core problem in distance education carried out during the pandemic (misirli & ergulec, 2021). looking into these circumstances, teaching esp has another perspective dealing with the strategies used in online learning and crisis. teachers should take deep and wide consideration of the objectives, instructions, methods, and tools used in the online learning process. hutchinson and waters (1987) described esp as a method to language teaching in which all choices as to content and methods are based on the learner’s reason for learning”. through this, yulia & agustiani (2019) concluded that esp was mostly recognized as a learner-centered approach, because it encountered the needs of adult learners who wanted to learn a foreign language use in their specific fields, such as nursing, science, technology, hospitality, academic learning, etc. in other words, teaching esp should accommodate the students’ demands, and its process links to the real world of a workplace in the future self-career. of course, teaching esp in recent years has been full of challenges, especially during an emergency due to a virus outbreak that forced the education system to change its learning method from face-to-face to distance learning. for these extents, providing references of best practices of esp teaching techniques was very essential so that the esp lecturers could perform very well during online lesson and help the students to achieve the goals of learning. according to some studies with the scope and limitation of pandemic situation, esp teachers have been developing and implementing various strategies of teaching techniques meeeting to the students’ need and goals, for example, flipped classroom, problem-based learning, project-based learning, synchronous & asynchronous mixing technique, whatsapp-based learning (betaubun, 2021; kusumawati, 2020; mandasari & wulandari 2020; ardhyantama, 2020). designing proper and appropriate english materials and techniques as well as the activities for esp, played a prominent role (nimasari et al., 2019) so that the learning goals could be achieved successfully, particularly in the context of erl. esp teachers are struggling in constructing english online instructions during covid-19 pandemic. there are, until now, lots of challenges and impediments faced by and they need to be solved in a short of time. in the past half and year, esp teachers also did trials and errors in developing teaching techniques and its activities to meet students’ needs and learning objectives until they found the best esp practice. this statement in line with the opinion of william (2020) who said that it is a difficult thing for teachers to design lessons and scheme academically aligned language yuyun putri mandasari, eka wulandari / elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 156 improvement activities and quite difficult to reproduce those activities during remote learning. based on this fact, there was very limited information about best references of teaching tecniques for esp field to help the teachers to perform in the online learning during covid-19 or emergency situation. the purpose of this article was to present some best practices of teaching esp in the context of emergency remote learning (erl) and it provided recent information regarding teaching esp and learning experience for the students of specific purposes. methods the aim of this study was to find out the opinions, perceptions, and preferences of a group of esp lecturers of their best practices in teaching esp in the times of emergency remote teaching and learning due to covid-19 outbreak so that a survey research design was designed in this study. survey research is normally used to describe point of views, attitudes, preferences, and perceptions of large population of interest to the researcher (latief, 2011). through a survey research, the writer would get a representative data of large population and fairly simple to tabulate and analyze. the respondent was a group of esp lecturers consisted of 23 lecturers at some universities in java, namely stikes widyagama husada; universitas pelita harapan; universitas islam indonesia yogyakarta; institut teknologi dirgantara adisucipto yogyakarta; sekolah tinggi pariwisata ambarukmo yogyakarta; universitas muhammadiyah yogyakarta; stikes madani yogyakarta; sekolah tinggi teknologi kedirgantaraan; stie solusi bisnis indonesia; universitas mercu buana yogyakarta; poltekkes kemenkes yogyakarta. the instrument of this study was an online questionnaire constructed by the writer based on the literature review regarding the topic of research. there were 9 items included corresponding to the best practice of teaching esp. those were (1) name of the study program and institution; (2) esp area; (3) esp: best practice; (4) the description of best practice; (5) the rationale; (6) language skill target; (7) types of learners; (8) student’s response; (9) the challenges and solutions. those questions aimed to figure out what best practices that esp leacturers used during learning from home in the times of emergency and the responses were collected to be highlighted in the form of table and then contrasted to the theories of previous studied. this is the link to the questionnaire http://bit.ly/teaching-espbest-practice. the research data were collected from the questionnaire administered to the esp teachers' community of whatsapp group. they filled out the form and the response was recorded in the form of a spreadsheet and after that, the writer conducted data analysis. the data collected from the questionnaire were analyzed in three phases: data reduction, data display, and conclusion. the writers selected the data that met the scope of research and simplified them to be displayed in the form of a table. then, the writers drew a conclusion based on the purpose of the study. findings and discussion in higher education, esp is one of the approaches to teach english for non-native speakers and nonenglish departments because it is considered tailoring the students’ needs and real-world careers. waicekawsky et al., (2020) stated that most universities have included the esp program as part of their syllabuses because they acknowledge the importance of helping non-native students of english met to their disciplines and professions. at this time, however, teaching esp is quite struggling and needs much effort. teachers and students are facing lots of challenges during learning from home due to the pandemic. even, in ordinary times, to build meaningful and appropriate learning, the teachers of esp frequently was demanded to create some innovations and revolutions. in classroom practice, the common activities embrace dialogue, sharing, role-play, lectures, doing exercises to facilitate learners to master the materials (prabandari et al., 2016). to help them meet students’ needs and goals during this outbreak of covid-19, esp teachers provided some best practices dealing with english online learning. as following in table 1, here was the best practices of esp teaching during covid19. table 1. best practices of esp teaching during covid-19 items of questionnaire esp field best practice rationale language skill target type of learner learners’ response 1 english for nursing indovidual listening exercise contextual material & learning autonomy listening skill fast learners good http://bit.ly/teaching-esp-best-practice http://bit.ly/teaching-esp-best-practice yuyun putri mandasari, eka wulandari / elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 157 2 esp for nursing 4/3/2 speaking technique repetition activity and improving speaking speaking & listening skill, grammar & vocabulary fast learners very good 3 esp for engineering scaffolding simple & applicable integrated langauge skill slow leaners very good 4 esp for engineering, tourism project based learning real world & meaningful experience integrated language skill both fast & slow learners good 5 business english zoom breakout room utilizing digital tool for improving speaking skill fast & slow learners good 6 business english & tourism role play practical, contextual speaking & writing skill fast & slow learners good 7 english for aviation research best learning conceptual & meaningful speaking & listening skill fast & slow learners very goo 8 esp for mechanical engineering contextual reading comprehension material introducing topics based on students’ need reading skill slow learners good 9 business communication project based learning (business plan) interesting & promoting creativity speaking, writing, vocabulary & grammar fast & slow learners good 10 business english problem-based learning connecting the real world, promoting critical thinking speaking, grammar & vocabulary fast & slow learners good 11 english for islamic law flipped learning based on students’ characteristic reading skill slow learners good 12 esp for blood bank technology utilizing learning management sustem mixing various types of lms writing & reading skill fast & slow learners very good based on table 1, it was found some information regarding with best practices of teaching esp during emergency remote learning due to covid-19 outbreak, such as individual learning activities, 4/3/2 speaking technique, scaffolding technique, project-based learning, zoom breakout room activities, role play, research-based learning, contextual-reading text activities, problem-based learning, flipped learning and utilizing three online platforms. here was the highlight of esp teaching techniques used by some esp lectures compiled from the result of questionnaire: individual exercises activities this technique was used in esp for nursing at stikes widyagama husada. the activities aimed to promote autonomous learning of the students in learning english. the teacher/lecturer assigned various activities to do exercises taken from certain websites accompanied by an answer key and various activities. this technique has the benefit of contextual materials and improves students’ listening skills. it suits the fast learners' type. according to the result, students pointed out that this technique was good with some challenges such as internet connection and students’ commitment to learning. 4/3/2 speaking technique esp for nursing at pelita harapan university also employed this method. 4/3/2 speaking technique has the main purpose in enhancing speaking skills. in the times of covid-19 pandemic, the teacher utilized zoom breakout room as a learning tool. she/he assigned the students to make a poster and yuyun putri mandasari, eka wulandari / elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 158 present it in three rounds. the first round was 5 minutes, the second round was 4 minutes, and the last round was 3 minutes. the repetition activity was one of the opportunities to practice english speaking skills and fluency. this technique is good for fast learners and students’ response towards this activity was very good. some challenges that they faced was the internet connection. scaffolding technique the english lecturer at the islamic university of indonesia employed this in esp for engineering. scaffolding has strengths that are very simple and applicable. besides that, it covers more than one language skill (speaking, writing, and reading). the teachers commonly maximize the advocacy and practice with constructive feedback to get optimal output. through these techniques, teachers can also utilize and mix two or more platforms to help the teacher maximizing the scaffolding. it is very good for slow learners with some challenges such as too many exercises, practices, and revisions, but those could be solved by keeping the students’ motivated. the response towards this technique was very good. project-based learning some universities used project-based learning in esp for engineering, tourism, and aviation engineering, one of them at institute teknologi dirgantara adisucipto and sekolah tinggi pariwisata ambarukmo. this learning method aims to engage and to give lots of meaningful experiences met to the real world of students’ disciplines. through this, students learn speaking and writing skills, as well as grammar and vocabulary. project-based activities are very suitable to the fast and slow learners with some challenges during this outbreak of coronavirus, such as internet connection, presentation, and authentic material access difficulty. zoom breakout room activities this best practice was used at muhammadiyah university and stikes madani yogyakarta. due to covid-19, zoom is booming among learners and teachers because it provides synchronous activities by utilizing its features. breakout room and recording features are some of the favorite ones to facilitate the students in practicing speaking skills and communication. teachers frequently assigned the students to work or learn in a group and discuss the topic with others through zoom meeting. students’ response towards this technique was good and it can help them mastering speaking skills. one of the challenges that teachers and students face in using zoom cloud meeting application was the internet connection. research-based learning sekolah tinggi teknologi kedirgantaraan used this best practice of esp for aviation. the aim was to help the students strengthening the research concept in the aviation field through direct communication or conversation with foreigners using english. the students were assigned to interview some foreigners based on the questionnaire with a certain topic of aviation. this technique is very good to improve speaking and listening skill. two types of learners, fast and slow, had a very good response to this with a challenge of students’ confidence. in times of crisis, the interview was delivered online and focus on reading and writing skills. contextual-reading text activities the muhammadiyah university of yogyakarta used this esp for mechanical engineering. the initial purpose was to introduce esp to the students using simple text corresponding with mechanical engineering. this activity was focusing on reading comprehension such as finding the main idea, detailed information, and so forth. slow learners had a good response to this technique with a challenge of low level of reading motivation. the teachers solved this problem by having a group discussion and reading exercises. problem-based learning this model was used by stie solusi bisnis indonesia and universitas mercu buana yogyakarta in esp for business and pbl was considered promoting students’ critical thinking by having a discussion, analysis, and decision making. speaking skills, grammar, and vocabulary were the language focuses of this technique. in addition to that fast and slow learners had a positive response yuyun putri mandasari, eka wulandari / elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 159 to this. one of the biggest challenges was students’ low level of confidence in giving opinions and the solution was peer studying and tutoring. flipped learning this technique was used for students at islamic law department and poltekkes kemenkes yogyakarta to enhance their reading skills. the learning materials were previously delivered to the students using the online platform. they learned and did the initial language target after that students and teachers had restricted face-to-face meetings to have follow-up activities regarding the topics they learned in advance online. slow learners had a good response to the activities of flipped learning. one of the challenges was the quality of the internet connection. utilizing 3 online platforms this model was applied in the department of blood bank technology. the teachers combined three media of learning platforms. the first was edlink to present the instructions and delivered some assignments. the second media was zoom cloud meeting for teacher’s explanations and to practice certain language skills. the third media was telegram or social media to have interactive communication in the mode of distance learning by delivering quizzes/polls. the advantages of this technique were more interactive, avoiding overload tasks, and fostering students’ motivation in learning english in the time of covid-19. the skill enhancement was on reading and writing skills. fast and slow learners had a good response to this technique and one of the challenges was the internet connection. during the outbreak of coronavirus, the face-to-face classroom was moved into distance learning, including the system in higher education. all esp teachers dealt with this situation to find the best strategy to give the students an optimal learning environment even though it was served through the internet connection. the scaffolding technique was alternatively considered to be very significant in preparing the students for greater independence and autonomy, because instructional scaffolding assisted students to navigate coursework and achieve tasks they, otherwise, might not have been able to (shaw, 2019). pointed out to this statement, the scaffolding technique was very helpful to the students, particularly slow learners, to complete online tasks during english language learning in the time of pandemic and this technique became one of the best practices in teaching esp. through this experience, the students were promoted to have independence and autonomy or led to having individual learning practice in enriching the knowledge of english according to their field of language learning. another principle of esp context was that teaching esp should cover both theoretically and practically (indrasari, 2016), it meant that the process of learning for esp students had to involve the real experience that would be faced by them. project-based learning aimed to prepare the students to have meaningful experiences by implementing the theory they got in the classroom. in addition to this technique, a study found another best practice, namely problem-based learning. it also had a positive response from the students in language learning. from students’ point of view, it fostered students’ critical thinking, collaboration, and independence (susanti, 2014). esp teaching as a bridge between the classroom and the real world should design various activities that accommodate students’ need for 21st skills. in another word, project-based learning and problem-based learning could become best practices in esp that can be implemented face-to-face or online. in the times of covid-19, the tools for those methods could be determined based on the goals of learning, and esp teachers can select to have the synchronous or asynchronous mode. during the pandemic, english teachers were taking so many considerations in selecting the best tool of learning. there are lots of abrupt online learning tools, such as zoom cloud meeting, google meet, google classroom, flipgrid, skype, moodle, and so forth. among them, zoom cloud meeting is one of the popular platforms used as a learning medium since this application provides live learning activities synchronously and supports communication needs with people anywhere and anytime without meeting physically (laili & nashir, 2020). this platform has some useful features, two of them are breakout room meetings and recording. using these features, students are assigned to have private performances in small group work and watch their recording performance at their own pace. so, in the times of online meetings, breakout room and recording serve best for practicing and enhancing speaking and listening skills just like in the face-to-face classroom. the result of this article supported the findings above that zoom breakout room and recording feature would be the best yuyun putri mandasari, eka wulandari / elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 160 practice in speaking and listening skills during online instructions in the context of emergency remote learning with its drawbacks and benefits. english for specific purposes (esp, hereafter) has specific involvement in designing english words and activities connected to a specific discipline. this approach supports a group of learners to meet their english requirements that generally refers to the demand in the place of work (nimasari et al., 2019). in this respect, the use of authenticity will be very much suggested (purwanto & nurhamidah, 2021) and supporting this statement that esp teachers should provide effective course design that was suitable for learners’ reason of learning (yulia & agustiani, 2019). based on these points, assigning esp students with contextual reading text was a good choice to help them learn the real world of their work in their future careers. in addition to the findings above, another study pointed out that flipped learning was suitable for english of engineering since it is very potential to combine the conceptual ability and learning behavior corresponding to the topic of language learning (karabulut-ilgu et al., 2017). this statement in line also with the point of view of flipped learning that it was particularly well suited in the mode of transition, and students’ attitude towards this was good and positive because it could enhance learning motivation, engagement, and effectiveness (nouri, 2016). based on this result, flipped learning was one of the best ways and practices to teach esp, particularly in times of emergency due to coronvirus outbreaks, which provided the students with a combination of onsite and online learning techniques. overall, flipped learning was very appropriate to the slow learners' type or slow achievers (nouri, 2016). the last discussion about best practices in esp was about the utilization of three (3) online platforms to support students’ activities when doing learning from home. in the first year of 2020, the beginning of covid-19 demanded classroom learning to be moved into bursting internet-based learning at home. it is a challenge for esp educators to run the learning process from face-to-face to online at once. utilizing various platforms helped the students to avoid overload tasks and boredom, as well as to create an attractive learning environment. besides that, the combination of two or three platforms in a series of an online meetings promoted students’ motivation also. in this context, esp teachers designed tasks and activities through a different platform, for example using lms for delivering instructions/materials; using zoom cloud meeting to have a live discussion based on the materials delivered; and at last, using telegram to have followed up activities (evaluation and feedback). in implementing this best practice, teachers need to be digitally literate. as it has been discussed before, best practices in esp should think through an aspect, namely type of learners. there are different types of language learners, such as fast learners and slow learners. this learning background became one of the considerations of esp teachers in designing english courses including the teaching technique/method (zakarneh et al., 2020), particularly in the context of emergency remote learning during covid-19 and internet-based learning. the teaching methods/techniques had to meet students’ outcomes in mastering four language skills (speaking, writing, listening, and reading) and two language components (grammar & vocabulary). conclusion covid-19 pandemic came up with abrupt changes and resiliences among students, teachers, and stakeholders. the education system that had to be implemented in the middle of a crisis demanded quick responses from the teachers, particularly esp teachers. the esp teachers had to response fast about designing online instructions or learning from home with web-based instructions. the materials and activities designed had to follow the emergency but still accommodated the learning process to achieve the goals. the teaching strategy of english language teaching used by the esp teachers covered all students’ needs in learning english for the next career. finding the best practice in teaching esp was such kind of challenge in the process of delivering online instructions, but through trials and errors, planning, and evaluation, esp teachers found the best way to teach the students in the context of esp in emergency remote learning. english for specific purposes is another way of language teaching in which all processes depend on students’ needs, meaning that considering students’ requirements is an obligation before the teaching and learning process begins, mainly during emergency remote learning because of the pandemic of covid-19. therefore, all stakeholders must support and take part according to their capacity to create a better learning environment in the middle of the crisis and help students meeting the goals of learning successfully. yuyun putri mandasari, eka wulandari / elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 161 acknowledgement the researchers want to thank to all the supports from poltekkes kemenkes malang, friends, lecturers and all parties who had supported this research, so this research can be finished by 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https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340645294_an_esp_needs_analysis_for_management_students_indonesian_context https://doi.org/10.5430/ijhe.v9n1p256 putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 243 elt forum 10 (3) (2021) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt a genre analysis of master dissertation abstracts written by english native speakers and tunisian efl learners: pedagogical considerations sondes hamdi1 1carthage university, tunis, tunisia article info ________________ article history: received on 17 july 2021 approved on 13 november 2021 published on 24 november 2021 ________________ keywords: genre analysis; tunisian; english; dissertation abstract; move ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ despite the growing interest in genre analysis, on the one hand, and the continuous concern with academic writing, on the other, very little has been done on the move structure of abstracts in linguistics master dissertations written by native speakers and non-native speakers of english (al-khasawneh, 2017). in the same vein, no single cross-linguistic study has investigated variations in the move structure of abstracts in dissertations written by english native speakers and tunisian efl learners. this paper is a response to this need. it purports to analyze the move structure of abstracts in linguistics ma dissertations written by english native speakers and tunisian efl learners, within the theoretical framework of hyland’s five-move model (2000). twelve abstracts were selected for this study: six abstracts were written by tunisian efl ma students at the institut supérieur des langues à tunis (islt, tunisia) and six abstracts were written by english native speakers. the native speakers’ abstracts were randomly chosen from the brigham young university website for linguistics theses and dissertations. the efl learners’ abstracts were randomly chosen from the islt library. the findings suggest that the purpose move, the method use and the product move are frequent in both corpora. however, only one english abstract in 6 contains the conclusion move, whereas 4 efl abstracts in 6 contain the conclusion move. both corpora contain the introduction move, with equal frequency (4 in 6 for both corpora). pedagogical considerations are highlighted for efl teachers in order to ensure an efficient abstract teaching. it is argued that this study represents a contribution to the field of academic writing and genre analysis. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: sondeshamdi@yahoo.fr http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& sondes hamdi | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 244 introduction ever since the publication of j. m. swales’s book (1990) on genres in academic discourse, there has been an upsurge of scholarly studies on the functions and move structure of abstracts (hyland, 2000; lores, 2004; benhnam & golpour, 2014; can et al., 2016; kai, 2008) as well as their cross-linguistic differences (ji, 2015; fan & song, 2017; al-harbi, 2011). also, much research has been done on the different sections of research articles (amirian et al., 2008; dobakhti, 2016; safnil, 2013). however, very little attention has been assigned to the move structure of abstracts in linguistics master dissertations written by native speakers and non-native speakers of english (al-khasawneh, 2017). in the same vein, to the best of our knowledge, no single study has examined cross-linguistic variations in the move structure of abstracts in dissertations written by english native speakers and tunisian efl learners. this paper will try to fill this gap, at least partially, by analyzing the move structure of abstracts in linguistics ma dissertations written by native speakers and tunisian efl learners. to this end, hyland’s five-move model will be used for data analysis. this paper comprises five main sections. the first will provide the study’s theoretical framework. the second will summarize a few studies conducted on abstract analyses. the third will describe the methodology used for data collection and for data analysis. the fourth will present the study’s results and discussions. the last section will shed light on important pedagogical considerations that efl teachers should take into account when teaching abstract writing. since this paper is on abstract moves, this section will first present the key concepts related to the analysis of move structure of abstracts, such as the concepts of genre and discourse community. then, hyland’s five-move model (i.e., the study’s theoretical framework) will be defined. the concept of genre genre analysis first emerged in esp in 1980s (al-khasawneh, 2017). originally, as argued by allison (1999), the term ‘genre’ referred to artistic and literary products. linguists have broadened its use to encompass classes of language use and communication. swales (1990) defines ‘genre’ as “a class of communicative events, the members of which share some set of communicative purposes” (p. 58). according to swales, abstracts constitute a genre with communicative purposes that are recognized by the discourse community. an abstract is defined as “an abbreviated, accurate representation of the contents of a document, preferably prepared by its authors for publication with it” (lores, 2004, p. 281). in the same vein, huckin (2001) states that abstracts serve many functions in academic communication. they are “mini-texts” summarizing the research topic, methodology and main results. they are also “screening” tools that help readers decide whether to read all the article or not. hyland (2000) asserts that “to gain readers’ attention and persuade them to read on, writers need to demonstrate that they not only have something new and worthwhile to say, but that they also have the professional credibility to address their topic as an insider” (p. 63). as such, abstracts have both informative and persuasive functions (zanina, 2017). discourse community genre analysts contend that ‘community’ is a key element in the definition of genre. swales (1990) fleshes out the six main features shared by the members of discourse community. these are: having a set of common public goals, having mechanisms of intercommunication among members, using these mechanisms for feedback and information, using and then owning one or more genres in the communicative “furtherance” of its goals, having acquired a particular vocabulary, and having a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discourse knowledge. johns (1997) lists particular types of genre knowledge shared by a discourse community: a common name, common communicative goals, shared knowledge of roles, common knowledge of context, common register, etc. this paper aims at comparing and contrasting the move structure of abstracts in the master dissertations of english native speakers and tunisian efl learners. to this end, hyland’s five-move model (2000) is used. hyland’s model was chosen for data analysis because it is a “detailed” and “elaborate” model that is “favored by genre analysts” (zanina, 2017, p. 67). hyland’s five-move model is presented in table 1 below: sondes hamdi | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 245 table 1. hyland’s five-move model this paper analyzes the move structure of the abstracts at hand by following hyland’s model. the study aims at (1) highlighting cross-linguistic similarities and differences in ma dissertation abstracts written by native speakers and tunisian efl learners; and (2) shedding light on pedagogical aspects that efl teachers should consider in the process of abstract teaching. it is worth-noting that after the publication of swales’ book (1990) on academic genres, many studies have been done on the move structure of abstracts. this section summarizes selected studies conducted on abstract analysis, such as the work of zanina (2017), fan and song (2007), al-harbi and swales (2011), al-khasawneh (2017), and jeon and eun (2007). zanina’s study (2017) used hyland’s model to compare and contrast the move structure of abstracts in english and russian. the results suggest that the russian abstracts opt for a three-move structure (purpose, method, and product), whereas the english abstracts follow the five moves as in hyland’s model. also, the english abstracts are found to be more “precise” or “detailed” in providing research methods and results than the russian abstracts. another comparative study by fan and song (2007), aimed at comparing the schematic structure of english research article abstracts written by native english speakers and chinese writers in the domain of agricultural sciences and technology. the results reveal that english writers opt for an interactive style by using background information, whereas chinese writers consider this move “optional.” al-harbi and swales (2011) examined 28 arabic and english paired abstracts on language sciences taken from three journals. they found that move structures are simple in both corpora. however, some english abstracts give more importance to background information than do the arabic abstracts. these differences, according to the authors, may be attributed to certain “scholastic traditions in the arab world.” al-khasawneh (2017) studied twenty abstracts written by native and non-native speakers of english in applied linguistics. the abstracts were analyzed on the basis of hyland’s model (2000). the results suggest that both native and non-native writers followed a three-move structure (purpose, method, and conclusion). a difference in the conclusion and introduction moves between the two groups was observed. jeon and eun (2007) analyzed 10 doctoral dissertations abstracts written by korean and american writers. using swales’ imrd model, the authors found no significant differences in the macro-structure of abstracts written by the korean and the american writers. the aforementioned comparative studies gave insights into cross-linguistic similarities and differences in the move structure of abstracts by using different move models. however, very little has been done on master dissertation abstracts in the field of linguistics. this study addresses this gap. it purports to analyze linguistics ma dissertation abstracts written by english native speakers and tunisian efl learners. methods this section describes the methodology used for data analysis in terms of data collection and research instrument. this qualitative study is based on the analysis of abstracts written by english native speakers and tunisian efl learners. move function introduction it situates the paper within a context. it states what has motivated the research or discussion. purpose it outlines the purpose of the paper. method it provides information about the methodology used to reach the paper’s objectives (design, data, procedures, etc) product it states the main results, what the paper has accomplished conclusion it interprets the study’s results. it goes beyond the paper’s scope (inferences and implications). sondes hamdi | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 246 data collection twelve abstracts were selected for this study: six abstracts were written by tunisian efl ma students at the institut supérieur des langues à tunis (islt, tunisia) and six abstracts were written by english native speakers. the native speakers’ abstracts were randomly chosen from the brigham young university website for linguistics theses and dissertations. the efl learners’ abstracts were randomly chosen from the islt library. the abstracts were written on various topics in theoretical linguistics and applied linguistics. we have opted for twelve abstracts because we believe that the analysis of this number of abstracts can give us a clear idea about the moves that constitute the abstracts written by native speakers and efl learners. to protect the confidentiality of participants in this study, abstracts were presented anonymously. the participants’ names were hidden, and the abstracts were assigned numbers (eg. abstract 1, abstract 2, etc). research instrument to identify the move structure of the abstracts at hand, this study used hyland’s five-move model (2000). as shown above, this model consists of five moves: introduction, purpose, method, product and conclusion. each move serves “a communicative purpose.” the choice of hyland’s model is motivated by its efficiency in identifying different moves in abstracts, as reflected by several studies conducted within the theoretical framework of hyland’s model. also, as stated by zanina (2017), hyland’s model is “detailed” and “elaborate.” it is “favored by genre analysts” (p. 67). after data collection, the analysis was conducted. the following example illustrates the way in which the analysis was carried out: [adult japanese learners of english (jles) are often stereotyped as being unable to produce or perceive the english phonemes /l/ and /r/.] (introduction) [this study analyzed acoustic examples of /l/ and /r/ obtained from intermediate-level japanese speakers in two variable contexts: word position (initial/final) and task type (controlled/free).] (purpose) [these tokens were subjected to acoustic analysis which is one way of comparing oral productions of native and non-native english speakers. previous research has identified a lowered third formant (f3) as the hallmark of an american english /r/ as produced by a native speaker, independent of word position or task type.] (method) [the results indicate that participants can produce appropriate and statistically significant differences between these two phonemes across word position and task type. other findings indicate that neither task type nor word position had a significant effect on f3 values. these results indicate that japanese speakers of english may have the ability to distinguish /l/ and /r/ without specialized pronunciation training, but these differences are less dramatic as identified by f3 frequency values than those produced by native english speakers when producing these contrasting phonemes. in most tokens, however, large effect sizes remained between jle productions and nes standards] (product) (native speaker, abstract 5). abstract 5 above is composed of four moves: introduction, purpose, method, and product. each move is put between two brackets for the sake of clarity. the introduction move outlines what motivates the study (eg. a stereotype about adult japanese learners of english). in the purpose move, the study’s objective is presented. the study aims at analyzing acoustic examples of /l/ and /r/ pronounced by adult japanese learners of english. the method move describes the methodology used to reach the study’s objective. in the product move, the results of the comparative analysis are described. findings and discussion this section presents the results of the data analysis. the frequency of moves in the abstracts in both corpora is illustrated in table 2 below: table 2. frequency of moves in both corpora move native speakers tunisian efl learners introduction 4 4 purpose 6 6 method 5 6 sondes hamdi | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 247 product 5 6 conclusion 1 4 table 2 above shows that the purpose move, the method move and the product move are those most frequently used by native speakers and tunisian efl learners. in what follows, a detailed description of each move will be presented. introduction move according to hyland’s model, in the introduction move, the study is situated within its context. native speakers and efl learners use the introduction move. examples (1) and (2) below are introduction moves in both corpora: (1) ‘error correction for english language learner’s (ell) writing has long been debated in the field of teaching english to learners of other languages (tesol). some researchers say that written corrective feedback (wcf) is beneficial, while others... context’ (english speaker, abstract 4). (2) ‘critical thinking (cl) has been regarded as an essential attribute for writing well-reasoned essays at a ma level. yet, to the best of the researcher’s knowledge, no previous studies have been conducted to examine efl ma student’s critical thinking abilities within the tunisian context’ (tunisian efl learner, abstract 5). purpose move the purpose move outlines the objective of the study. according to genre analysts, there are two ways of presenting a study’s objective: descriptive and purposive. in the descriptive way, the author describes the features of the study. in the purposive way, the author uses explicit expressions encoding purpose, such as the nouns ‘aim’ and ‘objective,’ and the verb ‘to purport,’ etc. the difference between a ‘purposive’ purpose and a ‘descriptive’ purpose is reflected in examples (3) and (4) below: (3) ‘this study aims to address this lack of research by examining how the avl words vary in cumulative frequency bands and also in separate frequency bands with regard to level and topic’ (english speaker, abstract 2). (4) ‘the work provides a framework for evaluating recommender systems and is flexible enough for use with either website’ (english speaker, abstract 3). example (3) above explicitly uses the verb “aim” in order to define the purpose of the paper. example (4) above does not use any explicit term to outline the purpose; it simply describes aspects related to the study. on the basis of the data, it can be noted that all abstracts contain a purpose move. the presence of the purpose move in both native and non-native abstracts indicates its importance in linguistics. a piece of linguistics research should have a specific objective, highlighting the gap that the study aims at filling. below are other examples of the purpose move in both corpora: (5) ‘this study analyzed acoustic samples /l/ and /r/ obtained from intermediate-level japanese speakers in two variable contexts’ (english speaker, abstract 5). (6) ‘this study analyzes the problems of intermediate tunisian learners’ communicative competency imbalance. it investigates the causes behind the gap in students’ oral english proficiency’ (efl learner, abstract 6). method move all tunisian abstracts contain a method move in which the study’s methodology is displayed in terms of participants, instruments, data collection, etc. in the english speakers’ abstracts, only one abstract has no method move. examples (7) and (8) below are method moves from the corpus: sondes hamdi | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 248 (7) ‘a qualitative analysis of the manageability of dwcf was done via interviews of experienced teachers that have used dwcf and the author’s experience and reflections using the strategy’ (native speaker, abstract 5). (8) ‘two instruments were used for data collection. a likert format questionnaire was conducted on 110 students from the preparatory school in boumerdes (al-mahdia). descriptive statistics are used in data analysis’ (efl learner, abstract 2). product move both corpora contain the product move in which the author summarizes the study’s main results. examples (9) and (10) below are product moves from the corpus: (9) ‘the results indicate that this strategy can be manageable with some possible adaptions and while avoiding some common pitfalls’ (english speaker, abstract 4). (10) ‘findings revealed that students have positive attitudes towards the integration of technology in efl classes. classroom observations indicated that through participation in computer-based presentations, students’ motivation in oral communication skills increased. results from the observation sheet indicated that while on task and when authentic materials were used, motivation increased significantly’ (efl learner, abstract 2). conclusion move the conclusion move is not frequent in the english speakers’ abstracts; only one english abstract in 6 has a conclusion move. however, 4 efl abstracts in 6 contain a conclusion move. examples (11) and (12) below are conclusion moves from the corpus: (11) ‘implications for researchers, administrators, and teachers are discussed, including the role of silence as an important self-regulated learning practice for language learners’ (english speaker, abstract 1). (12) ‘this study concluded that tunisian efl master students encountered some challenges in argument evaluation, particularly in terms of detecting some logical fallacies. to alleviate these difficulties, the present study recommended that the explicit teaching of ct and the introduction of logical fallacies would foster master students’ critical writing abilities’ (efl learner, abstract 5). the study’s results suggest that the purpose move, the method move, and the product move are those most frequently used by native speakers and tunisian efl learners. these findings are different from those of zanina’s study (2017) in which the move structures of abstracts in english and russian were compared. zanina found that the russian abstracts had a three-move structure (purpose, method, and product), whereas the english abstracts followed the five moves as in hyland’s model. interestingly, the present study’s results are similar to those of al-khasawneh’s study (2017) in which twenty abstracts written by native and non-native speakers of english in applied linguistics were examined. as with the present study, al-khasawneh’s study suggests that both native and non-native writers follow a three-move structure (purpose, method, and conclusion). data analysis shows that the abstracts at hand have different compositions. some abstracts include five moves; others have one or two moves missing. this difference in abstract composition reflects the fact that students are not familiar with the standard composition of abstracts. this difference in abstract structure in the data also reflects the fact that an abstract is not an easy form of scholarly writing. however, we believe that through practice and exposure to good models of abstracts, students will be able to write a good five-move abstract. in this context, the teacher’s role is important. the teacher can play different roles to enhance the learners’ learning process: the source of knowledge, facilitator, and guide for learners. the teacher can be the source of knowledge by informing learners and instructing them in the main structure of a well-written abstract. this knowledge can be delivered to learners through lectures and lessons on abstract structure. the teacher functions like a coach, accompanying students in the process of abstract writing. s/he should guide learners, give them advice, and provide feedback throughout the process of abstract writing. sondes hamdi | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 249 teachers may also identify the students’ attitudes and motivation to learn the instructional content (jing et al., 2006). there are pedagogical considerations that efl teachers, for instance, should bear in mind in abstract teaching. this point will be discussed in the next section. pedagogical considerations for teaching abstract writing in efl context this section will highlight a few pedagogical aspects related to abstract writing that efl teachers should consider. it is important to teach abstracts in that they are an “initial stage of scholarly writing” and constitute “building blocks for more complex writing” (harris, 2006, p. 137). efl teachers should inform learners about “expectations” from abstract writing. frocse et al. (1998, p. 103) assert that the gap between expectations and performance may emanate from “instructional deficiencies.” for this reason, teachers should not limit abstract teaching to definitions and examples as these constitute insufficient instruction and might “fail both students and faculty” (p. 137). researchers contend that efl learners should have a clear idea about the “desired outcomes” from abstract writing. thus, it is important for teachers to specify the main objective of writing an abstract. here, teachers might give a good definition of an abstract as “a summary written in a scholarly writing style that represents a thorough comprehension of the article” (p. 139). previous research has shown, for instance, that graduate students achieve cognitive complexity in literature reviews when they clearly understand the desired outcomes (frocse et al., 1998). scaffolding can be an efficient technique that helps students move forward progressively in the learning process. thus, teachers are encouraged to use different forms of instructional scaffolding in teaching of abstracts in order to bridge the gap between what students have acquired and what they are expected to learn. teachers should focus on the five-move structure of abstracts: introduction, purpose, method, product and conclusion. thus, classroom exercises should shed light on the standard form and the objective of each move. a typical exercise would be to give learners two abstracts; one poorly written, and another one well structured, with five moves. then, students might be asked to compare the two abstracts and discuss them with their peers. discussions would enhance students’ critical thinking. students might learn better if exposed to good models of abstracts. in the same vein, the abstracts' guidelines should be clearly presented, and the assignment objectives well explained. in this context, for instance, teachers might specify that the abstract text should be 100 to 150 words. collaborative learning is a positive approach that teachers might encourage in teaching abstracts as it helps reduce the students’ frustration felt in the learning process. receiving feedback from teachers and peers is beneficial in that it enhances learning in an interactive manner. in other words, efl teachers should perceive abstracts writing as a process rather than a product. in this process, students should be “supported, engaged, and challenged” (harris, 2006, p. 137). in order to ensure efficient teaching of abstracts, harris (2006) proposes an instructional threestep model. it involves (1) “laying the foundation;” (2) “communicating expectations and evaluation criteria; and (3) “scaffolding for success.” the first step, “laying the foundation,” pushes students in the “right direction” by establishing a link between the students’ prior knowledge and previous experiences in writing and the task of abstracts writing. it also helps students identify the learning objectives, which establishes “a concrete foundation for learning” (harris, 2006, p. 138). as for the second step, "communicating expectations and evaluation criteria," it makes sure that students understand the assignment guidelines. in this step, the teacher clearly explains the assignment guidelines and the evaluation rubric. step three, “scaffolding for success,” involves peer feedback process and the teaching of apa referencing. it can be argued that the three-step model proposed by harris (2006) is an efficient tool for abstract teaching for several reasons. first, it is comprehensive in that the three steps are well explained and are realistic. thus, they can be implemented in any context. second, this model is based upon the perception of abstract writing as a process rather than a product. for this reason, it values feedback and review in the writing of abstracts. third, this model is concerned with the different aspects of writing, such as accuracy, grammar, spelling, etc. it focuses on peer feedback and on teacher feedback in order to end with a well written final product. the objective of feedback is to ensure that the abstract is accurately written in terms of content, style, grammar, spelling, and vocabulary. sondes hamdi | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 250 conclusion the objective of this paper was to analyze the move structure of abstracts in linguistics ma dissertations written by english native speakers and tunisian efl learners. to this end, hyland’s five-move model was used for data analysis. the results suggest that the purpose move, the method move and the product move are frequent in both corpora. however, only one english abstract in 6 contains the conclusion move, whereas 4 efl abstracts in 6 contain the conclusion move. both corpora contain the introduction move, with an equal frequency (4 in 6 for both corpora). this paper sheds light on important pedagogical aspects that efl teachers should consider in the teaching of abstracts. learners, for instance, should be aware of the “desired outcomes” and the teachers’ “expectations.” they should be familiar with the five-move structure of abstracts through practice and exposure. it has been noted that the teacher’s role is important for the success of the writing process. teachers can play different roles to accompany learners in this writing process as source of knowledge, guide, and facilitator. teachers are encouraged to diversify their teaching techniques by using different forms of scaffolding. feedback and practice would enhance students’ learning of abstract writing. in this context, harris (2006) proposes a comprehensive three-step model for abstracts teaching. this model comprises three main steps: “laying the foundation;” (2) “communicating expectations and evaluation criteria;" and (3) “scaffolding for success.” each step has specific goals and objectives. it can be argued that the importance of this model lies in its perception of the writing of abstracts as a process rather than a product. throughout this process, students should be “supported, engaged, and challenged” (harris, 2006, p. 137). this paper addresses a need in the esp literature since very little has been done on the move structure of abstracts in linguistics dissertations written by native speakers and efl tunisian learners. in addition, a cross-linguistic study allows us to identify what is common and what is different in academic writing, a result that cannot be obtained from monolingual studies. in the same vein, this paper sheds light on significant pedagogical considerations that efl teachers should bear in mind for the successful teaching of the writing of abstracts. this paper represents a contribution to the field of academic discourse. it helps both native and non-native writers improve their academic writing by enhancing their genre knowledge and by exposing them to abstract genre conventions. indeed, as stated by many genre analysts, it is important for non-native academic writers to be aware of the role of moves in dissertation abstracts. this paper also fleshes out the importance of good pedagogy for the efficient teaching of abstracts writing. scaffolding, for instance, is a good strategy to bridge the gap between what students have learned and what they are expected to learn. in the same vein, harris’s three-step model (2006) provides a comprehensive method for teaching abstracts. in this model, writing abstracts is perceived as a process involving different steps; 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(2013). a genre-based analysis of the introductions of research articles written by indonesian academics. telfin journal, 24, 180-200. swales, j. m. (1990). genre analysis: english in academic and research settings. cambridge: cambridge university press. zanina, e. (2017). move structure of research article abstracts on management study (the case of english and russian). journal of language and education, 3(2), 63-72. microsoft word edit 30 juli 2020 [article 2]_34614-article text-9 putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 16 elt forum 9 (1) (2020) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the design of multimedia storytelling sarah bibi1, dian shinta sari2, muhammad iqbal ripo putra3 1faculty of science and technology, ikip pgri pontianak 2&3faculty of languages and arts, ikip pgri pontianak article info ________________ article history: received in 8 october 2019 approved in 18 march 2020 published in 30 july 2020 ________________ keywords: design, digital storytelling, research and development. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ in teaching english, the use of media is essential to underpin and facilitate the process. with the recent waves of technology, some teachers also make an exercise of a digital platform to develop new media. it is easier to attract students to follow the lesson and also increase their pursuit of learning. this research directed to how the design of digital storytelling to teach narrative for students. the researcher used educational research and development cycle from borg and gall (2007) which adjusted into five steps, namely (1) research and information gathering, (2) planning, (3) preliminary product developing, (4) preliminary field testing, and (5) primary product revision. the result of the research shows that digital storytelling can be utilised as a medium to teach narrative. the purpose of the medium must be communicative and attractive for the students. equally, for the students, they are interested in using digital storytelling medium to learn about narrative. hence, digital storytelling is designed to occupy those needs and is expected to be useful to teach narrative. © 2020 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 jalan ampera no. 88 pontianak 78116 indonesia e-mail: s.bibbib@gmail.com sarah bibi, dian shinta sari, muhammad iqbal ripo putra/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 17 introduction teaching media has commonly used by teachers in the classroom. it helps the students understand the lesson as well as engage students’ motivation. certain media can also provide learning stimuli for them. media are used in classrooms because they can facilitate students’ learning and make it more attractive. (rowntree, 1974; tucker, 1983) say that there are six functions of media in teaching. many various kinds of media that can be used to support the lesson. some teachers like to use conventional media like board games and pictures for teaching. however, with the recent waves of technology, some of the teachers also make use of a digital platform to develop new media. a growing body of literature on the impacts of technology in learning and education suggest a dramatic shift taking place among the younger generation (barrett, 2006; dreon, kerper, & landis, 2011; meadows, 2003). referring to other works related to this issue, moeller & reitzes (2011) say that students of the 21st century change their way of learning. student-centred learning implies significantly changed roles for students and teachers. in student-centred learning environments, students are more engaged, responsible learners. they work to develop and explore their unique academic and career interests and produce authentic, professional quality work to demonstrate their learning. to support students in their new roles, teachers act as coaches, advisors, and facilitators of student learning. instead of lecturing the whole class, teachers provide opportunities for students to take charge of their learning. students of the 21st century are also tech-savvy. they are very familiar with technology and fluent in using them. this new generation of students is often called digital natives. growing up with unprecedented access to technology has changed the way young people, "digital natives”, communicate, interact, process information, and learn (kahn & agnew, 2017; reese, 2015). based on those gaps, the researchers provided a medium as an aid to deliver the narrative lesson in a technology-based media in the form of digital storytelling. digital storytelling is the art of combining narrative with digital media such as images, sound, and video to create a short story (barrett, 2006 robin, 2019; robin & mcneil, 2019). the combination of robust, yet affordable, technology hardware and software mesh perfectly with the needs of many of today’s classrooms, where the focus is on providing students with the skills they will need to “thrive in increasingly varied media environments” (robin as cited in sadik, 2008). researchers had found that integrating visual images with written text both enhances and accelerates student comprehension, and digital storytelling is an especially useful technology tool for collecting, creating, analysing and combining visual images with written text (chun, smith, & kern, 2016; lupshenyuk, hocutt, & owston, 2011). several scholars have long stressed the importance of visual experience in teaching and learning languages (gregori-signes, 2008; robin, 2006; rodríguez illera & londoño, 2009). as well as the need to further examine the learning effects of its use in the education context (barrett, 2005; yuksel, robin, mcneil, 2010). digital storytelling, for one, gives students not only the chance to work with all four language skills from the outset but also blends the art of storytelling with a range of digital formats, including images, captured voice, video, and music. (robin, 2006). this helps teachers to teach any subject, so that excitement and attention can be created. virtual storytelling is used in this particular study to focus on language patterns as a foreign language of daily life in english. although tales typically consist mostly of events, we have added a set of dialogs to highlight the diverse communicative interactions that use some language pieces. the digital storytelling technique can effectively assist the learning process in efl classrooms. it can assist efl learners to develop multimodal communicative competence by promoting a learnercentered environment. in this way “learners have numerous opportunities to interact and use language in authentic and personally meaningful ways” (rance-roney, 2008, p. 30). students narrate the scripts of their stories and record themselves. this material is next mixed with different types of multimedia, including computer-based graphics, computer-generated text, images, video clips, and music so that it can be played on a computer. accordingly, students become the “storytellers” who present the stories they have created to audiences (kajder, 2006). the researcher intends to create digital storytelling (with a complimentary lesson plan and worksheet) that suits junior high school students, particularly the 8th grade. the reason why digital storytelling has chosen as the medium is that it is more economical to use in the classroom, especially for teaching narrative. other media such as video and movie consume more time to be used. digital storytelling could help students understand the story better and bring a real atmosphere into the classroom. the material is designed based on the curriculum of 2013 (pendidikan & indonesia, 2013). sarah bibi, dian shinta sari, muhammad iqbal ripo putra/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 18 methods this study made use of the qualitative method. the researcher adapted the educational research and development cycle (gall, gall, & borg, 2007) and also an instructional design model by kemp (i̇şman, 2011). to do the proper r&d, the researcher must follow several steps which called the r&d cycle. the research took place at one of the public schools in pontianak. there are three different research participants. the first participants were several students from the ninth-grader as the respondents of the questionnaire, an english teacher as the participant for an interview, and two lecturers as the participants for the evaluation process. the data gathered by the interview and questionnaire were analyzed using qualitative and quantitative data analysis. the data obtained in the research and information gathering step were interpreted using qualitative data analysis, and the data obtained in preliminary field testing were analyzed using quantitative data analysis. the result obtained by the library study were interpreted and put into a robust framework for the research — the framework used as the underlying theory and basis for developing the design. the questionnaire is used to obtain the data from the students related to their needs and interest. since the participants were 30 students, the questionnaire was considered as the most effective data collector. the questions were in the form of 7 close-ended questions and 3 open-ended questions. from the questionnaires, results are classified based on their answer and turned into a percentage. however, the researchers could express the information in a more precise way. it is useful to convert numbers to percentages in order to be able to talk about the proportion responding in a certain way and able to make comparisons. findings and discussion the researcher collected the literature review, distributed questionnaires to the students, and interviewed with one of the english teachers. after collecting the literature review, the researcher first distributed the questionnaires to the students. the respondents of the questionnaires were 30 students. the results of the questionnaires have presented in table 1 and 2. table 1. summary of learners’ questionnaires no statement percentage yes no 1 i learned about a narrative text in this semester. 100% 2 i have access to technology/ digital media. 100% 3 in learning narrative, my teacher mostly uses digital media. 100% 4 i am interested in learning narrative using digital media. 87% 13% 5 do you think digital media will help you to learn narrative? 100% 6 are y o u familiar w i t h d i g i t a l storytelling media? 93% 7% 7 have you ever learned using digital storytelling media? 100% all of the students had learned narrative in the even semester. all of them also have easy access to technology or digital media. in teaching narrative, their teacher mostly uses digital media to teach narrative in the classroom. however, not all of the students are interested in learning the narrative using digital storytelling media. 87% of the students said that they are interested in learning using digital media, and 13% say that they are not interested. nonetheless, all of them agree that digital storytelling could help them in learning the narrative. 93% of the students stated that they are familiar with the use of digital storytelling in the learning process, and 7% of the students are not familiar with the media. all of the students had ever used digital storytelling in the classroom. besides the close-ended questions, there are also three open-ended questions. these questions are aimed to ask the students’ opinions about the elements in digital storytelling, preferred activities in learning narrative, and also the knowledge that they want to sarah bibi, dian shinta sari, muhammad iqbal ripo putra/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 19 improve after learning the narrative. the results of the questionnaires have presented in figure 1. the first figure shows the elements needed in digital storytelling. besides the close-ended questions, there are also three open-ended questions. these questions are aimed to ask the students’ opinions about the elements in digital storytelling, preferred activities in learning narrative, and also the knowledge that they want to improve after learning the narrative. the results of the questionnaires have presented in the figures below. the first figure shows the elements needed in digital storytelling. figure 1. crucial elements needed in digital storytelling the researcher picked the three highest percentages of the categories. the highest percentage of the figure above is graphic (26%), followed by a storyline (23%), and the last is a storyteller (22%). students consider those three elements as vital elements that have existed in digital storytelling. the rest of the categories are less important, namely sound effect (15%) and duration (13%). the next figure shows the activities they prefer to have in learning the narrative. figure 2. prefered activites in learning narrative most students like to have read as the main activity (43%). the second activity is listening (26%), followed by speaking (17%) and writing (13%). in developing the exercises, the researcher would take the two highest categories: reading and listening. the next figure shows about expected knowledge to be gained by the students. figure 3. expected knowledge to be gained from learning narrative sarah bibi, dian shinta sari, muhammad iqbal ripo putra/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 20 the last question in this questionnaire is about the knowledge expected to be gained by the students. the result shows that 33% of them expect to gain more knowledge about english tenses used in narrative stories. the next categories are vocabulary (28%), language feature (22%), and the generic structure of the narrative (17%). after distributing the questionnaires, the researcher interviewed one of the english teachers. the interview conducted by employing a semi-structured interview. the researcher had already prepared seven interview questions in advance. the last three questions had formed during the interview. the interview revealed narrative is one of the topics taught by the teacher, and this year the topic was given on the even semester. they had given the material based on the basic competencies stated in the school curriculum, but the activities in employing the material had developed by the teacher. usually, the teacher uses conventional methods such as role-play or puzzles, but in some classes, she integrated digital media in the teaching process. the students quickly attracted by motion pictures, such as video and movie, and it increases their attention in the learning process. in one of her teaching, she used digital storytelling as a tool for her teaching. the students’ reaction when she used the medium was good. most of them were excited and paid attention to the storyline. however, based on the teacher’s experience, it is better to use digital storytelling media as warming up tool in the classroom. even though the teacher did not agree to use digital storytelling as the main media in the class, she will still be using it in her future teaching process. from the interview results, the researcher discovered some findings. the narrative is one of the topics taught by the teacher, and this year the topic was given on the even semester. they were given the material based on the basic competences, but the activities in employing the material were developed by the teacher. usually, the teacher uses conventional methods such as role-play or puzzles, but in some classes, she integrated digital media in the teaching process. the students were easily attracted by motion pictures, such as video and movie, and it increases their attention in the learning process. in one of her teaching, she used digital storytelling as a tool for her teaching. the students’ reaction when she used the medium was good. most of them were excited and paid attention to the storyline. however, based on the teacher’s experience, it is better to use digital storytelling media as warming up tool in the classroom. even though the teacher did not agree to use digital storytelling as a main media in the class, she will still be using it in her future teaching process. preliminary product developing the researcher began to develop the medium as it is the main focus of this research. in this step, the researcher also made a complimentary lesson plan and worksheet for the students. they were compiled in teacher’s guideline booklet made to complete the digital storytelling. the worksheet was designed based on the basic competences, and the result of learners’ needs, which focuses on reading and listening activities. after deciding goals, general purposes, and the topic of the medium, the researcher started to design the medium. in this research, the researcher made digital storytelling, which is the art of combining narrative with digital media such as images, sound, and video to create a short story. there are 7 elements that make a good digital storytelling. they are 1) point of view, 2) a dramatic question, 3) emotional content, 4) the gift of your voice, 5) the power of the soundtrack, 6) economy and 7) pacing (robin, 2008). to provide an aid for delivering the material, the researcher made digital storytelling. script and pictures were assembled and combined in an online platform named powtoon. the medium was uploaded into youtube complete with the subtitle and teacher’s guide to using digital storytelling. the researcher designed a lesson plan and worksheet as complementary material to digital storytelling. the researcher also put the result from the research and information gathering to design the activities in the class. based on the result of the questionnaires, the students prefer to have reading and listening activities. thus, the activity used in the lesson plan consisted of reading and listening activities. evaluation feedback the pre-made product and complimentary lesson plan and worksheet had validated by three respondents; 2 experts and 1 english teacher. the researchers distributed questionnaires to the respondents. the questionnaire consists of 7 close-ended questions and three open-ended questions. evaluation of the designed product and complimentary lesson plan helped the researcher to develop a better product. from the evaluation, the researchers knew which part of the medium was excellent sarah bibi, dian shinta sari, muhammad iqbal ripo putra/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 21 and which part that needed to be improved. it could also know whether the medium has met the learners’ needs. the product evaluation gave data and information, whether it has been relevant and suitable to teach narrative for students. the respondents in the evaluation process had chosen from their language expertise and experience in teaching. table 2. summary of medium evaluation questionnaires (close-ended) no statement degree of agreement 1 2 3 4 5 1 the designed media has already met the learners’ need. 0 0 50% 50% 0 2 the designed media aligned with school curriculum 0 0 0 100% 0 3 the designed media has been communicative. 0 50% 0 50% 0 4 the length of the media is suitable for a classroom activity. 0 0 33,3% 66,6% 0 5 the designed media is fascinating. 0 0 0 100% 0 6 the elements of narrative covered in the media. 0 0 0 100% 0 7 the content of the media is suitable to teach narrative. 0 0 33,4% 66,6% 0 from the result of the evaluation, it can be seen that overall the medium design is already good and appropriate for teaching narrative. although respondents said that the medium has been communicative, 1 respondent said that it tends to be a monologue performance. the length and content are also suitable for classroom activity. all of the respondents also agreed that digital storytelling is interesting and can be used by teachers to teach narrative. the respondents were asked about the strengths and also weaknesses of the medium. the respondents stated their opinion and suggestion related to the designed media. table 3 below shows the strengths and weaknesses of the designed media according to the respondents’ evaluation. table 3. summary of the strengths and weaknesses of the media strengths weaknesses  the duration is appropriate for brainstorming session.  the material is interesting for brainstorming session.  the audio is clear the transition between one slides to another is good, the pictures are very clear.  designed media is interesting.  the story has promoted local culture in learning english.  for whilst teaching, it is less communicative and tend to monologue performance.  check the sentences before entering the story. all sentences are missing a full stop.  no exercises / activities to help learners identify the generic structure of the text.  no voice heard in the opening. main product revision the overall review from the respondents related to the appearance of the media was pleasing and enjoyable to watch, especially for brainstorming activity. however, there were some changes that needed to be done to make the media appearance’s better. in the beginning of the written narration, the sentences were lack of proper punctuation. the researcher did not put a period marks in most of the sentences, so it had to be retyped to fix the mistakes. sarah bibi, dian shinta sari, muhammad iqbal ripo putra/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 22 in general, the respondents agreed that the media was already suitable for teaching. however, one respondent said that the recording on the sound or spoken narration of the story needed to be improved. it could not be heard clearly by the respondent and in some sentences, the voice volume was not consistent yet. some sentences were spoken louder than the other. usually, it was the article, such as “the” and “an”. to overcome the problem, a new narration record was made to replace the earlier recording. the new recording was only done for some parts that were still lack of volume consistency. most respondents stated that the materials are already suitable for learners. however, one respondent said that the researcher should add one more material on the generic structure so that the students could also learn about it. a question then added to the complementary material, which is “please write the generic structure of the story using your own sentence”. the question is aimed to make the student understand more about the generic structure of a narrative text and also make them practice using correct tenses to rewrite the story. the media appearance modeling is the process of making object models in a 3d / 2d form on a computer. models can be in the form of characters (living things), such as humans, animals or plants; or in the form of inanimate objects, such as houses, cars, equipment, etc. the model must be made in detail and in accordance with the size and scale of the design/model sketch that has been predetermined so that the object model will look ideal and proportional to be seen. figure 4. modelling texturing is the process of making and giving color and material (texture) to an object that has been modeled before so that it will appear a real impression. giving material or texture to 3d / 2d objects will define the appearance and type of material from 3d / 2d objects. material or texture can be in the form of photos or images created with 3d software applications, such as 3ds max, maya, etc., or with the help of digital imaging software, such as photoshop, photopaint, or gimp. figure 5. texturing sarah bibi, dian shinta sari, muhammad iqbal ripo putra/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 23 animation is the process of making an animation for a model. animation can be in the form of movements, be it object/model movements or camera movements to create walkthrough animations, flythrough animations. figure 6. rendering rendering is the final process of the whole process of modeling or computer animation. in rendering, all data that has been entered in the process of modeling, animation, texturing, lighting with specific parameters will be translated in an output form (final display on the model and animation). the output of the animation that we make can be in the form of photos or videos. figure 7. the process of rendering figure 8. the process of providing animated text discussion the findings show that students have positive views on the use of interactive storytelling. most of them liked video narration. they concluded that multimedia storytelling was a handy tool for education from a semi-structured interview. several students also said that when they recorded their voices as part of a digital storytelling project, they might improve their pronunciation. kuforiji & sarah bibi, dian shinta sari, muhammad iqbal ripo putra/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 24 williams (2011) uncovered that multimedia stories were an enjoyable activity in the schoolroom. it is essential when planning suitable lessons and activities that the students would like to learn english. besides, students enjoy interactive storytelling because the english language is easy to use. afrilyasanti & basthomi (2011) said that interactive storytelling in classrooms could easily be carried out. most participants liked the easy steps by using corel videostudio to create their digital storytellings and then presented the story. as reported in lee (2014), digital storytelling is an attractive language teaching practice, easy to use for speaking. it can be a positive way of encouraging students to use the language in and out of the classroom. ariffin (2010) addressed the value of multimedia storytelling, including sharing experiences. therefore, visual history is a useful technology for learning english in particular. teachers will encourage students to build their multimedia worlds and share their stories with peers in their classes. active thinking was also encouraged in interactive storytelling classes. throughout the use of the app, they were autonomous of english. nonetheless, teachers will find some potential issues in integrating storytelling files in a framework in order to develop interactive storytelling, which may take quite a while. students require vivid visual storytelling images and illustrations. lessons with images and sounds, which enable all students, especially students with learning difficulties, to better understand concepts before reading a lesson text (piotrowski & reason, 2000). integrating visuals and illustrations in the visual storytelling phase can, therefore, inspire students to learn more. the advanced technology needs more photographs and better graphics. the video should be rendered faster by using a decent notebook/computer with a powerful processor. overall the product is already excellent and appropriate for teaching narrative. the designed medium has also aligned with the students’ needs. the elements of the narrative had completely covered (generic structure, language feature, and english tenses). although respondents said that the medium has been communicative, one respondent said that it tends to be a monologue performance. the length and content are also suitable for classroom activity. all of the respondents also agreed that digital storytelling is exciting and can be used by teachers to teach narrative. this research conducted in order to design digital storytelling as a medium to teach narrative for junior high school students. once digital storytelling was designed, like the framework, the researcher combined two significant theories, which were the cycle of educational research and development and instructional design model. the instructional design model put under the cycle of instructional design and development. to create an exciting and proper digital storytelling, which started about seven elements of digital storytelling, and also the implementation of narrative in learning (göbel, rodrigues, et al., 2009; sweeney-burt, 2014). among study results, one crucial finding asserts that students are interested in using digital storytelling to learn narrative because it is more exciting and could help them to understand the topic better. in line with this, kim (2014) & menezes (2012) argued that digital storytelling is useful to build students’ background knowledge and attract them to the learning process. the researchers created a complimentary lesson plan and exercises and put in a teacher’s guide booklet. fifth, the evaluation was done once the digital storytelling medium and teacher’s guide. from the evaluation process, the researcher found out that the media and exercises are already appropriate for teaching narrative. nonetheless, some respondents suggested to fix the recording and added more exercise in the teacher’s guide. one respondent also suggested adding a subtitle to digital storytelling so that it can be used to check the answer when doing the exercise. the researchers presented the media on a digital platform through youtube. the teacher’s guide was presented both in written form and digital form so that any teacher could download it easily. the researchers also provide subtitle which can be used to check the answers of the exercise. conclusion digital storytelling is a ipowerful itool ifor icreating ie-learning ienvironments ibased ion constructivist iprinciples iof ieducational iactivity iand ilearning. iit ipossesses ithe ipotential ito engage ilearners iin iintegrated iapproaches ito ilearning iwith idigital imedia. inotwithstanding, ia framework iis irequired ithat icaters ifor ilearners iat idifferent ilevels. iin ithis iresearch ishowed ithe product ifor icreating ie-learning isystems ithrough idigital istorytelling. ithe iproduct igrounded ion twelve istorytelling iaspects iand ifive ilevels, iand ieach iaspect iadvances iin icomplexity ias ithe learner’s ilevel iadvance ifrom ilevel ione ito ifive. ithe iproduct iwill ibe ifurther ideveloped ito employ iall iof ithe istorytelling iaspects iin idiverse ieducational isettings. iit iwill ibe iused ito icreate sarah bibi, dian shinta sari, muhammad iqbal ripo putra/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 25 a inew ielearning isystem ithat ican ibe iutilized iat idifferent ilevels iof ieducation. ifuture iresearch will icentre ion ihow idigital istorytelling ican ienhance ithe istudents’ iengagement iand iprovide better ieducational ioutcomes ifor iall ilearners. iproving iand ivalidating ithe iproposed ie-learning digital istorytelling iframework iwill ibe iundertaken iin ifuture iresearch iprojects. acknowledgement the research and development introduced in this work is funded by the ministry of research, technology and higher education (kemenristekdikti) under the year of 2019 framework programme in the ict research priority. references afrilyasanti, r., & basthomi, y. 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(2010). educational uses of digital storytelling around the world. in m. koehler & p. mishra (eds.), proceedings of the society for information technology & teacher education international conference 2011 (pp. 1264-1271). chesapeake, va: aace. microsoft word [article 3]_38131-article text-96677-3-15-20200601 27 elt forum 9 (1) (2020) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt teacher social competence, student learning motivation, and learning outcomes in english subject qurrot ainy, hendi pratama english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 3 april 2020 approved in 1 june 2020 published in 30 july 2020 ________________ keywords: teacher social competence; learning motivation; learning outcomes ____________________ abstract ________________________________________________________________ this study aimed to investigate the correlation between teacher social competence, student learning motivation, and learning outcomes in english subject. the population of this study is all the students of junior high school 1 purbalingga academic year 2019/2020. the sample in this study is 90 students. the sampling technique is stratified convience sampling. in collecting data, there were some research instruments used; questionnaires and documentation. the research data were analyzed by peason product-moment correlation. based on the analysis and statistical quantification, it was found that the results of the study were (1) there is a positive and significant correlation between teacher social competence and student learning outcomes as shown by the value of pearson correlation coefficient 0.919; (2) there is a positive and significant correlation between student learning motivation and student learning outcomes as shown by the value of pearson correlation coefficient 0.908; (3) there is a positive and significant correlation between teacher social competence and student learning motivation as shown by the value of pearson correlation coefficient 0.994. in conclusion, teachers’ social competence correlation is higher than students learning motivation. therefore, the teachers should work on their social skill to improve student learning outcomes. on the other hand, the students needs to motivate themselves. © 2020 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: aqurrot@gmail.com, hendipratma@mail.unnes.ac.id 28 introduction the quality of education in indonesia is still far from adequate. based on the global education monitoring report from unesco data in 2016, the teacher in indonesia ranked 14th out of 14 developing countries. moreover, from the teacher competency test in 2015 results, the national average is only 44.5 far below the 75 standard. while according to the study conducted by chang et al. (2014) both certified and uncertified teachers have no impact on student learning outcomes. the teacher is associated closely with student in the implementation of education on daily. in carrying out the task the teacher must have competence. minister of national education regulation number 16 of 2007 regarding academic qualification standards and teacher competencies explains that every teacher must meet the teacher competency qualification. the teacher should have four competencies such as professional, pedagogy, personality, and social competence (uno & lamatenggo, 2016). social competence is needed to attract students’ interest in teaching and learning sessions. social competence is the teacher’s ability to communicate and interact effectively and efficiently with students, peers/professionals, parents of students, and society moreover does not discriminate against ethnicity, race, and language (kunandar, 2014). to have the best learning outcomes the student must have high learning motivation. learning motivation is an impulse for someone to do something and achieve a goal and that is learning outcomes (uno, 2007). learning outcome is the goal of the studies to be achieved and product from the learning process which can be seen from the improvement of the behavior obtained after the process of learning (anni, 2004). learning outcomes for the students are an improvement of mental development after learning activities include cognitive, affective, and psychomotor, while for the teachers are the completion of the learning material that has been delivered (mudjiono, 2006). the principle underlying the assessment of learning outcomes is to provide hope for students and teachers to be able to improve the quality of learning (mansur, 2009). quality in the sense that students become effective learners and teachers become good motivators. in this case, the learning outcomes become the reason for determining the next steps to solve the problems so the students can improve their learning. four teacher competencies such as pedagogical, personal, professional, and social partially influence the learning performance also simultaneously and significantly in improving the quality of performance in the learning process (hakim, 2015). muda’i (2017) states learning motivation is a complex thing, many factors might affect this. musriana (2018) states teachers as a motivator toward student learning outcomes. a competent teacher with a good environment improving the student learning motivation (tabi’in, 2016). a study conducted by mappeasse (2009) revealed the way students learn and their motivation to learning affected their learning outcomes. while bernaus and gardner (2008) stated that the language teaching strategies on students' motivation were on relative frequency while english achievement is not correlated. wardani et al. (2018) attempt to ascertain whether there is an influence and how big it is of social competence on student learning motivation at xi grade students of accounting of vocational high school 7 pontianak. the result of the study revealed after done simpe linear regression on the variables of x and y said that social competence has a negative influence on student learning motivation with 23% the other 77% was affected by another factor that was not examined in this study. problems investigated in this research are (1) what is the correlation between teacher social competence and student learning outcomes in english subject at junior high school? (2) what is the correlation between student learning motivation and student learning outcomes in english subject at junior high school? (3) what is the correlation between teacher social competence and student learning motivation in english subject at junior high school? from the studies above, there have been many researchers who conducted studies about teacher competence and student learning motivation in english subject separately. my research is different from the previous research upon the details of the research. in my research, i will concern to investigate the correlation between teacher social competence and student learning motivation on student learning outcomes in english subject at junior high school. objectives of this study are (1) to investigate the correlation between teacher social competence and student learning outcomes in english subject at junior high school, (2) to investigate the correlation between student learning motivation and student learning outcomes in english subject at junior high school, (3) to investigate the correlation between teacher social competence and student learning motivation in english subject at junior high school. methods this research focuses on the the correlation between teacher social competence and student learning motivation on student learning outcomes. research variables of this study are teacher social competence ( ଵܺ) and student learning motivation (ܺଶ) as independent variable. the dependent variable in this study is student learning outcomes (y). this research used quantitative method. quantitative is a type of data that can be 29 calculated which contains information or explanations expressed with a number (sugiyono, 2010). in this research, the source of quantitative data is from the questionnaire. a questionnaire as a research tool includes a set of questions or any other types of prompts aimed at collecting information from a respondent (adi, 2019). the type of questionnaire here is a structured questionnaire. the type of questions in the questionnaire that the researcher used in this study is close-ended questions. both of the questionnaire is quantitative for 90 respondent. type of the data in the instrument is index. one datum is one index comes from one of the respondent. minimum index is 1 and maximum index is 4. the instrument for teacher social competence is 15 items, while the instrument for learning motivation is 30 items. the total of the data is 90. the research was conducted a study at junior high school state 1 purbalingga. the sampling technique is stratified convenience sampling. the sample was chosen from each level proportionally and then was divided into strata (sugiyono, 2015). convenience sampling is a method where the main data source available without additional requirements, there is no criterion for inclusion defined before selecting the subject (dudovskiy, 2016). the research takes 30 students for each grade to be the sample. the total of the sample was 90 students. after all the data gathered, the next step is analyzing the data. in this research, the data are analyzed using statistic method because the process of compiling the data, draw a conclusion, and making a decision arranged systematically. statistical functions used in this study include validity, reliability, normality, and linearity. validity is defined as showing the suitability, compatibility, usefulness of specific conclusions that have been made based on research data that has been collected. with the validity of the instrument, strong evidence has been carried out to support the conclusion of the instrument. the validity tested in this study is content validity. to measure the content validity, the internal consistency method is used to measure the magnitude of the correlation between each item and all statement items using the product-moment correlation formula. the decision is based on the number of r quantification. the data is valid if r quantification > r table (sujarweni, 2014). the value of r table based on the value of df (degree of freedom) in the research. the formula of df is n-2. n is the total of the respondent. the test of reliability is done to know the accuracy of the research instrument (sujarweni, 2014). the reliability test of the questionnaire to determine whether it is a good questionnaire to gather the data. to test the reliability the researcher use spss 23 for windows. the decision based on the value of cronbach alpha. the data is reliable if the number of cronbach alpha > 0.60. the normality test aims to determine whether the sample taken comes from populations that are normally distributed or not, so it will be more accurate and effective (pratama, 2019). to test the normality, the researcher using kolmogorov-smirnov. the data was analyzed with the help of spss 23 for windows. the decision is based on the number of asymp. sig. (2-tailed). if the number of asymp. sig. more than 0.05, the data is normally distributed. this linearity test aims to see whether the linearity of the two variables is significant or not (widiyanto, 2012). to detect the correlation between the regression equation and the linearity test of the regression line needed help by looking at linearity in the anova table of spss 23 for windows. if the significance of the linearity is less than 0.05 then the variable is stated linear. the decision was also based on the significance of deviation from linearity, it must be more than 0.05. the f quantification < f table. the distribution of the f table was based on the number of df (degree of freedom). the hypotheses tested in this study are the influence of independent variables namely the teacher’s social competence ( ଵܺ), student learning motivation (ܺଶ) to the dependent variable student learning outcomes (y). to do the calculation and analysis used a computer program that is microsoft excel and spss 23 for windows. the test of the hypothesis using pearson’s correlation coefficient. correlation is a technique for investigating the relationship between two variables (pratama, 2019). pearson’s correlation coefficient (r) is measure of the strength of the relationship between the two variables. with help of spss 23 for windows this test aims to test the first and second hypotheses. the result will show up in the table of model summary. to determine an interpretation of the result correlation coefficients, it can be seen in the list below based on nangolo and musingwini (as cited in pratama, 2019): table 1. interpretation the power in correlation test coefficient range power of correlation 0.00 – 0.30 0.31 – 0.50 0.51 – 0.80 0.81 – 1.00 weak medium strong very strong 30 the significant correlation marked by a symbol (**), if the correlation is not really strong marked by only one (*), and there will be no symbol (*) if the correlation is weak. after that to test the hypothesis based on the condition as follows: the correlation ଵܺ and ܺଶ toward y is partial h0 : = 0, means ଵܺ and ܺଶ partially not correlate significantly toward y h0 : ≠ 0, means ଵܺ and ܺଶ partially correlate significantly toward y based on the result of correlation coefficient and the symbol (*) the decision was made. findings and discussion the data for this study was gathered by distributing the questionnaire at junior high school 1 purbalingga. the researcher came into class seven, eight, and nine with a total of 90 students as the sample. the students were filling up the questionnaire by giving a checklist for each statement. for the questionnaire about teacher social competence, there is 15 items. for the questionnaire about student learning motivation is 30 items. each answer of the item changed into a number, for positive statement strongly agree is 4, agree 3, disagree 2, and strongly disagree is 1, while the negative statement is reversed. the researcher attained the learning outcomes in the cognitive area from the report book first term academic year 2019/2020. after all the data were collected, the researcher conducted the test of validity, reliability, and linearity as a requirement before the test of the hypotheses. the test used spss 23 for windows. the result of research instruments validation test were valid shown in table 2 and 3 below: table 2. the result of ଵܺvalidation test item r quant. r table 5% 1 0.518 0.205 2 0.384 0.205 3 0.422 0.205 4 0.506 0.205 5 0.457 0.205 6 0.490 0.205 7 0.359 0.205 8 0.444 0.205 9 0.544 0.205 10 0.317 0.205 11 0.535 0.205 12 0.478 0.205 13 0.389 0.205 14 0.390 0.205 15 0.462 0.205 table 3. the result of ૛validationࢄ test item r quant. r table 5% 1 0.518 0.205 2 0.384 0.205 3 0.422 0.205 4 0.506 0.205 5 0.457 0.205 6 0.490 0.205 7 0.359 0.205 8 0.444 0.205 9 0.544 0.205 10 0.317 0.205 11 0.535 0.205 12 0.478 0.205 13 0.389 0.205 14 0.390 0.205 31 15 0.462 0.205 16 0.513 0.205 17 0.336 0.205 18 0.424 0.205 19 0.528 0.205 20 0.482 0.205 21 0.506 0.205 22 0.385 0.205 23 0.447 0.205 24 0.541 0.205 25 0.210 0.205 26 0.522 0.205 27 0.494 0.205 28 0.412 0.205 29 0.342 0.205 30 0.467 0.205 the data will be valid if r quantification > r table (sujarweni, 2014). the value of r table based on total of the respondent (n). in this research n = 90. the distribution of r table product moment for n 90 at 5% signification is 0,205. in table 2 and 3 all items of the research instruments are valid. the questionnaire about teacher social competence and learning motivation in table 4 is reliable because the number of cronbach alpha > 0.60 (sujarweni, 2014). all of the items of the research instrument are reliable. in conclusion, it’s a good instrument to gather the data. table 4. the result of reliability test variable crobach alpha teacher social competence 0.711 learning motivation 0.857 before the test of the hypotheses, the data that have been stated as valid and reliable still need to do normality and linearity test. the purpose of normality and linearity test is to discover whether the distribution of the data is normal and linier or not. the result of normality test shown in table 5 below: table 5. the result of normality test unstandardized residual n 90 normal parametersa,b mean .0000000 std deviation 1.54202805 most extreme differences absolute .090 positive .090 negative -.079 test statistic .090 asymp. sig. (2-tailed) .068c the decision based on the number of significance. if it’s more than 0.05 then the data is normally distributed (pratama, 2019). as shown in the table kolmogorov-smirnov sig 0.068 > 0.05. it can be conclude that the data is distributed normally. the result of linearity test based on anova table. the variable teacher social competence ( ଵܺ) and student learning outcomes (y) is linear because the significance of the linearity is 0.000 < 0.05, the significance of deviation from linearity is 0.278 > 0.05, the f quantification 2.186 < f table 2.280. the f table based on df that is 16 and 71. the f table for df 16 and 71 is 2.280. 32 table 6. the result of ଵܺ and y linearity test anova table sum of squares df mean square f sig. learning outcomes * teacher social competence between groups (combined) 1257.652 18 69.870 37.229 .000 linearity 1175.139 1 1175.139 626.164 .000 deviation from linearity 82.513 16 4.854 2.186 .278 within groups 133.248 71 1.877 total 1390.900 89 based on table 7 the variable student learning motivation (ܺଶ) and student learning outcomes (y) are linear because the significance of the linearity is 0.000 < 0.05, the significance of deviation from linearity is 0.197 > 0.05, the f quantification 1.402 < f table 1.670. the f table based on df that is 30 and 55. the f table for df 30 and 55 is 1.670. table 7. the result of ܺଶ and y linearity test anova table sum of squares df mean square f sig. learning outcomes * learning motivation between groups (combine d) 1290.733 34 37.963 20.845 .000 linearity 1146.384 1 1146.384 629.462 .000 deviation from linearity 144.349 30 4.374 1.402 .197 within groups 100.167 55 1.821 total 1390.900 89 after the data stated as valid, reliable, distributed normally, and linier, the data could be use to test the hypotheses. the result of the hypotheses based on pearson’s correlation coefficient. the result of the test explained below: teacher social competence correlate with learning outcomes the first hypothesis is there is a significant correlation between teacher social competence ( ଵܺ) and student learning outcomes (y) in english subject. the hypothesis analyzed based on pearson’s correlation coefficient in table 8. the correlation (r) is 0.919 which is very strong. marked by (**) means the correlation is significant. in conclusion the first hypothesis that there is significant correlation between teacher social competence on learning outcomes accepted. table 8. coefficients correlation and signification test ଵܺ toward y correlations teacher social competence learning outcomes teacher social competence pearson correlation 1 .919** sig. (2-tailed) .000 n 90 90 learning outcomes pearson correlation .919** 1 sig. (2-tailed) .000 n 90 90 **. correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). 33 student learning motivation correlate with learning outcones the second hypothesis is there is a correlation and significant between student learning motivation (ܺଶ) and student learning outcomes (y) in english subject. the hypothesis analyzed based on pearson’s correlation coefficient in table 9. the correlation is 0.908 which is very strong. marked by (**) means the correlation is significant. in conclusion the second hypothesis that there is significant correlation between learning motivation on learning outcomes accepted. table 9. coefficients correlation and signification test ܺଶ toward y correlations learning motivation learning outcomes learning motivation pearson correlation 1 .908** sig. (2-tailed) .000 n 90 90 learning outcomes pearson correlation .908** 1 sig. (2-tailed) .000 n 90 90 **. correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). teacher social competece correlate with student learning motivation the third hypothesis is there is significant correlation between teacher social competence ( ଵܺ) and student learning motivation (ܺଶ) in english subject. the hypothesis analyzed based on pearson’s correlation coefficient in table 10. the correlation is 0.994 which is very strong. marked by (**) means the correlation is significant. in conclusion the third hypothesis that there is significant correlation between teacher social competence on student learning motivation accepted. table 10. coefficients correlation and signification test of ଵܺ and ܺଶ correlations teacher social competence learning motivation teacher social competence pearson correlation 1 .994** sig. (2-tailed) .000 n 90 90 learning motivation pearson correlation .994** 1 sig. (2-tailed) .000 n 90 90 **. correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). discussion learning outcome is the goal of the studies to be achieved and product from the learning process which can be seen from the improvement of the behavior obtained after the process of learning (anni, 2004). learning outcomes for the students are an improvement of mental development after learning activities including cognitive, affective, and psychomotor, while the teachers are the completion of the learning material that has been delivered (mudjiono, 2006). learning outcomes include learning achievement, speed of learning, and affective results (bloom, 1976). human characteristics include a typical way of thinking of action and feeling, its related to cognitive, affective, and psychomotor (anderson, 1981). the elements included in all three aspects of learning are: (1) learning outcomes in the cognitive: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation, (2) learning outcomes in the affective dealing with behavior and score. the students’ behavior could be seen from their attention when learning sessions, discipline, learning motivation, how they respect their teacher and classmate. affective as objectives and types of learning outcomes include: receiving or attending means sensitivity in receiving stimuli from inside and outside, responding or answer, respecting and characteristics that influence personality and behavior, (3) learning outcomes in the psychomotor: in the form of skills, and ability of one’s after mastered the cognitive and affective level to the subject (sudjana, 2005). for this study, the researcher focuses on learning outcomes in the cognitive area relate to their knowledge. the minimum learning mastery standard for english subject in junior high school 1 34 purbalingga was 80. the learning outcomes or english subject of the sample in this study in first semester academic year 2019/2020 as follow: table 11. learning outcomes in english subject range total of the student grade percent 94 – 100 6 a 31.11% 86 – 93 56 b 62.22% 79 – 85 28 c 6.67% 71 – 78 d 0% < 71 e 0% as shown in table 11 the learning outcomes of students at junior high school 1 purbalingga almost all the student pass the minimum learning mastery standard. there are two factors affected students learning outcomes, there are internal and external factors (slameto, 2010). internal factors come from inside of the student itself, there are three factors included: (1) physical such as health and disability of the body, (2) psychological such as intelligence, attention, interests, talents, motives, maturity and readiness (3) fatigue that affects physical and psychic. it makes lethargy and boredom drive to the loss of desire to finish the work. based on the theory above high or low student result depends on many factors such as their learning motivation. learning motivation is a process of changing one’s behavior or personality based on interactions between individuals and their environment which are carried out formally and informally (uno, 2007). learning motivation also an impulse that makes someone do something and to achieve the best learning outcomes. the nature of learning motivation is internal and external encouragement. there are two types of learning motivation, namely: (1) intrinsic motivation comes from inside and does not need external encouragement because every individual already has an urge to do something, (2) extrinsic motivation is an impulse from the outside. the desired goal of behavior that is driven by extrinsic motivation lies outside of that behavior (sadirman, 2008). learning motivation can arise due to intrinsic and extrinsic factors (uno, 2007), such as: (1) intrinsic factors such as the desire to succeed and the drive for learning needs, hopes for aspirations, (2) extrinsic factors are appreciation, a conducive learning environment, and interesting learning activities. the learning motivation was measured by the desire to be success in english subject, their need in studying, have hope and dreams, have an appreciation for the study, have an interesting activity on studying. based on pearson’s correlation coefficient relate to learning motivation and learning outcomes the result is 0.908**. the power correlation is very strong. the correlation is positive because there is no minus mark. there is (**) signed that the correlation is significant. in conclusion, there is a significant correlation between student learning motivation and learning outcomes for english subject at junior high school 1 purbalingga. rumpaka (2016) stated the higher the learning interest the higher students learning achievement. learning interest is one of the factors that impacted learning motivation. the researcher conducted a study of whether there is an effect of the learning interest on students’ learning achievement. the research conducted the study at junior high school 2 galur. the population is 187 students while the sample is 127 students selected by means of the proportional stratified random sampling. the instrument of the research is a questionnaire that tested with a product-moment correlation formula and the reliability with the cronbach’s alpha formula. the data were analyzed with simple regression and regression significance used the t-test. the result of the study revealed there is a significant positive effect of the learning interest on the learning achievement based on the regression coefficient of 0.838 and t-observed = 13.628 > t-table = 1.98 at a significance of 0.000, it smaller than 0.05. three external factors affect students learning outcomes, there are: (1) family such as how they parent educate them, the relationship in their family, the environment of their family, and economic stability, (2) the school such as teaching method, curriculum, the relationship between their peer and the teacher, (3) the society such as student activities in the community, media mass, their friend, and lifestyle. the teacher is associated closely with the student in the implementation of education on daily. the teacher determined student success in achieving the best learning outcomes. social competence is the teacher’s ability to communicate and interact effectively and efficiently with students, peers/professionals, parents of students, and society moreover does not discriminate against ethnicity, race, and language (kunandar, 2014). mulyasa (2013) states the teacher’s social is an ability to prepare the student to become good members of the community and the ability to educate, guide in facing life in the future. 35 based on pearson’s correlation coefficient relate to teacher social competence and student learning outcomes the result is 0.919**. the power correlation is very strong. the correlation is positive because there is no minus mark. there is (**) signed that the correlation is significant. in conclusion, there is significant correlation between teacher social competence and student learning outcomes for english subject at junior high school 1 purbalingga. in accordance with a study done by maryam (2017) about the influence of teacher social competence toward students learning achievement in mathematics subjects at senior high school 1 narmada academic year of 2016/2017. the study used proportionate stratified random sampling to determine the sample. the sample is 82 students out of 456 students. the study used the ex-post-facto research design. the instrument is a questionnaire with a close-ended answer and final exam 1st-semester score as the learning achievement data. the instrument is already been tested the validity and reliability. while for the data analyzed using the normality test, linearity test, and correlation test. the hypothesis was analyzed using simple linear regression. the result shows the student perception of teacher social competence categorizes in the middle with an average value of 48,5244 or 98%. while for student learning achievement in mathematics subject categorize as strong with an average value of 83 or 83%. the hypothesis shows there is significant influence between teacher social competence and student learning outcomes in mathematics subject at senior high school 1 narmada academic year 2016/2017 for about f-distribution 9.027 and f-table 3.96. a competent teacher is a teacher who can influence students positively in learning. not only the student but also the parent and the community. to achieve all of that a teacher needs to have communication skills and get along with the students, peers, and parents. for the student, they should motivate their self to get the best result. based on pearson’s correlation coefficient relate to teacher social competence and student learning motivation the result is 0.994**. the power correlation is very strong. the correlation is positive because there is no minus mark. there is (**) signed that the correlation is significant. in conclusion, there is significant correlation between teacher social competence and student learning motivation. tabi’in (2016) stated that a competent teacher with a good environment improving the student learning motivation. there are several ways to motivate students that have been done by the teacher giving gifts, approaching, raising enthusiasm for learning, directing learning activities, giving praise. this study used a qualitative approach. the data collection procedures are in-depth interview techniques, participant observation, and documentation. the sample of the study is students at madrasah tsanawiyah state pekan heran indragri hulu. the data were analyzed using data reduction, data presentation, and drawing conclusions. the school here gives freedom to choose the strategies, method, learning techniques, and the most effective teaching technique according to the characteristics of the subjects and teacher’s background education. figure 1. the result of hypotheses test as the final result, teacher social competence, student learning motivation and student learning outcomes correlation are positive, significant and very strong. teacher social competence correlate for 0.919 on student learning outcomes, student learning outcomes correlate for 0.908 on student learning outcomes and teacher social competence correlate with student learning motivation for 0.994.the result show that teacher social competence correlation is higher than student learning motivation. in that case, teacher should working on their social skill to improve student learning outcomes. however, the student also need to keep motivate their self because the correlation itself is very strong. all in all, teacher social competence and r = 0.919** student learning outcomes teacher social competence student learning motivation r = 0.994** r = 0.908** 36 student learning motivation is influence student learning outcomes in english subject at junior high school 1 purbalingga. conclusion based on the result of the study and discussion, the researcher drawn a conclusion as follow: (1) there was a positive and significant correlation between teacher social competence and student learning outcomes at junior high school 1 purbalingga on english subject as indicated by the correlation coefficient (r) of 0.919, (2) there was also a positive and significant correlation between student learning motivation and student learning outcomes at junior high school 1 purbalingga on english subject as indicated by the correlation coefficient (r) of 0.908, (3) there was a positive and significant correlation between teacher social competence and student learning motivation at junior high school 1 purbalingga on english subject as indicated by the correlation coefficient (r) 0.994. based on the findings and the conclusion of this study, the researcher made the following suggestion: (1) teacher should improve their social competence, especially for their communication skill to develop their relationship with their student and build a friendly environment around the class and school. student should maintain their learning motivation to get the best result, (2) the student could boost their motivation by raising their interest in english subject, doing fun activities related to english language such as listening to music, watching films, playing games and many others, (3) for other researchers, you could find out another research dealing with teacher social competence, (4) for future research, it is suggested to investigate other factors that affect student learning outcomes. references adi, b. 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(2018). pengaruh kompetensi sosial guru terhadap motivasi belajar siswa kelas xi jurusan akuntansi smk negeri. jurnal pendidikan dan pembelajaran, 7(5). widiyanto, j. (2012). spss for windows. surakarta: badan penerbit-fkip universitas muhamadiyah surakarta. microsoft word 7. 38409-article text-99988-1-15-20200706.docx putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 65 elt forum 9 (1) (2020) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt culture and elt: cambodian teachers' perception and practice of textbook adaptation to realize intercultural awareness davut nhem  the department of english, norton university, cambodia article info ________________ article history: received in 22 april 2020 approved in 14 july 2020 published in 30 july 2020 ________________ keywords: culture; intercultural awareness; intercultural competence; & textbook adaptation _____________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ currently, it is recognized that language and culture go hand in hand, which means that when we teach a language, we also teach the culture of that language or other languages that appear in the textbooks being used. this wide recognition of the vital role of culture in the second language teaching has presented challenges for efl teachers in various contexts. this article reports a qualitative study on three cambodian teachers of english at one school in phnom penh. the study aims to investigate efl teachers’ views and practices of textbook adaptation, as well as how they adapt textbooks to help students develop intercultural awareness in the elt. to achieve these objectives, the qualitative data obtained from individual interviews, classroom observations, and teaching materials were engaged to shed light on the backdrop of the textbook adaptation and cultural integration in the elt classroom. the findings in this study reveal an inconsistency between teachers’ views and practices about the textbook adaptation and the teachers’ limited capacity of interculturality-stimulated scholarship that is inherently tied to the development of cultural activities in the elt classroom. this study suggests teacher training on the textbook adaptation and teaching culture should be provided to the teachers in the context and beyond. © 2020 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: davut_nhem124@yahoo.com davut nhem/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 66 introduction the second language teaching has moved beyond the act of teaching the language itself to accentuate the cultural aspects, to which students get exposure in the classroom (lessard-clouston, 1996). hilliard (2014) asserts that teaching a language without teaching some cultural aspects of that language is virtually inevitable. concurrently, culture plays a vital role in the mediation of the second language learning process (dema & moeller, 2012). that is, while negotiating the meanings of tasks (e.g. cultural activities), students can develop communicative competence (nhem, 2019). also, baker (2011) elucidates that the role of culture in the elt has vitally contributed to the understanding of hymes’ (1972) notion of communicative competence, placing the significance of sociolinguistic scholarship. this notion has provided scholars with the comprehensive insight regarding the role of culture, developing intercultural competence. currently, the rising tilt of globalization has placed the forefront of intercultural communication worldwide. consequently, developing students’ intercultural competence for communicative purposes in various settings (e.g. studies, seminars, traveling, or workplace) is beyond necessity (sobkowiak, 2019; & wintergerst, & mcveigh, 2011) given the vitality of culture in the elt, the investigation on teachers’ practices and perceptions of themselves as cultural facilitators in the classroom has been appealing to several studies in diverse contexts (luk, 2012). previous studies exploring efl teachers’ perceptions and practices of teaching culture in the elt (e.g. lessard-clouston, 1996; lim & keuk, 2018; luk, 2012; sercu, et al., 2004; young & sachdev, 2011) and the inclusion of culture in efl textbooks (e.g. chao, 2011; hilliard, 2014; & kim & paek, 2015) have reported overarching concerns in the territory, which motivated this study. besides, the approaches to which culture is incorporated in the elt to prepare students for effective communication, regardless of more attention paid by teachers, have remained ambiguous (dema & moeller, 2012). in cambodia, research about how and if teachers integrate culture in the elt remains underrepresented in the literature. thus, this research explored cambodian teachers’ perceptions and practices of the textbook adaptation (with reference to three approaches of textbook development: curriculum transmission, curriculum development; & curriculum-making, proposed by shawer, (2010) ) to help students develop intercultural awareness in their classroom. the article should be written in 5000-7000 words, single-spaced, 10 point calisto mt font (excluding references and appendices). use no indent for the first paragraphs and do not leave a space between paragraphs. literature review culture and elt the term “culture” is a complex concept that considers multi-dimensions (kim & paek, 2015). peterson (2004) defines culture as a set of deep beliefs and values, usually lived in a group of people in certain countries or regions, and those beliefs and values have impacts on their behaviors and the environment surrounding them. peterson divides the components of culture into big c culture and little c culture, in which the two types are organized as visible and invisible. big c visible culture comprises of literature, classical music, architecture while big c invisible culture covers norms, values, attitudes, beliefs, assumptions, or laws of society. on the other hand, little c invisible culture includes issues, viewpoints, opinions, preferences, and knowledge of individuals whereas little c visible culture refers to body languages, clothing styles, food, hobbies, or use of space. another scholar, moran (2001) views culture as a vibrant living thing that people commonly practice every day, resulting in the formulation of history or civilizations. unlike peterson (2004) who considers culture as the dichotomy of big c culture and little c culture, moran divides the components of culture into five dimensions which comprise: products, practices, perspectives, communities, and persons (see table 1). these five dimensions were adopted in this study to analyze how teachers help students become aware of cultural aspects appeared in efl textbooks. since one of the goals in the elt is to foster and solidify students’ intercultural awareness (awareness of the target culture and their own culture), current research on the realm of cultural content evaluation on efl textbooks (chao, 2011; hilliard, 2014; kim & paek, 2015; rodríguez, 2015) has revealed overarching issues. most internationally-published textbooks excessively present the cultural contents of the western countries, which are not inherently relevant to the asian context, a study (chao, 2011) found. such inclusion of western-culture orientation can be the foremost challenge for asian teachers who possess inadequate knowledge regarding the target culture, which resulted in the abandon of cultural contents, as reported in a study (lim & keuk, davut nhem/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 67 2018). moreover, the scarcity of cultural representation of minority groups was also observed in studies by hilliard (2014) and pasand (2018). for instance, there was a deprivation of cultural representation concerning islamic traditions, national ceremonies, and other festivals (pasand, 2018). drawn on the review, the underrepresentation of local culture and the inclusion of cultural information outside the context have brought out an issue of the teachers’ intellectuality of culturally-based norms or practices included in textbooks, which this is not to mention helping students develop intercultural awareness in the classroom. table 1. a summary of moran’s (2001) cultural dimensions dimensions descriptions products art forms, institutions, places, & artifacts practices acts, operations, scenarios, & lives persons identity & life history perspectives perceptions, beliefs, values, & attitudes communities nation, coexistence, & relationships in addition, research on the area also found an inadequacy of cultural elements related to deep culture (perspectives) (rodríguez, 2015). most cultural elements are overwhelmed by surface cultures (products) such as food, holidays, celebrities, or tourist places. besides, another pivotal issue is the paucity of activities developing students’ intercultural awareness, (chao, 2011; hilliard, 2014; pasand, 2018). most activities in the textbooks evaluated are mainly about reading and listening, and short discussion questions, which require students to work in pairs or groups (hilliard, 2014). hilliard (2014) asserts that activities in the textbooks could not amply develop students’ intercultural awareness. this can be argued that students should be able to cultivate the scholarship of the target culture and so should they reflect on their culture and themselves. in this sense, cultural awareness could mean to hearing one self’s thoughts, feelings, and questions (moran, 2001), in response to a cultural situation or aspect. more importantly, research findings on teachers’ perceptions and practices regarding teaching culture have remained elusive in different contexts. a study by lessard-clouston (1996), who interviewed sixteen chinese teachers, found that although they acknowledged the importance of culture in the elt, they taught culture to students sometimes only. the study further revealed that the teachers were uncertain about how to teach culture in the elt class. the ambivalence of how to teach culture in the elt was also reported by other studies (luk, 2012; young & sachdev, 2011). another similar study (sercu, et al., 2004), which surveyed thirty-five teachers in spain, reported an incongruent result between teachers’ views toward teaching culture and their practices. while the teachers agreed on the significance of teaching culture, they tended to devote more time teaching the language, overlooking the cultural aspects. lim and keuk (2018), who interviewed cambodian teachers in a tertiary setting in phnom penh, also found that owing to the teachers’ culturally-limited scholarship of the target culture, they sometimes ignored the cultural aspects in the textbooks by focusing the language only. a conceptual framework of textbook adaption to intercultural awareness as mentioned earlier, the issue of teaching culture in the elt is to call for textbook adaptation which can act as the “catalyst” for textbook improvements at the classroom-level. teachers can develop textbooks as curriculum transmitters, curriculum developers, and curriculum makers (shawer, 2010a). curriculum transmitters just deliver textbooks page-by-page and an activity-by-activity. however, since several studies have reported issues over the inclusion of cultural contents and activities in internationally-published english textbooks, this approach (transmission) might not enable students to become aware of cultural contents effectively, especially to develop the intercultural awareness. research (shawer, et al., 2008) also indicated that curriculum transmission approach did not show a noteworthy change in students’ cognitive and affective, this is not to mention helping students learn cultural contents. thus, the curriculum development approach might develop culturally-limited learning. the other alternative approaches would merit the curriculum development approach and curriculum-making approach. research showed that the two approaches have a significant impact on students’ cognition and affective changes (shawer, et al., 2008). for the curriculum development davut nhem/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 68 approach, teachers can adapt textbooks by adding or replacing activities or materials. considering the textbook adaptation or development, moran (2001) proposes cultural activities into four groups: developing skills (e.g. dialogues or role plays), gathering information (e.g. personal’s real stories or authentic materials), discovering explanations (e.g. explanation of cultural meanings, or projects), and reflection (e.g. relating cultural information to their lives). these activities can be included when teachers develop textbooks and are of essence in developing students’ intercultural awareness, especially the awareness of their thoughts or perspectives (knowing oneself). for the curriculum-making approach, teachers take a step further by analyzing learners’ needs, interests, and abilities (shawer, 2010a). teachers conduct a need analysis and consult learning content and activities with their students in the classroom. this approach indicates that teachers have more rooms to improve their textbooks to serve the needs, interests, and abilities of their students. therefore, drawn on the discussion of the textbook adaptation, it becomes apparent that two approaches, namely that the curriculum development and curriculum-making approaches, are more likely to develop students’ intercultural awareness magnificently, and especially to overcome the concerns about the cultural inclusion in efl materials, as reported by several studies stated earlier. methods this study was conducted in a qualitative approach to investigate teachers’ perceptions and practices of the textbook development to help students develop intercultural awareness at one language school in phnom penh, cambodia. the school was a private one, which provided the general khmer education program (k-12 grade), chinese language program, and the english language program. the english language program was divided into two: the young learners program and the adult english program. thus, this study was conducted in the adult english program in which most students were about between 15 and 20 years old. upon granting permission from the vice school principal who was in charge of the adult english program, the researcher recruited three cambodian teachers who voluntarily participated in the study. these teachers were purposefully selected based on some criteria (e.g. education & teaching experience). teachers without these qualifications were not chosen. for the three participants, two teachers hold a bachelor of education in tefl (teaching english as a foreign language) with three years of teaching experience while one teacher holds a bachelor of education in tefl, plus a master of education and has over ten years of teaching experience. they all graduated from the same university in phnom penh. the three participants involved in the study through individual interviews and classroom observations. the individual interviews, which were semi-structured so that the researcher could ask further questions, were conducted nearly one hour prior to the classroom observation, and the conversations were recorded in a mobile phone. for the classroom observation, an observation form was developed and structured into a descriptive note (describing all the activities happened in the classroom) and interpretive note (interpreting the activities written in the descriptive note). the teachers agreed to prepare a lesson and allowed to be observed formally. during the observations, the researcher participated as a silent observer and recorded all the activities happening in the whole class from the beginning to the end in the three sessions. after each observation, the researcher also had a follow-up interview (around 20 minutes) with the teachers to clarify some activities and what they perceived about their teaching. besides, some documents (e.g. lesson plans and teaching materials) were also collected for the analysis. table 2. a summary of participants’ demographic information nickname sex age degree specialization teaching experience p1 m mid 20s b.ed tefl 3 years p2 f mid 20s b.ed tefl 3 years p3 m early 30s m.ed b.ed education tefl 16 years the data from the interviews and classroom observations were transcribed and entered in nvivo software for the analysis. the data were inductively coded into themes while each participant was given a nickname, p1, p2, and p3 respectively. that means the data were coded with reference to the relevancy of the research objectives. for the textbooks and materials used by the teachers, the davut nhem/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 69 researcher also conducted analysis on the cultural content and cultural activities with reference to the moran’s framework of culture and cultural activities presented earlier. findings and discussion this section provides the study’s findings, which are classified into two themes: textbook adaptation and cultural integration in the textbook adaptation. in each theme, teachers’ views and practices regarding the textbook adaption and teaching culture are compared and elaborated judiciously. textbook adaptation: perceptions and practices to better understand the integration of culture in the elt, the study, first, sought to explore teachers’ views and practices of the textbook adaptation or development in their teaching profession. the interview results indicated that all the teachers perceived the importance of the textbook development at the classroom-level. the teachers usually developed textbooks prior to or during the process of their teaching. the development of textbooks was regarded as an eclectic way for the implementation of any textbooks. for example, p3 remarked “it is very important that, just like i mentioned already, if we develop the textbooks, the students will learn effectively.’’ p1 also pronounced “yes…sometimes i don’t follow a hundred percent of the textbook. it’s based on the students’ performance and abilities to assimilate the lessons.” in addition, the driven factors to develop textbooks were primarily about linguistic concerns, learners’ abilities, and students’ affective. vocabulary and grammar were considered as the linguistic challenges for these teachers. they were concerned about the level of language difficulties because this would affect students’ abilities and motivation in learning. for example: exactly! because as we know that our students…i mean some they have limited knowledge. sometimes the contents, that the textbooks provide them, don’t fit to what they need. so, we have to be stick with what they really need. (p2) acknowledging that the textbook development is pivotal for their teaching, the teachers usually employed the curriculum transmission approach and curriculum development approach at the classroom-level when they faced linguistic constraints, as mentioned earlier. for example, they typically added teaching materials (e.g. grammar or vocabulary practices), activities (group or pair work) and searching for information online. if the content and activities in textbooks were sufficient, they just delivered them. below are some comments. in order to understand the contents in the reading, i ask them to work in the group to do more research on the content. for example, if the topic is about … something in australia and i want them to get familiar with it, i ask them to work in group. i write some questions related to the topic on the whiteboard. then i ask them to work in the group and after that i select them to talk, to present in the class, and then get them to do the exercise. (p2) i think sometimes i just find some handouts to make them learn. like if we talk about grammar in the textbook, sometimes it is complicated. so as a teacher, we have to simplify the language points, or to make it easier for the students to understand them. so, i will summarize grammar points on the whiteboard. and after that i provide documents about exercises and let them practice. they can work in groups or work individually based on the time. and after that just let the students to practice the exercises, and i ask them to explain why they choose that answer. (p3) however, the results obtained from the classroom observations revealed different approaches to the textbook development of the three teachers. p1 employed the curriculum-making approach by creating a lesson related to superstitions to teach his students. the development of the lesson was aimed to stimulate students’ interest in learning while no specific need analysis was conducted. p3 remarked: so, because sometimes we cannot follow hundred percent from the textbook. we have to adjust the textbook to the outside world. if we teach a hundred davut nhem/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 70 percent from the textbook, students might feel bored. so, we have to try to find some interesting lessons for them. p2 just delivered the textbook activity-by-activity and page-by-page (curriculum transmission approach) while p3 added a handout of grammar exercises and a writing task (your last vacation) (curriculum development approach). yet, the writing task was not inherently related to the theme of the lesson “celebrities” and one speaking activity in the textbook was excluded. from the observation, p3 developed the textbook by taking into account linguistic challenge (grammar). thus, the teachers approached the textbooks as a curriculum maker, curriculum transmitter, and curriculum developer. (more details are discussed below.) cultural integration in the textbook adaptation perceptions and the realities in the investigation of the teachers’ perceptions about teaching culture, the results obtained from the interviews showed the teachers’ awareness of the cultural aspects presented in efl textbooks. for instance, p3 elucidated that “culture is the way of life.” he raised some examples of culture such as religion (buddhism in cambodia) and communication (greeting). furthermore, the three teachers believed that language is inextricably intertwined with culture. to learn a language, it is unavoidably to learn the cultural aspects and values of that language, they clarified. also, culture could facilitate the process of language learning better, p2 explained. the teachers provided some examples of cultural contents (e.g. the way people think, sports, architecture, or histories) appeared in the textbooks that they taught. this means that they have recognized the cultural information in efl textbooks. below are the examples from the teachers’ interview. because we don’t just learn the language. we also need to learn the culture of that language. knowing a language itself is not enough. knowing the culture helps you understand better about the language. (p2) currently i am teaching ellevate. ellevate is up-to-date. in the book, basically i can see that they focus on the south-east asia as well, like places, architectures, or sports. even the sports itself in the western there is no “pakror.” maybe you know…sometimes we call it “pakror.” but they mention that it is in south-east asia. and the textbook also includes interesting resorts in south-east asia as well. so the students get to know the target language and later on they can understand the cultural aspects outside their own country. (p1) the teachers further expressed that they usually included cultural activities in their teaching. yet, when it comes to the textbook development to promote cultural learning and intercultural awareness in the elt, one teacher (p2) just implemented textbooks (curriculum transmission approach) while the other two teachers claimed that they supplemented certain activities or materials (curriculum development). for p1, he would make use of the availability of resources (e.g. smart devices) in the classroom. in this sense, he usually assigned students to work in groups and search for more cultural information; then they had to present their reports to the class. another teacher (p3) would search for more cultural contents himself and prepare a handout for his students. thus, the teachers’ conceptualization of cultural integration in the textbook development in the elt is predominantly driven by the extension of cultural content or information. the findings from the classroom observations also confirmed the interview results. that is, they employed curriculum-making, curriculum transmission, and curriculum development. p1 created the lesson about superstitions, in which students worked in groups and read the handout about superstitions. after that, the students explained the meanings of each superstition. furthermore, the students were required to search for some superstitions, believed by cambodian people and present the results to the class. p1 stated “i ask them to do research. they work in groups, so they share their ideas. and the other one is i allow them to use their smart device to search for information.” for p2, she just implemented the textbook like what she explained during the pre-observation interview. her lesson was about comparison and contrast essays. the class began with a brief discussion about two different photos (different types of learning environments) and students were davut nhem/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 71 required to reflect on which types of learning environments they would prefer (intercultural awareness). then, the students were directed to read a text about “learning about differences” and answered some questions concerning cultural differences (e.g. addressing professors’ names, inequality of genders in academic settings, and segregation of genders in the classroom) between the usa and malaysia. another teacher (p3) delivered a lesson about “where was he born?” which focused on careers and celebrities (famous first). the students were asked to match some words with the photos in the textbook. then, the students read a text and answered some questions related to cultural information (e.g. the first person on the moon, the first woman climbing mt. everest). drawn from this discussion, p2 did not involve in the textbook development when taking into consideration teaching culture, except for p1 who created his lesson and p3 who added some cultural questions. the development of intercultural awareness while the teachers’ integration of culture in their teaching profession was observed in this study, the results drawn from the classroom observations further revealed that the interculturality-stimulated activities were virtually absent in the classrooms, which contradicted the teachers’ views shared during the interview. in the interview, the teachers remarked that they usually employed certain strategies or techniques, namely, comparison and reflection to help students become aware of their culture. the purpose of the comparison and reflection was to help students discover what cultural aspects exist or not exist in cambodia. for example, p3 stated that he raised an example of a cultural element (pyramid) in egypt and asked students to think of one of the wonders (angkor wat) in cambodia. another teacher (p2) told her students about the fast food which represents western culture, not khmer culture. however, as noted previously, such claims were virtually unobservable during the actual classroom observations. drawn from the data analysis, the teachers’ view of the “intercultural awareness” was superficial. they were likely to view “intercultural awareness” as knowing what rather than knowing why and knowing oneself. this view has ignored the significant messages or hidden meanings of cultural elements transmitted in textbooks or teaching materials, and could not reach the development of knowing oneself. for instance, during the classroom observation p1 organized students into groups to discuss superstitions in the handout. after the discussion, a representative from each group presented their report (explanation of the meanings of superstitions). then, the students were assigned to search for some superstitions, believed by cambodian people and they had to present the report again. p1 remarked the meaning behind superstitions … like we can categorize between good superstitions, good lucks, bad lucks. and some superstitions people believe in such as animals, spirits or something like that. unfortunately, the deep meanings of each superstition were not explored thoughtfully by the teacher and students. an example of the superstitions is “if a dog howls at night, death is near.” some important questions should have been asked about this superstition. for example, what is the hidden meaning of this superstition? what is death? do you (students) believe it? why? why do people believe it? are people in other contexts likely to believe it? are you superstitious? why? these questions could guide students to develop intercultural awareness and become aware of themselves (knowing self). p2, who just implemented the textbook, did make students reflect on their preference on learning environment (inside or outside the classroom). however, some cultural aspects in the usa that appeared in the textbook were not compared to those in cambodia. for instance, students in the usa call their professors by first name, and female students are separated from male students in the class. such cultural aspects should have been compared and reflected on. besides, students’ feelings, thoughts, or perceptions regarding those cultural aspects should be voiced. the other participant (p3) presented cultural aspects through reading activities and asking questions. for example, he asked students about famous (film) directors in cambodia as a reflection on cambodian celebrities. yet, students’ perspectives on the preferences and values of those celebrities and careers were not sought to interpret. likewise, the time spending on discussing davut nhem/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 72 cultural aspects was rather rushed. students could discuss cultural information in groups to reflect on their thoughts or feelings. to conclude, the findings in the current study revealed a caveat about teaching culture, particularly on the intercultural awareness development in the context investigated. simply put, the teachers viewed the essential role of culture and sough to integrate intercultural activities in the elt classroom, yet the teaching practices could not sufficiently realize their promises. discussion the vitality of the textbook development at the classroom-level in the pursuit of textbook improvements is not an emerging concept (graves, 2008). this notion conveys an essence that how textbooks are implemented in the classroom to enhance learning outcomes is of the concern. in the current study, the three teachers subscribed to the belief that the development of textbooks to deal with students’ interests and abilities, and linguistics challenges is fundamentally needed. such concerns are added to the literature and support the previous study (duarte & escobar, 2008), which investigated the use of adapted materials on the impacts of the level of students’ motivation. the study (duarte & escobar, 2008) indicated that the adaptation of textbooks (curriculum development approach) has more merits in terms of enhancing students’ affective, and tackling with linguistics difficulties. the same results were reported in another study (shawer, et al., 2008) which revealed a significant growth of students’ cognition and affective as the result of the textbook development. this discussion makes it apparent that the anxiety of students’ affective toward language learning and linguistic difficulties requires teachers to develop textbooks to make them suitable for their classroom contexts. given the textbook adaptation or development at the classroom-level, the approaches to which teachers can develop their textbooks take in form of curriculum transmission, curriculum development, and curriculum-making (shawer, 2010a). in this study the teachers’ views and practices on the textbook development were not compromised. this means that although the teachers’ perception of the importance of the textbook development was revealed, they approached the textbooks differently as the curriculum transmitter, curriculum developer, and curriculummaker. such differences in the textbook development could be due to certain driven factors. for example, a study (shawer, 2017) exploring teachers-driven factors on the textbook development, indicated an array of aspects such as expediency and quality of textbook, work pressure, teacher training, teacher experience, teachers’ preferences of teaching style, teacher-content style and beliefs, and institution policy. additionally, these differences in the textbook development indicate a tilt from experts-driven practice of textbooks to the context-driven practice of textbooks, in which teachers in diverse educational settings seek to compromise the informed textbooks with the prerequisites of their social contexts. in the current study, what can be concerned regarding the textbook development is the strategies of each textbook adaptation (development) approach employed to develop textbooks. for example, the needs analysis was not included in the curriculum-making approach, and the practice of the curriculum-making was naively based on the teacher’s presumption in the hope of attracting students’ interest and motivation in learning. that is, no needs analysis was conducted on the students before the selection of the materials used in the classroom. shawer (2010a) argues that some strategies including needs assessment, selection of topics, curriculum sequence, curriculum skeleton of pedagogical topics, and curriculum skeleton of pedagogical activities should be implemented orderly in the curriculum-making approach. besides, the adaptation of the pedagogical activity (writing task) in the curriculum development approach was rather irrelevant to the theme of the lesson being carried out. on the subject of the material adaptation, two vital criteria, namely, the effectiveness of the materials or activities for attaining fruitful outcomes of the course, and the appropriateness for the teachers and learners to work on, should matter most (grave, 1996 in marand, 2011). according to grave, the appropriateness should take into account students’ comfort and familiarity with the materials, students’ interests, the relevance of the content, and the level of language difficulties. furthermore, the interpretation of the textbook development at the classroom-level to develop intercultural awareness in the elt in this study reveals two caveats in the territory. first, despite the fact that all the teachers perceived the importance of the transmission of diverse cultural values in the elt, they approached the textbooks differently (curriculum-maker, curriculum transmitter, & curriculum developer). the curriculum-maker developed the lesson by assigning students to search davut nhem/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 73 for some cultural information (superstitions) lived in the cambodia context while the curriculum transmitter just delivered the textbook. the curriculum developer included some cultural questions related to the content in the textbook. this result pinpoints a caution about the delivery of the validity of cultural contents, which are usually biased in efl textbooks, as reported in several studies (e.g. chao, 2011; hilliard, 2014; kim & paek, 2015; rodríguez, 2015). second, although the teachers’ pursuit of teaching cultural aspects was aligned with the realities in the classroom, there was a paucity of the interculturality-stimulated activities in the three classrooms. for instance, one teacher (curriculum transmitter) only asked students to reflect on their preferences on the types of learning environment, and another teacher (curriculum developer) just asked the students about famous (film) directors in cambodia. the other teacher (curriculum-maker) did not ask students to reflect on themselves about whether they are superstitious. herein, most cultural values were not explored by the teachers and students. this result of the paucity of the activities to develop intercultural awareness in the elt supports previous studies (e.g. clouston, 1996; luk, 2012; sercu, et al., 2004; & young & sachdev, 2011), as mentioned earlier. more importantly, the curriculum transmission approach produces culturally-limited learning, as conceptualized earlier. what is new is that either the curriculum development approach or curriculum-making approach (shawer, 2010a) is essential only if the teachers are aware of the tactics of teaching culture. in this study, it is likely that the teachers’ knowledge of teaching culture might determine how they approach the textbooks. according to the analysis in this study, it can be concluded that the provision of cultural information rather than the development of intercultural awareness is more likely to be concerned by the teachers. theoretically speaking, four cultural dimensions, including products, practices, communities, and persons, are commonly introduced in the elt classrooms while the dimension of perspectives is excluded in this study. moran (2001) categorizes the four dimensions as explicit or tangible culture and perspectives as tacit or intangible culture, which requires more conscious learning and reflection, drawing on learners’ scholarship of the civilizations. thereby, it is recommended that the development elt courses for teachers should not be overshadowed the component of teaching culture. conclusion drawn on the data analysis, this paper presents an incongruous result between teachers’ perceptions and their practices concerning the textbook development and teaching culture in respect of interculturality-stimulated activities. the teachers in this study believed the importance of the textbook development at the classroom-level to enhance the effectiveness of the textbook implementation, in terms of enriching students’ interests and addressing linguistics difficulties (e.g. new words or grammar) to fit students’ abilities. yet, there was a diversity of the actual teaching practices, from which concerns arose. thereby, it is advised that teacher professional development on the textbook adaptation or development should be provided to the teachers so that they are better informed about how to develop textbooks in a way that helps students learn the language successfully (also suggested by research by shawer, 2010b). another caveat should be about the development of students’ intercultural awareness, which is found to be eluded in this study. thus, teacher training about teaching culture is also recommended in the context of the study and beyond. this study also carried some limitations; first, the numbers of participants were small (only three teachers), which means that more participants might reveal different findings. second, the classroom observation on the three teachers was observed one session only. more classroom observations would reveal more actual practices of the teachers’ teaching and the data might be different. acknowledgement this article was written based on the research report of my ma thesis at the institute of foreign languages (ifl), royal university of phnom penh. i would like to express my best thanks to mr. kea sothy (my supervisor) for his advice and warmest support on the project. references baker, w. 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(2011). intercultural communicative competence: exploring english language teachers’ beliefs and practices. language awareness, 20(2), 81-98. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 69 elt forum 6 (1) (2017) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt thematic progression on students’ recount texts irfina safitri, seful bahri  english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in june 2017 approved in july 2017 published in august 2017 ________________ keywords: students’ recount texts, coherence, theme and rheme, thematic progression ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this paper is based on a study aimed to find out the types of thematic progression patterns the students mostly employ in their recount texts and to examine the coherence of fourth semester students’ recount texts viewed from their thematic progression of the english department, universitas negeri semarang in the academic year of 2015/2016 who took genre-based writing (gbw) class in rombel 1. this study was a written discourse analysis which was used to figure out the realization of meanings. the findings showed that all of the students employed more than one pattern in their recount texts. they tended to use combination between reiteration (constant), zig-zag (linear), and multiple theme patterns. however, reiteration was the most dominant one. the second dominant pattern was zig-zag pattern. the third pattern found in the students’ recount texts was multiple theme. the analysis also showed that the number of clauses and the thematic progression patterns produced by the students are not equivalent. it means that there are many clauses which are not related to one another. the students often introduced some new themes at the beginning of the clause without any relation with other clauses and they break the well signposted progression of the text. it can be concluded that most of the recount texts produced by the students are not coherent. © 2017 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: unnes_english@yahoo.com i. safitri & s. bahri / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 70 introduction writing is one of the four skills in english from which students are supposed to master besides listening, speaking and reading. those skills are classified into two main skills – receptive and productive skills (priyatmojo, 2012 ).writing is one of the four major language skills that is considered as the most difficult skill. it is because writing conveys a meaning from the thinking process to the readers. by writing, people can share ideas, feeling, and thought as well as persuade other people. moreover, writing can be good reflection of the students‘ understanding of learning english. since writing is an important skill in teaching and learning english, it needs a lot of practice, guidance and feedback to improve the students‘ writing ability. writing ability is not acquired naturally, it requires the learners to be taught and practiced. there are some factors that cause an ineffective teaching and learning of writing. first, it comes from the students themselves. they are lack of basic writing skill and also less confident in writing. in addition, they need a lot of practice as they do not have enough chance to practice writing. most of the students do not know how to start their writing and do not have enough ideas to write. they cannot generate their ideas and cannot choose the right words. they also tend to write a paragraph without knowing about theme and rheme. this condition will make their writing not in a good order. that is why it needs a new strategy in teaching writing. from the teacher‘s point of view, learning writing is training the students to write as many paragraphs as possible. the teacher just gives a few topics and then the students are asked to write a text that is appropriate to the topic. they do not have enough materials on how to develop their ideas into a written text. as the result, the students‘ orientations are on the products of writing, not from the process of writing, so their writing is not well organized. the way of teaching writing above does not use the appropriate method. a teacher only knows the result of writing, not from the process. the definition of theme by halliday as cited in eggins (2004:299) is the element which serves as starting point for the message, so it talks about a clause is going to be about. the theme here typically contains familiar or ―given‖ information. meanwhile the definition of rheme by eggins (2004:300) is the part of the clause in which the theme is developed. therefore, the rheme typically contains unfamiliar or ―new‖ information. in writing skill, students have to be able to compose a text based on genre. genre is a kind of text-type, as gerot and wignell (1994:17) stated ―a genre can be defined as a culturally specific text-type which results from using language (written and spoken) to (help) accomplish something.‖ they also stated that genre is culture specific, and has associated with them: particular purposes, particular stages, and particular linguistic features. knowledge of genre is important for language teachers in order to help the students compose texts. there are some types of genre that are taught in school such as narrative, recount, report, procedure, discussion, explanation, exposition, spoof, anecdote, news item, description, and etc. a recount text is a text that retells someone‘s experience in the past. students have to be able to compose recount texts, and they also have to be able to convey the meaning of the text based on social function, generic structure, and lexicogrammatical features of recount text. gerot and wignell (1994:194) stated that the social function of recount text is to retell events for the purpose of informing or entertaining. the generic structures of recount text are i. safitri & s. bahri / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 71 orientation that provides the setting and introduces participants; events which tell what happened, in what sequence; and re-orientation (optional—closure of events). the significant lexicogrammatical features focus on using specific participants, material processes, circumstances of time and place, past tense, and temporal sequence. to make a coherent paragraph, the students should employ thematic progression patterns in their writing. according to paltridge (2002:140), ―thematic progression refers to the way in which the theme of a clause may pick up, or repeat, a meaning from a preceding theme or rheme.‖ there are three kinds of thematic progression patterns, reiteration or constant theme pattern, zig zag or linear theme pattern, and multiple theme or split theme pattern. in this study, the researcher intends to find out the types of thematic progression patterns the students mostly employ in their recount texts and to examine the coherence of the students‘ recount texts viewed from their thematic progression. methodology of the research this study was a written discourse analysis which was used to figure out the realization of the meaning. according to creswell (2009:173), ―qualitative procedures demonstrates a different approach to scholarly inquiry than methods of quantitative research‖. qualitative inquiry employs different philosophical assumptions; strategies of inquiry; and methods of data collection, analysis, and interpretation. although the processes are similar, qualitative procedures rely on text and image data, have unique steps in data analysis, and draw on diverse strategies of inquiry. the object of the study was the recount texts of the fourth semester students of the english department, universitas negeri semarang in the academic year of 2015/2016 who took genre-based writing (gbw) class in rombel 1. in this study, the types of data were written discourse analysis data that were described in the form of clauses. in collecting the data, the researcher took several steps. the first one was documentation. in this step, the researcher took the data from the recount texts of the fourth semester students of the english department, universitas negeri semarang in the academic year of 2015/2016 who took genre-based writing (gbw) class in rombel 1. the second one was listing. this step, the researcher listed all the clauses of the students‘ recount texts. the third one was identifying. the researcher analyzed the students‘ recount texts using thematic progression patterns. in analysing the data, the researcher read all the students‘ recount texts. the researcher should understand each of the students‘ recount texts. next, the researcher divided the students‘ recount texts into clauses. then, the researcher analyzed the students‘ recount texts. firstly, the clauses were analysed in terms of thematic structures in order to figure out the point of departure of each clause. secondly, the researcher analyzed the students‘ recount texts using thematic progression patterns to see the types of thematic progression patterns the students mostly employ in their recount texts and to examine the coherence of the students‘ recount texts viewed from their thematic progression. after analysing the students‘ recount texts, the researcher calculated the thematic progression patterns of each of the students‘ recount texts, and categorized them in the table below: i. safitri & s. bahri / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 72 thematic patterns the students‘ writings 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 reiteration zig-zag multiple total of clauses table 2.1 thematic progression patterns of the students‘ recount texts in reporting the data, the researcher presented two kinds of reporting data. the first one is presenting table and figure. in reporting the data, the researcher showed the tables and figures that were used to present the percentage of each item analysis which supported the thematic progressions analysis. the second one is discussion. the researcher interpreted the data descriptively. result and discussion there are 20 students‘ recount texts as the data of this research. the writings are in the form of paragraphs with different topics. the students chose their own topic such as unforgettable experience, impressive moment, unforgettable holiday, and etc. in this part, the writer presents the thematic progression patterns of every students‘ writing to know the types of the thematic progression patterns the students mostly employ in their recount texts and the coherence of the students‘ recount texts viewed from their thematic progression. the table below illustrates the numbers and the writings flow produced by the students in their writings. 1. thematic progression patterns in the students’ recount texts students‘ writing thematic progression pattern reiteration zig-zag multiple total of clauses 1 13 5 2 34 2 13 3 2 32 3 13 2 2 29 4 9 4 2 33 5 9 6 30 6 6 12 28 7 17 3 37 8 8 7 23 9 18 7 2 46 10 10 12 40 11 6 10 4 36 12 15 9 5 33 13 13 9 2 35 14 15 15 6 52 15 9 7 9 34 i. safitri & s. bahri / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 73 16 18 5 3 37 17 9 6 29 18 11 6 6 28 19 12 5 2 26 20 20 10 11 51 total 245 143 67 693 percentage 35.35% 20.63% 9.67% 100% table 2.2 : the thematic progression pattern of the students‘ recount texts the table shows that there are three types of the thematic progression patterns found in the students‘ recount texts. they are reiteration/constant theme pattern, zig-zag/linear theme pattern, and multiple theme. it can be seen from the table that the most dominant thematic progression pattern found in the students‘ writings is reiteration/constant theme pattern with 35.35%. the second dominant is zig-zag pattern with 20.63%. the third pattern found in the students‘ writing is multiple theme with 9.67%. 1.1 reiteration/constant theme pattern as shown in the table 2, the most dominant thematic progression pattern found in the students‘ writings is reiteration/constant theme pattern. in this case, the students tend to use personal pronouns such as i, you, we, they, she, he, and it in their writings. the students think that it is easier for them by repeating theme of one clause to another at the beginning of a clause. it can be seen from the example taken from the student‘s text. text 7 theme 1 rheme 1 theme 2 rheme 2 theme 3 rheme 3 theme 4 rheme 4 theme 5 rheme 5 theme 8 rheme 8 i. safitri & s. bahri / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 74 theme 9 rheme 9 theme 11 rheme 11 theme 12 rheme 12 theme 16 rheme 16 theme 17 rheme 17 theme 18 rheme 18 theme 19 rheme 19 theme 20 rheme 20 theme 21 rheme 21 theme 22 rheme 22 theme 23 rheme 23 theme 24 rheme 24 i. safitri & s. bahri / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 75 theme 25 rheme 25 theme 26 rheme 26 theme 27 rheme 27 theme 29 rheme 29 theme 30 rheme 30 theme 34 rheme 34 theme 35 rheme 35 theme 36 rheme 36 theme 37 rheme 37 it can be seen from the figure above that the theme of the first clause ‘one of my unforgettable experiences‘ becomes the theme in the second clause. then, the theme in the third clause ‗when i‘ is repeated in the theme of the fourth and the fifth clauses. also, the theme in the eighth clause ‗where we‘ becomes the theme in the ninth clause ‗then we‘. the theme in the eleventh clause ‗i‘ becomes the theme in the twelfth clause ‗because finally i‘, too. next, the theme in sixteenth clause ‗many kinds of animals‘ becomes the theme in the seventeenth clause ‗there‘. then, the theme in the twentieth clause ‗my mom‘ becomes the theme in the twenty first clause ‗that she‘. besides, the theme in the twenty second clause ‗then we‘ is picked up and repeated in the theme of the twenty third, twenty fourth, twenty fifth, twenty sixth, and twenty seventh clauses. the theme in the twenty ninth clause ‗we‘ also becomes the theme in the thirtieth clause ‗then we‘. the last, the theme in the thirty fourth clause ‗that i‘ is also repeated in the theme of the thirty fifth, thirty sixth, and thirty seventh clauses. i. safitri & s. bahri / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 76 1.2 zig-zag/linear theme pattern based on table 2, it can be seen that the second dominant pattern found in the students‘ writings is zig-zag/linear theme pattern. in this pattern, the rheme of one clause is taken up in the theme of a following clause. the examples are taken from the students‘ writing and can be seen in the figure below. text 6 theme 1 rheme 1 theme 2 rheme 2 theme 4 rheme 4 theme 5 rheme 5 theme 7 rheme 7 theme 8 rheme 8 theme 9 rheme 9 theme 11 rheme 11 theme 12 rheme 12 theme 13 rheme 13 theme 14 rheme 14 i. safitri & s. bahri / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 77 theme 15 rheme 15 theme 16 rheme 16 theme 17 rheme 17 theme 18 rheme 18 theme 20 rheme 20 theme 21 rheme 21 theme 25 rheme 25 theme 26 rheme 26 it can be seen in the figure above that the rheme in the first clause ‗my grandmother said to my mother‘ changes to ‗that she‘ and becomes the theme in the second clause. then, the rheme in the fifth clause ‗prepared a lot of thing‘ also becomes the theme in the seventh clause ‗after all the preparation‘. the rheme of the eighth clause ‗went to purbalingga at 6 a.m.‘ also changes to ‗it‘ and becomes the theme in the ninth clause. next, the rheme in the eleventh clause ‗decided to visit purbayasa, one of the favorite tourism places‘ becomes the theme in the twelfth clause ‗in purbayasa‘. the rheme of the twelfth clause ‗there is a giant aquarium‘ becomes the theme in the thirteenth clause ‗this giant aquarium‘, too. also, the theme of the thirteenth clause ‗has a wide variety of fish and sea animals from asia, australia, europe, america and africa‘ becomes the theme in the sixteenth clause ‗in addition to a wide variety of fish, in this purbayasa‘. besides, the rheme of the sixteenth clause ‗there are also many kinds of birds and various species of flora‘ becomes the theme in the seventeenth clause ‗my most favorite bird‘. then, the rheme of the seventeenth clause ‗is peacock‘ becomes the theme in the eighteenth clause ‗the wings of peacock‘. the other is the rheme of the twentieth clause ‗we decided to take a rest‘ becomes the theme in the twenty first i. safitri & s. bahri / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 78 clause ‗and (we)‘. the last, the rheme of the twenty fifth clause ‗all of us felt tired‘ changes to ‗so we‘ and becomes the theme in the twenty sixth clause. 1.3 multiple theme it can be seen from table 2 that the third theme pattern found in the students‘ writings is multiple theme. in this pattern, the students try to develop their paragraphs by picking the rheme which may include a number of different pieces of information. each of which may be taken up as the theme in a number of subsequent clauses. the examples below are taken from the students‘ writings on and can be seen in the following figure. text 15 theme 6 rheme 6 theme 7 rheme 7 theme 12 rheme 12 theme 14 rheme 14 theme 16 rheme 16 theme 17 rheme 17 theme 18 rheme 18 theme 19 rheme 19 theme 20 rheme 20 i. safitri & s. bahri / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 79 theme 21 rheme 21 theme 22 rheme 22 theme 24 rheme 24 theme 28 rheme 28 it can be seen from the figure above that the rheme of the sixth clause ‗we went to kuta beach‘ is taken up as the theme in the seventh and the twelfth clauses. the rheme of the fourteenth clause ‗passed the night at the backyard of my cousins‘ house‘ is also taken up as the theme in the sixteenth and the nineteenth clauses. besides, the rheme of the sixteenth clause ‗i really felt‘ is taken up as the theme in the eighteenth, twenty second, and twenty fourth clauses. the last, the rheme of the twentieth clause ‗we went to tanjung benoa‘ is taken up as the theme in the twenty first and the twenty eighth clauses. 2. coherence of the students’ recount texts viewed from their thematic progression the ability to make a coherent paragraph in writing is a very important skill the students need to master. this skill is considered very helpful in their studies, when writing in their native language as well as in foreign language. coherence means to hold together. it means that the texts have the right order with the clear process. coherence plays an important role in writing activities. coherence, that is usually used in many reading texts should have well-organized paragraphs, where in the text, they have clear main ideas which are supported by relevant sentences. to organise any text into a coherent whole, the writers need to keep their readers well informed about where they are and where they are going (butt et al, 2000:134). based on using functional grammar, there are grammatical resources to signpost the way through clauses, clause complexes and paragraphs, from the beginning to the end of a text. according to butt et al. (2000:134), the first signpost must be at the beginning of a text, paragraph or clause. it tells the readers what the writer has in mind as a starting point. the signposts realise the textual meanings. the writers use the first position in the clause to signal to their readers what the message is about. the first position in a clause contains textual meanings because it signposts the development of a text. to analyse textual meanings, we need a simple and distinct metalanguage. we call the first element theme and the rest of the clause rheme. based on the finding in table 2, the number of clauses and the thematic progression patterns produced by the students is not balanced. it means that there are many clauses which are not related to one another. the students often introduced some new themes at the beginning of the clause without any relation with other clauses and they break the well signposted progression of the text. for brief explanation, it can be seen in the example below. i. safitri & s. bahri / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 80 text 1 text 1 is talking about impressive moment and it is found that the theme of the first clause ‗i‘ becomes the theme in the second clause ‗when i‘. then, the rheme of the first clause ‗would like to share you about my impressive experience‘ changes to ‗it‘ and becomes the theme of the third clause. however, the theme of the third clause has no relation with the theme of the fourth clause, which breaks the well signposted progression of the text. the student introduces the new theme in the third clause. it talks about when the impressive experience happened, meanwhile the theme of the fourth clause refers to the previous theme of clause 1 ‗i‘, so the theme of the third clause is not related to the theme of the fourth clause because there is no logical connection between them. next, the theme of the fourth clause ‗i‘ becomes the theme in the fifth clause ‗because i‘. the other is the rheme of the fifth clause ‗joined an extracurricular ―pecinta alam‖‘ changes to ‗well, in that moment‘ and becomes the theme of the sixth clause. then, the rheme of the sixth clause ‗my friends and i had to take a long march‘ is taken up in the theme of the seventh and the tenth clauses. besides, the theme of the seventh clause ‗it‘ is repeated in the theme of the eighth and the ninth clauses. it is the same with the theme of the third and the fourth clauses, the theme of the tenth clause has no relation with the theme of the eleventh clause. the theme of the tenth clause refers to the previous theme of clause 6, but in the theme of the eleventh clause the student introduces the new theme. the student used an adverb of time ‗on the next day‘ which breaks the well signposted progression of the text, so the theme of the tenth clause is not related to the theme of the eleventh clause because the logical connection between them is weak. next, the rheme in the eleventh clause ‗we had to continue our activity‘ becomes the theme in the twelfth clause ‗survival, getting closer with a snake, sar, rappelling and other activity‘. then, the rheme of the twelfth clause ‗we spent in serang‘ becomes the theme of the fourteenth clause ‗when we‘. also, the theme of the fourteenth clause ‗when we‘ becomes the theme in the fifteenth clause ‗we‘. however, the theme of the fifteenth clause is not related to the theme of the sixteenth clause. the student used the different theme in the eleventh clause, which breaks the well signposted progression of the text. the theme of the fifteenth clause refers to the previous theme of clause 14, which talks about the student‘s friends and herself, but the theme of the sixteenth clause talks about herself only, so the theme of the fifteenth clause has no relation with the theme of the sixteenth clause because the logical connection between them is weak. the other is the theme of the sixteenth clause ‗i‘ is repeated in the theme of the seventeenth, the eighteenth, the nineteenth, the twentieth, and the twenty first clauses. then, the theme of the twenty first clause is not related to the theme of the twenty second and the twenty third clauses. the theme of the twenty first clause refers to the previous themes, but unexpectedly the student introduces the new themes in the twenty second and the twenty third clauses. the theme of twenty second and the twenty third clauses talk about the activity that the student did when joining an extracurricular ‗pecinta alam‘, which has no relation with the theme in the twenty first clause that talks about herself, so it breaks the well signposted progression of the text. next, the theme in the twenty third clause ‗in which we‘ becomes the theme of the twenty fourth clause ‗and(we)‘. besides, the rheme of the twenty fourth clause ‗catch a snake‘ changes to ‗it‘ and becomes the theme in the twenty fifth clause. however, the theme of the twenty fifth clause has no relation with the theme of the twenty sixth clause because the student introduces the new theme in the twenty sixth clause. the twenty fifth clause talks about catching a snake meanwhile the twenty sixth clause talks about the student‘s friends, so it breaks the well signposted progression of the text because there is no logical i. safitri & s. bahri / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 81 connection between them. the logical connection between the theme of the twenty fifth and the twenty sixth clauses is weak. then, the theme of the twenty sixth clause ‗because almost all of my friends‘ changes to ‗and they‘ in the theme of the twenty seventh clause. the logical connection between the theme of the twenty seventh and the twenty eighth clause is also weak because they have no relation. the theme of the twenty seventh clause refers to the previous theme of clause 26, but the theme of the twenty eighth clause is a new theme. it talks about the survival stage which has no relation with the theme of the twenty seventh clause that talks about the student‘s friends, so it breaks the well signposted progression of the text. next, the theme of the twenty ninth clause ‗all of us‘ also changes to ‗because we‘ and becomes the theme of the thirtieth clause. there are still five clauses that do not employ any pattern. the theme of the thirtieth clause is not related to the theme of the thirty first, thirty second, thirty third, and thirty fourth clauses because they are new themes. they used different themes in each clause. in the theme of the thirty first clause, the student used an adverb of time, which has no relation with the theme of the thirtieth clause. in the theme of the thirty second clause, it talks about the student‘s senior, which has no relation with the theme of the thirty first clause. in the theme of the thirty third clause, the student introduces a new theme ‗i‘, which has no relation with the theme of the thirty second clause. the last, the theme of the thirty third clause talks about the most impressive moment of her life, which has no relation with the theme of the thirty third clause, so the theme of the thirty first, thirty second, thirty third, and thirty fourth break the well signposted progression of the text. based on the analysis above, it can be concluded that text 1 is not coherent because there are many clauses which are not related to one another. the student often introduces some new themes at the beginning of the clause without any relation with other clauses and they break the well signposted progression of the text conclusions the objectives of this study are to find out the types of thematic progression patterns the students mostly employ in their recount texts and to examine the coherence of the fourth semester students‘ recount texts viewed from their thematic progression of the english department, universitas negeri semarang in the academic year of 2015/2016 who took genre-based writing class in rombel 1. based on the data analysis and the results of the study in the previous chapter, the conclusions can be drawn as follows. the findings showed that all of the students employed more than one pattern in their recount texts. they tended to use combination between reiteration (constant), zig-zag (linear), and multiple theme patterns. however, reiteration was the most dominant one. it can be said that it is easier for the students by repeating theme of one clause to another at the beginning of the clause. this pattern allowed the readers to easily find the information in the text. the second dominant pattern was zigzag pattern. most of zig-zag patterns occured in the relative clauses which functioned to replace the subject. this pattern indicated that the students tried to introduce newly information by promoting the rheme in the previous clause as the theme in the following clause. the third pattern found in the students‘ recount texts was multiple theme. in this pattern, the students tried to develop their writings by picking the rheme which may include a number of different pieces of information, each of which may be taken up as the theme in a number of subsequent clauses. the ability to make a coherent paragraph in writing is very important skill the students need to master. this skill is considered very helpful in their studies, when writing in their native language as well as in foreign language. coherence plays an important role in writing activities. coherence, i. safitri & s. bahri / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 82 that is usually used in many reading texts should have well-organized paragraphs, where in the text, they have clear main ideas which are supported by relevant sentences. the analysis also showed that the numbers of clauses and the thematic progression patterns produced by the students are not equivalent. it means that there are many clauses which are not related to one another. the students often introduced some new themes at the beginning of the clause without any relation with other clauses and they break the well signposted progression of the text. it can be concluded that most of the recount texts produced by the students are not coherent. references butt, david et al. 2001. using functional grammar: an explorer’s guide. second edition. sydney: national centre for english language and research. creswell, john. w. 2009. research design: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches 3rd edition. california: sage publications. eggins, suzanne. 2004. an introduction to systemic functional linguistoics 2nd edition. london: continuum. gerot, l. and p. wignell. 1994. making sense of functional grammar. sydney: gerd stabler. paltridge, brian. 2000. making sense of discourse analysis. queensland: merino lithographics. priyatmojo, arif suryo. 2012. improving coherence of the students’ sentences by applying thematic progression and personal blog in the sentence-based writing class. register journal language and language teaching journals vol 5, no 2. available at: http://journalregister.iainsalatiga.ac.id./ index.php/register/article/view/244 [accessed 08/14/16] 162 elt forum 9 (2) (2020) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt students’ perception on the use of android-based exam browser to assess final examination prahda alifa fegasanti1, arif suryo priyatmojo2 english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ______________ article history: received in 7 agustus 2020 approved in 29 november 2020 published in 30 november 2020 ______________ keywords: students’ perception; androidbased exam browser; exam browser; final examination ______________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this study aims to find out the students’ perception toward the use of androidbased exam browser as the medium to assess final examination. android based exam-browser is one of the secured web browsers for conducting online examination. this study is conducted since there are still limited research that is conducted in indonesia which analyses the students' perception toward the implementation of online examination by using android. this study was employed qualitative survey design in which the data of the students’ perception on the use of android based exam browser as the medium to assess final examination were obtained by questionnaire, interview, and also observation. this research shared questionnaires to 33 students. the questionnaire was a close-ended question. based on the findings of the study, 75,8 % of the students give a positive perception about android based exam browser. the students believed that android based exam browser was a useful, clear, and understandable platform for conducting online examination and it gave some positive impacts such as improving students’ speed in answering the questions, improving students’ performance in the test, and helping them to answer the exam easily. © 2020 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: prahdaalifa080198@gmail.com prahda alifa fegasanti, arif suryo priyatmojo/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 163 introduction the development of information and communication technology from the future increasingly facilitates human needs. along with the development of the age of technology increasingly role and benefit almost in all fields, including education. there are several factors that must be considered to improve the quality of education, one of which is students’ learning achievement. learning achievement is the result achieved by a person after he makes learning changes, both at school and outside of school. winkel (1996) argues that learning achievement is evidence of success that has been achieved by someone. meanwhile, according to gunarso (1993) suggests that learning achievement is the maximum effort achieved by someone after carrying out learning efforts. therefore, nasution (1996) argues that learning achievement is the perfection of a student in thinking, feeling and doing. so, learning achievement is the maximum result achieved by someone after carrying out learning efforts. learning achievement can be measured through tests which are often known as learning achievement tests. according to saifudin (2005), the test of learning achievement when viewed from the objective is to reveal a person's success in learning. in the world of education, exams are an effective way to measure the level of student achievement in schools, such as the daily examination, mid-semester examination, and final semester examination. in the 2014/2015 academic year there was a new policy that exams are carried out in two ways by a written mechanism or paper based test (pbt) or can be carried out with a computer-based mechanism or what is known as the computer based test (cbt). paper-based test (pbt) has many shortcomings in the preparation of test material, multiplication and distribution of question scripts, cheating during the test, requires a lot of cost, energy, time (clariana & wallace, 2002). with the development of technology at this time, one way to deal with the problem of the invalidity of the assessment is that the implementation of the national examination no longer uses the paper-based test system but uses the computer-based national examination system or computer based test (cbt). computer based test (cbt) is a test implementation system using computer media, android, and ios (akasheh, 2000). applications that can be used to carry out this test are html applications that can be used for applications on the os, for example android, ios and all computer operating systems, which is very important to use this application we need a web browser, for example google chrome, etc. currently, to optimize the use of information and communication technology in the world of education, several schools have begun to use devices (android) to carry out online-based exams. android based exam-browser is one of the secured web browsers for conducting online examination. it works in lock mode, so it prevents opening of any page, switching to unnecessary programs, operating system-specific key combinations and functions, leaving the browser secure at any time and opening gallery (putra & pamungkas, 2020). therefore, the use of the browser-based android exam is expected to minimize the opportunities for students to cheat (putra, maulana, & iriani,2019). android based exam browser system is considered very beneficial with a realistic process, saving costs and time (chikmah, 2016). a large body of research has been carried out to find out the use of computer based test to support the current study. the first study related to this article is a study conducted by chikmah (2016) entitled “students’ perception on proprofs online computer-based assessment software as an assessment tool at english education departement, uin sunan ampel surabaya”. the aim of the study was to determine the students’ perception and the result score towards the use of proprofs online cba (computer based assessment) software as an assessment tool. the finding of this research is there were 93% from the positive component and 7% from the negative component. it means that the students’ perception was positive about proprofs online computer as assessment tool. in addition, the conclusion of this study could give evaluation for the lecturer who uses proprofs. the previous studies conducted by chikmah (2016) was focused in the use of android based exam regarding the compatibility of a mobile phone, self-efficacy, and perceived ease of use. in this study, it not only focus on the compatibility of a mobile phone, self-efficacy, and perceived ease of use but also focus on knowing the students’ intention, anxiety and also android's attitude towards using cbt using android based exam browser. the second study related to this article is a study by by nugroho, kusumawati and ambarwati (2018) entitled “students’ perception on the use of computer based test”. this research filled the void in the literature by offering the experience of the students on the two evaluation methods (cbt and ppt). the aim of the study was to determine the students’ perception on the use of computer based test (cbt).the finding of this research was 31% of students that using cbt as their final exam prahda alifa fegasanti, arif suryo priyatmojo/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 164 prefers to use cbt as the means to conduct a test. meanwhile only 34% of them were disagree of cbt usage for conducting a test. the other students have neutral opinion towards the cbt test (35%). this previous studies was focused on students 'perceptions regarding whether or not to use cbt for exams without exploring students' perceptions of performance as well as the drawbacks of using cbt. this study will fill the gap in the literature by providing students' perceptions of focusing on the advantages and disadvantages of using cbt based exam browser by using android. this present study is conducted based on theory of perception (koentjaningrat, 1985) about the alignment of factors in the expression of perceptions such as feelings, needs, motivation, educational background and experiences which strongly related to a sense of organs (walgito, 2004). meanwhile, to determine the outcome of perception, theories that related to the types of perceptions (robbins, 2002; sarwono, 2002) to classified as positive perceptions or negative perceptions are used in this study. additionally, in relation to cbt (computer based test) knowledge, theories that related to the definition of cbt by using android-based exam browser (james, 2018; sarrayrih&ilyas, 2013), and key features of android-based exam browser (william, 2012) are used in this study. in terms of perception (koentjaningrat, 1985) explained that perception is a re-alignment of the human brain process and appears to be a phenomenon view many factors, such as feelings, needs, motivation, educational background and experience that are involved in this process. then the process is followed by a process which a person's brain arrives at meaningful perception of stimuli. furthermore, the stimulus can arrive from outside and inside of the individual (walgito, 2004).in addition, sarwono (2002) clarified that perception could be a way of feeling happy or unhappy that can be classified as positive perceptions and negative perceptions. positive perception plays a role in our senses that we continue to like or support a specific object. on the other hand, negative perception is a perception where a person tends to dislike or not support something. moreover, robbins (2002 ) described positive perception is an individual opinion about an object or information with an outlook, or the information is the same as that predicted by an person. meanwhile, negative perception is an individual perception that has a negative perspective on an object or specific knowledge that is different from the individual's expectations. the dissatisfaction of a human with an object is the source of negative perception. in terms of the definition of cbt by using android-based exam browser (sarrayrih & ilyas, 2013) stated that exam browser is a knowledge management program for quizzes, tests, practice, flashcards and information bases. exam browser is an application that is packaged in all in one moodle cbt or aiocbt mode which is a program to run computer-based exams but can also be accessed using android/ios.the benefit of students using mobile devices when conducting examinations is that they are more flexible because they do not need cable networks (sarrayrih and ilyas, 2013). moreover, android kiosk is basically a gadget or smartphone that is intended to run a single application and to serve certain cases. some basic requirements to be in kiosk mode include the need to be in a single mode serving specific use cases, hiding navigation, removing the toolbar, controlling or blocking all ways of setting it to the smartphone, turning off calls or messages according to the use case and the application must continue to run in mode full screen (james, 2018). the key features of this application used is lockdown application that is a computer program used during an online exam that attempts to prevent users from accessing software other than the exam application. the application will lock the online exam environment in a classroom or through an actor; prevent access to applications and other websites during the exam; prevent test takers from copying or printing exam content; as well as displaying the contents of the exam in full screen and cannot be minimized (william, 2012) so it can be helpful for less cheating by the students. however, due to the negative perceptions that arise from the results of previous study, this motivates me to know more about how the students’ feel about the implementation of android-based exams. on the other hand, because there are pros and cons related to the implementation of this online-based exam, this research is very important because students' perceptions are the main source for knowing and measuring the effectiveness of using android as a medium for implementing online exams. this study is intended to find out students’ perception on the use of android based exam browser as the medium to assess final examination. methods in this study, the researcher uses a descriptive qualitative method as her research methodology. in a qualitative method, it utilizes certain methodologies and procedures to generate qualitative data in the forms of words, either spoken or written (nahdia,2017). denzin & lincoln (2008), defines “qualitative prahda alifa fegasanti, arif suryo priyatmojo/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 165 research involves an interpretive and naturalistic approach means that qualitative researchers study things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of, or to interpret, phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them”. in other words, qualitative research tends to obtain the meanings, perception, explanation, and sensations. also, one fundamental characteristic of qualitative method is naturalistic data involvement (sumpada,2019). so, this research method attempts to study language learning and teaching in their naturally occurring setting without any intervention or manipulation of variables. this study was employed qualitative survey design in which the data of the students’ perception on the use of android based exam browser as the medium to assess final examination were obtained by questionnaire, interview, and also observation. ary et al (2018) state that survey is a researcher’s technique in which data are gathered by asking questions on a group of individuals called respondents. moreover, wiersma (1995) states that surveys are used to measure attitudes, opinions, or achievements in any number of variables in natural settings. in addition, according to arikunto (2010), a combination of various data resources and methods (multi data collection methods) is the appropriate method for qualitative study. for that reason, in this study, the researcher did some data collection methods such as observation, interview, questionnaire, and also documentation for having a complete data collection. this research was arranged in academic year 2019/2020. firstly, the researcher asking permission from the school’s area. after the researcher get permission from the headmaster, the researcher makes an appointment with teachers for the observation in class which already doing the examination by using android based exam browser. furthermore, during the data collecting methods, the researcher also documented the implementation of android-based exams. after did the observation, the researcher distributing the questionnaire to the students in that class. then, to obtain more in-depth information, the researcher was gathering the students in one room, and call them one by one in turn to conduct interview. after analyzing the texts, the researcher presented the results by using tables. then, the results were put into the discussion part in order to discuss and review the students' perception on using android based exam browser as the medium to conduct examination. the data gathered from the questionnaire were analyzed by the most frequent degree of agreement chosen as the way to summarize the data in a frequency distribution and calculate all the scores of each statement and process the total scores as the result in percentage. the data gathered from interview were analyzed by changing and describing the interview answers in text form, and it analyzed based on predetermined factors, then calculated the results obtained using a percentage. furthermore, the result of observation was used to support the previous data collected by the questionnaire and presenting together as the finding of the research. after that, the researcher drew the conclusion of the results. in order to know the validity of the data in qualitative research, the triangulation technique is employed. the type of triangulation technique that is chosen is method triangulation. through different data collection methods, it is expected to obtain results that are close to truth. findings and discussion the findings are presented into five parts; they are the students' interest, students' perception (perceived usefulness), students' perception (perceived ease of use), students' anxiety, and students' android attitude about the use of android based exam browser as the medium to assess final examination. students' interest about android-based exam browser according to ubaidillah (2020), interest is a constant process of paying attention and focusing on something that is of interest to him with feelings of pleasure and satisfaction. suharyat (2009) stated that interest is a mental device which consists of a mixture of feelings, hopes, convictions, prejudices, fears or other tendencies that lead the individual to a particular thought. in simple terms, interest (interest) means a tendency and high excitement or a great desire for something. abror (1993) said that interest can relate to the power of movement that encourages us to tend or feel attracted to people, objects, or activities or it can be an effective experience stimulated by the activity itself. in other words, interest can be a cause of activity and a cause of participation in activities. the table below shows the students' interest about android-based exam browser. prahda alifa fegasanti, arif suryo priyatmojo/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 166 table 1. students' interest about android-based exam browser item description agree percentage factor 1 intention 1. by using the android based exam browser system in the exams, i was able to answer the questions more quickly compared to a paper-based exam. 27 82% 5. android based exam browser system enabled me to take exams easily. 26 79% 12. using the android based exam browser system to take exams was a good idea. 22 67% 13. using the android based exam browser system to take exams was a wise idea. 23 70% 14. i liked the idea of using the android based exam browser system. 20 61% 15. using the android based exam browser system was pleasant. 26 79% 16. the android based exam browser system provided an attractive exam environment. 21 64% 17.i found using the android based exam browser system enjoyable. 25 76% 18.in general, i was positive toward android based exam browser system. 27 82% 19.i intend to take courses that use the android based exam browser in the future. 22 67% in this study, the researcher can conclude that the students believe that the use of android based exam browser as the medium to assess final examination is a good system for test. it can be proven by the result of questionnaire that 72% of the students give a positive perception about the use of android based exam browser system. it is also in line with chikmah (2016) statement that says computer based test is a good and enjoyable system for conducting online examination. the students believe that the use of android based exam browser can improve the students' speed in answering the questions and can make the exam easily. they also believe that android based exam browser is an attractive and enjoyable system and a good and wise idea from school which already implemented android based exam browser system. students' perception (perceived usefulness) about android-based exam browser information systems will be said to be effective if users believe that using information systems will improve their performance and believe that using information systems will make their efforts easier (wixom and todd, 2005). this is a certain perception and leads to user beliefs about information systems that affect the benefits they feel (wixom and todd, 2005). according to davis (1993) and algahtani (2001) the usefulness of information systems (perceived usefulness) is the extent to which an individual believes that using a particular system will improve performance. meanwhile, according to gong and xu (2004) the definition of perceived usefulness is the subjective probability that users using certain application systems can increase their expectations. the table below shows the students' perception (perceived usefulness) about android-based exam browser. table 2. students' perception (perceived usefulness) about android-based exam browser item description agree percentage factor 2 perceived usefulness 2.using android based exam browser system improved my performance in the exam. 19 58% 4.using android based exam browser system enhanced my effectiveness in the course. 17 52% 20.i wish i used the android based exam browser system for other courses as well. 18 55% in this study, the researcher can conclude that the students believe that the use of android based exam browser as the medium to assess final examination is perceived usefulness. it can be proven by prahda alifa fegasanti, arif suryo priyatmojo/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 167 the result of questionnaire that 55% of the students give a positive perception about the use of android based exam browser system. the students believe that the use of android based exam browser can improve the students' performance in the test, and they also believe that android based exam browser is an effective system for assessing exam. students' perception (perceived ease of use) about android-based exam browser according to ndubisi et al. (2003) perceived ease of use refers to how clear and understandable, interaction with the system is ease of getting the system to do what is require, mental effort required to interact with the system and ease of use of the system. refers to how the interaction is clear and easy to understand on the information system used, the ease of getting the information system to do what is needed, the mental effort required to interact with the system and the ease of use of the information system (ndubisi et al., 2003). the table below shows the students' perception (perceived ease of use) about android-based exam browser. table 3. students' perception (perceived ease of use) about android-based exam browser item description agree percentage factor 3 perceived ease of use 3. i found the android based exam browser system useful. 26 79% 6. i think the android based exam browser system was useful in all course. 23 70% 7. learning to use the android based exam browser system was hard for me. 14 42% 8. my interaction with the android based exam browser was clear and understandable. 21 64% 9. my interaction with the android based exam browser system did not require a lot of mental effort. 20 61% 10. i found the android based exam browser system easy to use. 31 94% 11. it was easy to navigate through the android based exam browser system. 22 67% 31. i felt comfortable when using the android based exam browser system on my own. 18 55% 32. i was able to use the android based exam browser system even if there was no one around show me how to use it. 18 55% 33. i was confident that i had adequate ability to operate the android based exam browser system. 22 67% 34. i was confident that i could use the android based exam browser system even if i had no prior experience on similar systems. 17 52% 35. i could use the android based exam browser system if an assistant showed me how to do it first. 29 88% in this study, the researcher can conclude that the students believe that the use of android based exam browser as the medium to assess final examination was an easy tool system for test. it can be proven by the result of questionnaire that 66 % of the students give a positive perception about the use of android based exam browser system. the students believe that the use of android based exam browser was useful, clear and understandable, easy to use and navigate. rogers (2010) stated that perceived ease of use demonstrates the degree to which an invention is seen as being no too difficult to understand, learn or operate). the students also believe that they were confident to used android based exam browser even if they had no prior experience on similar system. students' anxiety about android-based exam browser johnston (1991) argues that anxiety is a reaction to threats, obstacles to personal desires, or a feeling of distress because of disappointment, dissatisfaction, insecurity, or hostility to others. furthermore, deese, lazarus, & keenan (1953) divides anxiety into two senses, namely anxiety as a response and as an intervening variable. anxiety as a response is divided into two, namely state anxiety and trait anxiety. state anxiety is the symptoms of anxiety that arise when the individual is exposed to certain situations that are perceived as threatening. this level of anxiety depends on the intensity of the stimulus that affects it, meaning that the individual will experience anxiety as long as the condition exists. trait anxiety is anxiety that remains in a person. this anxiety has been integrated into the prahda alifa fegasanti, arif suryo priyatmojo/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 168 personality so that individuals who have this anxiety are more likely to become anxious when they face situations that are considered threatening themselves. the table below shows the students' anxiety about android-based exam browser. table 4. students' anxiety about android-based exam browser item description agree percentage factor 4 anxiety 21. the android based exam browser system was somewhat intimidating to me. 16 48% 22. i hesitated to use the android based exam browser system for fear of making mistakes that i couldn’t correct. 21 64% 23. i felt anxious about using the android based exam browser system. 18 55% 24. working with the android based exam browser system made me nervous. 19 58% in this study, the researcher can conclude that the students believe that the use of android based exam browser as the medium to assess final examination make students have a sense of anxiety. it can be proven by the result of questionnaire that most of the students give a negative perception about the use of android based exam browser system. the students believe that the use of android based exam browser creates anxiety for students.this finding is in line with research findings of nahdia (2017) which proved that exams put pressure on students due to fear, panic, and fatigue. this anxiety is seen as a symptom, which means a condition that shows difficulty in carrying out the adjustment process. computer anxiety can take the form of experiences of unknown fear, feelings of frustration, failure and disappointment, and unpleasant feelings (orr, 2002). they feel intimidated, anxious, nervous and scared by the use of android as a medium for exams. students' android attitude about android-based exam browser chart 5. students' android attitude about android-based exam browser item description agree percentage factor 5 android attitude 25. it was comfortable to work with the android based exam browser system. 21 64% 26. computer based test (cbt) based android are bringing us into a bright new era. 25 76% 27. the use of computers based test (cbt) based android is enhancing our standard of living. 26 79% 28. there are unlimited possibilities of computer applications that have not even been thought of yet. 27 82% 29. computers based test (cbt) based android are responsible for many of the good things we enjoy. 19 58% 30. working with computers based test (cbt) based android is an enjoyable experience. 24 73% in this study, the researcher can conclude that the students believe that the use of android based exam browser as the medium to assess final examination is a good system for test. it can be proven by the result of questionnaire that 71 % of the students give a positive perception about the use of android based exam browser system. the students believe that the use of android based exam browser can brought them into a bright new era, enhanced their standard of living and they also believe that android based exam browser is an enjoyable system. the students also believe that android based exam browser is responsible for many of the good things such as saves paper and stationery, savings cost, and summarizing tasks for correction for teachers. conclusion the students’ perception on the use of android based exam browser as the medium to assess final examination was positive. the students believed that android based exam browser is an attractive prahda alifa fegasanti, arif suryo priyatmojo/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 169 and enjoyable system or platform to assess final examination. it can be proven by the result of questionnaire that 75,8 % of the students give a positive perception about android based exam browser. the students believed that android based exam browser was a useful, clear, and understandable platform for conducting online examination and it gave some positive impacts such as improving their speed in answering the questions, improving their performance in the test, and helping them to answer the exam easily. besides the positive perception about the use of android based exam browser as the medium to assess final examination there were also the negative perception. the 57,6 % students believed that using the android-based exam browser was somewhat intimidating to them because not all students used android with enough internal memory to install these applications. the students 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(2005). a theoretical integration of user satisfaction and technology acceptance. information systems research, 16(1), pp. 85-102. http://www.sidalc.net/cgibin/wxis.exe/?isisscript=uady.xis&method=post&formato=2&cantidad=1&expresion=mfn=003185 http://www.sidalc.net/cgibin/wxis.exe/?isisscript=uady.xis&method=post&formato=2&cantidad=1&expresion=mfn=003185 https://www.igi-global.com/dictionary/technological-approaches-maintaining-academic-in-tegrity/17447 https://www.igi-global.com/dictionary/technological-approaches-maintaining-academic-in-tegrity/17447 putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 30 elt forum 10 (1) (2021) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt major phonemic problems of bangladeshi learners of english: reasons behind and solutions a k m mazharul islam college of languages and translation, king khalid university, kingdom of saudi arabia article info ________________ article history: received in 16 februari 2021 approved in 28 march 2021 published in 29 march 2021 ________________ keywords: consonant and vowel sounds; sound production; phonemic problem of bangladeshi learners; differences and difficulties ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ the issue of bangladeshi efl learners’ phonemic challenges, though not very battered, has been addressed by some researchers at different times. even after having a prolonged history of learning and teaching and some research in the field, awkward pronunciations and misunderstandings are still prevailing everywhere, from the primary level to tertiary level and beyond. this study is undertaken to heighten the importance of delving deeper into the root causes of phonemic difficulties of the learners and to pinpoint the major problems. to add flesh to the theoretical skeleton of the topic a group of university students was interviewed along with a questionnaire to check their understanding of english phonology along with some other basic questions related to pronunciation. it can firmly be stated that teaching/learning pronunciation and hence starting from the segmental level has never been followed. like any other country where english is in the status of a second language or foreign language, it is very natural to face difficulties to master the intricate phonemic features of the target language for the learners. supposedly, it mostly results from the lack of knowledge of phonology and phonetics of the target language and due to the phonemic differences between the first language and the target language. in this study, the focus is kept mainly on the salient phonemic challenges faced by bangladeshi learners of english. bringing in the basic ideas of consonant and vowel sounds, the sound production mechanism is shown, and then the differences between the vowels and consonants of two languages are held out. tracing out the key difficulties, some suggestions are provided. this writing is expected to be of considerable and comprehensive help for the instructors as well as for the interested learners and crucial addition to the literature of the topic. © 2021 universitas negeri semarang correspondent address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: amazharul@kku.edu.sa http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& a k m mazharul islam/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 31 introduction language is a sublime gift to human beings since language is the species-specific and species-uniform feature of the human being (varshney, 2000). vowels and consonants are the bricks of the great edifice of language within which dwell our thoughts and dreams, prayers and meditations, relation and communication. proper understanding of vowel and consonant sounds is at the root of expertise in spoken skill. bangladeshi learners of english usually face some difficulties as the language is not their mother tongue. though bangla and english are the offspring of the same language family, namely indo-european, more particularly, english descends from the germanic group, whereas bangla belongs to the indo-aryan group and is derived from sanskrit. with the passage of time, english and bangla have developed in their own ways. each with its own characteristics in sounds, in words and sentence structures, in stress and intonation today they are entirely different languages (fergluson, hai, & ball, 1962). the study was triggered by few fundamental questions. firstly, the question pursued is ‘what are the major segmental differences between the target language and mother tongue?’. secondly, the question, ‘what difficulties do the learners face in learning the pronunciation of the target language?’ is handled. thirdly, the factors causing those difficulties are tried to be traced. at the very end, answers to the question‘what are the probable solution to these problems?’ are looked for. this study is an addition in the stream of the topic and an effort to lay further emphasis for taking the issue with more seriousness and an appeal to the concerned stakeholders to address the problem institutionally, embracing it in the materials and making it an integral part of the pedagogy of the discipline. the history of institutional teaching-learning of english can be traced far back to the colonial period. the whole timespan of english learning and teaching in bangladesh can be broadly categorized into three phases. the first period covers till 1947 up to independence from british rule. the second period, during the regime of newly created pakistan, covers the postcolonial period ranging from 1947 to 1971. the third phase is from the independence of bangladesh till now, starting from 1971 onward (islam & hashim, 2019). interesting enough, teaching pronunciation had never been taken into consideration. the credit for early elementary work on bangla phonetics supposedly goes to chatterji (chatterji, 1921) where he has elaborated the segmental and suprasegmental features of the language in considerable detail and minuteness. ferguson et al. (ferguson et al., 1962) have held out the basic differences between english and bangla. they also have clearly shown the phonetic inventory of the two languages side by side at a very early time. these early works have not shed enough light to find out the causes of the difficulties of the learners. haque (haque, a., & a., 1990), rahman (rahman a. h., 1996) have mentioned few major issues of the learners like the learners’ using mother tongue accent for the target language without following sound pattern, accent and intonation. failure to differentiate between long and short vowel is another notable flaw of the learners. mujaffar (mujaffar, 1999) has also observed the learners’ difficulties with /z/, /ʤ/, /f/, /v// /ᴣ/; /θ/ and / ð /; /t/ sounds. banu (banu, 2000) along with these problems has also discussed the issue of learners’ inability to handle the features of aspiration and stress. barman (2011) in his work has shown the contrastive features of the two languages concerned. he has not included the causes of the difficulties. monjur and uddin (2015) have shown the effects of dialects on the learners’ output. they have pointed out that except for few regions the same tendency is observable among the learners. tahreen (2015), osmany (2017) have discussed the issue from the teacher’s perspective and thrown some light on the challenges of teaching pronunciation in bangladesh. the comprehensibility and intelligibility of the spoken language is highly dependent on its pronunciation (morley, 1991). despite pronunciation being the most integral element of oral communication and communicative competence, this sub-skill of english has always been neglected in bangladesh (maniruzzaman, 2008; osmany, 2017; tahereen, 2015). recent studies are conducted mainly from the teaching point of view to find out the challenges in teaching pronunciation. early works on the topic dealt mainly with differences between two sets of phonemes. a deeper understanding of the segmental features of the target language is very crucial. awareness of the segmental differences between mother tongue and target language is at the root of mastering the proper pronunciation of the target language and hence, this study narrowed down the focus on the major phonemic differences and difficulties from the learners’ standpoint and comes up with some pedagogical implications in the end. though various aspects of english language teaching have been covered by researchers at different times, enough research on the topic has not been done. in this respect, this study is expected to play an important role by providing the stakeholders an insight and pave the way to better learning/teaching. sound production mechanism before we explore the segmental difficulties let us have a glance at the sound production mechanism which is regarded indispensable to the study of phonetics. the production of any sound is not as simple as merely a k m mazharul islam/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 32 opening and closing the mouth. it is a rather complex process. three stages are involved here psychological, physiological and physical. in the psychological stage, when we try to produce any sound then a group of brain cells is excited, and a message is formed. then in the physiological level, the message is carried to the diaphragm. in the third level, which is in the physical level, the message is passed to the diaphragm. the diaphragm gives a squeeze and a flow of air rushes out through the windpipe and is finally released either through the oral cavity or nasal cavity (sethi & dhamija, 1998). in the case of consonant sounds, the flow of the air is obstructed almost at a dozen places. but regarding vowel sounds, that flow of air is not hindered anywhere and directly let out in the air (yule, 2008). the following figures would help us to understand the production of consonant and vowel sounds. to produce any sound, the diaphragm starts the physical process by throwing the airflow outward; the thrown air then passes by various articulators. the flow of the air is being played by a group of active and passive articulators for producing consonant sounds. if the airstream is directly emitted to the air without having any blockage or obstruction, then vowel sounds are produced. the following fundamental figure as presented in islam (2017) is a placeworthy one. 1nasal cavity 2lips 3teeth 4aveolar ridge 5hard palate 6velum (soft (palate) 7uvula 8apex (tip) of tongue 9blade (front) of tongue 10dorsum (back) of tongue 11oral cavity 12pharynx 13epiglottis 14larynx 15vocal cords 16trachea 17esophagus figure 1. the organs of speech basic sounds of english all the speech sounds created by human beings are broadly divided into two categoriesvowels and consonants. a vowel is a hum or a tune which is produced with the thrown air stream of the lungs and the airflow is not hindered anywhere from the voice-box to lips and no audible friction is caused. in other words, vowels are sounds that are produced when the airflow from the lungs passes through the larynx without any obstruction anywhere (sethi & dhamija, 1998). so, we can say that vowels are sounds that are articulated without any obstruction, partial or complete, in the oral cavity. the vowels can be monophthongs, diphthongs and triphthongs regarding their quality. the monophthongs or the pure vowels can again be divided into long and short categories in respect of their length. lip rounding and tongue advancement and height also add to the subtle features of vowels. consonants, on the other hand, are the sounds in the production of which there is an obstruction or a constriction in the airstream. consonants are divided into various types according to places and manners of articulation. the vibration of the vocal folds at the time of articulation divides all the consonants into voiced and voiceless types again. the number of speech sounds varies from language to language. in english, according to most accounts, there are 49 phonemes including the triphthongs. there are 12 vowels, 8 diphthongs, 5 triphthongs and 22 consonants (roach, 2000). it is very hard to ascertain the exact number of bangla phonemes due to controversies among linguists working with bangla phonology. according to chatterji (1921) the number of the essential phonemes of standard colloquial bangla it is 35. a recent account of the bangla phonemes shows the number to be 62 (hasan, 1995). they are 7 oral vowels, 7 nasal vowels, 18 diphthongs and 30 consonants. methods the qualitative approach was mainly adopted for this study. fifty student respondents were randomly chosen from two private universities of bangladesh. they were all first year first-semester students of ba a k m mazharul islam/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 33 in english program, both male and female, age ranging from seventeen to twenty-two. they did not attend any course on pronunciation or phonetics in the department by that time or before at any other stage of their study. in a formal setting, the students were asked to read a script with a list of words including the vowel and consonant sounds of english. particularly the words with sounds which were thought to be challenging had mostly been given. their readings were recorded and analyzed. an analysis especially of their common mistakes was also made and presented in the discussion section. recordings of structured/semi-structured interviews, class/presentation observation is a common practice in the study of phonetics, particularly in the study of segmental and suprasegmental features of any language. like many other researchers, haque and begum (hoque & begum, 2016), goswami (goswami, 2020) maintain the same tool in their studies. the instrument type of the study is very common and widely used and hence, it is expected to satisfy the validity and reliability concerns. the reading script was developed with a special focus on the words with the sounds that are absent in the learners’ mother tongue. regarding the consonants, words like ‘vine’, ‘think’, ‘zero’, ‘measure’, ‘war’ and ‘yes’ were given to check the pronunciation of the sounds /f/, /v/, /θ/, /z/, /ʒ/, /w/, /j/ respectively. words with consonant sounds that are absent in the target language were also included. in respect of the vowel sounds, words were selected following the same principle with special importance on the words with /ə/, long vowels and diphthongs. learners’ attempts are presented in the tables in the discussion section. the respondents were also asked some elementary questions related to english language learning in general and the importance of learning pronunciation. permissions were duly taken to use the samples for research purposes, and they were also ascertained of the confidentiality of their identity. in the study, the knowledge of the segmental features of english language is briefly discussed. then, the segmental differences of the target language and mother tongue are held out. after that, effort is taken to diagnose the phonemic difficulties of the learners. it is also tried to track down the reasons behind these difficulties. and finally, some pedagogical suggestions are offered for consideration. findings and discussion learners’ difficulties with english vowels islam (2018) observes that a speaker’s articulators usually get set with the sounds of his/her mother tongue. when he tries to learn a language other than his mother tongue then he faces problems with those sounds that are not found in his tongue. several problems may be traced regarding vowel sounds. one of the remarkable problems of bd learners of english is that his mother tongue vowels often intrude into the target language vowels. another problem is the learners cannot handle long and short vowels. in bangla long and short vowels do not make any difference in meaning usually. it is rather a phonetic feature than phonemic. in english they are very crucial. we have noted that the quality of a bengali vowel is not conditioned by length. on the other hand, length distinguishes english vowel sounds, / ii:, ɔɔː, uu: /. bengali speakers do not usually make any distinctions between short and long vowels. for example, they pronounce /ful/ and /full/ in the same way (haque, 1990, p. 101). some of the vowels in english are not there in bangla. schwa ‘ə’ is a characteristic sound which becomes very tricky for the learners. long vowels /ɑː/, /ɔː/ are also difficult to tackle. another noticeable difficult area for the learners is diphthongs. davenport (davenport & h., 2010) mentions that the strong feature of english diphthongs is the glides from one vowel to the other. the common mistake that is made by the learners is that they only say the first part of the diphthong and ignore the second part and in consequence, they sound like a short vowel. in respect of diphthongs, similar to tahreen’s (2015) findings, learners pronounce the diphthongs as monophthongs. last part of the sound is missed. they pronounce /go/ for /ɡoʊ/, /mek/ for /meik/ and the like. yet, the learners were not able to handle the triphthongs and were mostly not aware of them. they are found in the words like ei+ ә = eiә(player) ɑi + ә = ɑiә(fire) ɔі + ә = ɔіə (loyal) әʊ + ә = әʊә (lower) aʊ + ә = aʊə (power). in the following chart we can show the difficulties in brief: table 1. attempts of the bengali learners of the english vowels sounds in english example in words correct pronunciation attempt of the learners and notes i:, i feel, fill /fi:l/,/fil /fi l/ both long and short becomes the same, they use their only vowel a: , ʌ , 3: bard, bud, bird /ba:d/, /b ʌd/, / b3:d/ /bad/; in all cases they use only /a/ sound a k m mazharul islam/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 34 ə about /sbʌv/ / əbʌv/; learners use 3rd bengali vowel o: saw /so:/ /so / learners use their own vowel 5 u, u: full, fool /ful/, /fu:l/ /ful/ ; both cases only bangla vowel no 7 is used eə, iə, uə air, fear, poor /eə/, /fiə/, /puə/ the learners usually break the diphthongs in their own vowels and first made long; becomes very different from the right one discussion on difference between english and bangla vowels to be aware of the difficulties of bangladeshi learners of english we are to be familiar with the differences between bangla and english vowels. there are some vowels of english which are not present in bangla and the vice-versa. in bangla alphabet though the feature long and short is mentioned but it is not maintained in pronunciation. the intermingling between short and long vowels does not make any difference in meaning but this is not the case in english. the use of short vowels in place of long ones and the vice-versa may be a blunder. the meaning may be altogether different with the change of long and short vowels. diphthongs of these two languages are also not the same. whereas english has 8 diphthongs bengali has 18 regular diphthongs (ferguson et al., 1962). the bangla diphthongs are far greater in number than english diphthongs. another point of difference is that unlike english vowels bangla vowels can be nasalized and can affect the meaning. the following table can be helpful: table 2. difference between bangla and english vowel sounds. t: present; x: not present phonetic symbol english bangla key word i: t x feel i x t chil (eagle) i t x fill e t t bed æ t t cat a x t bhat (rice) a: t x part ɒ t t hot o x t gol(round) ʊ t x full u: t x fool u x t chul (hair) ʌ t x but ɜː t x third ə t x above o:/ ɔ: t x saw the following quadrant would help us to understand the comparative spots where from the vowels of two languages are produced. some of the vowels conform in their positions but some are not identical. quadrant 1. english vowel (barman, 2011) quadrant 2. bangla vowel (barman, 2011) quadrant 3. relative positions of english and bangla vowels from (ferguson et al., 1962) figure 2. quadrans of the vowels a k m mazharul islam/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 35 learners’ difficulties with consonants some problems can be traced regarding consonant sounds. in this respect, a noteworthy thing is that the problem often arises due to the knowledge of l-l interference. the mistakes the learners make are listed below: • in place of ‘flower’, ‘fine’ ‘full’ they pronounce it ‘phlauar’ ‘phine’ and ‘phull’. here we see labiodental sound /f/ becomes bilabial /p1'/ • ‘vast’ /va:st/, ‘van’ /vaen/ become /bhtsn/ and must/. labio-dental /v/ becomes bilabial plosives /w/ and /y/ are not properly pronounced. they are treated as vowels rather than consonants. in place of ‘water’ /wɔ:tə/ they say /ɔtʌr /. • common speaker mostly pronounces the final /r/ of the syllable. • interdental /θ/ often made alveolar thus / θink/ becomes /think/. • interchangeability between some pair sounds in different regions of the country/s ʃ / /fpʰ /, // bʰ v / /ʒ dʒ/ figure 3. (a) labio-dental (b) bilabial (roach, 2000) major difficulties are presented in the following table. table 3. bangladeshi learners’ attempt of english consonants islam (2017) summarizes the problems nicely. he points out that sounds /p/, /t/, /k/ are different from bangla counterparts /p/ (প), /t/ (ট), and /k/(ক) in respect of aspiration. he presents the differences and the difficulties hierarchically. sounds in english example in words correct pronunciation attempt of the learners and notes /f/ fine /fain/ it is pronounced as /phain/ using aspirated bangla bilabial consonant /v/ van /væn/ it is pronounced as /bitten/ with bilabial /bh/ /ʒ/ pleasure /'pleʒə/ it becomes /plejar/ or /plezar/, here the /ʒ/ becomes plosive /z/ or affricate /j/ /w/ wash /'wɒʃ/ it becomes /ɔʌʃ/, bilabial english consonant /w/ is completely ignored /j/ yes /jes/ it becomes /ies/ ommitteng the palatal consonant /j/ /r/ barber /ba:b?/ it becomes /ba:rba:r/, final id is mostly pronounced /z/ zeep/zoo /zi:p/ /zu:/ it becomes / dʒip/, /dʒu/ a k m mazharul islam/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 36 figure 4. image of a table of difficult english consonants islam (2017) discussion on findings regarding consonants there are many consonants in bangla and english which click with each other, yet there are some which are not so. some consonant sounds of english are missing in bangla and some of the bangla consonants, in the same way, are not found in english. overlooking suprasegmental features of consonants, we can notice some major differences between the consonants of these two languages. there are six plosives in english. they are: /p/, /b/, /k/, /1/, /g/ and /d/. whereas, in bangla, there are twenty plosive sounds. the intermingling of bilabial and labio-dental consonants of english is a common vulnerable area for bangladeshi learners. the sound /z/ is often replaced by bangla /j/ sound. affricates also become more and more plosives. the following table may be helpful to understand the major differences. table 4. different bangla and english consonants t: present; x: not present sounds place of articulation english bangla key word /f/ labio-dental t x fine /v/ labio-dental t x vine /θ/ inter dental t x think /z/ alveolar t x zero /ʒ/ post alveolar t x measure /w/ bilabial t x war /j/ palatal t x yes /kh/ velar x t ‘khaua’eat /gh/ velar x t ‘gham’ sweat / jh/ alveopalatal (plosive) x t ‘jhanu’expert /ʈ/ dental x t ‘tala’ lock /th/ dental x t ‘thala’plate /dh/ dental x t ‘dhoni’rich /ph / bilabial x t ‘phol’fruit /bh/ bilabial x t ‘bhalo’good a k m mazharul islam/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 37 at this point we are looking for the causes behind the difficulties. we shall find a number of causes at work. when a learner wants to learn a different language other than his mother tongue then the main problem, he faces is his prior knowledge of l 1; it intrudes every now and then. the age factor is also there (roach, 2000), (ukessays, 2018). osmany (osmany, 2017) mentions in her findings that though pronunciation is held very important by the learners and the teachers, it had never been taught, trained and tested. let us try to enumerate the major causes: • knowledge of li sound pattern interference • interference of regional accent • lack of awareness • lack of exposure • lack of knowledge of the sound pattern of sounds of english • alphabatic english spelling • lack of practice • lack of motivation • shortage of trained instructors some suggestions can rightly be offered at this stage. though teaching/learning of english has a long history in bangladesh which even dates back to the starting of the british colonial time (islam & hashim, 2019), the teaching/learning pronunciation has never been considered. of course, it is not very easy to master all the sounds of a language which is not one’s mother tongue. the first job is to become aware of the problems. once the problems are diagnosed then they can be faced easily. to handle them we can try the following suggestions: • making the learners aware of the differences • making the learners aware of their difficulties • making the learners aware of all the sounds along with their places and manners of articulation • finding out major problematic sounds • treating them one by one • engaging in more communicative activities • providing them with regular reinforcement • providing them a native or near-native model • providing them maximum positive exposure in this respect, harmer (harmer, 2003) offers some suggestions to help the learners out. it is not possible to learn the pronunciation exactly like the native speakers. some learners deliberately do not want to sound like the natives. so, he fixes intelligibility to be the target of the nonnative speaker learners. he lays much importance on listening since a learner will not be able to give the right pronunciation unless he can listen properly. there are two ways of dealing with this: in the first place, we can show students how sounds are made through demonstration, diagrams, and explanation. but we can also draw the sounds to their attention every time they on a tape or in our own conversation. in this way, we gradually train the students’ ears. when they can hear correctly, they are on the way to being able to speak correctly (harmer, 2003, p. 185) a guide or teacher is to determine when to teach pronunciation and he is to choose the best suitable class technique for his learners among the techniques like whole lesson, discrete slot, integrated phase, and opportunistic teaching. and he also suggests the phonemic chart to be hung in the classroom near at hand. the learner can be instantly directed to the chart when some sounds are mispronounced or confused. finally, he opines“the key to successful pronunciation teaching, however, is not so much getting students to produce correct sounds or intonation tunes, but rather to have them listen and notice how english is spokeneither on audio or videotape or from the teachers themselves” (harmer, 2003, p. 185). a syllabus designed rahman (rahman & chowdhury, 2019) for teaching pronunciation to bangladeshi learners can rightly be placed here. a k m mazharul islam/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 38 table 5. a model syllabus for teaching pronunciation to bd learners id syllabus item objective 0 the human musical instrument familiarize learners with the human vocal sound making instrument 1 consonant sounds 1.1 the fricatives (voiced and unvoiced) /s/,/r/,/f/,/v/,/z/,/3/ address problem 1 1.2 english consonants which are replaced by similar sounds from the l1 or from english— to address problem 2 address problem 2 1.3 consonants /l/,/r/, one form only problem 3 address problem 2 2 consonant clusters: non-deletion of the first consonant in word initial clusters and no vowel insertion at word initial position address problem 4 3 nuclear stress: to be taught through songs. may be left for the second stage after learners have mastered items 0 to 2. (problem 7) address problem 7 intelligibility and understandability should be the focus rather than perfection in pronunciation is the opinion of tahreen (2015). she also offers a list of suggestions to overcome the problem like integrated pronunciation teaching from the beginning, introducing ipa symbols, comparing the sounds with the bangla counterparts, commutative activities, using dictionaries, smartphones and computers and so on. conclusion language is a rare blessing shown to humankind and vowels and consonants are the souls of any language. when english is not the mother tongue, learning the sounds of the language is surely not an easy job. receiving proper guidance, a careful and enthusiastic learner may acquire them with the expected accuracy. taking the offered suggestions into consideration, one can minimize the obstacles and can maximize his learning of the sounds to the desired extent if not exactly like the natives. our effort has been to find out the major problems of bangladeshi learners with the sounds of english and to look for some solutions. suprasegmental features are beyond the limit of this study and hence there are obvious scopes of future broader research. connecting the old works with the recent ones, this mixed kind of study has been undertaken to add to the scanty body of available literature and above all, to give a comprehensive view of the issue to the concerned stakeholders. references banu, r. (2000). bangladeshi english: a new variety? journal of the institute of modern languages, 6465. barman, b. (2011). a contrastive analysis of english and bangla phonemics. dhaka university journal of linguistics, 19-42. chatterji, s. k. (1921). bengali phonetics. bulletin of the school of oriental and african studies, 2(1), 125. retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1017/s0041977x0010179x davenport, m., & h., s. j. (2010). introducing phonetics and phonology. uk: routledge. fergluson, c. a., hai, m. a., & ball, w. j. (1962). the sound structures of english and bengali. language, 460-462. goswami, a. (2020). changing contours: the interference of the mother tongue. the journal of english as an international language, 15(2). retrieved from https://www.elejournals.com/eilj2020/volume-15-issue-2-2020/ haque, s., a., e. b., & a., a. (1990). bengali speech sounds and their effects on efl learners' pronunciation. belta journal. harmer, j. (2003). the practice of english language teaching. pearson education limited. hasan, a. d. (1995). the segmental phonemes of bengali. journal of the institute of bangladesh, 23-49. hoque, m. a., & begum, a. (2016). english pronunciation problems of tertiary level students in bangladesh: a case study. journal of arts, science and commerce, 7(4), 50-61. retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.18843/rwjasc/v7i4/06 a k m mazharul islam/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 39 islam, a. (2018). a comparative study of english and bangla vowel system. bulletin of advanced english studies, refaad, 130-137. retrieved from https://doi.org/10.31559/baes2018.1.2.1 islam, m. n., & hashim, a. (2019). historical evolution of english in bangladesh. journal of language teaching and research, 10(2), 247-255. retrieved from https://doi.org/10.17507/jltr.1002.05 islam, s. m. (2017). a contrastive analysis of english and bengali consonant. journal of education and social sciences, 159-170. maniruzzaman, m. (2008). teaching efl pronunciation. why? what? and how? munich, germany: grin publishing. monjur, s., & uddin, m. n. (2015). the influence of regional bangla dialects on english pronunciation. international journal of arts,, 11-23. retrieved from http://ijahms.com:80/03.12.20151.pdf morley, j. (1991). the pronunciation component in teaching english speakers of other languages. tesol quarterly, 25(3), 481-520. mujaffar, t. b. (1999). on gees and zees: a comparative phonological study towards better english pronunciation. proceedings of the international conference on national and regional issues in english language teaching: international perspective (pp. 69-71). eltip. osmany, s. (2017). factors affecting teaching pronunciation at tertiary level. dhaka: east west university. retrieved from http://dspace.ewubd.edu:8080/bitstream/handle/2525/2750/samira_osmany.pdf?sequence =1&isallowed=y rahman, a. h. (1996). problems of pronunciation for bengali learners of english. journal of the institute of modern languages, 1-15. rahman, a., & chowdhury, d. r. (2019). an elf-based syllabus for teaching english pronunciation to native bengali speakers. belta journal, 47-64. roach, p. (2000). english phonetics and phonology. cambridge university press. sethi, j., & dhamija, p. v. (1998). a course in phonetics and spoken english. prentice hall private limited. tahereen, t. (2015). challenges in teaching pronunciation at tertiary level in bangladesh. internation journal of english language and translation studies, 9-20. ukessays. (2018). problems faced by asian students in english pronunciation. problems faced by asian students in english pronunciation. ukessays. retrieved from https://www.ukessays.com/essays/education/problems-faced-by-asian-students-in-englishpronunciation-education-essay.php varshney, r. l. (2000). an introductory textbook of linguistics and phonetics. student store. yule, g. (2008). the study of language. cambridge university press. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 54 elt forum 7 (2) (2018) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt an analysis of textual meaning on students’ writing of recount texts anggie febriyana, ahmad sofwan, alief noor farida  english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in october 2018 approved in november 2018 published in january 2019 ________________ keywords: students’ recount texts, textual meaning, theme, rheme, thematic structure, thematic progression ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ the topic of this study is the textual meaning on students‟ recount texts of the 4th semester students of english department, semarang state university in the academic year 2016/2017. the analyses intend to figure out what thematic structures are displayed and what thematic progressions are employed in the students‟ recount texts. the approach used in this study is qualitative descriptive method, and some quantitative approaches to enhance the depth of results. the units of analysis of this study were clauses in the 4th semester students‟ recount texts taken from genre-based writing course. the results of the thematic structures analysis show that unmarked topical theme is the most frequently used rather than the marked one. modal adjunct is the only constituent of interpersonal theme that is found to show the writer‟s judgment. moreover, structural and conjunctive adjunct are used in relating the clause to its context or another clause. in addition, there only one continuative found in the text to signal a new move is made. the study also shows that the students used re-iteration (constant) to make the text keep focused. then, zigzag pattern is commonly used in relative clauses which replace subject. while multiple (split) pattern is used to introduce a number of different pieces of information which is made as theme in subsequent clauses. © 2018 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: anggief300@gmail.com a. febriyana, a. sofwan, a. n. farida / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 55 introduction in the process of communication, people express their ideas, thought and feelings or give other people information. in other word, communication is used to convey and interpret meanings. hence, as a language students, they should be able to negotiate meaning with the other by using what we called as text in order to achieve goals. the term text, based on eggins (1994: 5), refers to “a complete linguistic interaction (spoken or written), preferably from beginning to end”. yet, english in indonesia is used as a foreign language so it is rather hard for the students to create a good text. as the result, the communication will not run well effectively. thus, it becomes our job to help the students to create a good text so that they are able to communicate effectively. by using the good grammar, the meaning of a text will be clearer. there are three kinds of grammar. they are traditional grammar, formal grammar and functional grammar. both traditional and formal grammar focus on the structures (syntax), whereas functional grammar not only focus with the structures but also the function of language to construct the meaning (semantics). thus, functional grammar can help us to understand how texts work to make meaning both in the form of spoken and written text. one of the types of meaning that i am going to unveil on this study is textual meaning, which concerns about how and what we are saying or writing hang together and relate to what was said before. it is a meaning about the message inside the text which relate to the context around us. each clause has meaning that will correlate to the next clauses. moreover, the meaning of a text will be intelligible for the listeners or the readers when it relates to its context. these textual meanings are realized through the theme patterns of the grammar which are in the form of thematic structures and thematic progressions. theme is the beginning of the clause where we put information which links the clause to what has come before. broadly speaking, theme is what comes first in a clause and what the clause is going to be about. the remainder of the clause, which explains about the theme and contains new information is then called rheme. textual meanings look at how we structure information in a clause that will tell us about where the clause is coming from (beginning) and where it is going to (end). every clause has the character of a message in the form of organization that fits in with, and contributes to the flow of discourse. halliday & matthiessen, (2004: 64) stated, “one part of the clause is enunciated as the theme, and it is combined with the remainder of the clause so that those parts together constitute message”. in a clause structure, it consists of a theme and accompanied by rheme. whereas theme is always put at first and starts from beginning of a clause. themes are divided into three types; ideational/topical theme, interpersonal theme, and textual theme. the first nominal group in a clause is usually the ideational or topical theme. it means that when the elements of transitivity that is either participant, circumstance, or process can be assigned occurs in the first position in a clause. gerot & wignell (1995: 104) stated, “topical themes may also be nominal group complexes, adverbial groups, prepositional phrases or embedded clauses”. since a participant in thematic structure coincides to the topic, we refer this constituent as topical theme. a topical theme which is not the subject, in a declarative clause, is called a marked topical theme. the term marked is used because it stands out. the most common form of marked topical theme is an adverbial group, prepositional phrase, and complement, which is nominal group that is not functioning as subject. while unmarked topical theme put the theme as subject of the declarative clause. in daily conversation the most often item functioning as unmarked topical theme is pronoun, nominal group such as common or proper noun, and nominalization (embedded clause). when a constituent to which we would assign a mood label occurs at the beginning of a clause before the topical theme, we call it an interpersonal theme. according to gerot & wignell (1995: 107) the constituent which can function as interpersonal themes are: modal adjuncts, a. febriyana, a. sofwan, a. n. farida / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 56 vocative, finite or wh-elements. textual theme as the last type of theme which does not express any ideational or interpersonal meaning, but which is doing important cohesive work in relating the clause to its context. structural, conjunctive adjunct and continuative are the constituents of textual theme. the progressions from theme to rheme show the flow of information in a clause. it is essential to keep the coherent of the text in order to get successful communication and exchange meaning between others. furthermore, the pattern of interaction among clauses within a text is called thematic progressions. eggins (2004: 324-325) proposes three main patterns of thematic progressions; theme re-iteration (constant), zigzag pattern (linear), and multiple –theme pattern (split). one basic way to keep a text focused (cohesive) is to simply re-iterate an element. repetition is an effective means of creating cohesion. having the same participant made theme on a regular basis provides the text with a clear focus. the same element occurs regularly as theme in this thematic pattern. however, it causes to be boring to read or listen because the theme in the text never varied. clause 1 theme 1 rheme 2 clause 2 theme 2 rheme 2 clause 3 theme 3 rheme 3 clause 4 theme 4 rheme 4 figure 1.1 theme re-iteration in zigzag pattern, an element which is introduced in theme in clause 1 gets promoted to become the theme of clause 2. this pattern achieves cohesion in the text by building on newly introduced information. this gives the text a sense of cumulative development which may be absent in the repeated theme pattern. clause 1 theme 1 rheme 1 clause 2 theme 2 rheme 2 clause 3 ` theme 3 rheme 3 clause 4 theme 4 rheme 4 figure 1.2 zigzag pattern a. febriyana, a. sofwan, a. n. farida / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 57 while in the multiple-theme pattern, the theme of one clause introduces a number of different pieces of information, each of which is then picked up and made theme in subsequent clauses. clauses 1 theme 1 rheme 1 clause 2 theme 2 rheme 2 clause 3 theme 3 rheme 3 clause 4 theme 4 rheme 4 figure 1.3 multiple-theme pattern different theme will determine the point of the clause. thus, textual organization is essential because without structures such as theme there could be no text. contextual properties (coherence) and internal properties (cohesion) are essential elements in the process of meaningful communication. a good text should consist of clauses which are constructed in coherent and cohesive structure. moreover, the clauses hang together and relate to the context. however, efl students still find it difficult to maintain the coherence and cohesion in both written and spoken texts. for this reason, i try to analyse the textual meanings in terms of thematic structures and thematic progressions displayed on recount texts of the 4th semester students of english department, semarang state university in the academic year 2016/2017 on the genre-based writing course. methods this study investigates what thematic structures and thematic progression are realized in students „recount texts, so this study elaborates the realization of the data analysis to find out the meanings realized from the data. therefore, the qualitative approach was used to figure out the realization of the meaning. the object of the study is students„ texts which include in discourse analysis. a discourse research is commonly a qualitative descriptive because it interprets and exemplifies social phenomena subjectively by the researcher„s perspective in analysing what happen beyond the text. the qualitative researcher interprets the meaning of the data based on the investigation. then, the result of investigation is presented descriptively in order to draw conclusion. i employed qualitative approach to analyse the data. in addition, the quantitative approach was also used to produce some statistical data in calculating the findings in order to strengthen the qualitative analysis. thus, the data can be reasonable and objective. the object of the study is recount text developed by 4th semester students of genre-based writing course in english department of semarang state university in the academic year 2016/2017. the texts then to be analysed the thematic structures and thematic progressions to investigate the organization of the texts. thematic structures were analysed in order to figure out the point of departure and remainder of each clause. while thematic progressions were examined to see the flow of information in the text that contained coherent and cohesion text. first, i read and choose 12 sample of the data (students‟ recount texts). next, the texts were divided into clauses and given number of sequence per clauses from each text. then, the clauses were analysed in terms of theme and rheme to figure out a. febriyana, a. sofwan, a. n. farida / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 58 the textual meaning of each text. on this step, the thematic structures were classified into each category that had its own table to enable the result of the study to be easily understood. furthermore, each sub-element was categorized and counted its frequency in percentage. hence, it used quantitative approach besides qualitative analysis in order to support the data. next, thematic progressions were then analysed using arrows to see the flow of information in each clause developed to make a coherent and cohesive text. the last step was then interpreting and elaborating the result of the data. in analyse the thematic structures, firstly the text were divided into clauses. then, each clause was given numbers (1, 2, 3, and so on) from the first clause to the last clause in the text. thematic structure consist of theme which is the starting point of the message in the clause, and rheme which is the development of that starting point. furthermore, each theme was analysed based on the types of theme, whether it was topical, interpersonal, or textual theme. once thematic structures study was completed, i examined the pattern of ideas among clauses within a text that is called thematic progressions. it was investigated to see whether the clauses make cohesive and coherent text. according to eggins (2004: 324) “a final, but very significant, contribution that theme makes to the cohesion and coherence of a texts has to do with how thematic elements succeed each other”. results and discussions this study investigates the textual meaning of 4th semester students‟ recount text on genre based writing course. there were twelve recount texts taken from c‟s class of genre-based writing course. the result of this analysis was derived from theme and rheme system in each clause of the texts. this two points were used to uncover the thematic structures and thematic progressions of students‟ recount text. the thematic structures were analyzed to indicate the types of themes used by the students. the type of theme will show the point of departure of the message that tell us about what the clause is going to be about. while thematic progressions were analyzed to unveil the development of ideas and the flow of information on students‟ recount text in order to make a cohesive and coherent text. the results of the analysis are portrayed in tables, and they are followed by the interpretation of the result. eggins (2004: 301) states, “when an element of the clause to which a transitivity function can be assigned occurs in first position in a clause, we describe it as a topical theme”. furthermore, every clause only contain one topical theme, so once a topical theme is identified, the remaining clause will be the rheme. table 4.1 below displays the theme types used by the students in their recount texts. text clauses topical interpersonal textual marked unmarked 1 26 2 23 12 2 24 3 21 1 9 3 18 3 15 9 4 40 3 37 1 26 5 45 3 42 3 21 6 11 1 10 6 7 31 2 29 13 8 18 4 14 5 9 24 2 22 2 13 10 15 2 13 1 5 a. febriyana, a. sofwan, a. n. farida / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 59 11 24 4 20 1 14 12 36 2 34 2 15 total 312 31 280 11 148 (%) 9.93% 89.74% 3.52% 47.43% table 3.1 theme categories in students‟ recount text as showed in the table 4.1, there are three major themes analyzed in students‟ recount text. they are topical, interpersonal, and textual themes. however, in this case, topical themes are divided into two patterns of theme choice which are marked and unmarked. in the marked case, the topical theme is not the subject and not what we normally expect to find. whereas a topical theme which is also the subject is unmarked topical theme. the most frequent theme used in overall recount texts is unmarked topical theme with 89.74%. on the other hand, marked topical theme takes insignificant part with 9.93%. moreover, interpersonal theme also shows minor number with 3.52% which also the lowest. it shows large contrast with textual theme which gets almost half of percentage with 47.43%. the comparison between marked and unmarked themes shows great difference in which unmarked topical theme occurs 280 times, and marked topical theme is used only 31 times. the marked topical theme found in the students‟ recount text only the adverbial group and prepositional phrase. the contradiction between these two components is slightly different. the next result of the analysis show that there is only one constituent of interpersonal theme that exist. that is modal adjuncts which gets 100%. there is neither finite nor vocative. the last constituent that can occur in thematic position is the category of textual theme. there are three kinds of constituent of textual theme which are continuative, structural, and conjunctive adjunct. structural get the highest point which is used 127 times followed by conjunctive adjunct with 20 times and continuative with only one time. a clause must contain only one thematic element (topical theme), yet it is possible for clauses to have a sequence of themes in which textual and interpersonal precede topical theme. this group of themes is then called multiple theme. the pattern which contains textual theme preceding topical theme is mostly used by 135 times. the second multiple theme in the students‟ recount texts is interpersonal-topical theme. there are 9 interpersonal-topical themes in the students‟ recount texts. the last one, both textual and interpersonal themes that come before topical theme occur only by 2 times. the next analysis is about thematic progressions in the students‟ recount texts which contribute to the cohesion and coherence of a text. the analysis was conducted using the theory of thematic progressions from eggins (2004: 324-326). there are three main patterns of thematic progressions which are examined based on this theory, which are re-iteration (constant), zigzag (linear), and multiple (split). those three patterns are served in the following table : text clauses re-iteration (constant) zigzag (linear) multiple (split) 1 26 9 1 1 2 24 4 4 1 3 18 1 3 1 4 40 6 9 1 5 45 11 2 6 11 4 3 7 31 6 6 8 18 2 5 9 24 7 5 a. febriyana, a. sofwan, a. n. farida / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 60 table 3.2 thematic progressions patterns of students‟ recount texts the students mostly employ re-iteration pattern by 63 times, and zigzag pattern is also used 59 times. while multiple pattern is the lowest with 6 times. re-iteration is the basic way to keep a text focused since repeating theme will provide the text with a clear focus. repetition is also an effective means of creating cohesion in text. while zigzag pattern gets cohesion by building on newly introduced information in a text. as suggested by eggins (2004: 324), “in this pattern, an element which is introduced in the rheme in clause 1 gets promoted to become the theme of clause 2”. multiple theme pattern as the last pattern get the lowest total from all the types of pattern. this pattern happens when the rheme of a clause has different pieces of information, and each of which is taken in turn as the theme of a subsequent clause. conclusions this study has analyzed textual meaning found in the 4th semester students‟ recount texts taken from genre-based writing course. it investigates thematic structures displayed and thematic progressions employed in the students‟ recount texts. based on the data analysis and the results of the study in the previous chapter, the conclusions can be drawn as follows. firstly, unmarked topical theme is dominantly used in the students‟ recount texts compared to the marked one. as showed in the table 4.1, it gets the highest result with 89.74%. this occurs as students‟ recount texts mostly consist of declarative clauses which put subject in the beginning of the clause. in contrast, marked topical theme gets small number in the students‟ recount texts. it only gets 9.93 % from whole texts. however, there are only two types of marked topical theme found in the students‟ recount texts. they are adverbial group and prepositional phrase. complement which put in the beginning of a clause is rarely found since it is uncommon to find a nominal group that is not functioning as subject. moreover, interpersonal theme which also the types of theme occur in the students‟ recount texts with 11 times. yet, modal adjunct is the one and only constituent of interpersonal theme which is employed in the texts. it is used to show the writers‟ point of view and judgment. for instance, actually, i wanted to go with my mother, but my mother had not prepared yet. from the example above, modal adjunct „actually‟ means something that contrast with the writer‟ expectation. (text 2, appendix 2) the next type of theme that occurs in the students‟ recount text is textual theme. structural, which is one of the constituents of textual theme is dominantly used in the texts. it gets 85.81 % or 127 times. it is found that students apply some complex clauses in their texts. hence, the students relate the complex clauses using structural. in addition, conjunctive adjunct is insignificantly used in the students‟ recount texts. it is used to connect a clause to preceding text. the last constituent of textual theme found in the students‟ recount texts is continuative. it only happens once which signaling that a new move is beginning. the next conclusion is about thematic progressions employed in the students‟ recount texts. it is how the students organize their ideas in order to make coherent and cohesive text. as showed in the table 4.6, re-iteration is the dominant one with 63 times. it happens because one of the easiest ways to keep a text focused and is to re-reiterate an element. it makes sure that text is going nowhere. next, zigzag pattern with 59 times. this pattern achieves cohesion by developing idea in the preceding information. the last, multiple pattern with only 6 times. however, it is also found 10 15 1 9 11 24 2 4 1 12 36 10 10 1 total 312 63 59 6 a. febriyana, a. sofwan, a. n. farida / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 61 that many clauses in the students‟ recount texts do not employ any pattern. they use different themes in each clause. although those themes support the previous theme, it is considered to have less cohesion. references anderson, m. and anderson, k. 2003. text types in english 1. australia: macmillan. arunsirot, sudutrai. 2013. an analysis of textual metafunction in thai efl students‟ writing. novitasroyal. 7/2: 160 – 174 butt, david et al. 1995.using functional grammar an explorer‟s guide. sydney: national centre for english language teaching research macquire university. cresswell, john. w. 2008. research design qualitative, quantitative, and mix methods approaches. sage. eggins, s. 1994. an introduction to systemic functional linguistics. london: pinter. eggins, s. 2004. an introduction to systemic functional linguistics 2nd ed. london; continuum. gerot, l and wignell, p. 1995. making sense of functional grammar. australia: gerd stabler. halliday, m.a.k. 2004. an introduction to functional grammar. 3rd ed, revised by c. m.i.m. matthiessen. london: arnold. halliday, m.a.k and ruqaiya hasan. 1985. language, context, and text: aspect of language in socialsemiotic perspective. victoria: deakin university press. halliday, m. a. k and r. hasan. 1989. language, context, and text: aspect of language in social-semiotic perspective. victoria: deakin university press. hanh, nguyen thi. 2012. an investigation into the structure of theme and rheme in english and vietnamese political speeches. danang university. kusumawati, satiti ayu. 2010. meaning realized in written recount text. final project. english department fbs unnes. unpublished. maxwell, joseph a.2013. qualitative research design: an interactive approach. london: sage publication mccarthy m. 1991. discourse analysis for language teachers. cambridge: cambridge university press. mujiyanto, yan. 2011. petunjuk penulisan skripsi. semarang: unnes press. nadliroh, estiyani. 2012. thematic development of efl students‟ writing in genre-based writing course. final project. english department fbs unnes. unpublished. nafisah, n. and kurniawan, e. 2007. writing english for general communication. bandung: upi press. nunan, david. 1993. introducing discourse analysis. cambridge: cambridge university press. oxford advanced learner‟s dictionary computer file: on compact disc (2nd ed.) [cd-rom]. 1992. oxford: oxford university press. a. febriyana, a. sofwan, a. n. farida / journal of english language teaching 7 (2) (2018) 62 pambudi, bagus dwi. 2015. thematic structures and thematic progressions on students‟ speech‟. final project. english department fbs unnes. unpublished. srijono, djoko. 2006. an introductory course of linguistics. surakarta. muhammadiyah university press. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 41 elt forum 11(1) (2022) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt task-based instruction in teaching 21st century literature from the philippines and the world: learners’ views and reflections richard e. parcon1 1tañong high school, deped marikina philippines article info ________________ article history: received on 9 december 2021 approved on 25 march 2022 published on 30 march 2022 ________________ keywords: task-based instruction; language teaaching; literature teaaching; 21st century literature; ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this study aimed to determine the learners' views and reflections on task-based instruction in teaching 21st century literature from the philippines and the world subject. specifically, the following objectives were attained: to determine the understanding of learners in the concept of task and task-based instruction, to know learners' perceptions in the implementation of task and task-based instruction used by the teacher in teaching 21st century literature subject, to point out the problems encountered by the students and how the students overcome those problems in performing task-based activities. 73 grade 11 students served as the respondents of this study. using the descriptive method, specifically survey and interview, the study revealed that most students clearly understood the concept of task and task-based instruction. however, some students only agreed that performing tasks and the teacher's task-based instruction in teaching 21st century literature use the english language. the majority of the respondents strongly agreed that task and task-based instruction is implemented in their 21st century literature class. external factors, language used in the instructions written in the module, interest in literature and familiarity with literary materials, and difficulty level of taskbased activities in the module are problems that the respondents encountered during the implementation of task-based instruction in their 21st century literature class. while seeking classmates' and teacher's assistance, teacher's motivation and teaching strategies, and self-initiative and motivation are the means for the students to overcome the difficulties they encountered in implementing the task and task-based instruction in 21st century literature class.  correspondent address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 tañong high school, deped marikina ncr, philippines 1802 e-mail: richardparcon04@gmail.com http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& richard e. parcon | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 42 introduction as the call in delivering quality instruction in the classroom, teachers are doing their best to use instructional practices to help the students learn new ways and ways of coping with the demand of 21st-century opportunities. teachers do tailor the learning objectives to their motivation, discussion, and performance tasks up to the assessment to deliver their lessons effectively. in addition, 21st-century teaching and learning require new strategies and dedication to successful teaching and learning. teachers need to implement various strategies and practices in helping the learners to think critically regarding the world they are living in, immerse themselves with digital and social media, and utilize collaboration and communication skills needed for the learning environment. literature can help the learners to achieve 21st-century skills through reading literary materials suited to the learner's ages and interests. therefore the goal of every literature teacher is to teach the learners to love literature. traditionally, literature was considered the primary source in teaching language classes during the grammar-translation method (khatib et al., 2011). it also asserts that literature is life, regarded as the entrance in the outside world, and can be a means of knowing who the people are, what they are, and what they used to be (magulod, 2018). moreover, teaching and reading literary text play an essential role in learning the english language, such as improving communicative competence and the best tool for intensive and extensive reading, which can help the learners to improve their reading skills (khan & alasmari, 2018). in the era of globalization, a classroom can promote cultural and intercultural awareness through teaching literature. literature can flourish sociolinguistic and pragmatic competence through its authenticity as reflected in the communicative model (khatib & nourzadeh, 2011). in teaching english through literature, the l2 can be considered an additional corpus that answers a grammar based on firm rules and focuses on a fixed canon of literary text as a source, tool, and model for composition (ghani & din, 2017). experts in literature teaching suggested some techniques in integrating literature in the classroom; first, teachers should work for students' connection with literary texts. second, literature should be a source for language learning in language classrooms and not as an end itself. third, the involvement of literary texts does not mean the elimination of other literary texts. fourth, students should have the opportunity to utilize the literary language in innovative ways. fifth, teachers should secure the accessibility of literary materials for their language classrooms. sixth, teachers integrate macro skills in teaching literature in the classroom. lastly, teachers should give scaffold assistance with literary materials (khatib & nourzadeh, 2011). the study about instructional practices in teaching literature revealed that instructional practices conducted by the teachers in teaching literature should be connected to the learner's development as reflected in the goal and instructional objectives of the lesson (mustakim et al., 2018). while the findings on the study regarding the approaches in teaching literature employed by senior high school teachers found out that the ultimate objective in teaching literature is to let the learners appreciate the content through the use of various approaches reflected from the techniques utilized by the teachers (parojenog, 2020). regarding the study on the relationship of literature-based activities on learner's emotional intelligence showed that literature-based activities had a positive impact on learner's emotional intelligence as well as the measures of fluency, complexity, and accuracy also had a positive correlation with students' scores in the test (shiriyan & nejadansari, 2014). the reader-based post-structuralist analysis method in teaching literature helps learners reform into their cognitive structure and perceive the world from multiple perspectives (yaqoob, 2011). while literature use in efl teaching and learning process believed that short stories are considered the most effective means of teaching literature and language classes (pardede, 2021). in studying literature regarding the contemporary environment and accessing its impact on educational policies and curriculum may affect the choice of literary materials and literature itself as a desirable curriculum (dazz, 2014). in the philippine context, particularly with the implementation of the enhanced basic education act of 2013, also known as the k-12 program, one of the core subjects that the senior high school students need to take is 21st century literature from the philippines and the world. as reflected in k-12 curriculum guide on 21st century literature, this subject intends to immerse the learners in appreciation and critical study of 21st-century literature from the philippines and the world comprising many dimensions, genres, elements, structure, contexts, richard e. parcon | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 43 and traditions (21st century literature, curriculum guide). with this, teachers can choose the teaching strategies that they can use to teach this subject. these are the suggested approaches in teaching literature; information-based approach, personal-response, language-based, pharaphrastic approach, moral-philosophical, and stylistic approach (mustakim et al., 2018). but, in teaching literature, task-based instruction can also be used by the teachers. the use of language tasks improves the learner's communicative ability (bhandari, 2020). in addition, taskbased instruction aims to develop the learner's linguistic repertoire of l2 by letting the learners get involved in classroom activities using authentic materials (nhem, 2020). in line with literature teaching, task-based instruction is anchored with whole literary engagement wherein task is defined as “piece of language that linguistically, physically, emotionally, intellectually, socially, critically, meaningfully, creatively, consciously, or subconsciously, aesthetically, spontaneously, motivationally, and experientially involves learners in the process of learning.” (khatib et al., 2011, p.216). therefore, literature is a basis where the whole engagement can be easily achieved given that the teachers consider various ways in which students can be wholly involved. in order to fully involve and immerse the 21st century learners in learning and appreciating literary materials, the cited study aboved introduced task-based instruction in teaching world literature. based on this empirical observation, the researcher was prompted to conduct this initial study by determining the views and reflections of learners on the use of task-based instruction in teaching the subject of 21st century literature from the philippines and the world. specifically, it sought to answer the following research questions. 1. how do students understand the concepts of task and task-based instruction their teacher uses in teaching 21st century literature from the philippines and the world? 2. how do students perceive the implementation of task-based instruction in their 21st century literature from the philippines and world subject? 3. what are the problems that the students encountered in performing task-based activities? 4. how do students overcome the constraints that they encounter in performing taskbased activities? this study can serve as an additional contribution to teaching literature course in this 21st-century era. it can help the teachers to have various options or teaching strategies that they can use in teaching literature. the focus of the study is determining the learners' views and reflections on the use of task-based instruction. it will serve as a guide to design an instruction that is appropriate to the needs and knowledge of the learners regarding task-based instruction. lastly, it will serve as a baseline for future researchers to conduct studies regarding various teaching literature strategies. methods this study used a descriptive method to gather pertinent information relevant to this research. the descriptive method identifies attributes of a particular phenomenon based on an observational basis (creswell, 2009). the quantitative technique through the descriptive survey was used to determine the respondents' understanding and perception of task-based instruction in teaching 21st century literature. qualitative technique through open-ended interview was utilized to determine the constraints that respondents encountered in performing task-based activities and their way to overcome the limitations they encountered. the respondents in this study were the grade 11 students from the two sections of accountancy business and management strand and 1 section from technical vocational livelihood track-bread and pastry strand of tañong high school in marikina city. they were enrolled in 21st century literature from the philippines and world subject during the second semester of 2020-2021. table 1 presents the distribution of respondents according to their track and strand. as reflected in table 1, 34 and 14 respondents were from accountancy business and management strand while 25 were from the tvl track. the researcher used a total of 73 respondents in this study. richard e. parcon | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 44 table 1. distribution of respondents grade and section track and strand number of respondents percentage 11-consistency academic track/accountancy business and management strand 34 46.58 11-competency academic track/accountancy business and management strand 14 19.18 11-diplomacy technical vocational livelihood track-bread and pastry strand 25 34.25 total 73 100 the researcher used two instruments to gather the data needed—the likert questionnaire adopted from the study of (jeon & hahn, 2006). originally the instrument was composed of likert-type questionnaires with 15 item questions. seven (7) questions focused on teacher’s understanding of task and task-based and eight (8) questions focused on teachers’ views in implementing task-based instruction in language classroom. to fit this questionnaire with this study, the researcher modified the questionnaire and integrated some literature and literature teaching aspects and contextualized it for learners since the original questionnaire is intended for teachers. from fifteen (15) item questions, it became sixteen (16) item questions. five (5) questions were intended to measure the understanding of students about task and task-based instruction and eleven (11) questions to determine students' views in the implementation of task-based instruction. the second instrument was the researcher-made open-ended questionnaire for the interview to determine the problems the respondents encountered during the implementation of task-based instruction and how they overcame those identified problems. the researcher sought the assistance of experts in literature teaching and task-based instruction to validate the content of the adapted research instrument. in gathering the data, the researcher first sought permission from the office of schools division superintendent of division of marikina to conduct the study. after the validation of instrument, the researcher administered the survey questionnaire through an online platform, and interviewed the respondents through the google meet platform. the researcher conducted all these procedures to comply with the minimum health standard protocol guidelines to prevent the covid-19 virus. the responses of the students were transcribed, coded, formulate the recurring themes based on the responses of participants in the interview, then the data were analyzed, and interpreted. findings and discussion students' understanding of the concept of task and task-based instruction table 2 shows that 38 or 52% of the respondents strongly agreed with the first indicator, a task is a communicative goal, while 34 or 47% of the respondents only agreed. only one respondent disagreed on the first indicator. in the second indicator, 40 or 59% of the respondents strongly agreed that taskbased instruction implemented in the classroom is composed of pre-task, during the task, and posttask. meanwhile, 32 or 44% of respondents agreed and only one respondent disagreed in the second indicator. in response to indicator 4, 40 or 42% of the respondents agreed that a task primarily focuses on meaning. while in indicator 5, most of the respondents (39 or 53%) strongly agreed that the objectives of the lesson were attained through performing the task given. lastly, in response to indicator 5, most of the respondents only agreed (43 or 59%) that a task in any lesson/activity used the target language (english) by the learners themselves. as manifested in the survey result regarding the students' understanding of the concept of task and task-based instruction, most of the students showed a clear understanding of the concept of task and task-based instruction. this clear understanding of task and task-based instruction was made possible by systematically discussing the literature lessons with the students. by following the cycle, pre-task, during task, and post-task, used by the teacher, task-based instruction in the literature classroom was already familiar to the students. with regard to the tasks implemented in their richard e. parcon | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 45 literature class, students perceived it as student-centered by nature because the teacher included them in planning the task and allowed them to do the task gradually until they became independent in doing the task. it also reflected that the students understand the task they were performing in their literature class clearly defined in the goal of the literature lesson. table 2. students' understanding of the concept of tasks and task-based instruction item sa % a % d % sd % a task is communicative goal directed 38 52 34 47 1 1 0 0 task-based instruction is based on student-centered approach 43 59 28 38 2 3 0 0 task-based instruction implemented in the class comprises pre-task (lecture or discussion provided before doing the performance task). during task (the teacher gives the activities, guided with instructions discussed in the pre-task, and shows the students doing the task). post-task (students' output of performance is being assessed and evaluated using a rubric intended for a specific topic 40 55 32 44 1 1 0 0 a task involves primary focus on meaning 29 40 42 58 2 3 0 0 a task performed in the class is clearly defined in the goal of the lesson 39 53 33 45 1 1 0 0 a task in any lesson/activity used the target language (english) by the learners 27 37 43 59 3 4 0 0 on the other hand, it also observed that the student only agreed that a task in any lesson or activity used the target language (english) in literature class. this understanding of students on this specific indicator is affected by the language used in online classrooms. since there is an implementation of a distance learning class, learners are encouraged to speak in the language they are comfortable with, especially when conducting an online class to promoted active participation in online classroom discussion. however, it does not mean that the target language, english, is not promoted or used. based on their responses in the activities and output in their task, most students used english. with this, the students need to have a positive attitude regarding the concept of task and task-based instruction to achieve the desired outcome (hadi, 2013). moreover, a communicative approach is appropriate to promote a better understanding of task and task-based instruction in teaching the macro skills or teaching literature (du et al., 2017). it also observes that the students participating in task-based classroom activities improve students' interest in and motivation in learning the lesson and learning the target language (hadi, 2013; mozgalina, 2015; park, 2012). students' perceptions on the implementation of task and task-based instruction in their 21st century literature class table 3. students' perception of the implementation of task-based instruction in their 21st century literature class item sa % a % d % sd % my teacher presents the learning competency and specific objectives before the implementation of task-based instruction in the 21st century literature class 47 64 25 34 1 1 0 i'm very interested in the implementation of task-based instruction in 21st century literature class 33 45 40 55 0 0 task-based instruction in 21st century literature class provides me a flexible atmosphere and environment in promoting target language (english) use 38 52 35 48 0 0 task-based instruction helps me to activate my needs and interest in doing the tasks given in our 21st century literature class 39 53 33 45 1 1 0 task-based instruction in 21st century literature class helps me to develop and integrate my skills in the distance learning 35 48 38 52 0 0 richard e. parcon | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 46 task-based instruction in 21st century literature class requires me to use more time in preparation of doing the task compared to the traditional approach used in the class 39 53 34 47 0 0 task-based instruction in 21st century literature helps me to have a deeper understanding of literary terms 35 48 38 52 0 0 task-based instruction in 21st century literature class provides me an avenue to appreciate various literary materials used in the class 41 56 32 44 0 0 task-based instruction helps me to activate my critical and analytical thinking skills in analyzing literary materials. 37 51 36 49 0 0 task-based instruction helps me to create my literary materials during their implementation in the classroom 38 52 34 47 1 1 0 in using task-based instruction, my teacher provides appropriate materials (module and video clips of literary materials) that we can use as a guide in performing various tasks in our 21st century literature class. 41 56 32 44 0 0 table 3 presents the respondents' perceptions in the implementation task and task-based instruction in their 21st century literature from the philippines and the world subject. in indicator 1, most of the respondents (47 or 64%) strongly agreed that their teacher presents the learning competency and specific objectives before implementing task-based instruction in their class. in response to indicator 2, 40 or 55% of the respondents only agreed to implement task-based instruction in their 21st-century literature class. while 38 or 52% of the respondents strongly agreed that task-based instruction in 21st-century literature class provides them a flexible atmosphere and environment in promoting target language (english) use. for indicator 4, most of the respondents (39 or 53%) strongly agreed that task-based instruction helped them activate their needs and interest in doing the task given in their 21st century literature class. in response to indicator 5, only 38 or 52% of the respondents agreed that task-based instruction in 21st century literature class helps them develop and integrate their skills in distance learning. while 39 or 53% of the respondents strongly agreed that task-based instruction in 21st century literature class requires them to use more time to prepare for the task than the traditional approach used in the classroom. regarding indicator 7, most of the respondents (38 or 52%) only agreed that task-based instruction helped them have a deeper understanding of literary terms. in response to indicator 8, 41 or 56% of the respondents strongly agreed that task-based instruction in their 21st century literature class provided them the avenue to appreciate various literary materials used in the class. for indicator 9, 37 or 51% strongly agreed that task-based instruction helped them activate their critical and analytical thinking skills in analyzing literary materials. while 38 or 52% of the respondents strongly agreed that task-based instruction helped them create their literary materials during its implementation in the distance learning classroom. lastly, 41 or 56% of the respondents strongly agreed that in using task-based instruction, their teacher provided them with appropriate materials (module and video lesson) that they can use as a guide in performing various tasks in their 21st century literature class. based on the survey result regarding the perceptions on the implementation of task and taskbased instruction in the 21st century literature class, students strongly agreed on the majority of the indicators presented. it shows that the teacher provided the learning competencies and the specific objectives of the lesson. through task-based instruction, students were able to arouse their interest and motivation in doing the task given in the 21st century literature class. moreover, the teacher provided ample time for the students while they were doing the task given. however, some students were not using the target language fluently. it also observed that task-based instruction provided a flexible atmosphere and environment to gradually learn to use the target language (english) in their communication in online classroom discussion or written communication while doing their module and written tasks. it also shows that the students asserted that they appreciate the literary materials discussed in their 21st century literature class through performing various tasks related to the literary materials and anchored with the learning competencies and their specific objectives. in addition, by performing the task and with the help of task-based instruction in 21st century literature class, students developed and activated their critical and analytical skills interpreting literature materials. richard e. parcon | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 47 this observation led them to create their literary materials by integrating ict to create and disseminate their literary materials. lastly, with the help of appropriate instructional materials aligned with the learning objectives, students perceived that this strategy helped them appreciate task-based instruction and 21st century literature using the task implemented. students' willingness to adapt another strategy used by the teacher to teach specific subjects, especially task-based instruction, showed a positive effect in developing their interest in language teaching (hashim et al., 2014). in addition, tasks used in the classroom should have a sense of completeness that the improvisation of a literary text can do within its various forms or levels (khatib et al., 2011). with the help of literature and literature-based teaching, students can get tangible benefits from exposure to other literature. it can serve as a new language learning experience in improving engagement with others, improving personal development, and becoming responsible for regulating their learning (tuğrul, 2021). problems encountered by the students in performing task-based activities in their 21st century literature class external factors "loss of internet connection" "my problems were about the signal and load, then that's it" "the cellphone used is not good." "sometimes i do not attend the class nor answer the module because my sister and i are sharing materials have the same schedule of the class." “ang problema ko lang po ay pag di ako nakaka attend sa klase kaya pag dating sa module ang iba di ko masagutan” "poor internet" as reflected in their responses, technical difficulties are problems they encountered in performing task-based activities in their 21st century literature class. with the abrupt changes in the learning mode, students need to abreast themselves in using technology and other means to adapt to the new normal education. consequently, learners encounter problems such as internet connection because the setup is in distance learning class, lack of signal, and gadget for the online class. this result is the same in the situation in which the learning environment may affect the learners' learning outcomes, such as school supplies or materials and inappropriate learning place or hub, which can distract students from attending the class or performing various tasks (gilavand, 2016). the language used in the instructions written in the module "there are some instructions that aren't clear to me." "sometimes, i don't understand what to do." "sometimes i don't understand the instructions written in the module, so i have to read and study the module many times to understand it." in this part, the students found the language used in the instructions written in the module difficult to understand. the use of language is one of the considerations that writers and even teachers should consider in doing instructional materials so that the student can easily understand the module's instructions and context. the importance of using appropriate language may assist the learners in comprehending the materials, the instructions in the tasks, and engage the learners in collaborative dialogue in the online classroom may enhance the language learning among the students (wencheng et al., 2011). interest in literature and familiarity in the literary materials "the only problem is that i'm not really interested in literature." "sometimes, i'm not familiar with the lesson or the topic." "understanding the context knowing author context and comparing and contrasting between genres." richard e. parcon | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 48 the students' responses show that some of them are not interested in literature or reading literary text. this is the common reason students are having hard time learning and appreciating literature because they are not interested in it or have a passion for reading. literature promotes students' creativity and increases their emotional awareness. moreover, using literature in language teaching encourages students to read and experience it for their enrichment (ceylan, 2016). difficulty level of task-based activities in the module "difficulty in making mp4-video format adaptation and also creative digital picture presentation." "i found some of the tasks were difficult to do." "since it requires us to do the task with the use of technology, there were tasks that were too difficult to do." the responses clearly stated that the level of difficulty was considered one of the students' problems. some activities or tasks given in the module require technology to come up with an output. higher skills are also needed to do the task required. therefore, as early as junior high school, teachers should expose the learners to the tasks that measure their skills and abilities. in the study regarding the perspective on second language task difficulty, teachers should consider the linguistic background or factors of the students in providing a certain difficulty level of the task. also, modification of taskdifficulty should consider the conceptual factors such as: reducing the number of items in the task, including more visual representation, level of students, and providing rewards (révész & gurzynskiweiss, 2016). students' means to overcome the problem they encountered in performing task-based activities seeking classmates and teacher's assistance "i will ask my teacher if they can do the task. in solo, and ask clearly way." "by asking my teacher how to do it." "since our teacher is always there to help, i always him to clarify and re-explain the instructions and tasks in a simple language." "i always admire how the teacher explains the instructions and tasks in a way that we can understand it." "since i belong to the modular class, i always rely on the recorded video discussion of our teacher posted on the facebook page and google classroom." based on these responses, the students sought the assistance and guidance of their teachers in doing various tasks in their 21st century literature class. this strategy helped them to do the tasks and comply with the output needed in every lesson. the study's findings regarding teacher's and student's scaffolding in an efl classroom revealed that not only can the teachers help the students, but a student can also successfully scaffold their peers. one must understand that every language learner has different strengths and weaknesses. therefore, the teacher should use it properly in the classroom (samana, 2013). teacher's motivation and teaching strategies "i started to love literature because of the guide and teacher. "i positively answer the module because of how our teacher taught a lesson and always motivated us to the tasks by relating the topic in our real-life situation." "whether it is online or modular class, the strategy of the teacher used in teaching 21 st century literature is effective because the difficult tasks in the module became easy for us." "i always listen attentively to our teacher during the discussion." richard e. parcon | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 49 it is observed that students start to love literature. students are also interested in doing the tasks in 21st century literature lessons. it is one of the teacher’s strategies in motivating students in performing a specific task. task-based teaching and learning reinforce the learners to learn and absorb language skills and develop their creativity. moreover, interaction is also an effective means to achieve significant results by stimulating learners' motivation and willingness to learn and promote english language (pietri, 2015). self-initiative and motivation "i overcame my problem in doing task-based activities by focusing on the tasks." "i try my best to do my task. i searched if i did not understand the question." "there's none, but for me, i can possibly overcome it by simply asking related questions that are beneficial in discovering accurate and valid information needed." "by researching that certain topic." "first self -confidence second understanding of what is being read third listening to class." "by thinking that in every problem, there is always a solution." "i buy loads of data." "just focus on the module." "i give myself time to relax and think clearly when i'm okay then i do chores." i gave time and effort to doing activities/tasks that our teacher gave. and i want to improve myself and be the best version of myself while doing all the tasks. i was thinking of the positive that would happen to me, and i put aside the problem i am facing now because i'm a working student, i can't participate in the online class, so i look at our fb page or google classroom to find out what to do, and i pass my output even late i prioritize the easy lastly, most of the students responded that the strategy they are using to overcome the problems they encountered in 21st century literature is self-initiation. it observes that students are doing their strategy to cope with the assigned tasks and lessen the difficulty level that they experience in performing tasks. this situation is similar to the study findings of fostering language learning through literature and task-based instruction. the use of reading guide and self-initiative of the students, the student's motivation to accomplish the task-based reading and writing project was high and had a positive impact on improving their language skills (arboleda-arboleda & castro-garcés, 2019). conclusions based on the findings of the study, the researcher drawn the following conclusions: first, as reflected in the result of the study, students showed a clear understanding of the concept of task and taskbased instruction; however, some students only agreed that performing tasks and the task-based instruction used by the teacher in teaching 21st century literature use the target language (english). therefore, teachers should intensify and maximize the use of the english language in discussion and in performing the given task. second, most respondents strongly agreed that task and task-based instruction is implemented in their 21st century literature class. so based on the perceptions of the respondents, the implementation of tasks and task-based instruction is an effective strategy for them. third, external factors, language used in the instructions written in the module, interest in literature and familiarity with literary materials, and difficulty level of task-based activities in the module are problems that the respondents encountered during the implementation of task-based instruction in their 21st century literature class. therefore, teachers should consider these factors in producing instructional materials and teaching 21st century literature classes among the students. lastly, seeking classmates' and teacher's assistance, teacher's motivation and teaching strategies, and selfinitiative and motivation are the means for the students to overcome the difficulties they encountered in implementing the task and task-based instruction in 21st century literature class. this study does not intend to shift the paradigm of teaching literature using task-based instruction firmly. it only reveals that based on the learner's views and perceptions, task-based instruction used by their teacher in teaching 21st century literature can be considered as a different approach to teach literature, specifically in the 21st-century era. though literature teaching is classroom-oriented and task-based instruction is quite a different concept, it is recommended that richard e. parcon | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 50 language teachers and literature teachers embrace the use of task-based instruction to develop language skills needed and help the students appreciate literature well (nawaz, 2019). since this initial study focused on learners' views and understanding regarding task-based instruction in teaching 21st century literature, aspiring researchers may conduct a quantitative study to determine the effectiveness of task-based instruction in teaching 21st century literature. acknowledgement the researcher would like to express their grateful appreciation to the deped marikina specifically ms. sheryll t. gayola, the schools division superintendent and mr. antonio g. andres, school principal for allowing the researcher to conduct the study in tañong high school grade 11 students who served as the participants of the study. references arboleda-arboleda, a., & castro-garcés, a. 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(2011). reader and text: literary theory and teaching of literature in the twenty-first century. 2011 international conference on languages, literature, and linguistics. http://ipedr.com/vol26/102-iclll%202011-l10180.pdf 172 elt forum 10 (2) (2021) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt gendered perspective on online communication strategies: a case on english department students maulida nur aziza english department, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 3 july 2020 approved in 27 july 2021 published in 28 july 2021 ________________ keywords: gender; communication strategies; online face-to-face conversation ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this study aims to investigate whether gender influence on online communication strategies performed by the english department. this study provides types of communication strategies, the frequency of communication strategies used, and the factors that influence students in differentiating communication strategies used by both male and female students. the researcher used qualitative approach. online faceto-face conversation and interview were chosen as the data collection technique. for the research instruments that the researcher used were communication strategies sheet, interview, and audio and video recording. the participants of this study were the eight semester students of english department. the data collected were analyzed used communication strategies taxonomies proposed by celce-murcia et al. (1995). the results of this study show that used variety of communication strategies. the most frequent communication strategy used both male and female students is fillers, hesitation devices, and gambits. it was proven by the percentage that was 50%. the least used communication strategy by the students is circumlocution (0,07%). related to gender, female students almost show higher number of occurrences for all of the communication strategies than male students. this phenomenon happened due to some factors such as the female characteristics that is socially oriented, expressive and avoid making mistakes. meanwhile, male students showed characteristics such as talk simpler, have a great willingness to manage anxiety and they seem to conceal their inability to others. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: maulidanuraziza1998@gmail.com http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& mailto:maulidanuraziza1998@gmail.com maulida nur aziza / elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 173 introduction having effective communication skill in this industrial modern era is important. research by faradilla and rukmini (2019) stated that to reach the goal of communication, english learner needs to have communication skill. she added that this is the tool in communication process which are used to remove barriers to reach effective communication. the fact that english is still considered as a foreign language in indonesia makes the students have limited chance to apply and use it outside of school in their daily life. as a result, they rarely speak english as their language for communication. hence, speaking skill is regarded as one of the most difficult aspects of language-learning (leong & ahmadi., 2017). in line with this, many learners state that they have spent so many years studying english language, but they cannot speak it appropriately and understandably (bueono et al., 2006). it seems that many indonesian students may find it difficult when they have to speak in english. they put more effort or use some strategies to overcome their communication problem while speaking english. those strategies called as communication strategies. dornyei (1995) views communication strategies as the ways a person employs to cope with problems and difficulties in oral communication. communication strategies can assist the students to solve their speaking problem and enhance their communicative competence. hence, it is important for students to know about it. a great number of studies concerning communication strategies have been carried out. some researchers who had the same interest to this topic are lai (2010), kaivanpanah et al. (2012), nasrullah (2017), mahardika et al. (2014), amin (2017), and yusparizal et al. (2018). those previous studies are similar to each other, but they had different categories to be observed. most of them were focusing on investigating communication strategies used by male or female students, the percentage of it, and the reasons using communication strategies. they had the same interest, but they employed different research designs, research instruments, and numbers of participants, so they produced a different result. concerning gender influence, there are still rooms for more investigation due to some inconsistencies in the findings of different studies. gender influence may give effect on communication strategies used by people. in line with that statement, mahardika et al. (2014) mentioned that gender is believed as the factor affecting the process of communication. this statement is strengthened by the fact from the development of neuroscience reveals that men and women have differences in the structures and function in the brain (rabinowicz et al., 2002). achiron et al. (2001) stated that the different structures in male and female begin since in the womb. furthermore, frederikse et al. (1999) mentioned that brains are more asymmetric in men not in women. regardless to those facts, it can be said that the different structure of their brain leads to the different ability to think, to communicate, or to solve problem between male and female. in this case, communication strategies used also influenced by gender. some experts had done doing a study related to gender and communication strategies. according to zhao & intraprasert’s research (2013), they found out that there is significant differences of individual communication strategies employment in relation to the students’ gender. female students used cs frequently than male students. this was consistent with the result study by mahardika et al. (2014) in which stated that male students used 180 strategies while female students used 214 strategies. the contradicted result of the study related to this issue showed by lai (2010). the findings from the interview showed that there was no significant differences between males and females in the use of css which was contributed to the learning environment. another research conducted by kaivanpanah et al. (2012), in which the results showed that there was no significant gender effect in the use of communication strategies except for strategies that were social in nature such as circumlocution, asking for clarification, omission, comprehension check, use of fillers, and over-explicitness. with respect to gender influence, there are still rooms for more investigation due to the differences in the findings of the previous studies. this study is trying to investigate the communication strategy used by english department students based on gender. the different thing of this study compared to the others is the researcher is trying to investigate different communication strategies used affected by the students’ gender and the communication partner’s gender. in short, the researcher curious about whether the students use different communication strategies while communicating with the same gender and different gender or not. regarding the current situation in indonesia and some countries in the world which got infected by the covid-19, some countries implemented nationwide locked down. the government demanded all of the citizens to stay at home for several weeks or months for reducing and stopping the increasing numbers of infected patients by the coronavirus. knowing how dangerous this virus is, the indonesia maulida nur aziza / elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 174 government instructed all the citizens for supporting large scale social restriction. this instruction demanded some institutions to be closed and doing their activities through an online platform. due to this situation, some outside activities were prohibited to be conducted, especially activity which cause a crowd. the researcher who initially wanted to conduct the real face-to-face conversation for collecting the data then changed the plan. an online platform that is whatsapp video call was chosen as the application for collecting the data. this is because of the ease of use and all the students also have this application for their daily online chat. moreover, the different thing of this study compared to the previous studies is the researcher is trying to figure out different communication strategies performed by the students affected by the communication partner’s gender. in short, the researcher curious about whether the students use different communication strategies while communicating with the same gender and different gender or not. fishman (1983), mahardika et al. (2014), hancock and rubin (2014), amin (2017), yusparizal et al. (2018), or kaivanpanah et al. (2012), they focused on investigating gender influence on communication strategies. they tried to find out types of communication strategies performed based on gender. meanwhile, for this study, the researcher differentiates it by using two interlocutors with different gender to be the communication partner of the students. this idea was inspired by samar and alibakhsi’s research which seeking of gender influence on linguistic strategies, and they tabulated the data based on male and male, male and female, female and female, and female and male. what makes it different from that study is the researcher here investigating communication strategies. besides, the research methodology used by the researcher were online face-to-face conversation and interview in which this is new for the related topic. building on the case above, the researcher was interested to conduct a research entitled gendered perspective on online communication strategies: a case on unnes english department students. then, the researcher formulates the research questions for this study as follows. the first research question is focusing on investigating types of communication strategies performed by english department students in their daily communication based on their gender and their communication partner’s gender. the second research question is trying to figure out factors that influence the students in using communication strategies based on their gender and their communication partner’s gender. reviewing the previous studies, there are some available communication strategies taxonomy that can be used. the first is taxonomy of communication strategies proposed by tarone in 1977 (as cited in dornyei & scott, 1997) which consisted of avoidance, paraphrase, conscious transfer, appeal for instance, and mime strategies. later, faerch & kasper (1983) postulated the taxonomy which comprised formal reduction, functional reduction, and achievement strategy (as cited in dornyei & scott, 1997). furthermore, other experts proposed other categories of communication strategies, they are dornyei and scott’s taxonomy (1997). they categorized based on these main categories: interactional strategies, compensatory strategies, reduction strategies, focus-on form strategies, sociocultural strategies, and paralinguistic strategies. afterward, for this study the researcher used communication strategies taxonomy proposed by celce-murcia et al. (1995) as the framework for analyzing the communication strategies performed by the students. the reason of this choice it is because the newest and completeness of the taxonomy. they suggested component of strategic communication as follow: maulida nur aziza / elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 175 figure 1. communication strategies taxonomy by celce-murcia et al. (1995) methods this study used a qualitative approach. according to polit et al. (1999, as cited in purnomo, 2017), he stated that “qualitative research involves broadly stated questions about human experiences and realities, studied through people in their natural environments, generating rich, descriptive data that helps us to understand their experiences and attitude.” this qualitative research focused on investigating gendered perspective on online communication strategies used by english department students. the conversation of this research was conducted naturally where the participants didn’t recognize the focus objective of the research and it happened once for each person. there was no repetition so their answer was natural. the subject of this study were the 8th semester students of english department. there were eight participants, i.e. four female students and four male students. this consideration is based on the statement from creswell (1998) which recommends 5-25 subjects for phenomenological qualitative research. the researcher used purposive sampling when choosing the students as the participants in which the categories used are english department student, student of 8th semester, and they are willing to join. furthermore, the selected students had already taken basic courses of english learning in the previous semesters. thus, the students were accustomed to speak english bravely. the reason of choosing eight semester students as the participants because they will graduate soon this semester, and hopefully, this research enriches their knowledge about communication strategy so they can speak english effectively and have a greater chance to have better job. this statement has been supported by baker & westrup (2003) who said that learners who speak english very well can have greater chance for better education, finding good jobs, and getting promotion. for collecting the data, the researcher employed some research instruments. they were communication strategies sheet, video recording, and interview. communication strategies sheet was developed based on the taxonomy of communication strategies proposed by celce-murcia et al. (1995). the researcher printed out the communication strategies sheet for each student. the use of the communication strategies sheet itself in this study is as a guideline for the researcher to analyze and categorize the communication strategies used by the participants during the conversation. it helped maulida nur aziza / elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 176 the researcher to be more focus on collecting the data so there won’t be any missing information that must be collected for analyzing the data. furthermore, the researcher chose video recorder as another instrument used because it helped the researcher a lot in observing the communication strategies used by the students. it is because communication strategies not only consisted of verbal strategies in form of but also includes non-verbal strategies such as gestures or facial expression, so the researcher needs detail information about it and records it into a video. at last, interview is useful when there is a need to collect in-depth information in a systematic number of respondents. in this case, the interview needs to collect the participants’ perception of using communication strategies to the different gender. furthermore, by using the information from the interviews, it helped to strengthen the validity and reliability of this study. for collecting the data, the researcher conducted an online face-to-face conversation and interview. all of the participants have a chance to communicate with the interlocutor both the same gender and opposite gender. the female interlocutor focused on discussing about university life while male interlocutor talked about studying abroad. the conversation was conducted through an online application called whatsapp video call. the researcher chose this strategy due to the situation that happened in indonesia that caused by covid-19. the government demanded all of the citizens to stay at home. as a result, to overcome this situation, the researcher used an online face to face conversation. the data transcription of their conversation then was analyzed by using the taxonomy of communication strategies proposed by celce-murcia et al. (1995). then, for the interview session, the researcher did the interview through whatsapp call and recorded using audio recorder. after conducting the online face to face conversation, the researcher collected the data and tried to figure out what communication strategies used by the participants. the classification of the collected data based on gender, for example, what communication strategies performed both males and males, females and males, males and females or females and females used. the result of analysis based on communication strategies sheet was crosschecked for two or three times to the video recorder transcription for avoiding any missed information that the researcher analyzed. moreover, for the interview data analysis, the researcher transcribed the recording into words. based on the transcription of the interview session, the researcher tried to interpret it to draw the conclusion. interpreting was used to investigate the why the research subject used some communication strategies and their perception about gender of communication partner influence to their chosen communication strategies. at the last step is drawing the conclusion, based on the interpretation, the researcher can draw the final result of the interview. findings and discussion communication strategies performed by the students the researcher had already collected the main data through an online face-to-face conversation with the participants. the data collected were in the form of video and audio recording. those data were transcribed and then analyzed based on strategic competence from celce-murcia et al. (1995). based on the data analysis, five sub-categories of communication strategies were employed by the students during their communication. both male and female students used those five categories, but not all of the strategies were used by the students. there 16 communication strategies used among 19 strategies that proposed by celce-murcia et al. (1995). those communication strategies that were used by the students during their conversations were topic avoidance, message abandonment, circumlocution, approximation, all-purpose words, non-linguistic means, restructuring, literal translation from l1, code-switching, retrieval, fillers, hesitation devices and gambits, self and other repetition, self-initiated repair, self-rephrasing, appeals for help, and meaning-negotiation strategies. meanwhile, message replacement, word-coinage, and foreignizing were the strategies which never employed by the students during the conversation. furthermore, the details analysis of the finding will be explained on the following paragraph with more explanation for the frequencies of each communication strategies, the description of the communication strategies used, and the interpretation of why the participants used those communication strategies related to gender. table 1. table of recapitulation of communication strategies performed by the students type of communication strategies appearance male to male male to female female to female female to male message replacement topic avoidance 2 4 1 maulida nur aziza / elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 177 from the table of recapitulation above, both male and female students showed different number of occurrences. there was no significant gender effect on communication strategies used except for some strategies such as literal translation from l1, code-switching, fillers, hesitation devices and gambits, self-initiated repair, appeal for help, and meaning-negotiation strategies which showed significant differences. it can be deduced that excepts for those strategies mentioned above, the rest communication strategies showed similar numbers of usage. here is the explanation for strategies that showed similar numbers of occurrences. for topic avoidance and message abandonment strategies, both of them are the opposite of communicating. they are decisions not to communicate. if topic avoidance occurs when someone is trying to avoid some topics or concepts which they don’t understand about and lack of vocabulary about it, message abandonment is a communication strategy used by the speaker when someone suddenly stops talking and leaving a message unfinished because of language difficulties. here is the sample for topic avoidance “yeah, i think. and then, the importance of education in college, i think [eee] i don’t know, i don’t know.” for message abandonment, here is the sample “more be hard and … [eee]”. students showed similar numbers of usage of these strategies. this finding revealed with mahardika et al.’s study (2014) which found out that almost similar numbers used by male and female students for these strategies. the researcher speculates that they have the same characteristic that is avoiding talking about something they don’t know about. also, they may think that by using those strategies could enhance the effectiveness of communication. this statement echoed with canale’s study (1983) which argued that communication strategies can assist learners to enhance the effectiveness of communication. however, for this case, it was not suggested for the students to use these strategies a lot because it will make the interlocutors confused especially when leaving an unfinished message. this statement is supported by mariani (1994) who stated that reduction strategy can affect the content of the communication goals. furthermore, for other strategies such as circumlocution (1), all-purpose words (1), and retrieval (3) which the most rarely used by the students, the researcher assumed that those strategies performed by the students unconsciously. one possible explanation for appearing of retrieval strategy by one male student it is because of the characteristic of the student itself. he might accustom to use this strategy while facing language difficulties, especially when speaking english. he retrieved the word until it complete and meaningful. meanwhile, for the circumlocution strategy only appeared once. the researcher speculates that the students find it difficult when using this strategy. circumlocution is a strategy in which the speaker overcome their speaking problem by describing or exemplifying the target object. they cannot remember the term or the word that they wanted to say, so how could possible they explain it using other words which leads the interlocutor to understand the avoidance or reduction strategies message abandonment 4 11 11 11 achievement or compensatory strategy circumlocution 1 approximation 4 15 4 3 all-purpose words 1 1 non-linguistics mean 4 15 11 5 restructuring 3 8 2 10 word-coinage literal translation from l1 14 22 9 6 foreignizing code-switching 6 11 19 retrieval 2 1 stalling or timegaining strategies filler, hesitation devices and gambits 126 182 158 236 self and other repetition 40 76 57 60 self -monitoring strategies self-initiated repair 4 13 21 10 self-rephrasing (over elaboration) 10 18 6 10 interactional strategies appeals for help 8 7 29 32 meaning negotiation strategies 15 15 17 33 total 236 393 338 437 maulida nur aziza / elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 178 message. this statement is supported by one of the participants who said in the interview “it is because to explain the words that i’m confused has already difficult things to do, how could be i can explain it using words. it makes me more confused.” and for all-purpose word strategy which is used to explain a certain item using the general word as a compensatory, both male and female students rarely used it because they possibly have already known the words in english since they are english department students. again, those three strategies showed no significant effect of gender in communication strategies used. moreover, approximation, self-rephrasing, and restructuring strategies are strategies that deal with the placement and use of words. those strategies showed insignificant numbers of usage. these similarities both male and female students in performing these strategies perhaps because they prefer employing verbatim strategies. they are as english department students have better language proficiency compared to the other majors. their understanding and stock of vocabularies in their mind might pursue them to explain something and coping their communication problems by arranging the words. that’s why they used approximation, self-rephrasing, and restructuring as their communication strategies. the finding of approximation strategies was supported by mahardika et al.’s research (2014) which revealed that there were slightly different numbers of occurrence both male and female students for this strategy. besides, restructuring strategy in which showed lower rate appearances is echoed with ugla’s study (2013) which stated the finding of this strategy is a very low rate. for non-linguistic means strategy, the occurrences of this strategy used by the students across gender are slightly different and showed a lower rate of occurrences. male students performed it 19 times, while female students 16 times. these findings did not match with what they said in the interview session in which they said that to overcome their communication problems, they usually use gestures or explain it in other words. online communication (video call) limit the use of gestures as compared to face to face conversation. furthermore, this finding indicates that there is no gender affecting the use of this strategy. this fact echoed with their statement in the interview session which said that for overcoming their communication problems while speaking english, they would use gestures. one of the students said “yes, it’s always a problem. sometimes i feel uncomfortable speaking in english, and the way i deal with it is by using body language or finding closest related words.” perhaps, this is an easier way for them to make the interlocutor understand their thought while they are confusing to explain using words. yet, this strategy is not always successful to be applied because it has limitations and leads to misunderstanding if the interlocutor has a different perception. in addition, the researcher assumed that both male and female students are expressive. this is indifferent to parkins’ study (2012) who states that women are the more emotionally expressive gender in the realm of face-to-face communication. this statement indicates that when females have face-to-face communication, they will be emotionally expressive. the last one is self-repetition. there was only one different number of occurrences of this strategy, 116 times for male students and 117 for female students. this strategy is the second-highest strategy used by the students during the conversation. there are slightly different numbers between female and male students. the researcher realized that there are significant different numbers of this strategy used by the male students to the interlocutor. they frequently used this strategy while talking to the opposite gender. actually, the female students did the same, but the different numbers of occurrences are not significant. this phenomenon could happen because they felt more burden and nervous while talking to a different gender. this statement in line with one of the student’s statements which said that he becomes more nervous when talking to someone of a different gender. also, the similarities of this strategy used by them could be the cause of their eagerness not to make mistakes while speaking english. they gained time to think the correct utterances or words they want to say by repeating the words. this strategy also showed their intention to maintain communication. to sum up, the similarities numbers of usage of those strategies mentioned above because the students both male and female want to enhance the effectiveness of communication, they prefer playing with the words, they are expressive, and they want to maintain the conversation by gaining time. for the following paragraphs, the researcher explains more about differences in communication strategies performed by the students. as mentioned above in the table, there are some categories that showed significant differences in the numbers of usage. those strategies are literal translation from l1, code-switching, fillers, hesitation devices and gambits, self-initiated repair, appeal for help, and meaning-negotiation strategies. literal translation from l1 strategy was one of the favorite strategies used by the students. this was proven by the number of occurrences in which male students used it 36 times, while female maulida nur aziza / elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 179 students 15 times. literal translation is translating words by words, the lexical item, idiom, compound words, or structure from l1 to l2. it means that the speaker directly translates the words without taking into consideration the grammatical of the sentence. here is the sample, “… second is i live a far from my family and when. i’m feel so missing them, i just can look at by video call or calling my mom like that. yeah, just that.” the female student wanted to say that whenever she misses her family, she usually calls or video calls her mom. she didn’t consider the grammatical aspect. as we can see, this strategy was more frequently used by male students rather than female students. looking through the conversation of the participants, the male students spoke simpler and shorter sentences compared to the female students. this can be one possible explanation whereas the male students’ characteristics in which say something to the point so that they uttered simply. this is in line with mahardika et al’s research which found out the male students have frequently used this strategy than female students. for another strategy that showed differences numbers of usage is code-switching. codeswitching is using l1 word with l1 pronunciation or a lt word with lt pronuniciation in l2. (dornyei, 1995). in another words is including the use of the native language of words or utterance during the conversation in the target language. from this research, almost all of the students had ever used this strategy during their conversation with the interlocutors. one of the students mentioned that whenever he talked to the native speaker, he would like to change the language into the native language to make it clearer. the result of this strategy showed female students performed it more frequently which was 30 times while male students only 6 times. the researcher speculates that the female students’ characteristic which is socially oriented influences them to perform any strategy as long as to maintain their conversation keep going. they don’t want to leave ambiguity and see this strategy as an easier strategy for maintaining the conversation. this finding is supported by fishman (1983) who stated that men use short responses to show a lack of interest while women would utilize more responses to demonstrate her participation and interest in the interaction. fillers, hesitation devices, and gambits is the most frequent strategy performed by the students. whether male or female students used this strategy more frequently than other strategies. the result echoed with mahardika et al’s study which also found out that both male and female students use fillers most frequently. the use of fillers, gambits, and hesitation devices itself is used as gaining time for thinking what’s they want to say. this is in line with ikawati’s finding (2011) which stated that students needed a little time to think about what to say next while they have oral communication. although they use this strategy frequently, but the numbers of usage are quite different. female students performed it 394 times while male students 308. the significant different numbers among them in using this strategy possibly because female students avoid silence during conversation and use this strategy as their way to show their effort to keep the conversation going. yet, this cannot be the only consideration as the effect of gender on the use of this communication strategy, other variables such as individual characteristics, the background of knowledge, or enthusiasm in the topic discuss should be taken into account. besides, the lower numbers of usage of the male students were probably caused by the fact that male students have confidence enough in conveying their thought while speaking. like what zhao and intraprasert’s study (2013) argued that male students had a greater willingness to manage anxiety while interacting in english to maintain the conversation than female students. that’s why male students performed fewer numbers of usage as a consequence of their effort in managing their anxiety. regarding self-initiated repair strategies, again the female students employed this strategy more frequently than male students. self-initiated repair is a strategy in which the speaker initiates to correct his words after he realized there is something wrong with his utterances. the findings of this resonate in ugla’s study (2013) that the research subject used a self-repair strategy extensively. this was to compensate for their low proficiency in the english language. the differences number of occurrences between female (31 times) and male students (17), the researcher speculates that female students are more aware of realizing their mistake compared to the male. this was probably somewhat strongly influenced by the innate characteristics of females. this could be a possible reason why females innately better at language learning (oxford, nyikos, and ehrman, 1988). consequently, they immediately aware of their mistakes and repaired their incorrect words. for appeals for help strategy, tarone (1977) gives a brief explanation about the appeal for assistance that the speaker asks for the correct term or structure. it means that the speaker asks another for help in order to help him with a certain term or item in the target language. the numbers of usage of this strategy is quite different for both female students and male students. on one hand, male students performed it only 15 times while female students used it 61 times. another researcher who has the same result conducted by hou (1998), he mentioned that the participants used more asking for maulida nur aziza / elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 180 help when they are performing the task. different results showed by mahardika et al’s research (2014) which found out that male students more frequently used this strategy than female students. the researcher assumed that possible explanation of this strategy because male students didn’t want to show their inability by asking with the interlocutors but they performed other strategies. in line with this, they argued that a similar gender between male students and the interviewer encourages the male students to ask the interviewer when finding difficulties. differed with the male students who handled their communication problems by performing other strategies, the female students who were social-oriented in communication tried to ask for help from the interlocutor to get the answer and help quickly. female students typically rely heavily on verbally and socially mediated approaches in their interaction (halpern, 1992 as cited in vandergrift 1997). that’s why they don’t consider showing their difficulties to the interlocutors to get help from them. to sum up, male students are typically don’t want to show their inability to others, while female students perceived this strategy as their way to cope with their communication problems quickly. the last communication strategy which showed different numbers of usage is meaning negotiation strategies. again, female students are dominating the numbers of usage of this strategy. ugla et al. (2013) found out that the students used this strategy frequently, especially asking repetition requests. in line with that, this research found out that the use of meaning negotiation strategy was the second-highest communication strategy used by the female students, and the fourth-highest communication strategy used by male students. regarding the gender perspective, the researcher argues that possible reason for explaining the frequent numbers of usage by female students because they do not want to leave ambiguity or uncertainty in the conversation. if we look back on types of meaning negotiation strategies that consist of indicators of non-misunderstanding, responses, and comprehension check, three of them help the speaker to clearer the ambiguity or checking the same understanding both the speaker and the interlocutor. they may think that this strategy also effective to deal with their communication problems. this statement is supported by the previous study from yaman and özcan (2015) which argued that negotiation for meaning strategies is effective oral communication strategies that help students overcome communication problems. to sum up, among all of the communication strategies performed by the students, the female students are superior in employing the strategies. as we can see, the total number of cs used by female students is 775 while male students only 629. this was consistent with the results in mori and gobel’s study (2006), in which females had more desire to make l2-speaker friends and greater interest in direct contact with english speaking people than their male counterparts. other studies showed significant female superiority in the use of all language learning strategies (ehrman and oxford 1989; ellis 1994). that statement strengthening the fact that female students employed more communication strategies. factors that influence the students in using communication strategies to answer the research question number two, the researcher conducted semi-constructed interview. they were eight questions delivered to the students using indonesia language because the researcher intended to dig up more information from the respondents. for the factors that influence the students in using communication strategies, the researcher had already collected the data. based on the interview transcription, there are some factors which influence the students in using communication strategies, they are: closeness of the relationship, gender, age, social status, preferences and interest. for closeness of the relationship, most of the students agreed that this factor influence their way of speaking style in communication. they said that whenever they talk to someone that is new or they don’t know before, they will select their words. like what female student’s said “partners in communication, right? i wouldn’t mind whether they are boys or girls because i don’t feel any different to have a conversation with either one. but it’ll be matter if, for example, a and b both are my friends, but compared to a, i barely talk to b. so, that makes our communication quite plain.” furthermore, gender is another factor which influence the students in communication. some of the students mentioned that gender of the communication partner influences them in their conversation. they will treat and behave different while talking with someone with the opposite gender. they differentiate their words, their politeness and their gesture. one of the male student stated that “yes. i think it is also about gender. the way i talk to the girls and boys are slightly different. i would be more polite when talking to the girls.” besides closeness of the relationship and gender, social status and age also matter. this was proven by the male student’s statement which said “yes, indeed. i think it is due to the social status. the way i talk to my lecturers will be quite different from the way i talk to my fellow friends. i have to maulida nur aziza / elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 181 mind my language somehow.” besides, preferences and interest both the speaker and the interlocutor is influential for someone in communication. some of the participants had the same argument about it and mentioned that this factor influence them to their communication style. one of them said “perhaps the circumstance, relationship, and the range of the topic.” another findings from the interview session is the students answer about the usual communication strategies that they used in their daily life. the researcher had already collected the data that show types of communication strategies performed by the students from the online face-toface conversation. on another side, the researcher asked the students about what type of communication strategies they usually used through this semi-structured interview in order to know how far their understanding about communication strategies. in fact, the result of the interview was slightly different from the result of the analysis of their communication strategies during the online face-to-face conversation. from the interview session, mostly mentioned that the students overcome their communication problems by using gestures, using similar words, description, asking for help, or switch their words into their mother tongue. however, the findings showed that there were 16 communication strategies employed by the students during the conversation. the following sentences provide the students’ answers in the interview session. male (4) “i used gestures and sometimes my first language which is bahasa.” male student (4) “i can just use my smartphone to translate it using the google-translator.” female student (4) “sometimes i feel uncomfortable to speak in english, and the way i deal with it is by using body language or finding closest related words.” the first statement indicated that the student chose a code-switching strategy to overcome his communication problems. meanwhile, the second statement provided a different strategy that he also prefered using a smartphone to help him while facing language difficulties. this strategy can be categorized as asking for help strategy. furthermore, the female student’s statement showed that she chose body language or gesture and finding closest related words. finding the closest related words that the female student mentioned can be restructuring, self-rephrasing, circumlocution, or approximation strategy because those strategies focused on arranging words. based on the findings above, the researcher predicts that the difference between the students answer in the interview and their communication strategies used during conversation happened perhaps because they do not know about what the exact name of the communication strategy. yet, actually, they have the concept of the strategy but they don’t know any kind of other communication strategies, so they answered what they know. it can be concluded that the students employ more communication strategies rather than what they answered before. so, they need to know more about the types of communication strategies to help them improve their communication ability. besides, the explanation above can not be the one of the reasons for the differences that appeared in this strategy. due to the use of whatsapp video call, an online platform, as the instrument, the researcher speculates that other factors may influence it. those extrinsic factors affect the different numbers itself. the factors can be the quality of the internet connection, the quality of the headset or speaker of the smartphone whether interlocutor or the students, the quality of the video recorder, and it can be the situation. what is meant by the situation here is whether are there any disturbance which affects the concentration of the students. to sum up, there was no significant differences of cs used based on gender except for some strategies. this phenomenon happened caused by other factors such as topic discussion, the closeness of the relationship, topic, age, social status, preference and interest, internet connection, headset, video recorder, or the situation of the surrounding. for the future researcher, they need to try to conduct this study with different methods and numbers of participants. the researcher predicts that the result will be different if the study conducted face-to-face in real life. conclusion there were no significant differences in communication strategies performed by the students based on gender except for some strategies. those strategies are literal translation from l1, code-switching, fillers, hesitation devices and gambits, self-initiated repair, appeal for help, and meaning-negotiation strategies. they showed significant different numbers of occurrences. the researcher argues that the maulida nur aziza / elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 182 similarities number of occurrences happened because of some factors. those factors include the students’ eagerness to enhance the effectiveness of communication, the different of students’ characteristics, they prefer playing with the words, they are expressive and they want to maintain the conversation by gaining time. meanwhile, for the differences, it is influenced by some factors such as female students prefer avoiding silence in communication, females are socially oriented, males students speak simpler and to the point, innate ability of male and female, males students do not want to show their inability, and the students do not want to leave ambiguity. besides, those factors, external factors also give a big impact on the numbers of occurrences. the external factors are the internet connection, the quality of headset/speaker of the smartphone, the quality of the video recorder, and the situation around the speakers or interlocutors. furthermore, based on the interview result, there are some factors that influence the participants in the conversation. those factors are gender, the closeness of the relationship, topic, age, social status, preference, and interest. interestingly, some students argued that they do not matter about the gender of the communication partner in affecting them while communicating. based on the result of online face-to-face conversation, students who have that argument performed different result. both male and female students performed frequent communication strategies towards different gender of the partner of communication. any factors related to the gender difference which might influence them are the closeness of the relationship, topic, interest, characteristic of the communication partner, and the feeling that the speaker has toward the interlocutor. as a result, due to the different gender with the communication partner makes some students nervous, lack of confident, or limiting their body language. hence, they performed frequent numbers of communication strategies used. the researcher realizes that this research has limitation. firstly, this research was conducted during the pandemic of covid-19 viruses spreading around the world. indonesian government demanded all of the citizen to stay at home. as a result, this study conducted through online platform. for the future researchers, they need to consider some matters such as the signal of the internet connection and the quality of the video and audio recorder while collecting the data through an online platform. although, they are external factors, they have such a big impact on your data collection. the better of the audio and video recording, the better of the transcription and analysis as well. communication strategies not only includes verbal words but also there are gestures, facial expression, or sound imitation which has to be analyzed. as a result, they need good quality of video and audio recording to get the best analysis of their studies. secondly, this research is limited to eight participants only. the researcher suggests that for the more concrete research, future researchers are better to use more participants and using different settings. for example, they can conduct a study that focused on investigating oral face-to-face conversation not online conversation. furthermore, they can use different setting such as employing the real native speakers to have a face-to-face conversation with the participants. the more different methodologies used, the broader available resources related to this study. it is meant to gain concrete data and findings references achiron, r., lipitz, s., & achiron, a. 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(2013). use of communication strategies by tourism-oriented efl learners in relation to gender and perceived language ability. english language teaching, 6(7), 46–59. https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v6n7p46 putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 134 elt forum 11(2) (2022) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the implementation of bichronous online learning: efl students’ perceptions and challenges dias tiara putri utomo1, finaty ahsanah1 1universitas muhammadiyah lamongan, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received on 30 january 2022 approved on 25 july 2022 published on 31 july 2022 ________________ keywords: bichronous online learning; asynchronous and synchronous; edmodo; zoom; covid-19 pandemic ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ the covid-19 pandemic has made online learning as a common instructional delivery today. since various methods, approaches, and technologies are involved, it is important to understand students’ perceptions for taking further decision in teaching. the current research aimed to investigate indonesian students’ perceptions of the implementation of bichronous online learning along with the challenges in the level of higher education. bichronous online learning refers to the blending between asynchronous and synchronous online learning. in this study, asynchronous learning was carried out through edmodo while the synchronous mode was implemented via zoom. the participants were 57 first-year university students who experienced full bichronous online learning in the english for specific purposes class. this research applied explanatory sequential mixed-methods as suggested by creswell (2014). the quantitative data were obtained by likert-scale questionnaires while the qualitative data were acquired through interviews and observations. the results indicated that students had positive perceptions of bichronous online learning in terms of motivations, academic achievement, and communication and interactions. bichronous online learning promoted students’ engagement, active interaction, and feedback exchange which highly contributed to their learning outcome. however, technical issues such as poor internet connection and limited data plan were the biggest challenges faced by the students. it is expected that educators can adjust which online learning tools are convenient to use and cater to students’ needs. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 universitas muhammadiyah lamongan jalan raya plalangan km 2 plosowahyu, lamongan e-mail: diastiara@gmail.com http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& dias tiara putri utomo, finaty ahsanah | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 135 introduction the immersion of online learning has indeed taken part in the level of higher education in the past decade, but the covid-19 outbreak has made it a common instructional delivery today. online learning is a very broad term to define, and educators or researchers may have diverse ways to name it. however, martin & oyarzun (2018) have brought up explicit definitions about various online delivery methods including asynchronous and synchronous online learning. the first term enables students to participate in a course anywhere and anytime without real-time online face-to-face meetings. conversely, the second term is delivered through real-time online meetings and allows learners to get direct feedback. it is common for educators to integrate either asynchronous or synchronous online learning into face-to-face classroom meetings. this type of learning is called a blended mode or hybrid learning (el-husseini, 2017; martin & oyarzun, 2018; staker & horn, 2012; watson & murry, 2014). several studies about the integration of asynchronous learning into face-to-face meetings have been carried out and resulted in various findings. purnawarman et al., (2016) investigated edmodo as a learning platform used in a blended learning setting for teaching writing. the study indicated that edmodo promoted students’ cognitive engagement by providing them opportunities to work independently. besides, edmodo as an asynchronous learning platform facilitated students to interact with other students, provided meaningful tasks, and promoted students’ critical thinking skill. another research conducted by mindarta et al., (2020) measured the quality of asynchronous online learning using edmodo in electrical engineering students during the covid-19 pandemic. the results indicated that in terms of experts’ perspectives, asynchronous online learning using edmodo was categorized into “very high” while the students’ satisfaction was in the “high” category. asynchronous online learning offers students meaningful learning when it can facilitate students to actively communicate with the teacher or other participants (georgouli et al., 2006; pop, 2013; shams-abadi et al., 2015; yamagata-lynch, 2014). on the other hand, educators also have introduced synchronous online learning into their brick-and-mortar classrooms. perveen (2016) reported that synchronous sessions in e-language learning activities encouraged students to provide immediate response and aided instructors to discover how deep the learning process had taken place. furthermore, the findings suggested a blend of both asynchronous and synchronous to create an ideal teaching language. this is because blending asynchronous and synchronous could encompass all language teaching and learning methods. a study performed by guzacheva (2020) explored zoom as synchronous online learning tool. the study stated that zoom was beneficial to explore as well as to assess students’ four skills since it presented rich interaction between teachers and students. additionally, a feature named “shared screen” enables teachers to display teaching media such as power point presentations, videos, and articles (guzacheva, 2020) and makes it possible for students to give feedback to each other (rahayu, 2020). with the restriction of face-to-face meetings due to the pandemic, educators must rely on the implementation of a totally online mode. in the totally online mode, educators are completely engaged internet network to the learning process (algahtani, 2011; zeitoun, 2008). as a result, many educators incorporate various online learning tools into their educational systems (ambarita, 2021; mustakim, 2020; retnaningsih, 2020; utomo & ahsanah, 2020; yuliana, 2020) and apply bichronous learning (sambeka & rares, 2021). it was martin et al., (2020) who have brought the term bichronous learning to the fore. they define bichronous learning as “the blending of both asynchronous and synchronous online learning”, in which the materials or discussions are accessible for the students and instructors 24 hours per day during the asynchronous mode but then they can also participate in a real-time discussion during the synchronous part. unfortunately, the studies on bichronous learning are still uncommon because it is a brandnew term. however, some previous studies have actually explored the blending of asynchronous and synchronous online learning without addressing the term bichronous learning. duncan et al., (2012) examined the relationship between students’ performance and participation in two learning environments: synchronous forum through a chat room and asynchronous forum via a discussion board. the results revealed that high quality both asynchronous and synchronous forums could optimize students’ performance. another research conducted by papadima-sophocleous & loizides (2016) figured out that the participants showed a positive response to the curriculum development and evaluation module which was delivered asynchronously and synchronously. additionally, the dias tiara putri utomo, finaty ahsanah | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 136 combination of those two delivery methods increased students’ clarity in understanding the lesson and developed a relaxing learning atmosphere. in addition, some recent publications and research projects related to the blending of asynchronous and synchronous online learning were carried out to discuss the impacts (peterson et al., 2018; sambeka & rares, 2021; shahabadi & uplane, 2015) and the effectiveness (riwayatiningsih & sulistyani, 2020). moreover, studies on the students’ perceptions were also conducted worldwide (malik et al., 2017; rehman & fatima, 2021; rigo & mikuš, 2021; simbolon, 2021; somenarain et al., 2010). while in indonesia, a study on bichronous learning was initiated by sambeka & rares (2021). the study examined college students’ achievement motivation in bichronous online learning during the covid-19 pandemic. the findings revealed that students’ achievement motivation was in the sufficient category, which meant bichronous learning did not decrease students’ achievement motivation nor increased it. although many studies related to the blending of asynchronous and synchronous online learning has frequently been conducted, there are quite a few or no research that have been carried out to exactly determine university students’ perceptions of bichronous online learning amidst the pandemic situation in developing countries like indonesia. therefore, the current research intended to investigate efl students’ perceptions of the implementation of bichronous learning along with the challenges in the level of higher education during the covid-19 pandemic. asynchronous online learning due to the study-at-home policy during the pandemic, education must be taken place in a totally online mode. totally online mode is the most innovative mode that completely relies on the use of internet networks (algahtani, 2011; zeitoun, 2008). algahtani (2011) divides totally online mode into asynchronous and synchronous based on the application of optional timing of interaction. in the asynchronous mode, teachers and learners do not have to be online at the same time (algahtani, 2011), or called “pause and resume” learning. this mode enables students to participate in the online class from anywhere and for 24 hours a day, 7 days per week without having real-time online face-to-face meetings (duncan et al., 2012; martin et al., 2020). the main advantage of this mode is the flexibility. there will be no scheduling conflict because the mode is based on the students’ own schedule (martin et al., 2020). the frequent tools of this mode include pre-recorded videos or audios, self-guided modules, lecture notes, digital libraries, discussion boards, links to online sources, and assignments (rigo & mikuš, 2021). in their research, georgouli et al., (2006) asserted that asynchronous online learning had proven to be a useful, adaptable, as well as an influential platform that could facilitate many educational tasks. synchronous online learning unlike asynchronous online learning that occurs anytime, synchronous online learning happens in real-time. synchronous mode opens opportunities for students to communicate and discuss the lessons directly with both the instructors and peers over the internet (algahtani, 2011). as mentioned by martin et al., (2020), synchronous online learning offers considerable benefits for the learning process such as providing immediate feedback, enhancing interaction among participants, being a part of audio-visual communications, and increasing motivation on doing tasks. however, as it happens in real-time, there will be a problem related to time schedules. teachers and students require to set a specific time for having their online courses. in other words, this mode is possible to occur anywhere but not anytime (riwayatiningsih & sulistyani, 2020). frequent methods of synchronous online learning include video conference, teleconference, live chatting, and livestreaming lectures, and live chatting (rigo & mikuš, 2021). research conducted by rahayu (2020) indicated that more than 60% of the participants agreed synchronous e-learning provided good communication access between students-teachers and students-students. bichronous online learning the term bichronous online learning is initially introduced by martin et al., (2020), which means the blending of both asynchronous and synchronous online learning. figure 1 presents conceptual understanding of bichronous online learning as adapted from martin et al., (2020). dias tiara putri utomo, finaty ahsanah | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 137 if blended/hybrid learning combines asynchronous or synchronous online learning with faceto-face meetings, bichronous online learning combines asynchronous online learning with synchronous online learning. bichronous learning enables students to participate in anytime and anywhere learning during the asynchronous mode and involve in real-time discussion during the synchronous mode. bichronous online learning benefits students in terms of immediate feedback and interaction and opportunity for audio-visual communication, yet there is a possibility of a scheduling conflict and technical issues (martin et al., 2020). perveen (2016) indicated that a blend of asynchronous and synchronous online learning is more preferred by english language learners and can be an ideal manner for teaching language because the blending can incorporate various methods of language teaching and learning. similarly, rehman & fatima (2021) revealed that the application of synchronous and asynchronous learning increased students’ engagement and created interactive learning. additionally, the students relished positive reinforcement from the facilitators. methods this research was carried out within a framework of mixed-method research, which integrates elements of both qualitative and quantitative approaches (creswell, 2014). furthermore, the research applied explanatory sequential mixed-methods because it was initially conducted with quantitative data in the form of questionnaire results, and then supported by qualitative data in the form of students’ interview results and observation data from asynchronous and synchronous tools. the use of multi-method approaches considers being the appropriate method since it can support data analysis and data collection methods (mahbub, 2020). there were 57 first-year students, 10 males and 47 females aged 18-21 years, from the faculty of health in a private university in indonesia who participated in the research. most of the participants (77%) have been learning english for more than five years. they were attending english for specific purposes (esp) class in the odd semester of the 2020/2021 academic year. the participants’ demographic data can be perceived in table 1. table 1. participants’ demographic data category frequency percentage sex male 10 17.55% female 47 82.45% age 18 years 10 17.55% 19 years 23 40.4% 20 years 10 17.55% 21 years 14 24.6% length of learning english 1-5 years 6-10 years 11-15 years 13 16 28 22.8% 28.1% 49.1% the participants experienced full bichronous online learning in their second semester since the government called on the society to implement public activity restrictions in the first half of 2021. in this research, the participants implemented bichronous online learning asynchronously through edmodo and synchronously through zoom. edmodo was used because it had been proven to be an effective tool for either asynchronous online learning or blended learning (enriquez, 2014; figure 1. conceptual understanding of bichronous online learning dias tiara putri utomo, finaty ahsanah | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 138 mindarta et al., 2020; pop, 2013; purnawarman et al., 2016; shams-abadi et al., 2015; sumardi & muamaroh, 2020). besides, the lecturers have been familiar with edmodo. before the pandemic, they utilized edmodo as a supporting tool for blending learning. zoom was selected as a synchronous online learning tool because it was facilitated and annually paid by the university. also, the questionnaire indicated that the majority of the students (82.5%) were accustomed to using zoom. there were three instruments used in this research: questionnaire sheets, interview guide, and observation sheets. the questionnaire was made electronically via google form to obtain the necessary data. it was prepared and modified from some relevant research (al-said, 2015; mahbub, 2020; simbolon, 2021). the modifications included number of items, the name of the learning tools (zoom and edmodo), and the use of “bichronous” term which shifted online learning or blended learning. statistical results of the validity and reliability of the questionnaire from the pilot study are presented in table 2. table 2. the results of validity and reliability tests statement r-pearson correlation score validity results cronbach’ alpha score reliability results 1 .656 valid .935 reliable 2 .912 valid 3 .865 valid 4 .858 valid 5 .830 valid 6 .934 valid 7 .672 valid 8 .630 valid 9 .730 valid 10 .848 valid the data on table 2 show that the correlation value of r count ranges from .630 to .934, and the r table value for 21 respondents at the 95% significance level is 0.413. since the value of r count was greater than r table value, the questionnaire was considered valid. besides, the results of cronbach’s alpha value in table 1 scored .935, or higher than 0.7, which indicated that the questionnaire was reliable. the questionnaire consisted of 2 main parts and was written in the participants’ national language, indonesian, to avoid any possible misunderstanding. the first part included open-ended questions to obtain students’ demographic data and the second part was closed-ended statements to determine students’ perceptions. the statements consisted of 3 items on students’ motivation, 4 items on academic achievement, and 3 items on communication and interactions. each item had four choices according to likert scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree. the scores ranged from 1 to 4, and thus the mean of the perception scales was categorized into low (<2), average (≥2 <3), and high (≥3). the positive perceptions were indicated by high scores mean while the negative perceptions were indicated by low scores mean. the questionnaire link was distributed online via edmodo and filled individually by the students on august 13-14, 2021. the second instrument, the interview guide, was performed after the researchers obtained questionnaire results. the results of interview were part of qualitative data in explanatory sequential mixed-methods and as suggested by the previous research (enriquez, 2014; mahbub, 2020). fifteen students voluntarily participated in the interview. the interview was held on august 16, 2021 and delivered in indonesian to minimize miscommunication. there were 3 primary questions in the interview: 1) based on your experience, what are the overall advantages offered by bichronous online learning? 2) what are the challenges that you faced during bichronous online learning? and 3) would you like to continue to implement bichronous online learning? the interview was conducted online via zoom meeting so that the researchers could record the process. finally, the observation sheet was used to document students’ activities and interactions in the asynchronous mode via edmodo and during the synchronous online learning via zoom. the analysis was performed based on the available data. the quantitative data from the questionnaire were analysed statistically by using spss 23 to obtain the descriptive statistics. the results of descriptive statistics were used to identify students’ overall perception of bichronous online learning implementation. the qualitative data from interview and observation were analysed by dias tiara putri utomo, finaty ahsanah | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 139 employing a framework of qualitative data analysis consisting of data condensation, data display, and conclusion drawing (miles et al., 2014). for the interview data, the researchers watched the recordings and then wrote the transcripts from each respondent. during data display phase, the researchers classified respondents’ answers into three sections in accordance with the interview question (advantages, challenges, and the willingness to implement bichronous online learning) in the form of a table. meanwhile, data from observations were obtained by watching recorded meetings from zoom and analysing edmodo’s account of the lecturer which included class home page, assignment section, and messaging. the researchers took notes on any activities and interactions made by the students and categorized them into two main sections: 1) between students and peers and, 2) between students and their lecturer. to support the notes, the researchers also took some photos. finally, the data from the interview transcripts and observation notes were utilized to support the quantitative data. findings and discussion the research findings are divided into two main subsections including 1) students’ perceptions of the implementation of bichronous online learning and 2) students’ challenges of the implementation of bichronous online learning. students’ perceptions of the implementation of bichronous online learning there are three fields of students’ perceptions of the implementation of bichronous online learning which include students’ motivation, academic achievement, and communication and interaction. the results of statistical analysis which displayed the means scores and standard deviations for the three fields can be perceived in table 3. table 3. mean and standard deviation of each field no. field n min max sum mean std. deviation 1. students’ motivation 57 1 4 173.33 3.04 .50815 2. academic achievement 57 1.25 4 182.50 3.20 .48743 3. communication and interaction 57 1.33 4 174.33 3.06 .51993 overall fields mean 3.11 as presented in table 3, it can be perceived that all fields are in the high-level category since the mean scores are above 3 (high: ≥3), and students’ perceptions of the academic achievement (m: 3.20) rank the highest among others. furthermore, the mean score of overall fields is 3.11, which belongs to the high-level range (high: ≥3). therefore, the results indicated that the students showed positive perceptions of the implementation of bichronous online learning especially in terms of academic achievement. in fact, students’ positive perceptions of bichronous online learning may be affected by various plausible reasons. the elaboration of each field can be seen below. students’ motivation data presented in table 4 indicate students’ motivation in learning english through bichronous online learning during the covid-19 pandemic. as presented in table 4, the majority of the participants (89.1%) strongly agreed/agreed that they felt more motivated in learning english during the covid-19 pandemic because of the implementation of bichronous online learning. the results also indicated that most participants (93%) enjoyed learning english from home during the pandemic. finally, almost all the participants (98.2%) were interested in exploring their knowledge and skills because the course was held through bichronous online learning. the above-mentioned findings are following the results of the interview. some students mentioned that they were motivated in learning because bichronous online learning was not a monotonous delivery method and provided various techniques in teaching. “[the learning process] is more interesting because it is not monotonous”. (student 15, male). “i can easily understand the lesson because it [bichronous online learning] offers a variety of activities such as face-to-face meeting in zoom or doing a survey and quiz in edmodo. sometimes, i draw comments on my friends’ work or simply like it”. (student 5, female). dias tiara putri utomo, finaty ahsanah | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 140 table 4. students’ motivation in learning english through bichronous online learning no. statement option frequency percentage 1. i feel more motivated in learning english during the pandemic because the subject is taught by bichronous online learning. strongly agree agree disagree strongly disagree 9 42 5 1 15.8% 73.7% 8.8% 1.8% 2. i enjoy learning english using bichronous online learning during study at home. strongly agree agree disagree strongly disagree 9 44 3 1 15.8% 77.2% 5.3% 1.8% 3. i am interested in exploring my knowledge and skills in english subject since it is taught by bichronous online learning. strongly agree agree disagree strongly disagree 19 37 0 1 33.3% 64.9% 0% 1.8% another reason why bichronous online learning can strengthen students’ motivation is that it encourages students’ interaction. during synchronous meetings via zoom, students could actively participate in a live discussion with the lecturers and friends, while in edmodo, students could communicate with them for 24 hours through message and comment features. “i like bichronous online learning because it makes easier for me to discuss and interact with my lecturer and classmates.” (student 3, female). “[bichronous online learning] improves classroom interactions so that the class is not boring. the interactions between i and my friends make me more motivated to learn english.” (student 1, female). some examples of students’ interactions with the lecturer and classmates in edmodo and zoom can be perceived in figures 1 and 2. data on the figure 1 show the interaction between two students in edmodo. fara (pseudonym name) gave constructive suggestions to angga (pseudonym name) for better content of his mind map. while in figure 2, group 7 presented their paper about past perfect tense. after the presentation, other students had opportunities to ask questions, give suggestions, or simply presented compliments. figure 2. students’ interaction in edmodo dias tiara putri utomo, finaty ahsanah | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 141 figure 3. students’ interaction in zoom the results corroborate the findings of perveen (2016), rehman & fatima (2021), and rigo & mikuš (2021). in terms of a variety of teaching activities, perveen (2016), who analyzed 1,025 responses from the survey questionnaire, suggested a blend of asynchronous and synchronous as it can incorporate all techniques/methods in language teaching/learning. furthermore, a more recent study conducted by rehman & fatima (2021) indicated that an innovative model of asynchronous and synchronous learning used during a pandemic had supported students’ engagement. similarly, rigo & mikuš (2021) also highlighted the importance of interactivity between the teacher and the students in the combination of asynchronous and synchronous distance learning. thus, it is obvious that bichronous online learning has motivated and attracted students to learn english because of various teaching activities which can cater to students’ needs and the existence of interaction among students. academic achievement data on table 5 present students’ perceptions of their academic achievement when bichronous online learning is implemented in english learning during the covid-19 pandemic. table 5. students’ perceptions of academic achievement no. statement option frequency percentage 4. assignments, quizzes, and other online tasks given by the lecturer in edmodo and the online face-to-face meetings via zoom help me to improve my learning and comprehension skills about the course. strongly agree agree disagree strongly disagree 19 37 1 0 33.3% 64.9% 1.8% 0% 5. the quality of my assignments, quizzes, and other online activities when learning english via bichronous online learning is improved because of the feedback given by the lecturer and fellow students. strongly agree agree disagree strongly disagree 16 40 1 0 28.1% 70.2% 1.8% 0% 6. learning english through bichronous online learning contributes to the development of my overall outcomes. strongly agree agree disagree strongly disagree 12 40 4 1 21.1% 70.2% 7% 0% 7. bichronous online learning develops my independent learning skills. strongly agree agree disagree strongly disagree 13 40 4 0 22.8% 70.2% 7% 0% dias tiara putri utomo, finaty ahsanah | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 142 data on table 5 indicate that almost all students (98.2%) believed online activities including assignments, quizzes, and face-to-face meeting via asynchronous and synchronous tools had helped them to improve their comprehension of the course. then, 56 out of 57 or 98.2% of the participants also revealed that the improvement was due to the feedback given by the lecturers and classmates. regarding the overall outcomes, the majority of the participants (91.3%) affirmed that learning english via bichronous online learning had made a great contribution. finally, only four (7%) participants did not agree that bichronous online learning had developed their independent learning skills, while the rest (93%) agreed. when the participants were asked about the overall advantages of bichronous online learning, some of them mentioned that it was an effective delivery method and helped them to get a better understanding of the materials. “it [bichronous online learning] is the most effective method [among others] and i think this method has contributed to the improvement of my knowledge in english subject.” (student 4, female). “learning english through bichronous online learning has helped me to increase my knowledge and understanding of english especially during the pandemic.” (student 2, female). furthermore, in terms of feedback, some participants explained that feedback from the lecturer and other students had taken part in their quality improvement in completing online activities. feedback was generally given after the students completed their tasks and posted them in edmodo. besides, they received feedback after asking questions either to the lecturer or other students who presented their papers. “through bichronous online learning, i can freely ask questions about the materials and also answer my friends’ questions or critics when my group presents my paper.” (student 12, male). “the use of edmodo has helped me a lot. i am usually too shy to ask questions. using edmodo massaging feature, i can ask questions to my english lecturer since it is more personal. sometimes, i also ask her to give feedback on my project before i submit it.” (student 11, female). “this semester, we must present our paper via zoom. the activity is so much fun because we can directly ask questions and have a live discussion. in fact, my friends’ feedback helps me to revise my paper before final submission.” (student 6, female). an example of students’ interaction with the lecturer through the edmodo messaging feature can be perceived in figure 3. the representative of the group showed their grammar comics to the lecturer for feedback before final submission. in addition, lecture’s direct feedback on how to pronounce words correctly during zoom meetings is perceived in figure 4. figure 4. a student sending a message to the lecturer via the edmodo messaging feature to obtain constructive feedback dias tiara putri utomo, finaty ahsanah | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 143 figure 5. the lecturer opening an electronic dictionary as a feedback on student’s wrong pronunciation regarding independent learning skills, three participants agreed that bichronous online learning had thrived their ability in self-learning which leads to academic achievement. “i think one of the benefits of bichronous online learning is that i can learn english by myself either inside or outside the class.” (student 7, female). “bichronous online learning has increased my ability to learn independently. several days before the final test, i played zoom recordings from the previous meetings. i also checked the materials from lecturer and my friends that were posted in edmodo.” (student 8, male). “learning english using bichronous online learning is beneficial in terms of autonomy especially during the pandemic like today.” (student 10, male). the aforementioned findings align with several prior studies. in their study, duncan et al., (2012) revealed that synchronous and asynchronous online forums were an effective way in increasing students’ performance. similarly, coogle & floyd (2015) also pinpointed that students’ positive learning experience through their active interactions resulted in a better overall performance of information they obtained. the interactions included students’ participation in reading and field experience, reflecting, and responding to the materials. additionally, rehman & fatima (2021) assumed that the combination of synchronous and asynchronous online learning provided students with interactive learning as they received positive reinforcement and feedback from the lecturer. in respect of independent learning, students perceived independent assignments in the text or during a live session class as beneficial factors to enhance their learning quality (coogle & floyd, 2015). in this study, it is clear that students consider their academic achievement has improved because of assignments, quizzes, and tasks given by the lecturer well as feedback from either their lecturer or fellow students. furthermore, through bichronous online learning students have an opportunity to be independent learners. communication and interaction data on table 6 show students’ perceptions of the implementation of bichronous online learning in terms of communication and interaction. data on the table 6 indicate the majority of the participants (92.2%) strongly agreed/agreed that bichronous online learning removed the limitation of place and time. most of the participants, 54 out of 57, approved that bichronous online learning encouraged students’ interactions with the lecturer and peers. finally, only 10.2% of the participants did not agree if bichronous online learning supported social relations among students, while the rest, 89.8% concurred with the statement. concerning unlimited place and time settings, in the interview some participants mentioned “more efficient, practical, and flexible”. this is because bichronous online learning enables students to learn english anywhere and anytime especially in the pandemic, where students are obliged to dias tiara putri utomo, finaty ahsanah | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 144 study at home. during the asynchronous mode, students can access the materials and interact with the lecturer or other students for 24 hours. this mode is considered flexible since it provides students with an excellent opportunity to learn at their own pace and time. in this case, edmodo as asynchronous learning tool plays a significant role in facilitating as well as enhancing the effectiveness of communication in learning (al-said, 2015). concerning practicality issues, synchronous mode gives students a good chance to attend face-to-face meetings although they are separated few thousand miles away from the lecturer (guzacheva, 2020). table 6. students perceptions of communication and interactions no. statement option frequency percentage 8. bichronous online learning removes the limitation of place and time. strongly agree agree disagree strongly disagree 11 41 5 0 19.3% 71.9% 8.8% 0% 9. bichronous online learning encourages the interaction between lecturer and students. strongly agree agree disagree strongly disagree 10 44 3 0 17.5% 77.3% 5.2% 0% 10. bichronous online learning supports stronger social relations among students when studying at home. strongly agree agree disagree strongly disagree 12 39 6 0 21.1% 68.4% 10.5% 0% in terms of effective interactions in a synchronous environment, coogle & floyd (2015) figured out two aspects which considered valuable by the students: instructions with the lecturer and interactions with peers. students appreciated the opportunity to ask questions, get direct answers, and hold face-to-face conversations. they were also delighted to listen to the lecturer’s life experiences and stories. in addition to interactions with the lecturer, students also perceived interactions with peers are worthy of notice. students enjoyed a live class discussion because it sharpened a sense of connectivity, improved concept comprehension, and facilitated information exchange. in a pandemic situation like today, combining asynchronous and synchronous online learning equips students with a safe, convenient, and user-friendly virtual setting. students’ challenges to the implementation of bichronous online learning data on the challenges faced by the students during the implementation of bichronous online learning were acquired from the results of the interviews and observations. three out of fifteen participants mentioned “no”, “nothing”, and “none”, which indicated that they did not face any major problems for the implementation of bichronous online learning during the pandemic. the findings are similar to rigo & mikuš (2021) research, which indicated that 66% of the respondents could not think of any disadvantages or weaknesses of using the combination of asynchronous and synchronous online tools in distance learning. besides the above-mentioned responses, students did not mention any challenges regarding the learning system. instead, most of the participants (12 out of 15) pointed out some technical problems related to networks such as poor internet connection and limited data plan. the results of observation revealed that during synchronous meetings, one or two students apologized to the lecturer for their internet connection problems. this had made them could not answer the lecturer’s questions or actively participated in a live discussion. bad internet connection also made students unable to upload assignment files to edmodo. some previous research which was conducted in respect of online learning, whether it is fully or blended, also resulted in similar challenges (coogle & floyd, 2015; rerung, 2018; rianto, 2020; sari & wahyudin, 2019). in his research, rianto (2020) investigated efl learners’ perceptions of blended learning using a university e-learning system. the results revealed that most of the students agreed on the advantages of online learning, but they considered internet connection as the biggest problem that hindered the learning process. furthermore, rerung (2018) who examined students’ perceptions on blended learning in listening and speaking class also asserted that most of the students rated technical issues in the “very difficult” category. similarly, sari & wahyudin (2019) dias tiara putri utomo, finaty ahsanah | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 145 also found out that internet connection and its speed as one of the problems hampered learning activities. as a result, inconvenient technology or internet network led to students’ experience in frustration and stress. conclusion from the findings, it is perceived that students have positive perceptions of the implementation of bichronous online learning during the covid-19 pandemic. specifically, the positive perceptions are represented by students’ motivation, academic achievement, and communication and interaction. bichronous online learning has increased students’ motivation since it is considered not monotonous and offers a variety of teaching methods/techniques. in terms of academic achievement, students’ engagement, active interaction, and feedback exchange have highly contributed to their learning outcomes. additionally, students consider that feedback and interactions are essential to improve the quality of online learning. the findings also highlight two primary problems related to technical issues including poor internet connections and limited data plan. finally, the researchers recommend educators apply bichronous online learning rather 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(2008). e-learning: concept, issues, application, evaluation. dar alsolateah publication. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 100 elt forum 10 (2) (2021) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt efl college students writing anxiety of english language education at universitas internasional batam theodesia lady pratiwi universitas internasional batam, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 29 november 2020 approved in 2 july 2021 published in 28 july 2021 ________________ keywords: writing anxiety; efl learners; levels, types and causes ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ writing is considered to be the most difficult skill to master for efl students. this experience was faced by english language education (ele) students at universitas internasional batam (uib). based on the observation, the results of their writings were not satisfying. this study assumed that the students might feel anxious when they were writing in english. therefore, this study aims to examine the types and causes of writing anxiety of ele students at uib. this study employed explanatory design of mixed method research. the research instruments were questionnaires adopted from slwai and cwai developed by cheng (2004). to extend the deeper analysis, this study conducted interviews to the highand low-level writing anxiety students. this study found that the most dominant levels of writing anxiety is high-anxiety (71.43%). in terms of writing anxiety, this study found that cognitive anxiety is the most dominant type with the mean of 26.37. next, when studying the cause of writing anxiety, the most dominant cause was linguistic difficulties. this result was in line with the interviews with high-and lowwriting anxiety students. students with both high and low writing anxiety still found that linguistic difficulties affect their writing anxiety. therefore, the learning process at english language education needs to be equipped with sufficient linguistic competences in the first year, such as vocabulary, grammar, and punctuation.  correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 jl. gajah mada, sei ladi, tiban indah, sekupang, batam, kepulauan riau, indonesia 29442 e-mail: theodesia@uib.ac.id http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& theodesia lady pratiwi/ elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 101 introduction english as a lingua franca has generally four skills, namely listening, reading, speaking, and writing. listening and reading skill are receptive skills, meanwhile speaking and writing is a productive skill. when it comes to productive skills, students will have to face some difficulties. talking specifically about writing skill, writing is considered demanding, especially for efl (english as foreign language) and esl (english as second language) learners (daud et al., 2007). it is demanding since english is not their first language. when writing, they need to think first with their own language and then translate it into english. furthermore, requirements of good appropriate grammar, punctuation, and vocabulary make it more difficult for efl and esl learners. this study already observed that english language education students at universitas internasional batam found difficulties to fulfill the requirements. the difficulties lead to students’ anxiety to apply the writing skill. zhang (2011) claims that when students are required to perform certain activities of productive skills, they will experience anxiety. spielberg (1983, cited in horwitz, 2001) defines anxiety as a feeling of pressure, uneasiness, nervousness, and worry. furthermore, macintyre & gardner (1994) define second language anxiety as “the feeling of tension and apprehension specially associated with second language contexts, including speaking, listening”. in other words, related to language skills, anxiety is a feeling of pressured, worry, and uneasiness that is related to language skills. specifically, takahashi (2009) states that writing anxiety does not emerge because of the students are lack of writing ability, but it is caused by a feeling of fear in the writing process. alsawalha & chow (2012) also add that writing anxiety is feelings that affect someone’s in the process the writing; started from the brainstorming the idea, drafting, revising, and finishing the writing; even though he/she is actually possess the skills. in other words, writing anxiety is more related to students’ fear to the writing process. writing anxiety is not caused by their lack writing competence. specifically, writing anxiety that is experienced by students of english language education at universitas internasional batam may affect their writing performance during the class. cheng (2004) categorizes writing anxiety into three types, namely somatic anxiety, cognitive anxiety, and avoidance behavior. cognitive anxiety related to how someone thinks of other people judgments on their writing skills that affects their achievement on writing competencies. the judgments may come from teachers, partners, and colleagues. it leads them be afraid of not being able to accomplishing those judgments or expectations. somatic anxiety is dealing with psychological aspects which are caused by their anxiety, such as the pressured and nervous feeling. the last, avoidance behavior is the anxiety that leads someone not willing to write. these anxieties may be caused by several reasons. zhang (2011) mentions that writing anxiety may be caused by higher expectations of the teacher, fear of the tests, lack of writing competence, and etc. anxiety commonly happens to efl learners. horwitz et al. (1986) proposes a concept of foreign language anxiety which means a complex feeling, behavior, and attitude toward distinctive language learning process. this anxiety, then, leads the students to be reluctant to produce the languages. among the four skills of english language, writing is the most difficult skills that students need to struggle. when writing, it is necessary to find appropriate words, apply correct grammatical conventions, and link their ideas into a coherent text (chamot, 2005). writing anxiety is defined as feelings of someone toward their ability when dealing with writing that affect their writing ability (alsawalha & chow, 2012). further, hassan (2001) states that writing anxiety is an anxiety that potentially happen to individuals when writing because it contains some writing requirements and evaluation. in other words, writing anxiety is someone’s feeling, behavior, and attitudes toward writing because of the writing process and evaluation. writing anxiety may lead the students to a poor performance. horwitz et al. (1986) found that there was a relation between writing anxiety and students’ performance; in other words, students who possess higher levels of anxiety may result in lower grades than students with lower levels of anxiety. several studies were conducted to discover the causes of writing anxiety. according to some researchers, there are some causes of writing anxiety. the first cause is fear of negative evaluation and fear of test. zhang (2011) states that students will feel anxious if they know that their writing is being evaluated. it can be caused by teachers’ high expectation and inability of the students to achieve teachers’ expectation that may cause teachers’ negative feedback or evaluation. the second cause is time pressure. regarding time pressure, students may feel pressured with the allotted time during the test since writing is a productive skill (rezaei & jafari, 2014). therefore, they find that they need extra theodesia lady pratiwi/ elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 102 time to write, especially they are writing in a language that is not their mother language. even, they need to ensure that their writing can fulfill the teachers’ expectation. the third cause is low selfconfidence. when dealing with productive skill, students must have self-confidence to produce languages. hassan (2001) adds that even students with good writing ability may affect their performance because they feel anxious and believe that they cannot write well. insufficient writing technique can also impact negatively to students’ writing performance. writing requires good ability and techniques, such as grammar, mechanics, diction (word choice), coherence, idea organization, and etc. these requirements may cause the students who are lack of competence may find writing anxiety (hassan, 2001). next, language difficulties are a common problem for efl students when they have to compose in english. the language difficulties may make the students lazier to write since they may find some problems with lack of grammar ability and lack of vocabulary mastery (zhang, 2011). lastly, pressure for perfect work may affect students’ writing anxiety. teachers, sometimes, may not realize that they put high demands and expectations on students’ writing. bloom (1981) states that demand for perfect work may overwhelm and burden the students because perfect work may have higher and more difficult standard. based on the research, cheng (2004) summarizes causes of writing anxiety based on some studies and then developed a questionnaire to examine causes of writing anxiety, namely causes of writing anxiety inventory (cwai). research results on causes of writing anxiety may vary. rezaei & jafari (2014) analyzed 120 iranian students (efl learners), specifically students of english department who are taking advanced writing course, in two higher education institutions. they found out that students may feel anxious when writing is because they were afraid of comments from the teacher and the difficulty in language, such as word choice and grammatical features. it, then, leads them to feel unconfident when writing and being afraid of writing tests. the study of writing anxiety was also conducted to efl students in one of universities in east java by wahyuni & umam (2017). this study found that the most causes of writing anxiety of students are fear of teachers’ negative comments, fear of writing tests, insufficient writing practice, and insufficient writing technique. in addition, kusumaningputri et al. (2018) examined efl learners in university in east java as well. they discovered causes of writing anxiety. some of them are because students do not get enough practice that affects their writing techniques. besides, students find it is hard to write in their second or foreign language. in addition, students also feel pressured and stressed when writing tests because of the limited time allocation during the tests. according to research results of cheng (2004), writing anxiety is divided into three types, namely cognitive anxiety, somatic anxiety, and avoidance anxiety. first, cognitive anxiety refers to what students think or perceive about their writing competency and people judgments. it may include the expectation or demand of the teachers that causes the students feel depressed to achieve that expectation. in other words, cognitive anxiety is associated to mental states of the students when they are dealing with evaluation or external perception. students already underestimate themselves that they are not able to write well or they are not good at writing. next, somatic anxiety can be referred to impacts of the anxiety that are faced by the students psychologically. when given a writing task, they may feel nervous and stressed, such as shaking hands, sweating, or rapid heart beating. it may get worse when students are doing a writing assignment during limited time allocation. consequently, they sometimes lose the ideas to write. last, avoidance anxiety simply means that the students avoid writing because of the anxiety. it results in avoidance of the students to attend writing class or unwillingness to write. based on that finding, cheng (2004) developed a questionnaire that is commonly known as second language writing anxiety inventory (slwai). this questionnaire is a 5-likert scale questionnaire that can be distributed to students to find out their writing anxiety. many studies already draw up the issue of writing anxiety. masriani et al. (2018) surveyed 41 students of universitas negeri padang and found out that the most type of writing anxiety of the students is cognitive anxiety. the result is in line with the result of study of wahyuni & umam (2017) which revealed that the most types of anxiety is cognitive anxiety. in opposite, fitrinada et al. (2018) observed students of english education at sriwijaya university. the study discovered that the most type of writing anxiety of the students is somatic anxiety. it is also similar to study of kusumaningputri et al. (2018) which found that the most dominant type of anxiety is somatic anxiety. the different results may be caused by the divergence of the learners or different characters or treatments. the previous studies mostly used quantitative data to find the most dominant type and cause of writing theodesia lady pratiwi/ elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 103 anxiety. therefore, this study is going to get qualitative data to explore deeper explanation by conducting an interview to students with low and high writing anxiety. writing is a course that is offered for english language education students at universitas internasional batam. writing courses are divided into some steps in each semester, namely basic writing (the 1st semester), paragraph-based writing (the 2nd semester), genre-based writing (the 3rd semester), creative writing (the 4th semester), and critical reading & writing (the 5th semester). learning how to write in english well may be burdensome for some students since english is not their first language. it may cause some students feel writing anxiety. therefore, this study would like to examine the levels and types of writing anxiety as well as to explore causes of writing anxiety of english language education students at universitas internasional batam. most of previous studies only shows the means or percentages to present the level, types, and causes of writing anxiety. however, this study would like to analyze deeper on the causes of writing anxiety based on the level. therefore, it is expected that this study can contribute more on the methods of teaching writing at universitas internasional batam. methods this study used mixed method design to find out the results. mixed method design research, in other words, means that this study used both quantitative and qualitative data to answer the research question. specifically, there are some designs of mixed-method designs, namely convergent parallel design, explanatory sequential design, exploratory sequential design, embedded design, transformative design, and multiphase design (ary et al., 2010). this study employed explanatory sequential mixed method design is a research started with collecting the quantitative data and followed by qualitative data to clarify the quantitative results (creswell, 2012). this study collected the quantitative data by the use of questionnaires to categorize the students’ level and types of writing anxiety. this research adopted a questionnaire which was developed by cheng (2004), namely second language writing anxiety inventory (slwai) and causes of writing anxiety inventory (cwai). the questionnaire was already tested by conducting an exploratory factor analysis which showed optimized interpretability with the cronbach’s alpha of the inventory was 0.89. creswell (2012) states that one of the important aspects of gathering the qualitative data in explanatory sequential mixed method design is to decide the sample and questions that can follow up on the quantitative data. in addition, ary et al. (2010) explain that sequential design may perform data analysis before to do the next phase of the study. therefore, this study analyzed the quantitative data from questionnaires to decides the level of writing anxiety. consequently, this study interviewed students with high, moderate, and low writing anxiety in each batch of english language education, universitas internasional batam to grow rich understanding. respondents the subject of this study was english language education students from batch 2017 – 2019 with total number of students was 49 students. the setting of this study was english language education study program at universitas internasional batam which is located at jl. gajah mada, sei ladi, tiban indah, sekupang, batam. instruments this study collected the data using two research instruments, namely questionnaires and interviews. the questionnaires adopted second language writing anxiety inventory (slwai) and causes of writing anxiety inventory (cwai) by cheng (2004) to find out the level, types, and causes of writing anxiety of english language education students of universitas internasional batam. slwai uses a 5-likert scale questionnaire consisting of 22 questions to find out types of writing anxiety. meanwhile, cwai also uses 5-likert scale consisting of 10 questions to find out causes of writing anxiety. the questionnaires were already pilot-tested to a group of students from the same universities by using an exploratory factor analysis. data collection procedures the questionnaires were distributed through internet surveys or web-based surveys by using google form. ary et al. (2010) mentioned some benefits of internet surveys, namely quick and easy data collection, less costs, reducing the amount of time and effort to collect the data, and easy access for theodesia lady pratiwi/ elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 104 the participants to fill in the questionnaire. thus, this study selected internet survey to collect the data; especially this data was collected during the outbreak of covid-19. after collecting data from questionnaires, this study interviewed some students. to emphasize, this study did not interview all students who filled in the questionnaires. this study interviewed the students according to the analysis of the questionnaires. in other words, this study interviewed the students according to the level of the writing anxiety, namely high writing anxiety, moderate writing anxiety, and low writing anxiety. the purpose of the interview is to extend the analysis of results. data analysis the data was analyzed using a statistical analysis. firstly, this study calculated the levels of students’ writing anxiety by summing up the score of the questionnaire of each student. if the score is above 65, the students are categorized into high levels of writing anxiety. if the score is below 50, the students are categorized into low levels of writing anxiety. meanwhile, if the score is between 50 to 65, the students are categorized into moderate levels of writing anxiety. in addition, to find out the levels of writing anxiety, this study analyzed slwai questionnaires. secondly, this study calculated the questionnaire to categorize the most dominant types of writing anxiety, namely cognitive, somatic, and avoidance behavior. in addition, to find out the most dominant type of writing anxiety, this study investigated slwai questionnaires with total of 22 questions. questions number 1, 3, 7, 9, 14, 17, 20, and 21 are used to identify cognitive anxiety. then, questions number 2, 6, 8, 11, 13, 15, 16, and 19 are used to examine somatic anxiety. last, questions number 4, 5, 10, 12, 16, 18, and 22 are used to investigate avoidance behavior. to identify the most dominant types, this study calculated the mean score. thirdly, to calculate the cause of writing anxiety, this study analyzed cwai questionnaire with total of 10 questions. to calculate the most cause of writing anxiety, this study summed up total score of each question from all respondents and ranked them from the most to least dominant cause by calculating the percentage. after the data analysis from the questionnaire, this study interviewed the students based on their level of writing anxiety and their responds to cause of writing anxiety. the aim of the interview is to elaborate deeper analysis on the results of the questionnaire to extend the description of analysis. findings and discussion this study answered two research questions, namely to find out the level and type of writing anxiety and to explore the cause of writing anxiety. therefore, this section is going to present the results of the questionnaires regarding the level, type, and cause of writing anxiety. besides, to get deeper and more elaborative analysis, this study is also going to elaborate the results of interview. findings this section is divided into 3 (three) sections, namely level of students’ writing anxiety, types of students’ writing anxiety, and causes of students’ writing anxiety. this study employed two 5-likertscale questionnaires by cheng (2004), namely second language writing anxiety inventory (slwai) and cause of language writing anxiety inventory (clwai). level of writing anxiety firstly, this study found out the level of students’ writing anxiety into low, moderate, and high anxiety. to discover that level of writing anxiety, this study employed the questionnaire of second language writing anxiety inventory (slwai) which consists of 22 questions by cheng (2004). the questionnaires were distributed to 49 english language education students at universitas internasional batam (ele-uib). to find out the levels of writing anxiety, this study summed the score of questionnaires. if the students got the score below 50, they were categorized into low anxiety, while if the students got the score above 65, they were categorized into high anxiety. on the other hand, for students who got the score between 50 and 65, they were categorized into moderate anxiety. theodesia lady pratiwi/ elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 105 table 1. levels of students’ writing anxiety number of students minimum of score maximum of score percentage (%) total 49 37 87 100% high anxiety 36 63 87 71.43% moderate anxiety 10 55 65 20.41% low anxiety 4 37 48 8.16% table 1 indicated that from the total of 49 students, 71.43 % of english language education students at universitas internasional batam faced high levels of writing anxiety. the students who were in the moderate levels of writing anxiety are 20.41%, meanwhile the students who were in the low levels of writing anxiety is 8.16%. in other words, it can be concluded that most of students of english language education students at universitas internasional batam still experienced high levels of writing anxiety. the result of levels of writing anxiety was similar to previous studies by types of writing anxiety after analyzing the levels of students’ writing anxiety, this study analyzed the types of students’ writing anxiety by categorizing into three categories, namely cognitive anxiety, somatic anxiety, and avoidance behavior. to find out the types of writing anxiety, this study still used second language writing anxiety inventory (slwai) by cheng (2004). the results of analysis are presented in table 2 below. table 2. types of writing anxiety types of writing anxiety number of students total score mean cognitive 49 1292 26.37 somatic 49 1278 26.08 avoidance behavior 49 930 18.98 table 2 showed that the mean of cognitive anxiety was 26.37, somatic anxiety was 26.08, and avoidance behavior was 18.98. therefore, cognitive anxiety became the highest mean of the anxiety. meanwhile, somatic anxiety was the second highest mean and avoidance behavior was the lowest mean. in other words, it can be interpreted that cognitive anxiety was the most dominant type of writing anxiety which was faced by english language education students at universitas internasional batam. as cheng (2004) mentioned that cognitive anxiety is how students perceive evaluations or judgments from teachers or partners. in other words, it can be summed up that students of english language education, universitas internasional batam still found worriedness or fear of lecturer’s judgment and evaluation when they were writing in english. however, somatic anxiety had only slightly different mean from cognitive anxiety. causes of writing anxiety besides finding the types of writing anxiety, this study also examined the causes of writing anxiety. to investigate the causes of writing anxiety, this study employed causes of language writing anxiety inventory (clwai) by cheng (2004). that questionnaire consists of 10 questions. the results of the questionnaires are presented in the following table. table 3. causes of writing anxiety no. cause of writing anxiety total percentage 1 linguistic difficulties 205 11.63 % 2 time pressure 185 10.49 % 3 insufficient writing technique 180 10.21 % 4 low self-confidence in writing 179 10.15 % 5 insufficient writing practice 176 9.98 % 6 fear of teacher’s negative comments 174 9.87 % 7 pressure for perfect work 174 9.87 % 8 fear of writing tests 171 9.70 % 9 high frequency of writing assignments 168 9.53 % 10 problems with topic choice 151 8.56 % theodesia lady pratiwi/ elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 106 table 3 showed that the most dominant cause of writing anxiety was linguistic difficulties which got total score of 205 (11.63%). the second most dominant cause of writing anxiety was time pressure with total score of 185 (10.49%). then, the third and fourth most dominant cause of writing anxiety was insufficient writing technique (10.21%) and low self-confidence in writing (10.15%). meanwhile, the lowest cause of writing anxiety was problems with topic choice which got total score of 151 (8.56%). causes of writing anxiety might differ from one situation to other situations. from the data, it can be concluded that linguistic difficulties became the main problem for students of english language education, universitas internasional batam. this study also interviewed students with low anxiety, moderate anxiety, and high anxiety. this study found that students with low, moderate, and high anxiety are found in each batch of english language education study program. to see the results clearly, the data is presented in table 4 below. table 4. distribution of writing anxiety in each batch of ele 2017 2018 2019 number of students 13 14 22 high anxiety 9 11 15 moderate anxiety 3 1 6 low anxiety 1 2 1 table 4 showed that the writing anxiety (high, moderate, and low) was found in every batch of english language education student at universitas internasional batam. further, despite the higher batch of the students, students still experienced the writing anxiety. besides, the distribution of the levels of writing anxiety was similar for each batch. therefore, it can be concluded that writing anxiety did not depend on the higher levels or batch in the university. or, in other words, the higher the batch did not determine the lower levels of the anxiety. besides, this study also disclosed that the distribution of writing anxiety was likely similar in each batch. however, a different case appeared in students of batch 2018 in which the ratio of moderate anxiety (1 student) was bigger than low anxiety (2 students) and the rest of the students were in the high level of writing anxiety. this study assumed this as a unique case that is essential to explore more deeply. therefore, this study interviewed each student from each batch who are categorized into low and high levels writing anxiety. this study also interviewed random students from each batch with moderate levels of writing anxiety. case of students with low anxiety as presented in table 4, low anxiety students were distributed in each batch of 2017, 2018, and 2019. therefore, this study interviewed each student from batch of 2017, 2018, and 2019 that was indicated as students with low writing anxiety. student a admitted that he preferred writing in english to writing in bahasa indonesia. in other words, he did not avoid to write in english. he also viewed lecturer’s comments as a booster for him to write better. “no, i do not feel that the comments from lecturer burden me. i see the comments as a challenge for me to be better”. however, this study found that student a found it overwhelmed when he was instructed to write an academic text or essay. he elaborated that he tended to overthink and felt under pressured when dealing with academic writing. he explained that writing academic essay required high level of technical writing, dictions/choice of words, and topic elaboration. meanwhile, it was totally different when dealing with informal writing. student a found that it was more comfortable when writing an informal text. “i am not that confident to write any kind of texts, especially academic writing. i tend to overthink. i feel it is kind of hard when i am writing academic essay. it needs more high technical writing stuff. then, i have theodesia lady pratiwi/ elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 107 to choose the best words, since it is an academic writing. so, i just feel under pressured.” as a summary, student a reached low writing anxiety since he was not afraid of feeling by external factors, such as comments or judgment from lecturers or other friends. also, he was confident enough to write in english with his english competences. however, as an efl student, writing anxiety might appear when the demand of the writing levels was increasing. the similar case also happened to student b. student b also preferred writing in english to writing in bahasa indonesia. “i prefer writing in english than bahasa indonesia. the rules (in english) are already clear.” student b did not view feedbacks from lecturers as a burden. however, she viewed comments or evaluation from lecturer or other classmates were motivating her to better her english writing. “no. i am not afraid of teacher’s feedback. teacher’s feedback motivates me for my english writing.” similar to student a, student b found that it was still overwhelming to write an academic writing. student b reasoned that the most challenging aspect of academic writing was the familiarity of the topic. therefore, it made her doubtful of the content and relevance of the writing. “… but, i still find (it is) difficult to write high-level of formality text, like an essay. the problem is related to the topic. sometimes, i do not know about the topic. … no, it does not mean i do not know what to write, miss. i am just doubtful whether my opinions are correct or not” student a and student b faced the similar writing anxiety when writing academic essay. the causes were slightly similar, namely topic, choice of words, and technical writing technique. in other words, low writing anxiety students still felt anxious in academic writing due to its high demands or requirements; not the teacher’s demands or requirements. this study assumed that it is normal to happen since english is their foreign languages. in other words, efl students might overthink to the limitation of rich vocabulary, writing technique, and topic knowledge. this study found a different case from student c. unexpectedly, student c stated that he preferred writing in bahasa indonesia to writing in english. “if i can choose, i prefer to write in bahasa indonesia. … because bahasa indonesia is my first language. so, it is more comfortable for me (to write in bahasa indonesia).” the reason of student c reaching the low writing anxiety was due to his courage toward comments or feedbacks, his confidence in english writing, and his confidence of the results. he did not feel under pressured or stressed with his english writing exercises. similar to student a and b, he did not take into his heart when accepting feedbacks, but he interpreted the comments as an encouragement. “i do not feel anxious when writing in english. but, i still choose to write in bahasa indonesia. … i am not afraid of evaluation from lecturers.” despite the low anxiety, students c still admitted that he still encountered some challenging aspects when writing in english. one of the aspects was the use of grammar. he emphasized that he was still confused on deciding the correct grammar to use when writing in english. he was also aware that it is since english was not his first language, so it was normal if he still produced some errors in writing. theodesia lady pratiwi/ elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 108 “yes, miss. i still find the most difficult thing when writing is grammar. sometimes, i do not know whether my grammar is already correct or not. yeah, english is not my first language.” from the interviews with three students or participants, it can be summed up that the efl students with low writing anxiety still felt anxious when writing in certain cases. some still thought that their writing technique, knowledge, and vocabulary was not well-equipped to write higher demand of writing. some still encountered linguistic problems to find the most appropriate linguistic features to use. it was clearly in accordance with the finding or causes of writing anxiety in which linguistic problems became the main obstacle of students of english language education, universitas internasional batam. case of students with high anxiety table 4 clearly pictured that percentage of students with high writing anxiety took the biggest portion in each batch. therefore, this study conducted an interview to dig deeper analysis of the cases of students with high anxiety. apparently, this study found distinguished cases from each batch. student d already considered that writing was very overwhelming. she tended to compare her writing with her classmates’ writing, especially in terms of vocabulary in which she judged that the use of vocabulary of her classmates’ writing is even better than hers. “i am not comfortable when writing in english, miss. i know that my writing is not good. i always compare mine with others. my writing is not as good as theirs. this comparison might appear since student d sometimes took her classmates’ writing as examples for her references. however, this might lead to either motivating or demotivating her. the demotivation might arise in writing tests since she assumed that her writing must be worse than others’. “i know that my writing is not good, miss. sometimes, i see my friend’s writing to take example or search for good example. … yes sometimes, miss. sometimes, when doing exercises, i find it motivating me. but, when it comes to test, i always think that my writing is the worst.” student d encountered some obstacles when writing in english. the biggest obstacle was to structure the words into good sentences. student d tended to translate each word from bahasa indonesia to english and had problems with linguistic features of english. these problems led to the fear of incompetence to fulfill lecturer’s demand or expectation. “my biggest obstacle is how to structure the words and how to make sentences. i tend to translate from bahasa indonesia to english. sometimes, i do not understand what to write. i know i cannot fulfill lecturer’s expectation and i think i become traumatized when writing.” other obstacles were topic knowledge and time constraint. time constraint extremely affected the writing performance. time constraint caused panic that led to the disappearance of writing ideas. slightly similar, knowledge on topics also affected the writing performance. “deciding on topics depends on my knowledge, miss. … time constraints really affects me (when writing). i will be panic and my mind goes blank, especially in tests.” despite those obstacles, the ultimate reason was due to lack of belief on performing good writing. student d already considered that she could not produce good writing since she was not equipped with good writing ability. apparently, the source of the self-doubt in terms of writing ability was due to her bad handwriting. student d’s hand writing was not readable; hence, she directly theodesia lady pratiwi/ elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 109 concluded that no one were able to read her writing. this led to her unconfidence to write, even when typing. “i already know that my writing is not good. even, people cannot read my handwriting. …yes, although it is typing, i still feel my writing is not good, miss.” this study found that it was an interesting as well as heartbreaking finding to disclose that a little judgment on a person’s writing might cause a person’s confidence and trust in writing competence. hassan (2001) explained that students with good writing skill might perform worse since they did not believe their ability. another interesting case also appeared in student e. similar to student d, student e felt uncomfortable when writing in english. the feeling of uncomfortable was increasing since she found that their friend’s comments or evaluations did not even encourage her to write better. therefore, it led them to underestimate her competence on english writing. “yes, miss. i don’t feel comfortable to write in english. i sometimes ask my friends to look at my writing, but i don’t think their comments motivate me.” the behavior of underestimating of her own competence led the feeling of afraid of lecturer’s comments since she already judged her writing as poor. besides, she was not confident with her vocabulary and grammar knowledge as well. “i am afraid of comments from lecturer, miss. sometimes, i think my grammar and vocabulary is not good. i don’t know many vocabularies, even when the test, i cannot open a dictionary. it makes me more afraid.” after a long interview, student e admitted that she tended to translate when writing in english. furthermore, she translated each word from bahasa melayu to bahasa indonesia. after translating to bahasa indonesia, she translated the words into english. it took a quite long process for student e to write in english. the long process of translating words when writing was getting more tense when she was dealing with time constraint that caused her more panic. “yes, miss. i translate the words when writing. … no, miss i think in bahasa melayu first. then, i translate to bahasa indonesia and then, (i translate to) english. … it gets harder when i have to write in a test because of the time limit.” this case of student e was a case that could be dig deeper for richer analysis. it might happen to students whose first language is not bahasa indonesia. it might also be caused by the environment in which bahasa indonesia was not spoken daily or bahasa indonesia was only taught and used at schools. different from student d & e, student f did not find any worriedness or fear on lecturer’s comments or judgments. she valued that comments or evaluations either from lecturer or classmates were beneficial for her to advance her writing ability since she found that comments were encouraging. “i am not afraid of comments from lecturer of friends. i feel that i need their comments so i can make writing better. … i want to improve my writing, miss.” in a conclusion, student f had self-motivation to better her writing skills and did not avoid to write in english. she sometimes found time to write informal text, such as captions for instagram. the obstacle of student f came from her lack of competences in grammar. student f sometimes felt theodesia lady pratiwi/ elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 110 hesitant to decide tenses to use and structure a sentence. in addition, another obstacle was tendency to translate bahasa indonesia to english when writing. in other words, linguistic difficulties caused writing anxiety of student f. “i sometimes write in english, miss, for example writing captions in instagram. … in my opinion, my writing is not good because i still have lack vocabulary. i don’t know how to use tenses and structure sentences. … i tend to translate bahasa indonesia to english when writing.” this study found that the main cause of writing anxiety of student f was linguistic problems. student f found that she was not capable of having a good writing because she found that her english competence was poor, especially knowledge of vocabulary and grammar. this finding was also similar to the result of this study in which the most dominant cause of writing anxiety was linguistic difficulties. in a nutshell, students with high writing anxiety might be triggered by several different reasons. most of them admitted that linguistic difficulties were the main cause of writing anxiety. some tended to translate from indonesia, even from local language, when writing in english. discussion this study found out that most efl students at universitas internasional batam have high writing anxiety. boniface et al. (2008, cited in miri & joia, 2018) explained that writing requires focus or attention, learning process, visual memory, and good performance. further, daud et al., (2007) mentioned that writing is quite tough and challenging for efl students since english is not their first language and writing requires high technical requirements, such as grammar, diction or word choice, punctuation, and vocabulary. this study also discovered that the most dominant type of writing anxiety of efl students at universitas internasional batam was cognitive anxiety. this result was consistent with the study of some researchers from indonesia (see masriani et al., 2018; wahyuni & umam, 2017). in other words, it can be concluded that most of efl students in indonesia felt the writing anxiety because they overthought judgments from teachers and classmates. they sometimes underestimated their writing competences or they already thought that their writing was not good. therefore, this study also attempted to search for the cause of writing anxiety of efl students at universitas internasional batam. the results showed that there were three main causes of writing anxiety, namely linguistic difficulties, time pressure, and insufficient writing technique. the first dominant cause is linguistic difficulties, the second most dominant cause is time pressure, and the third most dominant cause is insufficient writing technique. linguistic difficulties became the main cause of writing anxiety of efl students at universitas internasional batam. cheng (2004) mentioned that one of the causes of writing anxiety was linguistic difficulties. in other words, efl students at universitas internasional batam still had problems with the competences in grammar and vocabulary. it confirmed the results of interview that the students still tended to translate the words from bahasa indonesia to english when they were writing. some students were still confused on how to structure the words and make sentences in english. even, the results of interview indicated that some students with low anxiety still think that their linguistic competences are not sufficient, specially dealing with grammar. writing anxiety is common among advanced efl learners (marcos-llinas & garau, 2009, cited in miri & joia, 2018). in addition, students think that formal writing limits their writing freedom and creativity (lin, 2009, cited in miri & joia, 2018). however, the essential point lied on the way the students with low anxiety attempted to handle their anxiety more positively, such as overcoming the fear of comments or fear of making errors and not avoiding to write in english. in addition, zhang (2011) claimed that language of difficulties might affect the students to become lazier to write. hence, this study may suggest to the lecturers and students to provide more time to sharpen the knowledge of english grammar and vocabularies at universitas internasional batam to help the students to have a better writing. the second most dominant cause was time pressure. this cause might relate to the language difficulties that were faced by the students. the students were not equipped with good linguistic knowledge that affected their confidence when writing with time constraints. rezaei and jafari (2014) assumed that time constraint caused students to feel more pressured since writing is a productive skill. theodesia lady pratiwi/ elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 111 some students admitted that they could not find any idea to write when writing with time limit since they were also expected to fulfill the expectation from the lecturers. the third most dominant cause was insufficient writing technique. hassan (2001) mentioned that writing demands many requirements, such as grammar, mechanics, word choice, coherence, idea organization, and etc. these demands affected the efl students who did not have good writing competence to feel anxious when writing in english. this statement was in line with the result of interview. students with high writing anxiety found that they were not equipped with good writing technique, such as making words into good sentences, structuring ideas, selecting the tenses (grammar), and etc. in addition, students with low anxiety also felt the same experience. they found that their writing technique was not sufficient when they were expected to write higher demand of writing that requires them to have higher writing techniques. therefore, the lecturers of english language education, universitas internasional batam, need to give more practices and feedbacks to the students to sharpen and improve their writing techniques. they can implement ungraded writing activities. sharp (1997, cited in syarifudin, 2020) proposed ungraded writing activities to help the students to manage their anxiety when they have to write in english. the examples of upgrading writing activity are journal writing, free writing, and paper revision. in a nutshell, it is common for efl students to have high writing anxiety. the writing anxiety were caused by several aspects, such as linguistic problems, time pressure, and insufficient writing technique. students with both high and low writing anxiety admitted that they still experienced linguistic problems and insufficient writing techniques when it comes to writing with higher demand. therefore, similar to other previous studies, linguistic problems still became the main cause of writing anxiety. conclusion writing in english may be overwhelming for efl college students since english is not their first language. therefore, it is normal that the efl college students feel anxious when writing in english. students may have different levels of anxiety depending on some certain causes. this study found that the most dominant level of writing anxiety in english language education (ele) students at universitas internasional batam is high-level writing anxiety (71.43%). meanwhile, the students with moderate anxiety reach 20.41% and low anxiety is 8.16%. the distribution of the proportion of the levels is similar to each grade. in other words, students with the low anxiety reaches the lowest percentage and high anxiety reaches the highest percentage in each batch. in conclusion, the higher the grade does not affect students to have lower writing anxiety. in terms of types of writing anxiety, this study found that the cognitive anxiety was the most dominant type of writing anxiety with the means of 26.37. on the other hand, somatic anxiety reached the mean of 26.08 and avoidance behavior reached the mean of 18.98. when studying the cause of writing anxiety, this study found that the most dominant causes of writing anxiety was linguistic difficulties, time pressure, and insufficient writing technique. students with low writing anxiety still felt anxious when they were writing high-formality text that needs high demand and felt unconfident with their linguistic competence. on the other hand, students with high writing anxiety may have various causes. some students had a low confidence when writing. some students were not equipped with good linguistic competence, especially knowledge in grammar and vocabulary. some students might have special case in which they need to translate words by words from their local language to english. therefore, by knowing deeply the cause of writing anxiety experienced by the students, it is expected that the results can contribute as a foundation for the development of appropriate teaching methods/strategies/techniques to provide solutions to minimize students’ writing anxiety. besides, this study may contribute to the development or improvement of curriculum structure of english language education to prepare their students to equip the students with sufficient linguistic competences that may help them to have better writing techniques. acknowledgement the author would like to appreciate universitas internasional batam for giving the opportunity to the author to conduct this research. this research is a part of internal research grant provided by universitas internasional batam for the lecturers. therefore, the fund for this research and its publication is from universitas internasional batam. the author also would like to thank english language education, universitas internasional batam, especially the students who became the subject of this research to spare their time to fill in the questionnaire and be interviewed. theodesia lady pratiwi/ elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 112 references al-sawalha, a. m. s., & chow, t. v. f. 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(2011). a study on esl writing anxiety among chinese english majors: causes, effects and coping strategies for esl writing anxiety. kristiandstad university sweden. et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 203 elt forum 9 (2) (2020) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt an analysis of the english course book viewed from higher-order thinking skills riski norita sari1, zulfa sakhiyya2 english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 14 may 2020 approved in 29 november 2020 published in 30 november 2020 ________________ keywords: higher-order thinking skills; textbook analysis; variety ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this study analyzes an english course book entitled symphony 1 to find out to what extent higher and lower-order level thinking used in the reading tasks. the focus of this study was on the availability and the variety of hots on reading assignments on the symphony 1 english course book. this descriptive qualitative research adopted the cognitive domain of revised bloom's taxonomy as the instrument. subsequently, the researcher calculated the percentage and the frequencies of the cognitive field of questions analyzed. afterwards, the items indicated as hots are analyzed again by using tools from keshta and sheif to know the variety of hots found in the textbook. the results showed that the percentage of lots items was 63% while the percentage of hots items was 37%. it indicated that lots dominated the book. this domination discourages students from thinking critically. based on the finding, the researcher recommends that textbooks authors need to advance hots to develop students' critical thinking, and teachers have to improve their knowledge about hots. © 2020 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: riskinorita16@gmail.com mailto:riskinorita16@gmail.com riski norita sari, zulfa sakhiyya/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 204 introduction antara (2019) reported indonesian students have poor literacy; as indicated in pisa (programme for international student assessment). besides, antara (2019) reported that makarim, the current indonesian minister of education and culture, stated that indonesian students’ pisa scores of reading were low in 2018. further, the minister noted that pisa’s report was critical to give perspective for indonesia education. moreover, lifelong learning could be built from reading because students would learn almost all materials from reading (pisa for development reading framework, 2018). however, the pisa score of reading in indonesia is still low. also, only 30% of students from indonesia attained at least level 2 proficiency in reading (pisa for development reading framework, 2018). meanwhile, 77% of students from oecd (organization co-operation and development) achieved at least level 2 proficiency in reading. textbooks are widely available in indonesia. however, most of the textbooks in indonesia contain lower-order thinking skills because most of the books comprise of memorizing and understanding (margana & widyantoro, 2017). this shows the reason why it is hard for students to develop their critical thinking and reading comprehension. therefore, a study should be conducted to understand the type of order of thinking skills available. furthermore, revised bloom's taxonomy can ease the researcher to differentiate the higher-order levels and lower-order levels (anggraeni & suharyadi, 2013). from the findings found, there are 72.5% of lower-order thinking skills and 27.5% of higher-order thinking skills in the textbook. another research was conducted by freahat and smadi (2014). based on the research, high school stage efl and new headway plus pre-intermediate textbooks were dominated by lower level questions. then the researchers suggest textbooks authors have to balance both questions in higher-order levels and lower-order levels. similar research conducted by raqqad and ismail (2018). this research is about analyzing the reading tasks based on bloom’s taxonomy. moreover, assaly and igbaria (2014) used bloom’s taxonomy and the outcome of that study showed that 114 activities presented lower-order thinking skills, while only 59 questions presented higher-order thinking skills. as a result, lower-order thinking skills dominated the findings. moreover, tangsakul et al. (2017) did a research by applying the cognitive domain of revised bloom’s taxonomy. the result of the study found that understanding level dominated the findings. on the other hand, level cognitive of creating did not exist in the research. textbooks are an essential thing to espouse a learning process because textbooks will guide students and teachers in a learning process. moreover, abdelrahman (2014) stated that textbooks have instructional materials that can support the learning process. thamrin and agustin (2019) about higher-order thinking skills. that research led to developing students' critical thinking skills. besides, they stated that students have to acquire the higher-order thinking skills strategy to improve the thinking process from lots to hots. as a result, students’ critical thinking can be encouraged through hots. thus, teachers should give higher-order questions related to the material during class activities. also, adams (2015) researched bloom's taxonomy of cognitive learning objectives. the study aimed to analyze the relationship between bloom's taxonomy with critical thinking. the investigation resulted that there is a new dimension across all six cognitive processes. besides, assaly and smadi (2015) researched by using bloom's taxonomy to evaluate the cognitive levels of master class textbook's questions. this study focuses on assessing the cognitive level according to bloom's taxonomy. also, the instrument of this study was used to categorize the cognitive level of those questions. the result of the analysis showed that the book analyzed contains lower-order level and higher-order level cognitive. on the other hand, the variation of the cognitive domain is not significant. it can be known from the results that 60% is lower-order level and 40% is higherorder level. besides, anggraeni and suharyadi (2013) researched reading questions in an english textbook based on bloom’s taxonomy. assaly and smadi (2015) stated textbooks should have sufficient hots questions to improve students' cognitive level. the ideal distribution of higher-order and lower-order levels is 50:50 (anggraeni & suharyadi, 2013). problems investigated in this research are (1) how the availability of hots on the reading tasks of the symphony 1 english course book is and (2) how the variety of hots in the reading tasks of the symphony 1 english course book is. based on the previous studies, some textbooks and tests have been analyzed by using bloom's taxonomy and or revised bloom's taxonomy. some of them are also related to critical thinking. although those studies are similar to the present study, however there are differences. most of the studies only focus on the availability of hots. meanwhile, this study also analyzes the variation of hots analyzed by using the framework from keshta and sheif (2013). riski norita sari, zulfa sakhiyya/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 205 methods qualitative research aims to make new insight. it uses a natural setting to conduct research. according to sherman and webb (2005), qualitative research has the main goal that is to find new insight from discovery. also, qualitative research is not conducted to conclude the verification of a predetermined idea. subsequently, qualitative research sometimes is called a naturalistic inquiry. in this qualitative research, the study aimed to explain hots’s composition and variation on the reading tasks of symphony 1 english course book. to collect the data, the researcher used content analysis. the researcher adopted a qualitative research approach to conduct this study. qualitative research is more iterative, while the content defined by the researcher (crescentini & maninardi, 2009). qualitative research aims to make new insight. qualitative research uses a natural setting to conduct research. according to sherman and web (2005), qualitative research has the main goal that is to find new insight from discovery. also, qualitative research is not conducted to conclude the verification of a predetermined idea. subsequently, qualitative research sometimes is called as a naturalistic inquiry. as a result, definitions and ideas are refined through the process recursively. besides, qualitative research aims to find a holistic picture of the historically odd situation (ospina, 2004). content analysis is a procedure to categorize messages based on their meaning (holsti, 1969). in this qualitative research, the study aims to explain hots's composition and variation on the reading tasks of symphony 1 english course book. to collect the data, the researcher used content analysis. content analysis means the process of summarizing and reporting data (manion, et. al, 2007). cognitive domain of revised bloom's taxonomy was used to analyze the data of this study. table 1 shows the content analysis using cognitive process of revised bloom’s taxonomy for the symphony 1 english coursebook. the data acquired are then analyzed and divided into remembering, understanding, applying, evaluating, and creating. the researcher conducted several steps in the procedure of collecting data: 1) reading all the tasks inside the textbook, 2) deciding the tasks to be analyzed, and 3) selecting tasks that have the potential to support the realization of higher-order thinking skills. in doing the data analysis, the researcher used the method from milles and huberman (1994). the data analysis consists of three levels: data reduction, data analysis, and conclusion and drawing verification. then, below is the data reduction conducted by the researcher: 1) selecting the data: the researcher read all the tasks inside the book; 2) focusing the data: the researcher focused on the questions of reading tasks selected. 3) simplifying the data: the researcher placed all questions selected into the table then analyzed by using the instruments; 4) abstracting the data: after the data had been placed, then, the researcher put the data into the classification to know the variety of hots; and 5) transforming the data. the researcher summed up the lower-order and higher-order questions of the reading tasks from the textbooks in quantitative output to show the percentage and number. the data analysis displayed data reduction, after the level of data reduction, then the data analysis throughout data display. data display can extend to the graphic, diagram, chart, or matrix. in the third level of the data analysis, the researcher drew the conclusion and verification. the end draws aimed to consider what data mean and to assess the implication from the research questions. meanwhile, confirmation means linked integrally to the conclusion drawing, so this aims to verify these new conclusions. table 1.structure of the cognitive domain and the explanation of the revised bloom's taxonomy (anderson & krathwohl, 2001) remembering understanding applying analyzing evaluating creating recognizing interpreting executing differentiating checking generatin g recalling. exemplifying implementing organizing critiquing. planning classifying attributing producing summarizing inferring comparing: explaining. riski norita sari, zulfa sakhiyya/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 206 findings and discussion the data for this research was gathered by analyzing the reading tasks from the symphony 1. thus, the reading tasks from the book analyzed by using the instruments from anderson and krathwohl (2001). then questions indicated hots were analyzed again by using the tools from keshta and sheif (2013). it intended to know the variety of hots in the reading tasks. the availability of hots in the symphony 1 some studies previously found that in indonesia, the textbooks used are more on lots (margana & widyantoro, 2017). it made the researcher wanted to find out the availability of hots in the english textbook entitled the symphony 1 english coursebook. based on the finding of the book, there are 18 reading tasks and 135 reading question items analyzed. the questions were analyzed and classified into six levels of the cognitive domain in revised bloom's taxonomy. this table and chart below show the frequency and percentage of each level. table 2.the cognitive domain of revised bloom's taxonomy found in the symphony 1's reading tasks no categories frequency percentage 1 remembering 52 39% 2 understanding 33 24% 3 applying 0 0% 4 analyzing 43 32% 5 evaluating 6 4% 6 creating 1 1% figure 1.the cognitive domain of revised bloom's taxonomy found in the symphony 1's reading tasks based on table 2, there are six classifications of the question items from the cognitive domain of revised blooms' taxonomy. from figure 1, lower-order levels dominated the reading tasks in symphony 1 just like a finding in freahat and smadi (2014), based on the research high school stage efl and new headway plus pre-intermediate textbooks were dominated by lower level questions, the most of the remembering 39% understanding 24% applying 0% analyzing 32% evaluating 4% creating 1% remember understand apply analyze evaluate create riski norita sari, zulfa sakhiyya/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 207 coursebook contents were in lower-order level, in detail the percentage of lower-order level was 63%. like the remembering level was the highest frequency with 50 cases, and the rate was 37%. the understanding level recorded 32 cases or 24%. furthermore, the lower-order level applying did not exist on the reading tasks, which was mentioned as 0%. another case in the chart and table was 39% of higher-order level questions or 50 questions from the total. afterward, the result shows that the higher-order level analyzing level was 32% or 43 items. besides, the higher-order level of evaluating level reached 4% or six questions. moreover, the higher-order level creating level recorded only 1% or one issue. as a result, creating was the lowest point from the higherorder level, and analyzing was the highest point of the higher-order level. the explanation below is the detailed information related to the table and graphic. the types of the cognitive process dimension aim to serve a classification for some cognitive processes that include in objectives. as shown in the table above, there are some parts of the cognitive process of revised bloom's taxonomy, such as remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating. remembering level means by recalling proper knowledge from memories. besides, intelligence is defined as establishing meanings of messages, including oral, written, and graphic communication. moreover, applying mentioned as utilizing knowledge in a given situation. furthermore, analyzing level means splitting materials based on the information's core, after determining how the parts of the report are related to each other. additionally, evaluating means deciding judgment based on a standard. lastly, creating a level, this element is defined by placing some materials from an idea into an original product. along with the data from the analysis, the remembering level used some action verbs such as find, name, relate, list, show, and tell. action verbs dominated by the verb telling with 26 questions. furthermore, there are 14 action verbs of showing, six action verbs of finding, three action verbs of relating, two action verbs of listing, and one action verb of naming. moreover, this analysis also used cognitive processes and then found some cognitive processes, such as recalling and recognizing. the number of cognitive process by utilizing the recalling process was 46 questions. in contrast, the number of cognitive process by using the recognizing method was only six questions. the action verbs used on the understanding level were translated, explained, and summarized. there were some action verbs found on the book including two translate verbs, 27 describe verbs, and 3 summarize verbs. as a result, it was dominated by explaining the verb. also, on the analysis by using the cognitive process, there were some processes found, such as interpreting, explaining, and summarizing. in detail, the number of interpreting process found was only one. on the other side, the total of explaining process reached 29 questions. however, the sum of the summarizing process found were three issues. along with the data, applying process was not found in the data. moreover, the one found in the data was analyzing level. according to the data, analyzing level used some action verbs such as examine, analyze, compare, assume, inspect, classify, discover, inference, distinguish, and compare verb. analyzing level was dominated by examining, and inference verbs. the evaluating level is one of the higher-order levels in revised bloom’s taxonomy. then, there were some action verbs used in the analysis, such as assessing, deciding, and appraising. action verb dominated by assess verb that uses three action verbs. furthermore, there were two verbs of appraising verb and one verb of assess. besides using action verbs, this analysis also used the cognitive process of critiquing. creating a level is one of the parts of higher-order level skills. then, the analysis of the data resulted in only one question included creating a standard. also, this creating level used to adapt as an action verb. furthermore, the cognitive process found in the data is the generating process. variety of hots in the symphony 1 analyzing level analyzing level is the starting point in higher-order levels. according to nourdad et al. (2018), higherorder level is the starting stage of the higher-order level. besides, learners can break down the information on analyzing level. however, this case also needs calculations and classifications. in the reading tasks, 45 questions belong to the analyzing level. cases in the analyzing level are related to breaking up the material into smaller part which is engaged with constituent parts and determining how the pieces are associated with the whole structure. the cognitive processes in the analyzing level are differentiating, organizing, and attributing. analyzing questions found in the textbook were then analyzed and categorized into 13 criteria, as shown in the table below: riski norita sari, zulfa sakhiyya/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 208 based on table 3, there are five out of thirteen cases found in analyzing items of symphony 1's reading tasks. types included in the analysis are as follows: comparing things in the text, guessing the meaning of words in context, reading between the lines, and recognizing clues and evidence. the item using explaining the information introduced is the highest number among the five things that are 40% or 18 cases. table 4.the example of analyzing item from symphony 1 no items categories action verbs cognitive process 1 what is the meaning of the statement “pickwick was noted for his honesty and humanity”? analyzing inference attributing 2 describe the humor contained in the line “huge pickwick approach him with a whip”. analyzing interpret differentiating table 4. shows the categories of explaining the information introduced. according to keshta and seif (2013), this category requires students to find the meaning of some statements shown. then students should explain what the purpose of the report is. as a result, students have to understand the comments in the context. for making students can answer the questions, they can enlighten the statement based on the context. in this step of explaining, the information introduced and students should develop their ability to recognize the explanation related to the setting. thus, students should know the meaning of the statement then interpret it according to the context. after that, they had to explain in their own words. also, the cognitive process included in the first question was attributing. according to anderson and krathwohl (2001) attributing is something resulted from a particular thing. the writer defines that the attributing process happens from the questions since students should find an explanation about the problem context. as a result, students have to find a particular meaning related to the statement. another cognitive process related to this explains the information introduced as differentiating. the differentiating cognitive process is to recognize that two things are not the same. this definition means students should identify differences between two things or among more than two words. after that, they should explain the information about the differences. another item is ‘reading between the lines’. this item means students have to elaborate the text to look for the hidden message from the document, which is implicitly stated in the report. based on the analysis, it depicts a percentage of 29% with 13 frequencies. table 5.the example of analyzing items from symphony 1 no items categories action verbs cognitive process 1. what decision does the author make in this poem? analyzing examine attributing table 3.the types of analyzing item in symphony 1 no item types frequency percentage 1 distinguishing facts from opinion 0 0 2 categorizing information in text 0 0 3 comparing items in text 3 7% 4 guessing meaning of words in context 1 2% 5 reading between lines 13 30% 6 recognizing causes and effects 0 0 7 explaining the information introduced 18 42% 8 recognizing clues and evidence 8 19% 9 eliciting rules and principles 0 0 10 inferring the mood, attitudes, or tones of the author. 0 0 11 distinguishing main ideas from supporting ones. 0 0 12 ordering items according to their importance. 0 0 13 breaking down the text into its main component. 0 0 total 45 100% riski norita sari, zulfa sakhiyya/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 209 2. what do you think the author is saying in this poem? analyzing analyse attributing the first question on table 5 demands students to explore the poem related to the content of the poem. to find the answer, students have to know the clues that can support the solution. usually, the evidence appears after the students understand what the meaning of the question is. the second question is almost the same as the first question. answering the questions above cannot be found from the lines printed. as a result, the writer categorized these questions as reading between the lines items because the answers are not stated implicitly in the text, students should find the answer after analyzing the information presented in the book, finding the relevant information, and making conclusions related to the questions demanded. those processes for finding the solution also happen in the attributing. in short, those questions are analyzing items. besides, these questions encourage students to make them develop their critical thinking because they should find the answer according to the students’ perspective—the students’ perspective which built from the information collected. another sub-skill found in the analysis is recognizing clues and evidence. in this matter, students have to find clues and indications on a particular topic. in this case, below is the example for identifying clues and evidence in the text. evaluating level the evaluating level includes the higher-order thinking skills. this cognitive domain level demands students to give and defend opinions by presenting judgment sourced from criteria and experience (anderson & kratwohl, 2001). this category consists of the cognitive process of checking (judgments about internal consistency) and critiquing (judgments based on external criteria). in short, this level is higher than the analyzing level because, at this level, students urged to make judgments and or opinions after examining the text by looking for some point of view. for making a clear explanation, below is the example of evaluating level based on the book of the symphony 1. according to the analysis found in the symphony 1, this level only was counted six-question or 4% from the complete review. instruments from keshta & sheif (2013) analyzed the questions. the analysis is presented below: table 6.the types of evaluating items in symphony 1 no item types frequency percentage (%) 1 expressing his/her opinion towards situations in the target text 6 100 2 concluding themes of texts 0 0 3 recognizing subjectivity and objectivity 0 0 4 making choices based on reasoned argument 0 0 total 6 100 from those criteria in table 6, there was only one type found in the textbook. this type encourages students to express their arguments based on the situation in the target text. in this level, students should make a judgment whether they agree or disagree with the opinion. then they should find evidence to strengthen their argument. table 7. the example of evaluating item from symphony 1 no items categories action verbs cognitive process 1 what do you think about singkawang? are you interested to go there? give reasons. evaluating assess critiquing 2 discuss with the class what each local government should do to boost income from tourism. evaluating decide critiquing the first question demands students to declare their argument about singkawang. this evidence-based on the situation there. in short, they have to give a reason why they attractive in it. students have to assess a case, so the researcher uses action words to determine. the second question requires students to take action toward the situation in the text. students have to find solutions to the job. they may have other sources to make their idea more potent and more effective. in this case, the researcher uses action verbs to riski norita sari, zulfa sakhiyya/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 210 decide because this question encouraged students to determine what the proper actions are. both of the items use the cognitive process of critiquing. according to anderson and krathwohl (2001), critiquing is judging because those questions demand students to give an opinion. creating level the creating level is the highest at bloom's taxonomy level. from this level, students have to result in a new product. the new product can be managed from the pattern or information before (anderson & krathwohl, 2001). this level can be done after students through other levels such as remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, and evaluating. creating a level is the highest level in bloom's taxonomy level. from this level, students have to result in a new product. this level is done after students through other standards such as remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, and evaluating. yet creating a level is the part of a higher-order level, so students have to think critically to manage this case. moreover, in creating something, students have to collect from some sources to make the product in prior knowledge. some elements can be put in a way that makes the product to be structured well. subsequently, students should have ideas and creativity. also, this level adopted three cognitive processes such as generating, planning, and producing. based on the research from this book, the researcher found only one question that requires creating a level. as a result, this is only 1% of the total. creating a degree is the lowest number found in the reading task of symphony 1. the following is the creating level found in symphony 1. table 8.the types of creating items in symphony 1 no item types frequency percentage (%) 1. rearranging information related to the text 1 100 2. summarizing texts 0 0 3. writing or retelling the material of the text using his own words 0 0 4. predicting events or solutions related to the text 0 0 5. discussing to persuade 0 0 6. hypothesizing data 0 0 7. generating information related to the text 0 0 8. combining his information with the information in the text 0 0 9. connecting knowledge from different sources 0 0 total 1 100 the data from table 8 shows that the lower-order level dominates the task. it can be seen from figure 1 that lower-order level was 63%. this result is significant because this is more than 50%. the research also found that there is no level of applying found in the data in the lower-order level. higher-order level in the tasks is dominated by analyzing level it reaches 32% out of 37% from the total of higher-order level. it is followed by evaluating level counted 4%, then creating a level of only 1%. table 9.the example of creating item in symphony 1 no item categories action verbs cognitive process 1. compose a single stanza quintet using the same pattern of rhymes found in this poem. creating adapt generating this question demands students to make a new product by using the pattern in the issue. as a result, this case encourages students to adapt further information. also, the cognitive process involved in this question is generating. anderson and krathwohl (2001) declared that the generating process involved with produce or create something. the higher-order level exists on the task, but most of them were not distributed well in all items by kesthta and sheif (2013). it can be seen from the data of analyzing level which only contains five out of thirteen pieces. it consists of comparing items in the text, guessing the meaning of words in context, reading between the lines, explaining the information introduced, and recognizing clues and evidence. besides, most questions require revealing the information presented that reached 42% out of 100%. on the other hand, guessing the meaning of words, only 2% out of 100%. this result is quite a significant comparison. it riski norita sari, zulfa sakhiyya/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 211 demonstrates that the tasks in the textbook did not have many varieties of higher-order level, and this is in line with the statement that most of the textbooks in indonesia contain lower-order thinking skills because most of the books comprise of memorizing and understanding (margana & widyantoro, 2017). thus, based on the finding, this book could not stick to the criteria of higher-order. the ideal distribution of higherorder and lower-order level is 50:50 (anggraeni & suharyadi, 2013). if this continues, then students will not be exposed to higher-order instructions that stimulate their critical thinking and holistic comprehension. conclusion the researcher can conclude some numbers from the overall findings. first, the higher-order cognitive skills in the textbook's reading tasks are not distributed and treated well. the result of higher-order levels in the textbooks' reading tasks was less than lower-order levels. according to the information, there are six classifications of the question items from the cognitive domain of revised bloom's taxonomy. also, lowerorder levels dominated the reading tasks in symphony 1 with the percentage of 63%. remember, the standard has the highest frequency among all levels, with 50 cases and a 37% rate. the understanding level resulted in 32 cases or 24%. furthermore, the lower-order level apply does not exist on the reading tasks. in another case in the information, there are 39% of higher-order level questions, or there are 50 questions from the total. then, the higher-order level of analyzing reaches 32% or 43 items—meanwhile, the higher-order level of evaluating touched 4% or six questions. subsequently, the higher-order level creating level recorded only 1% or one issue. as a result, creating is the lowest point from the higher-order level, and analyzing is the highest point of the higher-order level. then questions indicated of higher-order level have been analyzed to know the variety of hots found in the textbooks. from analyzing the level contained four out of thirteen items. they compared things in the text, guessing the meaning of words in context, reading between the lines, explaining the information introduced, and recognizing clues and evidence. also, most questions that contain disclosing the information presented reached 42% out of 100%. on the other hand, the questions that contain guessing the meaning of words had only 2% out of 100%. the result was entirely a significant comparison. it proved that the tasks in the textbook do not have many varieties of higher-order level. references abdelrahman, m. s. h. b. 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(2017). using bloom’s revised taxonomy to analyze reading comprehension questions in team up in english 1-3 & grade 9 english o-net tests. international journal of research granthaalayah, 5(7), 31-41. thamrin, n. r., & agustin, s. (2019). conceptual variations on reading comprehension through higherorder thinking skills (hots) strategy. journal of english education, 7(2), 93-100. 125 elt forum 10 (2) (2021) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the analysis of teachers’ professional competence in utilizing information and communication technology noven aquilla abkarin english department, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 26 august 2020 approved in 29 november 2020 published in 28 july 2021 ________________ keywords: teachers’ professional competence; information and communication technology; supporting and inhibiting factors ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this study is about the utilization of ict in classroom learning to develop teacher’s professional competence. nowadays, covid-19 pandemic has already spread around the world. it brings bad impacts on many sectors, especially the education sector. based on the issue, this study aims to investigate teacher’s familiarity with the use of ict, to find out teachers’ professional competence in utilizing ict in classroom learning, and to obtain supporting and inhibiting factors of teachers’ professional competence in utilizing ict. a qualitative approach was used as a method of this study. data collection was conducted by distributing questionnaires, carrying out structured interviews, and documentation addressed to ten respondents consisting of english teachers from three schools in wonosobo, central java, indonesia. this study reveals that ten teachers were familiar with using ict in classroom learning. they claimed that the use of ict can help their works in the teaching and learning process. second, the teacher’s professional competence can improve ict utilization in teaching and learning classrooms. the use of ict also can improve teachers’ professional competence because ict usage is easier and more effective to deliver materials. third, some supporting factors of the use of ict were found in this study. they were making teaching and learning process easier, increasing students’ motivation, and improving teachers’ professional competence. the use of ict also could make teachers easily take part in this digital era. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: novenabkarin@gmail.com http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& noven aquilla abkarin / elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 126 introduction in the 21st century, indonesia is able to pursue the technological developments. changes and developments are also happening in the world of education, including education and teaching english (priyatmojo et al., 2017). it has been proven by the rise of the use of information and communication technology in the classroom activity. information and communication technology is modern renewal which can be applied in education. fu (2013) stated that information and communication technology (ict) is electronic devices that are mostly used in education sector nowadays such as computers, televisions, radios, internet, projectors, and others. in indonesia, ict is often related to current development. therefore, education minister has revised some curriculum from ktsp 2006 into the newest one, called revised k-13. in this case, the government has policy in increasing the quality of education. in ict development, it brings many advantages in education field. 2013 curriculum is competence-based curriculum that requires all of the activities as studentcenter. it means that all the classroom activities in teaching and learning english require that students have to be active. hence, the teacher should use ict for the effective classroom learning. nowadays, covid-19 pandemic has already spread around the world. it brings bad impacts on many sectors, especially the education sector. according to unesco (2020, in di perto et al., 2020) showed that at the end of april 2020, educational sectors immobilize in 186 countries, affecting approximately 74% of the total enrolled learners around the world. it has devastated teachers, students, schools, and the education system.teachers as a role model for students, the teachers’ performance are noticed by the students. therefore, teachers have come to realize that every meaningful improvement that students receive depends on the quality of teaching. a good teacher must have good competences. according to the act number 14 year 2005, there are four competences that teachers must have including personality, pedagogy, social, and professional (lao et al., 2017). first, personality competence is one of the abilities that teacher must have. pahrudin et al. (2016) stated that it reflects a good personality e.g. wise, kind, maturity, etc., being a role model for students, and also having good character. second, pedagogy competence is the teachers’ ability to design and implement the learning strategy. third, social competence is teachers’ ability to do interaction with their students, colleagues, students’ parents and society (pahrudin et al., 2016). fourth, professional competence is teachers’ ability that they have to master learning material deeply, curriculum, management classroom, lesson plan, etc. (pahrudin et al., 2016). in addition, this study focused on the ict utilization teachers needed to develop their professional competence. this study aims to find how teacher’s familiarity on the use of ict in classroom learning is, how teachers’ professional competence in utilizing information and communication technology in classroom learning is and what supporting and inhibiting factors of teachers’ profession competence in utilizing ict in classroom learning are. adhini (2018) conducted a study entitled teachers’ perception of social media in developing pedagogical competence. this study investigated teachers’ perceptions of using social media to enhance pedagogical competence. the objectives of the study were to explore the teachers’ familiarity on the use of social media, to explain the teachers’ frequency in using social media and to analyze teachers’ perception of using social media in developing their pedagogical competence. this is related to the writer’s research in using the part of ict in the teaching and learning process. this study attempted to find out teachers’ frequency in using social media and analyze teachers’ perceptions of using social media in developing their pedagogical competence. it is a bit different from the writer’s research because this research only focused on the use of social media in learning activities whereas the writer’s research will use information and communication technology generally to find out english teachers’ factors in mastering ict. next study was conducted by akinwamide & felicia (2018) entitled professional updates for language teachers in digitally infected clime: the ict utilization sensibility. the objectives of this study were to find out the training or retraining of the ict utilization for the english teachers and whether there was a provision to develop human capacity in the learning process. this study used descriptive survey design. there were 571 english teachers (all english teachers) in a senior secondary school in ekiti state. they were collected as a population. in selecting the sample, a multistage random sampling technique was employed by the writer. in collecting the data, a questionnaire was used by the writer. based on the finding of the research, this study indicated that there was no significant relationship between the provision that enacts human capacity for ict utilization. the teachers had not received training to develop their skills in utilizing ict. this study related to the writer’s noven aquilla abkarin / elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 127 research because it explained the teachers’ sensibility in the use of information and communication technology in the digital era. this study was conducted in nigeria with a lot of problems against the integrity of the profession. on the other hand, the difference is the writer wants to know how ict utilization in improving teacher’s professional competence. al-munawwarah, (2014) conducted a study entitled teachers’ perception on the use of ict in indonesia efl learning context. this study investigated teachers’ perceptions in implementing the use of ict in the efl learning process. this study was almost similar to the writer’s study because this study implemented ict in the teaching and learning process and found out the advantages and disadvantages of the use of ict. the writer also emphasized english teachers’ professional competence in using ict. this study will be useful for one of the references to support the research. methods this study used qualitative research method. it tended to explicate the analysis of research problems in this study. according to creswell (2014), qualitative method has different approach to investigate the study than quantitative method. qualitative method relied on data analysis such as text and image data. in collecting the data, i used three types of data collections. there was questionnaire, structured interview and documentation. the research instruments of this study were developed to solve the research problem of this study. a questionnaire used to find out teachers’ performance in the use of ict in classroom. therefore, a structured interview involved open-ended questions and it gained to find out supporting and inhibiting factors that teachers faced in the learning activities by using ict. documentation used to support interview process. the subject of the study was 10 english teachers who teach in senior high school and vocational high school in wonosobo regency. there were the english teachers who have professional competence in teaching and learning process especially in the use of ict. this study used three data collection; questionnaire, interview, and documentation. the aim of providing questionnaire is to find out how english teachers’ professional competence in utilizing ict is, supporting and inhibiting factors of english teacher has to use ict in classroom learning, and teachers’ perception of the use of ict to develop their professional competence. the questionnaire was distributed to investigate general opinion of the participants toward the ict utilization in classroom and the ict utilization to support teachers’ professional competence. the purpose of this study was to get detail information about teachers’ perspective in the use ict in mastering professional competence. the result of the ict utilization in classroom learning can be explored by calculating integrated score. the structured interview was to investigate teacher’s familiarity in the use of ict and supporting and inhibiting factors in the use of ict. structured interview was distributed to analyze teacher’s familiarity on the use of ict and analyze twelve dimensions and items of supporting and inhibiting factors in the ict utilization. the general opinion was about teachers’ perception in the ict utilization to find supporting and inhibiting factors. lastly, documentation was used to support questionnaire and interview process. the data analysis had conducted during the data collection take place and after finish the data collection. there were three activities in analyzing data. data reduction was data that has been summarized and chosen into the main point. reduced data gave description easily, and makes the researcher easier in collecting data. after data reduction, the data was displayed in form of graphics, table, chard, pictogram, etc. data display also can make the researcher easier to understand what’s happening and to do something-further analysis. the last step of analysis data was conclusions. the conclusion of qualitative research was new findings. the finding can be formed a description of an object that was originally still in doubt so that after doing research, it became clear one. findings and discussion this study showed the findings of the research. this research finding discussed research problems. the research problems were how teachers’ familiarity on the use ict in classroom learning is, how the teachers’ professional competence in utilizing ict in classroom learning is, and what supporting and inhibiting factors of teachers’ professional competence in utilizing ict are. respondents’ familiarity on the use of ict in classroom based on the result of respondents’ familiarity on the use of ict in classroom learning, i found three indicators in table 1. indicator no. 1 was used to present information about teachers’ understanding noven aquilla abkarin / elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 128 of ict. in this statement, option a was social media’s meaning. option b was ict’s meaning (correct answer). then, option c was internet’s meaning. indicator no. 2 was used to present information about ict classification. in this statement, option a was social media (e.g. whatsapp, line, facebook, skype, twitter, and my space). option b was accessing internet (e.g. drive, elena, google classroom, blog, and wordpress). option c was using computer or laptop. indicator no. 3 was used to present information about teacher’s frequency in the use of ict in classroom. in this statement, there were three options; (a) every meeting, (b) once a week, and (c) once a month. indicator no. 4 was used to present information about teacher’s readiness in using ict in classroom learning. in this statement, there were three options; (a) not ready (b) ready without preparation (c) ready with preparation. indicator no. 5 was used to present information about the use of ict can support teachers’ professional competence. in this statement, there were three option; (a) yes, always (b) yes, sometimes (c) not at all. table 1. teachers' familiarity in the ict utilization no. indicator category a b c frequency precentage frequency precentage frequency precentage 1 ict understanding 60 60% 10 10% 30 30% 2 ict classification 26 26% 37 37% 37 37% 3 frequency of the use ict 20 20% 50 50% 30 30% 4 teachers’ readiness in using ict 20 20% 30 30% 50 50% the utilization of ict in classroom to support teachers’ professional the questionnaire was distributed to investigate general opinions of the participants toward the ict utilization in classrooms and the ict utilization to support teachers’ professional competence. the purpose of this study was to get detail information about teachers’ perspective in the use ict in mastering professional competence. the general opinion about utilization ict in classroom learning was presented in table 1 while the ict utilization to support teachers’ professional competence was presented in table 2. table 2. the ict utilization in the classroom learning no. statements scale 5 4 3 2 1 1 i always utilize ict services to look up teaching materials (news, article, video, etc.). 3 6 1 0 0 2 i think using ict makes effective use of class time. 1 8 1 0 0 3 i think using ict makes me more productive as a teacher. 3 6 0 1 0 4 i think that i can use ict in class activities more effectively day by day. 0 9 1 0 0 5 i believe that ict services like internet, computer, laptop, socialmedia will make communication with my students easier. 6 4 0 0 0 6 i think that usage of instructional ict makes it easier to prepare course materials (assignments, handouts, etc.). 4 6 0 0 0 7 i can handle different learning preferences of my students having different learning styles by using instructional ict. 2 8 0 0 0 8 i think that ict media makes it easier to reach instructional resources in the class. 3 7 0 0 0 9 i think that using ict will change pattern of learning and work activities. 2 7 1 0 0 10 i feel that i must use ict services during my classes. 3 5 1 1 0 total 27 66 5 2 0 total in percent 27% 66% 5% 2% 0% noven aquilla abkarin / elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 129 the result of the ict utilization in classroom learning can be explored by calculating integrated score. table 3 was presented each integrated score of item. table 3. integrated score for each respondent in the ict utilization in classroom learning statements no. statements integrated score percentage 1 i always utilize ict services to look up teaching materials (news, article, video, etc.). 42 10,04% 2 i think using ict makes effective use of class time. 40 9,56% 3 i think using ict makes me more productive as a teacher. 41 9,80% 4 i think that i can use ict in class activities more effectively day by day. 39 9,33% 5 i believe that ict services like internet, computer, laptop, social media will make communication with my students easier. 46 11,04% 6 i think that usage of instructional ict makes it easier to prepare course materials (assignments, handouts, etc.). 44 10,52% 7 i can handle different learning preferences of my students having different learning styles by using instructional ict. 42 10,04% 8 i think that ict media makes it easier to reach instructional resources in the class. 43 10,28% 9 i think that using ict will change pattern of learning and work activities. 41 9,80% 10 i feel that i must use ict services during my classes. 40 9,56% total 418 100% the result of the ict utilization in classroom learning can be explored by calculating integrated score. table 4 was presented each integrated score of items. table 4 integrated score for each respondent in the ict utilization in classroom learning statements no. statements integrated score percentage 1 i always utilize ict services to look up teaching materials (news, article, video, etc.). 42 10,04% 2 i think using ict makes effective use of class time. 40 9,56% 3 i think using ict makes me more productive as a teacher. 41 9,80% 4 i think that i can use ict in class activities more effectively day by day. 39 9,33% 5 i believe that ict services like internet, computer, laptop, social media will make communication with my students easier. 46 11,04% 6 i think that usage of instructional ict makes it easier to prepare course materials (assignments, handouts, etc.). 44 10,52% 7 i can handle different learning preferences of my students having different learning styles by using instructional ict. 42 10,04% 8 i think that ict media makes it easier to reach instructional resources in the class. 43 10,28% 9 i think that using ict will change pattern of learning and work activities. 41 9,80% 10 i feel that i must use ict services during my classes. 40 9,56% total 418 100% based on the table, it can be concluded that the highest respondents’ statement on the ict utilization was teachers’ belief on the ict services like the internet, computer, laptop, and social media will make communication with the students easier. in addition, the lowest statement of respondents’ ict utilization in classroom learning was teacher thinks that they can use ict in class activities more effectively day by day. the following table presented the result of ict utilization in mastering teachers’ professional competence. noven aquilla abkarin / elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 130 table 5 ict utilization in mastering teachers' professional competence no. statements scale 5 4 3 2 1 1 the use of ict will improve teacher’ professional competence. 5 5 0 0 0 2 the use of ict will be easier and effective. 5 5 0 0 0 3 the use of ict will facilitate teacher in delivering materials. 6 4 0 0 0 4 the use of ict will increase students’ motivation in learning process. 2 8 0 0 0 5 the use of ict will greatly help students understand the material. 1 7 2 0 0 6 i think that ict helps in bridging communication gap among people. 0 6 4 0 0 7 i think that there are many support factors of the use ict 1 9 0 0 0 8 i think that there are many inhibiting factors of the use ict 0 5 3 2 0 9 teachers need to provide learning materials for students that can be accessed any time outside of school hours 2 7 1 0 0 10 teachers need to attend teacher’s training and education about the integration of ict for improving their professional competence. 4 6 0 0 0 total 26 62 10 2 0 total in percent 26% 62% 10% 2% 0% the result of ict utilization in mastering teachers’ professional competence can be calculated into integrated score. the integrated score was showed in table 6. table 6. integrated score of ict utilization in mastering teachers' professional competence no. statements integrated score percentage 1 the use of ict will improve teacher’ professional competence. 45 10,92% 2 the use of ict will be easier and effective. 45 10,92% 3 the use of ict will facilitate teacher in delivering materials. 46 11,16% 4 the use of ict will increase students’ motivation in learning process. 42 10,19% 5 the use of ict will greatly help students understand the material. 39 9,46% 6 i think that ict helps in bridging communication gap among people. 36 8,73% 7 i think that there are many support factors of the use ict 41 9,95% 8 i think that there are many inhibiting factors of the use ict 33 8,01% 9 teachers need to provide learning materials for students that can be accessed any time outside of school hours 41 9,95% 10 teachers need to attend teacher’s training and education about the integration of ict for improving their professional competence. 44 10,67% total 412 100% based on table 6, it can be concluded that the highest statement of respondents’ ict utilization in mastering teachers’ professional competence was the use of ict will facilitate teacher in delivering materials. while the lowest statement of respondents’ ict utilization in mastering teachers’ professional competence was teacher thinks that there are many inhibiting factors of the use of ict. supporting and inhibiting factors in the ict utilization in this study, there were twelve dimensions and items of supporting and inhibiting factors in the ict utilization. the general opinion was about teachers’ perception in the ict utilization to find supporting and inhibiting factors. the result was presented in the following table. table 7. supporting and inhibiting factors in the ict utilization no. indicators a b c d(optional) 1 teachers’ understanding about professional competence. 30% 20% 50% 2 teachers do activities to improve teachers’ professional competence 37,5% 31,25% 31,25% 3 reason to use ict in classroom 0% 0% 100% 4 the advantages that teachers get in using ict 50% 42,8% 7,14% noven aquilla abkarin / elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 131 5 teachers need ict in delivering materials 7,6% 76,9% 15,3% 6 there still are some teacher who are reluctant in using ict in delivering materials 16,7% 50% 33,3% 7 teachers’ consideration choose media in classroom learning 43,75% 18.75% 37,5% 8 the problems that teachers found in using ict 58,3% 25% 16,7 9 supporting factors 45,4% 27.3% 27,3% 10 inhibiting factors 26,7% 33,3% 33,3% 6,7% 11 a provision that requires in using ict 40% 60% this structured interview discussed eleven dimensions has been observed including teachers’ understanding about professional competence, teachers’ activities to improve professional competence, reason to use ict, the advantages of using ict, teachers’ needs in using ict, there are some teachers who reluctant in using ict, teachers’ consideration in using ict, the problem that teachers found in using ict, supporting factors, inhibiting factors, and a provision that requires in using ict. the first dimension was teachers’ understanding about professional competence. there were 50% of respondents agreed with the correct answer (professional competence is teachers’ ability they have to master learning material deeply, curriculum, management classroom, lesson plan, etc.) 30% of respondents chose option a and 20% of them chose option b. it can be concluded that half of respondents have understood about the definition of professional competence. otherwise 50% of them did not understand about it. the next dimension was about teachers’ activities to improve professional competence. in this statement, there were three alternative responses about teachers’ activities to improve professional competence that were option a; mastering learning materials, option b; using ict in classroom, and option c; attending teacher’s competency training. this structured interview question can be chosen more than one alternative respond by the respondents. based on the data, there was 37,5% of respondents agreed with mastering learning materials. 31,25% of respondents agreed with using ict in classroom and 31,25% of respondents agreed with attending teacher’s competency training. the third dimension was about reason to use ict in classroom. in this statement, there were three alternative responses that were option a; because of teacher’s supervision, option b; it is used to utilize teacher’s professional competence, and option c; to make teaching and learning process easier. from the data, it can be concluded that 100% of respondents agreed with option c; reason to use ict in classroom is to make teaching and learning process easier. the next dimension was about the advantages of using ict. in this statement, there were three alternative responses that were option a; to make teaching and learning process easier, option b; to increase student’s motivation in learning process, and option c; to improve teacher’s professional competence. the respondents also can pick more than one alternative responses because there were many advantages in using ict in classroom. based on the data, it can be concluded that 50% of respondents agreed with option a. 42,8% of respondents agreed with option b. then, 7,14% of respondents agreed with option c. the further dimension was about teachers’ needs of using ict. in this statement, there were three alternative responses that were option a; to prepare teacher’s supervision, option b; to make easier in delivering material, and option c; to take part in digital era. the respondents also can pick more than one alternative response. based on the data, respondents agreed with option a was 7,6%. there was 76,9% of respondents agreed with option b that was to make easier in delivering materials and respondents agreed to take part in digital era was 15,3%. the sixth dimension was about there are some teachers who are reluctant in using ict. in this statement, there were three alternative responses that were option a; the lack of facilities, option b; the lack of competence in utilizing ict, and option c; the lack of motivation in utilizing ict. respondents agreed with the lack of facilities was 16,7%. there was 50% of respondents agreed with the lack of competence in utilizing ict. respondents agreed with the lack of motivation in utilizing ict was 33,3%. it can be concluded that the lack of competence in utilizing ict was the highest response of why teachers still reluctant of using ict are. the further dimension was about teachers’ consideration in choosing media to deliver materials. in this statement, there were three alternative responses that were access, cost and facilities. from the data, the respondents can choose more than one response that 43,75% of respondents agreed with access. 18,75% of respondents agreed with cost. then, 37,5% of respondents agreed with facilities. noven aquilla abkarin / elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 132 the next dimension was about the problems that teachers found in using ict. in this statement, there were three alternative responses. they were facility limitations, teacher’s unwillingness, and teacher cannot operate media such as computer, social media, etc. based on the data. it can be concluded that 58,3% of respondents agreed with facility limitations. there were 25% of respondents agreed with teacher’s unwillingness and 16,7% of respondents agreed with teacher cannot operate media such as computer, social media, etc. the next dimension was about supporting factor in the ict utilization. in this statement, there were three alternative responses. they were facilities, teacher’s competence and time. respondents also can write other opinion about supporting factor in the ict utilization. based on the data, there were 45,4% of respondents agreed with facilities. furthermore, 27,3% of respondents agreed with teacher’s competence. then, 27,3% agreed with time. it can be concluded that facilities was the highest response of supporting factors in the ict utilization. the further dimension was about inhibiting factor in the ict utilization. in this statement, there were three alternative responses that were the lack of facilities, the lack of teacher’s competence, and the lack of time. respondents also can write other opinion about inhibiting factor in the ict utilization. from the data, there were 26,7% of respondents agreed with the lack of facilities. while 33,3% of respondents agreed with the lack of teacher’s competence and also 33,3% of respondents agreed with the lack of time. in addition, there was other response that written by respondent that was the lack of access, it was 6,7%. the last dimension was about a provision that requires in using ict. there were two alternative responses. those responses were yes, there is a provision and no, there is no provision. based on the data, there were 40% of respondents agreed with there is a provision. on the other hand, 60% of respondents agreed with this response; there was no provision. the respondents who agreed with there was a provision have some reasons. it can be a provision from the governor and the principal of the school to use ict in classroom. discussion this part presented the discussion and answer of the research questions. they were (1) how is teachers’ familiarity on the use ict in classroom learning? (2) how is teachers’ professional competence in utilizing ict in classroom learning? (3) what are supporting and inhibiting factors of teachers’ professional competence in utilizing ict? based on the result of the questionnaire and structured interview, it can be concluded that ten english teachers have already utilized ict in teaching and classroom learning. they were aware of the use of ict in the classroom having an important role in mastering teacher’s professional competence. even though they still did not know about the definition of ict and professional competence correctly, but they have already used ict in the learning process well. this result was in line with the result of the research conducted by adhini (2018). she presented that fourteen english teachers were able to use social media in the classroom and outside of the class influenced by social media workshops attended by teachers. fourteen english teachers asserted that they cannot ignore the role of social media in education because social media today plays a key role in developing the quality of education and increasing enrollment across the world. next research conducted by jatileni & jatileni (2018), they claimed that namibian primary school teachers hold positive perceptions towards the use of ict in teaching and learning. based on the findings, it can be concluded that ten teachers were familiar in using ict in classroom learning. they claimed that the use of ict can help their works in the teaching and learning process. they used media of ict such as social media, accessing the internet, laptop, computer, etc. they were also ready in the use of ict in every meeting or once a week/month even though they were ready with the preparation or without preparation. this finding is in line with the research conducted by budiman et al. (2018). they revealed that the teachers believed that the integrating of ict in the classroom is crucial. this positive perception of the use of ict contributes to the ease of ict integration in learning, as explained by saeed (2015). he showed that most of the english teachers have positive attitudes towards the use of ict in teaching english language. when delivering the materials by using ict, it has greatly enhanced the quality of the outcomes of the lesson taught. ict is beneficial for both teachers and students as well. it can also motivate students to learn more because of the interesting display provided by ict in the teaching and learning process. on the other hand, teachers stated that the teacher’s role in 21st-century learning is merely as facilitators, no noven aquilla abkarin / elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 133 longer as transmitters. thus, they also have to take part in this digital era, they should be ict literate to face the challenge of 21st century learning. from the data questionnaire, the teacher’s professional competence can improve by utilizing ict in teaching and learning classrooms. it can be testified in tables 2 and table 3. ict utilization such as the use of a computer/laptop was a medium in delivering materials in the classroom, accessing the internet to upload and downloading some tasks given by the teacher. the use of social media is to share some information about the material. the use of ict also can improve the teacher’s professional competence because ict usage is an easier and effective way to deliver materials. it can facilitate teachers, increase students’ motivation, and greatly help students understand the material. in addition, ict utilization has brought good impacts on teachers’ professional competence because of covid-19 pandemic. nowadays, teachers were more interesting to master the use of ict in classroom learning. furthermore, teachers are required to use ict in the online classroom. this finding is in line with research conducted by akinwamide & felicia (2018) that ict was an appropriate medium used in teaching and learning process. ict is a professional resource, a mode of classroom delivery, and a source of valid and valuable text types. in the structured interview, there were supporting and inhibiting factors on ict utilization. based on the data findings, these were the supporting factors such as making it easier in the teaching and learning process, increasing students’ motivation, improving teachers’ professional competence, and taking part in the digital era. in addition, the adequate facilities and time were in supporting factors. this finding is in line with the research conducted by al-munawwarah (2014). she showed that there were some benefits of ict utilization; helping teachers to conduct interesting and enjoyable learning activities; promoting learning autonomy; motivating students to learn. helping teachers to conduct interesting and enjoyable learning activities means that ict integration helps the teachers to give examples and design interesting teaching materials. they also assumed that by utilizing ict in english language teaching and learning process helped the teachers to organize interesting and enjoyable learning activities. promoting learning autonomy means that the use of ict, particularly web-browser may help teachers to build students’ awareness to learn by assisting them to seek various resources related to the materials given. motivating students to learn means that the materials were taken from online language websites and language programs increased students’ motivation to learn since it provided the students with a motivating learning atmosphere to engage in the teaching and learning process. otherwise, there were inhibiting factors such as the lack of facilities, the lack of teachers’ competence, the lack of time, the lack of motivation, the lack of accessing media of ict, and lastly teachers’ unwillingness. this finding is in line with the research conducted by al-munawwarah (2014). she showed that there were some inhibiting factors on the use of ict; time allocation; technical problems; the strategies used by the teachers to overcome the challenges in using ict. the teachers mentioned that the lack of time as one of the inhibiting factors in using ict. they spent more time to check the entire tools and program before using it. if there is something wrong with the tools or programs, they found technical problems in using ict. the teachers usually found the problems; they faced the lack of internet connection. they faced technical support problems when they were conducting learning process in language laboratory due to some headphones, language programs, and computers which were unusable. they also faced an unexpected situation in the middle of teaching and learning process. for example, the online language websites could not be used because the lack of internet connection. teachers had the strategies to overcome the challenges in using ict. they preferred to use downloadable materials including videos and prepared those materials before conducting the teaching and learning process. moreover, they also prepared to design powerpoint presentations before entering the classroom. by doing this strategy, they could conduct the learning process more effectively. according to suryani (2010), there are some potential benefits of ict. those are: by using ict in teaching and learning classrooms, the students can be active learners, by having access to the internet in their schools, the students will not totally depend on the teachers, the use of blogs, for instance. it can allow the teachers and students to be very up-to-date to the issues and discussion in the educational sector or other sectors, and ict can also provide a way for dynamic and collaborative learning. besides dynamic learning, ict allows all the human components of schools; the principals, administrations, teachers, it coordinators, and the students to get involved in the collaborative learning and forming learning communities. learning using ict is more than learning through memorization. it allows the learners to experience their learning processes, being noven aquilla abkarin / elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 134 interactive, enjoy, and have fun with technology. ict also can improve children’s literacy. the use of ict not only can support the cognitive development of the students but also increase their motivation to learn and their interaction in learning. this study is in line with the writer’s study that there were supporting factors on the use of ict in the classroom. the supporting factors were making teaching and learning process easier, increasing students’ motivation, improving teachers’ professional competence, and taking part in this era. on the other hand, suryani (2010) stated the difficulties of ict; teachers’ readiness, school supports, and finance. if the teachers have inadequate preparation in using ict in the front of their students, they will be afraid. when in the middle of teaching the tools or program of ict learning cannot operate well, they will be embarrassed. the other factors of teachers’ readiness are teachers are not competent due to technical training and insufficient access to technological resources. teachers do not have sufficient school support and computing educational background/skills. the school supports also include the lack of school leaders (principals). if there is an unsupportive leader, it may impede the successful implementations of ict. the successful implementation of ict in developed countries like in indonesia also can be impeded by insufficient funds. to maintain up-todate technology also need a lot of finance. some institutions have high finance to support the ict implementations, other institutions may do not have sufficient finance. this can open up a huge technology gap between the technologically advantaged and disadvantaged institutions. conclusion based on the findings in the previous chapter, it showed that there were some points as the conclusion of this research. first, ten english teachers were familiar in the use of ict in classroom learning. they realized that the presence of ict is able to develop their professional competence. in addition, there were five indicators that presented information about teacher’s familiarity on the use ict in classroom. they were; teachers’ understanding about ict; ict classification; teacher’s frequency on the use ict; teacher’s readiness in using ict; and the use ict can support teacher’s professional competence. the first indicator showed that there was only one of ten english teachers who understood the truly meaning of ict. they were still difficult to distinguish the correct meaning of ict, social media, and internet in words. however, they have already known about ict, social media and internet services. second indicator presented ict classification that teachers often used in classroom. accessing internet and using computer or laptop have the same percentage. it meant that most of the teachers preferred to use computers or laptops and access the internet than using social media. third indicators displayed teacher’s frequency on the use ict. a half of ten teachers used ict once a week. three teachers used ict once a month. two of the teachers used ict every meeting. fourth indicators stated that five teachers were ready to use ict in classroom learning and they also prepared material and ict services. meanwhile, there were two teachers which are not ready to use ict in classroom. the last indicator reported that four english teachers agreed; the use of ict always supports their professional competence. on the other hand, the use of ict sometimes supports their professional competence was selected by six english teachers. second, the ict utilization in classroom can support teacher’s professional competence. questionnaire was taken to get information about ict utilization. first questionnaire reported that the ict utilization could look up teaching materials; the use of ict made effective time; teachers were more productive; the ict utilization made preparation of materials easier, etc. second questionnaire stated that the ict utilization can improve teachers’ professional competence. the teachers believed that ict services made communication with their students easier. there were also many advantages of the use of ict such as the ict utilization can facilitate the teachers in delivering materials; the ict utilization will be easier and effective; the use of ict increases students’ motivation; the ict utilization will greatly help students to understand the material; etc. third, there were some supporting and inhibiting factors on the use of ict in classroom learning. the supporting factors were; making easier in teaching and learning process; increasing students’ motivation; improving teachers’ professional competence; and taking part in digital area. in addition, the facilities and time were in supporting factors. the inhibiting factors were as the lack of facilities, the lack of teachers’ competence, the lack of time, the lack of motivation, the lack of accessing media of ict and teachers’ unwillingness. noven aquilla abkarin / elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 135 acknowledgement i would like to thank my sincere gratitude to mr. arif suryo priyatmojo, s.pd., m.pd. as the advisor who have led and provided invaluable and continuous guidance, advice, as well as encouragement in making and completing my final project. references adhini. i. n. (2018). teachers’ perceptions of social media in developing pedagogical competence. final project. english department.faculty of languages and arts. universitas negeri semarang. akinwamide, t. k., & felicia, f. b. k. (2018). professional updates for language teachers in a digitally infected clime: the ict utilization sensibility. international journal of english language teaching, 6, 40-48. al-munawwarah, s. f. (2014). teachers’ perceptions on the use of ict in indonesian efl learning context. english review: journal of english education, 3(1), 70-80. budiman, a., rahmawati, r., & ulfa, r. a. (2017). peran teknologi informasi dan komunikasi dalam pendidikan. al-tadzkiyyah: jurnal pendidikan islam, 8, 31-40. creswell, j. w. (2014). research design: qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods approaches (4th ed.). thousand oaks, ca: sage di perto, g. et al.. 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(2016). the effect of pedagogic competency, personality, professional and social competency teacher to study achievement of economic lesson in state senior high school of east lombok district academic year 2015/2016. proceeding the 2nd international conference on teacher training and education, 2, 332-345. priyatmojo, a. s., areni, g. d. k., & purwanto, b. (2017). ict dalam pembelajaran bahasa inggris. semarang: fastindo. saeed, y.b.m. (2015). the effect of using computer technology on english language teachers’ performance. sust journal of humanities 16, 1. suryani, a. (2010). ict in education; its benefits, difficulties, and organizational development issues. jurnal sosial humaniora, 3, 1. unesco. (2020). covid-19 impact on education data. covid-19 education disruption and response. the united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization, unesco. paris, france. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 27 elt forum 12(1) (2023) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt how vlogging can build seafarer candidate self-confidence in speaking english dhesi wulan sari1 1maritime state polytechnic of indonesia, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received onn 24 february 2022 approved on 23 juky 2023 published on 31 march 2023 ________________ keywords: vlog; self-confidence; speaking skill; marine cadet ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ in 1973 the imo sea security committee concurred at its twenty-seventh session that english has been used as a common language for navigational purposes. mix nation languages and lack of proper english communication skill onboard become barriers which had contributed to marine safety and even loss of property onboard. in consequence, seafarer candidates must be able to speak english well so they can avoid misunderstanding on shore-to-ship (and vice versa), ship-to-ship and on-board communications. nevertheless, this skill becomes a crucial problem for some seafarer candidates who have lack confidence in speaking english. this study was conducted to investigate how vlogging could build the seafarer candidates’ english speaking skills whilst they had a lack of confidence. this research used descriptive qualitative research. it was conducted at politeknik maritim negeri indonesia. the samples of this study were 28 marine engineering students in the third semester. they were from a and b classes. this research used three techniques in collecting data namely questionnaire, observation, and interview. the questionnaire was given in an online form which contained 10 questions. to analyze the data, the writer used likert scale. the writer also managed observation and an interview by giving them 10 open-ended questions. to support the data, the writer also analyzed the video result. the result of the study showed that vlogs can be used to improve the seafarer candidate's confidence in speaking english. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: wulandhesi@polimarin.ac.id http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& dhesi wulan sari | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 28 introduction in 1973, the imo sea security committee concurred at its twenty-seventh session that english has been used as a common language for navigational purposes. according to imo (imo smcp, 2000), imo has standardized english as the standard marine communication phrases (smcp) to help navigation, to standardize the global language used by the mix nation crew at sea. english smcp (standard marine communication phrases) must be used across crews from the entire world as navigational and safety communication on board. therefore, before the seafarers master the smcp as their daily communication language at ship, they need to comprehend the general english first. this condition will bring an obstacle for the indonesian seafarers who learn english as the foreign language. a lot of researchers have identified that the english foreign language learners need to an opportunity to practice their english in real life activity. they also face difficulty in applying grammar to improve their englishspeaking skill (banditvilai & cullen, 2018). those problems become more complex if the non-english speaker seafarers work at the mix nation ship. mix nation crews on board arises a great barrier during on working activity (evangelos, 2002). different languages and cultures may lead to miscommunication from shore to shore (vice versa), ship to ship, and on board. they meet with many people from non-english countries such as myanmar, cambodia, vietnam, philippine, thailand, and others which may bring various dialects. mix dialects may bring misunderstanding in receiving messages or ideas verbally among the ship crews. indeed, an accident may be happened on board when the speaker expresses their ideas or message incorrectly (harry, 2008). that condition happened on the accident of houston ship channel. according to industrial hygiene news published on march 9, 2015, poor communication led houston ship channel to an accident. this accident happened because of the inadequate bridge resource management between the master and the pilot. there were no fatalities, but the cargo ship already released more than 88.000 gallons of mtbe (methyl tert-butyl) into the ocean which caused environmental water pollution. based on that accident, the writer has agreed that poor communication can lead to an incident on board. it is just in line with sánchez-beaskoetxea’s (2021) opinion that lack of communication and misjudgement during navigation between pilot and crews took high percentage in ship collision. the team leader on board and all the members must speak in a proper way so they can avoid human error cause of miscommunication. miscommunication as part of human errors can bring common patterns of errors in grounding and collisions of ship (macrae, 2009). that problem must be fixed by preparing competent seafarer candidates especially their communication competence. improving the seafarer candidates’ english speaking skill can be gained during their education period. it sounds easy but unfortunately this may be a big obstacle for maritime students who have a very tight schedule both the academic and non-academic activities. the maritime students who are taught as semi-military students have to wake up early to do physical trainings, then to follow the academic class until the afternoon. after all the classes finished, they have to do physical or extracurricular trainings such as marching band or martial arts. in the evening, still they have to do some activities at the dormitories such as phst (cadet’s daily regulation) and the watch-keeping schedule. these conditions may cause the seafarer cadets’ fatigue and exhaustion so they feel sleepy during the english class. in this regard, fatigue condition could affect teaching learning process, and may cause mental health issues which can impact students’ motivation in learning english (chen, 2022). that situation may become worse for them who have lack of confidence in speaking english. they may feel bored at class and have no motivation to improve their english skills especially in speaking. moreover, lack of confidence may affect their performance in speaking english. great self-confidence comes from focus within themselves. lack of confidence will be a barrier to improve speaking performance (sari, 2018). in other words, if we want to solve this problem and to help the seafarer candidates in speaking english well, we need to omit the barrier, lack of self-confidence. regarding this, the writer had already conducted an interview to seafarer candidates, the third marine engineering students, at state maritime polytechnic of indonesia (polimarin). the result showed that the lack of confidence became the main barrier in speaking english. they tended to be nervous and doubtful when they spoke english. the writer consciously believed that practicing speaking english harder and more would help them to improve their speaking skills. however, developing english skill through teaching learning dhesi wulan sari | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 29 process in pandemic situation also brought another obstacle. the english teachers must be creative and take an innovation in applying digital teaching-learning strategies. the teachers should note that they need a strategy that can provide encouragement from within so as to be able to build more optimal self-confidence. one strategy which can be used to build self-confidence is by utilizing the technology. according to reeves et al. (1998, cited in maulidah, 2018) said that technology and media can collaborate as a teaching learning tool to increase the motivation and self-confidence of the learners. in line with it, it is also agreed that potential technology can enlarge the student’s motivation and engagement in learning english (abdel & el, 2002) in nowadays digital era, social media gives great impact on the self-esteem of individuals through creating communication and building relationship. people love to be an attention from others. therefore, most people end up in making self-comparison with others. they tend to be smarter or cooler than anyone else. this part can be utilized to upgrade seafarer candidate’s selfconfidence in speaking english. hopefully, they can compete with others on how to be great speaker in english. there are a lot of social media channels that can accommodate the students in practicing their english speaking skill through video blog (vlog) such as youtube and instagram. according to christian (2009), vlog is video web logs or video blogs or video logs which is specifically posted on youtube. vlogs has many different themes and things to express but mostly it is an expression of oneself. people make videos of themselves then uploading it on youtube. the content of the vlog is unbound and free. harmer stated as cited from (shahani et al., 2014), video can provide simulations and also help the students to enhance the reality. besides, video also could give the students feedback for their self after they watched and evaluated their performance on that video. (ersan et al., 2022) in other words, videos also could be used as a tool to evaluate the student's performance in speaking english. moreover, vlogs have also become the latest technology that supports open communication to public-created media. people can talk about anything for short or even long duration on youtube or instagram or other channels. youtube as education segmentation can be utilised to teach the students in order to improve their speaking skill. therefore, this study was conducted to investigate how vlogging could build the seafarer candidates’ english speaking skills. methods the objects of this study were 28 marine engineering cadets at the third semester of indonesian state maritime polytechnic. this research was carried out by using a qualitative descriptive method. according to creswell (2014), this research method is categorized as mix methods which is integrated both the application of qualitative and quantitative data from different sources such as quantitative data along with interview data. the data analysis technique was conducted by analysing the instruments namely: the interview transcript, observation, and questionnaire. the interview was taken to get more information about the student’s speaking skill through online meeting. there were 10 open ended questions which were divided into two topics, namely the vlog as strategy to learn speaking and student’s speaking skill. open-ended questions can offer the wide range answer (hyman & sierra, 2016). the questions were given bilingually, through english and indonesian language so they wouldn’t feel confused. they answered in indonesian language. the interviewees were selected randomly to discuss the problem. during the interview, the writer took notes to write their answer. after they answered the questions, the writer asked them to fill in the questionnaire given. there were 10 questions about student’s self-confidence in speaking english. the respondents were asked to show their levels of agreement starting from strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, and strongly agree. based on structure of liker scale item point (beglar, 2014), the strongly disagree answer will get point (1), disagree (2), neutral (3), agree (4), and strongly agree (5). afterwards, the writer analysed the questionnaires data by using likert scale method. according to joshi et al., (2015), likert scale is a set of item statements which offered a hypothetical situation of the study. during the analysis scores, all the items are merged to produce a composite score which in totality measures anuni-dimensional trait. after the writer got the data, they calculated the likert scale result. if the result showed that more than 30% disagree of the statements, it indicated that they had lack of self-confidence. therefore, if more than 30% agree with the statements, their self-confidence is good. dhesi wulan sari | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 30 then, the third method used in this study was observation. the writer conducted an observation and took note the student’s activities in order to get the data. observation allows the researcher to see the students’ behavior directly (ekka, 2021). the writer observed the seafarer candidates’ expression, gestures, and enthusiasm during the class. last but not least, the writer analyzed the seafarer candidates’ final vlogs by using a rubric. here are the rubric used to assess the cadets’ speaking skill: 1. good (fluency) : there is almost no interlude during the speech, speak smoothly fair (fluency) : there is still some interlude, but they still speak in english bad : too long pause and sometimes they speak in bahasa indonesia 2. good (pronunciation) : no or almost mispronunciation fair (pronunciation) : there are some mispronunciations bad (pronunciation) : more than 10 times of mispronunciation 3. good vocabulary : they have many variety of words and almost all of them are correctly fair (vocabulary) : the varieties of words are fair bad (vocabulary) : less than 3 minutes video duration 4. good performance : speak confidently loudly and naturally, mastering good public speaking skills (good eye contacts, good body movement and gestures, good voice and intonation, etc) fair (performance) : speak well enough with good movement and gestures but no improvisation bad (performance) : no gestures the rubrics are divided into 4 aspects namely fluency, pronunciation, vocabulary, and performance. each aspect contains 3 levels of scores namely good, fair, and bad. the description of each score level has been mentioned above. findings and discussion there were two perspectives in these research findings which would be discussed; (1) how vlog can be applied as media to learn speaking, and (2) how vlog can improve student's self-confidence in speaking english. the writer delivered 10 questionnaires to 28 marine engineering students. then the writer analyzed the result using a likert scale with 5 at the maximum score. table 1. questionnaires student's self-confidence in speaking english cod e list of questions 1 2 3 4 5 sd d n a sa p1 i speak english confidently in front of people 0 32% 39% 29% 0 p2 i am confident in presenting english material in front of people 0 32% 36% 32% 4% p3 i am confident in answering the english questions 0 25% 39% 21% 4% p4 i believe that my friends are better than me in english 0 14% 46% 36% 21% p5 i feel more comfortable in speaking english in front of camera than people 0 34% 21% 24% 7% p6 i am not afraid to speak english in front of camera 0 29% 20% 44% 7% p7 i am not nervous when speaking english in front of camera 0 46% 21% 25% 4% p8 i am really nervous if i have to speak english in front of my teacher 0 25% 43% 29% 4% p9 i am very proud recording video of myself speaking english 0 32% 43% 18% 4% p10 i can speak english fluently 0 50% 18% 29% 4% as presented in the table above, 32% of respondents did not agree with the p01 statement, "i can speak english in front of many people confidently." from this statement, the researcher believed that 32% of respondents were unconfident of their ability to speak english in front of people directly. dhesi wulan sari | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 31 meanwhile, 39% of respondents felt doubtful about their abilities, and 29% of respondents believed that they were able to speak english in front of other people. for statement p2, 32% of respondents disagreed that they could master english presentation material in front of the class. while 36% felt doubtful, 29% agreed with the statement, and 4% of respondents were very confident when they had to present in front of the class. based on the result of the p3 statement "i feel confident when i have to answer questions in english," 25% of respondents disagreed with the statement, 39% were hesitant to answer the statement, 21 per cent believed they could answer questions in english, and 4 % were very confident in their english skills in answering questions. furthermore, in statement p4, 14% of respondents stated that they strongly disagreed if their classmates did a better english presentation than themselves. while as many as 46% were undecided, 36% agreed, and 21% of respondents strongly agreed with the statement. from the results we got, it was known that most of the 3rd-semester students of the d3 engineering study program had a low level of confidence in their english skills. only 14% believed that they could present in english well when compared to their friends. in statement p5, 34% of students disagreed, 21% felt doubtful, 24% strongly agreed, and 7% agreed with the statement that they preferred to speak english in front of the camera than face to face with the other person. from this data, we concluded that there was an opportunity to improve english speaking skills if this was done in front of a camera screen. then, on statement p6, 44% of students agreed, 7% strongly agreed, 20% were undecided, and 29% disagreed. the statement stated that they were not afraid of being wrong when speaking english in front of the camera. from the percentage we got, we can conclude that 51% of students felt capable when speaking in front of the camera. in statement p7, 46% of students disagreed, 21% felt doubtful, 25% agreed, and 4% strongly agreed with the statement. p7's statement stated that they were not nervous when speaking in front of the camera. the results showed that the majority (46%) of the 3rd-semester students of the d3 marine engineering study program felt nervous when they had to speak in front of a screen. p8's statement stated that 33% of students were very nervous when speaking english with friends/lecturers. there were 43% of respondents who doubted, and 25% disagreed with the statement. in other words, the 3rd-semester students of d3 engineering study program felt nervous when speaking english in front of the lecturers. then the statement p9 explained that 22% of students were proud to be able to record their speaking skills in the form of video. at the same time, 34% of students were unconfident with the results of the vlog recording, and 43% of students answered doubtful or unsure about it. the results of the questionnaire on the p10 statement that students believed they spoke english fluently showed that as many as 50% of students disagreed, 18% were unsure, 29% agreed, and 4% strongly agreed with the statement. based on the likert scale result, it showed that polimarin’s cadets at the third semester of marine engineering study program potentially can improve their english skill. more than 32% polimarin’s cadet felt that they could speak english. they also have a great desire to learn english. it is because their future jobs are required their english skill as the main language to communicate with others. but, in fact, they still faced obstacle in practicing english. they felt nervous and lackconfidence in speaking english, even in front of camera. therefore, they need to practice english such in real life situation more. by doing so, they will be accustomed with natural english. as the time passed by, the feeling of nervous or unconfident will slowly disappear. after the writer got the likert scale result, she also analyzed the vlogs created by the seafarer candidates. the seafarer candidates were asked to upload the vlogs on their youtube channel. the writer watched and observed each video to get the different perspective. after watching the videos, the writer already classified the seafarer candidates into some part based on the student selfconfidence level. according to the observation result, the seafarer candidates sample mt02, mt09, mt17, mt22, mt24, and mt27 codes seemed enthusiastic when speaking in english. this could be seen from the gestures that they were comfortable and enjoyed delivering their ideas. their eyes twinkled confidently. they also spoke firmly and stared at the camera. in addition, they also improvised several times like a pro vlogger, such as using the greeting "hello guys", "hai, what's up?". when describing objects, their gestures looked natural. for example, the sample code for mt24 points to a cellphone that had a photo of an international singer in it. he then described the man on the phone dhesi wulan sari | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 32 in english while pointing at him "this is ed sheeran. he is an international singer." but still, he needed to improve his pronunciation. when he pronounced “this”, he said [this]. he should say [thɪs]. then when he said “international”, he should say [ˌɪntəˈnæʃnəl], not [internasyional]. even though, they needed to improve their vocabulary to be more variety. they tended to choose simple and common words as they found in their daily life such as “meet”, “like”, and “listen”. furthermore, students' codes mt01, mt03, mt04, mt06, mt07, mt08, mt11, mt12, mt13, mt21, mt23, mt26, mt28 also uploaded vlogs with the same topic. they were asked to describe things in english as well. however, when they delivered the material, they didn't look as natural as the previous group. some of them still used the word "eee” and “hmm..". they also took a bit long pause when spoke in front of camera. they seemed to think what words should be arisen. even though, their gestures looked relaxed and did not look stiff. they still could chill and enjoy speaking in front of camera by seeing their smile. but still, they had same problem with the previous group. the students code mt23 mispronounced when delivering the word “let me introduce”. instead of saying [ɪntrəˈdjuːs], he said [introdac]. the students code mt07 mispronounced word “listen” by saying [iɪsten] instead of [ˈlɪsn]. the varieties of vocabularies used by the second group were also fair enough. then, the mt05, mt10, mt14, mt15, mt16, mt18, mt19, mt20, and mt25 code students also presented vlog videos with the same topic. they also described an object where each sentence was equipped with a person or object pronoun. unfortunately, when describing the object, there were two samples which did not record as the instructions given. they explained it fluently but they delivered it in indonesian language. the student code mt14 delivered the topic given in english but when he described the object showing on his screen, there was a long pause between sentences. he seemed unsure about what to say. he sometimes uttered their mother tongue like “opo, ya?” even though, the content of the video could be understood. according to the result above, the writer concluded that the students with a high level of confidence in their english skills tended to be more confident when they talked in front of a camera. they often improvised the text that had been prepared. this can be seen from the gesture and the use of additional terms to lighten the mood. nevertheless, they still made an error in pronouncing words. meanwhile, students who had a medium level of self-confidence tended to record videos safely without improvisation. they didn't take risks by adding improvisation or gestures. they delivered the material according to the script that had been prepared before. however, there were still some pronunciation errors. in the group with low self-confidence, the vlog presented was still not optimal. a long pause between sentences when explaining the material was an indicator that they were not sure about what was being conveyed. they seemed unsure of what to say. they also felt fear of being wrong. they were very afraid of being blamed by people because of their mistakes in speaking english. although in presenting the vlog, there were still some mistakes or imperfections, they admitted that speaking english using vlog media is quite easy. they were helped by the preparation of materials and texts. with the text, they can speak more orderly. vlogs also helped students explore english materials. this was because students were required to prepare the material before it was presented in the video. table 2. interview questions no items questions 1 speaking skill how do you feel when you are speaking english? 2 have you ever felt nervous about speaking english? 3 how do you get over it (nervous)? 4 do you think english speaking skills are important for your future job? 5 how do you practice your speaking skill? 6 vlog do you know a video blog (vlog)? do you ever make vlogs? 7 how do you feel when you are speaking in front of a camera? 8 have you ever felt nervous when speaking english in front of a camera? 9 what is the advantage of vlog in learning speaking? 10 can we use vlog to improve our english speaking skills? dhesi wulan sari | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 33 furthermore, the writer also held interview to support the data. there were 10 open-ended questions given to the respondents. according to the interview result, the writer concluded that seafarer candidates who had high self-confidence were easy to adapt to a new situation, especially when speaking english. they also didn't have a significant barrier to speak english either in front of the camera or spontaneous communication with the other person. they said that practicing to speak english through vlogs could help them improve their vocabulary, pronunciation, grammatical structure, and intonation. through vlogs, they can re-record the video. when they realized a pronunciation or sentence structure error, they could correct it. based on the seafarer candidate’s answer, the students who belonged to high self-confidence needed to take 1-2 times on the camera before uploading it on youtube. they tended to spontaneously speak in front of the camera without a long script. they only wrote down the essential points to be conveyed and improvised the content. on the other hand, the seafarer candidates with low self-confidence had different point of view. they disagreed that vlog could help them to improve the quality of their speaking skills. they thought that practicing speaking in real life directly was better than speaking in front of camera. but, they agreed that preparing a text before recording the vlog could help them to boost their confident in speaking english. even though they needed to read repeatedly and then memorized, it helped them a lot. in addition, they needed a quiet space away from people's eyes during the video shooting process to be more confident. they admitted that they felt inferior when many people watched their video. moreover, students who had moderate to low self-confidence have a slightly different point of view. for them, vlogs can help them practice speaking english, but this learning strategy was still not perfect. they argued that vlogs could help them improving their speaking skills, especially in terms of pronunciation, vocabulary, intonation, and grammar, but speaking in front of the camera with the other person (two-way communication) may have better results. according to the finding results, the writer concluded that there were 4 steps must be followed to gain the goal of improving self-confidence in speaking skills through vlog: a. preparation in the first step, the students have to prepare everything well, starting from the material into recording tools. this part will give them a comfort zone to reduce the unconfident barrier in speaking english. b. producing the second step is producing. this step will let them record themselves while speaking english. they deliver the topic given by the teacher and speak freely in a short duration. c. review after they have recorded the material, they will replay the video. they watch and review what they have already recorded. in this part, they tend to check and correct any error which may occur. d. evaluating the last step is evaluating. in this stage, they need to assess the grammatical pronunciation error. they can take note and solve the problem that occurs. those 4 steps must be followed to gain better result in applying vlogs as teaching learning media. the teacher should give clear instruction so the students can prepare everything well. but, regarding to the result of the study, pronunciation became the most essential part to be improved. the seafarer candidates from all self-confidence level (low to highest level) faced an obstacle in pronouncing words. the error pronunciation still appeared even though they prepared the text before taking the video. this situation occurred because the students didn’t accustom with english. they also didn’t learn phonology topic specifically in english class. so, they tended to produce sound of words which affected by their mother tongue accent. besides, the grammatical error also became another obstacle which needed to be faced and enhanced. grammar becomes classical problem which are faced by every student who learns english as foreign language. conclusion based on the result of the discussion above, the writer concluded that video blogs (vlog) could be applied as learning media to help the seafarer's candidates improve their self-confidence in speaking dhesi wulan sari | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 34 english. the seafarer’s candidates could express their ideas through vlog. but, it depends on the topic given to them. the teacher should choose more familiar or common topic so the students can develop their ideas naturally and freely. common topic which is related with the maritime topic will be a good choice for them so they can explore their knowledge and ideas better. the writer believes that students at the vocational college are more comprehend when talking about their field. when the seafarers candidates feel enjoy and comfortable learning english through a vlog, it can increase their motivation in learning english, improving their pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammatical sentences. the teacher should also give clear instruction so they can produce the video well. whereas, learning speaking through vlog also can assist the students to correct the content and pronunciation. the steps followed by the students in producing vlog could help them to review their video before publishing. they could prepare the content first and then they can re-record if there is a mistake in pronouncing word. nevertheless, nothing is perfect. this learning media still needs more improvement to be implied to obtain the best result. for future researchers, the writer suggests that they need to investigate the use of vlog as learning media from other perspectives and different vlogging styles. the future researchers could focus on pronunciation part. funding statement this study does not receive any fundings from any agencies or institutions. references abdel, a. f., & el, a. 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(2018). using vlog in the youtube channel as a means to improve students’ motivation and confidence to speak english in intermediate 1 level of lb-lia jambi. international journal of language teaching and education, 1(1), 38–44. https://doi.org/10.22437/ijolte.v1i1.4596 shahani, s., tahriri, a., & divsar, h. (2014). efl learners ` views towards video materials and viewing techniques. international samanm journal of business and social sciences, 2(1), 42–60. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 73 elt forum 11(2) (2022) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt video and audio platforms for improving listening skills in spanish´s students of efl: a preliminary and descriptive study juliana leguizamon del portillo1, andres bernal-ballen2 1facultad de educación, universidad antonio nariño, colombia 2grupo de investigación conciencia, facultad de educación, universidad antonio nariño, colombia article info ________________ article history: received on 15 october 2021 approved on 24 july 2022 published on 31 july 2022 ________________ keywords: listening ability; didactic strategy; learning english as a foreign language ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ learning english as a foreign language can be challenging because it requires the development of tools which allows an effective communication process. in this sense, the phonetic differences between spanish and english are one of the reasons why it is difficult to develop listening skills for spanish native speakers. thus, in this research, a didactic strategy based on common audio and video platforms was designed in order to improve this ability in a sample of students. the sample was selected at convenience and consisted of fifteen students from an english intermediate course. the strategy was divided into three parts: a diagnostic test to demonstrate the level of listening; learning activities; and an exit test. a descriptive study was conducted. the obtained results showed students’ progressive improvement in pragmatics, understanding, and intonation. in addition, the results indicated that the use of alternative methods, mediated by new technologies, seems to be equal or more effective than traditional teaching and a better learning of english is perceived by using remote strategies than in face-to-face ones. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 calle 22 sur # 12d-81. 111821, bogotá, colombia e-mail: abernal93@uan.edu.co http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& juliana leguizamon del portillo, andres bernal-ballen | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 74 introduction learning a new language involves the conjunction of many of the learner’s skills (elmetaher, 2021; nazarieh et al., 2022; neuner, 2020; rosales, 2019; shariyevna & israilova, 2020). three categories that affect learning have been reported: biological and psychological factors such as age, personality, and environment; cognitive factors such as intelligence, language skills, learning styles, and strategies; and affective factors such as attitudes and motivation (hartshorne et al., 2018; nussbaum & bernaus, 2010). thus, it is understood that every human being has particular characteristics, and those characteristics have notable implications in learning a foreign language (getie, 2020; manga, 2008). on the other hand, students of english as a foreign language (efl) must develop communicative skills. these skills are associated with biological and cognitive factors since the former requires an environment and a context to receive and transmit information, while the later requires listening abilities in order to engage in and develop a conversation. the main purpose of speaking is to transmit and capture information. communicative competence is a globalizing construct that encompasses skills, abilities, and knowledge that the language must use in order to communicate effectively (maturana patarroyo, 2011; zhang & zou, 2020). to achieve the communicative process, students must have a level for the four skills (writing, reading, speaking, and listening). by achieving that level, students are capable to communicate and express ideas. nonetheless, listening plays an important role in the learning process (cheung, 2010; gilakjani & sabouri, 2016; jemadi et al., 2022; karimova et al., 2020; shariyevna & israilova, 2020; yavuz & celik, 2017) and it has a positive impact on the students because they might receive information more clearly and consequently, the learning may be meaningful. the needs of the emitter are different from the needs of the receiver (ahour & mohseni, 2015). similarly, the skills for each of these two subjects are different, as both may present lower proficiency in different aspects of the communicative skill. several causes that affect the listen ability have been reported. the uncontrollable process of the skill (speed of deliver of the message and the accent) cognitive perspective, phonological and lexical problems, syntactic and semantic problems, discoursal and pragmatic problems can be mentioned (ozcelik et al., 2019). in fact, recently different publications have faced the listening problems (jemadi et al., 2022; jyoti, 2020; nushi & orouji, 2020). nonetheless, one cause of unsatisfactory communicative process in the listening skill is pronunciation (enciso et al., 2019; orlando, 2020). it plays a very important role in the efl learning process, and this linguistic component is key factor in achieving successful oral communication (setter & jenkins, 2005). whereas english has different phonemes for graphemes, spanish is a language that correlates the number of graphemes and phonemes (veiga-pérez, 2017). in spanish, there are just 24 phonemes and 27 graphemes, while in english there are 26 graphemes and 45 phonemes. moreover, in spanish there are 5 vowel phonemes, while in english there are 12, which shows the wide difference in sounds between the two languages. additionally, it has been reported that english possesses unique sounds that are not common to romance linguistic families (enciso et al., 2019). in this frame, it has been observed that students distinguish these differences more easily in written than in oral communication. it stands to reason students must perform identification of phonetics differences in different contexts, enabling them to improve perceptual phonemic discrimination to the point of being able to accurately identify them as two different non-native phonetic categories (llompart, 2021) even though speech perception may not adequately capture it (cutler et al., 2006). this prevents learners from becoming familiar with the different sounds that can be found in the english phonetic system. furthermore, the failure to represent pronunciation accurately and consistently is largely responsible for the constant difficulties among efl learners (umera-okeke, 2008). in order to overcome the reported problem, several publications have informed that audiovisual media are more effective for improving listening skills than other types of teaching media (ananda et al., 2021; asmawati & others, 2017; damanik & katemba, 2021; dizon & gayed, 2021). however, there is not much empirical evidence of the effectiveness of the use of these platforms in education (difilippantonio-pen, 2020; mango, 2021). it has even mentioned that the use of audio materials in the learning listening skills seems to be inefficient (sulaiman et al., 2019). considering the aforementioned reasons, the research problem is that native spanish speakers which are efl students have difficulties with their listening skills due to the phonetic difference between spanish and english. additionally, scientific literature has reported that these difficulties juliana leguizamon del portillo, andres bernal-ballen | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 75 with listening are due to schools’ prioritization of writing, reading, and vocabulary. listening is not part of many textbooks. indeed, most teachers do not conduct activities to develop this skill in their classes (gilakjani & sabouri, 2016). moreover, it has found that this skill does not receive enough attention and is considered a passive skill that is developed without help. however, listening is a complicated process because of the level of difficulty that requires comprehend the message as they listen to it, retain information in memory, integrate it with what follows and understand the incoming information (elmetaher, 2021). although direct or indirect didactic strategies for learning listening skills have been mentioned in the scientific literature (fetriani et al., 2020; vančová, 2019; yulianti, 2018), and despite the relevance of listening skills for efl students, there is scare reports in scientific data bases such as scopus or web of sciences that netflix party, flipgrid, or randall´s platforms are reported for improving listening skills in efl. for instance, in web of science the combination of netflix and listening indicates just five results. for that reason, the research here focuses on the use of a didactic strategy based on audio and video platforms such as netflix party, flipgrid, randalls’s esl cyber listening lab, and lyrics training platforms that help improve efl students’ listening skills for spanish native speakers. learning listening skills multiple authors have defined listening skills in scientific literature (gilakjani & sabouri, 2016; hwaider, 2017; khosroshahi & merc, n.d.; mohammadzamani & taki, 2018). however, current trends indicate that this skill helps to understand the world and is a necessary component of successful communication. students spend more than 50% of their time listening during their learning process (jafari & hashim, 2015; rost, 2009), which suggests that fostering listening skills is crucial in the learning process of an efl. furthermore, listening has been defined as the ability to understand native speakers when they speak at a normal speed. it also focuses on auditory discrimination, auditory grammar, selection of necessary information, and recall. listening is a process of understanding what is heard and organizing it into lexical items to which meaning can be assigned. students listen to spoken language, divide sounds, classify them into lexical and syntactic units, and comprehend the message. this ability is a process of receiving what the speaker says, responding, and creating meaning through participation, creativity, and empathy (gilakjani & sabouri, 2016). it is undeniable that listening is extremely important. conversations will only take place when one can understand what the speaker is saying, although input (listening and reading) alone is not sufficient for language acquisition. this acquisition refers to the development of appropriate responses and focuses on helping listeners develop an awareness of differences in cultural styles of listener feedback, and options for providing such feedback. awareness of listeners' choices and strategies can increase the effectiveness and the ease with which they engage in collaborative discourse. use of video and audio for learning english the strategies for teaching and learning have been studied in the last decades (davis et al., 2018; martin et al., 2020). nonetheless, educators as well as students do not seem to be aware of this fact, and the incorporation of new technologies in the process of teaching and learning is still under continuous development (d. ahmadi & reza, 2018). teaching and learning english is probably one of the most relevant topics in the field of education as a consequence of the ubiquitous need for preparing students with english abilities around the world. in this frame, diverse strategies have been implemented, and video or audios are commonly used by teachers during their lectures. in the current time, the incorporation of social media within education context have shown a relevant impact (dehghanzadeh et al., 2021; syafitri, 2021; wang & chen, 2020). in fact, some publications have evidenced that it is possible to improve listening skills by the incorporation strategies based on videos or audios (polat & eristi, 2019). for that reason, this research incorporated these kinds of material for helping students to develop intentionally listening skills. juliana leguizamon del portillo, andres bernal-ballen | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 76 teaching strategies a myriad of strategies and techniques are used in the process of learning a new language. three categories for language acquisition have been described: a) the breakdown of grammatical topics; b) the development and cohesion of topics related to the teaching methods; and c) evaluative material. these three categories allow the teacher to review the points that must be present when applying a strategy in class (neuner, 2020). however, when learning a new language, students activate learning processes that they do not usually use when learning their native language. as a result, it is necessary to propose a specific strategy during the teaching of the second language. a didactic strategy is a series of procedures and resources used by the teacher to promote meaningful learning (navarro & piñeiro, 2012). this underlines the importance of these strategies in the learning process since the strategy motivates the student to learn in various ways. similarly, a didactic strategy is a procedure that the teaching agent uses reflexively and flexibly to promote meaningful student learning. language learning strategies are specific actions, behaviors, steps, or techniques that students use (often intentionally) to improve their foreign language skills. teaching or learning efl means that a didactic strategy must be specific. for instance, the didactics used in a classroom for efl learning purposes must have attractive knowledge for students and each proposed didactic must emphasize specific knowledge (harjanne & tella, 2007; shofkorov & bagapova, 2020; talaván, 2020; uljens, 2004). since second language learning should have a communicative approach, it has been reported that dialogue and classroom interaction should take up an extensive part of the class. specific didactic strategies for learning a foreign language are classified as either direct or indirect strategies. these strategies allow students to identify different ways of learning. table 1 shows strategies that are specifically focused on developing listening skills (orrego & díaz monsalve, 2010). table 1. direct and indirect strategies for learning a second language direct strategies memory cognitive compensatory creating associations. infering relationships. remembering. rhyming. making clear mental images. visualizing. imitating. combining images with sounds. making word lists. looking up definition of new words. reviewing and refreshing what has been learned. understanding and reviewing what has been learned. practicing conversations in different contexts. identifying details elaborating a general idea of what is read in another language. summarizing. consulting different sources. recognizing similarities and differences. finding patterns. assuming/guessing meaning. anticipating content and meaning from the context of the subject matter. seeking help. using mimicry and gestures. looking for alternative ways to express ideas and make use of synonyms. indirect strategies metacognitive affective social evaluating the process. learning from mistakes. being responsible for your mistakes. identifying the objectives of what you are doing. planning learning tasks with clear goals. gathering the needed materials. organizing study schedules. making efforts to concentrate. seeking relaxation. consulting your concerns. making use of diaries. encouraging self-motivation. taking risks in learning in order to grow beyond the routine. asking for collaboration. allowing others to evaluate and correct one's own performance. asking questions. sharing information. identify with whom you study best. being attentive to what others feel. the strategies to improve listening skills can be developed: before, during, and after language activities. in the first category, there are strategies focused on connection, prediction, and conversation. during listening, taking notes and listening to the material several times is recommended. as a closing activity, repeating and summarizing the material have shown positive results (borjesson, 2012). additionally, to favor active comprehension, cognitive, metacognitive, and juliana leguizamon del portillo, andres bernal-ballen | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 77 socio-affective strategies must be taken into account. for this reason, a seven-step model has been created 1. students receive new information about the topic and type of text, then create hypotheses about the text. 2. students listen an audio and verify their hypotheses and add new information. 3. students work in groups to discuss and compare their results. afterwards, they come to a consensus. 4. they listen again, review, and check what they understand and what they have not yet grasped. 5. they discuss again, highlight the most relevant aspects, and reflect on what made them understand the audio and identify key words. 6. they listen, search, and add information to verify what they have understood. 7. they discuss what helped them understand by suggesting goals, both individually and as a group. scientific research has found that exposing learners to authentic materials through video helps with language learning, particularly listening skills. moreover, it has been reported that videos can be beneficial in improving l2 learners' listening skills, compared to lecture-based instruction (metruk, 2018). additionally, the use of podcasts to enhance listening skills has been documented as well. moreover, most podcasts are free, diverse, readily available, and play at a normal speed, among other things (naidionova & ponomarenko, 2018). having a variety of didactic strategies does not guarantee success for a spanish-speaking english learner. thus, it has been mentioned that these strategies must have a communicative approach since the strategy is not only about students acquiring a certain linguistic system but also about them being able to use the linguistic system to communicate effectively (rangel-palencia, 2015). several researchers have mentioned that having a communicative approach to efl teaching strategies allows students to interact with english-speaking communities. for example, the efl communication process is affected by efl learners’ limited vocabulary and lack of familiarity with slangs, grammatical topics, and their respective rules, the communication process is affected (s. ahmadi et al., 2020; hibatullah, 2019; yagang, 1993). on the other hand, for communication in l2, the ability to listen comprehensively must be specially developed. for instance, music (sabina & senad, 2021), metacognitive (valdés mendoza, 2021), or audiovisual strategies (collaguazo vega, 2021) can be mentioned. in accordance with the information above, this research proposes a strategy that favors a better way to learn a second language (english) by focusing on the use of video and audio platforms to develop listening skills. a detailed methodology to achieve these objectives has been proposed and is shown below. methods the present research is focused on improving listening skills for students of elf. in this regard, both, direct and indirect strategies (table 1) were planned and used. as can be notice in the detailed description of the process, audio interpretation, deduction, and vocabulary strategies are the main activities. it means that direct cognitive and compensatory strategies were used, as well as indirect metacognitive and affective activities were carried out. participants the participants for this research consist of students who hold military degrees. the students are part of the intermediate english course and have an academic load of 540 hours. specifically, a nonrepresentative sample selected for convenience was made up of students from group 2b of the intermediate english course, which consisted of 15 students total, 12 males and 3 females. a descriptive qualitative design was carried out. instrument design one instrument (sample´s perception test – instrument 2) was designed and validated by three experts in linguistic and didactic of english as a foreign language. sufficiency, clarity, coherence, and relevance were assessed. once the instrument was corrected according to the suggestions, it was juliana leguizamon del portillo, andres bernal-ballen | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 78 sent again to the experts for their final approval. a didactic strategy consisted of six learning guides that highlight activities to improve listening skill was developed and applied to the participants. additionally, a diagnostic test was used, which was provided by the american language course (alc). instrument 1. preconception’s test pretest the diagnostic test corresponds to the american language course placement test (alcpt), which consists of 60 multiple-choice questions whose objective is to identify the students' listening level. these questions cover two categories: interpretation and deduction. the test made it possible to verify the students’ level of comprehension and deduction of the audio. the audio tracks had american accents, different speeds, and military vocabulary. for this test, the students had 35 minutes to listen to all the audio tracks (which have a maximum duration of one minute and thirty seconds each) and answer the stipulated question. the students answered on a multiple-choice sheet and the alc level classification was obtained (table 2). table 2. alc level classification correct questions level 56-60 b2+ 41-55 b2 31-40 b1+ 21-30 b1 11-20 a2 0-10 a1 instrument 2. sample´s perception test seven multiple choice questions were formulated. each student had to indicate at what level he or she considered his or her communicative ability to be. the options for these levels were null, basic, and medium. additionally, these three categories were established for the common european framework of reference for languages (cefr), although without determining the specific english level. the survey was administered through google forms since this virtual platform allows for prompt responses from the participants. the survey was administered during class time. pedagogical intervention the didactic strategy was designed to improve listening skills. all guides were applied remotely (one per week) over a period of six weeks. each guide focused specifically on improving pragmatics, intonation, and accents. this strategy is explained and summarized in table 3. table 3. summary of the pedagogical strategy week activity platform duration characteristic 1 vocabulary randall’s esl cyber listening lab 35 min audio interpretation/ vocabulary 2 motivation flipggrid/ted talks 35 min deduction of audios/ vocabulary 3 video friends netflix party/flipgrid 60 min deduction of audios/ vocabulary 4 vocabulary randall’s esl cyber listening lab 35 min audio interpretation/ vocabulary 5 song lyrics training 35 min deduction of audios/ vocabulary 6 video blindspot netflix party/flipgrid 80 min deduction of audios/ vocabulary the first part includes the student's knowledge of some of the platforms they worked with in class. one such platform is randall's esl cyber listening lab, a free-to-access page that allows students to learn using podcasts on everyday topics, which utilize a variety of accents and speeds. a separate platform, lyrics training, is also a free-to-access page and an application that uses videos, juliana leguizamon del portillo, andres bernal-ballen | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 79 songs, and scenes from tv series to help students at different levels learn pronunciation, accents, and vocabulary in a more interactive way. these platforms allow the student to have a more realistic interaction with the way english speakers express themselves in everyday contexts. for this first part of the strategy, the podcasts and songs could be repeated a maximum of three times, depending on the initial level of the students. within the frame of listening, there was a second activity consisted of oral production, since listening and speaking are connected skills that should be developed simultaneously. this is because listening is a much more than hearing. in fact, to be able to transfer listening to other contexts, it is necessary to evidence oral communication (spataro & bloch, 2018). to make oral productions, different virtual platforms were used, such as flipgrid, a free-to-access application where audio and video recordings are made (the recordings are no longer than 90 seconds in length). this platform allows the user to play the video as many times as needed, and it is possible to make a video response to engage in a conversation between the participants. netflix party, on the other hand, is used to watch movies, tv series, and documentaries, allowing multiple users to watch teacherselected media simultaneously, even when the users are in different physical locations. these platforms facilitate direct conversations between peers (classmates). additionally, the variety of content available on netflix party means that there is appropriate material for each students’ english level. finally, the assessment to test students´ listening comprehension ability through understanding pronunciation and audio with neutral accents was carried out. this part consisted of two activities. the first was a weekly test where questions were characterized by pragmatics and an understanding of the general idea of each audio. a second test was carried out at the end of the course, which allowed a general review of the students’ progress from the first day that the strategy was applied. session 1 students listened to audios from randall's esl cyber listening lab. subsequently, five questions were presented that sought to identify the students’ comprehension and pragmatics of the audio. session 2 a ted talk on autonomous language learning strategies was used. after that, students were asked to identify their comprehension and pragmatics of the audios. these were solved on the flipgrid platform, which allowed the students to resolve areas of uncertainty themselves. session 3 once again, audios related to greetings and personal presentations were used from randall's esl cyber listening lab. after listening to the audio, the students were asked five questions about its context and pragmatics, while simultaneously working with the expressions used in the audio. session 4 the students were shown an episode of an american television series (“friends”) in which the main component was vocabulary about marriage. the students watched this episode simultaneously using the netflix party platform. pauses were made to ask questions and identify context. these questions were answered using the flipgrid platform. session 5 a faster and more demanding audio (the song “we don’t talk anymore” by carlie puth and selena gomez) was used. the lyrics training platform was used to work on this song because this platform helps students focus on the pronunciation of native english speakers session 6 an episode of a television series (“blindspot”) that uses language, codes, signs, and military slang was selected and netflix party platform was used. during the episode, pauses were made to facilitate questions formulation from the teacher to the students for identifying the context. these answers were answered on the flipgrid platform. juliana leguizamon del portillo, andres bernal-ballen | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 80 instrument 1. preconception’s test posttest a similar test to the diagnostic strategy was applied, which was also provided by the american language course placement test (alcpt). the test consisted of 60 multiple-choice questions whose objective was to identify the students' listening level. these questions are classified into two categories, interpretation, and deduction, which made it possible to verify the students’ level of comprehension and deduction of the audios. the audios have characteristic american accents, different speeds, and military vocabulary. data analysis in each activity students were assessed according to the specifications of the session. the obtained values were statistically treated, and average, standard deviation and mode were obtained. findings and discussion perception test this is a test in which the person qualifies his or her skills according to the appreciation of the level of language management (lobo et al., 2020). most students stated that their listening level was basic, that is, when listening different audios, they only understood certain words; four students mentioned that their listening level was medium, meaning they understood the context of the audios; and only one student stated that his listening level was null. next, the students selected the tools they used to improve their listening skills. the most voted answer was audios in class. interestingly, most students work exclusively with the material provided by the teacher, although films and songs were mentioned as well. this problem (working only wit materials provided by the teacher) is common in efl students, due to pronunciation, speed, unfamiliarity with words, and limited listening abilities. therefore, students feel more comfortable with the material worked on in class as they are appropriate for the level they exhibit (erzad, 2020). despite this problem, there is no evidence that teachers and students to broaden the types of aids to improve listening skills. in this sense, the use of audios and videos mediated by innovative platforms (as proposed by this strategy) can contribute to the solution to this problem. one factor which language learning skills is the number of hours devoted to study. it is remarkable that in the sample, 12 out of 15 students did not study english for more than a year. nonetheless it is worth mentioning that the greater the number of study hours, the better the academic outcome obtained by efl learners (lightbown & spada, 2021). thus, it is striking that the perception that students have about their listening level coincides with the results yielded by the diagnostic test, indicating that the students are aware of their level reflected in the results shown by both tests. diagnostic test it is well known that a diagnostic test is seen as one of the most useful tools for establishing previous knowledge about any topic. in turn, performing this type of diagnostic test through some virtual platforms allows students' stress levels to drop, resulting in tests that are conducive to the development of students’ potential. the obtained results from the alcpt test (table 4) were a starting point to carry out and apply the designed strategy. these results show that the entry-level of the students is very low and the sample is homogeneous. this suggests that the level of listening reported by the students coincides with the level of listening achieved during the test. for this reason, it is necessary to design strategies to improve this skill. “normal" classroom activities are not enough, and an intentional effort is required to develop and improve students’ listening abilities (alfuatin, 2019). table 4. statistical results for alcpt as diagnostic and output test function american language course placement test (alcpt) diagnostic test (60 points) output test (60 points) average 17,6 ± 4,6 22,3 ± 3,8 mode 13 26 median 15 22 several factors can influence the determination of students' initial listening level. one factor is the predisposition to the test and the result that the student may obtain. there is an internal struggle juliana leguizamon del portillo, andres bernal-ballen | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 81 between what the student thinks he/she knows and the test result. at the same time, it has been found that performing several tests throughout the academic process in order to strengthen, correct, and prevent various attitudes in favor of the student decreases that predisposition and favors learning (cortés, 2020). one of the reasons that explain the low level obtained in the diagnostic test is that students have had little contact with the language when they take the diagnostic test. in this sense, any kind of interaction (music, videos, podcast) might have a positive influence on cultural exchange and can therefore be described as a tool for achieving learning improvement (guerrero, 2020). use of randall's esl cyber listening lab in this part, students were asked to answer five multiple-choice questions that focused on the interpretation of the information provided by the audio. the audio interpretation questions obtained are shown in table 5. in these questions, the student had to extract and differentiate the information requested in the audio. the interpretation questions evaluate the comprehension and the information gathered that the student retains (for this case of the audio) whereas the students must select the pertinent and necessary information to answer appropriately. at the being of the strategy, low scores were obtained, whereas a notable improvement is visible at the end, when most of the students obtained higher scores. in this frame, it is important to mention that phonological features are considered as one of the reasons which difficult listening. the origin of this affectation can be attributed to the fact that native speakers not always articulated the words, which affect the produced sound and it is hard to understand for the listener (hamouda, 2013). for that reason, not only repeating the audios, but the relationship between listening and correlating could be considered as an appropriate strategy for improving listening skills. interpretation requires a level of analysis and is based on decoding vocabulary as well as on linking the text with its context. moreover, sociopragmatic features can be used for better understanding, such as nonverbal communication or paralinguistic aspects (jun, 2006; lynch & mendelsohn, 2013; widodo & cirocki, 2015). indeed, other researchers have reported that using audios have a positive impact in the overall listening skills as well as in pronunciation (gonulal, 2020). the analysis of the results obtained from both tests (sessions 1 and 3) showed a relevant improvement in the process of interpretation and pragmatics. this may be due to factors such as pronunciation, speed, unfamiliarity with words or terms, and limited listening. therefore, the use of material that students feel more comfortable with is desirable (erzad, 2020). table 5. results of session 1 and 3 students randall’s esl cyber listening lab session 1 (5 points) session 3 (5 points) average 1,7 ± 1,4 3,5 ± 1,1 mode 1 4 median 1 4 flipgrid a 10-minute english video about the importance of languages was chosen, a topic related to those studied in class. it has been established that videos are useful for improving oral expression and therefore, for having a conversation, since gestures and facial expressions allow learners to connect the audible and visual part of the speech. moreover, when audio is used without video or images, negative effects on comprehension are reported (escudero & kalashnikova, 2020). orality is an influential factor in communication since is not only about the production of sounds. oral production involves cognitive development and comprehension (álvarez correa, 2020). the effectiveness of the strategy depends on how comprehensive the questions are, and for this reason, it is important to research students´ level of familiarity with the platform (dinesh & karthikeyan, 2020). results were much higher compared to the previous sessions since the students had had previous experiences with the platform and with the type of questions asked. having sessions with the same methodology but different contexts generate an approach and an understanding of the process to be had by the students (dinesh & karthikeyan, 2020). juliana leguizamon del portillo, andres bernal-ballen | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 82 as can be seen in table 6, the strategy had three sessions with a similar methodology, watching a video and answering questions. within this frame, students should be able to understand the message and respond appropriately. these videos, when played at an appropriate speed, allow students to get used to typical and/or real conversations in which repeating the audio is not an option (escudero & kalashnikova, 2020). the scientific literature has reported the advantages that video could play in the listening abilities. for instance, video is an alternative instructional tool, that facilitates comprehension of pronunciation (related listening skills). moreover, video-based utilities are more appropriate than just audios because there are multiplying inputs that the student can perceive (djabbаrova, 2020; kaynar & sadik, 2021; woottipong, 2014). despite the lack of research using this platform, preliminary reports suggest that flipgrid might be considered as an effective educational tool, since it develops communication skills (mango, 2021). however, technical problems are mentioned as negative implications of its use (innes & others, 2020). nonetheless, it is important to mention that flipgrid can be effective by improving listening comprehension (guapisaca & garzón, 2022), because it involves cognitive development (alvarez, 2020). table 6. results of session 2, 4, and 6 students flipgrid session 2 session 4 session 6 average 2,5 ± 0,8 4,5 ± 0,5 4,6 ± 0,5 mode 3 4 5 median 3 4 5 lyrics training a song with an american accent was chosen for this activity. students listened the song and simultaneously fulfilled the lyrics on the training platform. the maximum score for this session was 41 points. each point corresponded to a word, which had to be selected in the corresponding order to complete the song. the result of this activity is shown in table 7. the most frequent number of correct answers for this activity was 16, which is not surprising due to the students’ listening level even though this methodology was new to the students, the result beyond the score indicates the importance and relevance of music and how it can improve students' listening skills. learning a new language through songs helps to increase vocabulary since it contains authentic language, helps the student to have a socio-cultural vision of english-speaking countries, and substantially helps to correctly develop pronunciation in a more didactic and attractive way (luque, 2020). these activities are considered as a useful for improving listening skills. the explanation might be found in the fact that the student is able to predict the word, and if not, they can listen the audio once more (djabborova, 2020; ebrahimi et al., 2021; milan et al., 2019). music has been a useful element of efl learning for students and teachers, as it allows for faster memorization of vocabulary. some authors emphasized that the needs of today's students are different from those of past students, and as such, mixing music with technology allows the effectiveness of learning to be greater and in turn motivates students to continue learning (al-efeshat & baniabdelrahman, 2020). table 7. results of session 5 results lyrics training average 22,0 ± 7,2 mode 16 median 23 the pedagogical use of various digital platforms can be considered as a successful strategy for strengthening the activity of listening in a second language. the results obtained in this research have shown a remarkable improvement in the participants in this aspect. the listening skill involves the ability to understand to others when expressed at a normal speed and requires an interaction between the sender and the receiver. this activity implies a highly elaborated cognitive process, which only occurs when there is a complete understanding of the message. thus, it is evident that the sample has been able to improve in the juliana leguizamon del portillo, andres bernal-ballen | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 83 comprehension of the received message, that it can interact significantly with the sender, and therefore, his or her listening ability has been enriched using the developed strategy. netflix party as it was mentioned, listening has been considered as a passive learning skill. however, too much attention is needed to pay in intonation and pronunciation (kavaliauskiene, 2008). for achieving an appropriate level of listening, the scientific literature has recently explored the use of audio and visual platforms in english teaching. in fact, it has been published that the new platforms are more effective for developing listening than other teaching media (ananda et al., 2021). in this research, the use of netflix party has shown positive results as can be seen in table 6. likewise, the platforms allowed transforming some daily actions or activities (songs, movies, etc.) into learning strategies. the activities with videos (talks, series, or movies) using flipgrid and netflix party were well received by the students, allowing them to obtain a better result in the analysis of the questions posed and in the result of their interpretation. this can be attributed to the fact that the images, expressions, and gestures allow them to understand the context of the video and relate what they were listening to what was happening in the videos. conclusion in recent years, educational sciences have understood the importance of relating research to classroom activities. for this reason, this research arises from how several authors have undertaken systematic work to achieve better learning of english as a foreign language, using information and communication technologies, mediated by research processes. in this context, this strategy demonstrated an improvement in the ability to listen to the english language, an objective set at the beginning of this research. on the other hand, as evidenced by the exit test, progress was obtained between the beginning of the strategy and the last session. this may be attributed to all the activities and platforms (the proposed strategy) that were aimed at strengthening the students' listening skills. even though the platforms were different, they had a specific purpose: to improve the student's listening skills. it is important to highlight the great variety of pedagogical and didactic resources that can be applied in classes to work on listening skills. it should be emphasized that listening is a process and a skill that should be worked on frequently in order to achieve a notable improvement in students. the activities with videos (lectures, series, or movies) were well received by the students, allowing them to obtain a better result in the analysis of the posed questions and in the result of their interpretation, thanks to the fact that the images, expressions, and gestures allow them to understand the context of the video and connect what they were listening to with what was happening in the videos. songs are useful tools that attract and capture the students' attention. with this strategy, positive results were obtained because an improvement in the students' listening skills was evidenced, thanks to the platforms, which were chosen thinking about the use of the tools they provided, the ease of acquisition, and their use. likewise, the platforms allowed some daily actions or activities (songs, movies, etc.) to be transformed into learning strategies. it is pertinent to highlight that as a consequence of the didactic strategy in this research, a significant improvement was demonstrated by the students of in the sample, as indicated by the results obtained in the entrance and exit tests. this can be interpreted to mean that, during the research process, listening skills improved, which indicates that 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(2020). types, purposes, and effectiveness of state-of-the-art technologies for second and foreign language learning. computer assisted language learning, 1–47. ika oktavianti / journal of economic education 1 (2) (2012) elt forum 7 (1) (2018) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt roundtable and think pair share combined with picture as media in teaching writing of descriptive text an experimental research of eighth grade of junior high school 3 semarang eka yulianti fajlin, hendi pratama  putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) eka yulianti fajlin, hendi pratama / journal of english language teaching 7 (1) (2018) english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia 69 79 article info ________________ article history: received in april 2017 approved in may 2017 published in july 2017 ________________ keywords : roundtable, think pair share, writing ability, descriptive text. abstract ___________________________________________________________________ writing is one of the skills which is difficult to be mastered by students since it requires a higher level of productive language control than other skills. therefore, in teaching writing teachers should have a creative way to make students learn writing easily. this study was concerned with the implementation of roundtable and think pair share combined with picture in teaching writing of descriptive text. the aims of this study: (1) to find out the effective techniques between roundtable and think pair share combined with picture as media, (2) to know students’ perception about those techniques. the data collection techniques used tests and questionnaire. the pre-test result in experimental group 1 and 2 were 60.86 and 60.69. the post-test result in experimental group 1 and 2 were 84.89 and 75.51. t-test post-test showed that sig. (2-tailed) was 0.001 and t-test was 7.932. the test result showed significant improvement of students’ writing achievement in both group.therefore, both techniques combined with picture were effective to teach writing of descriptive text. however, there was a significant difference between post-test scores in both group. it could be concluded that roundtable combined with picture was more effective than think pair share combined with picture in teaching writing of descriptive text. the questionnaire results showed both techniques combined with picture were interesting, some students in experimental group 1 got difficulty whereas many students in experimental group 2 got difficulty in writing, the learning process using both techniques were effective, and both techniques could be used in another meeting. © 2018 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: fajlineka@gmail.com introduction in the process of teaching learning, students need to master not only knowledge but also are able to communicate with others. as stated by pratama and yuliati (2016) that students need to master of communication, critical and logical thinking, creativity, and problem solving. one form of communication is writing. writing is one opf the skills that students need to master either at primary, secondary or tertiary level (keshavarz, shahrokhi, & nejad, 2014). in reality, writing is a difficult skill to be mastered by students in those levels. as stated by handayani (2012) writing is often perceived as the most difficult language skill since it requires a higher level of productive language control than other skills. writing is much more than the simple mechanics of getting the words down, it also involves being creative, spelling, grammar, punctuation, choice of appropriate words, sentence linking, and text construction (phillip, 2003). the reason that students cannot make a good writing is poor grammar knowledge, poor vocabularies, and other important aspects in writing. meanwhile, those aspects are not taught explicitly in the process of teaching learning. they also have low motivation including in mastering writing skill so they look reluctant and do not work seriously in doing writing task (astarina, 2011). that is what makes writing is a difficult thing for junior high school student. moreover, teachers also have important role in the process of teaching writing. methods and media that used by teachers in teaching writing also influence the result of writing. based on the observation during teaching interinship in smpn 3 semarang, the development of learning media sometimes make teachers tend to use the easiest way to explain the materials. they still tend to use lecturing technique by explaining the material using media such as only showing materials using power point or other media. moreover, most indoesian efl teachers tend to faithfully follow textbooks and student work sheets; they barely provide opportunities for students to use the target language to interact with their peers (alwasilah, 2012; lie 2007; musthafa, 2009 cited in astuti, 2016). with such kind of teaching technique, many students feel difficult to understand the materials because they do not have chance to discuss with their friend about the materials. learning process in education unit is organized interactive, inspiring, pleasant, challenging, motivating learners to participate actively and provide enough space for innovation, creativity, and independence in accordance with their talents, interests, and learners’ physical and psychological development (ministry of education and culture, 2016). in curriculum 2013, teaching learning process has to use students centered learning approach, it is no longer using teacher centered learning approach. students are required to be active in learning process. in the curriculum 2013, junior high school students are required to communicate both orally and written thorugh some of the genre texts, such as descriptive, recount, narrative, procedures, and report information. all those text are difficult for them if teachers only use conventional techniques in teaching. considering the problems above, teachers should find various teaching techniques and should be able to use media as much as possible. in this study, i offer teachers to use cooperative learning as an alternative in teaching writing because as stated by astuti (2016) that cooperative learning hardly takes place in classrooms in indonesia. according to mandal (2009) cooperative learning is is a successful teaching strategy in which small teams, each with students of different levels of ability, use a variety of learning activities to improve their understanding of a subject. the spirit of competitiveness and the domination of individualism may be reduced and lessened through adopting the approach of cooperative learning that provides a supportive learning environment for students in which they can acquire and exchange ideas, information and knowledge (mahmoud, 2014). therefore, i choose cooperative learning as an alternative in teaching writing. there have been many researches exploring about cooperative learning technique in the various form such as keshavarz, shahrokhi, and nejad (2014), sari (2014) and sumarsih and sumanjaya (2013) conducted about think pair share, hapsari (2011) and handayani (2012) conducted about roundtable technique. whereas, some researcher did not mention the form of cooperative leaning they used. they applied cooperative learning techniques mostly for university students and senior high school students. the area that has not been explored is comparing two cooperative learning techniques to teach students of junior high school. in the study, i chose roundtable and think pair share to teach writing of descriptive text. it was be combined with picture as media in order to make process of learning are interesting. the reason i chose those techniques is they are rarely used in teaching learning process. by applying those techniques there will be renewal in teaching learning process. those techniques also can be used in teaching writing. as stated by barkley (2003) cited in handayani (2012) one of the best techniques for stimulating ideas and finding a direction for a piece of writing is roundtable. in roundtable, each student takes turn responding to a prompt by writing one or two word or phrases. meanwhile, in think pair share (tps) technique, students have opportunity to share their idea for writing and discuss their mistakes in writing into group. tps technique creates a good environment in teaching learning writing in which students became active in the process of writing (sumarsih & sanjaya, 2013). in this study, i conducted which was more effective between roundtable and think pair share to teach writing especially teaching writing of descriptive text, so the results of this study could be used by teachers as an alternative way to teach writing of descriptive text. moreover, i conducted the study to know students’ perception about those techniques. methodology of the research this study employed a true-experimental study. i chose true-experimental research design because in this design the subjects were chosen randomly so that it gave equal opportunity to each subject to be selected. the randomization could neutralize differences that exist among the subjects so that the group or the class selected as the sample could be equalized in every way. the randomization could select two groups with same characteristics. pre-test also assured that they had same prior knowledge or not. therefore, this design had internal and external validity. this study was conducted in smp n 3 semarang. the school was chosen because of the following considerations. first, smp n 3 semarang is located on major jend. panjaitan street 58, brumbungan, semarang, central java. the location is strategic because it is in the center of city. even though it is in the center of the city the school’s atmosphere is good and the noisy sound do not disturb the students’ concentration in the learning process. furthermore, the location is not too far from where i live, so it makes me easily to conduct research. second, smp n 3 semarang is one of the popular schools in semarang which is famous with many achievements and the students are very active. the population of the study was seventh grade students of smp n 3 semarang in academic year 2016/2017. the polupation was 280 students. i chose the seventh grade students because of some reasons. first, the seventh grade students is the transition from elementary school to junior high school. meanwhile in elementary school, they have not got english subject. thus, they do not have a deep knowledge of english. second, based on curriculum that is used today, the seventh grade students are required to be able to master the material about descriptive text and write good descriptive text. in selecting the sample of the study, i used probability samping in the form of simple random sampling technique. there were eight classes of the seventh grade students in smp n 3 semarang. i chose two classes randomly, they were vii c class and vii e class. vii c class was experimental group 1 and vii e class was experimental group 2 those two classes consisted of 35 students. the research instruments used in this research were tests and questionnaire. during the study, i conducted the tests twice; pre-test and post-test and gave questionnaire sheet for both groups. the tests were used to know whether any significant difference between students who taught using roundtable and think pair share combined with picture as media. if the tvalue is higher than ttable, it means that there is a significant difference between students who taught using roundtable and think pair share combined with picture as media. on the other hand, if the tvalue is lower than ttable, it means that there is no significant difference between students who taught using roundtable and think pair share combined with picture as media. before computing the t-test value, i computed the homogenity and normality of experimental group 1 and 2 to find out the data was homogenous and normally distributed. in addition, i also used questionnaire to know students’ perception about those techiques. i used likert scale in questionnaire. i determined score for students’ answer, calculated each students’ answer, and calculated the presentage of each item. from the presentage, i interpreted the students’ perception. result and discussion the results of this study were organized based on the technique of collecting the data. there were two categories of results. the first result was obtained from the test data and the second result was obtained from questionnaire sheet. results of the tests the tests were held twice. the first test was pre-test and the second test was post-test. they were given to experimenta1 group 1 and experimental group 2. in measuring students’ achievement in writing descriptive text, i used analytical scoring design by brown (2004). there were five aspects including (1) organization, (2) content, (3) grammar, (4) punctuation, and (5) vocabulary. the pre-test was held to know students’ writing ability before they were given treatment. there was no building knowledge before the pre-test to know how far students’ understanding of writing descriptive text. almost all of students had superficial knowledge about writing descriptive text. they still had difficulty in expressing their idea. some of them did not know what they should write because they had less vocabularies. some of them also had low knowledge about the grammar that used in writing descriptive text. therefore, from the five aspects of assessing writing, the low score was in content, grammar, and vocabularies. the table below was the pre-test result of experimental group 1 and experimental group 2. table 3.1. the pre-test result descriptive statistics n minimum maximum mean std. deviation variance experimental 1 35 54 69 60,86 3,549 12,597 experimental 2 35 53 69 60,69 3,306 10,928 valid n (listwise) 35 the lowest pre-test score in experimental group 1 was 54.00 and in experimental group 2 was 53.00 furthermore, the highest pre-test score in both groups was the same (69.00) the mean of pre-test score in experimental group 1 was 60.86 and the mean of pre-test score in experimental group 2 was 60.69. from the result of pre-test, there was difference between the score of experimental group 1 and 2. however, it was not very significant because the difference was not to far. it could be seen in the figure below. diagram 3.1. the pre-test result from the figure above, the difference score between experimental group 1 and experimental group 2 was 0.17. it meant that the prior of writing ability between experimental group 1and 2 was relatively the same. after calculating the pre-test, i calculated the homogenity and the normality of the pre-test between experimental group 1 and experimental group 2. homogenity value (fvalue) was 1.152. meanwhile, ftable was 1.494. since fvalue (1.1.152) < ftable (1.494), it could be concluded that the population between experimental group1 and 2 were homogenous. moreover, the normality pre-test could be seen in the table below. table 3.2. the normality pre-test tests of normality group kolmogorov-smirnova shapiro-wilk statistic df sig. statistic df sig. score experimental 1 ,138 35 ,088 ,965 35 ,324 experimental 2 ,138 35 ,090 ,965 35 ,330 a. lilliefors significance correction the data could be stated in normal distribution if p-value (sig.) was higher than 0.05. from the calculation of kolmogorov-smirnov, the p-value of experimental group 1 (0.088) was higher than 0.05. the p-value of experimental group 2 (0.090) was also higher than 0.05. it meant that the pre-test data of both groups was normally distributed. moreover, from the calculation of shapiro-wilk the p-value of experimental group 1 (0.324) was higher than 0.05. the p-value of experimental group 2 (0.330) was also higher than 0.05. it could be concluded that the pre-test data of both groups was also distributed normally. after calculating the homogenity and the normality, i calculated the t-test. the result of t-test pre-test could be seen in the table below. table 3.3. the t-test pre-test independent samples test levene's test for equality of variances t-test for equality of means f sig. t df sig. (2-tailed) mean difference std. error difference 95% confidence interval of the difference lower upper score equal variances assumed ,552 ,460 ,209 68 ,835 ,171 ,820 -1,465 1,807 equal variances not assumed ,209 68 ,835 ,171 ,820 -1,465 1,808 based on the table, the results showed that sig. (2-tailed) was 0.835, and t-test was 0.209. in this part, if sig. (2-tailed) was higher than 0.05 then there was no significant difference between experimental group 1 and experimental group 2. the treatment was held after the pretest. there were five meeting of treatment. in the treatment, experimental group 1 was taught using roundtable combined with picture as media, meanwhile experimental group 2 was taught using think pair share combined with picture as media. after the treatment, the pre-test was held. the post-test was held to know the students’ writing ability after getting treatment. the table below was the result of post-test. table 3.4 the post-test result descriptive statistics n minimum maximum mean std. deviation variance experimental 1 35 77 91 84,89 3,932 15,457 experimental 2 35 65 88 75,51 5,777 33,375 valid n (listwise) 35 the lowest post-test score in experimental group 1 was 77.00 and in experimental group 2 was 65.00 furthermore, the highest pre-test score in experimental group 1 was 91 and in experimental group 2 was 88.00. the mean of post-test score in experimental group 1 was 84.89 and the mean of post-test score in experimental group 2 was 75.51. from the result of pre-test, there was a significant different between the result of both groups. the difference could be seen in the following figure. diagram 3.2 the post-test result from the figure above, the difference score between experimental group 1 and experimental group 2 was 9.35. it meant that the achievement of experimental group 1 that was taught using roundtable was higher than the achievement of experimental group 2 that was taught using think pair share. after calculating the post-test, i calculated the homogenity and the normality of the post-test between experimental group 1 and 2. homogenity value (fvalue) was 0.463. meanwhile, ftable was 1.494. since fvalue (0.463) < ftable (2.494), it could be concluded that the population between experimental group 1 and 2 were homogenous. moreover, the normality pre-test could be seen in the table below. table 3.5. the normality pre-test tests of normality group kolmogorov-smirnova shapiro-wilk statistic df sig. statistic df sig. score experimental 1 ,133 35 ,120 ,939 35 ,051 experimental 2 ,126 35 ,174 ,964 35 ,304 a. lilliefors significance correction the data could be stated in normal distribution if p-value (sig.) was higher than 0.05. from the calculation of kolmogorov-smirnov, the p-value of experimental group 1 (0.120) was higher than 0.05. the p-value of experimental group 2 (0.174) was also higher than 0.05. moreover, from the calculation of shapiro-wilk the p-value of experimental group 1 (0.051) was also higher than 0.05. the p-value of experimental group 2 (0.304) was also higher than 0.05. from those calculations, it meant that the pre-test data of experimental and 1 and experimental group 2 was distributed normally. after calculating the homogenity and the normality, i calculated the t-test. the result of t-test pos-test could be seen in the table below. table 3.6. the t-test post-test independent samples test levene's test for equality of variances t-test for equality of means f sig. t df sig. (2-tailed) mean difference std. error difference 95% confidence interval of the difference lower upper score equal variances assumed 5,884 ,018 7,932 68 ,001 9,536 1,202 7,136 11,936 equal variances not assumed 7,932 68 ,001 9,536 1,196 7,144 11,928 from the table above sig. (2-tailed) was 0.001 and t-test was 7.932. if the result of t-test in post-test was positive, and sig. (2-tailed) was lower than 0.05, it indicated that there was significant differences between experimental group 1 and experimental group 2 in achieving the result of post-test. null hypothesis (ho) was rejected and alternative hypothesis (ha) was accepted because t-value was higher than t-table (t value > t table). results of the questionnaire i used questionnaire to know students’ perception about roundtable and think pair share combined with picture as media. the questionnaire was given for both groups. there were ten questions. q1 and q2 was about students’ interest toward writing in english and the technique that is used. q3 and q4 was about difficulties of students’ writing and techniques’ applying. q5 and q6 was about advantage of applying the roundtable and think pair share techniques. q7 and q8 was about the effectiveness of applying roundtable and think pair share technique for teaching writing of descriptive text. q9 and q10 was about relevancy of roundtable and think pair share technique to be applied in teaching writing. the following table was the result of the questionnaire in experimental group 1. table 3.7. the result of questionnaire in experimental group 1 item number students' answers strongly agree agree disagree strongly disagree 1 31% 69% 0% 0% 2 66% 26% 6% 3% 3 69% 17% 14% 0% 4 29% 63% 9% 0% 5 26% 74% 0% 0% 6 40% 60% 0% 0% 7 40% 60% 0% 0% 8 34% 66% 0% 0% 9 34% 66% 0% 0% 10 29% 71% 0% 0% the table above showed the percentage of each question. almost students answered strongly agree and agree in all question. however, there were some students who answered disagree and strongly disagree in q2, q3, and q4. the following table was the result of the questionnaire in experimental group 2. table 3.8. the result of questionnaire in experimental group 2 item number students' answers strongly agree agree disagree strongly disagree 1 31% 69% 0% 0% 2 66% 26% 6% 3% 3 69% 17% 14% 0% 4 29% 63% 9% 0% 5 26% 74% 0% 0% 6 40% 60% 0% 0% 7 40% 60% 0% 0% 8 34% 66% 0% 0% 9 34% 66% 0% 0% 10 29% 71% 0% 0% the table above showed the percentage of each question. almost students answered strongly agree and agree in all question. however, there were some students who answered disagree and strongly disagree in q2, q3, and q4. disscussion based on pre-test statistical calculation, experimental group 1 and experimental group 2 relatively had same writing ability since the pre-test score of both group were relatively same and those groups were homogenous since there was only slight difference in the pre-test score. statistical calculation of post-test showed that roundtable and think pair share combined with picture as media are effective to teach writing of descripitve text since the post-test scores of both group were increased. from the statistical calculation of pre-test and post-test, it could be said that both roundtable and think pair share combined with picture were effective to teach writing of descriptive text. this result is in line with a study conducted by handayani (2011) that the use of roundtable technique in teaching writing gives students good way how they explore their writing well. this result was also the same with sumarsih and sumanjaya (2013) that the application of think pair share technique have helped students in writing descriptive text and the students’ achievement was improved when they were taught by think pair share technique. it was also in line with sari’s (2014) research that stated think pair share technique gave positive influence to the students’ achievement. it means that cooperative learning can improve students’ writing ability as stated by astarina (2011) that cooperative learning technique showed that the students’ writing skills improved. keshavarz, shahrokhi, and nejad (2014) stated that cooperative learning enhanced students writing performance. it was in line with the result of this study that cooperative learning could enhance students’ writing ability. it could be seen from the result of post-test. the result of the study was also in line with mahmoed (2014) that by using cooperative learning students’ writing scores was higher. it could be said that cooperative learning could support students in learning as stated by jolliffe (2007) that cooperative learning requires pupils to work together in small groups to support each other to improve their own learning and that of others. another statistical calculation was t-test of pre-test and post-test. from the t-test of pre-test result, there was no significant different between experimental group 1and experimental group 2 since the t-value was lower than t-table. it meant that those group were homogenous. however, from t-test of post-test result, there was a significant difference of the students’ writing achievement between two groups since the t-value was higher than t-table. therefore, the hyphothesis that stated “there is a significant difference between the result of roundtable and think-pair-share combined with picture as media to teach descriptive text for seventh grade students of smp n 3 semarang in the academic year 2016/2017” was accepted. it could be said that roundtable technique combined with picture as media was more effective than think pair share combined with picture as media to improve the students’ writing ability in writing descriptive text since there was a significant different between the scores of students who were taught using roundtable and think pair share technique. the post-test score of students who were taught using roundtable were higher than post-test score of students who were taught using think pair share. based on the result of questionnaire in experimental group 1, most of students liked writing descriptive text using roundtable technique combined with picture as media and the technique was interesting in writing descriptive text. it was in line with hapsari’s (2011) research. she stated that most students were interested in the teaching activities using roundtable technique. moreover, most of students did not got difficulty in writing descriptive text in the learning process. however, there were few students still got difficulty. the learning process using roundtable technique combined with picture as media was interesting and effective enough and it could help students to overcome the difficulty in writing descriptive text. this technique was more exciting than the usual learning process and it could be used in another meeting. the result of the questionnaire in experimental group 2 was slightly different with the result of the questionnaire in experimental group 1. based on the questionnaire in experimental group 2, most of students liked writing descriptive text using think pair share technique combined with picture as media and the techniquewas interesting in writing descriptive text. the learning process using think pair share technique combined with picture as media was interesting, effective enough and more exciting than the usual learning process. this result was in line with sari (2014) that stated think pair share created a good environment in teaching learning writing. although there was an increase score in the post-test score, mostly students still got difficulty in writing of descriptive text. it could be caused by the participation of the students when they practice writing of the descriptive text. they are less active in sharing their ideas with their partner and their groups so that they still got difficulty in writing descriptive text. this result was contradict with sari’s (2014) that stated students become active in the process of writing using think pair share. the implementation of roundtable and think pair share technique combined with picture as media in the treatment of writing of descriptive text involved some stages of writing. it was same with the learning process of writing as usual. it was in line with a theory from linse (2006) there were five stages in writing: prewriting, writing, revising, editing, and publishing. in roundtable technique, the students did those five stages with their group so roundtable is a cooperative learning structure useful for brainstorming, reviewing, predicting, or practicing a skill, use a single sheet of paper and pen for each cooperative learning group (millis, 2008). while in think pair share, the students did those five techniques with their partner or their group. they discussed about the topic with their partner so that they could wrote their ideas well and they shared their ideas with their group. by sharing with the group they got suggestion and critical from their friends in group so that they could revise and edit their writing well. however, he students’ participation in experimental group 2 who were taught using think pair share were less active so that some students could not improve their writing. however, think pair could encourages students’ participation as stated by a website about cooperative learning strategy that think pair share is a cooperative learning technique that encourages individual participation and is applicable across all grade levels and class sizes (teacher vision, 2017). in writing of descriptive text, the students considered about some writing components as stated by brown (2004) there are five writing components in scoring writing that should be considered by students. they are organization including introduction, body, and conclusion; logical development of ideas: content; grammar; punctuation, spelling and mechanics; style and quality of expression. from the result of pre-test, the students both groups still had low knowledge in grammar. there are a lot of grammar mistaken in writing descriptive text. many students neither wrote the introduction nor conclusion. they were also low in vocabulary so the style and quality expression was still low and they could not developed their ideas. however, they had good knowledge in punctuation, spelling and mechanics. both groups got improvement in writing. their grammar knowledge was improved. they also could developed their ideas well. their vocabulary was also improved so that their expression in writing was better and they could develop their idea well. the role of picture as media of teaching and learning process indirectly gave a positive influence so that the teaching and learning process was interesting and effective. students liked writing of descriptive text by the exixtance of picture since they could describe an object easily as stated by from hill as cited in joklová (2009) that pictures bring not only images of reality, but can also function as a fun element in the class. therefore, the students felt interested in the learning process and the their ideas could emerge from the picture. it could be said that picture was a good media in teaching as stated by ryan (1993) that pictures, paintings, and other visuals constitute the most effective, most plentiful, and least expensive teaching medium. conclusions based on the result and discussion, i conclude that the alternative hypothesis of this study is accepted and the null hypothes is rejected. there was a significant difference between the result of roundtable and think-pair-share combined with picture as media to teach descriptive text for seventh grade students of smp n 3 semarang in the academic year 2016/2017. roundtable and think pair share can improve students’ achievement in writing descriptive text. however, roundtable was more effective than think pair share since it gave higher significant difference of the experimental group 1’s achievement than the experimental group 2’s achievement in writing descriptive text. moreover, only few students who taught using roundtable technique who got difficulty in writing descriptive text and most students were interested in learning process using this technique. meanwhile, many students who taught using think pair share technique got difficulty in writing descriptive text. it meant that rountable technique can overcome students’ difficulty effectively. references astarina, a.s. (2011). improving writing skills through cooperative learning of science program students class xi of sma kolombo yogyakarta in academic year 2010/2011. thesis, state university of yogyakarta. astuti, puji. (2016). practicioner of cooperative learning as part of novice teachers’ professional identity. teflin journal. retrieved from http://journal.teflin.org/index.php/journal/article/view/328 brown, h.d. (2004). language assessment: principles and classroom practices. new york: longman. ministry of education and culture. (2016). peraturan menteri pendidikan dan kebudayaan ri nomor 22 tahun 2016 tentang standar proses pendidikan dasar dan menengah. retrivied from bsnp-indonesia.org/wp.../06/permendikbud_tahun2016_nomor022_lampiran.pdf handayani, s. (2012). the influence of roundtable technique and students’ intelligence on students writing skill. thesis sebelas maret university. hapsari, a.s. the use of roundtable technique to improve students’ achievement in writing hortatory exposition text. final project semarang state university. jolliffe, w. (2007). cooperative learning in the classroom. london: paul chapman publishing. linse, c.t. (2006). practical english language teaching: young learner. new york: mc graw hill. mahmoed, m.m.a.w, (2014). the effectiveness of using the cooperative leanguage learning approach to enhance efl writing skills among saudy univeristy students. journal of language teaching and research, doi: 10.4304/jltr.5.3.616.625 mandal, r.r. (2009). cooperative learning strategy to enhance writing skill. the modern journal of applied linguistics. millis, b.j. (2008). cooperative learning structures. teaching and learnign center, the university of texas. retrieved on july 2nd 2017 in http://www2.humboldt.edu phillips, s. (2003). young learner. new york: oxford university press. pratama, h & yuliati. global education in english classroom: intregating global issues into english language teaching. retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/. ryan, a.g. (1992). vost: a way of expanding classroom assessment to meet the agenda in secondary school science in yager, r.e. (ed.). the status of science-technology-socsheety reform effort around the world. icase yearbook 1992. sari, r. (2014). the influence of cooperative learning (think pair share technique) in teaching descriptive writing. final project syarif hidayatullah state islamic university. sumarsih & sanjaya, d. (2013). tps as an effective technique to enhance the students’ achievement on writing descriptive text. canadian center of science and education journal, http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/elt.v6n12p106 teacher vision, 2017. think pair share cooperative learning strategy. retrieved on january, 22 2017, from https://www.teachervision.com/group-work/think-pair-share-cooperative-learning-strategy. the pre-test result series 1 e 1 e2 60.86 60.69 column2 e 1 e2 col umn1 e 1 e2 groups scores post-test result series 1 e 1 e 2 84.89 75.510000000000005 column1 e 1 e 2 column2 e 1 e 2 groups scores image2.jpeg image1.png putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 136 elt forum 10 (2) (2021) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt teachers’ questioning strategies and students’ perceptions toward critical questions in efl classroom interaction modi nur kholisoh, dwi anggani linggar bharati english department, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 17 december 2020 approved in 28 march 2021 published in 28 july 2021 ________________ keywords: teachers’ questioning strategies; critical questions; students’ perceptions; classroom interaction ____________________ abstract _____________________________________________________________ this study aims to find out teachers’ questioning strategies and students’ perceptions of critical questions in efl classroom interaction. this research was conducted during the covid-19 pandemic, in which the classroom interaction was online. we used a case study design that focused on the descriptive analysis. this study was conducted at one of senior high schools in semarang. the participants in this study are two english teachers and two classes. the data were gained by using classroom observation, interview, questionnaire, and documentation. we used chen’s (2016) theory and anderson & krathwohl (2001) to categorize and analyze the data findings to know teachers’ questioning strategies and students’ perceptions toward critical questions in efl classroom interaction. the result of the analysis showed that the teachers used all of the teachers' questioning strategies and they posed critical questions. teachers questioning strategies used by the teachers when posing critical questions were wait-time, repetition, paraphrasing, simplifying, and probing. the obvious strategy to elicit students’ responses toward critical questions was probing. in line with this, the teachers also combined the teachers questioning strategies with the skill of basic questioning to elicit students’ critical answers. the students didn’t perceive critical question as a threat, although it was difficult to answer. however, they perceived critical question as a challenge for them. it can be concluded that the students perceived critical question as a motivational question. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: modinur29@gmail.com http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& mailto:modinur29@gmail.com modi nur kholisoh, dwi anggani linggar bharati/ elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 137 introduction one of the general teaching techniques of giving questions that are commonly applied in english language teaching is questioning. it is a cardinal thing for a teacher to find out the chasm between what the students have known and the development of their understanding, so the objective of the lesson will be achieved (hall, 2006). it also involves assessment part as the on-going assessment which has several goals; they are to assess whether the students understand the material that has been taught, to engage students’ participation, and to stimulate students’ creative thinking in the learning process (ennis, 1996, as cited in ndun, 2015). it can be stated that the teacher enacts an important role in achieving the learning objectives in the classroom (hanifah & bharati, 2019). questioning, as a part of classroom interaction, is seen as an initiative from the teachers to build a conducive atmosphere in order to activate students’ interest during the teaching and learning process. it could be a stimulus to encourage and engage the students to actively engage in classroom interaction (vebriyanto, 2015). in line with this, yulia & budiharti (2019) stated that classroom interaction is seen in how teachers allow students to talk to each other with their friends and their teacher, ask or share the information they collect during the lesson. thus, a teacher has to master teachers’ questioning strategies, so he could achieve the objectives of the questioning process. by the existence of the teacher’s questioning strategy, it can promote students’ curiosity about the content, supply the atmosphere to the students to get new information and provide an opportunity to show their feeling and ideas related to the content (turney et al., 1983). dealing with those theories about questioning, the researcher tried to connect the related theories with the factual phenomena that occur in one of the senior high schools in semarang. in my observation view, the teachers have tried to build classroom interaction by questioning. while the teachers were doing the questioning, the students were quite enthusiastic to answer teachers’ questions. the teachers applied two kinds of questions: lower-cognitive questions and highercognitive questions. they have developed a half portion of students’ critical thinking ability toward critical questions. during the questioning section, the teachers posed several critical questions. most of the students looked enthusiastic enough when the teachers delivered some questions related to the material being discussed. they tried to answer teachers’ questions whether their answer was correct or no. moreover, some students were quite active in posing questions when they didn’t understand the material that had been discussed. otherwise, the rest of them just tended to follow teachers’ instructions without trying to pose or to answer the questions. they tended to be passive during the questioning section; even the questions were easy to answer. a large amount of research was conducted to find out the types of questions used during the questioning section. shomoossi (2004), in his qualitative study, showed that display questions were dominated in the classroom interaction rather than referential questions. a research aimed to know any kind of teacher’s questioning strategies applied by the teachers and to find out how it impacts the students’ critical thinking and students’ engagement during the questioning section. rashid & qaisar (2016) found that the questioning strategy had been successfully produced to promote students’ critical thinking among elementary students in pakistan. higher-cognitive questions were successfully applied in the learning process through the questioning process. sano (2014) revealed that questioning was well applied when the teachers asked higher-order questions more relatively frequent than the teacher in other studies. the last category explains how teachers and students perceive questioning strategies, student-teacher interaction during the questioning, and how critical thinking is perceived by both teachers and students. ragawanti (2009) showed the findings that random nomination was more preferred than pre-arranged format nomination. moreover, students dislike the techniques of nominating volunteering students and of giving wait time. the previous studies mostly focused on the types of question and teacher’s questioning strategies applied by the teacher during the teaching and learning activity as the above researchers did. the difference between those research focuses with my focus of the study is i do not only focus on teachers’ questioning strategies applied by the teacher but also i combine two focus of the study, they are teachers’ questioning strategies and students’ perceptions toward critical questions in efl classroom interaction. question is easy to trigger thinking, ignite inquiry, and establish a dialogic relationship and it is viewed as the way to create interaction among teachers and students, assess the students to achieve the objective of the lesson (ma, 2008). teaching and learning cannot be separated from the questions since it is a bridge of communication that connects students’ and teachers’ interaction. it also helps a teacher to direct a meaningful discussion, compile students’ ideas, do an on-going modi nur kholisoh, dwi anggani linggar bharati/ elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 138 assessment, and encourage the students to be more productive in thinking (chin, 2007). thus, to build communication in the classroom discussion, a teacher is supposed to ask the right question. as stated by ziyaeemehr (2016), asking the right question is the heart of effective communication and interaction during the learning process. by doing so in a particular situation can increase a whole range of communication skills. for example, we can gather better information and learn more; we can build a stronger relationship, organize people more effectively, and help others to learn too. through consistent dialogue and communication during the learning process, the teachers can get the answer they want and evaluate students’ answers at the same time. “skill in the art of questioning lies at the basis of all good teaching” (betts, 1910, p. 55). the teacher requires mastering the basics of questioning during the teaching and learning process. hence, the teachers have to know the type of questions. the question itself is classified by the level of cognitive demand to answer it. the cognitive level of questions refers bloom’s taxonomy in which there are six levels of the cognitive level that come from the lowest to the highest. there are three types of question, they are cognitive, affective, and psychomotor. the cognitive domain includes in revised bloom’s taxonomy, as stated by anderson & krathwohl (2001) is remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create. the existence of question in the learning is mostly about assessing students’ understanding, whereas it serves different functions. according to kanchak & eggen (1989, as cited in ma, 2008), the functions of questions are divided into three categories: diagnostic, instructional, and motivational, but a question can have more than one function. questioning is regarded as a beneficial and relevant medium to create classroom discussions in the classroom. as maiza et al. (2015) stated, in order to build a good classroom discussion, teachers should have the initiative to activate students’ interest. one of the best ways to form classroom discussion is questioning. dillon (1983) prompted that questioning is one way to enhance student participation and involvement in thinking and learning. ocbian & pura (2015) even argue that there will be no useful discussion during the class if the questioning is not applied. it can be stated that purposeful questioning means that the teacher encourages the students to participate in the classroom discussion by responding to questions and asking questions by themselves so they might increase their levels of understanding (barnes et al. 1976, in turney et al., 1983). the implementation of questioning cannot be separated from the existence of teacher questioning strategies. there must be strategies to elicit students’ responses during the questioning section. the strategies rely on sophisticated utterances that are influenced to produce critical responses made by the students. according to chen (2016), some strategies could be implemented to get students' responses related to higher-order questions. those strategies are wait time, repetition, paraphrasing, simplifying, and the last strategy is probing. probing is a strategy that provides the teacher to scaffold students’ thinking in order to facilitate the elicitation of students’ responses. methods this research was a qualitative study that focused on descriptive analysis. it belongs to a case study that investigated teachers’ questioning strategies and students’ perceptions toward critical questions in efl classroom interaction. we used the case of english teaching as the case of the study in which it was a classroom-based research project as we involved teachers and students in the classroom. in the discussion of the qualitative approach, there are several types of study. one of them is the study of document analysis. the document analysis is a study which focused on the analysis and interpretation of written, recording, and notes (sa’adah, 2018). one of the types of study in document analysis is discourse analysis. classroom discourse analysis was used in this study as this study was conducted in the classroom and used teachers’ and students’ talk as the data findings. in this study, we chose two english teachers of senior high school in semarang. there were students of two classes from different grades; those are tenth and eleventh-grade students in the academic year 2019/2020 as the participants. the objects of the study are teachers’ questioning strategies and students’ perceptions toward critical questions in efl classroom interaction. here, we observed how the teachers used the questioning strategies during teaching and how the students perceived to the teachers’ questioning strategies toward critical questions in the efl classroom interaction. the question used by the teachers is based on the levels of the question of the revised bloom’s taxonomy. they are remember, understand, apply, analyze, and create. modi nur kholisoh, dwi anggani linggar bharati/ elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 139 data collection procedures to collect the data, we used some instruments. they were classroom observation, interview, questionnaire, and documentation. classroom observation was done twice for two classes. it was done to know what the teacher and students did include what they said and what they did during the online learning activity. the next instrument we used was an interview. the aim of conducting an interview was to get the data about the implementation of teachers’ questioning toward teachers’ questioning strategies and strengths and weaknesses of implementing teachers’ questioning toward critical questions in efl classroom interaction. a questionnaire was a collection of data to get written data related to students’ perceptions about what they perceived toward teachers’ questioning strategies and their opinion about critical questions applied during the questioning section and strengths and weaknesses of questioning strategies toward critical questions in efl classroom interaction. the last instrument was documentation. video-recording was chosen to record the teaching and learning activity in the classroom. data analysis we used transcribing, classifying, and interpreting the data to analyze the data findings. transcribing means transcribed what the teachers and students said in the classroom activities, and also non-verbal information was noted. to classify the process, the teachers’ talk, and students’ talk that had been transcribed, they were classified based on the teacher questioning strategies of chen’s (2016) theory and level of questions based on anderson & krathwohl’s (2001) theory. the last process of analyzing is interpreting. the process of interpreting aimed to interpret the teachers’ talk and students’ talk. after the data findings had been classified, they were interpreted to explain the teachers’ questioning strategies, what the students perceived teachers’ questioning strategies and critical questions in efl classroom interaction, and the strengths and weaknesses of implementing teachers’ questioning strategies toward critical questions in efl classroom interaction. findings and discussion based on the classroom observation, there were many teacher questioning strategies used by the teachers in each class. we classified teachers’ questioning strategies into sub-main parts; those are teacher questioning strategies based on chen (2016) and level of questions used by the teachers based on the theory of anderson & krathwohl (2001) during the questioning section. according to chen (2016), there are teacher questioning strategies; those are wait-time, repetition, paraphrasing, simplifying, and probing. here, we explained how teacher questioning strategies worked during the teaching and learning process, and then we classified them into the table. furthermore, we also identified the level of teacher questions by using the revised bloom’s taxonomy (see anderson & krathwohl, 2001), which includes remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create. we categorized this section into two explanations based on the classroom observation occurred in tenth and eleventh class to know how teacher implement teacher questioning strategies toward critical questions. teachers’ questioning strategies as stated earlier, we classified teachers’ questioning strategies based on chen’s (2016) theory, which includes wait-time, repetition, paraphrasing, simplifying, and probing. here, we classified the findings into the table, as shown below. table 1. frequency of teacher questioning strategies during the teaching and learning process kinds of teacher questioning strategies total of strategies eleventh class tenth class wait-time 10 11 repetition 20 12 paraphrasing 6 17 simplifying 3 11 probing 10 11 total 58 62 modi nur kholisoh, dwi anggani linggar bharati/ elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 140 here, i also analyze what level of questions used during the teaching and learning process. the analysis is based on anderson & krathwohl (2001). the description of levels of question described as follow. table 2. frequency of teacher questions occurrence at eleventh class cognitive level levels of questions frequency of occurrence total of questions percentage low cognitive level remember remember 19 39,58% understand understand high cognitive level apply apply 29 60,42% analyze analyze evaluate evaluate create create total questions posed by the teacher in eleventh class 48 table 3. frequency of teacher questions occurrence at tenth class cognitive level levels of questions frequency of occurrence total of questions percentage low cognitive level remember 22 34 57,62% understand 12 high cognitive level apply 6 25 42,38% analyze 6 evaluate 11 create 2 total questions posed by the teacher in tenth class 59 from the result above, it can be seen that teacher a posed a high cognitive level more than a low cognitive level. teacher a mostly posed questions in a create level of the question as it was related to the material being discussed, conditional sentence, and passive voice. in this case, she got the students to create a sentence that was still connected to the words previously. for another high cognitive level such as apply, the students had to identify the grammatical implications found in a conditional sentence and passive voice sentence. in the level of analysis question, teacher a got the students to analyze the existence of grammatical implications in a conditional sentence and passive voice sentence. meanwhile, for the evaluative level question, the students had to evaluate which sentence was appropriate with the implementation of the conditional sentence in the form of multiple choice. it can be said that teacher a had applied critical questions in terms of analysis and evaluative questions since these questions required the students to think critically about the answer. according to the findings above, it can be stated that teacher b gave less high cognitive level questions than low cognitive level questions. at the beginning of the questioning, teacher b posed many low cognitive questions to recall what they learned about the narrative text. unfortunately, the students were not responsive to the teacher questions, so low cognitive questions were to engage students to participate in questioning in the efl classroom interaction. it was an extra effort of teacher b to build tenth-grade students’ engagement in the online class. however, in the middle of the questioning section, the students began to pay attention more to the reacher’s question as teacher b posed critical questions that belonged to high cognitive level questions, thus it made them think hard about the answer to those questions. in the form of application questions, teacher b posed questions that made the students identify the moral value of some narrative text. in analysis questions, students had to analyse why the problem arose in the narrative text. the students had to think critically when teacher b asked evaluative questions that required the students to evaluate if it was better for the narrative text to do not have a complication and to justify whether good or not a resolution in the narrative text. another higher-level question existed to the creativity question as it required the students to imagine a character in the narrative text and expect what she would do. therefore, it can be concluded that teacher b had applied critical questions in terms of analysis and evaluative questions. in this case, it’s required for the students to think critically according to what they know combined with their perceptions. modi nur kholisoh, dwi anggani linggar bharati/ elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 141 the use of higher-level questions such as analysis and evaluative questions had a big effect on the implementation of questioning strategies toward critical questions. in the implementation of critical questions, an analysis question is applied to determine how each part is related to each other and the overall structure (anderson & krathwohl, 2001). the use of evaluative level in evaluative questions is to make a judgment based on the criteria and standards (anderson & krathwohl, 2001). here, students’ perspectives also impacted the answer to the evaluative question. the implementation of teachers’ questioning strategies i analyzed how teacher a and teacher b implemented teacher questioning strategies toward critical questions. on that day, teacher a posed several high-level questions that belong to high cognitive levels questions such as apply, analyze, evaluate, and create, but critical questions just focused on analysis and evaluative questions. the teacher questioning strategies used are based on the theory of chen (2016); they are wait-time, repetition, paraphrasing, simplifying, and probing. the analysis of teacher questioning strategies is explained as follows. teacher a extract 4 t: kenapa harus is being put segala? s12: karena verb-nya pake bentuk –ing. t: iya, karena verb-nya pake bentuk –ing. verb-nya diubah jadi past participle (verb 3) lalu pake bantuan being karena kata sebelumnya pake verb-ing. jadi is being put. the use of high-level questions such as analysis and evaluative questions gave a big effect on the implementation of questioning strategies toward critical questions. students required to answer those questions as seen in the utterances “kenapa harus is being put segala?” and “kenapa milih yang will reduce? what is the reason?” those questions got the students to think critically about the appropriate reason for the application of a passive voice and a conditional sentence. kenapa, or why in this case, belongs to why questions that demanded the students to explain the reason for particular events or phenomena happens (cole, 1994). here, the students were demanded to explain the reason for applying “is being put” and “milih will reduce.” their higher-order thinking skill is needed to be able to answer critical questions. teacher b t: do you think it is the best way to do it? ss: hmm… (murmuring) t: resolution yang bagus atau tidak bagus? ss: hmm… (murmuring) t: resolution yang bagus atau tidak bagus? ss: hmm… (murmuring) t: what do you think? ran away from the house. s15: it’s not good. s16: it’s not good because she ran away. the examples of the critical question when teacher b asked, “do you think it is the best way to do it” and “resolution yang bagus atau tidak bagus?” when teacher b asked those questions, actually she had implemented the questioning strategy “probing” as it engaged in eliciting the students’ response regarding the critical question (chen, 2016). these questions made the students think about the moral value of malin kundang story and evaluate whether the resolution of the story entitled “snow white” belonged to a good resolution. they belong to critical questions in the level of analyze and evaluate which include in the high level of question. in the implementation of critical questions, an analysis question was applied to determine a point of view of the story entitled “malin kundang.” the use of evaluative questions was to make a judgment based on the criteria and standards (anderson & krathwohl, 2001). this evaluative question gets the students in critique, whether ran away from home is a good resolution or no. here, students’ perspectives also impacted the answer to the evaluative question. modi nur kholisoh, dwi anggani linggar bharati/ elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 142 students’ perceptions of critical questions a critical question is a question that required higher-order thinking skills to answer as it digs indepth about their understanding and their belief about the material they learned previously. it’s interesting to know how students perceived critical questions and their impact on their learning. i analyzed how students perceived critical questions and how it impacted their learning achievement. almost most students of eleventh class were competitive, so they agreed that critical questions should be frequently given to improve their higher-order thinking skills (75%). meanwhile, some of them tend to partly agree and disagree if the teacher is frequently given critical questions (22.22% & 2.78%). the reason was that not all students could answer the critical question as to the difference in students’ level of thinking. the students still had difficulty responding to the critical questions. sometimes, what they expected was not match with the teacher’s expectation about the answer. moreover, teacher a didn’t explain the material in detail, so it was quite hard for the students to think deeper about the answer to critical questions. teacher a frequently poses the critical question that did not exist in the textbook; therefore, it was also the reason for the students’ difficulty to answer the critical question (63.89%). the difficulty in interpreting the meaning of the critical questions was also the reason for being reluctant to answer a critical question. the prominent obstacle was the lack of students’ english vocabulary and the lack of students’ comprehension of the teacher’s pronunciation. despite the difficulty in answering the critical question, most of the students of eleventh class perceived the critical question as a challenge for them (83.33%). it challenged them to think deeper about the material they learned previously. therefore, their enthusiasm to answer the critical question enhanced when teacher a posed the critical question (77.78%). they competed to answer the critical question as teacher a gave them reinforcement in the form of additional points. it was useful to increase their mark when they had a bad mark on the exam. this competition made other students motivated to actively respond to the critical question. even the students had difficulty answering critical questions using full english; they tried to answer partly in english and bahasa indonesia. those students tend to use bahasa indonesia as they were afraid there was a miscommunication of what they answered and the teacher’s expectation. moreover, the answer did not exist in the textbook, so it was also the reason for the students’ difficulty to answer the critical questions (63.89%). the difficulty to interpret the meaning of the critical questions was also the reason to be reluctant to answer a critical question. however, they argued when they succeed in answering the critical question; they felt proud and clever as a critical question belongs to a higherlevel of question that required more effort to answer it (83.33%). students of tenth class were less competitive than eleventh class in terms of answering teacher’s questions. therefore, some students argued teacher b should not ask critical questions frequently as it impacted their learning enthusiasm. on the contrary, they perceived a critical question as a challenge for them (58.33%). they tend to be enthusiastic to answer the critical question when they comprehended the material well. it can be seen from the result of the questionnaire that their enthusiasm to answer the critical question reached (38.89%). they had a lack of enthusiasm to answer the critical question, so they tend to be reluctant to answer critical questions as they had several difficulties. some students pointed out that critical question was something hard for them to answer besides of other lower-level question. they had difficulty comprehending what teacher b meant as the lack of students’ understanding of the material and the vagueness of the teacher’s pronunciation when posed the critical question. since teacher b was not clear enough to pose a critical question using english, the students feel difficult to interpret the meaning of the critical question itself. according to the classroom observation, not all students had a willingness to answer the critical question; only some of them were confident and comprehended the material being discussed. hence, it can be said that students’ confidence also impacted the willingness to answer a critical question. they were not confident enough to answer the critical question as to the lack of english proficiency because of vocabulary and grammar (44.44%). the students can’t find the critical question answer in the textbook, so it could be the reason for students’ difficulty to answer critical questions (47.22%). moreover, they had some problem answering critical questions as it belonged to the higher-order thinking skill to answer and it needed much comprehension to do so (66.67%). here, i highlighted a critical question as a challenge for the students. it means that critical question has positive impacts to their learning achievement those are guiding them to think critically; encouraging them to comprehend the material in-depth; making the conducive modi nur kholisoh, dwi anggani linggar bharati/ elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 143 atmosphere in the efl classroom interaction, and increasing their speaking ability. it can be stated that a critical question is perceived as a motivational question means that the question can be used effectively to involve the students in the classroom discourse that encourage and challenge them to think creatively (kanchak & eggen, 1989, as cited in ma, 2008). in other words, a critical question is not perceived as a threat to them, but it challenges them to comprehend new information related to the material being discussed. it can be concluded that the function of this question has been used effectively to involve the students in the classroom discourse. it also encourages and challenges them to think critically about the material out of the textbook. strengths and weaknesses of implementing questioning strategies toward critical questions in efl classroom interaction some considerations to state the strengths and weaknesses come from the implementation of teacher’s questioning strategies conducted toward critical questions in efl classroom interaction and the result of interpretation for other participants; those are students and me as a researcher. i combined the result of classroom observation and interview section to analyze the topic. according to the result of students’ perceptions of the questioning section, they perceived a questioning section as the impact of a positive thing on the learning process. most of the students gave positive things of the questioning section; they are one of the effective teaching strategies to create discussion in efl classroom; improve students’ english skill; enhance students’ self-confidence to speak english; make the class conducive; assess students’ comprehension about the material discussed; get oral responses about the material discussed; engage students’ interest to the detailed concept; give an opportunity to the students to express their ideas about the material being discussed; encourage the students to participate more active during learning english, and help the students to get new knowledge out of the box. from the result above, it can be concluded that the teachers were successfully used questioning as they could achieve the following objectives: to sharpen students’ interest and attention to the detailed concept; to give the students chances to increase their ability; to make sure the students participate in the discussion forum, and to stimulate the students to be more active to ask questions; and to examine particular students’ difficulties through questions that indicate where students need additional assistance (turney et al., 1983). hence, both teacher a and teacher b had successfully achieved the objectives of the questioning section toward critical questions in the efl classroom interaction. both teachers have the point of implementing a questioning strategy toward critical questions is the use of questioning skill “eliciting level of thought.” it means that there are variations of questions during the questioning section. in other words, the teachers didn’t bombard the students with critical questions, but teacher a and teacher b periodically change the level of question based on the need for the material being discussed. stalling & kaskowitz (1974) in turney et al. (1983) stated that the use of multiple levels of teacher questioning should involve both low and higher-order questions as it has a more beneficial effect on students' achievement that only focus on the frequency of higher-order questions alone. from the statement above, it can be stated that the strengths of implementing teachers’ questioning strategies toward critical questions in efl classroom interaction are influenced by the good implementation of many factors such as effective questioning, good teacher questioning skill, and interactive interaction. meanwhile, the weaknesses of implementing teachers’ questioning strategies toward critical questions are some students sometimes still weren’t used to critical questions that required them to use their higher-order thinking skill, so it diminishes their enthusiasm to answer critical questions during the questioning section. moreover, the lack of english proficiency made them reluctant to answer critical questions. it could be another duty to conduct an activity that could enhance students’ english proficiency in efl classroom interaction; so, they are able to speak up during the questioning section. the research was conducted in the pandemic era and classroom interaction was limited in the zoom online meeting application. therefore, it impacts the students’ engagement during the questioning section since the meeting was online. some students didn’t get engaged in the online meeting as there was no face to face meeting in the real class. meanwhile, other students felt enthusiastic in classroom interaction. even the teachers acted the role properly; however, not every student paid attention to the process of online questioning. any problems such as bad signals and bad communication tool might be the reasons they tended not to be engaged during the online modi nur kholisoh, dwi anggani linggar bharati/ elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 144 classroom interaction in zoom, hence it can be said that it was less interactive. the reasons for the less classroom interaction are the lack of emotional bonding among the students and the teacher and the existence of online classroom interaction. during the online classroom interaction, the interaction among students and teachers only occurred on the screen. it is really different from the real class. it also seems that they have never met the teacher offline or face to face, so the students have a lack of emotional bonding among the students themselves as well as the teachers. those reasons might affect the lack of classroom interaction during the teaching and learning process. conclusion in this part, i give the conclusions of the whole study that had been gained from the analysis results. teachers’ questioning strategies impacted the students’ achievement to answer critical questions. it was found that the skill of questioning also influences the teachers to implement teachers questioning strategies toward critical questions. they can be combined to get students’ critical responses regarding critical questions posed by the teachers. it can be seen from the findings that the teachers applied critical questions even though the students were still short. both teachers used all of the teachers’ questioning strategies such as wait-time, repetition, paraphrasing, simplifying, and probing. teacher a and teacher b applied low-cognitive questions that consisted of knowledge and comprehension questions. both of them also applied high-cognitive questions that belonged to critical questions such as analyze and evaluate. the teacher questioning strategies are influenced by the implementation of teacher questioning strategies “probing” toward critical questions. there are two main perceptions of critical questions that impacted students’ learning. the students perceived a critical question as a challenge for them. it challenged them to think critically about the material being learned. second, a critical question is perceived as a difficult question to be answered. however, they didn’t perceive a critical question as a ‘threat’ for them. it can be concluded that the strengths of implementing teachers’ questioning strategies toward critical questions are to help the students to achieve the learning objectives regarded to the higher-order thinking skills; to make the students have a better understanding of the material being discussed; to help the students understand deeply about the material delivered by the teacher; to improve students’ critical thinking skill, and to challenge the students to solve the problem critically and creatively. the good implementation is influenced by the good implementation of the questioning section, the good implementation of teacher questioning strategies combined with the good skill of questioning, and the interactive atmosphere interaction in the efl class. the weaknesses of the implementation of teacher’s questioning strategies toward critical questions are some students still weren’t used to critical questions as it required them to use higher-order thinking skill to answer, so it diminishes their enthusiasm to answer critical questions during the questioning section. in line with this, the weaknesses of implementing teacher’s questioning strategies also influenced by the lack of students’ english proficiency and lack of comprehension of the material discussed. even though teacher questioning strategies were implemented well, some teachers’ questioning strategies and teachers’ questioning skills should be improved to get a better implementation of teachers’ questioning strategies toward critical questions in efl classroom interaction. the first suggestion is for english teachers. in implementing teachers’ questioning strategies, a teacher should engage the students to participate in the questioning section. the teacher also has to pose either a lower or higher-level of questions during the learning process. to enhance students’ critical thinking skills, it is suggested to apply a higher-level of questions, especially critical questions. probing is a strategy to elicit students’ responses by giving probing questions. the use of probing question is to explore further information related to the critical questions given. as the importance of probing questions, it is suggested that probing questions should be improved well, so it would make the students answer to a critical questions. other questioning strategies also should be improved, such as wait-time, repetition, paraphrasing, and simplifying. each strategy cannot be stood alone; hence, it would get better to combine all of those strategies to make the questioning section responsive and attractive. second, students should be more active in answering the question, especially critical questions, without being reluctant and not confident. the teacher could provoke the students with a lower-level of questions before posing a higher-level of the question, in this case, is a critical question. if the students want to improve their self-confidence, they could answer the teacher’s modi nur kholisoh, dwi anggani linggar bharati/ elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 145 questions periodically. another thing that could be implemented to stimulate the students to actively answer the critical question is by the use of token reinforcement to which give additional score; thus, they will be motivated to answer the question. third is suggestion for future researchers. this study contains a reference to conduct the research related to teachers’ questioning strategies and students’ perceptions toward critical questions. from this study, they will get the theory about the implementation of teachers’ questioning strategies and how the students perceived critical questions in efl classroom interaction. this study provides students’ perceptions when they are given critical questions in which can be used to support theory and evidence for their research. i suggest to future researchers to explore widely students perceptions toward other types of questions, for example, students’ perceptions toward factual questions. references anderson, l. w., & krathwohl, d. r. 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(2016). use of questioning techniques and the cognitive thinking processes involved in student-lecturer interactions. international journal of humanities and cultural studies, 3(1), 1427–1442. microsoft word 6. flavius dos anjos copyedited.docx putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 50 elt forum 10 (1) (2021) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt deforeignizing the english language: national identities making the world language flávius almeida dos anjos centro de cultura, linguagens e tecnologias aplicadas, universidade federal do recôncavo da bahia, brazil article info ________________ article history: received in 30 november 2020 approved in 15 march 2021 published in 30 march 2021 ________________ keywords: deforeignization; english; teaching. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this paper is a brief reflection on the varieties of english around the world. as it stands, english is one of the most popular languages in the world. english is arguably the language that most people seek to learn, hence the popularity. the fact that it has numerous people learning this language, national identities have converged to change it as the world language. the objective of this study is to advocate an epistemology of deforeignization of this language, based on the assumption that many people have recreated it naturally, in lexical, grammatical, and phonological terms. ‘to deforeignize’ the english language, it is necessary to allow the recreation of this language, so that it can be adapted to the learners’ linguistic and cultural patterns. for this purpose, some data are shared. the relavance of this study lies is the possibility to shed light in a topic which still needs to be reflected, mainly because it can support the understanding of how the teaching and learning process of english should be conducted. © 2021 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 rua benjamin constant, 15, historical center, cachoeira town, bahia, brazil, code – 44300-000 e-mail: flaviusanjos@gmail.com flávius almeida dos anjos / elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 51 introduction it is a well-known fact that english has become a world language, due to the power of its speakers, mainly the economic and military ones (crystal, 2012). there is no use in denying, the fact that english is almost everywhere, with more than 1 billion and 350 million non-native speakers living with this language every day, in numerous settings. thus, english has bursted into different areas of social life, that is why it is possible to say, it is the language of science, of diplomacy, of tourism, of cartoon, of films, of the internet etc. people have now bee attracted to learn english. this has come as no surprise knowing that english is the most commom language studied in the world, which, according to the washington post, there are 1.5 billion learners. now that english has countless leaners around the world, it is safe to assume that national identitie have converged to change this language, making english as the world language. as seidlhofer (2011) points out, english is not only an international language, but the international language. obviously, ‘the’ instead of ‘an’ has a meaning, especially with implications for the teaching of this language, because as it has already escaped from the hands of north americans, australians, new zealand and all those who believed to have ownership on it, it gives us, at the same time, clear signs of untying with its roots (rajagopalan, 2014), reaching the status of world language. for that reason, this paper is about how and why english can be considered as the world language. therefore, the purpose of this study is to share some information on how this language has been used and modified by different people, in different countries, that it has cemented its current status as the world language. i have called this ‘deforeignization of the english language’, to refer to a set of changes, adjustments, and recreations of the emnglish language by different speakers. my purpose is to present the underlying assumption that national identities, in many parts of the world, have recreated this language. the relavance of this study lies in the possibility to shed some light on a topic which still needs to be discussed, mainly because it can support the understanding of how the teaching and learning process of english should be conducted aligned with its current status. many english learners feel awkward when they speak english. in regard to this, i had conducted an ethonographic research (anjos, 2018), with 91 undergraduated students, in brazil. the results suggested that some of them had negative attitudes when they had to speak english. to put in a context, one of them said to feel ‘inferior’, when he had to use english. others used the terms ‘insecure’, ‘ashamed’ and even ‘illiterate’ concerning the same issue. thus, these data open rooms for researchers to ask why students had these kinds of feelings. the same study pointed that 14 per cent of them overvalued the native speaker of english and 5 per cent said one should imitate these people. the data suggested as well that english learners had the desire to speak just like natives and yet that non-natives feared to express themselves in english. this way, one of my first insights, regarding this issue, was the position of these two identities, being confronted: native and non-native. thus, i concluded that identity was a core issue to figure out learners’ feelings, because these feelings were related to a notion of supremacy, what might impede learners of expressing themselves from the locus of their own identity, impeding them of using a local, a national discourse through the english language, to communicate themselves (anjos, 2019). i realized this fact was related with power relationship, since learners of english as a foreign language and english native speakers have been put themselves in confrontation. i mean, these are settings of true subjugation toward the new learners of english, in which new ways of using this language receive a stigma of inferior. that is why, in many educational contexts, the ideal model, where the native speaker is built as a user/owner of a homogenous, perfect language, is spread, disseminating an implied message that to speak a good english is to speak the north american and british models. i confront this assertive, since as english has followed a path of deterritorialisation, the way is opened to make it closer to the new users. i mean, a post-modern approach to teaching english should take into account the fact that a great number of learners of english has the possibility to change it. in this respect, galloway and rose (2018) highlight that, in addition to their repertoirs, many learners have changed english, what has a very significative impact on this language. according to them, this language has not been spoken anymore as the first language to those who were born in the hegemonic countries, such as the united states and the united kingdom. this is aligned with the fact that the spread of english can promote the assumption of new users and owners; what has taken out the native speaker, the enigmatic being (rajagopalan, 2004), from the position of the only one who owns the language custody, who holds the right to dictate patterns and prescribe rules. thus, as english has increasingly been used in local perspectives, there is no sense in teaching this language based, exclusively, on the hegemonic cultures, since local users have used and changed this language in a flávius almeida dos anjos / elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 52 very idiosyncratic perspective. this converges to what i have called ‘deforeignization’ of english. let me explain the meaning behind this word. in the semantic field, ‘deforeignize’ is to take out what is foreign, strange, unknown. the prefix ‘de’ denotates opposition, negation. in arabic and hebrew, ‘strange’ is equivalent to ‘demoniacal’ and ‘horrible’. freud (1919) said ‘strange’ was related to what is frightening, fear and horror. in his reflections, he stated that, perhaps, our mother tongue was a foreign one. thus, as far as i am concerned, our own language ceases to be strange, as we get familiar with it. but how we can do this? this way, i assume that to be familiar with the new language one learns, it is necessary to take out or change the strange part of it. in this respect, revuz (2002) draws attention to fact that we always go through a strangeness experience when learning a language. thus, i assume there is a kind of psychical and corporal discomfort when a person learns for the very first time a new language, which is quite normal. however, we should be careful no to extend this stage. besides that, we should be careful as well with the identity issue, not to block it, not to allow embarrass to the learners. this issue is aligned with the recreation of a language, in lexical and phonological terms, including the interference of ones’s mother tongue and the local culture. however, this is not always seen with good eyes. jing and niannian (2006), in the chinese scenario, for example, make criticism on the fact that undergraduate students’ oral expression is far from being satisfactory. they claim chinglish has been used a lot in their oral expression, what, according to them, is very destructive. however, they do not show clearly, in which extent chinglish is negative. what happens, actually, is that these researchers do not give credit to non-hegemonic ways of expression of the english language, and as a result, negative attitudes might emerge concerning new varieties of english, what signals, somehow, that national identities all over the world must not be expressed through english, if they recreate, modify this language. but all of this can be overcome, if we take into account the respect with which different national identities are expressed, when they recreate the english language, especially because this recreation has made the world language itself. therefore, ‘to deforeignize’ the english language, it is necessary to allow the recreation of this language, so that it can be adapted to the learners’ linguistic and cultural patterns. this way, i have defined the ‘deforeignization’ of english as a set of changes new speakers make, in different levels, to make this language closer to them, because a language is deforegnized when it is familiar to us and it does not belong only to others, but to us as well who use it. this way, the learner prints his/her identity in the new language, which upon deforeignizing itself, it is being not only spoken with authentic purposes, but the learner himself/herself speaks in that language, revealing features of his/her identity (almeida filho, 1993). this relationship between the language and the learners converges to reshape the language, giving rise to new varieties, with idiosyncratic features of a certain social group. in the next section, i share some data concerning this issue. method this study can be considered as a literature review one. to support my assumptions, i took as base some samples of the english language already researched by other scholars in some parts of the world, which ratifies the deforeignization process. it can also be said this study has a qualitative bias, since it was based on the previous findings for which i provided some conclusions. the qualitative model of research has its origin in the phenomenological conception of knowledge, which emphasizes the subjectivity of human behaviors and advocates the penetration in the individuals’s conceptual universe, to understand how and which type of meaning they give to the events and social interactions that happen in their daily lives. as the deforeignization process is intrinsically related with language change, i truly agree the english language has been oponed to the winds of linguistics changes in totally unpredictable ways and the spread of it has already demonstrated this, with the emergence of new varieties where it has taken roots (crystal, 2012). aligned to this, i analysed some language occurances in the english language, from some parts of the world, taking into account the assumption of language variation, which claims that heterogeneity is not random, but ordered by linguistic and extralinguistic restrictions. but it is nonetheless true that these variations are related with space, time and diachonic perpectives. these restrictions make speakers use one form instead of another. based on that, i made some linguistic descriptions, to support my assumption of the deforegnization process, showing language changes speakers have made in that language. for this purpose, i considered grammatical, phonological and cultural aspects from different speakers of english. flávius almeida dos anjos / elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 53 findngs and discussions national identities deforeignizing english around the world in this section, i intend to illustrate briefly how national identities around the world have deforegnized the english language. in historical terms, north-american people are the pioneers in deforeignizing this language. for kumaravadively (2005), these people not only denativized the colonial language imposed to them, but they decolonized it as well. in practical terms, north-american people have changed the lexicon, the grammar, and even the phonology of english. thus, for instance, while a british might ask “have you got a bike?”, on the other hand, north-americans might “do you have a bike?” which means the same thing. based on this, it is possible to state that a single english pattern is a fallacy, since many varieties of english are emerging with their own lexical and pronunciation norms (raihan; deterding, 2018). because of this, the english language has been under a process of deforegnization, mainly taking as reference countries and emergent regions: among the countries of the outer circle, several varieties have also grown in distincctiveness in recente decades. there is one group in india, pakistan, bangladesh and sri lanka, often collectively called south asian english. there is another group in the former british colonies in east africa. other emerging varieties have been noted in the caribbean and in parts of south-east asia, such as singapore. [...] they are an inevitable consequence of the spread of english on a world scale. (crystal, 2012, p. 144) crystal (2012) argues that several changes can be identified in the english language, describing some grammatical and lexical features of these changes, what he thinks illustrates trends in the formation of new regional grammatical identities. in this perspective, he draws attention to the fact that the spread of english has demonstrated that this language is open to the winds of linguistic change, converging to the emergence of new varieties in different places this language has taken root. in this respect is that in the south of nigeria, people use ‘pidgin english’, especially in the urban perimeter. this version of english combines local language terms with a more simplified english in phonological terms. actually, the english language, in the nigerian context, has been under a redefinition process, because it has been pidginized, nativized and assimilated (dangana, 2014), since it has deviated itself from the british and north-american norms, and it has, thus, consolidated itself as a local language. in indian, inglish has been spoken by more than sixty million speakers, what makes this version the third more used in that nation. inglish is a kind of deforegnized english, with so many features to ratify this assumption. for instance, though normative grammar advocates that the ‘ing’ form must not be used with certain verbs, mainly those which express feelings, in india, it is common the use of sentences such as “he is knowing you’ and ‘she is understanding you’. concening pronunciation, ‘w’ has the sound of ‘v’, that is why the personal pronoun ‘we’ is pronunced /vi/ and ‘water’, /vater/. about this, bansal (1991), upon analyzing the pronunciation of english in india, states that the deviations from native are much greater concerning the phonological and phonetic patterns. however, he also draws attention to the fact that differences in lexis and grammar also exist. these features point to the defereignization of english in a multicultural country. in brunei, a country located in the borneo island, in asia, with a population of 400 million inhabitants, they used ‘brunei english’. rainhan and deterding (2018) highlight that although this variety of english had been built based on the british english, it evolved naturally, developing its own traces, pointing to the deforeignization process. as an example, rainhan and deterding (2018) mention that speakers of brunei english reproduce the sound of /t/ instead of /th/, in words such as ‘thought’ and ‘third’. in this line of thought, gough (1996) describes black english in south africa, signaling the existence of many particular features. he describes some features in terms of its phonology, grammar, intonation, stylistic etc. in this respect, he says, for example, that the consonantal systems are fairly complex and that the native english phonemes lacking generally are /ᶞ/ and /ᶿ/, which are replaced by /t/ and /d/ respectively. still concerning the african context, simo bodba (2000) claims that most of the features common to all african accents of english are shared by many other new englishes, including pronunciation and deviations. he mentions the fact that all africans are likely to pronounce the ‘b’ of ‘bombing’ and ‘plumbing’ as well as the ‘f’ of ‘of’. besides that, this reseacher lists that other phonological features are related with any african accent of english, such as the non-application of vowel reduction, consonant cluster simplification, rphenomena, glide formation, pre-ion devoicing and processes involving the alveolar fricative. japlish is the japanese variety of english. according to stanlaw (2009), english in japan is like the air, it is everywhere, with 95% of japanese people using this language. for him, japan, today, can not exist flávius almeida dos anjos / elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 54 without this variety, because it is essential for the japanese society. this language has deeply entrensched in the japanese people’s life, rewriting the local culture, art, economy and consumism. however, this language has been reshaped by japanese people as well. in this sense is that rice bocomes raisu, bus is busu, apartment is apaato, home é hoomu and hot is hootu, clearly following the path of deforeignization. spanglish is another deforeignized varierty of english. for orsi (2008), spanglish is a kind of code mix; an alternance of use between english and spanish, marked by factors such as nationality, identity and social class. orsi (2008) claims that spanglish serves to express feelings and emotions and it is potentially understood and spoken by 45 millions of speakers in the united states. he also thinks spanglish has become a unifying vehicle of communication of a bigger group, from different countries that use spanish. he mentions for instance ‘troka’, ‘traila’, ‘chimenay’, ‘lonch’ and ‘mol’ which have replaced respectively ‘truck’, ‘trailer’, ‘chimney’, ‘leaking, ‘lunch’ and ‘mall’. these examples of lexical changes also validate that spanglish is nothing more than a deforeignized version of the english language. all these changes around the english language is perfectly understandable, since international varieties, emerged from communities separated by different climates, fauna and flora, express nationals identities and are a way of reducing the conflict between intelligibility and identity (crystal, 2012). in the following part, i will briefly discuss the implications of this process for the teaching/learning of english. implications for the teaching/learning process a question emerges in front of this diverse scenario: which english to teach? it might prove to be problematic for teachers, because they have faced with many english varieties. however, it could be a good thing that they can choose any model of english they want to teach. the teachers need to take into account the varieties that suit their students. in relation to that, a more local version would be a better option that it might empower new learners. it is mainly because using the language aligned with local culturemake it possible the empowerment of new learners, since using the language aligned with local culture would give these learners the sense of ownership. i do not mean we should ban the hegemonic cultures of classrooms, but decentralize the position they get in many educational settings. teachers should balance local culture with the hegemonic ones. in regard to that case, kumaravadivelu (2012) proposes an epistemic break of our indelible colonial dependence. as teachers, we have to ignite a descontinuity in the way english has been taugh recently. other experts also question this old-fashioned approach based on native speaker norms. mckay (2012) is one of them, she rejects the native speaker model as a pedagogic practice to teach english. matsuda (2009) also emphasizes that english as an international language requires new ways of approaching it, different from the ones based on the hegemonic cultures. canagarajah and said (2010) argue that learners of english need to acquire the ability to negotiate with the varieties of english, developing the compentence to deal with diferente norms. rajagopalan (2004) also claims that its is the speaker’s decision to undertake a radical rethinking of our practices, concerning elt approaches centred in the native speaker model in light of the new role assumed by english as this language metamorphoses itself into a world language. he alerts our practices need to be drastically reviewed because of the challenges english as a world language puts upon us. he draws attention to the need in deconstructing the belief that someone wants to learn english to be able to communicate with the so-called native speaker, because elt practices based on this premise has been profoundly deleterious, resulting in an extremely enervating inferiority complex on the part of learners. in this perspective, it is necessary changes in elt. if we live in a diverse world, we need to acknowledge this premise even in linguistic terms. we should know and respect new linguistic versions as much as possible. new formations around the language should be considered, in terms of grammar, lexicon, phonology etc. this leads to the understanding and occurrence of english in the means of a língua franca. from my own experience in the last years, as a professor at a federal university in brazil, i have realized a series of new occurrences, when my students use english. initially i thought these occurrences seemed to be specific of brazilian students, such as the use of the verb ‘have’ to talk about age ‘i have 19 years old’instead of using the verb to be. however, spanish speakers also use this verb in the same way. this is perfectly understandable, since here in brazil we use the verb ‘to have’ to talk about age. that is why it is true and it should be acceptable the fact that the mother tongue influences the way a speaker build the new language he/she is learning. also, some students use prepositions they use in our mother tongue – ‘she is married with john’ instead of ‘she is married to john’. still some students do not mark the third singular person, such as in ‘she work(s) hard every day’. thus, these data point to the fact that many new features flávius almeida dos anjos / elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 55 emerge whithin a language, with characteristics of the social groups, in grammatical, lexical and phonological terms, different of the native versions (jenkins, 2014). these occurrances should not be taken as mistakes, but as contingent examples of creativity and adaptation of a language affected by many cultures (jenkins, 2014), because as crystal (2012) argues, english spoken in each nation has its own distinction, reflecting the society it is part of. conclusion now that i have explained some facts regarding english as a world languagein front of these facts, what are the implications expected for elt? this implies, among other things, changes need to occur in the way textbooks and teachers approach the language, recognizing its status of world language, respecting new features which belong to different cultures. if textbooks are accompanied with audio recordings, for example, they should bring a diversity of englishes. one of the things i want to draw attention is the fact that teachers, before making an abrupt correction, that can opress and silence learners, should understand the dynamic of languages, upon analysing these recreations, through the lens of diversity, there are not reasons to condemn these new linguistic innovations, based on the fact that these constructions are not in accordance with the preconceived notion of how a language must be or sound (crystal, 1963). that is why i have also called attention to the fact that, as teachers, we should be sensible to local issues, balancing our approaches with local and global cultural aspects, to evidence the diverse feature of a language. the need for change in elt is aligned with the status of world language english achieves today. native english should be shared as well as local versions of this language. this is a key issue to avoid negative feelings on the part of the learners, paving the way for a harmonic learning. references almeida filho, j. c. p. (1993). dimensões comunicativas no ensino de línguas. campinas, sp: editora pontes. anjos, f. a. (2018). "passei o semestre todo estudando o verbo to be": atitudes, (des)motivação e orientação para aprender inglês de alguns bacharelandos da ufrb. tese de doutorado. 254 f. universidade federal da bahia (ufba). salvador, 2018. anjos, f. a. (2019). desestrangeirizar a língua inglesa: um esboço da política linguística (2ª ed.). cruz das almas: edufrb. bansal, r. k. (1991).the pronunciation of english in india. in: ramsaran, s. studies in the pronunciation of english, pp. 219-230. canagrajah, s.; said, s. l. (2010). english language teaching in the outer and expanding circles. research gate, pp. 157-170. crystal, d. (1963). a language must change, to keep pace with society. liverpool daily post, may 16th, pp. 910, 1963. crystal, d. (2017). interview with david crystal. in: tefl equity advocates,. retrieved from https://teflequityadvocates.com/2014/07/06/interview-with-david-crystal/ in 05/10/2020. crystal, d. (2012). english as a global language (10th ed.). usa: cambridge university press. dangana, d. (2014). the sociolinguistic survey of nigerian english spoken in nigerian public sector; a case study of wukari local government secretariat. iosr journal of humanities and social science, 19(3), pp. 09-13. freud, s. (1919). o estranho. retrieved from https://pt.scribd.com/doc/220692355/o-estranho-freud-pdf. in 02/03/2020. galloway, n.; rose, h. (2018). incorporating global englishes into the elt classroom. elt journal. 72(1) january, pp. 4-14. gough, d. (1996). black english in south africa. in: de klerk, v. focus on south africa, pp. 53-78. hoon, c. h. (2003). “you see me no up”: is singlish a problem? language problems and language planning, 27(1), pp. 45–62. jenkins, j. (2014). global englishes: a research book for students. taylor and francis, florence. jing, x.; niannian, z. (2006). chinglish in the oral work of non-english majors. celea journal, 29(4), pp. 1520. kumaravadivelu, b. (2012). language teacher education for a global society: a modular model for knowing, analyzing, recognizing, doing and seeing. new yoork: routledge. mckay, s. l. (2003). toward an appropriate eil pedagogy: re-examining comom elt assumptions. international journal of applied linguistics, 13(1), pp. 1-22. flávius almeida dos anjos / elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 56 matsuda, a. (2009). desiable but not necessary? the place of world englishes as na international language in english teacher preparation programs in japan. in: sharifian, f. english as an international language, perpspectives and pedagogical issues. great britain, multilingual matters, pp. 169-189. orsi, e. (2008). spanglish: identifying some motivations a group of bilingual had to code-switching in informal social interactions. saint paul: hamline university. raihan, n., deterding, d. (2018). the fallacy of standard english. in: o. kang, r. i. thomson, & j. m. murphy (eds.), the routledge handbook of contemporary english pronunciation. abingdon and new york: routledge, pp. 203-217. rajagopalan, k. (2004). the concept of ‘world english’ and its implications for elt. in: elt journal, 58(2), pp. 111117. rajagopalan, k. (2014). o professor de línguas e a suma importância do seu entrosamento na política linguística do seu país. in: correa, d. a. política linguística e ensino de língua. são paulo: pontes, pp. 73-82. revuz, c. (2002). a língua estrangeira entre o desejo de um outro lugar e o risco do exílio. in: signorini, inês (org.). lingua(gem) e identidade: elementos para uma discussão no campo aplicado. campinas, sp: mercado de letras. seidlhofer, b. (2011). understanding english as a língua franca. oxford: oxford university press. simo bobda, a. (2000). comparing some phonological features across african accents of english. english studies, 81(3), pp. 249–266. stanlaw, j. (2009). japanese english: language and culture contact (3ª ed.). hong kong: hong kong university press. microsoft word 9. 85-95 37187-article text-98254-1-18-20200623 (2 putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 85 elt forum 9 (1) (2020) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt students’ preferences and teachers’ beliefs towards written corrective feedback alviana tri adhi kencana english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 3 february 2020 approved in 6 february 2020 published in 30 july 2020 ________________ keywords: corrective feedback; efl writing; error correction; written corrective feedback; perceptions ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ writing skill has been considered as a crucial skill that efl students need to master. one of the techniques usually employed by teachers to help students improve their writing is via written corrective feedback (wcf). although many studies have been conducted to test its effectiveness, fewer studies have examined students’ and teachers’ preferences and beliefs towards the usefulness of wcf. therefore, the present study analyzed students’ preferences and teachers’ beliefs regarding wcf. the participants consisted of 35 efl students and 5 efl teachers enrolled in smk negeri 1 bawang banjarnegara, a vocational high school in banjarnegara, indonesia. the data were both obtained through written questionnaires for the students and interview questions for the teachers. the collected data were analyzed based on wcf types classified by ellis (2008), specifically for certain types like direct, indirect, and metalinguistic corrective feedback. the result of the present study demonstrated that both students and teachers mostly agreed that students should receive wcf in large amounts. both of them also agreed that teachers should provide comprehensive feedback which consists of correction and explanations. finally, both of them also had similar opinions that form-focused errors should be prioritized for correction than content-focused errors. © 2020 universitas negeri semarang correspondent address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: arubiandesu@gmail.com alviana tri adhi kencana / elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 86 introduction english is an international language, and therefore learning english is necessary for global communication. besides, being able to use english for communication gives numerous advantages for individuals, especially for foreign language learners. khunaivi and hartono (2015) stated, “in indonesia, english belongs to a foreign language in which it is used for academic purposes, job vacancies’ requirement, and traveling overseas” (p. 15). hence, it is very helpful to learn and be capable of using english. writing is one of the most essential skills for efl students alongside reading, listening, and speaking. it is also the most difficult skill to learn among others. “when compared with other fundamental skills such as listening, speaking, and reading; writing is the most difficult skill because it requires writers to have a great deal of lexical and syntactical knowledge as well as principal of organization in l2 to produce a good writing.” (tangpermpoon, 2008, p. 1). it has been teachers’ job to find appropriate teaching techniques to encourage students’ success in learning such skill. one of the techniques commonly employed by teachers to improve students’ writing skill is through the provision of written corrective feedback (wcf). in this context, wcf is a written response made by a teacher that aims to correct linguistic errors found in students’ written text. bitchener and storch (2016) added that “it seeks to either correct the inaccurate usage or provide information about where the error has occurred and/or about the cause of the error and how it may be corrected” (p.1). many aspects of writing can be given feedback by teachers, such as form (grammar, mechanics, and vocabulary) and non-form (organization and ideas). more than often wcf has been used as a technique for correcting grammatical errors as well as other errors found in students’ written text. even so, the effectiveness of wcf to improve students’ writing skills is still debatable. based on prior investigations conducted by the researcher, it is found that some of the students claimed that they have difficulties in handling their teachers’ written feedback given to their written errors. after being investigated in further, it turned out that some of them preferred certain kind of feedback rather than the ones given by their teachers. they also criticized their teachers’ written feedback because they often receive not enough or too many feedback which made some of them discouraged. the dissimilarity between students’ and teachers’ perceptions may lead to misunderstandings and ineffective learning. this is supported by horwitz (1990), kern (1995), and schulz (1996) as cited in brown (2009) who stated, “mismatches between fl students' and teachers' expectations can negatively affect the students' satisfaction with the language class and can potentially lead to the discontinuation of study” (p. 46). therefore, some studies are needed to look into both students’ and teachers’ perceptions regarding the wcf in order to give better decisions for the teachers in using certain types and amount of wcf. there are also many pros and cons related to the effectiveness of wcf in writing classes. truscott (1996) initiated the debate against the usefulness of wcf specifically on grammar correction. he stated in his review article: my thesis is that grammar correction has no place in writing courses and should be abandoned. the reasons are: (a) research evidence shows that grammar correction is ineffective; (b) this lack of effectiveness is exactly what should be expected, given the nature of the correction process and the nature of language learning; (c) grammar correction has significant harmful effects; and (d) the various arguments offered for continuing it all lack merit (p. 328). this argument received many cons by several researchers in the same research field. responding to truscott’s views, ferris (1999) argued as cited in tseng (2018): teachers should continue correcting grammatical errors because: 1) l2 students wanted it, 2) students needed to produce academic text with manageable errors to proceed to mainstream curriculum, and 3) students should become self-sufficient in editing (p. 160). several studies (e.g. ellis, sheen, murakami, & takashima, 2008; bitchener & knoch, 2010; sheen, 2010) also supported this argument, showing that wcf can be helpful for students’ writing accuracy. however, further investigations are still needed to clarify its utility. alviana tri adhi kencana / elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 87 teachers and students are the primary subjects involved in wcf. hence, their perceptions and preferences towards wcf are considerable. this is supported by lee (2008) who stated that, “without understanding how students feel about and respond to teacher feedback, teachers may run the risk of continually using strategies that are counter-productive” (p. 145). accordingly, in order to achieve effective wcf practice, it is crucial to see whether students’ preferences are in line with teachers’ beliefs in practicing wcf or not. there are many studies focusing on the effectiveness of wcf in specific (e.g., ahmad, saeed, & salam, 2013; bitchener, young, & cameron, 2005; ellis et al., 2008; baleghizadeh & dadashi, 2011; sheen, 2007; bitchener & knoch, 2010b). however, a few have explored the aspects which determine its usefulness: students’ preferences and teachers’ beliefs towards the usefulness of wcf itself. moreover, published literature that investigates this topic in indonesia is still scarce. therefore, the researcher is interested to conduct a study in this area. methods the objective of the present study is to explain students’ preferences and teachers’ beliefs towards the usefulness of wcf. thus, the descriptive design is adopted. the study will combine quantitative and qualitative research methods. the researcher uses quantitative research in order to gain statistical data regarding students’ preferences and teachers’ beliefs towards wcf. in addition, qualitative research is conducted to obtain more descriptive information regarding students’ and teachers’ reasons why they preferred certain types of wcf and particular error types that should be corrected. the subject of this study included five efl teachers and 35 efl students majoring in software engineering in smk negeri 1 bawang banjarnegara. the student participants consist of 15-16 years old males and females. the majority of the students have been learning english since junior high school. the teacher participants consist of one male and four females. most of the teachers have been teaching for at least nine years. in addition, one of the teachers has exact 29 years teaching experience to this date. thus, the teachers are considered as experienced teachers. in collecting the data, the researcher distributed questionnaire sheets to the students and interview questions delivered to the teachers. both instruments had almost similar questions that focused on certain questions: (1) what amounts of wcf do you think are most useful?; (2) what types of wcf do you think are most useful?; (3) what types of errors do you think should be corrected? the collected data were then imported into an excel spreadsheet for quantitative analysis. the data were categorized based on common themes to make the analysis easier and more readable. afterwards, the data were imported into spss for statistical analysis. the analysis involved several tests which compared both students and teachers’ responses whether there were significant differences between the two subjects. after doing the analysis, the researcher concluded students’ and teachers’ responses. finally, the results can answer the present study’s research questions. findings and discussion useful amounts of written corrective feedback on questionnaire and interview question item number one, participants were asked regarding their preferences about how many wcf teachers should provide on students’ written errors. on this item, participants were allowed to choose one or more options; thus the total percentages of participants’ choices can be more than 100%. table 1 demonstrated the statistics for options chosen by student and teacher participants. alviana tri adhi kencana / elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 88 table 1 participants’ preferences for useful amounts of wcf options student s teacher s n % n % mark all errors 25 71% 3 60% mark all major errors but not minor ones 11 31% 3 60% mark most major errors, but not necessarily all of them 0 0% 0 0% mark only a few of the major errors 1 3% 0 0% mark only errors that interfere communicating ideas 1 3% 0 0% mark no errors; respond only to ideas and content 0 0% 0 0% total responses 38 108% 6 120% the researcher then asked participants’ explanations for their preferences towards different amounts of wcf. 64.41% of the participants (students=69%; teachers=40%) pointed out that students should know all of the errors. in addition, 24.39% of the participants (students=23%; teachers=40%) believe that teachers should only mark major errors focusing on the current topic. interestingly, 9.76% of the participants (students=6%; teachers=40%) think that too many markings can make students discouraged. finally, 2.44% of the participants (students=3%) argued that teachers should prioritize the content by only marking errors interfering the communication ideas. in order to obtain more data that support the findings, questionnaire and interview question number nine asks the participants whether teachers must correct repeated errors on students’ written work. as shown in table 2, the results demonstrated that most teachers and learners think that it is helpful to mark a repeated error whenever a learner makes the same error. fisher’s exact test shows that significant difference was not found between students’ and teachers’ views in this regard (p=.427). table 2 correction for repeated errors no yes total responses students n 3 32 35 % 9% 91% 100% teachers n 1 4 5 % 20% 80% 100% the researcher also asked participants’ reasons for correction for repeated errors. 60% of the participants (students=64%; teachers=40%) believe that teachers should correct repeated errors so that students understand their errors better. in addition, 17.5% of the participants (student=20%) think the same because correction for repeated errors can remind students of their errors. moreover, 12.5% of the participants (students=9%; teachers=40%) argued that correction for repeated errors will not make students repeat the same errors. in contrast, 5% of the participants (students=6%) believe that correction for repeated errors is not helpful because students should think about their errors and do it themselves. moreover, 2.5% of the participants (teachers=20%) think similarly by noting that students can instead ask their peers for their reoccurring errors. finally, another 2.5% of the participants (students=3%) stated that teachers should do it once or twice only. useful types of written corrective feedback questionnaire item number one and interview question item number one to seven asked the opinions of participants regarding the helpfulness of different wcf types. the participants rated each question from scale 1 to 5 (1 = least helpful, 5 = most helpful). table 3 presents preferences of both participants regarding useful types of wcf. table 3 participants’ preferences for useful types of wcf no. options means students teachers alviana tri adhi kencana / elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 89 1. clues or directions on how to fix an error 3.7 4 2. error identification 2.9 4 3. error correction with a comment 4.8 4.8 4. overt correction by the teacher 4.0 4.2 5. comment with no correction 2.8 4 6. no feedback 1.2 1 7. personal comment on content 2.7 2.4 the researcher also asked the reasons of participants for choosing clues or directions on how to fix error. the test displayed that there is no significant difference between student participants and teacher participants (p=.636). according to the result, 52.5% of the participants (students=57%; teachers=20%) think that clues or directions are helpful because they let students practice selfcorrection and they will make students remember the errors better. additionally, 5% of the participants (students=3%; teachers=20%) also believe that clues or directions are promising to follow since they will surely guide students to find the correct answer. on the other hand, 22.5% of the participants (students=26%) believe that clues or directions are not enough because students need clearer explanations so the students can find the correct answer effectively. moreover, 5% of the participants (students=6%) demonstrated that they believe clues or directions are not straightforward and leave too much work for the students. furthermore, 12.5% of the participants (students=6%; teachers=60%) believe that clues or directions are only suitable for clever students. in addition, 2.5% of the participants (students=3%) stated that some students may not have access to find out the clues or follow the directions because some of the students may not have the resources like books or any references that the clues or directions usually require. the researcher also asked for participants’ explanations for error identification. the test displayed that there is a significant difference between student participants and teacher participants (p=.013). the result shows that 47.5% of the participants (students=51%; teachers=20%) consider error identification useful because it helps students get noticed where the errors occur so then they can make follow-up corrections. 2.5% of the participants (students=3%) also think similarly that error identification makes students more observant of occurring errors. in addition, another 2.5% of the participants (teachers=20%) believe that error identification makes students more self-reliant because they have to do follow-up corrections by themselves. however, on the opposing side, 40% of the participants (students=40%; teachers=40%) believe that error identification is not useful because it does not provide enough information for the students and they need more information on how to handle the errors. additionally, 5% of the participants (students=6%) believe the same because error identification gives students a lot of work to do and they have to put quite effort to correct the errors. furthermore, 2.5% of the participants (teachers=20%) think that error identification is not always practical as it is only suitable when students study certain topics. the researcher then asked for participants’ explanations for error correction with comment. the test displayed that there is no significant difference between student and teacher participants (p=.618). according to the findings, there are 37.5% of the participants (students=14%) who believe that error correction with comments is helpful for students because it helps them know why an error exists and also the correct form to the occurred error. in addition, 37.5% of the participants (students=43%; teachers=60%) pointed out that although it provides commentary for the error, the error correction alone is helpful for the students to solve the occurring error. moreover, 12.5% of the participants (students=14%) think similarly that error correction with comments gives students detailed information about the error handling so the students can learn much from there. furthermore, 12.5% of the participants (students=14%) pointed out only for the value of comment that it helps students understand why errors exist. moreover, 5% of the participants (students=3%; teachers=20%) believe that error correction with comments is useful; however, it has a negative impact that it makes students effortless because the teacher gives spoon-feeding to the students. additionally, 2.5% of the participants (students=3%) think that error correction with comments is helpful because students do not have to do much work for the correction since the information is quite detailed. another 2.5% of the participants (students=3%) argued that error correction with comments is useful because it gives a new insight to students that learning english is not difficult. in contrast, on the opposing side, 2.5% of the participants (students=3%) demonstrated that error correction with a comment is not helpful because it does not promote self-correction for the students. alviana tri adhi kencana / elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 90 the researcher also asked participants’ reasons for choosing overt correction by the teacher. the test displayed that there is no significant difference between student participants and teacher participants (p=.369). according to the findings, 57% of the participants (students=63%; teachers=20%) think that it is helpful for students because it helps them to know the correct forms of occurring errors. in addition, 17.5% of participants (students=17%; teachers=20%) agreed that error correction is useful; however, they believe that it is not enough. they also consider the addition of comments to the feedback because they are necessary. moreover, 7.5% of the participants (students=9%) think that error correction without comment promotes more self-correction for students; and therefore it is helpful. furthermore, another 7.5% of the participants (students=3%; teachers=40%) stated that error correction without comment is more straightforward because students can directly see the correct form of their errors. contrarily, 7.5% of the participants (students=6%; teachers=20%) believe that it is not helpful for students because they do not pay attention to the nature of why the error occurred. they only see the correct form without explanations. additionally, 2.5% of the participants (students=3%) argued that error correction does not promote self-correction for students. the researcher also asked participants for choosing comment without correction. the test displayed that there is a significant difference between student participants and teacher participants (p=.047). according to the result, 27.5% of the participants (students=29%; teachers=20%) believe that comment without correction is helpful because it makes students more active in looking for the correct form. in addition, 20% of the participants (students=20%; teachers=20%) also think that comment without correction is useful as long as it is explanatory. in contrast, 27.5% of the participants (students=31%) consider that comment without correction is not helpful because it is too confusing for students; and thus they do not understand it. 22.5% of the participants (students=20%; teachers=40%) believe the same as well regarding its usefulness. they think that comments are not enough and students need correction in addition. besides, 2.5% of the participants (teachers=2.5%) argued that comment without correction is only suitable for clever and high-level students. the researcher also asked participants’ explanations for no feedback on students’ written errors. the test displayed that there is no significant difference between student participants and teacher participants (p=.373). the majority of the participants believe that giving no feedback to students’ written error is not helpful. 92.5% of the participants (students=94%; teachers=80%) argued that without feedback students would assume that there are no errors in their written work. moreover, 2.5% of the participants (teachers=20%) commented that it is the teachers’ duty to provide feedback on students’ written errors. furthermore, another 2.5% of the participants (students=3%) argued that giving no feedback to students’ written error indicates that teachers are ignorant to students. on the other hand, there are 2.5% of the participants (students=3%) who argued that giving no feedback to students’ written error is not a problem. it is said that without receiving feedback from teachers, students will experience less stress regarding the occurring errors. the researcher also asked for participants’ explanations for a particular wcf type, specifically comment on content/ideas. the test displayed that there is no significant difference between student participants and teacher participants (p=.567). according to the result, 37.5% of the participants (students=37%; teachers=40%) believe that giving comments about the content or ideas on students’ written work is helpful because it makes students feel motivated and dedicated. in addition, 2.5% of the participants (students=3%) stated that comment on content is acceptable. moreover, another 2.5% of the participants (students=3%) argued that comment on content challenges students to correct errors by themselves. at the same time, 52.5% of the participants (students=51%; teachers=60%) think that comment on content/ideas is not helpful because it is not enough. they believe that grammar errors should be responded too. additionally, 2.5% of the participants (students=3%) believe the same that students prefer grammar correction to comment on content. furthermore, another 2.5% of the participants (3%) argued that comment on content will not affect students in learning the material after all. types of errors that should be corrected item number four of the questionnaire and number ten to sixteen of the interview questions ask the participants’ opinions about what types of errors that should be corrected. participants chose rating for each question that describe their preferences (1 = least helpful, 5 = most helpful). table 4 presents students’ and teachers’ mean results for types of error that should be corrected. alviana tri adhi kencana / elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 91 table 4 different types of errors no type of errors means students teachers 1. wcf on organization errors 4.5 4.8 2. wcf on grammar errors 4.7 5.0 3. wcf on content or ideas 3.8 4.2 4. wcf on punctuation errors 4.1 4.8 5. wcf on spelling errors 4.6 5.0 6. wcf on vocabulary errors 4.5 4.8 the test for wcf on organization errors displayed that there is no significant difference between student participants and teacher participants (p=.310). according to the data, 65% of the participants (students=74%) believe that teachers need to give wcf on organization errors because it helps students understand correct writing organization. in addition, 20% of the participants (students=20%; teachers=20%) stated that giving wcf on organization errors helps to make students’ writing more understandable. moreover, 10% of the participants (teachers=80%) argued that as long as giving wcf on organization errors affects students’ writing quality, then the teacher should do it. furthermore, 2.5% of the participants (students=3%) pointed out that giving wcf on organization errors motivates students to learn more about writing organization. interestingly, 2.5% of the participants (students=3%) believe that grammar is more important than organization so teachers should focus on grammar instead. the test for wcf on grammar errors displayed that there is no significant difference between student participants and teacher participants (p=.146). 82.5% of the participants (students=91%; teachers=20%) argued that it is important because it helps students to understand the correct grammar. moreover, 10% of the participants (students=6%; teachers=40%) argued that grammar is important so students need to receive wcf on it. additionally, 5% of the participants (students=3%; teachers=20%) think that correcting grammar is the most important; thus giving wcf on it is simply necessary. finally, 2.5% of the participants (teachers=20%) believe that as long as giving wcf on grammar errors affects students’ writing quality, then the teacher should do it. the test for wcf on content/ideas displayed that there is no significant difference between student participants and teacher participants (p=.319). according to the findings, 57.5% of the participants (students=66%) believe that giving wcf on content or ideas is important for students because it makes students feel motivated. moreover, 7.5% of the participants (students=3%; teachers=40%) argued that giving wcf on content or ideas helps content improvement. in addition, 5% of the participants (students=3%; teachers=20%) think that it makes students know whether their content is correct or incorrect. additionally, 2.5% of the participants (students=3%) stated that students appreciate any comment on content. furthermore, the other 2.5% of the participants (students=3%) believe that wcf on content or ideas is always necessary so teachers should do it. moreover, the other 2.5% of the participants (students=3%) think that wcf on content or ideas is okay as long as it does not judge the idea wrong. likewise, the other 2.5% of the participants (students=3%) pointed out that wcf on content or ideas is okay as long as it is positive for students. finally, the other 2.5% of the participants (students=3%) stated that wcf on content or ideas makes students learn to receive criticism on their writing content. in contrast, 7.5% of the participants (students=6%; teachers=20%) believe that wcf on content or ideas is not a priority because other writing errors should be complementary to the feedback. additionally, 5% of the participants (students=6%) argued that wcf on content or ideas will not affect students’ writing. finally, another 5% of the participants (students=3%; teachers=20%) pinpoint the importance of focusing on linguistics errors rather than focusing on content or ideas. the test for wcf on punctuation errors displayed that there is a significant difference between student participants and teacher participants (p=.041). based on the findings, 37.5% of the participants (students=37%; teachers=40%) believe that by giving wcf on punctuation errors, students can use correct punctuation. in addition, 27.5% of the participants (students=26%; teachers=40%) explained that punctuation is important for the quality of writing so teachers should give wcf on it. moreover, 20% of the participants (students=23%) think that punctuation gives clarity to the writing so it is important for students to receive teachers’ wcf on punctuation errors. furthermore, 7.5% of the participants (students=3%) argued that students tend to forget the use of alviana tri adhi kencana / elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 92 punctuation so teachers should remind them by giving wcf on punctuation errors. at the same time, 7.5% of the participants (students=6%; teachers=20%) stated that giving wcf on punctuation errors is not important. they believe that punctuation errors are not a big problem so teachers do not have to prioritize it. the test for wcf on spelling errors displayed that there is no significant difference between student participants and teacher participants (p=.150). according to the results, 55% of the participants (students=54%; teachers=40%) think that giving wcf on spelling errors is important because spelling errors can lead to misunderstanding. in addition, 40% of the participants (students=40%; teachers=20%) agreed as well because with the wcf provision students can use correct spellings. moreover, 2.5% of the participants (students=3%) think similarly because with wcf on spelling errors, students will not repeat the same error. in contrast, 2.5% of the participants (students=3%) think differently that giving wcf on spelling errors is not important. they argued that spelling errors are not a big problem as long as the reader understands the meaning. the test for wcf on vocabulary errors displayed that there is no significant difference between student participants and teacher participants (p=.319). 72.5% of the participants (students=77%; teachers=40%) believe that giving wcf on vocabulary errors is important because it makes students know the correct and suitable vocabulary to use in their current written work. in addition, 17.5% of the participants (students=11%; teachers=60%) think the same because it helps students to know more vocabulary. moreover, 5% of the participants (students=6%) argued that vocabulary is simply important so teachers should provide wcf on vocabulary errors. in contrast, 5% of the participants (students=6%) do not agree if wcf on vocabulary errors is important. they explained that vocabulary error is not a big problem so teachers should not focus too much on it. discussion useful amount of wcf types the majority of the students prefer that teachers should provide wcf on all errors that are found on students’ written text. therefore, for the majority of the students, they think that the greater the amount of wcf given by the teacher, then the more valuable it is. similar to students, several teachers also believe that they should give wcf on all errors, but some of them also consider providing wcf only on most of the major errors. overall, teachers’ opinions are similar to the majority of students’ perceptions and both of them demonstrated that the students and the teachers prefer wcf provision on large quantities of errors. the findings are consistent with that of sayyar and zamanian (2015), which found that most students and teachers prefer comprehensive correction on students’ writings. when both participants were asked whether teachers should mark students’ reoccurring errors, the majority of them consider that errors should be corrected although they occur again. one of the students (s4) stated, “yes, so students will get reminded with the reoccurring errors.” furthermore, there is a teacher (t5) that argued, “i will surely correct the same errors that students make. students may not understand the first correction so the second or third is simply required.” this preference is in line with the research conducted by amrhein and nassaji (2010), which demonstrates that both students and teachers value consistency. useful types of feedback the second research question asked the types of wcf that students and teachers believe to be the most helpful. the students argued that they appreciate any kind of feedback even though they prefer receiving more linguistics feedback rather than personal comment on content or ideas. the finding is in line with that of sayyar and zamanian (2015), which found that students expected all types of linguistics errors to be corrected by teachers and they saw problems in the content are not too important. the students in the present study tend to choose to have overt correction with a comment because they claimed that they will receive better understandings. one of the students (s16) explained, “if the teacher told students the location of the errors as well as the explanation, students will understand better.” similar to students’ preferences, teachers also agreed that error correction with explanatory is the best. one of the teachers (t3) explained, “i like this type of wcf. it gives corrections as well as the explanations, so students will completely understand their errors. however, it is too time-consuming.” this alviana tri adhi kencana / elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 93 finding is consistent with that of amrhein and nassaji (2010) that to minimize time-consumption, the teachers focus only on correcting the important errors. types of errors that should be corrected the third research question asked what types of errors students and teachers think should be corrected. both students and teachers showed overall positive opinions about the usefulness of wcf on certain errors such as organization errors, grammar errors, punctuation errors, spelling errors, and vocabulary errors. however, the students saw wcf on content or ideas to be the least of their interest. these findings partly support the research done by halimi (2008), which found that students tended to value teachers’ wcf provision on surface-level errors (grammar, spelling, punctuation, vocabulary choice) than correction of other surface-level errors (content). for organization errors, most students believed that it is important to receive wcf on this type of errors because it helps students to know a good and correct writing organization. one of the students (s21) argued, “it improves students’ writing skill especially in paragraph writing.” this finding is not in line with that of diab (2006), which found that there were slightly fewer students that consider organization in writing. similarly, one of the teachers (t1) stated, “as long as it gives good impact to students’ writing quality, teachers should correct students’ written errors. thus, giving feedback on organization errors is simply necessary.” for grammar errors, the majority of the students argued that correction on grammar errors is important because it helps students to know the correct grammar. the student (s21) stated, “it helps students in understanding grammar such as word order and sentence structure.” this finding confirms that of jodaie (2011), which showed that a majority of students expected their teachers to correct grammatical errors on every draft. most teachers also believed that grammar is important so students need to receive wcf on it. one of the teachers (t2) argued, “correction on grammar is very important. let’s say that i instructed the students to make a recount text. then, they made errors on their writing regarding the tenses. it will affect the quality of the writing. it needs to be corrected.” for wcf on content or ideas, most students believed that it simply makes students feel motivated. one of the students (s25) stated, “it is useful. positive comments improve students’ motivation.” in addition, the teachers explained that students should not only concern improvement on form-focused errors but also the content or ideas as well. one of the teachers (t5) stated, “emphasizing feedback on content or idea is important so students’ writing idea quality will improve.” interestingly, this finding contradicts with that of hartshorn et al., (2010), which suggested that ...utilizing wcf in many esl writing contexts is overwhelming for both the teacher and the student. providing quality feedback can be time-consuming for the teacher, and the tasks of processing and implementing large amounts of feedback can be unrealistic for the student. (p. 86). it indicates that providing wcf on all kinds of errors requires much effort yet time-consuming. thus, it is considered to be inefficient and unrealistic practice. for punctuation errors, the majority of the students argued that wcf on punctuation errors is needed so students can use correct punctuation. one of the students (s32) stated, “punctuation is important because it affects written text quality.” this finding is consistent with that of seker and dincer (2014), which found that students preferred to receive feedback for both content and form, including the punctuation errors. most of the teachers also believed that punctuation is important for the quality of writing. one of the teachers (t4) explained, “it is clearly important. imagine that there are a lot of punctuation errors on students’ written work. of course, it will degrade the quality of the writing. teachers should correct this kind of errors.” for spelling errors, the majority of the students believed that spelling errors can lead to misunderstanding; thus, correction on spelling errors is important. one of the students (s17) stated, “incorrect spelling can lead to misunderstanding for the readers. thus, teacher’s feedback on spelling errors will be useful.” this finding is in line with that of amrhein and nassaji (2010), which displayed the same students’ preferences on the importance of correcting form-focused written errors such as spelling. most of the teachers also believed that spelling errors can lead to misunderstanding. the teacher (t4) stated, “spelling errors are common in students’ writing. small mistake on a letter can even confuse the reader. hence, it is clear that spelling errors need to be considered.” alviana tri adhi kencana / elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 94 lastly, for vocabulary errors, the majority of the students believed that correcting vocabulary errors is necessary so that students are able to know the correct and suitable vocabulary in their writing. one of the students (s10) saw the importance of correcting vocabulary errors because, “it helps us to know the words that we are supposed to use or the words that suit the context.” in addition, most of the teachers agreed that vocabulary errors are important to be noted. one of the teachers (t3) stated, “vocabulary is one of the most important aspects in writing. if the students incorrectly use certain word, then the meaning can be different with the one that the students want to express. thus, vocabulary mastery is needed. whenever i notice a vocabulary error, i always provide alternative words that suit the context. therefore, the students can learn new words from there.” this finding is in line with that of iswandari (2016), which found that vocabulary errors are believed to be useful to correct. conclusion both students and teachers showed similar views about the useful amount of wcf and correction for repeated errors. most of the students preferred to receive large quantities of feedback. the majority of the students also preferred to receive correction on repeated errors. the teachers had similar beliefs that they mostly chose comprehensive feedback. the majority of the teachers also chose to provide corrections on repeated errors. both students and teachers also share similar perspectives about the useful types of wcf. most of the students expect to receive comprehensive feedback which includes correction and explanations. the teachers also agreed that comprehensive feedback is the most useful form of feedback; however, they consider it as time-consuming. ultimately, both students and teachers also have similar opinions about the error types that should receive correction. the majority of the participants stated that personal comment on content or ideas is not a big problem, so teachers should not put much effort into providing this kind of feedback. instead, the findings demonstrated that teachers should focus on linguistics errors especially grammar, punctuation, spelling, vocabulary, and organization. references ahmad, i., saeed, m., & salam, m. 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(2018). delayed effect of teachers’ error correction on efl students’ ability in self-correction in writing: a case study. the second tamkang international conference on second language writing, 153. microsoft word [article 1]_38259-article text-96812-1-18-20200526 putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 1 elt forum 9 (1) (2020) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt analyzing english for academic purposes textbooks: a study of intercultural issues yulong li1, pengfei yao,2, bo hu1 1faculty of humanities and social sciences, city university of macau, macau sar, china 2 college of teacher education, east china normal university, shanghai, china article info ________________ article history: received in 14 march 2020 approved in 1 july 2020 published in 30 july 2020 ________________ keywords: eap textbook; intercultural issues; eap in china; critical eap ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ an increase of english for academic purposes (eap) teaching in china has resulted in a surge of eap textbooks on the market. however, there has been little accompanying interest in how well intercultural issues are handled and presented in these publications. accordingly, the present study employs chinese students’ cultures of learning (col) and contrastive rhetoric (cr) as reflection points in the analysis of the content, production, and consumption of two series of eap textbooks adapted from overseas textbooks. findings revealed that intercultural differences are not given due recognition in the textbooks which in some cases can lead to confusion and misunderstanding. meanwhile, the teachers involved in the study, as users of the other textbook series, were found to treat the textbooks only as a supplementary eap teaching resource. moreover, the continued confusion on the part of some of the students involved in the study highlighted the desirability for future textbooks to render intercultural differences in a critical eap manner. © 2020 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 college of teacher education, east china normal university, no.3663, north zhongshan rd, shanghai, china, 200062 e-mail: fieldine@126.com yulong li, pengfei yao, bo hu/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 2 introduction in order to satisfy the increasing demand for eap lessons at universities, many chinese academic publishers have invited scholars to produce new eap textbooks, or to adapt existing textbooks originally published in other countries, after purchasing the relevant copyright. at the time of this current research project, there were at least eight series of eap textbooks on the market, written by local chinese scholars. however, little studies were conducted on the chinese eap textbooks, particularly the intercultural aspects of them. intercultural issues in eap is important because, when first introduced to eap, students from non-western backgrounds can encounter varying degrees of academic shock (de chazal, 2014), caused by unfamiliar academic conventions, and different study strategies (singh and doherty, 2004; de chazal, 2014). both cortazzi and jin (1996), and parris-kidd and barnett (2011) employed the concept of “cultures of learning” (col) to explain the challenges chinese students sometimes encounter in international context, and linguists have employed notions of contrastive rhetoric (cr), whereby chinese students’ english academic writing is influenced by their native cultural and linguistic heritage (kirkpatrick and xu, 2012). sign and doherty (2004) warned eap teachers that their students’ intercultural differences can alienate students in their study of english academic practices, as eap classes are nodes of academic and cultural exchange (de chazal, 2014) that represent the initial contact zone for international students (sign and doherty, 2004). however, o’dwyer (2017) argued that the challenges these chinese students encounter in eap should not necessarily be associated with their native cultural influences, as they might also simply be the result of a lack of training. he stressed that many typologies of the study styles of students with a confucius heritage cultural background are reductive and essentialist (o’dwyer, 2017), although this view was not based on empirical findings. despite the on-going debate over whether or not intercultural differences influence chinese students’ eap learning, there are currently few empirical studies concerning intercultural issues in eap (aguilar, 2018). in this regard, the current study aims to contribute to the field by solving the following problems: how are the students’ home and target cultures, concerning col and cr, represented in the contents of the chosen eap textbooks published in china? how do the eap textbook authors/editors perceive the processing of intercultural differences in the eap textbooks they designed? how do teachers perceive and operationalise intercultural differences in teaching eap, in line with the textbooks? to what extent are the challenges encountered by the students related to intercultural differences, and to what extent were they resolved using the textbooks? the notion of chinese col in eap teaching the concern about intercultural differences for chinese students studying eap emanated from the promoters of col and cr. via the concept of col, cortazzi and jin (1996, p.169) focused on the possible intercultural differences students face when studying in a new academic context: “many behaviours in the language classroom are set within taken-for-granted frameworks of expectations, attitudes, values, and beliefs about what constitutes good learning, about how to teach or learn, whether and how to ask questions, what textbooks are for.” meanwhile, parris-kidd and barnett (2011) employed social distance (sd) and academic distance (ad) to explain the specific challenges that chinese students may face in col. according to parris-kidd and barnett (2011, p.178), sd “between cultures of learning can be identified through the tensions students experience regarding complying with the teacher’s expectations of participation in the new setting.” for example, chinese students are reluctant to answer their teachers’ questions in class, for fear of losing face in the presence of others (jin and cortazzi, 2006; liu and littlewood, 1997). furthermore, chinese students have been found to be resistant to entering into debates with their fellow students for fear of encountering embarrassment and conflict (durkin, 2011; grimshaw, 2007; nisbett, 2003). likewise, jin and cortazzi (1998) found that chinese learners favour a learning-listening approach. in contrast, an openness to debate, and active participation in classroom discussion is valued in western academic culture (parris-kidd and bartnett, 2011). furthermore, students of chinese origin have been found to strictly adhere to their teachers’ and parents’ supervision during their extracurricular homework time (salili, 1996), but are expected to be more autonomous in expanding their reading, searching databases, and even researching after classes within the eap context (emerson, 2018). for many chinese students, books represent truth and authority, and they are required to memorise much of the books’ content (maley, 1996). however, in the case of eap learning, books remain open to critical comment (shon, 2015). yulong li, pengfei yao, bo hu/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 3 ad is generally referred to as the gap between what is considered valid learning in the students’ home culture, and that of the target culture (parris-kidd and barnett, 2011). for instance, chinese students tend to be test-score-oriented (jin and cortazzi, 2003), and gao (1998) noted that chinese students rank examination preparation as one of their top priorities with regard to their expectations from teachers. in addition, rote learning is a commonly employed study method for chinese students (rao and chan, 2009; li and cutting, 2011), as it is believed to bring about in-depth understanding (watkins, 2009). however, this form of learning does not correlate with eap teachers’ expectations (singh and doherty, 2004). meanwhile, maley (1996, p.104-105) found that when reading in english, most chinese university students resort to a “word by word, phrase by phrase approach, while noting points of vocabulary, syntax, style and content along the way.” many scholars, however, do not recommend this approach for obtaining critical academic reading skills (shon, 2015; wallace and wray, 2016). the characteristics of the chinese learning style noted here may be due to confucianism, which advocates interpersonal harmony and rapport; thus, the chinese sense of individualism is weaker than that of their western counterparts (scollon, 1991). this means that many chinese students conceive of critical thinking, which is considered to be a desirable form of reasoning in western academic writing, as being too confrontational and uncomfortable (durkin, 2011). moreover, chinese students’ conduct, and beliefs about plagiarism, also differ from those of their western counterparts (bloch, 2008), since, from a relativist perspective, an individual’s academic and ethical judgments are underpinned by social and cultural guidelines and parameters (yang, 2012; jung, 2009). in sum, if these these distances are not addressed, chinese students’ ability to adapt to academic learning may be hindered (parris-kidd & barnett, 2011). the concept of cr in the academic context the concept of cr was promoted by connor (1996) to explain the challenges encountered by the second language (l2) learners in writing from the perspective of the strategies they would employ in their first language rhetoric. this represented a ground-breaking concept in l2 education at the time of its creation (mcintosh, connor and gokpinar-shelton, 2017), due to its pedagogical implications for teachers concerning the teaching of various rhetorical preferences, and ways of guiding their students via customised teaching materials (connor, ene and traversa, 2016). cr is helpful in pointing out certain distinctive characteristics in a given culture’s way of writing, such as the chinese way of referencing and persuading. when composing english essays, many chinese students routinely make references to history, poems, narratives, and proverbs (matalene, 1985), a practice transferred from the chinese writing tradition (connor, 1996) for ornamenting and exhibiting authority (matalene, 1985). however, in english academic writing, referencing is required to be disciplinary. furthermore, the chinese tend to be indirect and ambiguous in their writing, sometimes using analogies and anecdotes to express their opinions (kaplan, 1966; matalene, 1985), which is contradictory to the explicitness advocated in english academic writing (durkin, 2011). according to kirkpatrick and xu (2012), this indirect approach originated with gui guzi, a chinese rhetoric expert and philosopher, who lived during the warring states period (475221 bc), and who claimed that indirect rhetoric is a default persuasive style for use when employing tact, while considering an explicit approach to be unusually confrontational. on the other hand, as an increasing number of chinese scholars are publishing in english, there is a growing recognition that such forms of argumentation are seen as archaic. generally speaking, the supporters of col and cr assume that raising awareness of these intercultural differences is necessary for enabling international students to attain a better selfawareness when learning english academic traditions (ryan, 2011), and is similarly beneficial for eap teachers for better understanding the challenges with which their students contend, and for providing them with appropriate assistance (connor, 2011). opposition to the intercultural differences in eap opponents of the theory of cr criticise it as being created from the language of l2 learners, rather than that of expert l2 users (connor, 2011; mcintosh, connor and gokpinar-shelton, 2017). because chinese academic rhetoric has changed and evolved over thousands of years, employing a static view that essentialises chinese rhetoric and its potential influence on students’ english academic writing, which is what cr does, can be considered an over-simplified approach (kirkpatrick and xu, 2012). underscoring this is the fact that individual chinese scholars may have their preferences in terms of yulong li, pengfei yao, bo hu/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 4 writing style (connor, ene and traversa, 2016), and disciplinary specificities and school environments may engender different writing styles on students (mcintosh, connor and gokpinar-shelton, 2017). furthermore, some consider that employing the anglophone gate-keeping approach of cr (swales, 1997) to stereotype chinese students’ english writing is bias-ridden (kirkpatrick and xu, 2012). o’dwyer (2017) critiqued the idea that confucian heritage has influenced current chinese students’ academic english learning, after evaluating the development of confucianism over thousands of years, and analysing the educational status quo of many confucian-oriented countries/regions. he concluded that the challenges faced by confucian heritage students, including chinese students, when studying in the west, are the result of government-controlled mass education differing from that of the west. further, rather than blaming intercultural issues for students’ difficulties with eap, he cited a lack of training as the cause. as previously noted, despite the on-going debate concerning the issue of intercultural differences in eap, the extant empirical studies in the field of both english for specified purposes (esp) (aguilar, 2018) and eap could be viewed as inadequate, partially due to the focus of the field on learners’ needs, and their professional demands (aguilar, 2018). furthermore, few empirical studies have investigated intercultural issues in eap, and those that have primarily concern academic writing (mcintosh, connor and gokpinar-shelton, 2017; xu, huang and you, 2016; connor, 2004), classroom discourse (jund, 2010), and students’ experiences (dooey, 2010). studies concerning how esp/eap textbooks process intercultural issues are even less common, although bocanegra-valle (2015) reported that the 10 esp textbooks evaluated in his study all failed to include intercultural competence as a teaching outcome. similarly, there is also a lack of studies concerning intercultural issues in chinese-published eap textbooks. textbook analysis in eap in the teaching of english as a foreign language (efl)/english as a second language (esl), textbooks are as essential as authoritative material resources (gulliver, 2010). moreover, textbooks are often employed as the basis of a syllabus (harwood, 2005), and as training materials for inexperienced teachers (cunningsworth, 1995). textbooks are also considered to be necessary for teaching eap, as they can demystify academic discourse for students facing new fields of study (blajward, 2014) and can, therefore, transform students into academic insiders (alexander, argent, and spencer, 2008). however, eap textbooks are much-maligned, and harwood (2005, p.157) even argued that “eap textbooks are failing teachers and students.” there are currently two approaches to textbook analysis in eap: the corpus-based approach, and the critical approach (bondi, 2016). critics of eap textbooks are primarily from the former approach; when corpus-based research is employed, many eap textbooks are found to lack authentic academic language, and the use of unauthentic materials may hinder students facing academic realities (stoller, 2016). several studies on eap textbooks have found shortcomings. in a study conducted by paltridge (2002), eap textbooks were found to fail in providing students with a generic structure for theses; moreno (2003) discovered that the eap textbooks examined in his study misrepresented causeeffect expressions; wood and appel (2014) found that textbooks failed to present academic keywords, and holmes (1988), hyland (1994), and mcenery and kifle (2002) found that eap textbooks teach modals and/or hedges inadequate/improperly. furthermore, in a comparison of a corpus, researchers found the language employed in some eap textbooks was unnaturally replicated in real lessons (deroey, 2018; salehzadeh, 2013; flowerdew, 1992). harwood (2005) concluded that this growing list of criticism catalysed into a fierce debate between the camps of strongly anti-textbooks, weakly anti-textbooks, and pro-textbooks in the eap field. harwood (2005) suggested that the weak antitextbook approach was best suited to the eap field. despite the prevailing opinions in favour of eliminating the use of eap textbooks, many such textbooks were published, and are still being used, in china in the past five years. unlike the corpus-based studies, few studies using a critical-approach analysis seeking to reveal the ideologies and curricula they employ have been conducted on eap textbooks (bondi, 2016); the majority of the existing studies in this area feature english as a second language textbooks. for example, gulliver (2010) found that certain esl textbooks for new immigrants to canada portray the experience of the immigrant as being one that goes from rags to riches. they also depict the immigrant’s gratitude to their new country, which does not represent the experience of every immigrant. moreover, sokolik (2007) reported that some english grammar textbooks frequently tacitly spread consumerism in their sample sentences. furthermore, efl/esl textbooks were yulong li, pengfei yao, bo hu/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 5 generally found to support and present national policies, globalisation, westernisation (gulliver, 2010), racial prejudice, nationalistic ideologies (van dijk, 2004), and sexist or gender bias (sunderland, 2000; matsuno, 2002) to varying extents. if a textbook presents a culture or an ideology in a manner that is alien to, or produces friction with readers, a misunderstanding, and resistance to learning might result (boriboon, 2004; canagarajah, 1993). feng and byram (2002, p. 180) claimed that “analysis at the intercultural level of mutual representations and recognition by nature and foreign cultures” is the most critical dimension for studying intercultural communication in efl textbooks. therefore, the first research question of this present study sought to investigate the existence of col and cr in the textbooks concerned from a comparative perspective: rq 1. how are the students’ home and target cultures, concerning col and cr, represented in the contents of the chosen eap textbooks published in china? however, researching the content of textbooks alone cannot provide a full picture, as textbooks represent only the intended curriculum, and not how they are employed by teachers and students (harwood, 2017). a holistic textbook analysis involves the study of content, consumption (how teachers and students use textbooks), and production (issues related to the textbook authors and publication) (harwood, 2014). thus, alongside investigating the intercultural communication evident in the content of eap textbooks, the present study also investigated the opinions of the textbook editors/authors, and eap teachers and students: rq2. how do eap textbook authors/editors perceive the processing of intercultural differences in the eap textbooks they designed? rq3. how do teachers perceive and operationalise intercultural differences in teaching eap, in line with the textbooks? rq4. to what extent are the challenges encountered by the students related to intercultural differences, and to what extent were they resolved using the textbooks? methods the authors of this present study employed convenience and snowball sampling to insure that they had access to the editors and users of the chosen textbooks. two textbook series were selected for this study, and detailed information regarding their respective titles, publishers, and our access to the book series is shown in appendix 1. two books from the key concepts series, which were initially written by western authors, and published by heinle cengage learning (see smith-palinkas and crohanford, 2009; vestri solomon and shelley, 2006) and imported and adapted by chinese editors, who customised the books for chinese eap learners (see he, ed., 2017a; 2017b) were selected. this book series was used as the eap textbook at the institution of the second author of the present study. the second author of the present study and some of his colleagues are the editors and writers of new outlook college reading and writing 3 (wang and xu, 2015), which claims to represent a bridging textbook for chinese learners studying eap. therefore, some of these individuals, including the second author, were interviewed as editors and writers (see appendix 2 for the participants’ information, excluding that of the second author). an independent writer (ew1), who did not teach the key concepts series, was also involved in writing the book, and the authors of this present study also included her voice. however, it was not possible to access the users of new outlook 3, despite liaising with the publisher. it was anticipated that interviewing the eap teachers, both of whom were users of the key concepts series, and editors/authors of new outlook 3, may generate new insights. in order to address rq1, a qualitative documentary analysis was employed. a content evaluation form was designed to clarify the possible mutual representations of the eap students’ home and target culture in the chosen textbooks based on the two primary components of intercultural differences (cr and col), (see appendix 3.). the authors analysed the textbooks following the evaluation form and coded the aspects related to cr and col with coloured stripes. the coding process included the stages presented below. together with the categories of cr, ad, and sd, the authors indicated the content that related to these categories, coding them with different coloured markers. they then completed the evaluation form. content that delivered english academic reading and writing skills were coded as cr, as they denoted representations of the target culture’s means of expression; table 1 shows an example of text coded as cr. yulong li, pengfei yao, bo hu/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 6 table 1. an example from key concepts 1: listening, note-taking, and speaking across the disciplines (source: he ed, 2017, p.9). what is a discourse marker? discourse markers are words or phrases that help listeners (and readers) understand the flow of information. these words and phrases signal essential pieces of information. they help us to understand and, more importantly, predict what will come next. we often use discourse markers when we speak. for instance, when you explain to your friends why you like a particular movie, you probably use discourse markers to add information. similarly, an example of content relating to academic learning skills and expectations included in the three books was coded as ad (see table 2). table 2. an example from new outlook college english: reading and writing 3 (source: wang and xu, 2015, p.147). steps in scanning: keep the question in mind and anticipate what the answer can look like, e.g. a number, a data or several words. try to anticipate how the answer will appear and what clues you might use to help you locate the answer. use headings and any other aids that will help you identify which sections might contain the information you are looking for. selectively read and skip through sections of the passage. following the completion of their coding, the authors exchanged evaluation forms and discussed the results in order to achieve agreement regarding the coding. the coded contents were then organised into tables to illustrate the extent to which each book represented cr, ad, and sd in both the home and the target cultures. table 4 presents the final table for cr in key concepts 1. the content of each book is represented by three tables, one for each of the aforementioned three categories, and the results were listed according to the units. in order to address rq2 and rq3, structured interview questions were designed and sent to the participating editor and writers/teachers via email or social media. the participants’ right to anonymity and data confidentiality was explained in the invitation, as was the fact that they could complete the interview at their convenience. when necessary, the authors also followed up on the interview questions following the completion of the interviews. as previously mentioned, some of the teachers involved in this study were also authors of the new outlook textbook 3. therefore, the authors of this present study reminded them to discuss the issues concerned in the context of these separate roles. further, focus group interviews were conducted to explore the extent to which the students involved in the study learned intercultural differences as a result of using the key concepts series. as stated in the literature review, in order to attain a holistic understanding of a textbook, it is necessary to evaluate its content, production, and consumption. such arrangement provided a theoretical triangulation (bush, 2012). the corroboration between the evaluation form, the structured and semi-structured interviews, and the focus group interviews further enhanced the methodological triangulation (bush, 2012). moreover, the selection of the participants for this research in the subgroups of textbook editors, authors, and users, constituted a respondent triangulation (bush, 2012). these multiple means of triangulation potentially improved the trustworthiness of the study. findings and discussion how are the students’ home and target cultures, regarding col and cr, represented in the contents of the chosen eap textbooks, published in china? following the evaluation of the books, the authors found that in the three eap textbooks, representations of cr and ad regarding the students’ home culture were largely absent. concerning cr, both book series tended to present only the academic writing conventions stipulated by the target yulong li, pengfei yao, bo hu/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 7 eap culture, without reference to the learners’ home culture writing practicum. for example, in key concepts 1: reading and writing across the disciplines, a prescriptive section titled, ‘get ready to write’ introduced readers to the stages involved in the writing process, including pre-writing, writing, and post-writing (he, ed., 2017). this section was followed by exercises that required readers to practice english academic writing. in new outlook college english reading and writing 3, every chapter included a subsection titled ‘writing’. in the first chapter, this subsection introduced and explained the meaning, purpose, and features of academic writing. for example, when explaining ‘objectivity’ the book stated that written language is in general objective rather than personal. it, therefore, has fewer words that refer to the writer or the reader. this means that the primary emphasis should be on the information that you want to give and the arguments you want to make, rather than you. for that reason, academic writing tends to use a noun (and adjectives), rather than verbs (and adverbs). (wang and xu, 2015, p.24-5) the book adopted similar strategies to explain hedges and explicitness, introducing these issues without comparison to the chinese approach to writing, and without heeding the potential mistakes made by chinese students in writing. concerning ad, each chapter of new outlook college english reading and writing 3 included a section on critical thinking, but these sections lacked explanations in the context of either the home or the target culture. for example, the first critical thinking section in the book lacked justifications or explanations of why this is related to critical thinking and how western universities regulate academic integrity, instead of listing several questions (see table 3). table 3. an example of ‘critical thinking’ from wang and xu (2015, p.12) 1. cheating in exams is generally prohibited in schools and universities. suppose you confront the following ethical dilemmas, what will you do and why? (1) one of your close friends brings notes to the exam room and is about to cheat in the exam. (2) a classmate who sits behind you in the exam room wants to copy your answer sheet. (3) a dozen of your classmates happen to obtain a copy of the review highlight for a vital course, and they get high marks for the course. you only learn this after the exam. similarly, skills such as proofreading were mentioned in key concepts 1: reading and writing across the disciplines, and skills such as skimming and inferring were also explained in outlook 3, although none of the books addressed the chinese students’ potential cultural distance in this context. moreover, these examples are not an exhaustive list, and the authors of this study found that the books included neither sd nor information regarding how students should study or address the discourse of english academic writing. how do the eap textbook authors/editors perceive the processing of intercultural differences in the eap textbooks they designed? the interviews conducted with the authors of outlook 3 revealed that the majority acknowledged the existence of intercultural differences for chinese students studying eap. the authors, wt1, wt2, and ew1 considered that one of the differences lies in the chinese students’ perception of academic integrity. as wt1 explained: chinese students are not accustomed to using and quoting references in english academic writing, due to cultural differences. traditionally, chinese writing does not require an indication of the source of a reference, as the writers are seeking to create a sense of inclusiveness and informativeness for their readers in their writing. however, in english academic writing, proper referencing respects others’ intellectual labour and property. many chinese students are warned about plagiarism when they do not reference correctly. (wt1 interview) moreover, a number of these authors noted that a further cultural difference is the way in which chinese students’ think when studying eap. ew1 believed that chinese students are unable to analyse problems independently, while wt1 considered that chinese students are unable to challenge authority and to think critically. the cultural differences in chinese students’ academic writing were also highlighted by wt1, who claimed that “the structure of chinese writing is generally spiral, but the structure of english writing is linear, so chinese students are often influenced by the structure they use in chinese writing” (wt1 interview). however, the author ewt1 objected to the notion that yulong li, pengfei yao, bo hu/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 8 intercultural differences are responsible for causing chinese students’ weakness in academic integrity, expression, and thinking, arguing that “chinese students were raised to write and to think statically. therefore, they copy the writing prompts and use them in writing” (ewt1 interview). she insisted that these shortfalls of chinese students can be overcome through systematic training at the university. almost all of the writers of outlook 3 believed that chinese students could obtain intercultural knowledge and critical thinking skills from the book. the writer wt1 cited an example she included in the textbook, involving a comparison between western-style high-heel shoes, and the chinese qing dynasty practice of female foot-binding, which intended to illustrate cultural differences and to enable students to transfer this understanding to their future critical thinking. similarly, wt2 noted that a section at the end of each unit titled ‘bulletin board’ (see example in table 4) sought to develop students’ discussion ability, and intercultural thinking. table 4. an example of a bulletin board in outlook 3 (wang and xu, 2015, p.53). bulletin board oral report with the spread of cyber words among youngsters, many educators worry that this disturbing trend will pose a threat to the purity of our mother tongue. are you a regular user of cyber words? if so, do you think it harms the way you speak/write in chinese? please make a 2-min oral report and don’t forget to support your viewpoint with personal experience or other examples. meanwhile, ew1 believed that outlook 3 delivered intercultural differences through its presentation of english academic conventions and critical thinking skills. this view was echoed by ewt1, who considered that the examples and contexts provided in the textbook were customised for chinese learners, and therefore the textbook was intercultural in its own right. although the writers of outlook 3 believed that intercultural differences were included in the textbook, some also reflected that they had failed to highlight the possible intercultural issues, and therefore the users of the textbook may overlook this aspect. as wt2 noted, “it is difficult to convey the textbook writers’ intention to the reader; the intercultural differences in the textbook should be more explicit” (wt2 interview). meanwhile, the second author of the present study revealed the reason for the absence of explicit reminders of intercultural issues: “when we were designing the textbook, even in each unit, we had to adhere to a uniform structure stipulated by the editors, and intercultural differences were beyond the aim of the book.” furthermore, the chief editor of outlook 3 stated that he did not support the inclusion of intercultural differences in the textbook, as “it is an english textbook, aiming to enable students to use english and to improve their thinking. if the intercultural issues are forced in the textbook, the book may become a chaotic amalgamation” (ce2 interview). he considered it to be a responsibility of the eap teachers, rather than of the textbook, to teach students intercultural differences. however, the outlook 3 editorial team only provided a limited amount of guidance in its use for teachers, and the teachers’ companion to the textbook is no longer available. how do the teachers perceive and operationalise intercultural differences in teaching eap, in line with the textbooks? as a teacher of key concepts 1, the second author explained that this book series focused on the academic skills of students, by presenting the genre and language of english academic writing. he also noted that specific topics in the book, for example, anthropology, philosophy, and literature, included intercultural values and knowledge. together with his colleague, wt1, the second author utilised the series as a resource to initiate discussion of the differences between academic writing in china and the west. as wt1 explained, “the unit concerning literature includes a comparison between literature in the east and the west, which i later used as a warm-up to introduce students to the different structures in chinese and english academic writing” (wt1 interview). moreover, the textbooks constituted only a portion of the teachers’ class materials for teaching intercultural differences. the author wt1 employed his students’ writing as supplementary materials for demonstrating intercultural differences in academic writing: “in a writing task, i found that some students’ references were missing, so i probed the reasons for this to discover whether it was due to yulong li, pengfei yao, bo hu/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 9 the influence of their chinese writing; then i taught the students cr between chinese and english academic writing” (wt1 interview). also, the second author used published journal articles as examples to familiarise his students with english academic writing and logic, referring to chinese approaches to writing and thinking as a comparison. to what extent are the challenges encountered by the students related to intercultural differences, and to what extent are they resolved using the textbooks? among the nine students involved in the interviews, eight believed that using key concepts 1 had improved their academic writing, particularly regarding the skills of summarising, paraphrasing, using discourse markers, synthesising, academic vocabularies, and sentence and paragraph structure. some also believed that the textbook had expanded their academic vocabulary. however, it was noteworthy that one student observed, “i feel the textbooks are like self-study books; i do not think they have a significant impact on our eap learning” (student 6 interview).since student 6’s eap teacher was the second author of this study, and later wt2, it was possible to discover that the pedagogy they employed to teach eap was a form of project-based learning (pbl), in which their students conducted empirical studies, and wrote academic reports under their teachers’ supervision. hence, the eap textbook did not constitute the entirety of the pedagogy as the students also engaged in extracurricular self-study. all nine of the first-year students interviewed confirmed that the means of studying eap differed from that of their foundation education. student 4 noted that “in high school, we learn everything for exams.” student 5 supported this: “we rote-learn english words and grammar, and english is more of a tool for passing exams than a tool for use.” moreover, student 1 observed that, in high school, the teacher is the centre of attention, and student 2 noted that “teachers talked throughout the lessons…now in eap we have to do research and participate actively in projects.” while the second author of this study observed that many of his students became accustomed to the eap learning approach, and performed well, some of the students experienced struggle and confusion: “i was not sure what eap meant and what constituted the term “academic” (student 3 interview); and “in the first semester of eap, i reluctantly followed the teachers’ demands concerning the writing format, but the way i wrote was stiff, and even now i am still a bit confused… i could not look at things critically; why should i be critical? it restricted my eap” (student 5 interview). the content analysis of the textbooks found that none of the textbooks considered sd, and only ad and cr included the target eap culture. therefore, only english academic writing and specific eap study skills were introduced, without connecting these with the academic writing style and study habits of the students’ home culture. this imbalance reflects and supports byram’s (2014) criticism concerning the public misunderstanding of inter-cultural matters, in which more weight is ascribed to the exploration of otherness, than to self-introspection. this phenomenon was echoed by aguilar (2018), who highlighted the absence of intercultural competence in the esp field, and the absence of intercultural issues in esp textbooks observed by bocanegra-valle (2015). this absence may be related to the genre of esp/eap, as the field was created to address students’ academic and professional demands in the target discourse (aguilar, 2018). in the interviews with the authors and editor of outlook 3, findings revealed that the editorial team was inconsistent in their perception and operationalisation of intercultural differences. the chief editor believed that intercultural differences was not the aim of the textbook, since its focus was english academic language, while the authors such as ew1 and ewt1 believed that the practice of teaching the english language to chinese students is in itself intercultural. the majority of the authors believed it is necessary to teach eap students’ intercultural differences, but claimed that the structure established by the chief editor restricted their design, and they were unable to include explicit intercultural remarks or content. hence, some of the interviewees observed that the inclusion of intercultural differences in outlook 3 was dependent on the interpretations of the users themselves, and this was exacerbated by the fact that the teachers’ companion to outlook 3 was no longer in print. therefore, the production team of outlook 3 did not facilitate the training of their users regarding teaching intercultural differences, and in the absence of sufficient training, teachers might misuse the textbooks (lazar, 2011). it was noteworthy that, among the outlook 3 authors, ewt1 claimed that the challenges that chinese eap learners face are not caused by intercultural differences, but by their lack of training. this reflected o’dwyer’s (2017) view that the challenges in english academic education faced by students from confucian cultures are due to the different education and training such students receive in their home country. moreover, different elements of training and education can be culturally yulong li, pengfei yao, bo hu/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 10 underpinned, as they can be assigned differing degrees of attention since culture is a “code of practical instructions whereby members are permitted to talk meaningfully about some things while ignoring others” (lemert, 1995, p.174). the teacher using the key concepts series involved in this study taught intercultural differences, and particularly ad and cr, either by employing authentic materials or by adapting the textbooks, which reflected harmer’s claim (2001, p.8) that textbooks function only as “spurs to creativity.” moreover, the textbooks did not play a key role in the teachers’ eap curriculum, as they employed pbl to engage their students through research projects, in which the students consulted authentic databases, with the textbooks serving as additional resources. this approach reflected the weak anti-textbook strand within the eap textbook field, cited by harwood (2005, p.154): “while the textbook can provide structure, its syllabus should be flexible enough to allow the local teachers to input additional locally appropriate content.” the pbl eap pedagogy employed by the teachers in the present study was considered to be useful by their students for adapting them to the eap style of teaching, which concurs with aguilar’s (2018) argument concerning the value of pbl for improving esp students’ intercultural competence. hence, the teachers involved in the present study considered that a combination of resources was important for teaching intercultural differences to their eap students, which echoes aguilar’s (2018, p.25) view that esp teachers themselves are “the best prepared professionals for teaching intercultural skills”. the students interviewed in this study reported that the key concepts primary value was in teaching them academic english. while they were unaccustomed to studying via a pbl pedagogy, as the course progressed, their teacher observed that they gradually overcame their difficulties. however, at the time of the study, some of the students remained confused about the concept of academia, and the necessity for critical thinking, both of which are aspects that their teachers, as linguists, might find challenging to address, and which the textbooks failed to cover. in general, the textbooks involved in the present study adopted a top-down approach to instruction in the forms of academic writing and skills, tending to dismiss the intercultural issues involved, missing a mutual representation of ad, sd, and cr, and marginalising readers with different backgrounds. if the textbooks altered their approach and sought to demystify the globalised jargon, such as ‘critical thinking’ and ‘academia’, in terms suitable for the local chinese students’ beliefs and schema, this problem might be alleviated. this necessity for a change in approach from top-down to bottom-up global-local negotiation was highlighted by the critical eap (ceap) scholar macallister (2016), who argued that ceap could free local students from marginalisation. hence, from a ceap perspective, the eap textbooks published in china should be more intercultural. conclusion the spread of eap teaching in china has catalysed a surge in eap textbook publication. however, textbook analysis of intercultural issues is rare in this field. the present study selected chinese students’ potential col and cr as infiltrating points and analysed the content, production, and consumption of two series of eap textbooks. it found that intercultural differences were absent from both series. the editorial team of one series maintained inconsistencies towards the inclusion of intercultural differences, obstructing their communication with, and guidance to, the textbook users. meanwhile, the teachers as users of the other textbook series involved in this study employed the textbooks as supplementary materials for teaching eap. nevertheless, the continued confusion on the part of some of the students involved in the study highlighted the desirability for future textbooks to render intercultural differences in a ceap manner. acknowledgement this study is funded by the project study of the 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(2016). reasoning patterns of undergraduate theses in translation studies: an intercultural rhetoric study. english for specific purposes, 41, 68-81. yang, s. c. (2012). ethical academic judgments and behaviors: applying a multidimensional ethics scale to measure the ethical academic behavior of graduate students. ethics & behavior, 22(4), 281296. appendix appendix 1: detailed information of the selected eap textbooks yulong li, pengfei yao, bo hu/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 14 book series book name editor in china publisher target readers access to the book series production team access to book users key concepts key concepts 1: reading and writing across the disciplines he, ed. (2017a) higher education press (china) beginner level eap students no yes key concepts 1: listening, note taking, and speaking across the disciplines he, ed. (2017b) new outlook college reading and writing 3 wang and xu (2015) foreign language press (china) beginner level eap students yes no appendix 2: information about the outlook 3 editorial team, and the teachers of the key concepts series name position role in key concepts series role in new outlook series educational background previous teaching experience ce2 professor n/a editor ma tesol taught efl and eap wt1 associate professor teacher writer phd intercultural communication taught eap ewt1 lecturer teacher writer phd applied linguistics taught eap wt2 lecturer teacher writer phd applied linguistics taught eap ew1 associate professor n/a writer ma applied linguistics taught efl appendix 3: the initial eap textbook evaluation form eap textbook evaluation form for intercultural differences intercultural differences textbook title: author(s)/editor(s): publisher: evaluator: the representation of home culture the representation of target culture page content remark page content remark cr col, including ad and sd ad sd appendix 4: a sample form reporting the cr in key concepts 1 yulong li, pengfei yao, bo hu/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 15 key concepts 1: listening, note taking, and speaking across the disciplines category: cr home culture means of expression target culture means of expression unit 1 the student experience: success in college none introducing discourse markers unit 2 from the social sciences: psychology none none unit 3 from business: international trade and marketing none discourse markers: sequencing unit 4 from the social sciences: american government none discourse markers: transitions unit 5 from the social sciences: philosophy none none unit 6 from the social sciences: cultural anthropology none discourse marker and commonly used expressions al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 290 elt forum vol 10 (3) (2021) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the influence of playing digital game in distance learning towards students’ speaking skill doni wijanarko1, samsul hadi2, indah puspitasari3 1-3stkip pgri pacitan, indonesia article info _________________ article history: received on 30 july 2021 approved on 23 november 2021 published on 24 november 2021 ________________ keywords: : distance learning; digital game; learning media; speaking skill; among us game ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ the lack of class interaction in distance learning makes students can not practice their speaking skills. in another case, the use of digital game has been familiar among students. this situation forces teacher to serve students with creative teaching-learning in the class. novelty is on the specific game which was used in this research. the researcher experimented to apply digital games namely “among us” then investigated the impact on students’ speaking skills. this research aimed to answer the question, how were digital games become an alternative medium to learn english in the distance learning situation? inherently, this research was a pre-experimental research method with a design of one shoot case study. the main data source in this research was based on students' assessments scores and students’ questionnaire scores then supported by other questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. the average scores indicate that students were good in speaking skills overall, it could be known by the detailed results of the assessments that were pre-activity 2.64, during-activity 2.50, and post-activity 2.22. moreover, the results of regression analysis indicated digital games influenced students' achievement and students' motivation. it can be known by the significance of annova tables results that students’ achievement 0.022 < 0.05 and students motivation 0.000 < 0.05. the researcher concluded that students were comfortable and more confident to learn and practice their speaking skills during playing the digital game. finally, through giving correct treatment, digital game activity was possible to be an alternative way to learn english especially to practice speaking skills. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 jl. cut nyat dien no. 4-a kebon, ploso, kec. pacitan, kabupaten pacitan 63515 e-mail: doniwijanarko09@gmail.com http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& doni wijanarko, samsul hadi, indah puspitasari | elt forum vol 10 (3) (2021) 291 introduction starting from the middle of 2020 the indonesian government decided to limit outdoor activity. this was a response to the pandemic situation. certainly, like many other aspects of everyday life, covid19 had a serious impact on students, instructors, and educational organizations around the globe (mailizar, et al., 2020). to prevent the spread of this pandemic, the central government and regional government issued a policy to change educational activity to be a distance learning model. it was a considerable educational method in the media of learning applied. a stakeholder, institution, teacher, or student should take it as a distance learning policy. the digital game usage issue is one of the examples that are popular in students’ environments nowadays. according to (johnson, et al., 2012) trip wire magazine reported that in 2011 about 61.9 million people were engaged in digital games; an increase of 9 million from 2010. the digital game has grown in popularity due to the advancement of the internet and computer technologies. nowadays we find any kind of digital game application on our computer or smartphone easily. the ease of digital game access today brings students to a new habit. the risk is the addiction effect of digital games potentially affecting students in their daily activity. consequently, they cannot manage their time and become lazy to learn the materials. according to (griffiths, 2009), as a result of scientific research, it is seen that digital game addiction has many psychological effects on individuals. (kétyi, 2013) states “the integration of the mobile device in our language teaching practice could gain our students' valuable additional learning time outside the school and improve their language learning efficiency”. according to the statement above, the role of digital game usage is necessary to develop our teaching and learning media in efl, especially in this situation. most researchers argue that games have a great educational value for students to build fun and non-stressful learning process. moreover, digital games provide an interesting tool for communication. in learning english as a foreign language (efl), students have to practice more besides learning the theory. (chen, n.d.) claims that games promote communicative competence and encourage creative and spontaneous use of language. besides, there is more motivation to learn english through digital game usage. (bennett, 2011) overemphasized the power of games and play to facilitate deep and meaningful learning where most productive and motivating learning experiences take place outside of school through playing and participation where children do enjoy learning via having a sense of their progression and where the learning is relevant and appropriate. therefore this study aimed to investigate digital games' impacts on students’ speaking skills. the research gap found by the researcher such as first, (alamr, 2019) investigated the relationship between playing digital games as a leisure time activity and english language learning achievement among efl students at an english language center (elc) in a tertiary institute in riyadh, saudi arabia. the difference between the previous study and this research is the previous study investigated the 4 skill in efl whereas this research focus on speaking skills used by the students. second, (gozcu & caganaga, 2016) investigates the importance of using games in efl classrooms that aimed to find out how games were important and effective when used in efl classrooms. the difference between the study and this research was the previous study used qualitative descriptive research whereas this research used one shoot case study research. the influence of distance learning was also a big deal in this background of the study. the researcher explored and investigated the distance learning activity and digital game pattern of tenth graders students at one of public senior high school in pacitan in the academic year of 2020/2021. the school is one of the favorite schools in pacitan. most students there are familiar with the technology application in their teaching and learning process. moreover, ten graders students are the right time to learn comprehensive in efl, particularly in speaking skills practice. the output of this study drew the right application of this tool which was useful for the education field in the future. it is an effort to obviate the negative impact of the digital game by making this habit become a new medium of learning. finally, in this research the researcher argued that there were positive indications of digital game activity in students’ motivation and students’ achievements in speaking skills. this research assumed that students can learn english with fun and non-stressful learning through the among us game. otherwise, digital games were recommended to apply to an informal class. furthermore, the guidelines to apply this tool particularly commercial games like among us to be alternative media to learn in efl are needed to deal with the teachers’ target. doni wijanarko, samsul hadi, indah puspitasari | elt forum vol 10 (3) (2021) 292 methods research design the research method is a scientific way of obtaining data with specific purposes and uses. to do research, the right application in the research design is required as a research strategy, so that research can achieve an answer in the form of an answer to the problem of the research. according to (fathoni, 2006), "the research method is a way of working used in conducting research". the method used in this research was a pre-experimental research method with a design one-shot case study and mixed-method that were used to measure the students pattern on digital games. the researcher used the pre-experimental research method for probable causal relationship by exposing one or more groups experimental conditions to get the result of students speaking skills impacted by digital games. furthermore, this study applied mixed methods design assisted in investigating the problem from students’ perspectives on digital game pattern, using both a quantitative approach by the digital games namely among us treatment then continued with examining the expected relationship between the result of students assessment as the independent variables while students’ motivation and students’ achievement as the dependent variables. in addition, the researcher analyzed the perspectives of learners from the qualitative data captured in the questionnaire and the student interview. (sugiyono, 2012) classifies three types of research designs commonly used in pre-experimental design methods, namely one-shot case studies, one-group pretest-posttest design, and intact-group comparison. this study used a one-shot case study design. in this section, there was no control group and students were given special treatment or supervision for some time (x mark). the subjects in this study got a treatment by used digital games namely among us. then students were given tests related to the treatment / that is given (mark t). table 1 one shoot case study concept subject treatment test group of students x t detail: x : the treatment of using among us game. t : the test that giving after the treatment has been given. respondents therefore this study aimed to investigate digital games' impact on students’ speaking skills. the influence of distance learning was also a big deal in this background of the study. the researcher explored and investigated the distance learning activity and digital game pattern of tenth graders students at one of public senior high school in pacitan in the academic year of 2020/2021. the school is one of the favorite schools in pacitan. located in central of pacital regency had influence students habituaton. most students there are familiar with the technology application in their teaching and learning process. escpecially in this condition. moreover, ten graders students are the right time to learn comprehensive in efl, particularly in speaking skills practice. data source the population was used to state all of the elements and participants of the research from the place as the target of the research. the population was mentioned to all groups based on the samples. according to (subagyo, 1991), "population is the object of research as a target for obtaining and collecting data ”. the population in this research was ten graders students of at one of public senior high school in pacitan on 2020/2021 academic year. the populations were 55 students and selected to be the sample in the assessment activity were 17 students. the sample is part or representative of the population of the research (arikunto, 2006). therefore the variable of this research consists twocomponent. first, the independent variable was the digital game namely among us as the treatment of this research. second, the dependent variables were students’ motivation and students’ achievement. doni wijanarko, samsul hadi, indah puspitasari | elt forum vol 10 (3) (2021) 293 data collecting technique the research was conducted in three phases: (1) phase one: explained the whole of the research and gave treatment to students (2) phase two: applied of among us game treatment continued with students’ speaking assessment. (3) phase three: designed questionnaire and interview of the overall targeted sample of students. data collecting technique in the research explained as follow: 1. the main collecting data technique was a students’ speaking assessment or test. the researcher designed the speaking assessment instrument that used in this section. it aimed to find out how much digital games “among us” influenced students’ speaking skills. furthermore, the assessment activity was done in three sections including pre-activity, during-activity, and post-activity. 2. the second collecting data technique was a questionnaire. the questionnaire explored three aspects in students’ relationship with a digital game issue and students’ speaking skills: (1) patterns of distance learning, (2) patterns of the digital game, and (3) students’ perception after following the test. 3. students’ interview was the final data of this research. it was used to deeply investigated students’ perspectives of digital game usage as the medium of learning. it did towards students who have been following the assessment activity. therefore in this section, three aspects were investigated by the researcher. those were students’ knowledge of digital games particularly among us, students’ perceptions after got the treatment, and students' perception of speaking skills. data analysis the collected data in this research were analyzed in the form of quantitative and qualitative data. exactly the data gathered from assessment activity, questionnaire, and interview. the quantitative data of this research were obtained from the test. the test consists of three phases. those were pre-activity, during-activity, and post-activity. the results of students’ speaking performance were analyzed to find out the students' average score of their speaking skills. the researcher compared the results from three phases and conclude the results by calculating the average score from the three phases of the assessment activity. it was the main data in this research. regarding data analysis, the researcher concluded the data based on students’ assessment in three activities then resumed into an average score of each student in each assessment activity called “students’ achievement score”. moreover, the questionnaire score got by students’ perception after the test was investigated about students’ speaking skills after following the activity called “digital game score” and students’ motivation after following the activity called “students motivation score.” all data were analyzed with regression analysis, calculated by spss application. moreover, files and the communication between students were recorded and securely saved to ensure validity, accuracy and reliability of the data. finally, the researcher validated the results of the data. (creswell, 2012) argues that the role of validation is considered as a measure of how accurate a study was. the validation of the study was taken from expert judgment and quantitative as well as qualitative data collection methods from two main sources: (1) the score of students’ assessment, and (2) the score of the questionnaire after the test. findings and discussion findings the study's goal was to see how digital gaming activity in distant learning affected students' speaking skills in tenth grade pupils at one of public senior high school in pacitan in the 2020/2021 academic year. furthermore, the researcher looked into how digital game usage could be used as a medium for english learning, notably in the field of speaking skills. the conclusions of this study centered on the research hypothesis by analyzing the students' motivation and achievement during the study. furthermore, regression analysis was used in this study, which was done using the spss application. table 2. the resume of students’ score students students’ students’ digital doni wijanarko, samsul hadi, indah puspitasari | elt forum vol 10 (3) (2021) 294 achievement motivation game 1 2.773333333 5 5 2 2.346666667 5 4 3 3.146666667 5 5 4 1.773333333 4 3 5 2.346666667 3 4 6 2.72 4 5 7 2.133333333 3 4 8 2.613333333 4 4 9 1.866666667 4 3 10 2.666666667 5 5 11 2.506666667 5 4 12 2.253333333 4 4 13 2.733333333 5 5 14 2.666666667 5 5 15 2.453333333 4 4 16 2.613333333 4 4 17 2.88 5 5 the table above showed the final scores of the pupils. the table's specifics were the results of the digital games test, as determined by a questionnaire. the table also included the students' achievement score based on the average of their evaluations, as well as their motivation score based on a post-test questionnaire. 1. student motivation table 3. variables entered/removedb model variables entered variables removed method 1 gamea . enter a. all requested variables entered. b. dependent variable: motivation the table above was about the variable used in this research. the table above explained that the independent variable was digital games and the dependent variable was students’ motivation. table 4. model summary model r r square adjusted r square std. error of the estimate 1 .550a .302 .256 .606 a. predictors: (constant), game the table above was the summary of the regression analysis. based on the table above the score of the correlation (r) was 0,550. moreover, presentation of the independent variable towards the dependent variable is called coefficient determination (r2) which is the result of quadratic from correlation (r). based on the table above the results of coefficient doni wijanarko, samsul hadi, indah puspitasari | elt forum vol 10 (3) (2021) 295 determination (r2) was 0,302. that means the influence of independent variable (digital games) towards dependent variable (students’ motivation) was 30,2% meanwhile 69,8% was influenced by the other factor besides digital games. table 5 anovab model sum of squares df mean square f sig. 1 regression 2.382 1 2.382 6.497 .022a residual 5.500 15 .367 total 7.882 16 a. predictors: (constant), game b. dependent variable: motivation annova table explained the real impact (significance) of the independent variable towards dependent variable. based on the table above score was 6,497 with the score of significance or probability was 0,022 < 0,05, which means the regression models was possible to predict the dependent variable (students’ motivation) table 6 coefficientsa model unstandardized coefficients standardized coefficients t sig. b std. error beta 1 (constant) 1.938 .959 2.020 .062 game .562 .221 .550 2.549 .022 a. dependent variable: motivation the table above was coefficient table that used to analyze whether if the score of digital game increases in a piece, the score of students’ achievement also increases. based on the table above the result of the positive constant “a” (digital game) score was 1,938 while the score of the students' achievement “b” is 0,562. here was the formulation of regression models. y= a + bx or 1,938 + 0,562x the conclusion of the coefficients table above was explained as follows: 1) the positive constanta was 1,938 which meant the positive score influenced independent variable (digital game). if the variable was increased or giving influence in a piece then the dependent variable (students’ motivation) also increases. 2) the score of coefficient regression x was 0,562 which means if the digital game (x) increases in a piece, then the dependent variable (students’ motivation) will increase to 0,562 or 56,2%. doni wijanarko, samsul hadi, indah puspitasari | elt forum vol 10 (3) (2021) 296 2. students’ speaking skills achievement table 7 variables entered/removedb model variables entered variables removed method 1 gamea . enter a. all requested variables entered. b. dependent variable: students’ achievement the table above was about the variable used in this research. the independent above was the digital game and the dependent variable was students’ achievement. table 8 model summary model r r square adjusted r square std. error of the estimate 1 .890a .792 .778 .166 a. predictors: (constant), game the table above was the summary of the regression analysis. based on the table above the score of the correlation (r) was 0,890. moreover, presentation of the independent variable towards the dependent variable that called coefficient determination (r2) which was the result of quadratic from correlation (r). based on the table above the results of coefficients determination (r2) was 0,792. that means the influence of independent variable (digital games) towards dependent variable (students’ achievement) was 79,2% meanwhile 20,8% was influenced by the other factor besides digital games. table 9 anovab model sum of squares df mean square f sig. 1 regression 1.580 1 1.580 57.020 .000a residual .416 15 .028 total 1.995 16 a. predictors: (constant), game b. dependent variable: students’ achievement annova table explained to analyze whether the real impact (significance) of the independent variable towards dependent variable. based on the table above score was 57,020 with the score of significance or probability was 0,000 < 0,05, which means the regression models were possible to predict the dependent variable (students achievement). table 10 coefficientsa model unstandardized coefficients standardized coefficients t sig. b std. error beta 1 (constant) .533 .264 2.022 .061 game .458 .061 .890 7.551 .000 a. dependent variable: students’ achievement doni wijanarko, samsul hadi, indah puspitasari | elt forum vol 10 (3) (2021) 297 the table above was coefficient table that was used to analyze whether if the score of digital game increases in each then the score of students’ achievement also increases. based on the table above the result of the positive constant “a” (digital game) score was 0,533 while the score of the students' achievement “b” was 0,458. here was the formulation of regression models. y= a + bx or 0,533 + 0,458x the conclusion of the coefficients table above was explained as follows: 1) the positive constanta was 0,533, indicating a positive score for the independent variable's influence (digital game). when a variable is enhanced or given more weight in each, the dependent variable (student accomplishment) rises with it. 2) the score of coefficient regression x was 0,533 which means if the digital game (x) increases in a piece, then the dependent variable (students’ achievement) will increase reach 0,458 or 45,8%. discussions the researcher limited the discussion based on the hypothesis of this research. moreover the researcher answered the formulation of the problems of this research. the hypothesis discussed the things that perhaps influenced students after the research. the researcher discussed two aspects, which were 1) students’ motivation, 2) students’ speaking skills achievement. furthermore, this section provided a summary and discussed the researcher’s hypothesis and the data results of this research. 1. whether digital games influence students’ speaking skills? a. students’ motivation based on the data finding researcher concluded that digital games influenced students' motivation to learn particularly to practice their speaking skills. the data showed that most students felt that they had no opportunity to practice their speaking skills in the class. the lack of class interaction during distance learning was another cause to deal with this problem. furthermore, the integration and regulation of digital game usage in the educational field was should be considered (gozcu, e., & caganaga, 2016) state that using games creates an environment in which there are fun and satisfaction besides high motivation for learning a language. in addition to this, games had been found as a serious and pervasive element for providing stimulation and simulation in educational settings. in an informal context, games had often related to the leisure activities of students' off-school practices and most interactive games provide learners with communicative activities as they play games. (sørensen, b.h., & meyer, 2007) “games have often been utilized to increase motivation and authentic communicative practices, since games have been conceptualized as a fun factor in language learning.” the role of games was needed to decrease the anxiety of using the target language cannot be ignored. the new habitude of students’ environment and the importance of education should be understood to provide more creative teaching and learning process in this situation. b. students’ achievement based on the data results found by the researcher that students' achievement during assessment activity indicated that as tenth graders students, they were still poor and cannot to speak fluently. the most problem was the less experience to practice their speaking skills. conversation practice enables language learners to assimilate their acquired knowledge, integrating a variety of cognitive skills at once to produce oral communication. in effect, this is learning by doing (paisley, 2019). it knew that the average score of each student in three assessment activities was still low. this point was supported by students' perception about their activity in the class that most of them had not opportunity enough to practice their speaking skills. moreover, in the pandemic situation, the lack of class interaction made students rarely practice their speaking skills. otherwise, based on the questionnaire and interview, the researcher concluded that the doni wijanarko, samsul hadi, indah puspitasari | elt forum vol 10 (3) (2021) 298 right application of digital games was possible to develop student's skills in english, particularly their speaking skills. the other study azman & dollsaid (2018) states that multiple digital games encounter with other numerous speakers help students improving their confidence and build new knowledge as they engage in achieving a collective goal as online players. digital games were mostly discussed cornering social online interaction in these games. in this research, students’ online interaction through among us game allowed students to connect with their friends with active interaction. c. the guidelines of among us games as the media of efl learning a) students should download discord and among us, b) students should use discord to communicate during playing the game, c) students login into the game, d) students should create their name by following format (nama_kelas), e) students join the room that was created by the teacher, f) the game will start when all participants already join in the room, the participant is 4-10, g) students should use the english language to communicate with each other, h) students should communicate one by one during the discussion section, i) the students who have dead do not permit to join the discussion section, j) students should be active and communicative during the discussion section, k) in addition, students should note every new vocabulary that got during playing the game. conclusion this study provided strong positive indications about the utilization of different types of digital gaming opportunities as means of facilitating efl learning as an out-of-classroom leisure activity. it could be known by the detailed results of the assessments that were pre-activity 2.64, during-activity 2.50, and post-activity 2.22. moreover, the results of regression analysis indicated digital games influenced students' achievement and students' motivation. it could be known by the significance of annova tables results that students’ achievement 0.022 < 0.05 and students motivation 0.000 < 0.05. furthermore by the observation the researcher found that mostly students was agree to use digital game as the alternative media to practice their speaking skills. the major findings of the study confirmed that playing digital games might have a positive effect on some aspects of efl learning. specifically, playing among us games that require and provide students to practice and train their speaking skills. these games stimulate the incidental and indirect language learning process. in this process, the learners’ attention is directed toward playing and succeeding in the game, while they unintentionally internalize a large number of language expressions, vocabulary, and structures. the outcomes of this study identified social interaction experiences through online gaming as an important provider of an authentic english language environment. efl learners engaging in digital game social interactions benefitted from these practices, particularly in enhancing communicative competencies. this can be achieved by increasing the stimulation and motivation for language learning for students by utilization of new pedagogical strategies rather than the more common teacher-centered strategies of the traditional classroom. finally, the need to obviate the negative impact of the digital game around students’ in distance learning situations was the motivating issue for this research study. furthermore, the learning media to practice students’ speaking skills is also a consideration in this research. this study focused on among us digitial game which are more to invetigate. in the conclusion, the researcher believes that the variety of learning media and application of technology development is necessary things that should be noticed by the teacher today. references adams, s., & burke, m. 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(2012). metode penelitian pendidikan pendekatan kuantitatif, kualitatif, dan r & d. alfabeta. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 252 elt forum 10 (3) (2021) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt rural learners’ communication apprehension and urban learners’ fear of negative evaluation in speaking performance: what lies within? agung ginanjar anjaniputra1 1english education study program, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received on 12 may 2020 approved on 8 november 2021 published on 24 november 2021 ________________ keywords: urban and rural learners; language anxiety; speaking performance; efl ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ anxiety-trigerring conditions that can facilitate and debilitate learning must be made known to teachers. besides, studies comparing foreign language anxiety in rural and urban areas are inconclusive and incongruous. thus, this study is intended to explore learners’ language anxiety in speaking performance at urban and rural high schools. the investigation of language anxiety particularly addresses the extent of language anxiety, the anxiety factors as well as the relationship among language anxiety, school sites, and speaking. this study utilized a questionnaire, a test, and a learner interview to collect data by involving urban and rural school. quantitative data analysis was carried out through descriptive statistics to find out learners’ language anxiety levels, and through multiple regression correlation (mrc) to determine the relationship among the variables. qualitative data analysis was conducted in relation to language anxiety sources by generating broad themes from the interview. the analysis revealed that (1) the extent of learners’ language anxiety was distinct from one another and subject to certain circumstances and their anxiety sensitivity; (2) four factors causing language anxiety were discovered; and (3) a new insight into the correlation between urban and rural learners, language anxiety, and speaking was noticeable. these findings suggest that teachers recognize the circumstances leading to anxiety, which is a basis for successful language acquisition and learning. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: anjaniputragi@gmail.com http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& agung ginanjar anjaniputra | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 253 introduction language anxiety is considered to be a factor affecting language learning and acquisition (horwitz, horwitz, & cope, 1986; ellis, 1987; aida, 1994; onwuegbuzie, bailey, & daley, 1999; gass & selinker, 2008). it is asserted that being capable of coping with anxiety can lead to the success of learning and acquiring second or foreign languages (horwitz et al., 1986). language anxiety may bring about reactions which prevent learners from performing well in a foreign language class (horwitz et al., 1986; aida, 1994; horwitz, 2001). it has also been associated with the performance of language skills (see saito, horwitz, & garza, 1999; cheng, horwitz, & schallertz, 1999; matsuda & gobel, 2004). one of them is speaking which is believed to be affected by language anxiety (macintyre & gardner, 1991a; woodrow, 2006; suherdi, 2012). speaking is also a problem faced by most efl learners in indonesia. many secondary school learners do not seem to have sufficient ability to speak english (widiati & cahyono, 2006). therefore, an exploration of language anxiety among urban and rural learners is necessary to be investigated. anxiety has long been associated with fear to be regarded as having “a powerful influence in contemporary life” (spielberger, 1966, p.3). it was freud, along with his psychoanalysis theory, that first shared the notion of anxiety as an unpleasant feeling reacting against dangerous situations, yet the vagueness of its source frequently exists (feist & feist, 2009; schultz & schultz, 2012). it is the vagueness that makes anxiety distinguishable from fear as objects related to fear are specific and apparent (rachman, 2004), while anxiety itself is deemed as “a vague and unspecific apprehension” (may, 1950, p.51). it is further supported by corey (2012) asserting that it is triggered by dealing with options with no clear guidelines and no knowledge of what the consequences are. besides, it is related to individual susceptibility to threatening circumstances in which task performance is possibly distracted by intimidating-perceived situations (eysenck & byrne, 1992, p.798). concerning language performance, three categories of performance anxiety such as communication apprehension, test anxiety and fear of negative evaluation are introduced by horwitz et al. (1986). besides, it is also stated that the components have to do with strong speaking anxiety (puškar, 2010). in addition, they are mostly used as the basis for foreign language anxiety measurement (see onwuegbuzie et al., 1999; gregersen, 2005; ezzi, 2012). communication apprehension is defined as “a type of shyness characterized by fear or anxiety about communicating with people” (horwitz et al., 1986, p.127). it is further argued that anxiety in speaking emerges as a result of lack of confidence in linguistic knowledge (arnold, 2000; ewald, 2007). in this sense, speaking is regarded as an activity provoking anxiety in foreign language learning (macintyre & gardner, 1991a, as cited in chan & wu, 2004), especially when performed in front of the class among other learners (iizuka, 2010). it is in line with the manifestations of communication apprehension, as argued by horwitz et al. (1986) and puškar (2010), reflected in difficulties when speaking in groups or in public. test anxiety is a type of anxiety triggered by a fear of failure so that perfect performance is conceived as the only acceptable achievement (horwitz et al., 1986). besides, in language class, the pervasiveness of test anxiety is largely prevailing phenomena due to its continuous evaluative nature on performance (tanveer, 2007). two main factors of test anxiety encompass lack of preparation and worry (birjandi & alemi, 2010). lack of preparation is characterized by learners who cram the night before the test, have indigent time and study management, and fail to process text information. meanwhile, the second factor has something to do with worry about performance on past exams, the way classmates and other learners perform, and the negative consequence of failure. fear of negative evaluation deals with the feeling of apprehension about others’ evaluation (horwitz et al., 1986). in addition, to follow lucas et al. (2011), it includes avoiding evaluations and negatively thinking too much about others’ evaluation. fear of negative evaluation differs from test anxiety in a way that it has broader scope, not limited to test situations (horwitz et al. 1986). it may occur in circumstances such as group works, interview tasks, and other activities which have something to do with evaluation among peers, groups or even individuals. as a result, learners hardly speak voluntarily to initiate conversation and interaction, and the worst case of this is that learners skip class as a way to avoid evaluative situations causing the anxiety (gregersen & horwitz, 2002). the reason behind this, as stated by hashemi (2011), is that learners have a fear leading to the shortfalls in positive self-image or self-identity when speaking in a foreign language. any evaluations in social situations such as speaking in foreign language class where teachers and learners take part in evaluating the performance can cause the fear of negative evaluation (chan & wu, 2004). lucas, et al. (2011) state fear of negative evaluation may also include the fear learners experience during agung ginanjar anjaniputra | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 254 language class with the presence of peer pressure. as they further argue, the use of certain learning activities and methodology by the teacher leads to language learners’ anxiety. anxiety may be associated with the areas in which individuals live as reported by mckenzie, murray, & booth (2013) that the urban-rural classification becomes an influential factor triggering mental health that is indicated by the prevalence of anxiety. the difference can also be caused by several demographic factors (see ozer, fernald, & roberts, 2007; lyneham & rapee, 2007; abbo et al., 2013; nair et al., 2013; zhao et al., 2013). it is shown in three australian rural settings that the highest rates of anxiety are apparent in a 45-54 years-age group with no significant difference among three areas (kilkkinen et al., 2007). meanwhile, another result is somewhat distinguishable that the prevalence of anxiety is high among adolescents and children in a rural area of uganda (abbo et al., 2013). it corresponds to the symptomatic anxiety among youngest age group in a rural community in kenya (abbot and klein, 1979). several aspects contributing to the prevalence of anxiety in either urban or rural areas (see hraba, mccutcheon, & vecernik, 1999; kilkkinen et al., 2007; leeuwen, 2010; stanley, 2010; romans, cohen & forte, 2011; mckenzie, 2013; florida, 2015), encompass diversity, education, access to public services, types of living environment, socioeconomic status, and values. research on language anxiety has long been conducted by many experts concerning both first and second/foreign language learning. among others, two studies are conducted to investigate language anxiety and its relation to different forms of anxiety and to native and second language processing (macintyre & gardner, 1991a), and to input, processing, and output (macintyre and gardner, 1994). moreover, it has also examined the relationship of japanese learners’ language anxiety to gender and their learning of japanese (aida, 1994), and to shed light on the correlation of anxiety and achievement in second language learning through the literature on language learning anxiety (horwitz, 2001). its relation to speaking has also been concerned, which provides novel insights into the association of language anxiety and oral performance (gregersen & horwitz, 2002; woodrow, 2006; ewald, 2007; hewitt & stephenson, 2011). furthermore, in oral presentations, non-verbal cues of anxious language learners are also examined (gregersen, 2005 & 2009). research found that language anxiety is also influenced by residential locations. one relevant study was conducted by piechurska-kuciel (in pawlak, 2012, pp.169-184) who investigated language anxiety levels of polish secondary grammar school learners from urban, suburban, and rural areas. another one was the research in yemen by ezzi (2012) who also found that residence contributed to the level of foreign language anxiety. however, the two studies came up with contradictory results, in line with several studies of urban–rural differences in psychiatric disorder rates (romans et al., 2011). for these conflicting results, this study refines the association of language anxiety in speaking performances among rural and urban learners. besides, the exploration of foreign language anxiety based on school locations by means of qualitative and quantitative inquiry is rarely conducted. thus, this study is going to qualitatively and quantitatively explore foreign language anxiety experienced by learners from urban and rural schools. given the consideration that language anxiety can determine the success of learning as well as acquiring languages (horwitz, horwitz, & cope, 1986; ellis, 1987; aida, 1994; onwuegbuzie, bailey, & daley, 1999; gass & selinker, 2008), affect speaking performance and may also be influenced by the areas in which learners live and study (see ezzi, 2012; pawlak, 2012; romans et al., 2011), a concern of whether learners from rural and urban high schools experience language anxiety emerges. hence, this study is conducted in urban and rural secondary schools in a district of west java province, indonesia, to investigate learners’ language anxiety: the extent to which learners are anxious, why they experience anxiety, and the relationship among school origins, their language anxiety and speaking performance in english classrooms. methods a mixed method design was deployed since the data were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. the data were collected by involving one senior high school located in urban area of sumedang, west java, indonesia, and one located in its rural area. a total of 58 learners were taken as the sample. qualitative data were gathered to address the extent to which learners are anxious and the causes of anxiety. quantitative data were also collected to address the relationship between school origins (urban and rural secondary schools), language anxiety (measured scores), and speaking (measured scores). such a relationship can be accommodated by using multiple regression correlation or mrc (lewis-beck, 1980; draper & smith, 1998; cohen et al., 2003; kutner et al., agung ginanjar anjaniputra | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 255 2005). the pattern of relationship is in accordance with “model b two-variable redundancy” (cohen et al., 2003, p.76), where school origins (x1), as represented by urban and rural secondary schools, might produce differences in language anxiety (x2) in a sample of school learner, and each is likely to cause differences in speaking scores (y). techniques of collecting data in this study encompassed questionnaires, learner interview, and speaking tests. the questionnaire, adapted from horwitz, horwitz & cope’s flcas (1986), was to gauge the learners’ language anxiety and to choose seven learners with the highest level of anxiety as participants of the interview. the selection of the flcas was based on a consideration that it is reported to be valid and reliable in addressing foreign language anxiety (onwuegbuzie et al., 1999; gregersen, 2005; ezzi, 2012). the questionnaire consisted of 33 closed-ended items based on three constructs: communication apprehension, fear of negative evaluation, test anxiety (horwitz et al., 1986; lucas, miraflores, & go 2011). to preclude learners’ misunderstanding, it was translated into bahasa indonesia. the word “english” was used instead of “language” and “foreign language”. for example, the original version “i feel confident when i speak in foreign language class” was changed to become “i feel confident when i speak in english class”. to maintain the reliability, the questionnaire was piloted twice to a learner exclusive of the 58 participants. as a result of the first pilot, the researcher rephrased the term native speakers of english to become englishmen. besides, to ascertain the validity, all the participants were guided to answer each item. additionally, the learner interview was administered to enrich the data and to assure objectivity of the researcher to answer the problems. a semi-structured interview was also simultaneously carried out with audiotaping to be able to analyze interviewees’ statement thoroughly. the interview questions were developed based on the results of the questionnaire, in line with the components of speaking anxiety: communication apprehension, fear of negative evaluation, and test anxiety. as for ethical considerations, the researcher asked the participants if they were willingly involved in this study. moreover, their consent to publish any data was obtained with confidentiality of their personal information. in addition to the questionnaire and learner interview, a speaking test was done to 58 participants in this study. the participants in each school were assessed by the english classroom teachers and the researcher. this is suggested that speaking performances involve more than one person to rate or assess the skill (douglas, 2010, p.110). the test was administered in the two classrooms, before the other students. in both classes, it was carried out in the morning so as to ensure the reliability. the speaking performance done by students was based on a topic, family, in which students were helped to speak up their ideas through several probing questions. the probing questions encompass how big is your family? (how many people are in your family?, how many brothers and sisters do you have?), how old are your brothers and sisters?, how old are your parents?, what are the occupations of your family members? (what does your father do?, what's his job?, what does your mother do?, what do your brothers and/or sisters do?), what do you and your family like to do together?, and what do your parents do in their free time?. the assessment of their speaking performance was based upon a speaking rubric adapted from brown (2001). for the qualitative data analysis, the data from the interview were reduced, displayed, and verified as well as concluded (denzin & lincoln, 1998). in this regard, the factors were coded with lp for lack of preparation, ta for teaching activities, sh and lc for shyness and lack of confidence merged into learner personality (ly), and fm for fear of making mistakes. then, the coded utterances and expressions from the interview were put into two tables of categorization. once all the potential and relevant data from interview were presented, these were interpreted to generate the findings of what factors cause language anxiety. the result was finally interpreted in relation to previous theories and studies. quantitative data analysis included calculation of the results of the questionnaire and to measure the relationship among variables. it was carried out by emphasizing areas, sub-areas, and items of the questionnaire to discern the extent of the learners’ language anxiety. in regard to the measurement of the relationship among variables, the data of three variables were first tested by basic assumptions of mrc, comprising residual normality, multicollinearity, autocorrelation, and homoscedasticity (caroll & ruppert, 1988; cohen et al., 2003; chatterjee & simonoff, 2013; johnson & wichern, 2014). having been proven to pass the tests for the basic assumptions, the scores of learners’ language anxiety from urban and rural secondary schools were computed by using mrc to see its relationship to speaking performance, where urban and rural agung ginanjar anjaniputra | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 256 secondary schools were coded by the value 1 and 0 consecutively. the computational analysis of mrc was completed by using the statistical packages for social sciences (spss version 18) with α value at .05, which was critically interpreted. findings and discussion language anxiety levels of learners at the urban secondary school the portrayal of learners’ language anxiety at urban secondary school is conveyed. not only does it concern their language anxiety level, but also it deals with the extent of their language anxiety from the analysis of a questionnaire in accordance with the three constructing components and its subareas. prior to the portrayal of learners’ language anxiety from its components, each urban learner’s language anxiety level is reflected in the table below. table 1. overall language anxiety levels of the urban learners levels range no. of learners percentage total score highly relaxed 33-59 relaxed 60-86 1 2.94% 73 normal 87-113 16 47.06% 1623 anxious 114-140 17 50% 2078 highly anxious 141-165 sum 34 100% 3774 average 111 the table above shows that the language anxiety level of the urban learners is 111 in average. of all the learners, their levels are categorized into three levels of language anxiety: relaxed, normal, and anxious level. it is worth noting that a half of the learners from the urban school are in anxious level. this contributes to the dominance of this level over other levels of anxiety. this denotes that the urban learners seem inclined to experience language anxiety more intensely. this may be caused by intolerance and individuality of the people (huggins & debies-carl, 2014 cited in florida, 2015). the average score of 34 learners in the urban secondary school is also presented in table 2, alongside a number of other scores of the areas of flcas. the scores range from 2.853 up to 3.949, signifying anxiety levels which are simply in two different levels: the normal level and the anxious level. in addition, the average score of each component also needs to be taken into account in order to see its contribution to language anxiety in general. the highest average score among the main components is fear of negative evaluation (3.419), resulting in the score included into the anxious level (3.401-4200), followed by communication apprehension (3.385) and test anxiety (3.258) consecutively. the results indicate that the urban learners are mostly anxiety-prone to situations involving evaluations. the presence of fear of negative evaluation contributing to emergence of language anxiety is confirmed by horwitz et al. (1986) that it deals with the feeling of apprehension about others’ evaluation occurring in situations such as group works, interview tasks, and other activities which have to do with evaluation among peers, groups or even individuals. table 2 language anxiety based on the flcas in the urban secondary school (n=34) areas and sub-areas of foreign language anxiety mean level communication apprehension 3.385 n communication with others 3.235 n speaking in front of others 3.382 n receiver anxiety 3.539 a test anxiety 3.258 n fear of failure 3.461 a self-preoccupation 3.441 a self-preparation 3.015 n fear of negative evaluation 3.419 a avoidance of evaluative situations 2.853 n teaching styles and activities 3.596 a peer pressure 3.949 a overall 3.364 n hr (highly relaxed): 1.000-1.800; r (relaxed): 1.801-2.600; n (normal): 2.601-3.400 a (anxious): 3.401-4.200; ha (highly anxious): 4.201-5.000 agung ginanjar anjaniputra | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 257 as shown in the table above, the highest average score among all the sub-areas of language anxiety is peer pressure (3.949). this sub-area is a part of the ‘fear of negative evaluation component’ that deals with items accounting for other learners’ superiority in english and speaking of english, worry about getting left behind, and fear of being laughed at by other learners. the most significant anxiety-provoking situations based upon the items in this sub-area are those concerning “i keep thinking that the other students are better at languages than i am” and “i always feel that the other students speak the foreign language better than i do”. the two items generate remarkable scores, more than four points to include these in the anxious level. it appears that learners are extremely prone to language anxiety as a result of threats from their classmates. regarding this, horwitz et al. (1986) posit that severe proneness to peer evaluations causing language anxiety may be undergone by learners. the results imply that there are still many learners anxious about learning or speaking english in urban school. it will be worsened if english teachers keep providing them with the learning activities provoking their anxiety without being aware of the affective factors, one of which is anxiety, in learning and acquiring the foreign language. regarding this, the significance of anxiety is said to be influential in learning and acquiring languages (horwitz, horwitz, & cope, 1986; ellis, 1987; aida, 1994; onwuegbuzie, bailey, & daley, 1999; gass & selinker, 2008). it is further supported that the presence of language anxiety can trigger negative behavior of learners and inhibiting achievement (suherdi, 2012; gass & selinker, 2012). nevertheless, it does not necessarily mean that they are anxious in any situation they are exposed to when learning the language as explained above through comprehensive insight into the questionnaire items. language anxiety levels of learners at the rural secondary school the extent to which rural school learners experience anxiety is portrayed in table 3. the average of learners’ anxiety level is 110.1. dispersal of their language anxiety levels is limited to three levels, similar to that of the urban learners. this denotes language anxiety experienced by the learners that is relatively equal regardless of the school origins. in detail, the dispersion of learners’ language anxiety level in three distinct levels is noticeable that 15 learners are in the normal level of language anxiety, followed by eight learners in the anxious level, and only one in the relaxed level. this dispersion of the learners occupying each language anxiety level is different from that of the urban learners that the number of the rural learners in the anxious level results in a smaller number of learners with only 33.33% of them. the smaller number of anxious learners can be an indication of a lack of competitiveness among the learners so that they may not feel pressure. this is consistent with the theoretical position of bailey (1983, as cited in tóth, 2007) and may (1950), according to whom anxiety can be caused by competitiveness. this implies that the less competitive the class is, the less anxious the learners are. the lack of competitiveness can be caused by the community-held value that english may give no significance to themselves. furthermore, rural areas can constitute convenience for the people. the convenience is related to the availability of green space in rural areas is predominant (leeuwen, 2010; mckenzie, 2013). besides, it is affirmed that there is less noise in rural society (stanley, 2010). this circumstance, as further argued by mckenzie (2013), can be beneficial as a means for reducing stress. therefore, to some extent language anxiety could be suppressed. table 3. overall language anxiety levels of the rural learners levels range no. of learners percentage total score highly relaxed 33-59 relaxed 60-86 1 4.17% 76 normal 87-113 15 62.5% 1579 anxious 114-140 8 33.33% 987 highly anxious 141-165 sum 24 100% 2642 average 110.1 in terms of its sub-areas, of 24 rural learners the overall average score for each item is 3.336 (see table 4), slightly lower than the urban learners. in addition, all the scores denote a range of data dispersion from the lowest 2.650 up to the highest one 4.011. besides, the inclusion of the scores in language anxiety levels shows uniformity with the urban learners that these scores among others are agung ginanjar anjaniputra | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 258 in the normal level (2.601-3.400) and in the anxious level (3.401-4.200). a difference lies on the lowend point lower than and the high-end point higher than those points of urban learners. moreover, in contrast to the result in the urban school, in the rural school the result yields a distinction in a way that the communication apprehension component generates the highest average score, before fear of negative evaluation and test anxiety component. it suggests that situations included in the ‘communication apprehension’ component will induce a higher sense of anxiety instead of ‘fear of negative evaluation’ and ‘test anxiety’ whose average scores are below it. the score of communication apprehension (3.602) is nearly 0.3 higher than the score of the urban school learners. the sub-areas, ‘communication with others’ and ‘receiver anxiety’, are presumably related since their two scores are all categorized into the anxious level. in other words, the rural learners are anxious not only about producing utterances, but also about receiving them. it is in line with horwitz et al. (1986) that ‘communication apprehension’ is manifested in speaking and listening. hence, language anxiety is not only experienced in language output when producing utterances, but also in language input when trying to understand the language. table 4 language anxiety based on the flcas in the rural secondary school (n=24) areas and sub-areas of foreign language anxiety mean level communication apprehension 3.602 a communication with others 3.931 a speaking in front of others 3.442 a receiver anxiety 3.542 a test anxiety 2.986 n fear of failure 3.319 n self-preoccupation 2.813 n self preparation 2.823 n fear of negative evaluation 3.353 n avoidance of evaluative situations 2.650 n teaching styles and activities 3.573 a peer pressure 4.011 a overall 3.336 n hr (highly relaxed): 1.000-1.800; r (relaxed): 1.801-2.600; n (normal): 2.601-3.400 a (anxious): 3.401-4.200; ha (highly anxious): 4.201-5.000 the result of communication apprehension as the highest score of the components has to be noted. it may be due to the lack of access to public services in rural areas (kilkkinen et al., 2007). this can restrict the chance of the rural learners in developing their communication skills. furthermore, it can be associated with the socioeconomic status of rural people that they generally receive a lower income than those in urban areas (stanley 2010) where socioeconomic status can be crucial in order to provide learners with the best facilities for optimum learning development (memon, joubish, & khurram, 2010). based upon table 4, the highest score among all the sub-areas is of fear of negative evaluation component, namely peer pressure (4.011). the anxiety level of this sub-area among the rural learners is somewhat higher than the urban learners’. this indicates severe anxiety proneness to getting left behind among the rural learners. it denotes a difference from the urban learners who are extremely anxious when preoccupying their classmates’ performance. this phenomenon shows that pressure from their peer has a considerable trigger for language anxiety. the reason for this can be their worry about looking awful in front of their friends. with regard to this, brown (2001) states that selfimage is highly crucial for teenagers since they are vulnerable to others’ perceptions on themselves. the second highest sub-area average score comes from the component of communication apprehension. the sub-area is ‘communication with others’ that is categorized into the anxious level with an average of 3.931. the item with the highest score concerns a situation where anxiety causes forgetting things, which is deemed highly anxious (4.25) for rural learners. this result confirms what is argued by puškar (2010) that the impact of language anxiety on learners comprises the limitation of memory, being lost in concentration and creativity. this is also what is supported by eysenck et al. (2007, p.337) that concurrent task processing is gradually obstructed by the worrisome thoughts triggering a deficit in the attentional quality of working memory. the findings suggest that the rural learners might be convenient in the english class, but not in participating in the class. they are solely anxious about a certain situation in the class, which is agung ginanjar anjaniputra | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 259 known as state anxiety (pappamihiel, 2002; pawlak, 2012; suherdi, 2012). since the learners are not hindered by anxiety in any situations in class, it shows a chance for the learners to foster their english ability, particularly when exposed to non-anxiety-provoking situations. according to gregersen & horwitz (2002) to avoid evaluative situations that cause anxiety, learners hardly speak voluntarily to initiate conversation and interaction, and in the worst case, they skip class. however, the rural learners seem to barely avoid the evaluative situations in the class. the reason for this may be caused by their willingness to be relieved to pass such a situation at once so that they can focus on other subjects and to be eventually adaptive to the threatening situation, alongside for the sake of getting marks. this shows that anxiety does not have to be avoided since it can encourage people to take precisely appropriate actions (ewen, 2010; corey, 2012). from the findings, it is found that the urban and rural learners have the average individual scores of anxiety which are relatively the same, 110.1 among the rural learners and 111 among the urban learners. moreover, seen from language anxiety constructs and their sub-areas, both the learner groups merely lie in two anxiety level categories comprising the normal, and the anxious levels, despite the emergence of some items included in the relaxed and highly anxious level. however, it merely covers an interpretation of the scores based upon descriptive data. notwithstanding this similarity, the differences are discernible in and dependent upon the situations they are exposed to. for instance, the urban learners are mostly anxious about the teacher’s correction, meanwhile, the rural learners are anxious about getting left behind in the class. these differences account for anxiety sensitivity (as) denoting individual differences in the anxiety (taylor, 1999). therefore, inferential statistical calculation is operated in this study to provide a holistically illuminating discussion of the phenomenon and its relation to speaking performance and school regions. the causes of language anxiety about speaking performance experienced by learners from urban and rural secondary schools this section concerns the second research question on why the urban and rural learners undergo language anxiety in speaking performance. the reasons for their language anxiety are reported to result from several factors associated with lack of preparation (see woodrow, 2006; liu, 2007), teaching activities (see marwan, 2007; tanveer, 2007), memory disassociation (see liu, 2007; nuranifar, 2014), shyness (see liu, 2007; indrianty, 2012), lack of confidence (see marwan, 2007; 2008;), fear of making mistakes (see jackson, 2002; guanyu and wei, 2006; liu, 2007; indrianty, 2012), and lack of vocabulary (see pappamihiel, 2002; liu, 2007). through analysis of interview to the learners in both the urban and rural secondary schools, this study slightly modifies the categorization of these causes of language anxiety which entails teaching activities that are found to relate to memory disassociation, learner personality that includes shyness and lack of confidence, and fear of making mistakes that is associated with the lack of vocabulary. lack of preparation the prominence of lack of preparation as one of the factors causing language anxiety among learners is in accordance with what is found by woodrow (2006) and liu (2007). it triggers language anxiety, as expressed by the urban learners, if there is an unexpected speaking test (see extract 1). in other words, being informed of what will be done in the class in advance can allow the learners to have time for preparation. this finding confirms the previous research that lack of preparation has been mentioned to result in test anxiety among learners (birjandi & alemi, 2010). finally, to ascertain that she feels anxious because of lacking preparation, a confirmation question was delivered and once again this emerges as one of the factor affecting language anxiety. in relation to this finding, the significance of preparation is prevailing since it was found in previous research that some learners experienced a less anxious state of affairs and an enhanced selfconfidence for preparation, and avoided speaking performance without preparation beforehand (liu, 2007). it is further asserted that learners’ confidence in speaking english could be enhanced through preparation (ibid.). the enhancement of self-confidence through preparation denotes the merits of preparation for learners experiencing language anxiety. this is in line with the notion that sufficient preparation is likely to lower language anxiety undergone by learners (chan & wu, 2004). hence, having prepared materials before coming to class or performing oral skills, learners are expected to have a sense of readiness which ensures their ability. agung ginanjar anjaniputra | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 260 i: in your opinion what makes you anxious when speaking english or in english class? us13: if for example there is an unexpected speaking test, that makes me anxious, yes today i lacked preparation in my home. … i: just then what else? that makes you anxious, what else? us13: if, yes, lacking preparation. (extract 1, lp#1) concerning lack of preparation, the rural learner expresses his laziness in preparing the materials before the class. his laziness is known to result from language learning experience when he was in junior high school, “if i don’t like the teacher, i must be slothful … but when i was in smp there was a teacher i didn’t like”. in this regard, it is affirmed that building rapport with learners is of importance in learning languages (worde, 1998, as cited in marwan, 2007). if not, it can cause a negative attitude detrimental to language learning since according to ellis (1997), it can affect the degree of learners’ struggle to learn a language. besides, the attitude towards a language has a significantly negative correlation with the level of foreign language anxiety (dewaele, 2005). teaching activities the identification of this factor is in line with what is found in the previous research (see marwan, 2007; tanveer, 2007). teaching activities triggering language anxiety comprise speaking before others, direct oral questions from the teacher, and fear of their teachers’ anger. this shows that anxiety is probably experienced when living as an autonomous individual, leaving immediate positions of security or breaking the habits (may, 1950). the situation may be conceived as a threat by the learner because anxiety itself is “a response to a situation or stimulus perceived to be threatening or dangerous” (spielberger, 2004, p.139). hence, inviting learners to perform before others in the class, regardless of urban or rural learners, needs to be undertaken very carefully so that it is not deemed stimulus threatening to their state of safety. i: how often do you experience anxiety? rs25: often when going to follow a test, before the class as well as when asked to perform in front of the class. … i: if only learning as usual, do you feel anxious? rs25: when being asked indeed if i do not pay attention, then being asked, i usually experience it. (extract 2, ta#9) as depicted in the extract above, the rural learner also feels anxious especially when being pointed out to answer unexpected questions. this finding confirms the previous result in china conducted by liu (2007), affirming that being singled out by the teacher brings about a situation that is deemed the most anxious by the learners. in addition, based upon a study by guanyu & wei (2006), pointing out learners randomly is caused by teachers’ intolerance of silence in classroom so that teaching activities can run smoothly regardless of learners’ emotion. the finding denotes the activities provoking language anxiety including being called on to utter personal responses and giving a whole-class presentation, a performance of speaking and a large group discussion (tanveer, 2007, p.18). such anxiety has to do with communication apprehension, defined as “an individual’s level of fear or anxiety associated with either real or anticipated communication with another person or persons” (mccroskey, 1977, p.78). concerning this, the teachers’ roles suggested is to provide learners with a truly communicative approach to allow them to practice their speaking skills, and to encourage learners’ feeling of success and satisfaction when speaking english by means of scaffolding appropriate lessons (hashemi & abbasi, 2013). in addition, one of the urban learners feels anxious about speaking performance due to the provision of activities by the teacher. as further stated by the learner, the teacher looks angry when having the learner participate in the lesson. furthermore, it is revealed that such pressure and anxiety are to some extent discouraging so that the learner becomes reluctant to learn; “yes, it does if the teacher mmmh seems to be mmmh angry so it leads to unwillingness to learn”. this rare occurrence, specifically prevalent in the urban school, may denote that the teacher’s high expectation of the agung ginanjar anjaniputra | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 261 learners in the urban area because of the school status as the most favorite school in town so that the learners are supposed to attain remarkable targets. the situation underwent by the learner can be categorized as debilitating anxiety because of the learner’s unwillingness to learn. it is stated that debilitating anxiety constitutes anxiety resulting in negative trigger in learning and inhibiting achievement (humphries, 2011; gass & selinker, 2012; suherdi, 2012). this is supported by gregersen (2009) that foreign-language anxiety is deemed a debilitating emotion particularly related to the language-learning environment. according to worde (1998, as cited in marwan, 2007) this can be caused by inappropriate teaching procedures by teachers and their limitation to build rapport with learners. it can be seen in the finding that the teacher seems to be unsupportive by showing her anger to force the learner to participate in class activities. hence, it is important to provide learners with sincere supports and interests to reduce language anxiety as suggested by horwitz (2001). unanticipated teaching activities demanding learners’ participation tend to cause language anxiety since these bring about bewilderment among them. it is as supported by corey (2012) that anxiety is triggered by dealing with options with no clear guidelines and no knowledge of what the consequences are. in addition, these can cause learners to become perplexed as stated “if suddenly singled out, i got blank”. this occurs to the learner even if she knows the answer. according to liu (2007), this condition refers to memory disassociation that deals with the situation where learners are nervous or anxious because of forgetting what they have to say. forgetting occurs due to reparations of a close association between anxiety and memory which is blacked out of consciousness (nuranifar, 2014). in addition, according to liu (ibid.), learners’ language anxiety could cause inability to remember what they have learned, bringing about a greater anxious state of affairs. moreover, some experts posit a number of manifestations of language anxiety in relation to memory disassociation such as going blank prior to tests (horwitz et al., 1986), reduced word production (de bot et al., 2005), and the limitation of memory (puškar, 2010). furthermore, the occurrence of memory disassociation affects mental processing in all three stages of input, processing, and output (macintyre & gardner, 1994). therefore, it implies that the difficulties of anxious learners digesting language input lead to the problem of processing the input which in turn distracts language output or production. learner personality this factor stems from two specific themes that encompass shyness and lack of confidence. the prevalence of shyness is in accordance with a finding that, according to liu (2007) and indrianty (2012), shyness is one of the factors causing foreign language anxiety. in addition, the association of confidence and language anxiety is reported that lack of confidence induces language anxiety about speaking performance among learners (marwan, 2007; 2008). among the urban learners, the learner personality that is associated with the emergence of language anxiety is solely about lack of confidence, as shown in extract 3. according to arnold (2000) and ewald (2007), anxiety in speaking emerges as a result of a lack of confidence in linguistic knowledge. moreover, it is worthy of note that the learner does not express shyness in performing her speaking skills. this may be because of the characteristic of people in urban areas that, as stated by jayapalan (2013), are diverse in terms of cultural, ethnic, and social backgrounds of its people. therefore, the learners are accustomed to encountering people with distinct backgrounds so that they are not shy of others in the class. i: what do you feel when speaking english in the class? us1: i’m not confident (extract 3, lc#1) meanwhile, data from the rural learners show that lack of confidence and shyness are likely to be interrelated as depicted in extract 4. this is further argued by nickdaw (2014) that shyness of people to some extent is initiated by lack of trust in them. shyness is closely associated with communication apprehension which means “a type of shyness characterized by fear or anxiety about communicating with people” (horwitz et al., 1986, p.127). shyness can be detrimental for learners because shyness leading to anxiety regularly prevents learners from participation and engagement in the classroom. according to gregerson & horwitz (2002), not only do anxious learners commit themselves to avoidance and procrastination in their language learning, but they agung ginanjar anjaniputra | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 262 become reluctant to comment on their performance, fear to be evaluated by their peers, and concern over their errors. as the learner further mentions, this situation is influential to her confidence. i: you were anxious just now, why does it, speaking in front of the class, make you feel anxious? rs21: mmhh i lack confident i: what causes you to feel lack of confidence? rs21: mmhh the cause is, perhaps confronting many people. i: confronting other learners? rs21:yes, mmh i have mousy personality. (extract 4, sh#3) the interrelation between shyness and lack of confidence is also confirmed by another rural student, “perhaps lack of confidence. the main reason is lack of confidence and i am mousy, shy of being the center of attention”. regarding this, the emerging sense of anxiety among language learners has been argued to depend upon their self-confidence (park & lee, 2005). this is in contrast to puškar (2010) affirming that it is language anxiety that affects learners negatively including lowered self-esteem and self-confidence. lacking confidence when speaking in front of others conforms to the inconsistency of selfconfidence (see osboe, fujimura, & hirschel, 2007). this inconsistency refers to confidence enhanced when working in pairs and small groups, yet diminished when performing in whole-class situations (ibid.). therefore, the presence of confidence in language learning is essential. brown (2001, p.62) contends that belief possessed by learners in accomplishing an activity partially facilitates their eventual success to complete the task. in the same vein, huang (2014) states that selfconfidence is important in alleviating language anxiety by means of affecting learners’ attitudes and motivations towards the language being learnt. nevertheless, the shortcoming of self-confidence is still prevalent among learners especially those with lower intermediate achievement due to their inadequacy of mastering the foreign language (marwan, 2008). fear of making mistakes the emergence of this factor is in line with what is found by jackson (2002), guanyu & wei, (2006), liu (2007) and indrianty (2012). it is found that fear of making mistakes also leads to low voice production, presumably intended to avoid laughter from others (see extracts 5 & 6). this is in line that learners with anxiety frequently associate their mistakes to the possibility of negative evaluations by others (gregersen & horwitz, 2002). this finding may be associated with what may (1950) asserts that cultural standards of success and competitive ambition lead to anxiety. in relation to this finding, the learners are studying in an environment whose individuals judge mistakes by laughter. the avoidance of being laughed at, similar to previous research by jackson (2002) and liu (2007), is manifested in fear of making mistakes leading to anxiety. such anxiety deals with reality anxiety, referring to a reaction to tangible dangers in the real world (may, 1950; feist & feist, 2009; ewen, 2010; schultz & schultz, 2012). the function of reality anxiety to have a person prepared for the actual upcoming events or occurrences, namely ‘anxious readiness’ (may, 1950, p.114). besides, it is argued that prior experiences build one’s perception on surrounding subjects whether or not these are perceived as threat (ewen, 2010; schultz & schultz, 2012). therefore, fear of making mistakes can be initiated by recurring anxious experiences in speaking performance such as being laughed at or embarrassed. i: well, when you are speaking english in the class, there may be times that you may feel anxious about it, like just now, mayn’t there? us26: yes, because of fear of making mistakes so i like to lower my voice. if the voice is heard, i fear that it is wrong. (extract 5, fm#8) the fear of making mistakes is also found to have been caused by several underlying factors, one of which is lack of vocabulary in relation to pronunciation as expressed by a learner from the urban school, “fear of making mistakes in pronouncing words”. this reason is common since harmer (2007a) avows that pronunciation and its spelling makes english considered difficult by learners. this finding to some extent confirms previous research identifying that lack of vocabulary is a factor causing foreign language anxiety (pappamihiel, 2002; liu, 2007). close relation between vocabulary agung ginanjar anjaniputra | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 263 and pronunciation is argued by linse (2005) that vocabulary mastery constitutes the collection of words that an individual knows. instead, vocabulary mastery is not only about knowing words, but also most importantly using the words in accordance with grammatical structure (harmer, 2007b), which is apparent in the extract below. i: how often do you experience the language anxiety? rs7: (laughing) in each english class, because of fear, when asked, fear of mistaking the answer, fear of arranging the words incorrectly fear of being laughed at by my friends, fear of being the topic of discussion among friends afterwards. (extract 6, fm#14) the learner states that he has fear of making mistakes in arranging the words into correct grammatical structures, which is according to harmer (ibid.) a part of vocabulary mastery. therefore, from the two extracts, fear of making mistakes results from lack of vocabulary not only in terms of pronunciation but also in relation to grammar. this finding highlights the importance of grammar which is why it should be taught in english classrooms (richards & renandya, 2002). in addition, thornbury (2005) also posits that it is crucial to have an access to the sources of the language’s grammar in order to be able to produce a much more sophisticated range of meanings. as the findings suggest, this situation may jeopardize the learners’ learning development since, to follow tanveer (2007), lacking vocabulary in speaking foreign languages creates a hindrance for learners. moreover, vocabulary is one of the aspects which initiates lack of confidence and a sense of anxiety (thornbury, 2005; tanveer, 2007; liu, 2007; indrianty, 2012). the presence of fear of making mistakes indicates learners who are not accustomed to being exposed to using english (marwan, 2007). it can also be due to fear of losing face in front of other learners since learners have a fear of losing one’s positive self-image or self-identity when speaking in a foreign language (hashemi, 2011). for facilitating learners to be used to english, classroom environment which is less-burdening, non-threatening, and supportive as well as friendly can be provided (liu, 2007; hashemi & abbasi, 2013). nonetheless, it does not mean to let mistakes as they are without being corrected. feedbacks and correction should be delivered properly to ascertain that learners are not demotivated (brown, 2001; thornbury, 2005; harmer, 2007b). appropriate feedbacks delivered to learners will be beneficial and helpful for them if they are provided after learners’ performance and without revealing individual errors (brown, 2001; harmer, 2007b; bailey, 2005; linse, 2005; thornbury, 2005; nation and newton, 2009). if not, the learners who are fearful of making mistakes will be overwhelmed by their fear, presumably leading to motivation degradation in learning english. without motivation, their chance to successfully learn and acquire english is at stake as motivation constitutes the crucial aspect in the process of foreign language learning (harmer, 2007a, 2007b; johnson, 2008; murray, gao & lamb, 2011; pawlak, 2012). the relationship between school origins and learners’ language anxiety to their speaking performance hypothesizing that there is no correlation between school origins, language anxiety and speaking performance, this section presents the data in descriptive and inferential statistics. descriptively, as shown in table 5, the average scores of language anxiety among the urban and rural learners seem to indicate similarity that the scores have only a slight difference, 111 for 34 urban learners and 110.1 for 24 rural learners. meanwhile, speaking scores among the learners show that the average of the urban learners (64.1) is higher than that of the rural learners (59.8). the urban learners having the higher average of language anxiety score higher in the average of speaking test, while the rural learners having the lower average of language anxiety results in lower average of speaking performance. in addition to the means, standard deviation (sd) for each score both anxiety and speaking of the urban and rural learners denotes different data dispersal. firstly, the standard deviation of the urban learners’ anxiety score is 14.056, which is higher than that of the rural learners’ resulting in 12.991 standard deviation. this suggests that the urban learners’ anxiety is highly varied when compared to the rural learners’, having a long range of anxiety. secondly, while the anxiety scores result in dispersed distribution of the urban learners, the speaking scores generate distinguished result where high dispersal of data is possessed by the rural learners. it can be seen in the standard agung ginanjar anjaniputra | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 264 deviation among them that is 14.565, almost six points higher than that among the urban learners (9.105). table 5. descriptive statistical data learners’ anxiety learners’ speaking scores urban rural urban rural means 111 110.083 64.118 59.833 standard deviation 14.056 9.105 12.991 14.565 partial correlation is required prior to the mrc analysis. since there are two independent variables, school origins and language anxiety, and one dependent variable of speaking, the correlation will be emphasized first on the relationship between school origins and speaking, language anxiety and speaking, as well as school origins and language anxiety. the relationships among the variables are shown in the table below. table 6. correlations among the variables speaking school origins language anxiety pearson correlation speaking 1.000 .243 -.491 school origins .243 1.000 .034 language anxiety -.491 -.034 1.000 sig. (1-tailed) speaking . .033 .000 school origins .033 . .401 language anxiety .000 .401 . n speaking 58 58 58 school origins 58 58 58 language anxiety 58 58 58 the correlation between school origins and speaking results in r =.243 and in the significance of p-value =.033 <.05, meaning that there is a significantly low positive correlation between school origins and speaking performance. it can also imply that perhaps urban school learners achieve higher speaking scores. in addition, the relationship between language anxiety and speaking results in r =-.491 and the significance of p-value =.000 <.05. this denotes a significantly moderate negative correlation that the higher the anxiety is, the lower the speaking performance can be. meanwhile, no significant correlation is found between school origins and language anxiety (r =.034) with the p-value =.401 higher than .05. in addition, the correlation between the origin of the school and language anxiety, and speaking is shown in table 7. the data result in r=.556 and r2=.309. r signifies the coefficient of multiple regression of the independent variables: school origins and language anxiety, and the dependent variable: speaking performance, and r2 indicates the magnitude of the effect of the independent variables simultaneously on the dependent variable, namely coefficient of determination. the result denotes the medium correlation between the independent variables (school origins and language anxiety) and the dependent variable (speaking performance). there is also .309 coefficient of determination meaning that only 30.9% can account for this relationship. in this regard, the rest, 69.1% of information concerning speaking performance, cannot be explained or predicted by the independent variables, likely to be influenced by other variables not included in this study. table 7. model summary model r r square adjusted r square std. error of the estimate 1 .556a .309 .284 .01045409 a. predictors: (constant), language anxiety, school origins b. dependent variable: speaking the coefficient correlation gets bigger as school origins is involved (.556), previously only .491. it implies that the presence of school origins of the learners, whether it is urban or rural school, to some extent generates the difference on speaking performance alongside the presence of language anxiety among learners. the result (.556) signifies that the urban learners coded by the higher agung ginanjar anjaniputra | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 265 number of “1” have a tendency to score higher in language anxiety and higher as well in speaking performance. in addition, table 8 is used to see whether or not the independent variables simultaneously are influential to the dependent variable. the presence of f obtained and its significance can be an indicator of the regression model which is used to predict the dependent variable. as shown in the table below, the result denotes f which is 12.310, and the significance of .000. it is found that f-table for df=1 and df2=55 at α =.05 is 2.773 which is lower than the obtained f. besides, the significance in the table also tends to be significant since .000 is lower than .05. from this finding, it suggests that school origins of the learners and their language anxiety simultaneously have a significant effect on speaking performance. table 8. anova model sum of squares df mean square f sig. 1 regression .003 2 .001 12.310 .000a residual .006 55 .000 total .009 57 a. predictors: (constant), language anxiety, school origins b. dependent variable: speaking in general, there is a significantly moderate correlation (r=.556) between the independent variables: school origins and language anxiety, and the dependent variable: speaking performance. regardless of learners’ school origins, language anxiety itself has a negative correlation to speaking performance, which is further determined that the effect of this independent variable is significant. this is in line with what is reported that language anxiety affects speaking performance (horwitz, et al., 1986; macintyre & gardner, 1991a; woodrow, 2006; puškar, 2010). the significance is also apparent in another independent variable accounting for urban and rural school where this has a significant effect on speaking performance, t obtained =2.321 > 2.004, and causes a higher correlation coefficient compared to the coefficient of language anxiety variable alone. despite its significance on speaking performance, school origins of the learners seem not to account for the difference in language anxiety as the partial correlation between school origins and language anxiety indicates no significance. this is in contrast to previous studies yielding the significant difference of language anxiety among learners from different areas which is higher among rural learners (puškar, 2010; piechurska-kuciel, 2012, as cited in pawlak, 2012, pp.169-184) and higher among urban learners (ezzi, 2012). moreover, although all the learners involved in this study are adolescents, this study results in a distinctively novel output from other studies concerning the prevalence of anxiety among rural communities where those denote higher anxiety among the rural youngsters in rural north-eastern uganda (abbo et al., 2013) and in a rural community in kenya (abbot & klein, 1979, p.177). the result of this study that school origins and language anxiety have a significantly moderate correlation with speaking performance can be accounted for by three reasons. the first one is related to the notion that language anxiety causes poor speaking performance (horwitz et al., 1986; macintyre & gardner, 1991a; woodrow, 2006; puškar, 2010). this implies that the higher the anxiety is, the lower the speaking performance becomes. the second reason deals with three main components of the questionnaire to measure language anxiety, including communication apprehension, test anxiety, and fear of negative evaluation. according to puškar (2010), the components have to do with strong speaking anxiety, which is why they are correlated. the last logic behind the result has to do with the disparity of urban and rural areas. it is stated that urban populations are more educated than rural populations (hraba et al, 1999). given being more educated, urban populations presumably plan the best for their children in order to compete in and contribute to the society by, for instance, enrolling their children in language courses. this in turn can be fairly instrumental to the urban learners’ speaking skills. conclusion the average scores of the learners in urban and rural high schools were in the normal level of anxiety, except some of the components and its sub-areas which were in the considerable levels of anxiety. while the urban learners mostly concern the fear of negative evaluation, the rural learners have high communication apprehension. in regard to the reasons for their language anxiety, four factors triggering language anxiety in speaking performance among the learners were lack of agung ginanjar anjaniputra | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 266 preparation (lp), teaching styles and activities (ta), learner personality (ly), and fear of making mistakes (fm). lp happened to be a result of inappropriate teaching and learning instructions. ta is concerned with speaking before the class and being singled out directly by the teacher. moreover, ly was caused by shyness and low confidence, whereas fm has to do with a lack of vocabulary and grammar. these findings denote language anxiety leading to both facilitating and debilitating anxiety. thus, preserving the anxiety among the learners should be seriously considered in order to suppress debilitating anxiety, in turn facilitating learners’ language learning and acquisition. it is also worthy of note that the relationship between school origins, language anxiety, and speaking performance shows a significantly medium correlation where school origins and language anxiety simultaneously are related to speaking performance (r=.556). however, school origins of the learners seem not to account for the difference in language anxiety, suggesting they are equal and of the same potential. notwithstanding the fact, the school origin variable happened to generate a higher correlation coefficient to predict speaking performance as merged with the language anxiety variable. furthermore, significant effects of these two independent variables both simultaneously or partially on learners’ speaking performance were noticeable. in other words, the variables, school origins and language anxiety, can predict speaking performance. references abbo, c., kinyanda, e., kizza, r. b., levin, j., ndyanabangi, s., & stein, d. j. 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(2013). left-behind children in rural china experience higher levels of anxiety and poorer living conditions. acta paediatrica, 103, pp.665–670. doi:10.1111/apa.12602 http://asian-efl-journal.com/thesis_m_tanveer.pdf microsoft word 7. 166 the analysis of teacher talk and the characteristic of classroom interaction in english for young learner nurul khusnaini  english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 13 august 2019 approved in 29 november 2019 published in 30 november 2019 ________________ keywords: teacher talk; classroom interaction; flanders interaction analysis categories ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this study was aimed to find out the type of teacher talk and the characteristic of classroom interaction take place in the english language classroom of semarang multinational school.this study applied descriptive qualitative research. there were two activities in gathering the data of this study: observation and audio recording. in analyzing this study, the researcher used interactive theory proposed by flander (1989). the findings showed that based on flanders interaction analisys categories (fiav), the teacher indirectly influenced the students in teaching and learning process by relying hard on asking questions. besides asking questions to students, teacher also used (1) accepting students’ feeling, (2) praising or encouraging students, and (3) accepting or even using students’ ideas. in addition the pattern of content cross interaction tended to be more on asking questions than lecturing behavior. it indicated that teacher often relied on asking questions to students in the teaching and learning process rather than to introduce new learning material and help conveying information to students. in conclusion, the teacher indirectly influenced the students in the teaching and learning process. this kind of interaction indicated that teacher often relied on asking rather than lecturing the students. © 2019 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: issn 2252-6706 b8 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: e.teacher.ichsan@gmail.com elt forum 8 (2) (2019) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt nurul khusnaini / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 167 introduction there is no learning without teaching. so as a tool of implementing teaching plans and achieving teaching goals, teacher talk plays an important role in classroom activities. some researchers have discussed the relationship between teacher talk and language learning. nunan (1991) stated: "teacher talk is one of important aspect not only for the organization of the classroom but also for the processes of the acquisition." teacher talk is undeniably essential feature in relation to classroom interaction. gebhard (2006, p.81) stated that in english as a foreign language classroom, teacher talk is an important input for the students there has been a growing number of attention in regards to classroom interaction which involve teacher and students. brown (2006) notes that, “interaction is the collaborative exchange of thoughts, feelings, or ideas between two or more people, resulting in reciprocal effect on each other” (p.165). rivers (brown, 2000, p.65) previously states that through classroom interaction, students could enhance their language ability since they are exposed to teacher’s explanation or authentic materials teacher provides, group discussion, etc and students also has chances to practice the language that they possess. some studies about teacher talk and classroom interaction have conducted to overcome the problem. yanfen and yuqin (2010, p.77) denotes that appropriate teacher talk could create positive atmosphere in the classroom and make friendly relationship between teacher and student. many interactive strategies also appear in teacher talk to make more interaction with the students. they include repetition, prompting, prodding, and expansions, according to yanfen and yuqin (2010). inamullah (2005) wanted to explore patterns of classroom interaction at secondary and tertiary levels in the northwest frontier province of pakistan using flanders interaction analysis system. she found that it would be better to stimulate teachers to improve their teaching behavior to maximize students learning. in addition, by using flanders interaction analysis categories, li, shouhui, & xinyin (2011) found that the management of the english classroom and atmosphere during the teaching-learning process depended on the activities which are done by the teachers so that the students who were getting bored would become interested in participating in the class. dagarin (2015) based on fiac she stated that teachers could do a lot of things to make the students more interest in classroom activities. the classroom interaction could be more effective if a variety of teacher and student talk was applied in the classroom. all of the researchers above discussed the teacher talk and classroom interaction. almost all studies conducted their research at junior high school, few of those studies conducted a study at elementary school, there is a study from li, shouhui, & xinyin (2011), however, they focused in the implementation of fiac during classroom activities. therefore, the writer will try to analyze the teacher talk type and the characteristics of classroom interaction take place during classroom activities. problems investigated in this research are (1) what type of teacher talk take place in the english language classroom? (2) what is the characteristic of classroom interaction that occurs in classroom activities? objectives of this study are (1) to find out the type of teacher talk take that goes on english language classroom of semarang multinational school, (2) to find out the characteristic of classroom interaction that occurs in classroom activities. methods this study focuses on the teacher talk and classroom interaction during teaching and learning activities in the classroom. thus, the object of this study was teacher talk and classroom interaction during teaching and learning activitiess. especially all teachers from grade 1 until grade 6 in elementary school level of semarang multinational school. this research used qualitative method with descriptive research type. the rresearcher wants to describe the phenomenon in accordance with actual circumstances, the object of this research is an object that is natural and does not change either before the researchers enter the object or when the researcher is in the object or after the researcher is out of the object. “qualitative method is a research method used to examine the condition of natural objects, where researcher as a key instrument, techniques data analysis in qualitative research conducted in triangulation (joint), inductive analysis, and qualitative research results more emphasis on the meaning of the generalization” (sugiyono, 2013, p. 1). descriptive research describes what it is which involves description, recording, analysis, and interpretation of conditions that exist. it involves some types of comparison or contrast and attempts nurul khusnaini / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 168 to discover relationships between exiting non manipulated variables (best, 1981, p. 25). the purpose of descriptive research is to describe the facts and characteristics of the object or subject studied systematically the data used in this study are qualitative data. this research requires some data to be analyzed. there are observation and audio recording. observation is a person's ability to observe using the five senses of the eye and assisted with other senses (bungin, 2011). according to nurkancana (1986), observation is a method used to do direct and systematic research in which the data obtained in the study are recorded in the observational note. recording activity is an observation activity. sanafi faisal (1990) as cited by sugiyono (2008, p. 227), classify the observations into three that are participant observation, overt or covert observation, and unstructured observation. in collected the data, the researcher used overt observation. researcher said honestly to the data source that she would conduct the research, but the researcher did not involve with the activities carried out by the data sources (only as observers). the researcher observed how the ability of teacher talk in classroom activities. before doing an observation, the researcher would use guideline which is made by the researcher based on ‘flanders' interaction analysis category'. another tool for collecting the data in this research was an audio recording. according to etsu human research protection program (2017, p. 1) audio recording, video video recording, and digital recordings (avd) of research participants are considered identifiable data as they include images and/or voices of research participants. in addition to analyze the recording for this research study, the researcher needed to ask permission to the participants whether they willing to be recorded or not. after the researcher asks their permission, the participants agreed to be recorded. this method was used to investigate the characteristic of classroom interaction which happens in class. a cell phone would place during the class. it would record how the class takes place, the teacher and students interaction, and the teacher talk itself, this audio which would be analyzed by coding, pairing and put the data code in the calculation matrix. findings and discussion this phase explains the result of the study. it consists of two sub-chapters. they are findings and discussion of the findings. findings present the result of the observation and audio coding from elementary teachers and their students at semarang multinational school in the chapter of the detail explanation regarding the types of teacher talk and the characteristic of classroom interaction take place during the class and the perception of the students about their teacher talk in teaching english for young learners. moreover, the findings will discuss in the discussion of the findings. the type of teacher talk teacher talk was considered one of the essential features in classroom interaction. in this section, the result of the observations is elaborated. indirect influence in the type of indirect influence, there were four categories of teacher talk. they were accepting the feeling, praising or encouraging students, accepting and using students ideas, and the last asking questions. table 1. accepting feeling observation result no name indirect influence yes/no yes/no 1 k accepting/deals with feeling yes yes 2 r accepting/deals with feeling yes yes 3 p accepting/deals with feeling yes yes 4 l accepting/deals with feeling yes yes 5 y accepting/deals with feeling yes yes 6 j accepting/deals with feeling yes yes table 1 presents accepting or deals with feeling result. from the observation for two meetings of teaching and learning process in every class with the same teacher, it was found that almost all of teacher use their influence in accepting the students. this behavior was reflected from the teacher's action when they trid to make sure the condition of the students and also when they helped the nurul khusnaini / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 169 students in remembering the previous material before the lesson begins. in that situation, the teacher tried to build an interaction with students first. table 2. praises and encouragement observation result no name indirect influence yes/no yes/no 1 k praises and uses ideas of students yes yes 2 r praises and uses ideas of students yes yes 3 p praises and uses ideas of students yes yes 4 l praises and uses ideas of students yes yes 5 y praises and uses ideas of students yes yes 6 j praises and uses ideas of students yes yes table 2 presents praises and encouragement result. praises and encouragement appeared almost in every activity, almost 100% all of the teacher used this influence to make the students feel happy or proud of their work. the teacher praised or encouraged students often by repeating students' answers and giving words of praises, for example, "well done", "good job", "nice", and so on. besides giving praises and encouragement, the teacher sometimes accepted students' ideas or even used their ideas or their answer. some teachers used the student's ideas to build a new material like making a new sentence, phrase, and more. this kind of behavior was reflected by the teacher's elaboration, clarification, modification, and summary of students' responses (answers or ideas) to the teacher talk. table 3. asking question observation result no name indirect influence yes/no yes/no 1 k asking question yes yes 2 r asking question yes yes 3 p asking question yes yes 4 l asking question yes yes 5 y asking question yes yes 6 j asking question yes yes table 3 presents asking question result. it showed the category of teacher's talk which dominated the indirect influence type was asking questions. the teacher often asked questions when they wanted to begin the lesson, introduced new learning material, starting a new topic, and stimulated student's knowledge about the lesson. direct influence direct influence included the behavior of lecturing or giving information, giving direction, criticizing student's behavior and also criticizing student's responses. table 4. lecturing observation result no name direct influence yes/no yes/no 1 k lecturing/gives information yes yes 2 r lecturing/gives information yes yes 3 p lecturing/gives information yes yes 4 l lecturing/gives information yes yes 5 y lecturing/gives information yes yes 6 j lecturing/gives information yes yes table 4 presents lecturing and giving information result. based on the result above from two meetings for each class, we could see that all the teacher use this point of direct influence in guiding the students during class activities. some of the teacher's lectures were follow-ups to the teacher's response to students' answers. besides, the teachers also used their explanation before they get down to the material. in other words, when students gave the right answers to the teacher's question, the nurul khusnaini / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 170 teacher often gave praises to the student's answer. after praising the students, the teacher continues to explain the material, by giving questions when explaining the material it wa expected that students would find it easier to understand the material given. table 5. giving directions observation result no name direct influence yes/no yes/no 1 k gives directions yes yes 2 r gives directions yes yes 3 p gives directions yes yes 4 l gives directions yes yes 5 y gives directions yes yes 6 j gives directions yes yes table 5 presents the result of giving direction. after the observation results were obtained, it could be seen that all of the teachers used this point in the category of teacher talk. the direction was often given if the teacher wanted students to make a project, work in a group, come to the front of the class, exercise individually, etc. table 6. criticizes student's behavior observation result no name direct influence first meeting second meeting 1 k critizes student’s behavior yes yes 2 r critizes student’s behavior yes yes 3 p critizes student’s behavior yes yes 4 l critizes student’s behavior yes yes 5 y critizes student’s behavior yes yes 6 j critizes student’s behavior yes yes table 6 presents criticizes student's behavior result. after the observation was done, the researcher finds the result above. it could be seen that all of the teachers of the elementary level of semarang multinational school use the influence in criticizes student's behavior. the teacher would like to comment on students' behavior and then acknowledge them what was right to be done so that students did not make any more mistakes. this was done to control the behavior of students in the class and also to maintain the classroom condition so that it stayed quiet during the learning process. table 7. critizes student's responses observation result table 7 presents the result of criticizes student's behavior. after the observation result was obtained, based on the table above, it can be seen that there is some teacher criticizes their student's responses, but some of them did not do that. some of the teacher criticized their student's responses like reminding the students if their responses were not appropriate, and also when the student wanted to interrupt his or her teacher in the middle of the teacher's explanation. however, some teachers just gave a sign to the students for silent than gave an unnecessary response. the teachers have done all of the indirect influence to gain student's attention and also to make the students more active during the class activities. in addition, the category of teacher's talk, which dominated the indirect influence was asking questions. the teacher often asked questions when they wanted to began the lesson, introduced new learning material, starting a new topic, and stimulated student's knowledge about the teaching. in line with research by li, shouhui, and xinyin no name direct influence first meeting second meeting 1 k critizes student’s responses yes yes 2 r critizes student’s responses no yes 3 p critizes student’s responses yes no 4 l critizes student’s responses yes yes 5 y critizes student’s responses yes yes 6 j critizes student’s responses no no nurul khusnaini / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 171 (2011), the teachers of english could determine how english is to be taught to young learners– learning english through activities in social contexts. meanwhile, the management and the atmosphere of the english classroom depend on the activities done by the teachers, so that the students who were especially getting bored, will become interested and pay attention to the learning activities. asking questions seemed to be the essential features in the teaching and learning process. by asking questions, teachers were considered successful in getting students' attention, involved students' interaction, conveyed the learning material, and introduced new content without direct explanation. this finding was consistent with the results of yanfen and yuqin (2010). yanfen and yuqin (2010) found that asking questions was the most common way used by the teacher to invite pupils to talk and it found a valid invitation. by giving questions, it is hoped that it would encourage students to participate more in class, expressing their ideas or opinions on the material, rather than just listening to the teacher explanation. besides, the implementation of direct influence, including the behavior of lecturing, giving direction, and criticizing and justifying authorities, most of the lecturing process were follow-ups the teacher's response to students' answers. in other words, when students give answers to the teacher's questions, the teacher tended to give praises to the right answers. after praising students, the teacher managed to start giving some explanations to students, so students can more easily understand the material provided. this finding is in line with jones (2000), he found that increasing student participation with teacher support made teaching activities more effective. by giving questions, the teacher can trigger students to speak and simultaneously reduce the delivery of material directly. another teacher's talk category is giving direction or instruction. the direction often given when the teacher wanted students to work in a group, come to the front of the class, exercise individually, etc. the teacher was also likely to criticize her students when students answered her question incorrectly. they also criticized students' unacceptable behavior, and also acknowledged them what was right, so that students did not make any more mistakes. this finding is in line with amatari (2015, p.47) he stated that teacher needs to experiment with one's behavior, obtaining objective information about one's behavior, evaluating the data in terms of the teacher's role, in other words, attaining self-insight while acting as a teacher. the characteristics of classroom interaction classroom interaction characteristic was defined by making use of the audio recording. the audio recording that had been transcribed was then coded based on the coding procedure of fiac. the coding procedure was followed by pairing the code and then put into the interaction matrix. from the interaction matrix, the researcher was able to define the character of the interaction in the classroom. from all two meetings, it was discovered that the interaction pattern was content cross according to flanders’ interaction analysis categories.the content cross pattern marked by many appearances in the columns 4-5 and rows 4-5. code four represents asking questions categories, while code 5 shows the lecturing behavior of the teacher. table 8. audio coding result 1st meeting grade categories teacher talk pupils talk 1 42,1% 21,05% 2 36,8% 31,6% 3 31,6% 21,05% 4 31,6% 26,3% 5 36,8% 26,3% 6 36,8% 26,3% table 8 shows the result of audio recording from meeting one including the audio recording result from grade one until grade six. the audio recording was coded based on flanders interaction analysis categories (fiac). it showed the result between the content cross and the students' participation percentage. it could be seen that the teacher talk was more dominant than the student's participation in the action of the teacher often asked questions before they explained or introduced the material to the student. nurul khusnaini / elt forum 8 (2) (2019) 172 table 9. the result of audio coding 2nd meeting grade categories teacher talk pupils talk 1 47,3% 26,3% 2 36,8% 26,3% 3 42,1% 36,8% 4 42,1% 26,3% 5 36,8% 31,6% 6 36,8% 26,3% as shown in table 9, after the audio recording result of the second meeting was obtained, it shows some differences with the previous meeting result. it culd be seen that both teachers talk either student's participation increased during the second meeting, it had occurred when the teacher introduced new material, the teacher often gave questions and explanations which triggered students to respond to questions and explanations given. based on the result above, in the first meeting, the percentage of content cross reached the total number of 35,9% while it turned to be 40,31% in the second meeting for the hole class. this characteristic of interaction was affected by the context of language teacher use in the teaching and learning process. here there is an increase in the second meeting since the teachers tried to introduce new learning material to students. the second pattern that dominated the classroom interaction was students' participation, which was in the number of 25,4%. in the second meeting, the students' involvement in the classroom was increased by 28,9%. students' participation characteristic identified since students were encouraged by the teacher to participate in the class by answering the teacher's questions, presenting the material, and giving their ideas to the class. the finding of classroom interaction pattern was consistent with the previous studies conducted by dagarin (2015) and sharma (2016). dagarin (2015) and sharma (2016) uncovered that the content cross pattern in their research tended to be more on asking questions rather than lecturing. in this research, the researcher also found that the discovered of the content cross pattern fell more on asking questions rather than teaching. it showed that teacher often relied on asking questions to students in the teaching and learning process either to introduce new learning material and help convey information to students. yanfen and yuqin (2010) support that most teachers make more use of asking questions to student to attract students' attention and make students talk. conclusion based on the data analysis in the previous chapter, the researcher found out that the result of the research denotes that teacher talk type in the classroom interaction is indirect influence based on flanders' interaction analysis categories (fiac). data from observation result highly show that the teacher indirectly influences the students in teaching and learning process by relying hard on asking questions. besides asking questions to students, the teacher also made use of accepting students' feeling, praising or encouraging students, and accepting or even using students' ideas based on the observation done by the researcher. the type of teacher talk also leads to classroom interaction pattern. by making use both of the audio recordings either the interaction matrix, the researcher can identify the interaction pattern in the classroom. it found that the interaction pattern that occurred in the classroom was content cross, which was marked by the emergence of code 4 (asking question) and code 5 (lecturing). however, the content cross characteristic could be more on to one of the categories. in this research, it discovered that the pattern of content cross tended to be more on asking questions than lecturing behavior. it indicates that teacher exceptionally depends on asking questions. this result is consistent with the observation result that the teacher often asking questions either to familiarize the students with a new chapter of the lesson and also attract students' attention either make 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(2007). case study as research method. jurnal kemanusiaan, 9, 16. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 193 elt forum 9 (2) (2019) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt interpersonal meaning negotiated teacher-students classroom interaction in vocational high school ghita aning tyas1, widhiyanto2 english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 5 may 2020 approved in 29 november 2020 published in 30 november 2020 ________________ keywords: interpersonal meaning; classroom interaction; teacher’s role; student’s roles; vocational high school ________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ interaction and teaching learning process are two things that cannot be separated. interaction is a main point or component in communication. a communication skill must be mastered by students, including vocational students because they need this skill as preparation for their professional work in the future. good communication is when it has meaning in interaction. halliday & matthiessen, (2014) stated that there are three potential meanings, one of them is interpersonal meaning. the purpose of this study was to analyze interpersonal meaning between the teacher and students in the eleventh grades of vocational high school and how it constructs their role in the class through various kinds of interaction. there were two activities in gathering the data of this study: observation and interview. in analyzing the data, the researcher used mood system proposed by halliday & matthiessen (2004). theory from harmer (2001) and johnson and paulston (1976, cited in richard and rogers 1986) also used to analyze the role relationship between teacher and students. the findings showed that teacher and students produced three types of speech functions (mood clause) besides non-typical mood clause and minor clause. in the class, both teacher and students applied different types of classroom interaction in which they took many roles. it can be concluded that teacher and students delivered various types of clauses, classroom interaction, and roles during the teaching learning process. © 2020 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: aningtyasghita@gmail.com ghita aning tyas, widhiyanto/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 194 introduction in the era of communicative language teaching, interaction is the heart of communication (brown, 2001). interaction is the process of conveying and receiving authentic message that contain information of interest to speaker and listener in important situation (rivers, 1987). brown (2001) opines that interaction is a collaboration process between two or more people in exchanging of thoughts, feelings, or ideas. walsh (2006) stated that interaction is a central of teaching learning process. classroom interaction is an important tool to provide comprehensible input for the students (lynch, cited in cehan 2002). classroom interaction becomes more important, because through interaction the material can be delivered well by the teacher so that students can understand the material and improve their ability to master it. in class-based l2 learning is often enhanced when teachers have a detailed understanding of the relationship between teacher talk, interaction, and learning opportunity (walsh, 2002). in learning english, interaction is important because it needs time to learn new language. however, sometimes teachers are really dominating in the class and can hamper students’ ability in communicating english. as a teacher, she/he must listen her/his students when they are speaking and give chance for students to develop their communication skill by letting students be active in class. sometimes teachers place themselves as the center of teaching learning process. they speak all the time during the lesson. they only now that the essence good communication is just explain all the material without asking/responding/understanding what their students’ intent. teachers consider that the success of teaching learning process is only by finishing all the material. even when teachers have conversation with their students, students tend to play limited role in interaction because teachers start to choose the topics and control the conversation’s direction. thus, there is no negotiation process between teacher and students. to avoid this case, interpersonal meaning negotiation is the best way to understand what their intent such as the intent of teachers and students in responding each other’s utterance’s, responding their feeling/message, arguing about something, and many more through the interaction in the class. so, the researcher conducts this study to analyze interpersonal meaning negotiation, kind of interaction, and role relationship between teacher and students in eleventh grade of vocational high school through interaction in english class. in the classroom, communicative process happens when there is an interaction between teacher and students, teacher-and each student, or student-student. they interact with others by asking question, responding, sharing the information, and giving opinion. these processes will form a text. when people do negotiation in communication process, they produce a text in it. halliday & matthiessen (2004) state that when people speak or write, they produce text and text is what listeners and readers interpret. according to halliday and hasan, (1976, cited in halliday & matthiessen 2004), text is a linguistic form of social interaction and a continuous progress of meanings, which are selected by from the options that can underlie the potential of meanings. in semantic, there are three potential meanings based on halliday & matthiessen, (2014): ideational meanings, interpersonal meanings, and textual meanings. in this research, researcher focuses on analyses of interpersonal meaning between teacher and students in english class. interpersonal meaning negotiation is the ability that teachers must have to manage the classroom and understand their students who come from different background, feeling, habit, and so on. it is really challenging for teachers to solve conflict in the teaching-learning process with different students’ problem almost every day. that is why negotiation should be an ongoing process. qingwen (available at www.celea.org.cn) argues that classroom interaction should not be only an approach or method, but it is a way to make decision about content & learning. not only teachers, students also must have interpersonal negotiation ability. they must know that good listeners are good responders, so that they have to be encouraged in constructing meaning through genuine linguistic interaction (brown, 2001). there have been studies analyzing interpersonal meaning negotiation which focused on classrooom discourse. yuliati (2013) and setialis & lukmana (2018) held a study about the role relationship between teacher and students through the use of clause. those studies revealed that teacher has domination in the class, it is proved by the use of speech function which most produced by teacher. thus, in both studies has differentiation in the teacher’s role. by using type of interaction in the classroom, negotiation process seems hasn’t been running properly because some factors besides teacher’s authority, such as classroom condition, time management, and material. (astuti, 2011., nurmasitah, 2010). two studies held by lin (2008) and walker (2010) found that in the university teacher’s control still happened. it realized through the use of speech function from the teacher. in the case of young learners, studies conducted by keiko (2011) and sutopo (2014) revealed the same ghita aning tyas, widhiyanto/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 195 finding that is child can produce most of speech function when doing the conversation. most of participant in those research are young learner, secondary school and senior high school. in this research, researcher tries to analyse interpersonal meaning between teacher and students in vocational high school during english lesson and how it constructs their role in the class. english is one of subjects which taught in school from kindergarten, elementary school, junior high school, senior high school, and vocational high school. the purpose of english lesson is to give students a skill in communication in both written and orally. other case, the researcher has seen several teachers, especially teachers in vocational high scholl. they think that english material is too easy for their students, so the teacher tends to teach casually and doesn’t want to give more material to their students because of the curriculum. the teacher considers that english is not too important for vocational high school students because most of them choose to work rather than continue their studies after graduating from school. whereas, if the teacher gives more material it will give benefit for students in understanding and communicating in english. communication is an important skill for students to be mastered especially for vocational students because they need this skill as preparation for their professional work in the future. they are challenged to have more capable abilities in the professional work, one of those abilities is communication skill itself. in the era of globalization, the skill to communicate in english is a very important asset (khurniawan, lee, & wahidiat, 2017). in the professional work, there are many cases which people failed because of the weakness of their english skill. many smart people cannot deliver their great ideas because of their weakness in english, so that they cannot develop even compete with those who have communication skill in english. to avoid that, it is very important to provide english language learning. mastering english can open the way for students and graduates to have opportunities to develop in the professional work or further education, both in indonesia and abroad (khurniawan, lee, & wahidiat, 2017). to master english well, it can be started from learning process at school. practice interacting in english is one method to improve students’ english skills. students can practice to interact not only with their friends, but also with their teachers. there were many types of interaction that happened in the class such as interaction between teacher-students, teacherstudent, student-student, -teacher-group of students, student-group of students, and studentmaterial (wibowo, 2017). in this research, the researcher wants to analyze the kind of classroom interaction in vocational high school. methods this study focuses on interpersonal meaning, kind of interaction, and role relationship between teacher and students. the object of this study was the transcription of interaction between teacher and students, especially from eleventh grade of vocational high school. the researcher selected this school with some considerations, such as one of the favourite vocational high schools in purwokerto which has good achievement input from students, have very complete learning support facilities, and the distance which not too far from the researcher’s house. this research used qualitative method with descriptive research type. qualitative research is a social action form which focused on how people interpret and understand the social reality of individuals through their experiences (mohajan, 2018). although this research belongs to qualitative research, it used the simple calculation which it is the characteristic of quantitative research. however, this research still can be called as qualitative research because the data of this study are represented by the explanation, not the numbers. this research requires some data to be analyzed. there are two processes in obtaining the data: observation and interview. before that, contacting the teacher’s coordinator from the school was chosen to get research permissions. after finishing the permissions problem, the researcher got the recommendation about the teacher who teach english in eleventh grade started to contact her. the researcher and the teacher discussed about the class and the schedule to get the research data. in collecting the data, the researcher used observation. by recording activities and the interaction between the teacher & students during the lesson, the data were got. the researcher also took notes about the condition in the class to complete the data. there were two classes that recommended by the teacher based on their english ability, tp class (teknik pemesinan) and mm class (multimedia). both classes had different schedule in observation. actually, after finished record the first class, the researcher should observe tav class (teknik audio video) but the problem happened so the teacher recommends the other class (tp class) with the same consideration. another tool for ghita aning tyas, widhiyanto/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 196 collecting the data in this research was an interview. after recording all the classes, the researcher asked some questions to the teacher related to her teaching. after the data was enough and complete, the researcher thanked to the teacher and started to analyze the data. by using the theory from halliday & matthiessen (2004), harmer (2001) and johnson and paulston (1976 cited in richard and rogers 1986), the data was analyzed step by step. it began with listening to the audio-video recorded, transcribing into the written form, breaking the sentence up into clause, classifying each word in the clause, categorizing, calculating, interpreting, and ended with drawing conclusion. in the step of categorizing clause, the researcher already made code to classify the clause. there were declarative (d), interrogative (in), imperative (im), nontypical clause mood (nn), and minor clause (m). the researcher only analyzed clause which in the english form. the researcher used theory from halliday & matthiessen (2004) to interpret the data related to interpersonal meaning, harmer (2001) to draw conclusion about the classroom interaction types, and johnson and paulston (1976 cited in richard and rogers 1986) as the basic to analyze the role realationship between the teacher and students. findings and discussion this phase explains the result of the study. it consists of two sub sections. they are findings and discussion . findings present the result of the analysis from the interaction’s transcription between the teacher and students eleventh grade of vocational high school during english class. moreover, the findings will discuss further in the discussion section. the realization of interpersonal meaning based on classroom observation, the teacher and students applied the interpersonal meaning through interaction in the class. the researcher divided the explanation into two based on the class. in this section, the result of the analysis is elaborated. the realization of interpersonal meaning in tp class the first observation conducted on friday, august 9th, 2019. the participant was an english teacher and students from tp class. in this class, students were taught the material about telephone handling. this material emphasized more on students' speaking abilities. in this class, the teacher produced three types of clause, there were mood clause (declarative, interrogative, imperative), non-typical mood clause and minor clause. students only produced minor clause during the lesson. table 1. teacher’s clause in tp class subject clause typical clause mood non typical clause mood minor clause teacher declarative= 34 4 100 interrogative= 39 imperative= 49 total 122 4 100 table 2. summary of teacher and students’ clause in tp class subject clause total (∑) mood clause (∑(%)) non-typical mood clause (∑(%)) minor clause (∑(%)) teacher 122 (54%) 4 (2%) 100 (44%) 226 students 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 75 (100%) 75 table 1 presents number of teacher’s clause produced in this class and table. 2 show summary of teacher and students’ clause in the tp class. with the total number of clauses above, it indicated that the result of speech functions made by teacher and students seem to be varied. from the table above, it showed that mood clause was the highest clause which produced by the teacher with 122 clauses. mood clause was the clause which has mood structure based on mood system. there were three types; declarative, interrogative, and imperative clause and the teacher produced all of them. mood analysis of clauses can indicate that the clause grammatically belongs to mood clause because ghita aning tyas, widhiyanto/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 197 there were elements of mood system that proposed by halliday. those elements were subject and finite. the second clause was minor clause with 100 clauses, and the lowest number of clause delivered by the teacher was non typical clause mood with the total number only 4 clauses. in this class, students only produced minor clause. the total number of this clause was 75 clauses. students delivered this clause type in responding the teacher’s question and mostly were in the form of yes/no responds. the realization of interpersonal meaning in mm class the second class that observed by the researcher was mm class. with same teacher, the researcher also observed students in this class. students learned about formal invitation letter. table 3. teacher’s clause in mm class subject clause mood clause non-typical mood clause minor clause teacher declarative= 86 14 169 interrogative= 45 imperative= 31 total 162 14 169 table 4. mm students’ clause subject clause mood clause non-typical mood clause minor clause students declarative= 1 1 89 interrogative= 2 imperative= 0 total 3 1 89 table 5. summary of the teacher and students’ clause in mm class subject clause total (∑) mood clause (∑(%)) non-typical clause mood (∑(%)) minor clause (∑(%)) teacher 162 (47%) 14 (4%) 169 (49%) 226 students 3 (3%) 1 (1%) 89 (96%) 93 table 3 presents number of clause delivered by teachers. from the three type of clause, minor clause was the highest clause type which produced by the teacher with 169 clauses and followed by mood clause which the total number of clause was 162 clauses. then non-typical mood clause was the lowest number of clause that produced by the teacher with 14 clauses.table. 4 shows students’ clause when joining the english class. students in this class produced various types of clause. it proved by the clause that they made. the result showed that students produced 3 clauses which belong to the mood type clause and 91 clauses were not included as mood type clause. the researcher also gives the summary of teacher and students’ clause represent in table 5. type of classroom interaction type of classroom interaction in tp class this study aimed to analyze the type of interaction in the class. based on the observation, there were 4 types of classroom interaction that happened in this class. the first type of classroom interaction was interaction between teacher and students. this type was commonly happen in the classroom, so do this class. the frequency of asking question and lecturing by the teacher were often happened in this class. question and answer routine by the teacher and students are the classroom behavior and that’s how classroom interaction is characterized (walsh, 2006). the students didn’t active enough in this class. they only participated by responding the teacher’s question. they didn’t practice english by asking question or giving opinion, but they actually know what the teacher said. when reviewing ghita aning tyas, widhiyanto/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 198 the previous lesson, the students could mention some expressions easily from the teacher’s question. it indicated that students still remember about the previous material. in learning the new material, students also could answer the question from the teacher even though mostly in the form of yes/no response. actually students understood the lesson. it could be seen when they were asked to do the class activity. they did all the activities well such as write the material on their book, answer the teacher’s question orally and written, they practice the dialogue. but students kept silent when they interact with the teacher. they had more willingness to speak when they were in discussion. students seemed to have confidence to talk with their friend rather than asking or giving opinion from the teacher’s question. the second type of interaction was teacher and student interaction. it realized when the teacher asked a student volunteer to practice the dialogue. even the teacher spent more time in asking and lecturing, it was not mean that the teacher did not give students time to practice in the class. in making students more talk actively, the teacher employed some interactive activities. the use of interactive activities was applied by the teacher to give opportunity to her students to practice so that their english can be improved, especially in speaking skill. another example of teacher-student interaction realized when students had a group discussion. the teacher walked and observed all the groups one by one. after observing, the teacher asked to every student in the group whether he has a question about the task and maybe difficulty or not. the third type of interaction that occurred in this class was interaction between one student and the other one student. this interaction realized when two students practice the dialogue. the interaction between student and student also happened when they were in group discussion every student started to talk actively with their partner even they didn’t always discuss about the task the task. each student in every group also talked in indonesian language. the last type of classroom interaction that found by the researcher was students and student interaction. the teacher not only involved student individually in delivering the material, the teacher also gave a chance to some students to participate actively in the class. role play the dialogue was the implementation of this interaction type. role play which involved group of students had the opportunity to practice the dialogue together. by dividing students based on the row, there were 3 groups. every group has a turn to read the dialogue after pointed by teacher, role play the dialogue was the implementation of this interaction type. role play which involved group of students had the opportunity to practice the dialogue together. by dividing students into groups, every group has a turn to read the dialogue after pointed by teacher. type of classroom interaction in mm class based on the observation, the researcher found that there were 3 type of classroom interaction which happened during teaching learning process in this class. not much different with the previous class, the interaction between teacher and students still occurred in this class. asking question and lecturing were the activities that represent this type of classroom interaction. the second type of classroom interaction that observed by the researcher was the interaction between the teacher and student individually. the situation of this interaction represented when one student asked a question related to the material. the last interaction’s type was the interaction that happened among two students. it was found when the teacher asked for students to make a group consist of two members. during the group discussion, student actively interacted with his/her partner. discussion the focus of the discussion section will be on the interpersonal meaning, classroom interaction type, and role relationship between students and teacher, as stated in the research questions. halliday & matthiessen (2004) define 4 primaries of speech function: offer, command, statement and question. that theory applied in the findings of this research. based on the findings, the teacher produced 3 types of speech function that has mood elements inside. those were declarative (giving information), interrogative (questioning), and imperative clauses (offering & ordering). in mm class, declarative clause was the highest clause that delivered by the teacher among the other. from the total clauses, 53% were belonging to declarative clause. generally, the power of the teacher in this class was dominant. this finding has a similarity with araghi & sayegh (2011), which in their study declarative clause was dominant mood used by teachers and students even though they used english as second and foreign language. it different with tp class, the highest clause produced by the teacher was imperative clause in mm class. it means that the teacher’s authority was dominant and also indicated that the teacher tried to decrease their domination as the information source by giving a ghita aning tyas, widhiyanto/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 199 chance to students to learn the material with their friends or it’s called group discussion. although the teacher also applied group discussion techniques in mm class, but the frequency of the teacher in giving information was much lower than in tp class. this result was not much different with yuliati (2013). however she used the theory from eggins (2004) to analyze the mood clause, her research result showed that the dominant clause from the teacher was in command form, besides the teacher used declarative or interrogative clause to equalize with students. the different result of mood clause which delivered by the teacher might be caused by the different of learning focus in both classes. in tp class, the teacher said that the teacher wanted students to improve their speaking skill so that the teacher gave more explanation and model how to pronounce the expression well. while, in mm class the teacher tried to improve students’ writing, so the teacher often asked for students to do the task in written form. the highest frequency of giving command by the teacher in mm class indicated that the teacher want students not only understand about the theory, but also they understand how to apply it. the dominant of using command form also happened in the research from nasir, wardana, & yusuf (2019). they held a study about teachers talk in senior high school and they found that the teacher mostly controlled the students with directions, commands, or orders during the learning process. in giving command, the teacher more often to use “would like you” rather than “want you”. the modality that used by the teacher can express the expression, attitude, or the degree of politeness. the use of modals in the clause or sentence can express the degree of possibility, certainty, politeness, and also directness of the speaker (celce-murcia & larsenfreeman, 1999 cited in widyanti & yulia, 2016). the use of “would like” by the teacher showed that the teacher seemed to decrease the tendency of domination in the class by softening the force of “want” become “would like”. it means that the teacher wanted to curtail the distance between her and students. the use of “thank you” by the teacher also showed that the teacher want to build the relationship with student in both classes through showing the emotion feeling. the emotion of gratitude has a function, that is to build a high-quality relationship between a grateful person and the target of his/her gratitude (algoe et al., 2008 cited in dewi, fikri, & suarnajaya 2014). the mood clause results produced by students from the two classes were also different. students from mm class produced 1 declarative clause and 2 interrogative clauses. it was different with students in tp class who didn’t produce any mood clauses. based on that result, it indicated that students from mm class were more active in learning the material, even though the clause they produced was ungrammatical but students had courage to talk with the teacher. based on that result, it indicated that students from mm class were more active in learning the material, even though the clause they produced was ungrammatical but students had courage to talk with the teacher. the grammar was still a problem in speaking (sari, 2018). the ungrammatical sentence still became a problem not only for students, but also the teacher so they must be aware of this problem. in doing those activities, both the teacher and students had some errors. mostly, the error was on grammatical sentence that they produced. nevertheless, the teachers gave feedback related to grammatical errors in order students do not repeat the same mistake. this finding had similarity with sundari (2017) which in her study the teacher had domination in the class and sometimes both the teacher and students did error during the lesson. the error that made by students indicated that students need time produce the language without having no fear it would be wrong and corrected. error is something that commonly happened when learning new language. every language learner will do error in their learning process. in learning language, there involved error process (touchie, 1986). error is the natural process that will occur in learning something. some language learner feel fear when she/he doing error. whereas, error can be called as the development process which they must passed to reach the target language they learnt. the teacher also must pay attention about the error that she/he made. the teacher has to evaluate their teaching performance, so that some error can be prevented in the future. when students do some error, the teacher must respond it as the providing feedback and helping them as the learning process rather that telling if they wrong. the other clause that produced by the teacher in both class was non-typical mood clause. nontypical mood clause is the clause which structurally it belongs to one mood clause type and functionally it belongs to another mood clause type. the finding of non-typical mood clause also occurred in the study from dewi, fikri, & suarnajaya (2014). they analyzed mood structure of teacher’s talk and found that there were some clauses which didn’t belong to mood clause, even though those clauses has mood elements inside. ghita aning tyas, widhiyanto/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 200 the last type of clause produced by the teacher and students was minor clause. minor clause was the clause which didn’t have mood or transitivity structure (halliday & matthiessen, 2004). the use of “okay” was the minor clause that often produced by the teacher beside greeting and compliment. minor clause also produced by students in both classes when answering the teacher’s question. besides mentioned the answer, students also used yes/no response in answering the teacher’s question. the use of yes/no response indicated that students understand or agree with what the teacher said. to enhance english competence, it would be better if the teacher habituate herself and students to answer a question completely. astuti (2011) conducted a research about classroom interaction in junior high school. she found that the teacher and students could improve their english if both the teacher and students use english in a disciplined manner. interaction has a critical role in the teaching learning process. through interaction, the teacher can deliver the material to the students and students can also ask a question if they have a difficulty about the material. if the material is delivered very well, it will make students understand the material well and has a great impact on their learning progress. understanding of interaction in l2 classroom is the requirement to success learning a second language (walsh, 2006). the interaction that happened in both classes has various kinds, there were interaction between the teacher and students, the teacher and a student, a student and another student, and students with students. the use of various interaction types helped the teacher and students to understand the material which being taught and built the interpersonal relationship between them. in teaching both classes, the teacher seemed to pay attention about the time that used to explain the material. the teacher didn’t spend all the time to deliver the material from the beginning until the ending of the lesson. the teacher had good time management in teaching both classes. nurmasitah (2010) found in her research that the teacher’s domination in spending time to explain the material because the teacher didn’t have a discipline about the time and didn’t apply some interactive activities. although had the same finding about domination of teacher-students interaction, the teacher in this study had balance it by applying some interactive activities to enhance their understanding. to improve student's english skills, it can also be done by using several learning methods which communicative and easy to be understood by students. since the learners do not interact in english outside the classroom so the best way for them to practice are through the interactive activities in the class (khadidja, 2009). in teaching-learning process, the teacher applied some techniques to make students more active n the class. the first was alm audio lingual method is a method which focuses on oral skills and has a purpose to improve students’ speaking achievement (mart, 2013). there are some features of this method, such as repetition, substitution, backward build-up, transformation, chain, and question-and-answer. the second was role play methods. those methods are good to improve speaking skill. it is related with the theory from harmer (2001) that role play can be used to encourage students to improve their oral fluency. another method used by the teacher was clt (cooperative learning techniques). this method emphasizes on group discussion rather than work individually. this method requires student to do the task independently with their friend. think, pair and share is the activity that requires students to reflect on problem(s) and then share their thoughts with others (nyunt & tint, 2015). a group discussion had the advantages not only to make students more confident in conveying their opinion with their friend, but also it is a way for the teacher to get students’ understanding progress. lockhart & richard (1996) mentioned some benefits about group discussion, there are decreasing the teacher’s domination in the class, improving the students’ participation in the class, giving a chance for students to practice, promoting collaboration among students, making the teacher to have more roles in the class, and giving a more active role for students in learning. basically, in both classes the teacher and students had basic relationship, there were a person teaching and a person learning. the role relationship in the research question means the role of the teacher and students in the classroom. the first role of the teacher was controller. the teacher still has job to transmit the knowledge to students and organize activity in the classroom (harmer, 2001). it was realized when the teacher deliver the material and manage some activities in both classes. the next role of the teacher in both classes was the teacher act as an organizer when students do classroom activities. the teacher always gave the information about the way students in both classes do the activity, putting them into group discussion, and closing the activity when it is time to stop (harmer, 2001). the teacher also had a role as a prompter when teaching in both classes. the teacher tried to encourage students to give their opinion even they didn’t know to do it. in the end of the lesson, the teacher gave motivation for students to use english in their daily life. the teacher then took the role ghita aning tyas, widhiyanto/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 201 as a resource in the class. the teacher was the source of the students’ input (brown, 2001). the teacher must be helpful and available when act as this role. students from both classes already had some roles proposed by johnson and paulston (1976 cited in richard and rogers 1986). first role was members of a group and learning through interaction with others. it represented when students had some interaction types in the classroom, they were not only talking with one students but also all the students. second role was tutor for other students. they discussed the task together, shared what they understand, and corrected if their friends do mistake. and the last role was learners who learn from the teacher, other students, and other sources. students also used other source when doing the task, beside from the teacher. they used their mobile phone to search some example about the material or the task that they would do. conclusion by conducting this research, it was found that the teacher and students negotiate the interpersonal meaning through their speech function (mood clause), besides they also produced the other types of clause. based on the findings, the most dominant of speech function produced by the teacher and students were declarative clause and imperative clause. it reflected that most of the teaching-learning time was devoted to lectures and commands by the teacher. the classroom interactions occurring in the english class were interaction between the teacher and students, interaction between the teacher and a student, and interaction between a student and another student. the teacher met the requirements of teacher’s roles made by harmer (2001).the roles applied by the teacher in the class were controller, organizer, prompter, and resource when teaching english. for students, hey had some roles during the lesson as proposed by johnson and paulston (1976 cited in richard and rogers 1986): (a) members of a group and learning through interaction with others, (b) tutor for other students, (c) learn from the teacher, from other students, and from other teaching sources. after conducting the research, the researcher gives several recommendations for the english teacher to give more motivation to students to use english in their daily life and apply activities to improve students’ interaction in the classroom. in teaching, the teacher should pay attention about their talk and better to take more roles in the classroom so that the teaching learning process can run effectively. for students, they should be more active to communicate in english and must be confidence and do not feel afraid of making mistakes. it is suggested for other researchers who will conduct the similar research to make some efforts to improve or develop the classroom interaction in efl class. references araghi, s.m. & shayegh, k. 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(2013). interpersonal meaning negotiation in the teacher-student verbal interaction. the international journal of social science, 11(1), pp. 52-60. http://www.celea.org.cn/ putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 222 elt forum 10 (3) (2020) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the online global quarantine conversation club as the way to trigger students’ ability in speaking english totok indra suswanto1 1universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received on 3 july 2021 approved on 23 november 2021 published on 24 november 2021 ________________ keywords:global quarantine conversation club; efl; speaking ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ global quarantine conversation club (gqcc) is a speaking practice program that involves more than 20 countries across the world. since the english subject has not attracted students’ attention yet, this program is expected to trigger the students in learning english. the study purposed to describe the implementation of gqcc, to analyze the students’ perception toward the implementation of gqcc, and to analyze the teacher’s reflection toward the implementation of gqcc. this study belonged to qualitative research approach with case study design. one english teacher and two students of a senior high school in gresik, indonesia, were selected as the subjects of the study. the instruments used in this study were observations, interviews, and documentations. the result showed that (1) the teachers and the students’ activities were doing briefing and rehearsal in pre-program, doing presentation and group discussion during program and doing evaluation and reflection in post program, (2) the students found that the gqcc program gave positive impact on their english as well as gave them new cultural knowledge, and (3) the teacher was becoming aware about the need of improving the students’ speaking skill through some accelerated programs as well as the technology literacy. this study gave some recommendations for both school and further research. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: totokindra2010@gmail.com http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& totok indra suswanto | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 223 introduction mastering english skill is still becoming a big challenge for students, especially speaking skill. the problem is that most students fail to use english as a means of communication whereas they have been learning english since elementary school. this phenomenon mostly can be found in very school in indonesia. the failure of communication in english is caused by many factors. wahyuningsih (2020) conducted research on investigating english speaking problems involving 30 students of english language education department at state islamic institute of kudus exploring the factors of why english lesson failed to be studied by indonesian students. they stated that the problems encountered by the students in english language education department especially in speaking english cover the lack of appropriate vocabulary, the lack of grammar mastery, the lack of correct pronunciation, the lack of input of english outside the class, the lack of confidence and the lack of english-speaking curriculum development (songbatumis, 2017). another research was also conducted by (rihardini et al., 2021) involving 115 students from tenth and eleventh grade students of smk negeri 10 malang exposing that the indonesian students had low degree of willingness of communication which causes the low effort on practicing english. basically, the existence of those problems has long been identified by the school community especially the teachers. however, the teachers fail to provide the real solution. consequently, that condition brings about the negative perception of the students on learning english at school (riadil, 2020). theoretically, nanay (2013) says that perception sometimes deals with the action. wood (1996) states that teacher’s perception is linked to belief, attitude, and knowledge. knowledge refers to a subset of facts in a broad sense. belief refers to a conception (narrower than knowledge) believed by people that influences attitude (skott, 2015). attitude refers to a person’s action or behavior that reflects his/her beliefs (aw & olafson, 2014). in addition, eggen & kauchak (2001) stipulated that perception seen from its process related to the people’s effort to attach meaning to experience. it means that experiences will be very valuable if taken from meaning studies as a result of perception activity. related to efl teaching and learning program, perception is very important not only in providing estimation but also in providing the development of teaching and learning purpose (chen & hoshower, 2003). by asking perception to the students, the teacher can develop the changes in elt classroom as the way to achieve the determined goal. teaching reflection means looking at what you do in the classroom, thinking about why you do it, and thinking about if it works a process of self-observation and self-evaluation (tice, 2004). by getting the information about what is going on in our classroom from the beginning to the end, analyzing and evaluating it, the teacher can explore the effectiveness of their teaching in the classroom by solving the problems exist. tice (2004) revealed that reflective teaching therefore implies a more systematic process of collecting, recording and analyzing our thoughts and observations, as well as those of our students, and then going on to making changes. similarly, fatemi et al. (2011) using teachers’ perspective in defining reflection stated that reflection “involves thinking about and critically analyzing our experiences and actions, and those of our students, with the goal of improving our professional practice”. in another word, reflection is critical thinking on what happened in the classroom related to students-teachers’ experiences and actions. related to the factors which influence the teachers to do reflection, moradkhani & shirazizadeh (2017) revealed that there are five factors influencing teachers to do reflection, they are; knowledge of reflection, institutional demands, teachers’ attitude toward teaching, availability of resources, and collegial support. several researches had been conducted related to the importance of students’ perception and teachers’ perception on the implementation of english teaching and learning (alsanie et al., 2018; khoirunnisa et al., 2018; liansari et al., 2021; resmini, 2019; riadil, 2020; rianto, 2020; shukri, 2014). khikmiah (2011) had conducted the case study on the impact of english club towards students’ speaking skill at the eleventh grade students of state senior high school 1 of pekalongan. they stated that english club had many advantages which could improve and develop students’ speaking skill. similarly, kusriandi (2016) had carried out the study on students’ perception on english extra-program in speaking practices at madrasah aliyah pembangunan mandirancan involving 26 students who joined an english club. the findings revealed the suggestion that the students should join english club of extra-program because it can improve students’ speaking skill. related to the teachers’ perception related to the importance of reflective teaching, cholifah et al. (2020) did research on investigating teacher's perceptions of reflective peer observation to promote professional development involving the service teacher in one of senior high schools in surakarta totok indra suswanto | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 224 who teaches english with 10 years of teaching experience. they found that the teachers have positive perceptions of peer observation as a professional development tool. similarly, shukri (2014) had conducted the research on female teachers’ perception of reflective teaching as a teacher development tool in the saudi context with one hundred female teachers as the subject of the study. the finding supported the hypothesis in which the participants’ perception revealed a strong relationship between reflective teaching and professionalism in teaching (shukri, 2014). besides, there were some researches regarding with the importance of conducting reflection in teaching english (ayoobiyan & rashidi, 2021; farrell, 2021; fatemi et al., 2011; hashim & yusoff, 2021; mede, 2010; yalcin arslan, 2019). fat’hi et al. (2015) conducted research involving 648 teachers as the participants of the study. the findings showed a meaningful positive relationship between the post-method attitudes of the participating english language teachers and their reflection in teaching. in addition, kholis & madya (2021) conducted a research in jogjakarta involving 131 efl teachers of public senior high school and revealed an insightful finding that the efl teachers are mostly in the level of pedagogical reflection measured from four levels of reflective teaching stage, namely pre-reflection, surface reflection, pedagogical reflection, and critical reflection. in advanced, ayoobiyan & rashidi (2021) did the similar research using efl iranian teachers as the subject of the study to uncover the relationship teachers’ reflection and resilience. the results showed positive relation on teachers’ reflection and their resilience. as the new model to accelerate the students’ ability in speaking english, global quarantine conversation club was expected to solve the classic problem of english interaction in indonesia since they used presentation (hammad, 2020; le hoai, 2021; ng et al., 2012) and group discussion as its core of activities (al jawad & abosnan, 2020; ganji et al., 2020; safarnejad & montashery, 2020; yu & hu, 2017). global quarantine conversation club was a conversational class involving participants from around 20 countries over the world. the purpose of the class meeting was to practice english internationally by discussing the actual problems which possibly existed in every country. there were many countries involved in this program, such as indonesia, india, america, turkey, pakistan, thailand, japan, singapore, canada and so on. the program was under the coordination of kasabian armen from the usa and kohei nakashima from japan and conducted twice a week. the first was on friday evening under the coordination of kasabian armen from usa and the second was on saturday under the coordination of kohei nakashima from japan. from a preliminary study conducted at school through interview and observation, it was found that the existence of this program in that school was very unique and special because this program was successful in attracting the attention of the school community especially the students. specially, the existence of this program could wake the school community up and did some progressive actions related to the development of english at school. those are the considerations of the researcher to conduct this research. in addition, the research related to the implementation of extra program especially using global quarantine conversation club was still under-researched since the researches mostly focused on the instructional practices in the classroom-curriculum based (çelik, 2020; isti, 2018; kheryadi & hilmiyati, 2021; songbatumis, 2017). this fact, then, was used by the researcher as the gap of the study. therefore, the researcher was trying to investigate the implementation of the global quarantine conversation club program at a senior high school in gresik as well as the students’ perception and teacher’s reflection toward this program. the detail research questions were presented as below: 1. how was the implementation of the global quarantine conversation club program at a senior high school in gresik? 2. how was the students’ perception toward the implementation of the global quarantine conversation club program at a senior high school in gresik? 3. how was the teacher’s reflection toward the implementation of the global quarantine methods this research employed a qualitative approach with case study design (creswell & poth, 2016). the researcher used this design under some considerations, (1) the novelty of the program in indonesia which has just existed during the pandemic era, (2) the involvement of around 20 countries over the world, and (3) the positive impacts of the program at the school. the setting of this research was at one of senior high schools in gresik involving 1 english teacher and 2 students participating in that program. the instruments used in this study were observation, semi-structured interview and documentation. to answer the first research question about the implementation of the global totok indra suswanto | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 225 quarantine conversation club program, the researcher used observation and documentation. to answer the second research question on knowing about the students’ perception toward that program, the researcher used semi structured interview, while documentation on the form of teacher’s notes was used to get the data about the reflection of the teacher toward the gqcc program. related to the procedure on collecting the data, the researcher did a school visit to permission to be able to conduct a research in that school. after meeting the headmaster, the researcher met the teacher to socialize the way to collect data, then the researcher started to collect the data. in collecting the data, the researcher gathered the data differently from one research question to another. to gather the data for the first research question, the researcher asked the documentation related to the implementation of the gqcc program, such as teacher’s lesson plan, as well as the videos. in this case the researcher used video which was recorded by the teacher. to gather the data for the second research question, the researcher conducted a semi-structured interview. the semistructured interview was done toward two students to ask their perception about the program. the interview was conducted in indonesian language to dig the deep information of the phenomena and to avoid the misunderstanding between the interviewee and the researcher. to keep the originality of the data, the procedure of interview was done together. the researcher did it to eliminate the nervousness of the students when being interviewed by the researcher. to answer the third research question, the researcher used the teacher’s note as a part of teacher’s document. the teacher’s note was in the form of hand writing notices taken during the implementation of gqcc program and in the form of the reflective notices taken from evaluation meeting with the school curriculum team. to get the validity, acceptability and reliability of the instruments, the researcher consulted to the expert related to construction of the interview items, and did pilot testing to see the acceptability of the items. during the pilot testing, the researcher interviewed the three students respectively to see the effect of the instrument acceptability. the commonality of descriptive perception by the students was used as the consideration of the instruments’ acceptability. the last, the researcher used the triangulation of the data taken from all instruments as the criteria of the reliability of the instruments. dealing with analyzing the data, the researcher focused on analyzing the data taken from the teacher’s lesson plan to know the preparation activity before the conduction of the program and the post activity done by the teachers after the conduction of the program. to know the implementation of the activity during the program, the researcher did observation by taking a part in the video conference as the observer. creswell & poth (2016) stated that the researcher can gather the notes by spending more time to be the participant as well as the observers. also, the researcher asked the recorded video meeting from the teacher and analyzed them as documents to find the phenomena during the three program phases, that is pre activity, whilst activity and post activity. the description of the phenomena found in those three phases would be considered as the finding of the research. dealing with the data about students’ perception, the researcher used a semi-structured interview consisting of three components recommended by patton (1987) which were asking about students’ knowledge, students’ belief, and students’ attitudes of the motion. the last of all, dealing with the teacher’s reflection, the researcher used the teacher’s notes as a part of the teacher’s documents taken in both during implementation and after implementation of the program when having an evaluative meeting with the school curriculum team. both of the data were analyzed qualitatively involving three stages of organizing and familiarizing, coding and reducing, and interpreting and representing (creswell & poth, 2016). findings and discussion global quarantine conversational club was conducted involving the students of senior high school in more than 20 countries over the world. since the program was conducted internationally, indonesian students needed to make some adaptation toward the program. technically, the school needed to select the appropriate students as the participants of the program. it was a reality that not all students in indonesia could speak english well. thus, it became another challenge for the teacher to participate in the program. here, the researcher would like to present the data findings which were found for each research question. the display of the data in this chapter would be presenting the results, summarizing the results, commenting and interpreting the results as well as comparing the results with the literature. the data were collected from observation, analyzing documents, interviewing the students and analyzing the teacher’s note. totok indra suswanto | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 226 the implementation of global quarantine conversation club in this part, the researcher was trying to present the findings related to the first research question about the implementation of global quarantine conversation clubs. the data were collected from observing phenomena when participating in the zoom meeting as the participant-observer, observing the zoom meeting conference video, and analyzing other documents related to program such as the lesson plan of the teacher. as the result, the researcher found several activities appearing in pre-program, duringprogram (zoom meeting conference), and post-program done by the teacher and the students. table 1 showed the pre-program done by the teacher and the students. table 1. the teacher’s and students’ activities before the implementation of zoom meeting no activities done by teachers activities done by students 1. making a list of the students who will join as presenter in this week’s conference. preparing the materials used for conference this week 2. consulting them to the curriculum team. creating the questions related to the topics 3. preparing the materials related to the topics. consulting the materials to the teacher. 4. doing a briefing with students, mostly related to the topic mastery. joining briefing conducted by the teacher. 5. doing rehearsal with the students and teacher as facilitator/moderator. doing rehearsal with the teacher from the table 1 above we got three points related to the pre-program activity of the teacher and the students. the teacher focused on selecting the students, preparing materials, conducting the briefing and rehearsal to the students. similarly, the students consulted the materials, created the questions, and joined briefing and rehearsal with the teacher. those activities seemed normal in the senior high school where not every student was good in english. the conduction of the briefing and rehearsal became very significant since both teachers and students needed to make some preparation. the lack of speaking english curriculum development became the reason why speaking ability is difficult to be achieved by the students at school (wahyuningsih, 2020). the students were occupied with multiple choice reading based to meet the qualification of national examination (daeli et al., 2020). as a result, the students got little chance to use their english in the classroom since the teacher also still liked to use the l1 language in the classroom (riadil, 2020). as a solution, preparing the questions, doing briefing and rehearsal became unavoidable as the preparation stage before the program. related to the implementation of zoom meeting conference in during-program, the researcher found the detail of activities in the three phases; those are in the pre-whilst-post-activities. table 2 showed the detail activities acted by the teacher and the students when zoom meeting conference started. table 2. the teacher’s and students’ activities when implementing zoom meeting in the gqcc program phases moderator activity teachers/ facilitator activity students activity pre-activity • choosing the facilitators of the group • dividing the participants into group • responding and clarifying the topics • responding the moderator whilstactivity1 (in break room) no activity • guiding the presentation and the group dialog • presenting the topic one by one • responding the questions from other participants whilstactivity2 (in main room) • calling the presenters one by one • listening to the presentation • presenting the topic by delegation of group totok indra suswanto | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 227 post-activity • concluding the materials • evaluating and reflecting • giving some final comments • listening to the moderator the table 2 above presented detail activities done by moderator, teacher and students in the implementation session. the moderator did some activities, such as choosing the facilitators of the group and dividing the participants into group as pre-activity phase, calling the presenters one by one in the whilst-activity phase, and concluding, evaluating and reflecting the program in post-activity phase. differently, the teacher had series of activity, such as responding and clarifying the topics in pre-activity phase, guiding the presentation and the group dialog as well as listening to the presentation by the participants in whilst-activity phase, and giving some final comments in postactivity phase. on the other hand, the students had different activities, such as responding the moderator in pre-activity phase, presenting the topic one by one as well as responding the questions from other participants in break-room session, presenting the topic one by one in main room session in whilst-activity phase, and listening to the moderator in post-activity phase. from the description of the activity circle above, it seemed that there were no differences from the casual meeting in the classroom. the use of presentation and group discussion were dominant as the actions of the program. several teachers had used group discussion as technique to teach speaking and had proved its effectiveness (al jawad & abosnan, 2020; ganji et al., 2020; safarnejad & montashery, 2020; yu & hu, 2017). similarly, several studies had been conducted and presented the effectiveness of groups discussion as the technique of teaching speaking (argawati, 2014; bohari, 2020). in gqcc during activity, the pre-activity phase and post-activity phase seemed to be normal. it dealt with the interaction of the moderators with the participants, such as greeting, confirming the topics, concluding, evaluating as well as reflecting. however, the surprising fact appeared in whilst activity phase. there were two sessions in this phase, namely the break room session and the main room session. the activity in the break room was led by the teacher/facilitator. in this break room session, everything seemed to go normally. the students presented the topic one by one, and it was continued by group discussion. surprisingly, when the students backed to the main room, the students did not present the topic one by one but just listened to the presentation done by a delegation of every group without any further discussion. it meant that the group discussion of the topic only occured in the break room session. the rationale of this action probably was based on the fact that the meeting was limited by the time, just in an hour. as a result, the process of group discussion was only implemented in whilst activity in break room session. the use of oral presentation in break-room period is very reasonable if seeing the effectiveness of oral presentation technique. that oral presentation is a good way to foster the students’ ability in speaking english is a fact which had been studied by many researchers previously (hammad, 2020; le hoai, 2021; nguyen, 2020) related to the post-program done by the teacher and the students, table 3 gave information about the activities. as stated previously, the post program was concerning about the activities after the implementation of the zoom meeting. table 3. the teacher’s and students’ activities after the implementation of the zoom meeting in the gqcc program. no activities done by teacher activities done by students 1. doing evaluation and reflection with the students doing evaluation with the teacher 2. doing evaluation and reflection with the curriculum team doing reflection with the teacher 3. confirming the next topic for conference to the committees sharing problems with other friends based on the data above, the teacher and the students had several activities related to postprogram of gqcc. the teacher did evaluation and reflection with the students and curriculum team. also, the teacher did confirmation of the next topic for conference via whats’ up group. similarly, the students followed the evaluation and reflection from the teachers and continued by sharing with other students. the post-activity was dominated by evaluation and reflection toward the implementation of the program. the both terms were considered very important by the school community to have better participation in the next program (farrell, 2021). tice (2004) stated that totok indra suswanto | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 228 doing evaluation and reflection is very important for the sake of the changes for next stage. also, activities were purposed to provide any information about what had been done during the implementation of the program and gave the teacher sources to make changes for better quality (fatemi et al., 2011). the students’ perception toward the global quarantine conversation clubs program the second problem statement was trying to answer the students’ perception toward the implementation of gqcc program. the data were collected from the semi-structured interview toward two students participating on that program. the content of the interview utilized the theoretical framework proposed by patton (1987) related to the three components used to dig the student’s perception toward the program. those three components were knowledge, belief, and attitude. in detail, there were six questions used for digging the students’ knowledge about the program, three questions used for gathering information about the students’ belief, and four questions used for knowing the students’ attitudes. the results of the interview were presented as follow. related to the knowledge about the gqcc program, the interview using patton (1987) was carried out to know about the students’ definition about gqcc program, from whom the students knew the program first time, the frequency of the students to follow the program, the length of time when the students joining the program, what kind of topics used in the program as well as what topic the students like most. dealing with the definition of the program and the source of information of the students about the program, the s1 said that the program was conversational program participated by the students from around 10 countries or more to discuss about the specific topic, while the s2 stated that this is kind of sharing program about a specific topic involving the students from many countries. the students were coming from different levels of education such as junior high school, senior high school, university and even elementary school. on answering the second question about from where they knew about the program first time, both of the students said that they got to know the program first time from the teacher/school. it was not surprising fact since the novelty of this program was only known by specific community. dealing with the frequency and the length of time of the students to follow the program, the students had difference answers. the s1 said that she involved with the program 8 times while the s2 said that he involved with the program only 6 times. interestingly, both of them always followed the program in full time, starting from the opening of the zoom until closing zoom. the frequency of the students in participating in that program functioned as a validation of the originality of the information. the next question was about the variety of the topics used in that conference and what topic the students liked most. the s1 and the s2 students helped each other to remember the topics they had used such as influential woman, the benefit of artificial intelligence in our life, you are positive or negative thinkers, recalling our childhood moment, telling the historical places in the world, the inspiring film, and the down syndrome phenomenon of the children. specifically, the topic telling about the historical places over the world was favored by the s1student while the s2 student favored the inspiring films as the topic discussion, especially indian films. as the results of the interview related to the belief of the students toward the gqcc program, the researcher gave them three questions about whether that program was important for the development of the students’ english in general, whether the students got the benefit from that program at current time related to their english development, and whether the students believed that they would get benefit in the future time from that program (patton 1991). the first question about the importance of the program for the development of the students’ english in general was revealed by the s1 and s2 students. the s1 student said, “i think this program is very important because here we can learn to ‘speak up’. we do not only study reading or writing, but also speaking. the s2 added the proposition, “here we can learn to communicate with the native where we find the strange accents and dialects”. dealing with the second question about whether the students got the benefit from that program at current time related to their english development, the s1 student stipulated, “for me, i become more confident and more proud of speaking english since i can speak with the native and my speaking can be understood by them”. the s2 student said, “besides self-confident, i can learn the value of life from this program, such as when we discuss about the phenomena of down syndrome on the children, i finally realize that they should not be treated differently as commonly appears in society. we are actually the same, as person, but they only have different condition”. the last, related to the benefit of the program for the future time, the s1 student explained, “previously, i did not brave to speak to the native, but in the future time, i believe that i will greet them and discuss totok indra suswanto | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 229 something with them”. the s2 student added, “besides speaking english, in the future time i hope to be able to take a benefit of using artificial intelligence since most of the instructions are written in english”. the last, as the results of the interview about the students’ attitudes toward the program, the researcher gave four questions; they were about the challenges of the students when following the program, the actions to be taken by both the teacher and the students as the response of the challenges, the new experiences that the students achieved when following the program, and the ideal condition which should be fulfilled in order that the students could enjoy the activity when joining the program (patton, 1987). related to the first question about the challenges of the students when following the program, the s1 student responded, “i get problems on understanding what the native speakers mean. the foreigners speak english so fast such as the one from india and turkey that i fail to understand them”. the s2 student had the same problem with the s1 student but he added, “the problem is about the internet connection that always disappears, and i also don’t understand when we make microsoft teams and we finally back to use zoom again”. both of them added that their classmates also got the same problems especially about understanding and responding the chat from other participants. they liked to keep silent when they got the turn to speak. the next question was about the actions to be taken by both the teacher and the students as the response of the challenges. the s1 student said, “the teacher facilitates us to have an extra studying about english speaking, and the teacher does briefing and rehearsal before the zoom meeting conference”. to solve the problem of technology, the s2 gave brief explanation, “the school gives us free internet card and adds the power of the wifi internet connection so that the zoom conference will not be disturbed by the problem of technology”. the next interesting question was dealing with the new experiences that the students achieved when following the program. the s1 and s2 had the same opinion that they got some new insight about the cultural values over the world especially about the accents and dialects practiced by other participants. they felt the accents and dialects of the foreigners were very strange, especially the one from india and pakistan. the last question probably would be the most interesting one. it dealt with the ideal condition which should be fulfilled in order that the students could enjoy the activity when joining the program. the s1 student explained that the most important one was to ascertain the students’ ability in english especially in speaking and listening skill and providing stable internet connection, while the s2 student differently added that besides mastering the english ability, the students had to have the large background knowledge related to the topics, as well as the ability to operate the technology. the information above explained the students’ view on the implementation of the program. discussing about the knowledge of the students about the gqcc program, it could be concluded that the both students had enough understanding about the program. the reason of that opinion was that the involvement of the students achieved 6-8 times starting from the opening of the zoom meeting until closing time. the frequent participation of the students showed that they had understood the objectives of the program as well as its detail activities in every stage of the program. an interesting finding was that when the both students said that the program was really important for developing their english at school. they said that the students needed to learn to speak up, not only to read and to write. it meant that the students had limited practice of english in the classroom so far. this condition was in line with the research by wahyuningsih (2020) that the current curriculum has lack of speaking materials development in which the materials were dominated by reading and writing. the domination of reading was due to the fact that the content of ujian nasional (un) was only dominated by multiple choice types of questions (daeli et al., 2020). this condition led the school stakeholder to focus on preparing national examination. as a result, speaking skill was neglected by most teachers in indonesia. besides, the s1 students commented that she got more selfconfidence was another interesting finding on this study. she also felt proud to see the fact that her english could be understood by the native participants. this phenomenon was in line with the research conducted by chun (2014) stated that the native teacher's oral proficiency positively affects the learners' level in the english skills especially on listening and speaking skill. it meant that the frequency of meeting with native speakers could increase the students’ self-confidence and result to the development of speaking ability (kheryadi & hilmiyati, 2021). related to the benefit of this program to their future, the both students said that this program is very beneficial for their future. the s1 student said that this program would give positive energy when she met native speaker, while the s2 student stipulated that he hoped to get to know about some artificial intelligences in which totok indra suswanto | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 230 most of their instructions were written in english. both of them believed that the future careers and jobs would possibly be achieved if speaking skill was mastered well (suresh, 2017). there were some challenges and new experiences that the students encountered joining the program. the result of interview stated that the biggest problem was about the limited ability of speaking english. even though the students had briefing and rehearsal from the teacher before, they still spoke nothing when they got their turn. most of them got problem on understanding the foreign participants. the lack of listening ability brought about the problem for the students resulting the inability to respond the other speakers’ idea. as a result, they became silent during the meeting. basically, the listening skill of the students in indonesia was still low, particularly when speaking with native (megawati et al., 2016). the lack of opportunity to listen to the native was becoming the major reason for that. this affected on the ability of speaking english because theoretically there was positive correlation between speaking skill and listening skill (demir, 2017). moreover, the use of indonesian language by english teacher in the classroom caused the problem of listening became deeper and deeper (huriyah & agustiani, 2018). that some teachers and students still tended to use l1 language when teaching and learning english in the classroom is true (riadil, 2020). positively, the students learnt some new cultural understanding and communication since both of the terms were very important in learning english (ibrahim zakarneh et al., 2021). they learnt some different accents and dialects from the meeting conference. it gave them new insight about the different cultural value over the world. dealing with the ideal condition for the students to be able to enjoy the meeting conference, both students commented that mastering english well, having good background knowledge of the topics, and mastering technology are the key factors. background knowledge is very important in speaking (shabani, 2013). it gave the students possibility to develop the idea. most of the students failed to maintain their presentation because they had lack of background knowledge. beside background knowledge, mastering technology had an important role especially when we had online learning (ferri et al., 2020). the fact that the students still had limited knowledge about technology literacy had become one of so many challenges for the implementation of online learning at school as well as the internet connection provision. the teacher’s reflection toward the global quarantine conversation clubs program the last research question was prompting to answer about the teacher’s reflection toward the global quarantine conversation clubs program. in this step, the researcher used the teacher’s notes as one of the documents as the instruments to collect the data. the teacher wrote some notes in three phases of implementation of the program. the first was the notes before the program started (pre-program), the notes when the zoom meeting conference on action (during-program), and the notes after the program done (post-program). the teacher’s notes were in the form of handwriting using three subtopics, namely problem column, solution column, and reflection column. the following table represented the reflection of the teacher in pre, during, and post program taken from the documentation of teacher’s note. table 4. the data on teacher’s reflection toward the implementation of the program phases problems solution reflection pre-program difficult to select the student as participants doing briefing and rehearsal not many students are good in english during-program unstable internet connection upgrading the capacity of the power increasing technology understanding as well as the capacity of the power is needed not every student has laptop conducting program at school and laptop is from the teachers don’t know how to use microsoft team giving suggestion to the committee to use zoom meeting again many students keep silent and cannot speak giving briefing and rehearsal the ability of the students at the school is still low and needs improvements they don’t understand what the other participants mean giving them facilitators preparing the next students to be participants with good english is needed totok indra suswanto | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 231 post-activity difficult to find the time for evaluation and reflection meeting with curriculum, sometimes with headmaster or conducting it via what’s up application. good team, run well table 4 confirmed problem, solution and reflection taken from the teacher’s notes during the program. there were some points that the teacher reflected from the program; the ability of the students at the school was still considered as low level and needed improvements, the technology literacy and facility as well as the capacity of the connection power was needed to be upgraded ferri et al. (2020) and the lack of understanding about the importance of gqcc program by the school community so that the more socialization was needed. knowing that the students could not maximally involve in discussion when meeting conference made the teacher shocked. the students did not understand not only how to speak english but also how to use technology (ferri et al., 2020). the teacher got difficulty to choose the students to be the participants of the program. the existence of briefing and rehearsal did not help much, so the course of action should be made for better changes in the future time. this finding was in line with the data taken from the students’ perception explained in the previous section. the students seemed to have problems in speaking as well as in listening english since the lack of opportunity that the students got in the classroom and they mostly still used l1 in their language classroom (riadil, 2020). surprisingly, the school community did support on this program. the school management did some improvements to anticipate the problems, such as conducting an extracurricular program cooperating with english course and upgrading the internet power connection. the solid team, the headmaster, the head of curriculum, as well as the english teachers were expected to give big contribution on succeeding the gqcc program in the future time. conclusion global quarantine conversation club gave much contribution to the students in learning english. the limitation of its implementation was not because the program was unqualified, but it was merely the un-readiness of the school community in indonesia, especially in providing the students with good english mastery. here, the researcher would give a brief conclusion starting from the first research question to the third research question. dealing with the first research question about the implementation of the program, the researcher concluded some specific activities related to the pre-program, during program and post program. the series of activities related to the implementation of gqcc program were that the teachers and the students were doing briefing and rehearsal in pre-program, doing presentation and group discussion during program and doing evaluation and reflection in post program. dealing with the second research question about the students’ perception, the researcher concluded that the gqcc program gave positive impact on the students’ english development as well as gave them some new cultural knowledge over the world. the students became more aware with differentiation among the people from different country and learnt about life from the discussion. the last, dealing with the third research question about the teacher’s reflection, the researcher inferred that the teacher became more aware about the importance of upgrading the students’ speaking skill through some accelerated programs as well as improving the understanding of the technology literacy. to anticipate the problems of this program, the english teacher should start using english language as lingua franca when teaching in the classroom and provide more innovative and creative extra school programs for the students. the possibility of the future research can be conducted on exposing the teachers’ perception toward this program and well as the comparative study between the students who join this program and the students who do not. references al jawad, a. s. h., & abosnan, s. h. 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(2017). can higher-proficiency l2 learners benefit from working with lowerproficiency partners in peer feedback? teaching in higher education, 22(2), 178–192. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2016.1221806 putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 1 elt forum 11(1) (2022) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the impact of game-based student response system on students’ learning outcomes in narrative writing yuni dwi susanti1, sri wahyuni2 1,2english education study program, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received on 8 march 2022 approved on 25 march 2022 published on 30 march 2022 ________________ keywords: writing; narrative text; game-based student response system; learning outcomes ________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this paper is based on research aiming to explore and evaluate the effectiveness of a game-based student response system platform, kahoot, for teaching narrative writing. by using one group pre-test and post-test design, this quantitative research invited the eleventh-grade students of a senior high school in the academic year of 2021/2022, to actively participate in the project. in this case, the researchers administered a pre-test and post-test for measuring the significant difference in students’ scores, before and after the implementation of kahoot. based on the paired sample t-test result, the pvalue is 0,000. in addition to that, the t-coefficient is greater than the t-table value, which is 18,436 > 2,030. it means that the difference between students’ skills in writing a narrative text before and after the use of kahoot, is statistically significant. specifically, kahoot could enhance students’ writing in terms of organization, ideas development, grammar, mechanics, and writing style. since the p-value is less than the significant level or 0,000 < 0,05, and the t-coefficient (18,436) is greater than the t-table (2,030), it can be safely concluded that kahoot could significantly improve students’ writing skills, specifically in writing a narrative text.  correspondent address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: yunidwisusanti@students.unnes.ac.id yuni dwi susanti, sri wahyuni | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 53 introduction writing is considered a part of literacy and the consciousness language in today's society. in the context of foreign language learning, writing plays a crucial role in enhancing the other three language skills and language components, including vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. for english language learners, writing is the most important skill to master among the four basic english language skills. yet, both teachers and students still argued that writing is the most difficult skill for english language learners (kris et al., 2016; permatasari, 2013). regan et al. (2019) have discussed in their study, with regard to the perceived writing needs for students, that students found writing difficult in the context of idea generation, organization, handwriting, sentence structure, grammar, spelling, and keyboarding. they further explained that students’ writing was full of run-on sentences and lack of detail. muamaroh et al.(2020) also mentioned several factors that affect students’ writing skills, such as not being confident in their english writing, low grammar proficiency, low vocabulary mastery, and lack of writing practices. in addition, students have been finding it more difficult to improve their writing skills during distance learning. they stated that there is a lack of practical use of their writing skills during distance learning. in short, writing is recognized as the foremost problem that english language learners face. in senior high school, students are usually introduced to some english texts that could help them in mastering their writing skills. one of those texts is narrative text. the narrative text is usually taught in the eleventh grade. in this subject, the students are expected to write a good narrative story by themselves. however, based on the preliminary study in a senior high school, the students were stated that they still faced some problems in writing, especially in writing a story. the major problems they faced are fear of making grammatical mistakes, lack of vocabulary mastery, and problems in idea generation. those problems cause them to not be interested in the writing classroom. thus, the students’ writing skills still needs to be developed. in this case, teachers play a crucial role in developing students’ writing abilities. as stated by shahsavar and asil (2019) in their study, teachers have to give more assistance to enhance the students’ writing skills. teachers and students must realize that writing does not only require knowledge about grammar, ideas, and vocabulary, but writing is a process of planning, initiating, monitoring, and evaluating. the existence of intelligence and abilities of the students actually can enhance their writing skills. thus, teachers need to apply a proper teaching strategy that can support the students’ learning. for instance, teachers can integrate the use of technology in the classroom. it is proven that the use of an ict platform can be useful for teachers in improving their performance in english language teaching (haswani, 2014; lee, 2019; xu et al., 2019). in addition to that, the technology integration into classroom practices can also enhance students’ learning as it has been a part of a new teaching system for supporting 21st-century skills. furthermore, the continuation of technology use in the classroom is supported by the familiarity of technology among teachers and students (abkarin, 2021). one of the technology advancements for educational purposes is a game-based student response system platform, kahoot. holbrey (2020) has defined kahoot as a game-based student response system platform that is designed as a means to bring classroom engagement by providing some fun and enjoyable learning games design. ruiz (2021) has noted in his research that kahoot was developed in 2013 in order to help teachers in managing their teaching and learning process through any device. according to bawa (2019), there are some interesting and changing values that make kahoot closely relate to effective teaching and learning, including motivating, learning assistance, helpful, exciting, entertaining, difficult, and competitive. as a free student response system tool, there are some things that a teacher could do by using kahoot. firstly, a teacher could use kahoot for introducing new content. secondly, a teacher can use kahoot for reviewing content. next, kahoot can be used for reaching the students who aren’t at school. besides, kahoot can be used for teaching interactive lessons. additionally, a teacher can use kahoot for reinforcing knowledge. furthermore, kahoot can be used for running a formative assessment. in addition to that, kahoot can be used for collecting students’ opinions. lastly, kahoot can be used for fostering creativity and teamwork. in classroom practices, kahoot is commonly used for running a formative assessment (elkhamisy & wassef, 2021; kohnke & moorhouse, 2021; wang & tahir, 2020). they further mentioned that kahoot is valuable as an assessment tool, for increasing students’ academic performance. in line with that, goksun and gursoy (2019) also compared the use of kahoot and quizzes as an assessment tool. the result showed that kahoot has a better impact than quizzes. next, in the language classroom, kahoot has been used for increasing students’ motivation and engagement yuni dwi susanti, sri wahyuni | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 54 (baszuk & heath, 2020; piskorz, 2016; yunus et al., 2019). those previous findings indicate that not all teachers utilize kahoot for enhancing their teaching performance. based on several studies that have been reviewed, there are still several gaps that have to be filled in. firstly, most previous studies examined the use of game-based student response system platform kahoot, as an assessment tool rather than as a teaching tool. it indicates that kahoot is commonly utilized for administering formative assessment. secondly, the majority of previous studies focused on investigating the use of kahoot as a tool to improve students’ engagement and classroom dynamics, rather than as a tool to improve students’ academic performance. thirdly, in the language classroom, kahoot was commonly used as a tool to increase students’ motivation and interest rather than to increase students’ language skills. lastly, there is a lack of research that examines the use of kahoot for teaching writing. in short, there has been limited research done on using kahoot as a teaching and learning aid for increasing students’ academic performance in language learning. therefore, the present study responds to a call for investigating the role of kahoot, as a teaching and learning tool, in increasing students’ skills in writing narrative text. the present study aims to investigate the effectiveness of a game-based student response system platform, kahoot, which is used for teaching narrative writing. thus, the result of the study could hopefully be empirical evidence for teachers and students to integrate a game-based student response system platform in a more purposeful way towards english language teaching and learning, especially for writing class. methods the present study is quantitative research which applied the one-group pretest-posttest design. it was carried out in a senior high school by inviting thirty-six students of the eleventh-grade, to participate in the research. furthermore, the instrument used for gathering the research data was test, in which the students were asked to write a narrative text. this test was developed based on the basic competence 4.5, which is stated in the english syllabus for the eleventh-grade students in the academic year 2021/2022. also, the test has been validated by experts before being administered. in relation to that, kahoot was used as the treatment or intervention, for supporting students’ learning. in this case, the researchers integrated the teaching materials about narrative writing in the form of blind kahoot’ing. by using this concept, the researchers designed the teaching materials for narrative writing, which consist of tricky questions and presentation slides. the teaching materials prepared were mainly about narrative text and the steps in writing a narrative text. table 1. a visual representation of a one-group pretest-posttest research design (allen, 2017) pretest treatment posttest o1 x o2 in which: o1 : pretest on the students' writing skills before the treatment is implemented o2 : posttest on the students’ writing skills after the treatment is implemented x : treatment that will be given for the students regarding narrative writing according to allen (2017), a one-group pretest-posttest design is carried out in three phases, which are pretest, treatment, and posttest. in this study, the pretest was carried out in the first meeting. in this case, the students were distributed a paragraph constructing task, that they have to individually write a narrative text based on their personal experiences. in addition to that, the researchers provided a writing template to use and four writing topics to choose, including childhood memory, funny story, embarrassing story, and school memory. actually, the test is an online assessment that was distributed through the class team in microsoft teams, and the students compiled their works within three days by sending it via email. the next phase was the implementation of a game-based student response system platform, kahoot. in this study, the use of kahoot was implemented in the second to the fifth meeting. also, it was implemented through discovery learning model, specifically in the problem statement stage, data collection stage, data process stage, and verification stage. in this implementation phase, the researchers hosted the kahoot, and the students took a role as the kahoot players. following the treatment, the posttest was administered in the sixth meeting. for the posttest, the students were asked to write a personal narrative text based on one of the four writing topics yuni dwi susanti, sri wahyuni | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 55 provided, including place they traveled, surprising story, betrayal, and great accomplishment. basically, the post-test is still the same as the pre-test, which was administered online, and the students compiled their work within three days by sending it via email. moreover, the pre-test and post-test scores were needed for testing the research hypotheses, which are the null hypothesis and the alternative hypothesis. in this case, the null hypothesis states that there is no significant impact of a game-based student response system platform, kahoot, on students’ writing skills. whereas, the alternative hypothesis states that there is a significant impact of a game-based student response system platform, kahoot, on students’ writing skills. there were three phases of data analysis, namely assessing students’ writing, testing the normality of the research data, testing the homogeneity of variances, and conducting a paired t-test. firstly, the researchers used a scoring rubric adopted from brown and bailey (1984, as cited in brown & abeywickrama, 2018), that has been validated by experts, for assessing students’ writing. this scoring rubric highlights some elements of writing, including organization, writing ideas, grammar, mechanics, and style of writing. secondly, the normality test was conducted in order to know whether or not the research data is normally distributed, before administering the paired t-test. this test was done using spss, specifically used kolmogorov-smirnov test. the result showed that the research data was normally distributed, that then can be analysed using parametric test. lastly, the paired ttest was administered for measuring the pretest and posttest scores of students’ writing so that it could be known if there is a significant change. the paired t-test was also done using spss. findings and discussion findings the research question that has been investigated by the researchers is how effective a game-based student response system platform is in enhancing students’ skills in writing narrative text. in order to explore and answer this question, the researchers administered two tests, namely pre-test and posttest. the student’s individual scores in pre-test and post-test are attached in the appendix b. next, the test results were analyzed in three phases, namely normality test, homogeneity of variance test, and paired samples t-test. for analyzing the normality distribution of the pre-test and the post-test scores, the researchers used the kolmogorov-smirnov test. the result of the normality test is shown in table 2. table 2. the normality test result one-sample kolmogorov-smirnov test pretest posttest n 36 36 normal parameters a,b mean 53.1944 76.8056 std. deviation 9.41373 5.18690 most extreme differences absolute .105 .092 positive .105 .089 negative -.081 -.092 test statistic .105 .092 asymp. sig. (2-tailed) .200c,d .200c,d a. test distribution is normal. b. calculated from data. c. lilliefors significance correction. d. this is a lower bound of the true significance. generally speaking, a normality test is required to determine whether the research data will be analyzed using a parametric test or a non-parametric test. the rule of this test states that the data will be analyzed using a parametric test only if the research data is normally distributed. whereas, the data will be analyzed using a non-parametric test if the data is not distributed normally. in line with that, the kolmogorov-smirnov test’ rule mentions that a research data is considered normally distributed if the p-value is more than 0,05. on the other hand, the test is considered not distributed normally if the p-value is less than 0,05. as shown in table 2, the test distribution result is normal as the significance value or the p-value is 0,200. thus, the research data in the present study could be analyzed using a parametric test. in addition to the normality test, the researchers also tested the homogeneity of variance of the research data. the result shows in table 3. yuni dwi susanti, sri wahyuni | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 56 table 3. the homogeneity of variances test result test of homogeneity of variances levene statistic df1 df2 sig. pretest based on mean 3.909 9 16 .009 based on median 2.525 9 16 .051 based on median and with adjusted df 2.525 9 8.717 .095 based on trimmed mean 3.834 9 16 .009 posttest based on mean 3.909 9 16 .009 based on median 2.525 9 16 .051 based on median and with adjusted df 2.525 9 8.717 .095 based on trimmed mean 3.834 9 16 .009 based on table 3, it can be seen that the p-value is 0,009. it means that we have violated the assumption of homogeneity of variance since the p-value is less than 0,05. in other words, the data from the pre-test and post-test results are unequal. since the research data is normally distributed, the parametric test used by the researchers to analyze the pre-test and post-test was paired-sample t-test. the purpose of using this parametric test is to compare students’ pre-test and post-test scores so that it could be seen whether there is a significant difference in students’ scores, before and after the treatment was implemented. the paired-sample ttest rules state that the difference score is considered significantly improved if the significant value of paired samples test result is less than 0,05. whereas, there is no significant difference if the significant value is more than 0,05. the result of the paired-sample t-test in the present study is shown in table 4. table 4. the t-test result of pre-test and post-test scores paired samples test paired differences t df sig. (2tailed) mean std. deviation std. error mean 95% confidence interval of the difference lower upper pair 1 pretest posttest -23.61111 7.68404 1.28067 -26.21102 -21.01121 -18.436 35 .000 as shown in table 4, the p-value or the sig. (2-tailed) is 0,000. it means that there is a significant difference between the students’ pre-test and post-test scores as the p-value is less than the significant level, which is 0,05. in addition to that, the result also shows that the t-test coefficient is 18,436, and the t-table is 2,030. since the t-coefficient is greater than the t-table, it indicates that there is a significant improvement on students’ writing, before and after the use of kahoot. based on those two results of analysis, it can be safely said that a game-based student response system platform, kahoot, is effective to enhance the students’ skills in writing a narrative text. more specifically, each writing criteria was also analyzed statistically. it includes the pre-test and post-test scores of the organization, ideas development, grammar, punctuation, spelling & mechanics, and style of writing. this analysis is required to know the improvement of students’ writing in each aspect of writing. organization in writing narrative text, the organization deals with the students’ ability in organizing their writing based on the basic structure of the narrative text. there are three major structures of writing, including an introduction paragraph, a body paragraph, and a conclusion paragraph. in line with that, the basic structures of narrative writing are orientation, complication, resolution, and re-orientation. in this area, the students are expected to write a narrative story based on those basic structures. the result of the paired-sample statistics test of students’ writing scores in the area of organization is presented in table 5. yuni dwi susanti, sri wahyuni | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 57 table 5. the paired-sample statistics result for organization of writing paired samples statistics mean n std. deviation std. error mean pair 1 organizationpre 11.8611 36 2.35618 .39270 organizationpost 16.6944 36 1.60035 .26672 table 5 shows that students’ writing in the aspect of the organization is improved. it is stated that the mean score in the pre-test is 11,9, whereas, the mean score in the post-test is 16,7. it means that the post-test score is 4,8 points higher than the pre-test score. in conclusion, students could organize their writing well after the use of kahoot. logical development of ideas the second aspect of writing is the logical development of ideas. ideas refer to students’ ability in developing the content of writing based on the writing topic. with regards to narrative text, ideas deal with the way students choose the writing topic and develop the topic into a story based on the gathered shreds of evidence, which is from their personal experiences. in addition to that, ideas refer to the 5w + 1h questions: 1) what the story happened; 2) when the story happened; 3) where it took place; 4) who were involved; 5) why it could happen; 6) and how it could happen. the result of the pairedsample statistics test of students’ writing scores in the area of ideas development is presented in table 6. table 6. the paired-sample statistics result for ideas development of writing paired samples statistics mean n std. deviation std. error mean pair 1 ideaspre 10.4444 36 2.84298 .47383 ideaspost 14.3611 36 1.88457 .31409 based on table 6, the students’ ability in developing their writing ideas was improved significantly after the use of kahoot as a teaching and learning tool. before the use of kahoot, the mean score of the ideas development in the students’ writing is only 10,4. however, the mean score is improved to 14,4 after the implementation of kahoot. it shows that the logical development of ideas is improved 3,9 points. therefore, it can be concluded that the use of kahoot positively fosters students’ ability in developing their writing ideas. grammar grammar is the most important aspect of writing. generally, grammar is recognized as the rule of the english language when it comes to a writing activity. it refers to the use of tenses sequencing, relative clauses, prepositions, modals, articles, and also verb forms. in narrative writing, there are also some language features that the students should pay attention to it. it includes the use of past tense, action verbs, and reported speech. the result of the paired-sample statistics test of students’ writing scores in the area of grammar is presented in table 7. table 7. the paired-sample statistics result for grammar paired samples statistics mean n std. deviation std. error mean pair 1 grammarpre 10.6389 36 2.86010 .47668 grammarpost 16.6389 36 1.33423 .22237 from table 7, it can be safely said that students’ grammar proficiency in writing narrative text is improved. it is improved from 10,6 points to 16,6 points. it means that the differences scores reach 6 points of improvement. thus, the use of kahoot has significantly enhanced students’ grammar proficiency. mechanics in writing, mechanics refer to the rules of written language, such as capitalization, spelling, and punctuation. more specifically, the mechanics of writing are the established rules that should be followed in sentence writing, paragraph writing, and even essay writing. it is well known that spelling, yuni dwi susanti, sri wahyuni | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 58 punctuation, and capitalization go hand in hand with the rules of grammar. thus, both of them are basically related. the result of the paired-sample statistics test of students’ writing scores in the area of writing mechanics is presented in table 8. table 8. the paired-sample statistics result for mechanics of writing paired samples statistics mean n std. deviation std. error mean pair 1 mechanicspre 11.6944 36 2.43568 .40595 mechanicspost 16.9167 36 1.15573 .19262 based on table 8, students’ ability in using correct capitalization, spelling, and punctuation was improved. the mean point is just 11,7 before the use of kahoot, however, it was improved to 16,9 points after the use of kahoot. it proves that the use of kahoot could enhance students’ mechanics of writing with 4,3 points of improvement. therefore, it can be concluded that kahoot could improve students’ writing mechanics. style and quality of expression style and quality of expression in students’ writing refer to the use of precise vocabulary, sentence variety, parallel structure. it is closely related to the use of word choice and sentence fluency. in writing a narrative text, the students should use the right word that could give clarity and evoke feelings. additionally, the students should know whether or not their writing is easy to read, use different kinds of sentences, use some short and long sentences, and even begin with different words. the result of the paired-sample statistics test of students’ writing scores in the area of writing mechanics is presented in table 9. table 9. the paired-sample statistics result for style and quality of expression paired samples statistics mean n std. deviation std. error mean pair 1 stylepre 8.6389 36 2.29475 .38246 stylepost 12.2778 36 1.68372 .28062 referring to table 9, the students’ ability in using style and quality of expression towards their writing is improved 4,3 points. the mean score of the pre-test is just 8,6 points while the mean score of the post-test shows 12,3 points. therefore, the use of kahoot has positively fostered students’ writing in the aspect of style and quality of expression used. discussion kahoot for teaching narrative writing based on the study result, it can be safely said that students’ skills in writing a narrative text is improved with the use of kahoot. it was clearly stated that their writing was improved towards the five aspects of writing, including organization, logical development of ideas, grammar, punctuation, spelling & mechanics, and style & quality of writing. firstly, the organization in narrative writing typically refers to the generic structure of a narrative text, including orientation, complication, resolution, and re-orientation. in addition to that, the organization also refers to the students’ skills to organize their paragraphs and sentences. secondly, ideas development in writing is the way a writer develops their writing topic using appropriate supporting shreds of evidence or supporting ideas. writing is considered logically developed if the writer also uses the most suitable connections between ideas, in order to make a logical sense towards the writing. thirdly, grammar refers to the rules of writing, including morphological rules, phonological rules, and syntactical rules. in writing a narrative text, students must be aware of the language features used, such as past tense, linking words, action verbs, verbal, and mental processes, even direct and indirect speech. fourthly, writing mechanics are the technical aspects of writing, including spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and abbreviations. lastly, the writing style in a narrative text refers to the way of students in using word choice and a variety of sentences in their writing. thus, in this part, the paired-samples statistics analysis result of those five writing elements is interpreted based on the writing criteria, including organization, logical development of ideas, grammar, punctuation, spelling, mechanics, style, and quality of writing. yuni dwi susanti, sri wahyuni | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 59 firstly, the paired-samples statistics analysis showed that students’ skills in organizing their writing was improved 40,8%, from 11,9 to 16,7. as stated in the scoring rubric, 11,9 is considered unacceptable while 16,7 is good. it means that before the use of kahoot, students still encountered some problems in organizing their writing. these problems include the ideas ordering problem, lack of supporting evidence, weak or illogical conclusion, and inadequate effort at the organization. whereas, students’ writing was improved after the use of kahoot. their writing is organized logically and coherently, starting from the introduction paragraph, body paragraph, and conclusion paragraph. besides, they could use an adequate title although some ideas weren’t fully developed. all in all, kahoot has improved students’ skills in organizing their writing. secondly, the points of logical ideas development were improved 37,5%, from 10,4 to 14,4. it means that students’ skills in developing their writing ideas in narrative writing was improved from unacceptable to fair. before the implementation of kahoot, students experienced some problems with their story development, such as incomplete ideas, lack of careful thinking or hurriedly written, and inadequate effort in the area of content development. whereas, the implementation of kahoot could enhance students’ writing so that the writing could address the assigned topic, and consisted of some extraneous materials although the ideas could be more developed. therefore, kahoot has improved students’ writing in terms of ideas development. thirdly, students’ skills in using correct grammar was improved 56,4%, from 10,6 points to 16,6 points. according to the scoring rubric, it is improved from unacceptable to good. in other words, students’ writing had numerous serious grammar problems before the use of kahoot. the problems include some difficult sentences to read that directly affect the communication of the ideas, so it needs a grammar review in some areas. however, the students’ writing did not encounter some serious grammatical errors after the game-based student response system platform kahoot was implemented. it means that kahoot was successfully enhanced students’ grammar proficiency. fourthly, students’ mechanics of writing was improved 44,7%, from 11,7 points to 16,9 points. it means that the mechanics of students’ writing improved from unacceptable to good. before the treatment of kahoot, students’ writings have encountered lots of errors in punctuation, spelling, and capitalization. more specifically, they did not use periods or questions marks, and capital letters in the right places, leave spaces between words, and poor spelling. however, the students could minimize those errors after the use of kahoot. it means that kahoot is successfully helped students to learn the mechanics of writing. lastly, students’ skills in using style and quality of expression was improved 42,1%, from 8,6 points to 12,3 points. it is improved from unacceptable to fair. before the use of kahoot, the students’ writing did not contain different kinds of sentences, was too wordy, and had no precise word selection. it caused their writing to be difficult to read the first time. yet, they could improve the use of sentence variety and word choice, after the use of kahoot. the success of kahoot implementation kahoot is not a new digital technology; it has been widely used for educational purposes. kahoot is categorized as educational technology since it has some elements that could facilitate the teaching and learning process in the classroom. basically, educational technology could be used in the classroom as a teaching tool and an assessment tool. referring to the previous studies related to the use of kahoot in a language classroom, kahoot was proved to be an effective tool. however, kahoot is commonly used as an assessment tool rather than as a teaching tool. as a formative assessment tool, kahoot could enhance students’ learning performance (elkhamisy & wassef, 2021; goksun & gursoy, 2019 ; kohnke & moorhouse, 2021). in contrast with those previous studies, in the present study, the researchers utilized kahoot as a teaching tool. specifically, the researchers used kahoot to teach the students about narrative writing. the result indicates that kahoot is effective to foster students’ skills in writing a narrative text. it means that kahoot is valuable not only as an assessment tool, but also as a teaching tool. thus, the present study proves the effectiveness of a game-based student response system platform, kahoot, as a teaching tool. in line with that, this finding strengthens the previous studies conducted by haswani (2014), lee (2019), and xu et al. (2019), that an ict platform could positively enhance the teaching and learning process in language classroom. basically, there are some factors affecting students’ skills in writing a text. those factors are categorized into two major factors, namely internal factors and external factors. in this case, internal factor commonly refers to cognitive factors that could boost or reduce students’ writing skills. it includes the students’ intelligence, interest, and motivation in learning to write. whereas, an external yuni dwi susanti, sri wahyuni | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 60 factor generally refers to social and affective factors. it includes their learning environment and the teaching methodology applied by the teacher. therefore, this section discusses the way kahoot successfully enhanced students’ writing skills based on those factors. kahoot could enhance students’ writing skills through the internal factors of writing. as mentioned earlier, there are some internal factors that could affect the success of kahoot implementation in improving students’ skills in writing a narrative text. first and foremost, the teaching materials which were integrated into kahoot, could foster students’ intelligence in writing. in relation to writing, intelligence here refers to the students’ knowledge and skills in writing a narrative text, including vocabulary mastery and grammar proficiency. in this case, kahoot could improve students’ writing in the form of organization, ideas development, the use of grammar, punctuation, spelling, mechanics, and also their style of writing. in doing so, the students were trained to do some exercises with regard to those topics. by training and challenging themselves anytime and anywhere they want, they could increase their writing skills gradually. this finding relates to the previous study conducted by permatasari (2013), which found that the use of an interesting content material could help the students in learning narrative writing. secondly, kahoot could boost students’ motivation. as mentioned by kohnke and moorhouse (2021), students were highly motivated in learning english by the use of kahoot towards the teaching and learning process. motivation is one of the most important things to build among the students as it directly affected students’ performance and academic achievement. the present study also indicates that the use of kahoot could reduce students’ boredom, and it makes students become more excited during their learning process. towards the survey result, most of the students agreed that they were enthusiastic during the teaching and learning process by kahoot. therefore, in relation to students learning to write, kahoot could be an alternative teaching media that enhance their motivation to write. thirdly, kahoot could successfully enhance students’ writing as kahoot fostered students’ engagement towards the teaching and learning process. if students are fully engaged in the classroom, they could easily understand what the teachers deliver to them. goksun and gursoy (2019) also stated that kahoot was positively increased students’ attention and focus during the teaching and learning process. in the present study, the students mentioned that kahoot could be an alternative tool to build an active classroom. it means that the use of kahoot promotes a meaningful learning experience that could enhance students’ writing skills. additionally, the students also became more interested in learning to write by the use of kahoot. in conclusion, kahoot could improve students’ skills and knowledge in writing narrative text, and it also fosters their motivation and engagement in the writing classroom. in addition to internal factors, kahoot also could foster students’ writing towards its external factors, namely learning environment and teaching performance carried out by the teacher in the classroom. first and foremost, kahoot could build a learning environment which is fun, interactive, and interesting. as tom malone’s theory stated, there are three categories that make things fun to learn, including challenge, fantasy, and curiosity. challenge refers to a series of goals with uncertain outcomes. a challenge could be designed through the use of different levels of difficulty, hidden information, and randomness. kahoot provides a time limit and scoreboard which challenged the student to do better than the other student. in other words, the challenge in kahoot is to answer the questions provided as quickly as possible, and the final scores are uncertain until all students finish the game. this competitiveness creates a sense of a challenge for them. next, fantasy is the game environment that could satisfy the players. kahoot provides some fantasy elements for students, including the use of audio, video, image and also the use of different types of questions such as quiz, true or false, type answer, puzzle, poll, word cloud, open-ended, brainstorm, and also slides. the use of those different elements could reduce students’ boredom and increase their engagement during the teaching and learning process. moreover, kahoot could also build curiosity among the students. the curiosity in kahoot refers to the use of random elements or questions. all in all, kahoot could provide a learning environment which positively supports students’ learning experience, especially in learning to write. based on that analysis, it can be safely concluded that kahoot is an appropriate teaching tool for supporting students’ learning, especially in learning to write. this finding relates to the previous studies which found out that a game-based student response system could improve students’ motivation, engagement and classroom dynamics (baszuk & heath, 2020; piskorz, 2016; yunus et al., 2019). basically, those three areas are closely related to the teaching and learning process in the classroom. it is well known that the students could learn and understand the teaching materials only if they could boost their interest and motivation throughout the materials. in line with that, the present yuni dwi susanti, sri wahyuni | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 61 study results strengthen that finding in the area of students’ writing skills. the result of the present study indicates that kahoot is effective and appropriate to be used in classroom practices since it could boost students’ writing skills by increasing their motivation and engagement during the teaching and learning process. thus, this result conveys a novelty in terms of using a game-based student response system platform, kahoot, as a teaching tool, specifically for teaching and improving students’ writing skills. conclusion as the objective of the present study is to explore and evaluate the effectiveness of the game-based student response system platform kahoot in enhancing students’ skills in writing narrative text, the researchers have implemented the use of kahoot for teaching narrative writing. based on that implementation, the result indicates that kahoot is effective to be used for enhancing students’ writing skills, especially for writing a narrative text. this major conclusion comes from the paired t-test analysis result which shows that the pvalue of students’ pre-test and post-test scores is 0,000, or less than 0,05. additionally, the t-coefficient is also greater than the t-table, which is 18,436 > 2,030. it means that the ho is rejected and the ha accepted. in other words, the students’ writing skills is improved with the use of kahoot. further analysis revealed that kahoot is proven to significantly improve students’ writing in terms of organization, ideas, grammar, spelling, mechanics, and writing style. thus, it can be safely said that kahoot could effectively enhance students’ writing skills. it is also worthy of note that the success of kahoot implementation in narrative writing class is closely related to the factors affecting students’ learning, including students’ competence, motivation, interest, and engagement. in relation to that, hopefully, the result of this study could increase the use of kahoot as a teaching tool in language classroom practices. while the researchers have presented and discussed several insights towards the present study, the absence of a control group in the present study may affect the accuracy and the validity of the study results. thus, the researchers also suggest future research to investigate the implementation of kahoot towards narrative writing class using trueexperimental research since a control group is needed in order to gain a strong internal validity of the research data. references abkarin, n. a. 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(2019). kahoot!: engaging and active learning environment in esl writing classrooms. international journal of innovation, creativity and change, 5(6), 141–152. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 280 elt forum 10 (3) (2021) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt english language teaching for autism spectrum disorders (asd) learners during pandemic era ida vera sophya universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received on 30 juni 2021 approved on 27 july 2021 published on 24 november 2021 ________________ keywords: english language teaching; autistic spectrum disorders (asd); pandemic era ____________________ abstract an autistic child is a child who has special needs and developmental disorders. therefore, in the teaching learning process, teachers who teach asd learners need to have some knowledge of students’ needs. the objections of this study are to explain the implementation of english language teaching for asd learners during the pandemic era and parents’ role in helping asd learners understand english. this research employed qualitative research. the researchers applied observation, depth interview and documentation in data collection. the results showed that 1) the english language teaching process for asd at rba during the pandemic era applied offline and online learning mode. the material of english language teaching for asd learners was based on the level of asd diagnosis. the teachers used direct method, tpr, and lexical method in offline learning, but for online learning, they used direct and lexical methods. the teachers also utilised pictures or flashcards in offline learning whereas for online learning they gave the students worksheets and did a video call. in giving assessment, the teachers carried out anecdotal notes, checklists, interviews, and retelling stories 2) during the pandemic era, the role of asd parents was to accompany their child at home pronouncing english vocabularies that had been given by the therapist at rba. on the other hand, in on-line learning, the role of parents was as a teacher/therapist who gave treatment to their children at home based on therapists’ instructions. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 jl. conge ngembalrejo po box 51 kudus 59322 e-mail: verasofadel@students.unnes.ac.id http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& ida vera sophya | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 281 introduction all human beings were born with equal rights. regardless of their disabilities, children with special needs (csn) have the same right to be loved, to start their own family, to have access to good education, and live a normal healthy lifestyle (united nations children’s fund, 2014). csn are individuals who have different characteristics from other individuals in general, alike physically, intellectually, and emotionally. therefore, csn learners need more attention in the learning process either from their teacher, their parents, and their environment. as stated (united nations children’s fund, 2014), csn learners are “deserved to be given the chance to grow, develop and enchanted”. hence, they need treatment, education, caregiving, and support to improve their abilities to get their future. an autistic child, or we called it autism spectrum disorders (asd) is one of the csn who has developmental impairment. asd is a child who has neuro-developmental disorders represented on a continuum of severity and marked by repetitive/restricted behaviours (american psychiatric association, 2013; world health organization, 2012). asd learners usually also have difficulties interacting and communicating with their society. they are different from other children in developing individuals, learn something or remember things. besides, their memory is often void of contextual details that situate past events in a particular place and time in personal history (bowler, et al., 2011) and they often find it difficult to spontaneously recall information without aids for retrieval (bowler, et al., 2004) because of the difference with normal children in general, asd learners need to join early intervention services programs to help and support those children with developmental delays or any other specific health condition (world health organization, 2012). those programs are called as therapists. the importance of intervention services programs is introducing language for asd learners to communicate with their environment. one of the examples of therapists is speech therapy. there are many scientific studies reported that such programs showed positive feedbacks on the children from different perspectives (batool & ijaz, 2015). therapists give a treatment to pronounce and imitate some words patiently until they can speak it well. in addition, the speech therapy services also can improve the interpersonal skills, psychological well-being of the children (roulstone et al., 2012). this research aims to explain the implementation of english language teaching for asd learners during the pandemic era and parents’ role in helping asd learners understand english. the author realizes that teaching english to asd learners is not easy. it is more challenging than teaching english to normal children and in normal conditions. based on the research of minsih (2021) found that the learning problem of asd in the pandemic era can be broken down into three factors, namely 1) teacher factor, 2) parents factor and, 3) environment factor. asd teachers should know about the students’ needs. dewi (2019) stated that they should be required to have more competencies for teaching asd than teaching normal children. they have to be required to understand the needs of the asd so that they can design, implement and evaluate the asd teaching and learning process properly. some researchers tried to find better methods to teach english for asd. the methods used in teaching asd can be done in the form of prompts, lectures, discussions, and q&a. a result of the research explored that teaching english can be delivered by using direct method, total physical response (tpr), and lexical approach (dewi, 2019). but since the teaching-learning process used online learning, parents have important roles in their success of learning. although many people think that english is not important to be taught to asd, the focus of learning english for asd learners is on how far they can learn new things. in addition, it is done as an effort to prepare asd learners before being included in inclusive schools or public schools. parents also have an important role to help asd learners understand english. as stated by meleady (2020), previous research has suggested that parents can experience positive contributions as the result of raising a child with the autism spectrum. qualitative (e.g., beighton & wills, 2017; corman, 2009; huws, et al., 2001; king, et al., 2012; gray, 1994; markoulakis, et al., 2012) and quantitative (e.g., altiere & von kluge, 2009; bayat, 2007; benson, 2010, 2014; griffith, et al., 2010) studies of parents with asd children, including autism, have found that these parenting experiences have some benefits for their children, especially for their personal growth. since the government informed that all schools have been closed because of the corona virus, so the teaching-learning process must be done through online learning. but it is difficult for the students to adapt to this situation as well as for asd learners. there are some problems facing by asd learners when they are learning during the covid-19 pandemic era. because of that reason, any schools still apply online and offline teaching-learning processes. rumah belajar anak (rba) is a ida vera sophya | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 282 private institution that serves the learning guidance and therapy for children with special needs. every child who learns there must be diagnosed first by the therapist to get the suitable program of treatments for learning and practicing. fitri (2005, in ginanto, 2010) stated that the emphasis in teaching english to children with autism is not the benefits of learning the language; but more to the extent to which asd can receive any materials. based on those explanations, the research questions are 1) how do the asd teachers do the implementation of english teaching for asd learners during the pandemic era? and 2) what are the roles of asd parents in guiding their children to learn english during the pandemic era? methodology the design of this research is qualitative research with a descriptive approach. the researcher used this design to answer the research questions. the source of data was taken from the document of the school and interviews of teachers and parents. the document which was needed such as the list of asd programs, the students’ achievement, identities of students and parents, and teachers’ note about the development of asd learners. the setting of this research is in rumah belajar anak (rba). it is located in melati lor, gang kauman rt 02/rw 02 no. 187 kudus. rba is a private institution which serves the learning guidance and therapy for students who have special needs. but in this research, the researcher just focuses on the autism spectrum disorders (asd) learners. teaching asd learners are challenging because they do not have the abilities to learn with their environment, such as imitation skills, following orders, joint attention, and so on. each of asd learners has his own treatment programs based on the result of his diagnosis. in giving education and therapy, each of asd is handled by one teacher. therefore, the subject of this research is the head institute of rba, classroom teachers, parents, and asd learners. the data collection was observation, documentation, and interviews. the first step to collect data was observation. the researcher observed the therapist doing a diagnosis to the autistic children. from that diagnosis, the therapist arranged the programs which should be given to the asd learners. the second step was documentation. to get the data, the researcher needed some documentation like the list of teachers’ notes about treatment programs and the assessment results of the treatment. the last step was interview. the interview was done through semi-structured interviews. it was collected as “one of the qualitative data collection techniques (creswell, 2013). there are 3 interviewees, the head and the therapist of rba, an english teacher at rba and a asd parent. to answer the parents’ role in english learning for asd, the researcher used online interview with the representative of asd parents. to obey the social distancing rules, the researcher just did one time directly interview and the rest of the interview process was done through some online interviews. the online interviews were held by using phone calls and whatsapp message, which made it easier to utilize the space and time flexibility provided by the internet (crabtree, 1999; markham, 2004) the interviews were carried out between june 1 to june 19, 2021. during the teaching-learning process, the researcher recorded the asd activities and wrote some special notes or new findings. the researcher also conducted the data from the asd parents to get the data about their role during their children learning english at home. the triangulation techniques were implemented by confirming the result of observations through interviews and analyzing school documents. dealing with analysing the data, the researcher focused on the implementation of english language teaching for the asd during the pandemic era such as the material, method, media , and assessment. findings and discussion english language teaching during the pandemic era since the pandemic era, the tutoring and therapy class at rumah belajar anak (rba) are divided into 2 classes of treatment, namely regular treatment and full-day treatment. the class for regular treatment only lasted for 2 hours a day and the class for full day treatment was held for 8 hours a day. the teaching-learning process in rba was done by face-to-face and online learning. asd parents might choose one of those teaching-learning processes based on their wants and the condition of their children. every asd who wanted to learn and get therapy at rba, he/she should be diagnosed first by therapist. after he had been diagnosed, therapist gave him treatment programs which might be done during the treatment. therefore, the treatment program for each of asd was different. one therapist/teacher only handled one asd. as stated before that all asd activities in a day were ida vera sophya | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 283 monitored by teachers. from that daily assessment, the therapist knew the development of his/her developmental impairment. based on that interview of rba, this research aims to explain the implementation of english language teaching for asd learners who learned at rba the during pandemic era and the role of asd parents in improving english. the results of this research will be explored below. material table 1. the results of the interview about english material given to asd learners material “i always do observation first to get the diagnosis of asd learners before i arranged target programs. each of asd is different based on their developmental impairment” (therapist) “i arranged the english teaching programs to introduce them english vocabulary” (therapist) “i introduce english vocabulary based on the grade of asd learners which arrange by therapist” (teacher) “after asd learners can mention and understand indonesian words correctly then i introduce them in english” (teacher) “bu vina gives some words in indonesian and also in english” (parent) “i ask my child to repeat some words in indonesian and english according to the guidance of therapist” (parent) based on interview in the table 1, the process of english teaching for asd learners at rba was based on the result of development impairment diagnosis. a therapist did observation to asd learners first to diagnose their developmental impairment. by looking at the asd diagnosis result, the therapist arranged a list of treatments program based on their needs and abilities. therefore, each asd learners had different program for the treatments. an english teacher gave the introduction of english vocabularies after asd learners mentioned and understood some words in indonesian perfectly. the words which had been introduced by teachers were the same words between indonesian and english. hopefully, asd learners understood some words using indonesian first than english because the environment of asd learners communicated with indonesian language. therefore, english language teaching in rba just gave asd learners the introduction of english vocabularies. fitri (2005, in ginanto, 2010) stated that the emphasis in teaching english to asd was not based on the benefit of learning the language; but the focus was to make asd learners receive new materials. there was no exception for asd learners to be able to know mathematics and even english. in line with fitri (2005, in ginanto, 2010) argued that “asd learners were unique, so the problem was not whether or not english was useful for them, but the problem was when they learned english (of course according to the needs and abilities of each child), and how english affect asd. asd learners who had good english verbally felt very happy when they learnt english, especially when they could pronounce english vocabularies very well. the materials were based on the level of asd needs and abilities. according to engle et al as cited in (world health organization, 2012) said that “the early intervention programs could enhance the children’s development and make them be able to follow well and be effective in the future schooling”. the materials of english language teaching for asd learners used at rba can be shown in the following table: table 1. the example of english material at rba level material basic a. identification the name of: colours numbers alphabets b. imitating words and arranging syllables intermediate a. identification the name of: fruits animals name of days ida vera sophya | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 284 b. arranging words advance a. identification the name of: transportation occupation b. arranging sentence each of asd learner who had not been able to pronounce and understand the material well, he/she would not be leveled up. they needed to repeat the same materials, for the next meeting, and so on. this treatment was done to help asd learners to practice their speaking. teachers just focused on their pronunciation and their vocabulary mastery. many scientific studies reported that such programs showed positive feedback on the children in different perspectives (batool & ijaz, 2015). one of the examples of the programs was speech therapy. the therapist gave a treatment to pronounce and imitate some words patiently until they can speak it well. method table 2. the results of the interview about methods in teaching english method “we use various methods in teaching english language, for example direct method, lexical methods and total physical response (tpr)” (therapist) “i always give treatment by tpr method because it can make asd learners imitating what i said easily” (therapist) “but in online learning, i use direct method. asd learners can practice by imitating the right pronunciation in english (therapist) “i use direct methods in teaching english. i pronounce or use multiple examples of words or concepts, then asd practice and repeat those words correctly.” (teacher) “we can do that by video call” (teacher) the method of english teaching for asd learners in rba was by using direct method, lexical methods and total physical response (tpr). in offline learning, teachers/therapists at rba used all those methods, but in online learning, they only used direct method. by using direct method, asd learners practiced english words by imitating the right pronunciation in english. the therapist showed or used multiple examples of words or concepts, then asd practiced and repeated those words correctly. the repetition was needed to ensure comprehension since there was no translation being used at all. the use of direct methods in english language teaching activated the students’ learning awareness and engaged students to know more the meaning of the words he/she learnt and how to use them. the results of the study showed that all of students both with low and high abilities could easily learn the materials if the teaching method was direct method. by applying direct methods, it eased the learning process from the simple to the complex and from the real to the abstract (dewi, 2019). for the implementation of total physical response (tpr), the teaching-learning process could be done not only by repetition, but also by applying body movements and body language. this method was simple and easy to apply in english teaching. asd teachers and learners were also pleased to use tpr method. these activities could improve the students’ ability to master vocabularies. activities using lexical method were carried out by learning a word or sentences as full context or vice versa through lexical pieces. the use of this lexical approach was done by using short story, which helped students to learn in natural language. the research of dewi (2019) said that “the teaching methods that could be used for asd learners were prompts, lectures, discussions and question and answer. whereas teaching english could be delivered by applying direct method, total physical response (tpr), and lexical approach”. media table 3. the results of the interview about media in teaching english media “actually, we have many media to support teaching learning process from donation, but many of them have broken by asd learners when they are tantrum” (therapist) “i always ask to the teacher to be creative to make her own media simply and harmless for asd learners” (therapist) “the teachers prepared some worksheets to be done by asd learners at home”. (therapist) “i use pictures/flash cards to facilitate matching tasks. i ask to my students to match those charts with same form objects in activities to simplify asd learners decoding the information” (teacher) ida vera sophya | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 285 “to make the students complete tasks, the teacher gave examples through both verbal and non-verbal instruction and asked student to do the same by himself” (teacher) “the teachers prepare some worksheets to be done by asd learners at home. (teacher) “during the pandemic, i always take worksheets at rba to be done by my child at home and collect it in a week”. (parent) “when my child is not tantrum, i call his teacher to get treatment by using video call (parent) by using media, english learning is more interesting and understandable. the media can be used to deliver all the materials and used as a form of instruction and facilitator for learners to reach instructional objectives easily. media used in teaching english at rba is picture and flash card. teachers used pictures/flash card to facilitate matching tasks. they were presented with same form objects in activities to simplify asd learners decoding the information. according to kellems, et al., (2018) the pictures are effective visual stimuli that act as facilitator for student to complete an entire task. the teacher used pictures in facilitating matching and writing tasks to simplify the students in completing the tasks. to make the students complete tasks, the teacher gave examples through both verbal and non-verbal instruction and asked student to do the same by himself. throughout the observation, all of teachers at rba used pictures because it was more effective and harmless in facilitating asd learner to complete tasks and learn something through the process. besides, it was because pictures greatly helped students to recall their visual memory. in short, pictures were effective for asd learners because they were taken from videos. moreover, it could be used for many purposes including supporting the students in finishing the tasks. the teachers alsp prepared some worksheets to be done by asd learners at home. the teachers prepared some worksheets to be done by asd learners at home. the teacher asked the parents to collect the worksheet in a week or in a month. however, teacher usually suggested to the parents to collect them in a week, because it was easier for therapist to check and know the development of asd learners. in giving therapy, teachers used video calls as an alternative platform to stay connected to their students and give the students opportunies to study. from the parents’ information, the teacher knew about the condition of the asd learners that they were not in bad mood (tantrum), so the teacher could call them via a video call. assessment assessment was done by evaluating english the teaching-learning process for asd learners at rba. they were not only evaluated the teaching-learning process by looking at the result of learning english but also the process of learning it. some methods of evaluation were done in a form of checklists and interviews. related to the evaluation, it did not only focus on the students’ abilities but also students’ language skills which supported them in using english functionally and contextually. dewi’s research (2019) proposed that “teachers were required to have more competence in asd teaching than teaching children in general, for example a teacher was required to be able to understand the needs of the asd learner so that they were able to design, implemented and evaluated the asd teaching and learning process properly”. the example of final assessment of asd learner in rba can be seen in table 4 below: table 4. the assessment of student mmm table 4 is the example assessment of student mmm who got a category of test, level 3. he got english language educational program about introduction of fruits, animals, and name of days. material program indicator level 3 daily assessment test average passing grade result notes education language 80 80 80 60 very good the student was able to read sentences, recognize the ending ng. reading sentences 95 95 95 60 a the student was able to mention the materials given very well. identify suffix -ng, -ny 80 80 80 60 b the student was able to mention the materials given very well. word recognition in english 90 90 90 60 a the student was able to mention the materials given very well. fruits, animals, name of days 72 75 73,5 60 b the student was able to complete the words/ phrases/ sentences given very well composing words/ syllables 80 85 82,5 60 b the student was able to identify the words well ida vera sophya | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 286 teacher gave him final score 90 because he mentioned vocabularies in english correctly and understood those vocabularies perfectly, even though the places and words were reversed. below is the final example of assessment from student mfm. it can be shown in table 5 below: table 5. the assessment of student mfm material program indicator level 1 daily assessment test average passing grade result notes education language introduction in english 50 50 50 60 not good the student was not able to identify parts of body. color 65 75 75 60 sufficient the student was good enough in identifying colors. letter 55 60 57,5 60 sufficient the student was not good enough in mastering the materials and needed more practice. number 45 55 50 60 sufficient the student was not able to identify numbers and animals. matching color 70 75 72,5 60 good the student was able to match the color. things/ shopping 65 70 67,5 60 sufficient the student was good enough but still needed more practice. mfm is one of the learners of asd at rba. he learns english in basic level. he learnt about introducing colour, alphabets, and numbers in english. he still needed treatment or practice in mentioning english vocabularies. from that assessment in six months, it could be seen that the treatment of english language as foreign language for asd needed more time. parents’ role in english learning during pandemic era table 5. the results of the interviewed about the role of asd parents in english learning during pandemic era parents’ role “asd parents do not accompany their children at school because they don't have the heart to see their child crying continuously so that the child’s dependence of his/her parents is higher.” (therapist) “during pandemic, parents have important role to do their own treatment to their child at home” (therapist) “.asd parents should accompany their child to do some activities according to the worksheet which i give to them (therapist) “actually we give a chance to the parents to look at the teaching-learning process, because it can give them knowledge of how to face asd when they are in tantrum and how to solve it. but in fact, the parents do not want to do it. they trust us". (teacher) “i always delivered what has been done by faza during school. therefore, the parents will know the development of their child” (teacher) “i need more extra patience to ask my child to do the treatment activities like mentioning some vocabularies in english. because of her lack of english pronunciation, she cannot give the example to pronounce the words in english well”. (parent) “we do our own treatments ourselves to our child at home. (parent) “although i have found how to pronounce the english word, i still have difficulties to pronounce it correctly” (parent) based on the result of this research, parents had the important role to improve the development of asd learners. the success of asd learners depended on the strength and patience of their parents. the acceptance of the presence of family members with a diagnosis of autism syndrome was a form of resilience and support for the progress of growth, affection, and education given by parents (hartati, 2019). according to farmer & reupert, (2013), there were significant increases in parental understanding of autism and understanding of their own child, and in understanding communication, sensory, social, learning and behavioural features of autism. parents valued learning about the general nature of autism and sensory processing and reported feeling less alone. the role of asd parents in english learning at rba was based on interview. it could be described as follows: face to face learning all asd parents did not accompany their children to get therapy. based on the interview with the headmaster of rba, she said that it was done because many of parents did not have the heart to see their child crying continuously since the child’s dependence of his/her parents was higher. although all asd parents at rba did not accompany their children, the teachers always delivered the ida vera sophya | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 287 assessment in the same day. mrs. u, one of rba teacher said that she always delivered what had been done by mfm during school. therefore, the parents knew the development of their children. sridevi & arya, (2014) said that it was clear that the families usually would be exposed to the knowledge and abilities in handling their children by attending the program and they would be able to practice the knowledge at their home. hardiono (2020) argued that it was be better for the parents of asd learners to accompany their children in doing therapy so that they could practice themselves at home. he did not like if there was therapist gives treatment to asd by closing the door and not allowing the parents accompany their children in the room. that is why the role of the asd parents was important because it gave them knowledge how to face asd when they were in tantrum and how to solve it. from the study, sridevi, & arya, (2014) explained that “it is helpful for a mother in handling the child when the parental counselling is provided by giving detailed information and knowledge about the disorder and ways to deal with the child. it is clear that the families will usually be exposed to the knowledge and abilities in handling their children by attending certain programs and they will be able to practice the knowledge at their home”. online learning the long pandemic of covid-19 had resulted in the limited time of therapy because therapy at treatment service facilities cannot be carried out as before. to prevent the spread of the covid-19 virus, therapist and parent had restricted their direct contact physically. they chosed to keep their health by staying at home. in this case, the role of asd parents was very important as the primary caregivers for asd children in the intervention process. this approach can be used to anticipate the limited time of interventions due to the pandemic. based on the interview of one of asd parents at rba said that they did their own treatment to their children at home. they accompanied their children to do some activities according to the worksheet they got from therapists. bm said that she needed extra patience to ask her child to do the treatment activities like mentioning some vocabularies in english. because of her lack of english pronunciation, she could not give the example to pronounce the words in english well. although, she had found how to pronounce the english word, she still had difficulty to pronounce it. as ardiyani, et al., (2020) said, parents can also take the role of coach or therapist in various interventions. conclusion rumah belajar anak (rba) is one of informal schools which give treatment programmes to help and prepare asd learners before being included in inclusive schools or public schools. during the pandemic era, teaching/therapy of english at rba was done by face to face and online learning. the material which was taught based on the level of each asd learner. there were three levels in learning english at rba, namely basic, intermediate, and advanced. in offline learning, english language teaching for asd learners were done by direct method, tpr and lexical method. but in online learning, teachers at rba used direct method and lexical method. teachers at rba used pictures and flash cards as their media in offline teaching and used worksheets and video call in online teaching. they also used anecdotal notes, checklists, interviews, and retelling stories to assess the activities of asd learners. parents have important roles to accompany the development of asd learners. during the pandemic era, the role of asd parents was to accompany their children at home in practising english pronunciation and making use of vocabularies which had been given by the therapist at rba. the other hand, in online learning, the role of parents was as a teacher/ therapist who gave treatment to their children at home. they did the treatment based on therapists’ instructions which were written in worksheet. hopefully, the teaching of english is not only to fulfil the demands of the rights of asd learners, but also it can provide satisfaction for them. therefore, it is hoped that fun language learning can be used as an additional therapy to heal autism. references altiere, m. j., & von kluge, silvia. 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(2012). early childhood development and disability:adiscussion paper. http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/75355/1/9789241504065_eng.pdf putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 10 elt forum 11(1) (2022) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt efl students’ self-regulated online learning in the expository and analytical writing course firnanda salsabila1 1state university of surabaya, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received on 9 july 2021 approved on 3 march 2022 published on 30 march 2022 ________________ keywords: expository and analytical writing course; forethought phase; performance phase; self-reflection phase; self-regulated online learning ____________________ abstract ________________________________________________________________ the online learning environment provides a flexible learning environment where the students can learn anytime and anywhere despite the distance. since the teaching and learning process shifts into online learning, the students should be able to manage their learning process by themselves. implementing self-regulated online learning could help the students to be responsible for their learning process to achieve good academic performance. several previous studies already discussed the implementation of self-regulated online learning across four language skills; listening, speaking, reading, and writing. however, in writing courses, the previous studies did not mention the specific writing text applied in self-regulated online learning. this study aimed to identify the frequency of the undergraduates’ use of forethought phase, performance phase, and self-reflection phase in self-regulated online learning toward expository and analytical writing course. the instrument used in this study was the osel questionnaire which consisted of three phases: forethought phase, performance phase, and self-reflection phase. the subject enrolled in this study were 46 students from the freshmen class of the english education program at one state university in indonesia. in general, the result showed that three phases in self-regulated online learning toward expository and analytical writing course have medium means which were above 3.00. only task strategies that had the lowest mean from all the sub-points were presented. further discussion will explain previous studies and theories that support the finding of this research. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 t4 building fbs unesa lidah wetan, surabaya, 60213 e-mail: firnandabella@gmail.com http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& firnanda salsabila | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 11 introduction the covid-19 pandemic became a global health crisis that has massive impacts on global human lives. it also affected the world of education. the teaching–learning process shifts from a face-to-face approach into a distance learning approach or called online learning. according to (ally, 2008), online learning is defined as the use of internet to access the learning material and to interact with teachers and peers. (picciano & seaman, 2007) add that online learning also covers both the instruction and the assessment toward learning material given. to support online learning, information and computer technology (ict) developed into various forms including a chat room, video teleconference, and learning management system (charoenwet & christensen, 2016) the online learning environment provides both benefits and challenges. the online learning environment provides benefits both for the students and the teachers as stated by (ally, 2008). for the students, they can have a flexible learning environment where they can learn anytime and anywhere despite the distance. for teachers, the teaching process could be done anywhere and online learning material could be updated anytime. besides providing benefits for both the students and the teachers, online learning also provides challenges for the students and the teachers. according to (lie, 2020), the problems faced by the students and the teachers are the lack of access to the internet and lowtech gadget. (bali & liu, 2018) state that besides technical problems, online learning also contributed to a lack of social presence toward the students and the teachers and a lack of students’ engagement toward the learning material. despite the benefits and challenges faced by the students during online learning, another point that should be focused on is the teaching and learning process in online learning. in a face-toface learning environment, teachers play the main role in directing the students during the learning process. since the teaching and learning process shifts into online learning, the students should be able to manage their learning process on their own. students’ management of their learning process is defined as self-regulated learning. (zimmerman, barry j.; moylan, 2009) determine self-regulated learning as one’s responsibility toward his or her learning process to achieve good academic performance. in self-regulated learning, there are three cyclical phases; forethought phase, performance phase and self-reflection phase. each phase has two sub-categories that explain the detailed points of self-regulated learning. in the forethought phase, there are two sub-categories; task analysis and self-motivational beliefs. in the performance phase, there are two sub-categories; selfcontrol and self-observation. in the self-reflection phase, there are also two sub-categories; selfjudgments and self-reaction. since this study focuses on online learning, the term would be selfregulated online learning. several previous studies discuss self-regulated online learning. the first study was conducted by (lear, li, & prentice, 2016). this study aimed to explore the self-regulated online learning applied by 20 undergraduate students in australia through a web-based platform called study skills success that offers ten courses which are academic reading, academic listening, independent learning, academic writing, grammar, critical thinking, describing visuals, research, vocabulary, and academic speaking. the results show the four most used self-regulated online learning that are selfmotivation, positive thinking, information seeking, and obtaining feedback. the second study was conducted by (jimoyiannis, schiza, & tsiotakis, 2018). the purpose of this study is to investigate self-regulated online learning applied by the students through online academic writing courses using blogs. the participants of this study are 20 students from the department of social and educational policy at university of peloponnese, greece. each student is required to make content about a scientific article on their blog. the finding presents that there are two self-regulated online learning mostly used by the students which are monitoring and strategy use with each frequency are 48.6% and 39.8%. from those previous studies, several research gaps can be explored more. the first gap is the variation of courses. both studies discussed writing course and the rest are another skill course which ranges from reading, listening, and speaking. the writing courses discussed above do not mention the specific writing text. the second gap is the participants. both of the studies present the same number of participants and only one study mentions the major at which the students learned. the third gap is the variation of platforms used in online learning. the first study applied a webbased platform while the second study used a blog in conducting online learning. based on the research gaps, there is a problem arises on how much do the undergraduates use self-regulated online learning in expository and analytical writing course toward online learning environment. the objective of this study is to know the frequency of the undergraduates’ use of forethought phase, firnanda salsabila | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 12 performance phase, and self-reflection phase in self-regulated online learning toward expository and analytical writing course. self-regulated online learning according to (zimmerman, barry j.; moylan, 2009), self-regulated learning is defined as one’s responsibility toward his or her learning process to achieve good academic outcome. in selfregulated learning, there are three major phases which are forethought phase, performance phase, and self-reflection phase. each phase has two sub-categories to explain the detail of learning strategies. the forethought phase consists of task analysis and self-motivation beliefs. the performance phase consists of self-control and self-observation. the self-reflection phase consists of self-judgment and self-reaction. the forethought phase is stated as the step where the learners prepare their learning goals and motivation before the learning process begins. this phase has two sub-categories which are task analysis and self-motivation beliefs. task analysis is divided into two sub-points which are goalsetting and strategic planning. goal-setting refers to the specific outcome that learners want to achieve in a short time, for instance making an essay in three days. strategic planning is defined as the learners’ choice of learning strategies that are beneficial for them to attain good academic performance. self-motivation beliefs have four sub-points which are self-efficacy, outcome expectations, task interest, and goal orientation. according to (zimmerman, bandura, & martinezpons, 1992) self-efficacy is defined as one’s beliefs of his or her capabilities to learn and perform well in academic performance. outcome expectations refer to the final prediction of one’s academic performance, whether the learners will perform the assigned academic project well or not. task interest refers to one’s action of liking or disliking the assigned academic task. goal orientation refers to the purpose of learning. the performance phase is stated as the step where the learners monitor their learning process. this phase has two sub-categories which are self-control and self-observation. self-control consists of eight sub-points which are task strategies, self-instruction, imagery, time management, environmental structuring, help-seeking, interest incentives, and self-consequences. task strategies refer to the specific learning strategies applied by the learners to accomplish a particular task. selfinstruction refers to the explicit or implicit instruction as the learners accomplish the task. imagery refers to the mental pictures to assist the learning process, which transforms the contextual information into visual diagrams. time management is defined as the time allocation needed to accomplish a task. environmental structuring refers to the learners’ learning space which needs to be free of any distraction that later help learners to do a task better. help-seeking refers to the social assistance from both the instructor and the peers to help the learners to accomplish a task. interest incentives refer to the high quality of a task that makes the learning process more interesting. selfconsequences refer to the reward or punishment received by the learners toward the assigned task. self-observation has two sub-points that are metacognitive monitoring and self-recording. metacognitive monitoring refers to the learners’ tracking of the learning process and outcomes produced. self-recording refers to formal records made by the learners to trace their learning process. the self-reflection phase has two sub-categories which are self-judgment and self-reaction. self-judgment has two sub-points which are self-evaluation and causal attribution. self-evaluation refers to the comparison of students’ outcome toward a standard given. causal attribution refers to the contribution of the learners’ abilities, efforts, and the use of strategies. self-reaction has two subpoints which are self-satisfaction and adaptive or defensive action. self-satisfaction refers to the learners’ feelings toward the assigned task and the learning strategies applied. adaptive or defensive action refers to the learners’ decision in the learning process, whether to adapt the learning strategies already applied then modify it to adjust their need or to defend the learning strategies in which the learners no longer to put big effort and strategy use in accomplishing a task. firnanda salsabila | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 13 methods this study applied the quantitative method which gathers the data mostly in the form of numbers (ary, donald., jacobs, lucy cheser., sorensen, 2010)(). since the objective of this study was to investigate the frequency of self-regulated online learning applied by efl undergraduate students, this study used a survey as the research design. according to (ary, donald., jacobs, lucy cheser., sorensen, 2010), survey research is defined as a list of questions or statements made by the researcher to collect responses from the participants about their beliefs, opinions, characteristics, and attitudes toward a certain issue. this study used convenience sampling as the researcher intended to do survey research toward the available classes at the university. the subject enrolled in this study were 46 students from the total population of the english education program from the freshmen class batch 2020 which were 90 students. this study uses the freshmen class (batch 2020) because they experience online learning due to covid_19 pandemic, which the previous batch did not. based on this condition, it can be said that this study can be generalized only for batch 2020 of english education study program. the students who filled out the questionnaire were divided into four classes; class a with 13 students, class b with 14 students, class c with 13 students, and class d with 6 students. this study was conducted at one state university in indonesia. the subject already took the expository and analytical writing course as one of compulsory courses in the english department. this study applied the online self-regulated english learning (osel) questionnaire adapted from (martinez-lopez, yot, tuovila, & perera-rodríguez, 2017) and (zheng, liang, li, & tsai, 2018). this instrument measured the frequency of students’ use of self-regulated online learning toward online courses. this instrument covered six categories of self-regulated online learning which were goal-setting, environment structuring, task strategies, time management, help-seeking, and selfevaluation. this instrument has 20 items which divided into six categories; goal setting has four items, environmental structuring has three items, task strategies have four items, time management has three items, help-seeking has three items, and self-evaluation has three items. all of the questionnaire items use positive statements. some adaptations were made in the questionnaire by doing word changing and removing several items of each category that do not fit the need of this study. the researcher does the construct validity by checking the questionnaire to an expert as stated by (ary, donald., jacobs, lucy cheser., sorensen, 2010). the reliability of this questionnaire range from 0 (no consistency) until 1.0 (perfectly consistent) as stated by (ary, donald., jacobs, lucy cheser., sorensen, 2010). this questionnaire also do field testing both initial piloting and final piloting to several students. this instrument used the scoring likert scale from 1-5 which the responses range from never until always which is based on (ary, donald., jacobs, lucy cheser., sorensen, 2010) this study collects the data by spreading the osel questionnaire to 2020 class of the english education program students who already took expository and analytical writing course as one of compulsory courses in the english department. the researcher will give the google form link to the representatives of the 2020 class then they could share it with their classmates to fill the questionnaire. this study uses data triangulation to collect the data. data triangulation defined as applying more than one particular approach to perceive richer data or to confirm the result of a research (wilson, 2014). according to (flick, 2009), data triangulation has three main points which are using different times to collect the data, using different places to collect the data, and involving different people to collect the data. the procedure begins by asking the lecturer’s permission to collect the data from his/her class then they check the researcher’s questionnaire to examine if the questionnaire fulfilled the qualification. the next procedure is the researcher contacts the representatives of batch 2020 students from four different classes to spread the questionnaire via whatsapp. the last procedure is the researcher do the checking process via google form to observe the total number of students who filled out the questionnaire. this study analyzed the data by using mean as the stable measure of central tendency that show the average of students’ use of self-regulated online learning and standard deviation to show homogenous or heterogeneous the scores in the distribution of students’ use of self-regulated online learning. the next process was to convert the numbers into percentages to see the proportion of students’ use of self-regulated online learning toward three phases; forethought phase, performance phase, and self-reflection phase as stated by (ary, donald., jacobs, lucy cheser., sorensen, 2010) according to the study conducted by (reja, manfreda, hlebec, & vehovar, 2003) about frequency distributions of open-ended questionnaire and close-ended questionnaire, there are three percentage firnanda salsabila | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 14 categories; the first category is the percentage below 10% considered as low percentage, the second category is the percentage from 10% until 20% considered as medium percentage, and the third category is the percentage above 20% considered as high percentage. findings and discussion the result of this research is presented by the table and bar charts. table 1 showed the mean and the standard deviation from the osel questionnaire filled out by 46 students from freshmen class at one state university in indonesia. the first sub-point is goal-setting which is related to the forethought phase. the forethought phase is defined as the students’ preparation and planning process to do self-regulated online learning from the beginning until the end of the course. the second sub-points are the part of performance phase which are environmental structuring, task strategies, time management, and help-seeking. the performance phase refers to the students’ effort to do self-regulated online learning. the efforts range from choosing a convenient place, applying strategies to accomplish course assignments, managing study time, and seeking help from others. the third sub-point is self-reflection which is stated as the self-reflection phase. in the self-reflection phase, the students evaluate their whole learning process from the beginning until the end of the course. table 1. the mean and standard deviation of osel questionnaire no. items mean sd goal-setting 1. short term goal 3.74 .871 2. long term goal 3.38 .945 3. standard setting 4.02 .707 4. time setting 3.60 .925 environmental structuring 5. working location set 3.85 1.161 6. convenient time 4.00 .956 7. efficiency 4.02 .897 task strategies 8. note taking 3.51 1.019 9. highlighting 1.77 .428 10. summarizing 2.68 .958 11. making a mind-map 2.68 1.181 time management 12. keep regular schedule 2.89 1.127 13. allocating extra study time 3.15 1.042 14. keep track daily 3.11 .890 help-seeking 15. sharing problems with friends 3.79 1.082 16. doing peer-feedback 3.77 .960 17. consult with lecturers 3.19 1.035 self-evaluation 18. making study journal 3.02 .921 19. checking progress 3.47 1.060 20. monitoring 3.47 1.080 the undergraduates’ use of forethought phase in self-regulated online learning toward expository and analytical writing course forethought phase from the bar chart presented in figure 1. the proportion of forethought phase, the result of the forethought phase is relatively high. all four items in the questionnaire have means above 3.00. consecutively, the first item has a mean of 3.74 which stated the short-term goal in online learning. the second item has a mean of 3.38 which stated the long-term goal in online learning. the third item has a mean of 4.02 which stated the standard setting related to writing rubric in online course. the fourth item has a mean of 3.60 which stated the time setting related to study time in doing online firnanda salsabila | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 15 course assignments. the proportion in the forethought phase is quite the same from all four subpoints. in the short-term goal, 23 students (48.9%) stated that they often use it. in the long-term goal, 19 students (40.4%) stated that they often use it. in the standard setting, 24 students (51.1%) stated that they often apply it. in the time setting, 18 students (38.3%) stated that they often apply it. from the result presented, it can be concluded that most of the students often use the forethought phase in self-regulated online learning. figure 1. the proportion of forethought phase based on the finding, goal-setting becomes the key point to achieve a good result in learning courses that students attended. this statement is proved by (zimmerman, barry j.; moylan, 2009) theory about the importance of goal-setting in the learning process. (zimmerman, barry j.; moylan, 2009) state that the students who have strong goal-setting will have strong self-reflection toward their learning process so they can achieve a good result in the learning course. according to the finding of this research, both the mean of forethought phase and self-reflection phase is relatively high which the means are above 3.00. it could be stated that self-regulated online learning theory from zimmerman and moylan (2009) supported the finding. the finding and the theory of self-regulated online learning are supported by previous studies conducted by (lear et al., 2016) and (zheng et al., 2018). the first study was conducted by (lear et al., 2016) discuss self-regulated online learning implemented in ten courses including academic writing in one university in australia. the result shows that most of the students apply goal-setting in the academic writing course. specifically, the students applied short-term goal-setting where they set a weekly goal to accomplish the assignment in online course. the second study was conducted by (zheng et al., 2018) discuss the relationship between english language learners’ motivation and selfregulated online learning. the finding shows that most of the students often applied goal-setting. this statement is proved by the means of the questionnaire which is above 3.00. the undergraduates’ use of performance phase in self-regulated online learning toward expository and analytical writing course performance phase according to the bar chart presented in figure 2. the proportion of performance phase, the result of the performance phase in self-regulated online learning is relatively high. only one sub-point that has a mean below 3.00 which is task strategies. the detail of each sub-point will be discussed below. 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 short term goal long term goal standard setting time setting forethought phase 3 = sometimes 4 = often 5 = always firnanda salsabila | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 16 figure 2. the proportion of performance phase environmental structuring in environmental structuring, all of the items have means above 3.00. consecutively, the first item has a mean of 3.85 which stated the working location set referred to as choosing a place with few distractions to do online course assignment. the second item has a mean of 4.00 which stated the convenient time referred to as the perfect time chosen to do an online course assignment. the third item has a mean of 4.02 which stated the efficiency referred to as the place chosen to do online course assignment effectively. based on the bar chart above, only the third item which is efficiency presented because it has a high mean from the other two items. there are 19 students (40.4%) who stated that they often apply it. from the result presented, it can be concluded that most of the students always pay attention to environmental structuring to do online course assignment perfectly. according to the finding, environmental structuring can affect the students’ learning process as stated by (zimmerman, barry j.; moylan, 2009) (zimmerman, barry j.; moylan, 2009) affirm that environmental structuring is a part of self-control to increase the effectiveness of the learning process which is related to the learners’ study place. by choosing a good place to accomplish learning assignments, the students will get better achievement in their learning process. this theory supported the finding of this study. the finding and the theory are supported by a previous study conducted by (zheng et al., 2018). the result shows that most of the students applied environmental structuring which was proved by the means of the questionnaire that are above 3.00. (zheng et al., 2018) also state that by implementing environmental structuring, the students can have satiation control so that the students can achieve a good result in their learning process. task strategies in task strategies, all of the items have means below 3.00 except for the first item that has a mean of 3.51 which stated about taking detailed notes during online learning. this sub-point has the lowest mean than the other three sub-points; environmental structuring, time management, and helpseeking. consecutively, the second item has a mean of 1.77 which stated about highlighting main points from online course. the third item has a mean of 2.68 which stated about making a summary of the online course. the fourth item has a mean of 2.68 which stated about making a mind-map to organize essay structure in the online course. based on the bar chart above, only the first item which is note-taking presented because it has a high mean rather than the other three items. there are 14 students (29.8%) who stated that they sometimes use it, also there are 15 students (31.9%) who stated that they often use it. both the frequency scale only has one dispute in terms of the number of the subject. from the result presented, it can be concluded that most of the students are seldom implement task strategies in the online course, except for note-taking. based on the finding of this research, task strategies become the key point in self-regulated online learning to accomplish a specific task to achieve a good result in the learning process (zimmerman, barry j.; moylan, 2009). according to (oxford, 1990), task strategies in self-regulated learning had various forms such as taking notes, summarizing, and highlighting. in this research, 0 10 20 30 40 50 environmental structuring task strategies time management help seeking performance phase 3 = sometimes 4 = often 5 = always firnanda salsabila | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 17 only note-taking that has medium mean. for highlighting, summarizing, and making a mind-map have means below 3.00. this result contradicts with zimmerman and moylan’s theory about task strategies. further research should be done to analyze the factors causing the small use of task strategies in self-regulated online learning. the finding and the theory are supported by a previous study conducted by (zheng et al., 2018). the result shows that most of the student implement note taking in online learning rather than other strategies. the mean of taking detailed notes in the questionnaire is 3.18. taking detailed note in online learning is even more important than taking note in the regular classroom environment. time management in time management, two out of three items have means above 3.00 except for the first item. consecutively, the first item has a mean of 2.89 which stated the learning schedule applied during online learning. the second item has a mean of 3.15 which stated the extra studying time in learning online courses. the third item has a mean of 3.11 which stated about keeping track daily is referred to as distributing learning time every other day. according to the bar chart above, only the second item which is allocating extra study time presented because it has a high mean rather than the other two items. there are 17 students (36.2%) who stated that they often use it. from the result presented, it can be said that most of the students’ time management in the online course is at the mediocre level. according to the finding, time management can provide benefit for the students in their learning process as stated by (zimmerman, barry j.; moylan, 2009) (zimmerman, barry j.; moylan, 2009) affirm that time management can profit both young and adult learners in achieving a good result in the learning process by implementing particular actions such as accomplishing learning assignments on schedule, setting a specific time to study the learning material, and monitoring the learning progress. from the finding of this research, it indicates that the students often apply time management in their learning process. two previous studies supported the finding and the theory. the first study was conducted by (lear et al., 2016) the result of this study stated that most of the students have good time management in attending academic writing online courses. the second study was conducted by (zheng et al., 2018) the result shows that most of the students have a mediocre level of time management. it proved by the means of the questionnaire which are above 3.00. help-seeking in help-seeking, all of the items have means above 3.00. consecutively, the first item has a mean of 3.79 which stated about sharing problem with friends in the online course. the second item has a mean of 3.77 which stated the peer-feedback implemented by the students in the online course. the third item has a mean of 3.19 which stated about getting help from the lecturers in the online course. according to the bar chart above, only the first item presented which is sharing problems with friends because it has a high mean rather than the other two items. there are 16 students (34%) who stated that they often use it. from the result presented, it can be concluded that most of the students often do help-seeking in their online learning. the finding of this research proved the theory of self-regulated online learning stated by (zimmerman, barry j.; moylan, 2009) in the theory, it stated that help-seeking is part of performance phase where the students do information seeking and get assistance from both friends and teachers in their learning process. (zimmerman, barry j.; moylan, 2009) state that help-seeking can improve students’ academic skills in the online course. (zimmerman, barry j.; moylan, 2009) also state that the poor achievers are reluctant to do help-seeking. according to the finding of this research, most of the students applied help-seeking both information seeking and getting assistance from friends and lecturers. the finding of this research indicates that the students are highly motivated to achieve their learning goals. both the finding and the theory are supported by two previous studies. the first study was conducted by (lear et al., 2016) about self-regulated online learning implemented in ten courses including academic writing in one university in australia. the finding shows that most of the students applied information seeking and obtaining feedback. those two points support the finding of this study. the second study was conducted by (jimoyiannis et al., 2018) discuss self-regulated online learning applied by master degree students through online academic writing with bloggers. the result shows that most of the students applied help-seeking at which the total number of blog’s comments firnanda salsabila | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 18 are 131 comments for seeking additional information and 16 comments for seeking, offering, or providing help. the undergraduates’ use of self-reflection phase in self-regulated online learning toward expository and analytical writing course self-reflection phase from the bar chart presented in figure 3. the proportion of self-reflection phase, the result of the self-reflection phase is relatively high. all of the items have a mean above 3.00. consecutively, the first item that has a mean of 3.02 which stated about making a study journal referred to as summarizing online course material. the second item has a mean of 3.47 which stated about checking progress referred to as consulting online learning with friends. the third item has a mean of 3.47 which stated about monitoring referred to reviewing material and finding out the differences of learning material that had been learned. the proportion in the self-reflection phase is quite dynamic. in making a study journal, 20 students (42.6%) stated that they sometimes apply it. on the contrary, 10 students (21.3%) stated that they often apply it. from the bar chart above, it can be concluded that more students choose sometimes in the first item. in checking progress, 18 students (38.3%) stated that they sometimes apply it. on the contrary, 15 students (31.9%) stated that they often apply it. in monitoring, 19 students (40.4%) stated that they often apply it. according to the result, it can be concluded that most of the students do monitoring process by reviewing material and finding out the differences of learning material that had been learned in the online course. figure 3. the proportion of self-reflection phase the finding of this research proved the theory of self-regulated online learning by (zimmerman, barry j.; moylan, 2009) (zimmerman, barry j.; moylan, 2009) state that the result of self-evaluation is affected by goal-setting in the forethought phase. the students who have strong goal-setting will have strong self-reflection. it can be seen from the findings of this research that both the forethought phase and self-reflection phase have means above 3.5. the findings indicate that the forethought phase and self-reflection phase correlate. the finding of this research and the theory are supported by two previous studies. the first study conducted by (lear et al., 2016) state that most of the students do self-evaluation during the academic writing online course. the second study was conducted by (jimoyiannis et al., 2018) state that most of the students do self-reflection by evaluating their writing performance on blogger with peer interaction to achieve a better learning outcome. according to the three items in self-reflection phase, most of the students do monitoring process rather than checking progress and making journal. 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 making study journal checking progress monitoring self-reflection phase 3 = sometimes 4 = often 5 = always firnanda salsabila | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 19 this result contradicts with previous study conducted by that state most of the students do checking progress by evaluating their writing performance with peers. further study should be done to analyze the factors causing the difference use of self-reflection phase in self-regulated online learning. conclusion this study presents the frequency of self-regulated online learning applied by the students in the expository and analytical writing course which is divided into three phases: forethought phase, performance phase, and self-reflection phase. the data was gathered mainly from the osel questionnaire to measure students’ use of self-regulated online learning. the result of this study shows that most of the students are often applied self-regulated online learning in the expository and analytical writing course. three phases in self-regulated online learning have medium means which are above 3.00. only task strategies that has the lowest mean which is below 3.00. the limitation of this study is it could not explore more about students’ perception and actual behaviors in implementing self-regulated online learning. to overcome research limitations, qualitative studies should be implemented to get in-depth analysis by employing interviews and providing audio, text, or visual files in the process of self-regulated online learning applied by the students in the expository and analytical writing course. further studies can unveil self-regulated online learning in different language skills and identify the relationship between the forethought phase and self-reflection phase in self-regulated online learning to the extent of the research field in those areas. references ally, m. 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(2009). self-regulation where metacognition and motivation intersect. in d. j. hacker, j. dunlosky, a. c. graesser, m. lundeberg, & l. mohan (eds.), handbook of metacognition in education. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203876428.ch16 putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 21 elt forum 11(1) (2022) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt teachers’ strategies to teach writing explanation texts dadan hidayat1, jejen jaenudin2 1universitas bina sarana informatika jakarta, indonesia 2 smk as-syukron limbangan, garut, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received on 6 september 2021 approved on 25 december 2021 published on 30 march 2022 ________________ keywords: teaching strategies; teaching writing; explanation text ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ the strategy in teaching is very important for the teacher in teaching writing, especially in teaching writing explanation text. the teacher must have a variety in teaching to help the students study successfully. this research was intended to find out the teaching strategies used by the teachers at sman 10 garut. the purposes of this research are to identify some of the teachers' strategies and techniques used in teaching writing explanations. the data needed is gained through a sample consisting of 4 sman 10 garut (senior high school) teachers. the teachers are provided with 18 questionnaires. the responses are in the form of yes, sometimes, and no to the statements given. then, the result is formulated by using: = f × 100%. this research used the descriptive method and employed qualitative data. the writer observed the teachers in teaching writing explanation text and using teachers' observation form also. based on the findings, (61. 11%) of the respondents perceive that various teaching strategies were needed for the students. based on the writer's interpretation, it is suggested that the teachers practice specific strategies for teaching writing explanations. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 agung raya 1, lenteng agung, jagakarsa jakarta selatan e-mail: dadan.dhq@bsi.ac.id http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& dadan hidayat, jejen jaenudin | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 22 introduction writing is one of the essential skills that students in senior high school must accomplish. they may express ideas, information, and thoughts through writing. they use written language to express feelings and experiences wholly and regularly. however, when expressing oneself, essays or paragraphs represent ideas and thoughts. students still make some errors when they are writing. in this case, teachers have an important role in helping the students minimize the student's errors in writing. teachers need a strategy for helping students to improve students writing skills. teachers' strategies are essential in the learning and teaching process. the teachers must improve the teaching method by implementing good strategies. they play a necessary strategy in helping the student achieve the goal of language learning. the teacher also needs to improve their techniques in teaching. ariyanti and fitiana (2017) said that teachers must move away from various traditional methods and switch to a new approach to apply in the writing classroom to improve their students in all aspects of essay writing. in addition, modern teaching techniques and aids are indeed very helpful in enhancing students' writing ability. the teacher must help them express ideas in the language being taught. the teachers are obligated to find suitable teaching strategies. according to horby (1980), strategy is the technology of planning operations and actions, especially the movements of the army and navy, or the ability to organize and carry out something. another theory from ahmad (2007) stated that this strategy is intended as a teacher's effort to create an ecosystem that enables the educational process to achieve and succeed in formal learning goals. based on this explanation about the strategies in the learning and teaching process, it proves that the teacher needs some strategies in the learning process to help students understand the material and improve their skills in english. the teacher needs the strategies in teaching in the classroom because the teacher has some capital tasks that must be done. those are: the teachers must plan, teach, and evaluate the teachinglearning activity. and to do so, the teachers have to comprehend something closely related to the teaching-learning process. typically, strategies are divided into three main categories: metacognitive, cognitive, and socio-affective. brown (1994) explained that metacognitive is a term used in information processing theory to indicate an executive function of the strategies that involve planning for learning, thinking about the learning process as it is taking place, monitoring one's production or comprehension, evaluating knowledge after an activity is completed. cognitive strategies are more limited to specific learning material itself. socioaffective strategies have to do with mediating social activity with others. these strategies will help the teacher in the learning process to deliver the material in the learning process. the other hand, the teachers need to help students because teaching is showing or helping someone to understand as brown (2007) stated that teaching is showing or helping someone to learn something, giving instructions to someone, guiding someone in the study of things, giving knowledge to someone, and knowing something to someone. it is defined as making people understand. however, teaching and learning cannot be separated. it cannot be defined separately from learning. teachers have a role in the classroom. harmer (2004) stated that teachers have five parts: controller, prompter, participant, resource, and tutor. as the controller, the teacher must control the class or activity and often lead from the front. as a controller, he takes the register, tells students, organizes drills, reads aloud, and in various other ways exemplify the qualities of a teacher-fronted classroom. then as the prompter, the teacher gives the solution for students if they get the problem in the learning process. the teacher only provides the solution without giving the answers to their students. like the participants, the teacher stands back from the activity of learners to get on with it and only intervenes later to offer feedback and correct mistakes. as the resource, the teacher takes part or tries to control the students, or even turns up to prompt they might be entirely unwelcome. the help should be capable of applying suitable methods and techniques of language learning. based on these explanations, it proves that the teachers have an essential rule learning process. the teacher is the director of all students' behavior, and the students are imitators of her nonverbal model. the teacher is the authority in the classroom. the teacher and the student are more like panthers in the teaching-learning process. a teacher should be able to improve their student's skills. students must master four skills. one of them is writing. according to oshima (1996), it is one of the basic skills to be learned. writing is a process of creating, organizing, writing, and polishing. writing is one of the productive skills that can be used to measure students' improvement in learning english. another theory of writing explained by karim and rachmadi (2015) stated dadan hidayat, jejen jaenudin | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 23 that writing conveys ideas on a piece of paper where this activity aims to produce a good article by each writer, in this case, that is meant students. writing as one of the productive skills that students or writers must master is delivering ideas on a piece of paper. producing good writing that meets the rules of writing is the goal of every author or student because it is significant for the success of every student or writer in learning the language. in teaching english, there are some kinds of texts that the students must master. one of them is an explanation. according to horby and garry (1980), an explanation text is a text that explains the processes involved in the formation or workings of natural or social, cultural phenomena. especially for writing explanation text, students need techniques to help them write the text. based on haerazi et al. (2020), writing activities manifest the latest language skills that english teachers should acquire after listening, speaking, and reading. compared to the other three skills, writing skills are more challenging to learn than native speakers because they require learning various language elements and aspects and the language itself. writing is one of the basic skills that the student must master. it proves by the statement from patel (2008) writing is a skill that must be taught and practiced. writing is an essential feature of learning a language because it provides a very good way of foxing the vocabulary, spelling, and sentence pattern. it becomes an important aspect of students' expression at a higher stage—there are some writing processes. there are some stages in writing classroom activity as richards (2002) stated that the writing process as a classroom activity incorporates the four primary writing stages. planning, drafting (writing), revising (redrafting), and editing. the teacher also has three other externally imposed stages on students: responding (sharing), evaluating, and post-writing. here is the plot of the process of writing. the writer will explain all steps. the planning in writing is essential because the student can plan their activity and prepare something related to the report. they can write their idea on paper after they plan their training in pre-writing. the second stage is drafting. in section, the writers focused on writing fluency and were not preoccupied with grammatical accuracy or the neatness of the draft. the third stage is editing. at this stage, students are engaged in tidying up their text as they prepare the final draft for evaluation by the teacher. for the editing section in writing, the student can evaluate their mistake and tidy up their writing. the last stage is revising. in the revising area, students change. they review their texts based on the feedback given in the responding setting. the final step is essential for the writer to find out their mistake forgive their input for their writing. then in the revising stage, the writer can find out the weakness of their writing teachers need some techniques or strategies to teach writing to make the learning process simple and successful. based on patel (2008), teaching writing techniques involves using pictures and reading, using all language skills, and controlling writing. in using the photo, teachers can find a valuable resource in the image: drawings, photographs, posters, slides, cartoons, magazine advertisements, diagrams, graphs, tables, charts, and maps. first of all, pictures provide a shared experience for students, a joint base leading to various language activities. then in the process of using reading, the teacher gives a short story, a newspaper column, an advertisement, a letter, a magazine article, a poem, or a piece of student writing that can work the same way as a picture to provide shared content in the classroom. in the process of using all language skills, the students will listen to each other listen-once the classrooms talk like," is she running? yes, she is." with listening comes comprehending what the speaker is saying. the listener can then react by writing down his version of the information he has just heard for a reader. in the technique process in teaching practical writing, practical writing has a clear purpose and a specific audience. much of this everyday writing is "writing to get the thing done. "messages, forms, invitation, letters, and instructions are types of writing that anyone might have to do at some time or other. the previous study about teaching strategies in teaching writing has gained much attention from some researchers. atikah (2018) presented a good model of effective teaching strategies in writing class. this result was based on small-scale research in one of the institutions in indonesia. she collected the data by doing class observation and interview to evaluate the lecturer's strategies in teaching writing and note down the rationales of using specific strategies. besides, she also used an online focus group to obtain the students' perceptions about the lecturers' ways of teaching. her research result indicates that some teaching writing strategies have been applied to the class, improving their writing skills. the rationale for choosing the specific lecturer was due to his popularity among students and colleagues who consider him a good writing lecture in the efl context. in general, the teaching approach implemented was the process-writing approach. some strategies applied were the lecturer asked to share the students' draft orally to their peers and criticize dadan hidayat, jejen jaenudin | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 24 their essay, used different strategies to provide feedback (oral and written corrective feedback). another researcher was karunia (2019). she presented teacher strategies in learning english in teaching writing. based on research that has been done that the teacher used some strategies in the teaching writing and learning process such as mind mapping and group discussion and the use of strategies in learning has a good impact on increasing student writing skills, students are more enthusiastic in following the learning material provided by the teacher. irikawati (2017) analyzed the strategy in teaching writing. several strategies are used, and almost all the steps in the strategy are conducted and implemented well by the english teacher. prabantoro and hikmat (2018) the researcher analyzed the teacher's strategy in teaching narrative text writing is using cooperative learning because this strategy keeps students active and can solve problems in analyzing generic structures, language features, and social functions of the narrative text so that they can make narrative text well. the other researcher is raharjanto (2016). he used collaborative learning and discussion to analyze teacher strategies in teaching writing by forming groups and examining pictures. there are some similarities and differences between previous and current studies. the similarities are studies are about investigating teachers’ strategies to teach writing skills. then the differences between previous research and recent studies are the previous research are focused by using group discussion and use some specific strategies in teaching writing such as mind mapping and group discussion, narrative texts, exploring the picture, applying cooperative learning to teach writing while in this research focusses on teachers’ strategies to teach writing explanation text. this researcher will analyze the teachers’ strategies to teach writing explanation texts by giving strategies in teaching writing. this research was intended to find out the teaching strategies used by the teachers in the senior high school. the purposes of this research are to identify some of the teachers' strategies and techniques used in teaching writing explanations. methods this research method was qualitative descriptive analysis; all aspects will be formulated in a written essay. according to alwasilah (2000), the observer provided the readers with facts and interpreted what was being investigated in descriptive research. in this research, the writer carried out an investigation. the descriptive method was used for this research. this is in line with meleong's (2007) argument that the descriptive methods interpret or explain the phenomenon. the subjects of this study were the teacher at senior high school. in abbreviations, the teachers' names are a.r, y.r, a.s, and s.k. the issues were the english teachers. the teacher was selected because the primary purpose of the study was to describe and document what strategies teachers use in teaching writing explanation text at senior high school. the researcher observes the teaching-learning process of the teachers in the class. the researcher observes how the teachers’ strategies in teaching writing explanation texts. in collecting data, the writer did three stages. the first stage was to organize the instrument. this study triangulated the methods to strengthen the validity and reliability of data. in other words, all data collection methods and the participants used in this study were the time to test and validate the data to see if it produces the same results (reliability). the instruments used questionnaire items and observation. second, the questionnaire items were administered to the teachers to know their teaching strategies. and the last, the writer observes the teacher in the classroom to investigate their teaching strategies. the writer acted as a non-participant observer and used teachers’ observation to observe the teaching explanation text's learning process. the writer observed the teachers’ strategies while teaching writing explanations, beginning from pre-activity until post-activity. the writer only writes the actual activities in the classroom when the teacher is teaching, writing a description on text. passive participant observation means the researcher only sits down and pays attention to the actual data. the questionnaires items were one of data collection of teachings in the descriptive method. it has been used to describe and support the data about the problem in teaching writing explanation. the questionnaire was given to the teachers for gathering data. it consists of 18 questions that respondents must fill. the choice completes the questions, yes, sometimes, or no. data analysis aims to discover patterns, ideas, explanations, and understanding (mcmillan, 2010). in this research, the data collected are analyzed to clearly describe teachers' strategies to teach writing explanation texts at senior high school. the writer did some steps for analyzing the data. the first step is editing. this stage checked the results of questionnaires collected to determine the suitability of respondents' answers. there were no replacement answers in editing with the intention dadan hidayat, jejen jaenudin | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 25 that the data was consistent and according to the research purpose. the second step is coding. at this stage, coding is referred to as open coding, preliminary coding, or provisional coding. to interpret the data, the most frequent strategy is to read and reread all of the material and categorize it by looking for units of meaning-words, phrases, and sentences. after receiving the data, the researcher collected it at this stage. involves the gathering of all data. the researcher groups all units with the same coding together. the data will be easier to read. in brief, by coding all of the data we gathered, we can highlight the appropriate data for this research topic. the last step is cleaning. at this stage, the data obtained and collected was then cleaned by checking the data and then only retrieving the correct data, so there was no dubious or false data. findings and discussion findings these are the overall results of the investigation on teachers' strategies in teaching writing explanation texts. table 1. teachers responses to questionnaire the questionnaire number yes sometime no f % f % f % 1. apakah saudara selalu mengacu pada kurikulum yang berlaku ketika mengajar ? 4 100 2. apakah saudara selalu menggunakan buku paket yang sudah tersedia di sekolah ? 4 100 3. apakah saudara selalu membuat persiapan rpp terlebih dahulu sebelum mengajar teks explanation ? 4 100 4. apakah saudara selalu menngunakan bahasa inggris ketika mengajar writing teks explantion? 4 100 5. dalam mengajar writing explanation, apakah saudara memperkenalkan terlebih dahulu teks explanation 4 100 6. dalam mengajar writing explanation, apakah saudara selalu menjelaskan ciri ciri teks explanation? 4 100 7. sebelum mengajar writing explanation, apakah saudara menjelaskan terlebih dahulu definisi explanation text? 3 74 1 25 8. apakah saudara pernah menyuruh siswa untuk menterjemahkan hasil teks explanation yang mereka tulis ? 3 75 1 25 9. apakah saudara pernah membuat group atau kelompok di kelas ketika mengajar writing explanation? 3 75 1 25 10. dalam mengajar writing explanation, apakah saudara selalu menyuruh siswa meringkas teks explanation? 1 25 2 50 1 25 11. dalam mengajar writing explanation, apakah saudara mengajarkan dengan cara menyusun kalimat ? 2 50 2 50 12. apakah saudara selalu menyuruh siswa untuk menentukan ide/ gagasan yang akan dikembangkan dalam menulis teks explanation? 2 50 2 50 13. apakah saudara selalu memberikan tugas kepada siswa untuk membuat teks explanation di rumah? 4 100 14. apakah saudara memiliki strategi pembelajaran dalam mengajarkan writing explanation? 3 75 1 25 15. pernahkah saudara mengajar writing explanation dengan menggunakan berbagai strategi sehingga siswa bisa menulis teks explanation dengan baik? 2 50 2 50 dadan hidayat, jejen jaenudin | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 26 16. apakah saudara selalu memberikan motivasi kepada siswa yang kurang dan yang belum bisa menulis teks explantion? 3 75 1 25 sum 44 1100 27 675 1 25 average 2.44 61.11 1.50 37.50 0.06 1.39 based on the table above, it is clear that respondents would prefer yes answers to sometimes answers and no answers. but, there are two dominant choices between yes solution and sometimes answer. data above show that all the teachers had different characters when teaching. teacher ar asked students about explanation text before teaching. “do you know about explanation text? “ some students responded to the teacher's question by referring to their understanding of explanation texts. following that, several students discussed explanation texts. teacher a.r went over the purpose of explanation texts, the basic structure, and language aspects in the teaching process. after that, teacher a.r. inquired about the material with the students. “ do you understand about the material? “ students said that they understood the material. after that, teacher a.r asked students to make explanation texts. teacher y.r had a different way of teaching with teacher a.r. before teaching, and teacher y.r did not ask students about explanation texts. she didn't go over the basics of genre theory instead of focusing on explanation texts. she described the explanation text's purpose, general structure, and language features. teacher y.r did not ask students about the material after she had finished teaching since she assumed that students understood it. teacher y.r instructs students to write/create an explanation text at the end of the teaching process. teacher a.s. and s.k. manage the class differently than teacher a.r. and teacher y.r. they do not maintain control over the class, resulting in a noisy situation. the teaching method was considered ineffective as a result of this situation. teachers a.s. and s.k. also instructed students to write/create explanation texts without specific instructions. as a result of this situation, some students were confused by the assignment. the data interpretations the findings of the research will be interpreted based on the number of each question. based figure 1, most teachers teaching explanation texts were based on the curriculum because the curriculum is a teaching reference to attain the purpose, but all teachers use english books. still, the teachers use other books such as 'lks.' the teacher always prepares the rpp before teaching, writing explanation text for students. the teacher uses rpp because it is essential to succeed in the class's teaching process. the teachers sometimes use the english language. they try to mix between english, indonesian, and sundanese languages to understand the teacher's explanation. the teachers always give the example of an explanation text before the students write it so that they do not get confused when they write an explanation text. the teacher always gives a detailed explanation about the explanation text, such as the generic structure and language features, so the student understands materials, especially for writing an explanation text in teaching writing explanations, the teachers sometimes faced some problems. the teachers felt the delivery method because they were afraid that the students could not understand the way of delivery. based on the interpretation above, most respondents chose yes to the statements given. it meant that the respondents almost had a good strategy in teaching writing explanations. in this case, the english teachers should be able to increase the suitable strategies in teaching. every teacher has a unique approach in teaching writing. teacher a.r. has good teaching strategies because he constantly asks students questions before going on to the next section. the interaction between teacher a.r and the students was active during the learning process. student a asked about explanation texts with the teacher. dadan hidayat, jejen jaenudin | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 27 figure1. data interpretation teacher strategies and teaching writing student 1 told the teacher a.r that she understood the material. still, she told the teacher that when she started to write an explanation text, she occasionally forgot about the tense used when writing explanation texts. “i understood about the explanation texts, but when i started to write an explanation text. i forgot about the tense and the rule.” student 2 told the teacher that she got the same problem with student 1. she forgot about the tense when she started to write. “i got the same problem with student 1. i forgot about tense when i began to write and explanation texts.” student 3 was different from students 1 and 2 . she told the teacher that she did not get confused with the tense but got confused with the idea when she began to write. “ i did not get confused with the tense, but i lost the idea when i began to write explanation texts.” based on students' problems, teacher a.r explained the tense and how to get an idea when they wrote explanation texts. at the end of the learning process, students said thank you to teacher a.r because they understood the material. they were enthusiastic when teacher a.r gave the assignment because they understood the material. teacher y.r got the same situation in the class with teacher a.r about students' writing problems. some students told the teacher that they were still confused with the tense , gaine the idea and rule when they began writing and explaining texts. teacher y.r explained clearly about the tense and rules in writing explanation text. “ hello, students. i will explain clearly to you about tense, how to get an idea when you begin to write “ teacher y.r had a good strategy and can manage the class well so the material can be delivered clearly and students also understand with the explanation from the teacher y.r. teachers s.k and a.s could not manage the class well, so the class was noisy. this situation confused some students, and some did not give attention to the teacher. so when the teacher gives them the assignment, they are still confused about how to do it. 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 1 2 2 4 3 2 33 4 3 4 3 4 1 2 1 2 2 2 2 1 2 3 0 0,5 1 1,5 2 2,5 3 3,5 4 4,5 data interpreatation teacher strategies and teaching writing teachers' strategies teaching writing dadan hidayat, jejen jaenudin | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 28 discussion based on the data analysis and data interpretation above, it can be concluded that the teachers almost have a good strategy in teaching writing explanation text. ahmad (2007) stated that the strategy is intended as a teacher's effort to create an ecosystem that enables the educational process to achieve and succeed in formal learning goals. especially in teaching writing, the teacher need more efort to creat a good situatiuon in the class. karim and rachmadi (2015) stated that writing conveys ideas on a piece of paper where this activity aims to produce a good article by each writer, in this case, that is meant students. although the result is good, the teachers still need to increase their strategy in education writing explanation. the writer found some different data about their statement on the questionnaire from the teacher's observation data. what the teachers chose on the questionnaire with their activities at class was different. each teacher has different strategies in teaching writing explanations. they also have different characters. so, the writer got some difficulties in analyzing each other. according to the statement above, the writer would like to explain the teachers' strategies in writing explanations based on the teacher's form. the first teacher was mr. a.r. he taught the twelfth-grade student. when the writer observed, he was at class xii ips 3. he was well prepared and well organized in class for the preparation stage. it is looked from the way he began the class activities with the good responses from the students. before going further, he reviewed material then used the english book to new material about explanation text. he explained the definition of explanation text then he asked students about this material. the teacher explained the text's purposes, general structure, and language features, such as using simple present tense conjunction and noun phrase. then he used the simple way in the teaching process to understand what he taught. he gave the simple technique of writing explanation text, so the student's enthusiasm for the subject led. when the student asked about explanation text, the teacher answered the question carefully and satisfactorily. the teacher knew the problem and gave the solution when the student got the problem—the methodology or strategies in the class were balanced and varied. the teacher strategies are practical and suitable for students' abilities. the teacher asked the students to write or write a descriptive text based on general structure and language characteristics. when the student has difficulties in writing explanation text, the teacher helps the students. after that, the teacher examines the result of the students' assignments. the second teacher was mrs. y.r. she taught twelfth-grade students. when the author observed, she was in xii ips 2 for the preparatory stage. she was well prepared and well organized. she checked the material and saw new material for obvious reasons. she had been warmed up in advance. then she explained the material of the explanation text. while she gave direction, it was clear and concise so that the students could carry it out. after that, she explained the material was presented in a logical sequence. she did not explain the basic theory of the genres, but she focused on explanation texts. she explained the purposes, general structure, and language features of the explanation text. the teacher was careful and satisfactorily when she answered the questions from the student. but she did not know when the student was having trouble understanding because she felt that the student understood the material. the students were interested and enthusiastic about the subject taught because the teacher explained the material very well. the method or strategies from the teacher are not too effective because there are students who sleep in the class. the teacher gave the student assignment to make or write the explanation text to the student. then she helped when the student had difficulties in writing explanation text. the third teacher was mr. a.s. he taught the tenth-grade student. mr. a.s. was not different from mrs. y.r. and mr.a.r in managing the class, but in the strategies and technique is different from the other. he explained material without using strategies effectively. the students did not understand what the teacher taught. the students felt confused with the instruction that the teacher explained. the teacher asked the students to write the explanation text without instructing them how to make a good writing explanation text. at the end of the teaching process, the teacher gave the students assignment, and he did not know that the students had difficulties writing explanation text. then he left his class without checking the assignment of his students. the last teacher was mrs. s.k. she taught the tenth-grade student. when she taught, she did not control her students in teaching. she could not manage the class, and the course was noisy. she explained purposes, general structure, and language features of explanation text with condition class dadan hidayat, jejen jaenudin | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 29 were loud. the writer looked at the teacher used the strategy that was not suitable for the student's writing ability. she did not have a strategy to motivate her students in writing an explanation. so, many students did not understand and could not write explanation text well. conclusion the following were conclusions of the research findings, which presented the teachers' strategies in teaching and learning writing explanation texts. the teachers' strategies were essential in teaching, especially in writing explanation text. the teachers' must-have strategy in teaching for helping students write explanations well. the teachers used many teaching strategies to motivate their students to write explanations. the teaching strategies were: the teachers helped students who could not write an explanation text. the teachers gave way to writing explanation text well when the students found some difficulty and some problem in teaching explanation. in teaching writing explanation text, the teachers always faced some problems. the problems faced by teachers were: the use of appropriate methods and techniques in teaching, the students did not understand the explanation text, and the students were still confused to determine their idea. acknowledgement the researchers would like to express their sincere gratitude to some parties, including the teachers and colleagues, for their valuable support and help while conducting and producing this research paper. hopefully, the result will positively contribute to the educational development and the readers. references ahmad, s. 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(1996). introduction to academic writing. longman. patel, f. (2008). englih language teaching. sunrise publisher & distributors. prabantoro, a. t., & hikmat, m. h. (2018). teacher’s strategies in teaching writing narrative text at smkn 1 kismantoro 2016/2017 academic year (doctoral dissertation, muhammadiyah university of surakarta). richards, r. (2002). methodology_in_language_teaching_2002_scanned.pdf (pp. 1–432). putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 21 elt forum 10 (1) (2021) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt students' perception toward gamification applied in english language classroom pandu perdana putra1, arif suryo priyatmojo2 1,2english department, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 31 august 2020 approved in 16 march 2021 published in 26 march 2021 ________________ keywords: students' perception; gamification; teaching technique; qualitative study ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this study aims to find out the students' perception toward gamification applied on english language classroom. gamification emerged as an innovation in classroom teaching. the basic concept is to incorporate game elements into teaching, taking advantage of students' interest in games that can be used for the purposes of the teaching process. this study is conducted since there is still limited research that is conducted in indonesia which analyses the students' perception toward the gamification utilization. this research used qualitative methods as a way to present research results from data collected. data from this study were collected using two methods, namely online questionnaires, and interviews. this research shared questionnaires to 30 students. the questionnaire was a likert-style close-ended question. from the research conducted, it was found that the majority of students' perceptions of gamification used in english classes was positive. the students believed that gamification was effective and fun to bring to classroom learning. this teaching method allows students to engage more in-class activities, reduces boredom because it creates a learning atmosphere, and increases learning motivation without disturbing the understanding of the material obtained by students. © 2021 universitas negeri semarang correspondent address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: kangpandu22@gmail.com http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& pandu perdana putra, arif suryo priyatmojo/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 22 introduction gamification appears as an innovation in language teaching. the basic concept is to insert game elements into teaching, different from game-based learning, where students learn directly from the game. this technique is believed to increase students' motivation and engagement in the lesson. platforms like kahoot, duolingo, and quizizz are examples commonly used for gamification. students were introduced to game elements such as points, badges, leaderboards, and incentives (werbach & hunter, 2012). the reward is often not directly related to the goal achieved. however, it serves as notice to the player and others that a level of competence has been achieved. progress tracking is often enabled and guided by reward systems; a sequence of intermediate goals maps out progress towards an overall objective. what distinguishes gamification most distinctly from traditional approaches is the explicit use of competition as a motivational tool. this competitive element is a source of motivation (nicholson, 2012). in some applications of this technique, students can see the progress of themselves and their friends directly. transparency in progress should be able to arouse students' motivation to be the best among their rivals. the application of gamification in classroom learning is becoming increasingly important as learners no longer seem to be as engaged with traditional teaching approaches as they once were. several studies have found game-based learning to be more interesting for learners (malamed, 2012). the gamification of learning has also helped students develop problem-solving and higher-order thinking skills (malamed, 2012). therefore, gamification needs to be considered to be applied in the classroom in the teaching process because the benefits obtained from gamification are quite beneficial. students' willingness to learn english in indonesia is still far from what is expected due to the lack of motivation. however, they are instructed to read at school; this habit does not permeate into students' routines at their homes (iftanti, 2012). therefore, the teacher's role is to raise students' interest in learning a subject, which is vital. technology supports the teaching process with ict utilization. (priyatmojo & areni, 2017) say that, in the current digital age, technology is essential for learning english because, with technology, there are many benefits that students may receive, including 1) promoting the learning process; 2) making it more straightforward for students to access information; 3) the pressure of learning materials (paperless); 4) the technology literacy; 5) forming independent learners (independent learning); 6), etc. this topic was chosen because of emerging trends in the development of education worldwide. therefore, research is needed to support the occurring rapid technological advancement. the research question in this research is to find out students' perceptions about the gamification used in english class, which later can be used as a reference in making decisions in the process of preparing class materials and activities. this research refers to the five article titles that are used as the basis for the study. the first study was conducted by cheong et al. in 2014 entitled 'towards the gamification of learning: investigating student perceptions of game elements.' what can be seen from cheong’s et al. study results are that research subjects agreed that gamification would add to their interest in the learning process. i want to prove whether it happens in international schools that have often used it-integrated teaching methods. a study by banfield & wilkerson in 2014 entitled "increasing student intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy through gamification pedagogy" aimed at assessing gamification as a method of experimental learning theory. ibanez et al. (2014) had a study entitled "gamification for engaging computer science students in learning activities: a case study." it was appealed that there is a positive effect on students' engagement toward gamification learning activities and a moderate improvement in learning outcomes. in 2018, bicen & kocakoyun conducted a study entitled "student perceptions for the gamification approach: kahoot as a case study. this method was also found to have a positive impact on student motivation. the last reference was taken from research in 2017; buckley & doyle conducted a study entitled "game on! student perceptions about gamified learning". this study explores students' perceptions of gamified learning interventions used in large undergraduate modules and small postgraduate modules. the perception of undergraduate students tends to be positive when viewed from fgd data. while postgraduate students are the opposite, they are more questioning and less crediting gamification. the definition of game by salen (2004, p. 81) defines "a system in which players engage in an artificial conflict defined by rules that result in a quantifiable outcome." aside from that, according to kim in 2012, games provoke robust emotional responses, such as curiosity, frustration, and joy. from pandu perdana putra, arif suryo priyatmojo/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 23 the definition mentioned, it can be said that the elements in the game can stimulate the player and indirectly provide simulation and input to the brain. according to kapp, the definition of gamification is integration by "using game-based mechanics, aesthetics and game thinking to engage people, motivate action, promote learning, and solve problems" (kapp, 2012, p. 10). it applies characteristics associated with video games, such as game mechanics and game dynamics, to non-game applications (simões et al., 2013). it was explained that gamification is a combination of material delivered by a teacher or lecturer combined with game mechanics. the other distinguishing characteristic is the explicit use of competition as a motivational tool (nicholson, 2012). competition may be generated at an individual level through progress tracking, whereby movement towards an overall objective is mapped by a sequence of intermediate goals to be achieved. it may also be social, with individuals competing against each other to achieve the highest score. according to deterding et al. (2011), the competition is often operationalized in a leader board, which ranks first to last in performance. this is one of the instant feedback examples that students can receive; in gamification, students can see how their grades or progress in the quiz is running. although only using elements taken from the game, deterding (2012) says that gamification is well-known for motivating and engaging players for lengthy periods. in the era called education 4.0 or 21st century education, gamification has the potential to be the answer to the challenges of education in this era. in order to achieve this, we also need to consider students' perceptions. every person has his perception of something. mcdonald (2011) said that differences in perception lead to miscommunication and suboptimal results. montague (1997) said that students' perception is what the students feel about a particular thing. therefore, to understand student perceptions, i focused on student perceptions of students' feelings about their learning experiences. chen & hoshower (2003) stated that students' perception is essential for considering the success of the strategy of learning. based on these considerations, the researcher agreed that students' perception is the main aspect of the learning process, not only for evaluation but also for increasing understanding. in applying a method, feedback from participants is needed to evaluate how the method is implemented. in this case, the students' perceptions of gamification applied in the english class. chen & hoshower (2003) also stated that students' perception is vital for considering the success rate of a strategy. the students' perception helps the teacher see something or decide something from the point of view of students. furthermore, the perception is taken what matters can be improved or what is too high; in other words, adjusted so that the gamification method's application can be optimal. methods this study used the descriptive qualitative method. cresswell (2014, p. 4) stated, "qualitative research is an approach for exploring and understanding the meaning individuals or groups ascribe to a social or human problem." the role of the researcher in this research is a data collector and a data analyst. as a data collector, the researcher collected the students' perceptions through two methods, which are questionnaires and recorded interviews. as a data analyst, the researcher analyzed the data gathered on behalf of the research to conclude gamification perceptions. in selecting research subjects, all students from the school were chosen as the population of the research. furthermore, 30 students from one class were taken as the research sample. clustered sampling was used to determine the sample in this research. the subject was chosen because the teacher used gamification with kahoot and quizziz platforms in learning english. the research was done in the academic year 2019/2020. during this time, the researchers conducted data collection by distributing questionnaires and conducting interviews. two instruments were used to collect data in this research, namely, questionnaires and interviews. the questionnaire was created to collect students' answers regarding their perceptions of gamification. the form of the question and answer form is on the online platform to facilitate the collection process. the questions were using statement sentences are then sorted according to the perception domain for easy reading and analysis. choices used are 'strongly disagreed,' 'disagreed,' 'agreed,' and 'strongly agreed.' this design uses a likert-scale questionnaire to reduce the bias of answers from subjects. the next instrument is the interview. an interview was held to obtain more in-depth information that was paired with the results of the questionnaire. the form of the questions asked is an open-ended question that is still guided around students' perceptions about gamification. the process of taking was using recorded teleconference media one by one with the students. after the pandu perdana putra, arif suryo priyatmojo/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 24 records are obtained, the next process is to transcribe and label the relevant information with the other instrument, the questionnaire. after that, the data is presented with a table. each statement is averaged with a percentage formula to see the trend in student answers. this is followed by additional information obtained from one-on-one interviews with students. findings and discussion the questionnaire responses were analyzed by interpreting the students' answers, with information from the results of student interviews relevant to the statements on the likert-scale questionnaire. table 1. students' perceived feeling no statements answers percentages strongly agreed agreed disagreed strongly disagreed 1 gamification makes me happy 60% 37% 3% 0% 2 gamification is childish 0% 0% 33% 67% 3 gamification is not necessary 53% 40% 3% 3% 4 gamification is a waste of time 0% 0% 23% 77% 5 i am bored with gamification 7% 3% 20% 70% 6 i prefer longer portion of gamification in my class 37% 37% 17% 10% 7 i think gamification needs to exist in every meeting 47% 40% 7% 7% in the first statement, we found that 18 students strongly agreed, 11 students chose to agree, one student chose to disagree, and no students strongly disagreed. it indicated that there was a positive perception about gamification. we also provided several answers from the interview describing the subjects' perceptions about the use of gamification. this statement is supported by several answers on the subject related to the first statement. interviewee 1 : "i think using it makes me happy; it is fun because there are games." interviewee 11 : "i prefer to be taught using gamification, sir. it is not boring." interviewee 12 : "very happy, sir, when i was taught using this method because we rarely play the game in the class." interviewee 29 : "yes, sir. i am very happy because while playing the game too." the next results of the statement "gamification is childish" got no students answered strongly agreed, no one agreed with it. followed by ten students have disagreed, and 20 students strongly disagreed with the statement. this signifies that the students thought that gamification is applicable to their age. after that, the next statement contains "gamification is not necessary." explained that students tend to disagree with the statement. with 16 students answering firmly disagreed, 12 of the students disagreed, one student agreed, and one more student strongly agreed with the statement. students strongly disagreed that "gamification is a waste of time," which shows the acceptance of positive gamification in english classes. furthermore, data that can be seen are 23 students strongly disagreed with the statement, seven students of the total answers disagreed, no students who agreed, and 0 students who strongly agreed with the statement that gamification is a waste of time. the next statement is, "i am tired of gamification." the students' answers are the opposite of the statement, meaning that students are not bored with gamification in their class english. the information obtained was that 21 students strongly disagreed, six students disagreed, one student agreed. the last two students strongly agreed with the statement. the sixth statement, which is "i prefer longer portion of gamification in my class," was responded to be quite varied but is still dominant to students' approval to prolong gamification's use in english class. based on the table, 11 students strongly agreed, followed by 11 students who agreed with the statement, five students chose to disagree, and three students strongly disagreed with statement 6. pandu perdana putra, arif suryo priyatmojo/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 25 in addition to the questionnaire data taken, some students also mentioned several things about statement 6, as follows: interviewee 9: "yeah, sir, if possible, we want teachers to extend the time to play games in the class." interviewee 14: "in my opinion, if it is too long, it is no fun any longer, sir." interviewee 25: "i have a difficulty because there was no enough time to do it in a hurry; if the time is longer, it seems good." the following statement, which is the need for "gamification to exist in every meeting," explained that fourteen students chose strongly agreed, 12 students chose to agree, two students chose to disagree. the last two students also chose to disagree strongly. although the answers are quite distributed, the tendency of student acceptance of gamification is positive. they want gamification to be present in every teaching process in the english class. in the interview session, the subject also conveyed things about statement 7. interviewee 8: "i think it should be in every meeting, except for the test, but. because there are many benefits, sir." table 2. students' perceived classroom atmosphere no statements answers percentages strongly agreed agreed disagreed strongly disagreed 8 gamification makes the classroom atmosphere more lively 70% 30% 0% 0% 9 gamification makes the classroom atmosphere chaotic 3% 3% 20% 73% 10 gamification makes joy in the classroom 83% 17% 0% 0% furthermore, what can be translated from statement 8, "gamification makes the classroom atmosphere more lively," is getting very positive reactions from students. data shows 21 students who strongly agreed, nine students, or who agreed; no students disagreed and strongly disagreed. this means that gamification does make the classroom atmosphere more lively in learning. this result was reinforced by several students interviewed and mentioned the classroom atmosphere's positivity when using gamification. interviewee 3: "yes, sir, usually silent, but if the teacher uses the game even though sometimes it is noisy, but it is still good." interviewee 6: "i agreed with that statement, sir, because if you use gamification, the class atmosphere will be cheerful. i don't feel sleepy." the next statement is "gamification makes the classroom atmosphere chaotic." getting the questionnaire responses showed that 22 students strongly disagreed, six students disagreed, one student agreed, and one student strongly agreed with the statement that gamification creates a chaotic classroom atmosphere. this statement was also reinforced by several students who mentioned the disruption caused when gamification was being used in the english class. interviewee 13: "even though it's crowded, but if it's too much, it becomes disturbing, sir." interviewee 16: "if it became noisy, i would be disturbed, sir, i cannot concentrate." they also believe that the use of gamification can make joy in the classroom, as it is statement 10. took 25 students strongly agreed, five students agreed, 0 disagreed, 0 strongly disagreed. besides being able to be seen from the results, several students also gave their opinions through interviews, including: pandu perdana putra, arif suryo priyatmojo/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 26 interviewee 5 : "i agreed with that because my classmates and i feel joy when taught by using it." interviewee 19 : "compared to the usual ones, this is more fun, sir." table 3. students' perceived classroom engagement no statements answers percentages strongly agreed agreed disagreed strongly disagreed 11 gamification makes me interested in joining classroom activity 57% 37% 7% 0% 12 i don't care about the game being played by the class 3% 3% 17% 77% the next statement, number 10, which reads "gamification makes me interested in joining classroom activity," shows very positive results with 17 students strongly agreed with the statement, followed by 11 students agreed, two students disagreed, and 0 students strongly disagreed with the statement. this indicates that gamification can increase students' motivation to participate in-class activities. this statement was also reinforced by several students who mentioned the interest in joining classroom activities when gamification was being used in the english class. interviewee 23: "yes, sir, playing games is fun, so i want to join class activities. not lazy anymore." statement 11, which reads "i do not care about the game being played by the class," shows the statement's significant negation. the data obtained were 23 students strongly disagreed with the statement, followed by five students who disagreed, one student agreed, and one other student strongly agreed with the statement. this illustrates that gamification can make students care about the game being played by the class. table 4. students' perceived motivation no statements answers percentages strongly agreed agreed disagreed strongly disagreed 13 gamification motivates me to compete to be the best 70% 23% 7% 0% 14 gamification makes me interested in the material being taught 60% 37% 3% 0% 15 when i lose or get a low score, i lose motivation 3% 23% 27% 47% 16 gamification makes me want to learn more about material outside the classroom 23% 67% 10% 0% the next statement is "gamification motivates me to compete to be the best," illustrates that 21 students strongly agreed, seven students agreed, two students disagreed, and 0 students strongly disagreed, which means that the application of gamification in english classes can motivate students to compete to be the best. this statement was also reinforced by several students who mentioned the motivation caused when gamification was being used in the english class, they are: interviewee 1: "i encouraged to be the best sir, to be the best in the score." interviewee 7: "i feel like to have the biggest score, sir, even though there is no gift or so." interviewee 10: "the game makes me want to compete; it is like adrenaline when playing like this." statement fourteen, which reads "gamification makes me interested in the material being taught," showing 18 students strongly agreed, 11 students agreed, one student disagreed, and 0 pandu perdana putra, arif suryo priyatmojo/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 27 students strongly disagreed with the statement. this means that students' acceptance in terms of motivation to positive gamification makes them interested in the material being taught using gamification in the english language classroom. in statement fifteen, which said, "when i lose or get a low score, i lose motivation," it is obtained that one student strongly agreed, seven students agreed, eight students disagreed, and 14 students strongly disagreed. the spread of these answers tends to negation, which means that when students lose the gamification process or get a low score, most of them stay motivated and do not lose the spirit. the next statement, "gamification makes me want to learn more about the material outside the classroom," getting results seven students strongly agreed, 20 students agreed, three students disagreed, and 0 students strongly disagreed. this means that gamification indirectly makes students like english lessons, so they intend to study more outside the classroom. table 5. students' perceived comprehension no statements answers percentages strongly agreed agreed disagreed strongly disagreed 17 gamification makes me distracted from the core of the lesson 10% 3% 20% 67% 18 in the use of gamification, i can still understand the core material being taught 43% 50% 3% 3% 19 gamification has more impact than conventional teaching 43% 40% 7% 10% 20 gamification blurs the learning objective 0% 3% 23% 73% the next statement is number 17, which reads, "gamification makes me distracted from the core of the lesson" data obtained three students who strongly agreed, one student agreed, six students who disagreed, and 20 students strongly disagreed that gamification makes students in x ips 1 distracted from the core of the lesson. this data indicates that most students can still understand core lessons when the method being used is gamification. the other statement is, "in the use of gamification, i can still understand the core material being taught." data obtained 13 students strongly agreed, 15 students agreed, one student disagreed, and one student strongly disagreed, showing students can still accept lessons and still understand the core material when gamification is used. the next is statement 19, which reads, "gamification has more impact than conventional teaching." the data obtained are 13 students strongly agreed, 12 students agreed with the statement, two students disagreed, and three students strongly disagreed. the majority of students have a positive perception of gamification. this result was reinforced by several students interviewed and mentioned the classroom atmosphere's positivity when using gamification. interviewee 2: "i agreed with that statement, sir. it is clearly having more impact, sir, because it makes it easier to understand and, most importantly, because it is cool." interviewee 4: "because in my opinion, it is very far from boring. the usual thing is that you only listen. this way of teaching makes me think and play." interviewee 19: "this is better, sir, because we used technology. i'm interested. i realize i am interested more in being able to speak english better." interviewee 24: "i chose disagreed because the process was still not perfect, sir, yesterday there were still some problems, the question did not appear several times on my cell phone." the last statement discussed in this section is "gamification blurs the learning objective" gets the results of 0 students who strongly agreed, one student who agreed, seven students disagreed, and 22 students strongly disagreed that gamification of blurs the learning objective. the students felt that learning objectives could still be achieved from this positive reception even though gamification using games risked making learning objectives uninteractive. pandu perdana putra, arif suryo priyatmojo/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 28 conclusion it can be concluded that gamification is acceptable to be applied in english classrooms and fulfill the objective of gamification, which is to increase the student interest in learning the english language. the data presented that gamification can enliven the classroom atmosphere because it is no longer teacher-centered. however, in the application of gamification, all students also participate inclass activities. the second statement explains that gamification can also make the chaotic atmosphere class. although only a few students agreed with the statement, it should be noted in its application that gamification can also cause noise. the next assertion indicates that students find that gamification should not confuse the learning goal. in contrast, gamification is closely related to the game and high student excitement. despite that, most students still agreed that gamification has a more significant effect than the traditional teaching and learning process. this is backed by the innovation of the process, including the use of technology in teaching. students' interest in the material being delivered also increases because what is in the game is the teacher's material, so they try to understand the material to compete. students' interest in learning material, in this case, english outside the classroom, also increases. this can be integrated because gamification is not only in the classroom, but the teacher can make games that students can do at home. in the game, some students lose motivation when getting low scores in the game. however, the majority of students do not lose enthusiasm when getting low scores. we suggest that gamification can be used in learning english in the classroom. referring to the results obtained, students feel that gamification can make the teaching and learning process of english in the classroom more lively. therefore, teachers need to be more aware of gamification by upgrading their ict skills so that they can more freely 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(2012). for the win: how game thinking can revolutionize your business. philadelphia: wharton digital press. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 107 elt forum 9 (2) (2020) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt listening self-efficacy beliefs, l2 listening proficiency, and listening strategy training: an experimental study hamideh hamdi khosroshahi1, ali merç2 1,2anadolu university, turkey article info ________________ article history: received in 15 october 2020 approved in 29 november 2020 published in 30 november 2020 ________________ keywords: self-efficacy; listening proficiency; cognitive strategies; metacognitive strategies ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ self-efficacy plays an important role in language learners’ performances in language learning. studies report that explicit teaching of strategies, self-efficacy, and better learner performance are interdependent concepts. this entails the fact that language teachers should focus on the first two in order to increase the learners’ performance. the aim of this study is to find out how teaching cognitive and metacognitive strategies affect efl learners’ performances and self-efficacy beliefs in listening comprehension tasks. ninety students participated in this study, thirty of whom were part of the control group. their listening self-efficacy and listening proficiency were measured before and after a four-week training. during the intervention sessions, instructors taught cognitive and metacognitive strategies in an explicit way, which included teacher modeling and teacher feedbacks. the results revealed that learners’ listening proficiency scores increased while their self-efficacy scores did not change significantly after the training. these findings led to the conclusion that low selfefficacy does not necessarily lead to low listening proficiency. another finding was that teaching only cognitive and metacognitive strategies does not help learners with their self-efficacy in a short time period. implications and suggestions for l2 listening are provided considering the results of the study. © 2020 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 anadolu universtiesi egitim fakutesi 26470 tepebasi, eskisehir, turkey e-mail: amerc@anadolu.edu.tr http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& hamideh hamdi khosroshahi, ali merç/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 108 introduction language learners’ individuality is gaining more importance in the esl/efl context in recent years, and researchers believe that there are many differences among individual learners, concerning their perceptions in the context of language learning (dörnyei, 2005). one such difference emerges in language learners’ self-perceptions or what scholars call their ‘self-efficacy beliefs’. bandura (1997) claims that learner’s self-efficacy have a crucial role in their overall success. hsieh and schallert (2008) also argue that self-efficacy deals with learners’ conscious or sub-conscious beliefs about how well they can complete a task. according to mills, pajares, and herron (2006), self-efficacy plays a vital role in learning and students with high self-efficacy beliefs are more prepared to learning challenges. savignon (1983) highlights the role of learners’ feelings and claims that they are more important factors compared with others such as intelligence or teaching method. self-efficacy beliefs can vary through different language skills and tasks. listening comprehension provides the aural input that learners receive during their communications or in classroom setting which makes proficiency in this skill fundamentally important for learners. hasan (2000) claims that “listening comprehension provides the right conditions for language acquisition and development of other language skills” (p.138). the importance of both selfefficacy and listening tasks intrigues the implication that higher self-efficacy would result in better performance in listening comprehension tasks, and in return, better listening performance would lead students to have higher perceptions of themselves while confronting challenging listening tasks. furthermore, teaching learning strategies particularly metacognitive strategies has been reported to increase learners’ performances in listening tasks. as klingner, vaughn and boardman (2015) argue improving listening strategies help learners perform their listening activities more efficiently; moreover, language learners who utilize metacognitive strategies of planning, evaluating and monitoring, tend to achieve their goals with ease. this happens because learners do better at storing and processing new information, they apply better listening strategies to each task, (riding & rayner, 2013). it can be inferred that teaching strategies to learners will also improve their self-efficacy as they will start to perform better. as mentioned before, this higher self-efficacy will improve their performances even more since a successful listening comprehension skill directly “depends on learners’ self-efficacy for listening, on their confidence in their ability to make sense of the input to which they are exposed” (graham, 2011, p. 113). al-azzemi and al-jamal, (2019) claim that despite its valid importance to language learning, listening comprehension has been an undervalued skills in second language learning research. although a number of research studies have been conducted to find out the possible effect of listening self-efficacy, metacognitive strategy training, and listening comprehension, the possible relation among these variables is a genuine gap in the esl/efl literature. as a contribution to the literature to fill-in this gap, this study attempts to shed light onto the possible relationships among the aforementioned important concepts in esl/efl contexts. considering the current gap and the interdependent roles of self-efficacy, listening comprehension performance, and listening strategies, the aim of this study is to investigate the correlation between these variables in a turkish context. this study tries to find out how teaching listening comprehension strategies would affect learners’ selfefficacy and listening comprehension. within this purpose, the following research questions were formed: 1) does teaching listening strategies have an effect on turkish efl learners’ listening proficiency scores?; 2) does it have an effect on their listening self-efficacy?; 3) is there any correlation between listening proficiency scores and listening self-efficacy scores of turkish efl learners? literature review self-efficacy in 1970s, albert bandura defined self-efficacy as learners’ beliefs in whether they have enough ability to perform a task. he claims that self-efficacy is the core cognitive feature that can affect a person’s behavior and these beliefs “vary across activity domains and situational conditions rather than manifest uniformly across tasks and contexts in the likeness of a general trait (bandura, 2012, p.13). bandura (1995) identifies four factors in increasing self-efficacy: experiencing successes or mastery, observing peers’ success or modelling, receiving verbal persuasion, and enhancing one’s physiological states. the first and the most important source of self-efficacy, mastery, refers to the learner’s previous experiences of failure or success. mastering a task will increase the self-confidence of the learner in the related area whereas a failure will cause its decline. the next source of self-efficacy is the modeling source. according to schunk (1987), when learners feel that they can be similar to their models and hamideh hamdi khosroshahi, ali merç/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 109 gain success by following them, they get more motivated. observing successes that are gained by sustained effort boost learners’ beliefs in themselves. the third source of self-efficacy is available when learners are persuaded that they are capable and can complete a task successfully. in fact, teachers or parents can strengthen students’ beliefs, which would lead them to put more effort on learning tasks. graham (2007) claims that we need to make learners notice that their success or lack of success are due to their strategy uses, not their being talented or not. the last source of self-efficacy comes from affective and physical states. depression, for instance, decreases an individual’s confidence in their capabilities, and they may show poor performances. self-efficacy has been the focal point of numerous studies in the field of second language learning. a group of researchers have attempted to describe the relationship between self-efficacy and overall language learning (gahunga, 2009; magogwe, & oliver, 2007; mahyuddin, elias, muhamad, noordin and abdullah 2006; mills, pajares, & herron, 2007; raoofi, tan & chan, 2012; woodrow, 2011). these studies have revealed that there is a significant positive relationship between self-efficacy and overall language learning success. for example, raoofi et al. (2012) shows that learners’ selfefficacy profiles can be a strong predictor for achieving language skills. mills et al. (2007) investigated the l2 french students’ academic performance in relation with their self-efficacy and found out that those who perceived themselves as proficient in using effective metacognitive strategies were more successful in french. on the contrary, anyadubalu, (2010) studied the relationship among anxiety, self-efficacy, and students’ performances in the english language and revealed that there was no significant relationship between self-efficacy and english language performance. although this study shows no relationship, many studies that highlight the positive relationship between self-efficacy and using learning strategies can be an indicator of importance of self-efficacy and students’ beliefs about themselves (diseth, 2011; kim et al., 2015; pajares, 2002; schunk, 1991; anam & stracke, 2016; wilfong, 2006; wong, 2005; yang, 1992; yang, 1999; yang & wang, 2015). the findings of these studies reveal a significant positive relationship between self-efficacy and the using learning strategies by students. for instance, anam & stracke (2016) studied on indonesian students' strategy use in learning english and its relationship with their self-efficacy beliefs and found out that students with high self-efficacy use different strategies compared with those who have low self-efficacy. in another study, yang and wang (2015) demonstrated how explicit strategy training increased students’ selfefficacy and strategy use. bonyadi, nikou, and shahbaz, (2012) explored the relationship between iranian students’ self-efficacy and strategy use; however, the results showed no significant relationship between them. nosratnia et al. (2014) also found out that metacognitive awareness is a better predictor for successful strategy use than self-efficacy beliefs. another group of studies have attempted to explore the correlation between students’ selfefficacy and their anxiety level (çubukçu, 2008; ghonsooly & elahi, 2010; huerta et al., 2017; kirmizi & kirmizi, 2015; martinez, kock & cass, 2011; mills, pajares & herron, 2006; torres & turner, 2016; woodrow, 2011). significant negative correlation has been found between students’ anxiety and their level of self-efficacy in torres and turner (2016). some studies explored the relationship between anxiety and self-efficacy regarded with students’ writing skills and they all reported that writing selfefficacy is a strong predictor for writing anxiety (huerta et al., 2017; kirmizi & kirmizi, 2015; martinez et al., 2011; woodrow, 2011). mills et al. (2006) conducted a similar research on students reading and listening skills which had similar results. çubukçu (2008) revealed that there was no significant correlation between self-efficacy and anxiety; she argues that students’ anxiety could be due to educational settings, not their self-efficacy. overall majority of these studies have found out that self-efficacy has positive effects on individuals as they claim that those with high levels of selfefficacy could deal better with different tasks, unfamiliar contexts, and interpersonal relationships; students with high self-efficacy tend to endure more in difficulties and challenges. they argue that selfefficacy causes higher level of motivation, since it makes students conscious of their progress in a skill. most of the studies support the strong positive relationships between self-efficacy and learning strategies and academic achievement among students, as suggested by zimmerman and cleary (2006). students with high self-efficacy are more active in the learning process, in other words, they try harder, persist longer, and have fewer negative emotional reactions in facing difficulties. finally, it can be claimed that students with higher self-efficacy have more control over their cognitive processes in general. hamideh hamdi khosroshahi, ali merç/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 110 self-efficacy and listening comprehension listening skills are considered to be crucial for success in language learning. according to dunkel (1986), the main path to reach proficient speaking is through listening mastery. rubin (1994) lists a few factors contributing to listening comprehension one of which is the listener’s emotions that the listener undergoes in the learning context. in a recent inquiry, graham (2006) studied a group of intermediate learners of french in england and conducted a questionnaire to find out which language skill they had been more successful. the results revealed that very few students had seen listening as a fulfilled skill; following the interviews from the same group, it is noted that there were statements of demotivation regarding listening (graham, 2006). such findings have led a group of scholars to study the effect of self-efficacy and anxiety on learners’ performance of listening comprehension. for example, chen (2007) compared scores of listening self-efficacy of taiwanese students with their l2 listening anxiety and found out that second language listening self-efficacy could predict the listening scores better than second language listening anxiety. mills et al. (2006) found out that self-efficacy in listening was positively correlated with listening proficiency and negatively correlated with listening anxiety, accordingly, it can be expected that with higher level of self-efficacy, students will experience less anxiety. apart from lowering anxiety, arnold (2000) believes that self-concept can affect overall listening comprehension, the change of which as macintyre and gardner (1991) argue, can be challenging; however, it is worth it. boosting self-efficacy and listening performance accordingly can be achieved through teaching listening strategies explicitly, which aims at boosting learners’ sense of control and expectations of success (chamot, 1987; nunan, 1999; yeldham, 2009). researchers argue that low levels of self-efficacy regarding listening may be caused by the techniques used by teachers to teach listening in the classroom (chambers, 2007; field, 2008; graham, 2006). they note that listening is considered as an activity to be ‘delivered’ while it should be considered as a skill that needs to be developed. in most l2 teaching contexts, teachers emphasize more on quantity of practice than quality and they rely on repetition of the listening texts and never implement pedagogic principles (graham & santos, 2013). the importance of listening comprehension, learners’ self-perception and necessity of teaching strategies have been the focus of several studies. graham (2011) notes that both selfefficacy and performance of listening can be improved by explicit teaching of listening strategies which can happen through increasing learners’ sense of control and making them aware of the relationship between strategies used and the outcome achieved. graham and macaro (2008) showed that learners who received listening strategy instruction scored better on a listening test, and their self-efficacy for listening also had improved. the same result was reported by goh and taib (2006) who claim that strategy instruction and discussing strategy uses with students improved their listening strategy knowledge and their confidence. strategies like verbalization or modelling by a teacher are also believed to improve self-efficacy among the learners; schunk and rice (1983) reported that modelling listening strategies leads to higher self-efficacy and better listening performance. in addition to cognitive strategies, metacognitive strategies are also believed to increase l2 learners’ performance (flavell, 1979; schoenfeld, 1987). metacognitive knowledge is about the selfregulation of language learning such as planning, monitoring, and evaluating the learning process (o’malley & chamot, 1990; wenden, 1998). since listening is a receptive language skill that does not push learners to produce language, researchers believe that the use of metacognitive strategies in listening comprehension can activate learners’ language knowledge while listening (goh & taib, 2006; graham & macaro, 2008; vandergrift & tafaghodtari, 2010). it is believed that proficient listeners use more metacognitive strategies, which lead to better listening performances. students need to know what they need to achieve, and which strategies can be the most effective. mastery of listening comprehension as well as having high self-efficacy play key roles in overall language proficiency. there is also a codependency between high achievements in listening comprehension tasks and learners’ high self-efficacy. while çubukçu (2008) claims that the reason for anxiety among turkish students is not due to their low self-efficacy but the overall educational setting in turkey, it is assumed that explicit strategy training, modelling, and guiding students in selfregulating themselves will improve learners’ listening comprehension performance, which will result in higher self-efficacy and lower anxiety levels. therefore, this study aims to find out if teaching strategies and improving metacognitive abilities will alleviate learners’ anxiety along with increasing their listening comprehension and self-efficacy or not. hamideh hamdi khosroshahi, ali merç/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 111 methods reseach design this study is a quasi-experimental design with non-equivalent pre-test and post-test control groups. in quasi-experimental research design, as opposed to the true experimental designs, the subjects in the experiment are assigned to groups in a non-random fashion (creswell, 2012). therefore, a quasiexperimental design was utilized in the present study as there were two experimental groups and one control group, the participants of which were not chosen randomly; all three groups took pre-test and post-test, the experimental groups received treatment whereas the control group did not. participants for the purpose of the current study, convenience sampling was used. ninety students from elementary and pre-intermediate levels of a language school located in eskisehir, turkey participated in the experiment. these levels were preferred because higher-level students might have already been familiar with some metacognitive strategies. before the implementation, a placement test (macmillian straightforward placement test) was held to check the homogeneity of the learners. participants were between the ages of 14 and 16 and the gender of the learners were almost similar in number: 43 males and 47 females. thirty students from b1 level were assigned as the control group and the remaining 60 were placed in two experimental groups. all of the participants in the control group were in b1 level, and the experimental group participants were in two levels of a2 and b1 according to cefr that were in different classes. trainers three trainers applied the treatment sessions in the study: the trainer of the b1 experimental group was a native speaker teacher from the usa. there were an iranian teacher for the a2 experimental group, and a turkish teacher for the b1 control group. the trainers of the experimental groups were already assigned to the related groups by the school administration, which means they were not selected by the researcher. fortunately, the trainers of the experimental groups were also ielts instructors, therefore, they were already familiar with the listening strategies they were going to teach. before the pre-test, a meeting was held with the trainers, and the aim and approach of the study was explained to them. before each treatment session, the listening tasks were given to them, and the trainers of the experimental groups were given a list of the related strategies they were going to teach to the groups. they taught metacognitive strategies such as planning, and self-monitoring along with listening cognitive strategies like guessing, note taking, inferencing, catching the gist of the text as well as listening for details. the trainers modeled all of these strategies before asking students to do them on their own. instruments three instruments were used to collect data for this study: • english listening self-efficacy questionnaire • preliminary english test (pet) • key english test (ket) • british council listening comprehension tasks english listening self-efficacy questionnaire learners’ listening self-efficacy beliefs were measured by the turkish version of an english listening self-efficacy questionnaire (see appendix), which was developed by rahimi & abedini (2009). this questionnaire measures learners’ confidence and self-perception during listening comprehension tasks and in communicating with native speakers and teachers. the original questionnaire was adapted for turkish students in turkish by using back-translation method. the questionnaire was first translated to turkish and the translated version was retranslated into english to find out the flaws. the last version, which was in turkish, was then edited and confirmed by an expert in the field. in order to prevent any misinterpretation of the questions, the questionnaire was piloted on seven learners who were not part of the study. the final questionnaire consisted of 18 likert-scale items and the participants needed to read and decide if they: (1) strongly disagree (2) disagree (3) have no idea (4) agree (5) strongly agree. hamideh hamdi khosroshahi, ali merç/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 112 preliminary english test (pet) pet is developed by cambridge esol called the cambridge main suite, which measures the participants’ proficiency in b1 level and is designed to be used for teenagers. considering the age and level of the participants of this study, pet was used to measure the participants’ listening comprehension in b1 level. this test has three main sections: reading/writing, listening, and speaking. the listening part consists of four parts ranging from short exchanges to longer dialogues and monologues. it measures learners’ understanding dialogues and monologues on daily topics. the listening section has 25 items and takes 35 minutes for the test takers to complete. key english test (ket) ket is developed by cambridge esol called the cambridge main suite, which measures the participants’ proficiency in a2 level and is designed to be used for teenagers. considering the age and level of the participants of this study, ket was used to measure the participants’ listening comprehension in a2 level. ket was used to measure the participants’ listening comprehension in a2 level. ket has three main sections of reading/writing, listening, and speaking. the listening part consists of five parts ranging from short exchanges to longer dialogues and monologues. the listening section has 25 items and takes 30 minutes. listening activities from british council website teachers who participated in this study used listening activities from british council website for the treatment sessions to teach and model metacognitive strategies used during listening activities. this website was chosen since the activities were designed for pet and ket exams, which could prepare the participants for the post-test exam. procedure at the onset of the study, a placement test was held to confirm the homogeneity of the participants in both control and experimental groups. later, the questionnaire of listening self-efficacy was given to the participants, which took 10-15 minutes. having finished the survey, the listening comprehension tests were given to the participants. the participants in the control group and b1 learners of the experimental groups took pet and the rest of the experimental group took ket. both of the listening tests had 25 questions, which took 35 minutes to complete. during the following weeks, the participants in the experimental group were trained for one month, by giving them listening activities, which were taken from british council website. the activities were given in every session and the trainers were informed about how to train the learners. during the training sessions, the metacognitive strategies were taught in the classes. some other strategies such as listening for gist and the details were also practiced. they were also given hints on how to answer different types of listening questions (e.g. true-false, fill-in-the-blanks, multiple choices). other strategies were also used by the trainers to increase participants’ self-efficacy. the strategies used for this purpose were adapted from dörnyei (1994): giving affiliative motives, modelling the task first, and giving motivational feedback. meanwhile, the control group was only receiving the activities and there were no instructions and no feedback given. to find out the efficacy of the treatments, after one month, the participants of both control and experimental groups were given a post-test. for the post-implementation session, students responded to the same questionnaire and took the listening test used for the pre-test. data analysis quantitative data analyses were used to answer the three research questions posed for the purpose of the present experiment. to answer the first researh question, the learners’ pre-test and post-test scores from pet and ket were compared via the paired samples t-tests. to answer the second research question, similar to research question 1, paired samples t-test analysis was used. to learn if there was any correlation between learners’ post-test listening proficiency and listening self-efficacy scores of each group, as an answer to the third research question, pearson’s correlation analysis was calculated. findings and discussion to have an overview of each group’s performance on preand post-tests, the mean scores are listed in table 1. hamideh hamdi khosroshahi, ali merç/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 113 table 1. descriptive statistics of pre and post-training scores of the control group and experimental groups in listening proficiency test and self-efficacy questionnaire listening proficiency test self-efficacy questionnaire pretest posttest pretest posttest n mean sd n mean sd n mean sd n mean sd control group 30 11 3 30 12 4 30 2.99 .78 30 3.31 .51 a2 30 17 3 30 20 2 30 3.26 .50 30 3.28 .50 b1 30 17 3 30 21 2 30 3.61 .34 30 3.58 .32 table 1 demonstrates the number of the participants, minimum and maximum scores, mean scores, and standard deviations of the control group and the experimental groups of a2 and b1, both before and after the training period. considering the control group, we can notice a slight improvement in their listening comprehension scores; there is also a noticeable amount of improvement in their self-efficacy scores. in the experimental groups, the participants of a2 level are seen to have improved their listening comprehension scores and their self-efficacy as well; however, their self-efficacy improvement is not considerable. the participants of the experimental b1 group seems to have a noticeable rise in their listening comprehension scores while their self-efficacy scores have slightly declined. strategy training and listening proficiency scores (rq1) the first research question was to find out if teaching turkish efl learners metacognitive and listening strategies improves their listening proficiency in a significant way. as table 1 shows, the mean scores of the experimental and control groups all improved in the post-training listening proficiency test. paired sample t-tests were also conducted to find out whether these improvements were significant. as table 2 shows, there is no significant difference between the pre and post-test of control group (t (29)= -1.992, p=.056). as the analysis indicated, the control group had no progress during the one-month time span. table 2. paired sample t-test results of listening comprehension pre-test and post-test for experimental and control groups paired differences t df sig.(2tailed) mean std. deviation std.error mean 95% confidence interval of the difference lower upper control group pre and post-training self-efficacy -1.267 3.483 .636 -2.567 .034 -1.992 29 .056 a2 pre and posttraining listening scores -3.067 2.449 .447 -3.981 -2.152 -6.860 29 .000 b1 pre and posttraining listening scores -3.967 2.512 .459 -4.905 -3.029 -8.650 29 .000 however, results show that there is a significant difference between pre(m=17.30, sd= 3.109) and post-test (m=20.37, sd= 2.297) scores of a2 level experimental group (t (29) = -6.860, p< .001). there is also a significant difference between listening pre(m= 17.30, sd=3.271) and post-test (m=21.27, sd= 2.212) of b1 level experimental group (t (29) = 8.650, p<001). this means that teaching listening strategies helped turkish efl learners to make a significant progress in their listening proficiency tests. this finding confirms the statement that teaching cognitive and metacognitive listening strategies explicitly can improve the learners’ listening comprehension performance (flavell, 1979; goh & taib, 2006; graham & macaro, 2008; graham, 2011; macaro, hamideh hamdi khosroshahi, ali merç/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 114 2008; schoenfled, 1987; schunk & rice, 1983). it can also be understood that listening comprehension needs explicit training and development, and learners need to know that they can control their performance by implementing appropriate strategies (graham, 2011). among the various strategies used was modelling of the instructor, which can be notified as an effective way to guide students (goh & taib, 2006; schunk & rice, 1983). metacognitive strategies, which were also included in the training sessions, had noticeable roles played in the post-tense results since their engage learners during the listening tasks and help them to process the task deeper (goh & taib, 2006; graham & macaro, 2008; vandergrift & tafaghodtari, 2010). strategy training and self-efficacy (rq2) the second research question was about finding out if teaching listening strategies to turkish efl learners improved their listening self-efficacy in a significant way. considering the preand posttraining mean scores of the three groups, a slight improvement was noticed (table 3). table 3. paired samples t-test table of listening self-efficacy questionnaire scores of pre-training and post-training for experimental and control groups paired differences t df sig. (2tailed) mean std. deviation std.error mean 95% confidence interval of the difference lower upper pair 1 control group pre and post-training selfefficacy -.32281 .89327 .16309 -.65636 .01074 -1.979 29 .057 pair 2 a2 pre and post-training self-efficacy -.02807 .45249 .08261 -.19703 .14089 -.340 29 .736 pair 3 b1 pre and post-training self-efficacy .02982 .43018 .07854 -.13081 .19046 .380 29 .707 to find out if the self-efficacy improvements were significant or not, paired samples t-tests were conducted for the groups. as table 3 shows, there is no significant difference between the pre and post-training scores of control group (t (29) = -1.979, p= .057). considering the a2 level experimental group, there is no significant difference between their preand post-training scores either (t (29) = .340, p=.736). the same result can be seen for the b1 level group, and there is no significant difference between their preand post-training scores (t (29) = .389, p=.707). these results reveal that teaching listening strategies had no effect on experimental groups’ listening self-efficacy. according to chambers (2007), field (2008), and graham (2006), teaching listening strategies can increase the learners’ control over the listening tasks, which leads to higher self-efficacy in them. this claim has been approved by graham (2011), graham and macaro (2008), macaro (2008), and schunk and rice (1983); however, the finding of this study contradicts with these findings. turkish efl learners had no significant improvement over their self-efficacy scores. according to bandura (1995), one of the most important sources of self-efficacy is mastery, or in other words, the amount of successful experiences that learners have had during their educational period. it can be inferred that learners need more success to be able to have higher self-efficacy. another source of self-efficacy according to bandura (1995) is learners’ physiological status, which includes their affective filters. sparks and ganschow (1991) claim that affective filters consist various emotions like stress, anxiety and lack of self-confidence. similarly, çubukcu (2008) has recently reported general anxiety among turkish learners, which she relates to the educational system of turkey. it can be inferred that anxiety affects learners’ overall self-efficacy beliefs. listening proficiency scores and self-efficacy (rq3) the third research question was to find out if there was any significant correlation between listening proficiency scores and listening self-efficacy scores. table 4 presents the results of the correlation analysis. hamideh hamdi khosroshahi, ali merç/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 115 table 4. correlation between groups’ post-training listening proficiency scores and their posttraining listening self-efficacy scores n correlation sig. control group listening post-test and post-training self-efficacy 30 .588 .001 a2 listening post-test and post-training self-efficacy 30 .085 .654 b1 listening post-test and post-training self-efficacy 30 -.041 .831 table 4 indicates that there is no statistical correlation between a2 level group’s listening proficiency post-test and their post-training listening self-efficacy scores (r=.085); the same result can be seen for the b1 group (r= -.041). considering the control group, though, we can see a significant moderate positive relationship between their listening proficiency post-test and their post-training listening self-efficacy scores (r= .588, p<05). this finding contradicts with the studies reporting a significant positive relationship between self-efficacy and language performance (gahunga, 2009; magogwe, & oliver, 2007; mahyuddin, et al. 2006; mills, et al., 2007; raoofi, tan, & chan, 2012; woodrow, 2011). nevertheless, it is in parallel with anyadubalu (2010) and bonyadi et al. (2012) who had found no significant correlation between performance and self-efficacy. anyadubalu (2010), found out that the learners who had lower self-efficacy did not necessarily have a poor performance in learning english; however self-efficacy was negatively correlated with anxiety. in other words, selfefficacy does not affect language performance on its own; but higher self-efficacy can lower the anxiety, which leads to a better performance. conclusion this study attempted to find out if explicit teaching of listening strategies would increase learners’ listening comprehesion scores. the results revealed that the experimental groups had a significant improvement in their scores. this implies that the outcome of the listening comprehension tasks would be noticeably better if teachers train their learners explicitly in what strategies can be more efficient for a particular task and how to implement those strategies. learners should also be able to monitor their actions and evaluate themselves to find out whether they are on the right path or not. as students might be confused at the onset of the lessons and considering the fact that metacognitive strategies might be intangible for the learners, teachers’ modelling the strategies can be essential during the training sessions. teachers also need to observe their learners carefully to provide efficient feedback to them while they are implementing the strategies. to sum up, language teachers need to raise their students’ consciousness on the nature of the listening skills and the needed strategies to perform the tasks. they should model those strategies, introduce and practice new strategies frequently, and remind students to plan and set goals and conduct self-evaluation (rubin, chamot, harris, & anderson, 2007). another finding of the study was that explicit teaching of strategies had no significant effect on learners’ self-efficacy, which led to the finding that there was no correlation between listening scores and self-efficacy scores of the experimental groups. referring to çubukçu (2008), general anxiety that is present in tukish educational setting might lower learners’ self-efficacy, which calls for further research on the elements that cause the anxiety and the ways that the system can be revised to lower it. the anxiety factor is one of the factors that this study should have considered and controlled. a limitation of the study was the duration of intervention sessions: the training period of the experimental groups took only one month, in a longer time span for training, the participants might increase their sense of mastery and accordingly their their self-efficacy scores. references al-azzemy, a. f., & al-jamal, d. a. 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http://dx.doi.org/10.26153/tsw/2033 https://doi.org/10.1016/s0346-251x(99)00048-2 http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ej1078937.pdf https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsp.2006.05.002 hamideh hamdi khosroshahi, ali merç/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 119 appendix a questionnaire on efl learners' self-efficacy about listening skill name: age: 1) i have a special ability for improving listening skill. strongly agree agree no idea disagree strongly disagree 2) in a listening practice, although i understand almost every word, the big problem is that i do not have the ability to keep all of them in my mind. strongly agree agree no idea disagree strongly disagree 3) i have the ability to concentrate on the content to which i listen. strongly agree agree no idea disagree strongly disagree 4) i believe that my proficiency in listening skill will improve very soon. strongly agree agree no idea disagree strongly disagree 5) i am sure that if i practice listening more, i will get better grades in the course. strongly agree agree no idea disagree strongly disagree 6) i can understand the tape in listening classes better than other students. strongly agree agree no idea disagree strongly disagree 7) i cannot understand an english film without english subtitles. strongly agree agree no idea disagree strongly disagree 8) no one cares if i do well in listening course. strongly agree agree no idea disagree strongly disagree 9) my classmates usually get better grades than i do. strongly agree agree no idea disagree strongly disagree 10) even if the listening practice in the class is difficult and i cannot understand it completely, i can find a strategy to answer most of the related questions. strongly agree agree no idea disagree strongly disagree 11) i am very stressful during the listening class. strongly agree agree no idea disagree strongly disagree 12) i enjoy doing listening practice, when the speaker speaks fast. strongly agree agree no idea disagree strongly disagree hamideh hamdi khosroshahi, ali merç/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 120 13) i enjoy doing listening practice with a proficient partner. strongly agree agree no idea disagree strongly disagree 14) i am one of the best students in listening course. strongly agree agree no idea disagree strongly disagree 15) when i am doing a listening practice with a tape at home, it is not important that how difficult it is because i repeat it so much that i can understand it. strongly agree agree no idea disagree strongly disagree 16) i enjoy meeting tourists because i can understand them well. strongly agree agree no idea disagree strongly disagree 17) the more difficult the listening practice it is, the more challenging and enjoyable it is. strongly agree agree no idea disagree strongly disagree 18) in the listening class, when the teacher asks a question i raise my hand to answer it even if i am not sure about it. strongly agree agree no idea disagree strongly disagree putri t al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 271 elt forum 10 (3) (2021) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt a study on factors contributing to students’ english pronunciation nur cholisah1, sintha tresnadewi2, rahmati putri yaniafari3 1,2,3department of english, universitas negeri malang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received on 13 september 2021 approved on 23 november 2021 published on 24 november 2021 ________________ keywords: factor; pronunciation; english pronunciation. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ one of the most important things in learning english as a second language is pronunciation. having good pronunciation can lead to a successful speech communication. however, many students find it difficult in learning pronunciation. many studies have already been conducted to dig in the difficulties and try to overcome the issue. in fact, there are still many students who have good pronunciation, yet not many researchers have conducted studies on how to dig in the factors contributing to it. this study aims at finding the factors that may contribute to the students’ good english pronunciation by applying a descriptive qualitative research design. some instruments were used in collecting the data such as a pronunciation test, an observation checklist, a field note, and an interview guide. this study found that there were four big factors that contributed to the students’ english pronunciation: education, exposure, environment, and motivation. each factor has made a powerful contribution to the subjects’ english pronunciation such as applying a reflective practice method, providing a lot of input about english, providing supportive family and friend, and providing a strong motivation to reach something. this study suggests that future researcher might use the pronunciation test with categorization of words in it. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 universitas negeri malang jl. semarang 5, malang 65145 e-mail: nurcholisah14@gmail.com http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& nur cholisah, sintha tresnadewi, rahmati putri yaniafari | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 272 introduction in this globalization era, english is a very important language to be mastered because english is a lingua franca which means it certainly becomes the most widely used language for international communication today. for that reason, it has recently got a lot of attention from linguists across the board (hülmbauer et al., 2008). there are many important elements of english that people from nonnative english-speaking countries have to master in learning english, one of which is english pronunciation. according to ikhsan (2017), pronunciation refers to the production of sounds that we use to make meaning. pennington and richards (1986) stated that there are three big components of pronunciation; segmental features, voice-setting features, and prosodic features. segmental features are the minimal units of sound defined in phonetic terms. phonemes and acquisition of the target language are traditionally the two most important aspects of pronunciation. mastery of the phonemic differences encoded in its phonological inventory, as well as the phonetic variations of phonemes that occur in certain situations inside syllables and words, is considered as a phonological system. meanwhile, segmental features refer to specific phonetic characteristics of individual sound segments and voicesetting features refer to general articulatory characteristics of stretches of speech. the other components of pronunciation are stress and intonation, the so-called prosodic, or suprasegmental, domain, together with the related coarticulatory phenomena of the blending and overlapping of sounds in fluent speech. prosodic features involve the relative levels of stress and pitch within syllables, words, phrases, and longer stretches of speech. supported by gilakjani (2012), it is also mentioned that the features of english pronunciation are segmental features and suprasegmental features as illustrated in figure 1.1. figure 1. various features of english pronunciation people need communication to deliver messages to other people. the communication should be clear including the pronunciation so that it will run successfully. it is indicated successful if the audience or listener can decode what the speaker is saying. communication needs understanding between the audience and the speaker. if the audience cannot get what the speaker is saying, it will lead to misunderstanding. according to hişmanoğlu (2006), the speaker and the listener should have a mutual relationship in communication. it means that one must be able to grasp what he hears in the target language and appropriately produce the sounds of the language he has learnt. he cannot encode a message to anyone or decode a message sent by another person unless he has sufficient understanding of the target language’s sound patterns. there are many words in english that have similar pronunciation. for instance, a speaker wants to say, “please help me bring the pan /pæn/ here” but pronounces it as “pen” /pen/. those features of english pronunciation segmental features suprasegmental features phonemes (sound difference within a language linking intonation stress sentence stress word stress consonant sounds vowel sounds voiced unvoiced single dipthongs short long nur cholisah, sintha tresnadewi, rahmati putri yaniafari | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 273 words have almost the same pronunciation, but they are of totally different meanings. in some cases, it can be fatal because the wrong pronunciation may bring the speaker into a weird situation in which the listener may assume that the speaker is asking to bring him a pen. this is crucial for especially people from non-native english-speaking countries that must be aware and know how to pronounce each word correctly in avoiding misunderstanding. fraser (2000) stated that pronunciation is the aspect that most affects how the speaker is judged by others, and how they are formally assessed in other skills (e.g., anta 1999: a new assessment tool p.10 tells of a manager who severely underestimated workers’ literacy levels due to their poor pronunciation). according to burns & claire (2003), clear pronunciation is essential in spoken communication. they also added that even when learners produce minor inaccuracies in vocabulary and grammar, they are more likely to to be understood when they have good pronunciation and intonation. in english as a foreign language (efl) context, having good and correct pronunciation is not something that can be achieved from short time learning. efl learners are drilled to learn it and usually take some time to get used to speaking with accurate pronunciation. there are many ways they can learn english pronunciation, one of which is through formal education because pronunciation teaching is a part of speaking when efl teachers teach english to the students. since sounds are crucial in communication, efl teachers must give a proper pronunciation teaching to their classes (hişmanoğlu, 2006). by drilling the students to practice good pronunciation, it will make them be more confident when they speak english because in the context of interactions between both non-native english speakers and native speakers in general, pronunciation teaching is essential for l2 learners. also, improper pronunciation habits are difficult to change so that learning acceptable pronunciation is very crucial. according to kelly (2002), learners who consistently mispronounce a series of phonemes will make it difficult for speakers of other languages to comprehend them. therefore, pronunciation teaching really plays an important role in students’ english pronunciation skill. unfortunately, pronunciation teaching has become a neglected element by efl teachers in teaching english (ikhsan, 2017). pronunciation has long been considered as a challenging subject by teachers and it is frequently neglected in language teaching in favour of reading and writing, which are more likely to lead to success in examination. it is impossible to conduct a lesson that is only focused on pronunciation practice because it is often overlooked as a separate activity during the learning process (gilakjani & sabouri, 2016). as cited from gilbert (in gilakjani & sabouri, 2016), there are two main reasons why people disregard english pronunciation. first, this is an inherently uninteresting activity, and the results tend to be discouraging. it requires a tremendous amount of effort on the part of the teacher to keep the class engaged. second, teachers tend to conceive the subject as being extremely technical, since it is frequently taught that way in teacher training courses. some teachers need to put much effort to teach pronunciation as if it is a phonetics course which can be discouraging for both teachers and students. some course materials include impractical stress and intonation rules in which it burdens the teacher. pronunciation instruction tends to be avoided due to several factors, among others, teachers frequently feel unprepared to teach it; pronunciation instruction is not sufficiently stressed in curricula, and appropriate tools for teaching pronunciation are frequently unavailable (macdonald, 2002). due to those assumptions, english teachers do not emphasize the pronunciation teaching, and as a result, many students do not get the right pronunciation learning. some words may be pronounced incorrectly, and it will lead to misunderstanding. then, it is important for efl teachers to make the inclusion of pronunciation teaching in the class. however, training to enhance students’ pronunciation may be ineffective if the students do not recognize the significance of such needs (bakar & abdullah, 2015). therefore, efl teachers should persuade their students that the goal of pronunciation is to help them pronounce correctly enough to be understood by other people, rather than to gain a native accent (ur, 1984). on the other hand, in efl context, there are still many students who have good pronunciation and teachers who do not ignore the pronunciation teaching in the class. most students who have good english pronunciation are students who are passionate in english. for example, those who are enrolled in english department. emaliana (2010) found that students in the english department are more motivated to learn english so that is why they take english majors. they frequently use english in their daily conversation inside and outside the class. in other words, they have more exposure in english. according to (ikhsan, 2017), there are some possible factors that contribute to their good nur cholisah, sintha tresnadewi, rahmati putri yaniafari | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 274 pronunciation such as education, age, accent or mother tongue, aptitude, attitude, exposure, and motivation. those possible factors can be referral strategies for students who want to improve their english pronunciation. some studies have been conducted in exploring factors of students’ english pronunciation. however, only a few studies have concern in conducting the research on factors that contributed to good pronunciation. only a few research have looked at the effectiveness of pronunciation teaching (derwing & munro, 2005). studies by brown (1992), claire (1993), fraser (2000) and yates (2001 as cited in macdonald, 2002) said that because they lack confidence, skills, expertise, many teachers avoid dealing with pronunciation. considering the importance of having correct pronunciation, this present study has been focused on completing the previous studies and exploring the factors that may contribute to students’ good english pronunciation. more specifically, this study was conducted in english language education study program at universitas negeri malang. the results of this study will give a practical contribution to efl learners in knowing more about an effective method in learning english pronunciation. furthermore, this study can be a reference for english teachers in giving effective strategy of pronunciation teaching in the classroom. methods this study used a descriptive qualitative research design which emphasizes on how things happen, and focuses on attitude, beliefs, and thoughts of the things that happen (koh & owen, 2000). all data were analyzed based on the procedure of qualitative method and displayed qualitatively. the study was conducted in the english language education study program in universitas negeri malang, particularly in speaking for general purposes class b. this particular class was the closest resource that was suitable for the researcher’s needs in this study. however, further step, a pronunciation test, was conducted to decide the subject of the study. adjusting to this pandemic of covid-19, the test was conducted to all students using jotform web-based software. the pronunciation test was in the form of minimal pairs and read aloud. the first part was the minimal pairs containing fifteen pairs of words. the last three parts were the read aloud section which focused on the correct pronunciation, stress, and intonation. the students were asked to record while they were pronouncing the words given on jotform. each item in the first part was valued four points, and the other last three parts were valued two points each item. in order to determine the correct pronunciation, the researcher used the latest oxford advanced learner’s dictionary. the test required the students to reach a score of 90-100. there were three students who were qualified to the score, but it could not be the only consideration to choose the subjects. the scores should be matched to the performances to be selected as the subjects of the study. after getting the results of the pronunciation test, the researcher started doing the class observation to obtain the data and intensively monitor the three students who got the best scores. it was also conducted online via whatsapp group and also virtual meeting on zoom or google meet. observations were aimed at finding the strategy used by the lecturer in giving pronunciation teaching and the students’ behavior in the classroom. the researcher recorded the learning process and also took notes. the researcher also listened to the students’ recording tasks to check whether the scores matched their performance. after conducting observation for eight meetings, there were two students who were excellent at pronunciation so that they were qualified to be the subjects of the study. next, the researcher proceeded to in-depth interview to the two-selected two students. the interview process dug information related to pronunciation, interest and experience in learning pronunciation, habits and social life. according to brounéus (2011), in-depth interviewing is used to know deeper about the information of the subjects. therefore, in-depth interviewing was suitable for the researcher to dig information related to the factors that contributed to the subjects’ english pronunciation. in the process of the interview, the researcher gently guided the conversation using validated interview guide that became an extended discussion. the researcher extended the conversation if there was something to be explored more (rubin et al., 2011). this interview was performed in a semi-structured interview. thus, the researcher developed an interview guide which had been validated by the experts. it contained a list of questions that needed to be covered during the interview. another data was also collected from the lecturer to explore more about the factors that may contribute to their english pronunciation. the duration of conducting either interview or observation was as frequent as possible until it reached data saturation. according to saunders et al. (2018), data saturation is the condition when there is no additional data are found by the researcher. nur cholisah, sintha tresnadewi, rahmati putri yaniafari | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 275 it would depend on the data obtained. when it reached the data saturation, then the interview or observation can be stopped. after all data were collected, the researcher analyzed them through some steps based on gay & airasian (2000). these following three iterative or repeating steps is one way to continue with analysis: reading/memoing, describing what is happening in the setting, and categorizing the research data. the process focuses on (1) becoming familiar with the data and identifying potential themes (i.e., to get an initial sense of the data, the researcher read and wrote memos about all field notes, interview results, and observations and then when it came deeper into the analysis, the researcher began looking for recurring themes or common threads); (2) examining the data in depth to provide detailed descriptions (i.e., the researcher accurately represented the perspectives of the research participants so that the subsequent description could explain each factor that contributed to the students' english pronunciation.); and (3) categorizing and coding pieces of data and grouping them into themes (i.e., the researcher did the process of breaking down data into smaller units and then the pieces of data were categorized. the categories provided the basis for structuring the analysis and interpretation). findings and discussion the data presented here are the main findings of the factors contributing to students’ english pronunciation. the discussion is also presented based on the findings of the study. the students’ ponunciation competence the two highest scores of the test selected to be the subjects of the study, yet they were observed first by the researcher to make sure that the scores matched their performances. student a and student b were qualified to be the subjects of the study because both of them had a score of 94 and 91 respectively that were qualified for the score range. also, their performances during the classroom activities were excellent. it was proven by the lecturer’s comments on their performances, saying that they had good english pronunciation. in doing the pronunciation test of the first part, from fifteen pairs to pronounce, student a could pronounce twenty eight words correctly. whereas, the other two items were pronounced wrongly. for instance, student a pronounced “write” /raɪt/ as /wraɪt/ and the word “idle” /ˈaɪdl/ as /ˈɪdl/. in the second part which was full sentences form, she got two words pronounced wrongly. she pronounced “effect” /ɪˈfekt/ as /eˈfekt/ and “development”’ /dɪˈveləpmənt/ as /deˈveləpmənt. in the third and last part of the test, student a got perfect scores; word stress and intonation focus. meanwhile, student b in doing the pronunciation test got a little bit different results. in the first part, he could pronounced twenty eight items correctly. the other three items were pronounced wrongly. he pronounced the word “except” /ɪkˈsept/ as /ekˈsept/ and “give” /ɡɪv/ as /ɡɪf/. in the second part which was full sentences form, he got three words pronounced wrongly. he pronounced “effect” /ɪˈfekt/ as /eˈfekt/, “wringkles” /ˈrɪŋkəls/ as / ˈwrɪŋkəls/, and “development” /dɪˈveləpmənt/ as /deˈveləpmənt. in the last two parts, he pronounced all words correctly as it was instructed; word stress and intonation. the following is the result of the first part of the pronunciation test. table 1. the result of the first part of the pronunciation test no. words sa sb words sa sb 1. suite ✓ ✓ suit ✓ ✓ 2. borrow ✓ ✓ sorrow ✓ ✓ 3. sheet ✓ ✓ sit ✓ ✓ 4. poor ✓ ✓ pour ✓ ✓ 5. accept ✓ ekˈsept except ✓ ✓ 6. hurt ✓ ✓ heart ✓ ✓ 7. greet ✓ ✓ great ✓ ✓ 8. lounge ✓ ✓ launch ✓ ✓ 9. force ✓ ✓ fourth ✓ ✓ 10. write /wraɪt/ ✓ right ✓ ✓ 11. idle ✓ ✓ idol /ˈɪdl/ ✓ 12. morning ✓ ✓ mourning ✓ ✓ 13. shore ✓ ✓ sure ✓ ✓ 14. give ✓ /ɡɪf/ gift ✓ ✓ 15. sheep ✓ ✓ ship ✓ ✓ notes: s (a/b) = student (a/b); ✓ = correct item; = wrong item nur cholisah, sintha tresnadewi, rahmati putri yaniafari | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 276 as mentioned earlier, the subjects’ performance during the learning process in the class was also considered to be taken into account by doing some observations in order to know the subjects’ development and made sure their performances matched their scores. during the observations which took eight meetings, the students were asked by the lecturer to make a voice recording of certain topics given. altogether, there were four recordings. the assignments became the consideration of the researcher to decide the subjects of this study as well. the factors contributing to students’ english pronunciation education the data collected from the observations were analyzed to identify the pronunciation teaching in the class. as learning pronunciation is crucial for the elt students to know and even master it, pronunciation teaching cannot be neglected anymore. from the observations that the researcher collected, it could be summed up that the teacher employed reflective practice methods. in applying this method, the lecturer helped the students to improve their english pronunciation skill by analyzing their own pronunciation after making a voice recording. the lecturer used this method from the first until the sixth meeting. the students were asked to speak about some topics provided by the lecturer such as covid-19, likes and dislikes, giving opinion on issues, and live after the pandemic by recording it. then, they were asked to re-listen to their own voice recording and made an audio version as the reflection of the previous audio. the lecturer recommended the students to use monolingual dictionaries in checking their pronunciation, but she also gave them necessary feedback. by using this method, they were expected to be able to analyse their own pronunciation in the future. in addition, the subjects said that their skills were improved by implementing this method instead of the other method they have got when they were in elementary to high school which was repetition method. it is a method where the teacher repeats a word as often as possible so that the words will stick to the students’ memories (wirawan, 2019). by recognizing their own mistakes, as they said in the interview, it made them remember more the mistakes and took them as valuable experience that later would not be repeated anymore. exposure based on the results of the interview, both subjects of the study had similar exposure in learning english pronunciation by watching movies, tv show, or cartoon films in english, listening to music or podcast; joining english competitions, looking for the pronunciation of words through google translate, and repeating the pronunciation of words right after listening to some new words. as student a was interviewed, she said that almost every day she watched movies, tv shows, or cartoon films when she was a child yet now she does it once a week. in addition, both subjects believed that english pronunciation can be learned by having much exposure. even sometimes many people find it difficult in learning english pronunciation because of their mother tongue, they said that it could not be the reason why people cannot pronounce english words correctly. moreover, they said it would not significantly influence someone’s english pronunciation skill because every skill can be sharpened by having a lot of exposure to english such as watching movie, listening to music or podcast, talking in english, repeating english words, and any other related english activities. thus, both subjects suggested that these activities can be the references to those who want to learn or even master english pronunciation. environment both subjects had very supportive environment in learning english such as family and friends. based on the interview to sudent a, she said that her mother had a good background knowledge in english. her mother liked to use english in all daily activities they had at home or outside the house. one of the examples that student a gave was when her mom asked her about something in their daily life, she would use english: “al, where did you put the salt?”, said her mom, and then she answered it using english as well, “on the small table, mom”. besides, she also has a friend from australia when she was in junior high school that she still kept in touch with. they always used english to communicate and student a learned a lot from him. even though she did not know exactly the phonemic transcription of the words, but she could speak english in correct pronunciation because she already familiarized herself with the correct pronunciation. meanwhile, student b also has a brother that helped him improve his english pronunciation. he liked to have a discussion with his brother using english, for instance discussing the meaning of a new word. this kind of habit could gradually improve his english pronunciation. nur cholisah, sintha tresnadewi, rahmati putri yaniafari | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 277 motivation another important thing in learning english is a strong motivation coming from inside. based on the interview, student a said that she learned english because of her ambition to have an opportunity to study abroad. that is the reason why she was eager to master all skills in english, including pronunciation. on the other hand, student b said that he was always eager to learn a new language, especially english. he also mentioned that it made him more confident if he could master english. both of them had their own motivations that drive them to learn english pronunciation seriously. discussion based on the results of the data analysis above, the researcher interpreted the factors that can seriously improve the students’ english pronunciation. the researcher summed up that reflective practice method can be another alternative to improve the students’ english pronunciation skill. a lot of input or exposure to english can also help them to be more advanced in english pronunciation. education there are many ways or methods that can be used to teach or learn english pronunciation. based on the findings, the subjects said that repetition is one of the methods that they were familiar most since they were in elementary school until senior high school. during the learning process in the class for eight meetings, reflective practice could be another method that also gave contribution in teaching or learning english pronunciation. this method is worth for teachers to implement in the classroom as the subjects said that reflective practice method was preferable than the previous learning methods such as repetition. reflective practice is the ability to reflect on one action in order to engage in a continual learning (mathew et al., 2017). they also added that one of the most compelling arguments for reflective practice is that experience alone does not always imply learning since deliberate reflection on experience is essential. having the experience only is not enough to be a lesson, yet it is needed to reflect on what have been experienced in learning then it will be a valuable lesson. it is in line with the statement that prior pronunciation experiences may have an impact on students’ ability to succeed in english pronunciation (florez, 1998). it means that having a lot of experience in the knowledge of english will give influence to the students in mastering english pronunciation. experience is the fondation and source of learning because noteworthy individual learning experiences can be a capable drive in learning (boud et al., 1993). exposure according to al zoubi (2018), exposure is defined as the interaction that the learners have with the target language that they are aiming to learn. based on the findings, the subjects often did activities that helped them to improve their english pronunciation, either inside or outside the class. according to benson (2013), outside-of-class language exposure term as any kind of learning that takes place outside the classroom and involves self-instruction, naturalistic learning or self-directed naturalistic learning. it means that it is not enough to get exposure from the institution or school only. students should have more exposure outside the class by having a lot of input such as listen a lot, practice a lot with either native or non-native speakers, and get feedback from peers or teachers. it is in line with murcia et al. (2010)’s statement that it will be easier to learn good pronunciation when you have a lot of exposure to the target language. environment based on the results of the study, the environment factors are divided into two aspects, family and peers. the students’ first environment is their family, and it has an impact on them as individuals. the students will receive influence from how their family educate them. this is in line with kurniawan et al. (2018)’s statement that parents play a big role because they are directly related to children and give influence on children’s learning success. in this context, the more family give the knowledge about english, the more the students get better understanding in english, for instance english pronunciation. it is also supported by kurniawan et al.'s (2018) findings that the students’ learning performance is also influenced by their family environment. thus, a good family environment will significantly encourage students to achieve more. it serves as a motivation that will drive students to do something they are passionate in, thus students will be more driven to do well in their learning process. in addition, the fact that the subjects have very supportive friends also contribute to their improvement. it is in line with wentzel (1998)’s statement, relationships with peers certainly can have nur cholisah, sintha tresnadewi, rahmati putri yaniafari | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 278 a significant impact on the students' overall emotional well-being at school. it was proven by the opinions from the subjects on the interview that they were more comfortable to have an english conversation with friends, especially with friends who had good english background knowledge, and discussed it if there were something unclear. by doing that conversation, it could improve their confidence in speaking english with correct pronunciation. motivation the other factor that may contribute to students’ english pronunciation is the internal motivation. dehkordi (2017) mentioned that motivation as one of psychological factors that has always played a crucial role in language teaching and learning. it gives a significant simultaneous effect on students’ learning motivation (kurniawan et al., 2018). it is proven by student a who has strong ambition to go abroad, which gives her strong motivation to master english, especially the pronunciation. it makes her always practice in pronouncing words and do any other activities related to english that makes her pronunciation get better. it shows that the higher motivation leads to higher language achievement. but in the data, the researcher also found that not having strong motivation does not always mean people cannot master english, as what student b experienced in learning english pronunciation. it is different from what student a wants to achieve; student b thinks that having a good pronunciation will make him cool. it also makes him indirectly learn english pronunciation by doing some activities the same as student a. conclusion this study has shown that there are four big factors contributing to the students’ english pronunciation: education, exposure, environment, and motivation. those factors come from either internal or external contributions. having a lot of input is the key to be successful in learning english pronunciation. one of the effective ways is that implementing suitable learning method such as reflective practice. the subjects proved that reflective practice method can give them better experience in improving their english pronunciation skill. thus, it is suggested for other teachers to implement this method in the learning process to help the students improve their english pronunciation. moreover, those who want to master english pronunciation can apply the method as their daily routine activity. this study also suggests that future researcher might explore further about the effectiveness of implementing reflective practice method in improving the students’ english pronunciation skill, using the pronunciation test to assess the students’s english pronunciation skill, and categorizing the words used in the test. references al zoubi, s. m. 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(2016). why is english pronunciation ignored by efl teachers in their classes? international journal of english linguistics, 6(6), 195. https://doi.org/10.5539/ijel.v6n6p195 pennington, m. c., & richards, j. c. (1986). pronunciation revisited. tesol quarterly, 20(2), 207225. rubin, h. j., rubin, i. s., rubin, a. h. j., & rubin, i. s. (2011). qualitative interviewing : the art of hearing data. saunders, b., sim, j., kingstone, t., baker, s., waterfield, j., bartlam, b., burroughs, h., & jinks, c. (2018). saturation in qualitative research: exploring its conceptualization and operationalization. quality and quantity, 52(4), 1893–1907. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135017-0574-8 ur, p. (1984). a course in language teaching: practice and theory. cambridge: cambridge university press. wentzel, k. r. (1998). social relationships and motivation in middle school: the role of parents, teachers, and peers. journal of educational psychology, 90(2), 202–209. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.90.2.202 wirawan, i. g. n. (2019). effect of repetition method on teaching english process in classroom. 3(3), 143– 146. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 40 elt forum 10 (1) (2021) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt distance learning in the time of covid-19: exploring students’ anxiety christianti tri hapsari🖂 english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 15 march 2021 approved in 29 march 2021 published in 30 march 2021 ________________ keywords: distance learning; covid-19; students; anxiety ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ performing sudden and uncertain distance learning can be difficult and complicated experiences for students as they may suffer from anxiety. the study of anxiety in indonesia typically concentrated on the relation of anxiety with speech production (anandari, 2015), gender differences (nurhaeni, 2019), four basic skills (reading, writing, speaking, and listening) (male, 2018) and its impact on language learning (budiman, ngadiso, & suparno, 2017). the study of anxiety in distance learning especially in the time of crisis, like the outbreak of covid-19 is rare. thus, the study to examine the distance learning anxiety faced by higher education students in the time of crisis (covid-19) and explore the cause of those anxieties is important. the data of this study was collected using two instruments, a questionnaire and an interview. to get the data, the researcher modified the foreign language classroom anxiety scale questionnaire (flcas) by howitz and young (1991) which is commonly applied to determine the level of anxiety. since the study concentrated in distance learning, the researchers also decided to adopt an “on-line language learning anxiety (olla) inventory” (majid, othman, & rahmat, 2007). findings revealed that students experienced higher anxiety levels in the beginning stage of distance learning. a year after the implementation of distance learning, students had adapted well and the level of anxiety they encountered was reduced. yet, technical problems like unstable internet connection and devices’ malfunction that occurred during distance learning still triggered much anxiety among students since that condition made them lose the opportunity to receive some important information and chances to actively participate in online activities as well as improve their skills. © 2021 universitas negeri semarang correspondent address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: christianti@mail.unnes.ac.id http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& christianti tri hapsari/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 41 introduction distance teaching is an instructional method in which teaching behaviors and learning behaviors are performed separately so that teacher and learner communicate by making use of printed, electronic, or mechanical devices (moore, 2013). distance education offered a method of education which physically separates learner and teacher. this type of education can be applied for individual purposes, or in conjunction with other forms of education, including face to face (simonson, smaldino, & zvacek 2015). simonson, smaldino, & zvacek (2015) also outlined the early history of distance education, they explained that the concept of distance education was firstly introduced in 1833 by means of an advertisement of swedish newspaper. seven years later, issac pitman offered shorthand instruction via correspondence but distance education in the form of correspondence study was established by charles toussaint and gustav langenscheidt in germany in 1843. the development of distance education was then introduced by keegan (2000), he claimed that the start point of distance education as research projects began in 1967 when the world’s first distance education research centre was established in germany. in that year, the two pioneer scholars of distance education, guther dohmen and otto peters published their works. moreover, keegan (2000) emphasized that the rapid advances of electronic telecommunications in the 1980s and 1990s have prospered the development of distance education. the foundation of asian distance teaching universities has started its operation since 1980s. in the 1990s, some universities offered professional qualifications at degree level for distance education. in the 2000s, technologies such as audio connections, videotapes, and television began to be utilized by many institutions to help lessen the demand of travel for faculty and students (meyer, 2002). as an alternative option to traditional teaching practice, distance education has proved its significant existence by supplying students with numerous advantages, such as study from everywhere and anytime, easy commuting, save time and money, freedom to choose, and earning while you learn (sadeghi, 2019). although distance education offers greater opportunity for people to access higher education, distance education still has lots of limitation and drawbacks. a study taken in an australian university between 20013 through 2007 by owens, hardcastle, & richardson, (2009) showed that distance education of remote students issued some problems including feeling isolated due to minimum face-to-face interaction and the lack of digital literacy. time differences, poor internet connection and staffs’ limited knowledge toward the uses of technology also hampered the implementation of synchronous learning. the matter of isolation was as well found in croft, dalton, & grant’s (2010) study, saying that the matter of isolation can be the indirect or direct source of influence to students’ learning experience. leontyeva (2018) added that parents-teachers’ unreadiness, inadequate references, insufficient academic mentors, unsuitable managerial structure and inefficient facilities affected how distance education developed. apart from the struggle of social interaction, distance education brings high chances of distraction, displays complicated technology, and offers limited chances to get jobs with online degrees (sadeghi, 2019). unfamiliarity and incapability in performing some tasks as well as the difficulty in functioning social interaction can be the cause of anxiety among students in distance learning. in the study of tuncay and uzunboylu (2010), the students resisted to do distance learning for not being able to do face-to-face communication. the study also found that girls were more anxious than boys in participating in distance learning. a study of allama iqbal open university argues that the anxiety among male students was slightly higher than female students (ajmal & ahmad, 2019). bolliger and halupa (2012) stated that the level of anxiety of students in online learning was correlated with the degree of students’ satisfaction toward the courses. on the other hand, majid, sharil, luaran, & nadzri (2012) mentioned that readiness and cognitive ability caused a lot of anxiety among adult learners. whereas the study of bollinger (2017) about foreign language anxiety in traditional and distance learning foreign language classrooms confirmed that distance learning created more anxiety than traditional classes. moreover, anxiety could affect the academic performance among distance learning students (ajmal & ahmad, 2019). the development of distance learning in indonesia also has its own bitter sweet experience, but not many researchers studied its practices in indonesian contexts. one interesting study of distance learning in indonesia only explored the part of instructional media and technologies used in the learning process. yaumi (2007) stated that english instruction for distance learning in indonesia made use of printed materials, radio, telephone, audiotapes, television, and computer-based technology in supporting the learning system. the other study of indonesian researchers mainly focused on online learning. a study by rahmawati (2016) that examined the benefits and the drawbacks of e-learning in christianti tri hapsari/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 42 indonesia exposed typical findings, in line with the study by sadeghi (2019) and other distance learning researchers. the benefit of online learning is related to flexibility and the drawbacks involve decreasing social interaction, internet connection problems, increasing the possibility of plagiarism or cheating, lack of actual or direct teachers’ feedback, and lack of technological skills. the differences between rahmawati’s study and previous study were on how the study found out that online learning could help less active students to be active students and it would be a costly learning. distance learning does not only support remote or working students but also support students in the time of crisis. meyer and wilson (2011) highlighted the importance of emergency plans for institutions to handle emergencies like h1n1. the study investigated the websites of the 50 state flagship higher education institutions to know how distance learning was included in the institutions’ emergency plans. only one institution mentioned online learning as the emergency plan and the other institutions gave no reference and the rest said that the emergency plan will apply another methods of delivering courses by utilizing technology or particular tools. a college of business impacted by earthquakes in 2011, in new zealand (ayebi-arthur, 2017) revealed that the implementation of technology during the crisis helped breaking through barriers to learning in hard times. the students’ engagement and familiarity with technology as well as the infrastructure capability to afford continual services are crucial to its implementation. more stories like this may happen in the future and online learning and related technology can offer practical solutions to higher education institutions hit by disasters in the future (meyer & wilson, 2011). in sustaining equitable experiences for students in times of crisis, “institution can evaluate and improve the resilience of their academic programs by identifying and maintaining resilient communication channels, preparing staff to use blended or online learning strategies, preparing students to work independently and online, ensuring resources are readily accessible in alternative formats” (mackey, et.al., 2012). since march 24th, 2020, due to the corona outbreak, the ministry of education has enacted the shift of the educational system from traditional classroom meeting or blended learning to completely online learning mode. this rapid sudden major shift of teaching and learning delivery has left students and teachers unprepared. the recent study by noor, isa, & mazhar (2020) showed that both students and teachers encountered many barriers during online learning in the time of covid-19. the challenges occurred during online learning were devided into three types, technology-related, teachers-related and students-related challenges (noor, 2020). some common challenges that refered to technology were low digital literacy (alamzova et. al, 2020), lack of devices, and poor internet connection (noor, 2020). in addition to technology-related challenges, high internet quota price also affected the learning performance of students with low financial conditions (noor, 2020). during the shift of teaching from classroom setting to online learning, teachers needed to adapt the curriculum, teaching materials, and methods to fullfil the goals of online learning. however, teachers experienced problems like digital literacy, poor interaction with students, poor material development, and the limited time for teaching preparations as well as giving feedback (noor, 2020). besides, students have some problem in mainting positive attitudes, interaction (alamzova et. al, 2020), motivation, and cooperation during online learning (noor, 2020) that caused the feeling of isolation (kaisara & bwalya, 2021). inconducive home environment also interfered the teaching and learning process (kaisara & bwalya, 2021). home during the online learning was usually noisy. performing sudden and uncertain distance learning can be difficult and complicated experiences for students as they may suffer from anxiety. tuncay and uzunboylu (2010) in their study of “anxiety and resistance in distance learning” affirmed that among some types of anxiety in distance learning, such as online-test anxiety, internet anxiety, talking in virtual groups and computer anxiety, the highest level of anxiety ranks belonged to online-test anxiety and internet anxiety. many indonesian researchers have focused their study to online or e-learning as a part of instructional methods but few researchers have started to study the practice of online learning as part of distance learning in indonesia. a study that captured the face of indonesian distance learning only exposed the instructional media and technologies being utilized in the learning process (yaumi, 2007). whereas, the study of anxiety in indonesia typically concentrated on the relation of anxiety with speech production (anandari, 2015), gender differences (nurhaeni, 2019), four basic skills (reading, writing, speaking, and listening) (male, 2018) and its impact on language learning (budiman, ngadiso, & suparno, 2017). the study of anxiety in distance learning especially in the time of crisis, like the outbreak of covid-19 is found rare. thus, this study aims to examine the distance learning anxiety faced by higher education students in the time of crisis (covid-19) and explore the cause of those anxieties. christianti tri hapsari/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 43 methods students majoring indonesian literature and english education at one of public universities in semarang, enrolled in some english courses which were initially blended learning but due to the outbreak of coronavirus, the course fully shifted into online distance learning. the course made use of google classroom platform, youtube and whatsapp as the medium of instruction during the distance learning. english is not a new thing for them since they have had the subject during their compulsory secondary schooling years. although they have experienced online learning through blended learning, all of the participants were considered as first-time distance learning students. they never had a learning system with the absence of face-to-face interaction. a total of 42 students who joined the course in the even semester were asked to complete a survey which includes anxiety items. then, in the second cycle of data collection, the same survey was carried out to check the changes of their answers. out of 42 students who joined the study, eight of the participants were selected for further interviews. the data were collected using two instruments, questionnaire and interview. the study modified the foreign language classroom anxiety scale questionnaire (flcas) by howitz and young (1991) which is commonly applied to determine the level of anxiety. the flcas was based on a five-point likert scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). this scale originally consisted of 33 questionnaire items which were categorized into communicative anxiety, fear of negative evaluation, test anxiety, and anxiety of english class or classroom. the questionnaire involved 33 statements which were divided into the following categories: 8 items (1, 9, 14, 18, 24, 27, 29, 32) were linked to communication anxiety, 9 items (3, 7, 13, 15, 20, 23, 25, 31, 33) to fear of negative evaluation, and 5 items (2, 8, 10, 19, 21) to test anxiety. whereas the 11 items remained, they were organized as anxiety of english classes (zhao, 2007). since the study concentrated in distance learning which was mostly implemented online learning, the researchers decided to adopt an “on-line language learning anxiety (olla) inventory” to examine anxiety level (majid, othman, & rahmat, 2007). this model was designed based on language learning anxiety inventory (howitz and young, 1991). adjustments were created during the design to involve distance learning. there were 33 items which reflected 7 constructs. the breakdowns of the constructs are as follows. likert scale of 1 to 5 was used, 1 as strongly disagree and 5 as strongly agree. domain 1 was associated with the attributes of distance english language learning and corresponded to questions on the negative perception that the participants have towards distance language learning. domain 2 linked to the motivation for distance english language learning. the statements helped the participants to distinguish their positive attitude towards distance language learning programs. the third domain was about the confidence in distance english language learning where the statements allowed the participants to measure their confidence level when undergoing distance language learning. the fourth domain was on experiencing distance english language learning. this domain was used to identify the level of comfort, the participants felt during distance language learning. domain five was related to the fear of the distance english language learning which helped the participants to identify their fear in the distance learning process. domain 6 examined the cognitive ability of the participants in distance english language learning. the last domain was on the readiness in distance english language learning, which studied the learners’ perception of their readiness to uncover distance language learning experience. the first cycle data collection was carried out three months after distance learning due to covid-19 outbreak while the second cycle data collection was done a year after that emergency remote teaching. before administering the questionnaire, a brief written instruction was given to assist participants in filling out the questionnaire. the researcher also opened opportunities for students to ask questions via whatsapp groups if they failed to understand the instructions stated in the questionnaire. then, the questionnaire was distributed by the researcher to students via google forms. the researcher asked the students to select the choice that best describes their experiences and feelings during distance learning. the students were also notified that their responses are confidential and will be used for research purposes only. the students took around 20 – 30 minutes to finish the questionnaire. during that time period, the researchers were prepared to answer any question asked by students, and explain some items which were considered confusing by the students. after distributing the questionnaire, an interview was administered to a number of students who were willing to share their experiences and anxiety during distance learning. a recorded phone call was used to facilitate the researcher interviewing the participants. the interview questions were originated from some written statements on the questionnaires. the interview was done to further christianti tri hapsari/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 44 discover the causes of anxieties experienced by the participants. each participant spent almost one hour or more for the interview section. to check the validity and the reliability of the questionnaire, the researcher used pearson product moment correlations and cronbach’s alpha, calculated by spss. the researcher also applied triangulation by source. the same technique (interview) was employed to different sources to get the validity of the data. the data analysis of the study was done in two techniques. to analyze the collected data from questionnaire, the researchers employed the descriptive statistic technique by tabulating the data obtained. the data collection from the interview was transcribed, analyzed and used to validate the data obtained through the questionnaire. findings and discussion the results of seven domains of distance english language learning are presented in table 1 and 2. from the first data collection cycle, it showed that among 6 items of attributes of distance english language learning, most of students’ anxiety were derived from “worried being left behind because program runs so quick”. the second rank of students’ anxiety came from “overwhelmed by the number of process have to go through”. the data also revealed that most of the students did not really bother with the statement “dislike working with machines smarter than me.” interestingly, in the second cycle of data collection, most of the students’ anxiety were derived from cognitive ability. they were worried a lot about not being able to fully understand the knowledge obtained during distance learning. the other source of students’ anxiety was related to readiness. students tend to experience anxiety when they were not ready enough for online learning, especially when their lecturer started discussion activity that demanded them to answer or respond to certain topics directly. technological anxiety did not become the issue of anxiety among the students but the internet anxiety did. student had mastered the basic technology skills like using word processing, spreadsheets, working with communication and presentation software programs and navigating the internet (kay, 2008). in this case, internet anxiety did not relate to the cognitive skills on how to navigate the internet but the anxiety was associated with technical problems occurred during online learning that caused ineffective performances both receiving knowledge and demonstrating abilities. this result was differ from what halupa (2004) found in his study that the students had a slightly positive attitude toward internet and online learning. whereas, meaningful learning could not be realized if the internet connection was still in trouble. this obstacle did not meet the basic requirement of online learning where learning performed assisted by electronic devices with internet connection (gonzalez & louis, 2018). table 1. online language learning anxieties cycle 1 mean std. deviation attributes 3,49 0,87 motivation 3,21 0,70 confidence 3,46 0,82 experiencing 3,11 0,88 fear 3,33 0,87 cognitive 3,28 0,88 readiness 2,51 0,70 table 2. online language learning anxieties cycle 2 mean std. deviation attributes 3,22 0,96 motivation 3,67 0,85 confidence 3,51 0,968 experiencing 3,39 1,14 fear 2,95 1,18 cognitive 3,48 1,04 readiness 3,12 1,09 christianti tri hapsari/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 45 attributes of distance learning attributes of distance learning were questioning the notion that talked about students’ attitude toward working with smart machines, understanding responses, receiving feedback, and cognitive performances during the process of online learning. differ from what majid, et. al (2007) found in her study that the respondents mostly disliked working with the machines which are smarter than them. this study found out that the students were pretty comfortable working with smart machines (80%). they are in an era where technological developments are very well received. whereas, the other attributes of distance learning, such as have to be a genius to understand all the special; get upset when i don’t understand the responses; afraid to receive negative responses; worried being left behind because program runs so quick; overwhelmed by the number of process have to go through showed similar patterns. those attributes were quite frustrating for the students. the high contribution to anxiety was linked to inability to understand responses (70%) and follow the tight online learning process (70%). from this result, it can be concluded that the attributes of distance learning were pretty intimidating for the students. the shift from face to face learning to emergency remote teaching that limit the interaction both between lecturers & students and also students & students affects how messages deliver and receive. during the process of communication in distance learning, information can be interpreted differently from one person to the other that can cause frustration and misunderstanding. motivation for distance learning respondents appeared to have a positive attitude toward distance learning (80%). they were also eager to have extra online learning for the sake of developing and improving their knowledge and skills but in the process of learning they still thought about other unrelated things. even if their motivation in doing distance learning was high, they still had some difficulties to not lose focus during the process. the students’ motivation in doing distance learning is originated from the desire of their own self-fulfillment to be able to successfully excel the knowledge and skills of the subject they learn (gill et. al, 2001). the tendency to think of unrelated things could come from the unconducive environments, fatigue, or double responsibilities as students, children, or employers (knowles, 1990). confidence in distance learning the result of the study revealed that 50% of the respondents were confident to learn through distance learning and the half of the respondents were not. even though the percentage of confident respondents was quite high, the respondents still had a tendency to doubt their own capability. they also get nervous with the facts somehow in learning, they could forget the things they have known before (70%). moreover, the study exposed the reality that online learning gave more tense and nervousness to the students. they hardly felt sure and relax during distance learning (66.7%). technical problems like device malfunction and unstable internet connection as well as a lot of disturbance got the students less confident toward their knowledge and skills they gained during distance learning. they were afraid of getting none that could improve their english skills. majid, et. al (2007) claimed that learners could fail in learning in distance learning environment due to difficulties in dealing with tools, machines, or new circumstances. before the distance learning was conducted, students had their own insecurity toward their psychomotor and cognitive skills of english. yet, the sudden changes of learning environment into online learning with limited interaction and some technical problems increased their worries. they needed to cope with not only their inner confidence problems related to knowledge and skills but also with external factors that were associated with limited or delayed interaction, devices’ malfunction, unstable internet connection, limited time of synchronous learning, and overwhelmed materials and assignments. even if, higher education students had the capacity to move from dependence to independence in learning (knowles, 1990), the change into fully autonomous learners could take long time. the students of distance learning need the full attention of their lecturers in providing advice, guidance and support (dembo & lynch, 2004). those roles can help institutions to maintain students’ confidence during the tough process of distance learning (lake, 1999). experiencing distance learning adapting the change of learning mode from face to face learning into emergency remote teaching could be hard and burdensome at first. in the first cycle of data collection, the students expressed that distance learning was not an exciting activity (66%), although they claimed that the challenge of christianti tri hapsari/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 46 learning was exciting and they believed that distance learning will be more comfortable as the time goes by. that belief was true since in the second cycle of data collection, the students had changed their perspective toward experiencing distance learning. they had felt the exciting experience during distance learning, even if some respondent stated that distance learning was monotonous. nothing has changed since the beginning, lack of interaction was the issue. some technology had applied to substitute the missing exposure of interaction between lecturers and learners as well as learners and learners, but for some of respondents, those interactions could fully complete the missing parts that face to face interaction used to give. the negative feeling that related to isolation was the challenge (croft et. al, 2010). moreover, the opportunity to get guidance and feedback during distance learning was limited that caused some students’ difficulties and problems unsolved. the fear of the distance learning the respondents’ fear during distance learning was related to something technical like unstable internet connection and device’ malfunction. there was no big issue that was correlated with digital literacy. few first year respondents admitted that university lms was a bit confusing at first but later on they had mastered in navigating it after some guidance. differ from what majid et. al (2007), in this study, the respondents were still afraid of making mistakes during distance learning (76.2%). yet, the issue relied on the idea of making mistakes. making mistakes was still connected to low cognitive skills that for some respondents could be considered as something embarrassing. in their learning, they were expecting that the process and the result should be successful in order to achieve intended goals. avoiding making mistakes was also students’ strategy in obtaining an optimal score in learning. cognitive ability of the participants in distance learning the result of the study revealed that respondents had difficulties in understanding the process involved in distance learning (67.9%). shifting the mode from face to face learning to online learning can be challenging with the struggle of reducing mistaken understanding (weller, 2002), facilitating critical online discussion, helping students’ anxiety (hughes & daykin, 2002), fostering active participation (gibson et al., 2001), and meet the demands quickly (hughes & daykin, 2002). instead of material delivery challenges, distance learning also faces the needs of continuous and structured support, feedback, and guidance from the lecturers to the students to fully support students’ cognitive development. moreover, the demands of self-study were getting bigger but the time was limited. the students should be able to deal with the learning expectations and requirements to do some reading, finishing assignments, doing projects, reviewing materials, doing quizzes or tests and also doing revisions or improvements on some works (croft, 2010). with the diverse courses, they took every semester, those processes could be overwhelming and hinder their capability in understanding something. readiness in distance learning the respondents claimed that they experienced cultural shock during the shifting between face to face learning to distance learning. the absence of direct interaction between lecturer and students got them nervous since in some cases, the information about some courses was limited or unclear. in addition, when the internet connection was not stable, the information was only shared during synchronous meetings, the students had tendency to feel anxious. the anxiety also occurred during lecture and discussion sessions. the students stated that understanding lecturer’s material delivery during distance learning was harder, especially at the moment the device was error, the internet was lost, the fatigue caused by overtask, and noisy environment. the result of the study showed that the student would not avoid distance learning (85%). moreover, they were willing to take more distance learning (85.8%). those findings prove that even though the students experienced some difficulties in adapting with the mode of distance learning, as the time went by they could build readiness in learning through distance education. distance learning obliges the students to be fully independent, but in fact not all students are ready to learn and work independently (leontyeva, 2018). the university itself is facing the struggles of adjusting the curriculum, technology, and lecturers to fulfill the demands of distance learning. conclusion the shift of face to face learning to distance learning caused some anxieties to students. moving the mode of learning from classroom activity into learning with the use of electronic devices, educational christianti tri hapsari/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 47 platforms, social media and internet connection needed great efforts and habituation. the old practices that used to be done through classroom setting must be substituted by online learning activities synchronously and asynchronously. the challenges developed from technology, internet, devices, materials, material delivery, assignments, feedbacks and assessment. the absence of direct interaction between lecturers and students as well as students and students also brought the feeling of isolation toward the concept of learning. therefore, distance learning was claimed as monotonous, boring and frustrating by some of the students. technical problems like unstable internet connection and device’s malfunction also contributed to the ineffective process of distance learning since it opened the high possibility of mistaken understanding and unequal distribution of materials’ mastery. those were the main sources of anxiety faced by the respondents of this study. moreover, distance learning demanded the high independence of students to learn not only from the given materials and lecture but also some further self-study. thus, the anxiety that occurred due to students’ lack of readiness during distance learning can be minimized. during distance learning, doing collaborative learning with peers proved to 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(2007). a study of high school students’ english learning anxiety. the asian efl journal, vol. 9(3), 22–34. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 31 elt forum 11(1) (2022) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt communication students’ anxiety in speaking skill practice fu’ad sholikhi1 1universitas islam balitar, blitar, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received on 31 august 2021 approved on 3 march 2022 published on 30 march 2022 ________________ keywords: english for specific purposes (esp); factors of speaking anxiety; reducing speaking anxiety; speaking anxiety; types of speaking anxiety ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ students majoring in communication believe that their nervousness when speaking will affect their lives. it will either limit their employment opportunities or cause them to perform poorly at work. in the digital era, english speaking is very important to communicate with other members of an organization. there are limited discussions about speaking anxiety in esp class and students majoring in communication studies are expected to convey their messages persuasively in an organization. so, descriptive qualitative research was utilized by the researcher to describe speaking anxiety in esp class; types of speaking anxiety, factors of speaking anxiety, reducing speaking anxiety. semi-structured interviews and observations were the sources in this study with 19 students involved. three natural phenomena in speaking anxiety or research problems in speaking anxiety were analyzed using data reduction, data display, and conclusion. the results showed that communication apprehension, fear of negative acceptance, and test anxiety existed among the students in speaking class. they can overcome it using youtube videos as references and community supports (teacher and close-friends). this study also found that students majoring in communication studies experience trait anxiety (one person), state anxiety (ten students), and situation-specific anxiety (eight students). based on this result, further researchers related to speaking anxiety are to revise the approach using the mixed method in esp class. these suggestions are to enrich speaking anxiety for english specific purposes, such as midwife students and economic students. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 jl. majapahit no.4, sananwetan, blitar, 66137 e-mail: fuad.sholiki@gmail.com http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& fu’ad sholikhi | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 32 introduction whether there is a pandemic or not, everyone needs a job. to meet basic human needs, everyone requires work. students majoring in communication studies will use the teachings and organizational experiences they receive at university to find work rapidly. they will no doubt learn to communicate well in both their tongue and english as an international language on campus. language teachers will explore further into the level of anxiety in speaking english for improved language learning and to aid their jobs and academic subjects. language skills help human beings to improve their communication skills (rao, 2019). english speaking in the modern era is considered as part of existing fields. it is the core of business in the modern era, science, and technology. a business is a specific organization of making money and oral communication plays an important role inside. oral communication is essential to manage teamwork and group energy. if the students majoring in communication studies at islamic university of balitar (unisba blitar) have better english speaking skills in global business, they will make communication is not a script. the learners need to learn all the four skills in english (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) and oral communication (productive skill) will prevent people to have scripted thoughts and ideas (rao, 2019). in the classroom, there are a lot of interactions to tackle educational tasks (english speaking contexts). teachers can make interactive activities to make students understand how to use oral communication properly in the english language. for instance, the teachers can use competitions, use humor in the classroom, use a bonus system to motivate the students, use a simulation, use a picture to describe in front of a class, and use role-play in english speaking class. teaching is to convey a message and teaching strategies in speaking are the main factor of english learning (anggraeni et al., 2020). besides, teaching is not about speaking out loud, but teaching is to convey a message. in doing so, it involves tools, techniques, and strategies to convey a message. innovative learning strategies can motivate the students in esp class, and it can help the learners to process the materials from the lecturer easily. a creative teacher is key in a language classroom and it will make the materials easy to understand (iksan & dirham, 2018). the students (esp class) at unisba blitar need a creative lecturer because english speaking can be a stressful activity. speaking english may be a problematic practice since it is not used as the primary language of speech (sinaga et al., 2020). in learning english speaking, there is a challenge for students majoring in communication studies at unisba blitar, namely speaking anxiety. speaking anxiety occurs in students' daily activities (sinaga et al., 2020). speech anxiety is better characterized by nervousness during a presentation. and it may occur before a presentation. speaking anxiety will make the presenter experience a sweating palm and a shaky voice. speaking anxiety is a normal situation that can occur in professional speakers, but the level of speaking anxiety varies. for example, a student who experienced an extreme level of speaking anxiety, that student will not dare to talk in public and prefer to be in a closed space. anxiety experienced by the students at unisba blitar is a widespread phenomenon (sinaga et al., 2020). all communication students agree that speaking skill is important, especially in english. it can be used in a formal situation and non-formal meetings, for example attending english courses. students majoring in communication studies at unisba blitar believe that english speaking skill is important to master because it will be useful in their career, for instance, being a member of an organization and public relations. all organization activities start with communication, such as giving a report and task and deciding long-term or short-term goals or objectives of a project (mulyana et al., 2011). each student at islamic university of balitar has his problems in speaking and it affects students’ performance. horwitz et al. (1986) mention that there are three categories in speaking anxiety communication anxiety, fear of negative evaluation, and test anxiety are all factors that contribute to the speaking problems in public (horwitz et al., 1986). the performace debreli & demirkan (2015) state in their study that speaking anxiety can be categorized into low, moderate, and high levels of speaking anxiety according to horwitz et al.’s (1986) perspective. those categories are the factors of speaking anxiety to students at unisba blitar and those factors affect efl and esl students (sari, 2017). students majoring in communication studies need to speak english properly to enhance their message. communicate is the soul of an organization (purba et al., 2020). and there are many challenges to communicating in an organization, such as the sender and receiver having different meanings of a message and the sender and receiver having different perceptions toward a message fu’ad sholikhi | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 33 because of the different backgrounds and interests (mulyana et al., 2011). based on preliminary study, the students have good knowledge in making an english sentence and they can understand the lecturer’s material can follow the lecturer's instructions. when it comes to speaking in performance, they become speechless, the students barely want to speak in front of a class, they have shaky hands, and mostly they have redundancy in english speaking. on the other hand, people who are involved in public relations activities, need to speak effectively to have better planning (mulyana et al., 2011). many professionals in the classroom have emphasized the importance of the oral involvement of students in the classroom. first, rafada and madini (2017) believed that numerous studies to tackle speaking anxiety were not enough. they explored the causes of speaking anxiety using a mixedmethod design with 126 participants of the english language institute involved. this study about speaking anxiety at king abdul aziz university used descriptive statistics and thematic analysis. the result showed that vocabulary, educational system, teacher’s role, and peer anxiety contributed to qualitative data and classroom atmosphere was one of the contributions in quantitative data. second, anggraeni et al. (2020) argued that the lecturer needed to know speaking anxiety factors so further researcher or lecturer who was interested in this study could overcome foreign langue anxiety, especially in english speaking class. this study utilized a qualitative approach, and this study was not conducted in esp class but english department. it involved the second year of the english department as the participants by doing semi-structured interviews and questionnaires. the result showed that pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar contributed to speaking anxiety. third, damayanti & listyani (2020) stated that speaking anxiety was a major problem in their study. they used a qualitative method with an open-ended and closed questionnaire and interviews with fifty-two students of english education program in their speaking class. the result showed that vocabulary and preparation caused speaking anxiety in the classroom. they also found that making mistakes, lack of confidence and shame were other factors that can cause speaking anxiety. then, erdiana et al. (2020) used a quantitative approach in their study to know the level of speaking anxiety. they used horwitz’s (1986) flcas questionnaires which involved twenty-nine students of junior high school. the result showed that 38% or 11 students experienced low-level anxiety, 59% or 17 students experienced moderate level, and 3.4% or 1 student experienced high-level anxiety. based on related studies above, language anxiety has an impact on student progress and this phenomenon is caused by communication anxiety, fear of negative evaluation, and test anxiety. however, there is limited discussion on speaking anxiety in esp class. to be more specific, this research aims to investigate the types of speaking anxiety experienced by students majoring in communication studies, as well as the reasons that contribute to speaking anxiety and how they overcome speaking anxiety in esp class. methods to understand the phenomenon that occurs in esp class, the researcher believed the qualitative approach was to solve speaking issues at unisba blitar and it was very useful for the researcher to get a better insight into speaking anxiety in esp class. sinaga et al.’s (2020) study emphasized that speaking anxiety to students at unisba blitar was a natural phenomenon. the characteristic of this approach would unveil the factors of speaking anxiety as a natural phenomenon and it would answer the other research problems. the researcher was the main instrument to unveil speaking anxiety as a natural phenomenon to the student at unisba blitar (anggito & setiawan, 2018). anggito & setiawan (2018) stated that this approach would be a comprehension about their speaking anxiety and the result was not from the statistical procedure. sugiyono (2008) explained that there were primary data and secondary data in the speaking class. in this particular study, the researcher was the main instrument. the subjects were nineteen second-semester students majoring in communication studies in speaking class, and the primary data came from their interview results. the secondary data source came from the relevant journal and observation. also, the interview guidelines, the observation sheets, and observation guidelines were modified from akramy’s (2020) study. such as modifying checklist symbol, omitting background questions about how long the students learn english because it has the same meaning as the second question related to student’s background, increasing the time limit of interview because it will give the students more time to answer the question, and adding a specific question about specific worries fu’ad sholikhi | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 34 during speaking and deep breathing technique to know their effort to relieve speech anxiety. in addition, each student had a 25-minute interview. in collecting data, there was a semi-structured interview in this study. the researcher made the issue equal to all participants and they. then, the researcher made the participant answer the questions related to research problems in this study. and to enhance the validity of this approach, the researcher had made sure that students majoring in communication studies at unisba blitar comprehend the questions by elucidating the various terms that exist. there are a variety of methods for ensuring the data's validity. the researcher used hyperresearch (version 4.5.0) for coding (for example, to know the same keyword), two colleagues contributed to check the paper's weaknesses so the researcher had a good understanding of the three types of speaking anxiety in this study, the researcher used source triangulation in this research, and there was participant observation. in addition, source triangulation was the process of gathering information through observation and interviews. in data analysis, this study consists of a data reduction process and displaying data. then, it is followed by the conclusion process. the first step, selecting the interview transcriptions and simplifying them. one of the approaches in a qualitative approach was transcription and simplifying meant to be readable content (wekke, 2020). it was to select relevant data sources and omit irrelevant ones. the researcher could start to omit the word “uh”, “ah”, and “e”. there was a correction about the incorrect introduction by highlighting the words, for example using slang words. there was no need for the researcher to correct the sentences from interview data. in terms of simplifying data, there would be a handwritten comment will be included regarding any existing regional or particular terminology. the researcher also had personal notes (personal notes, table, and diagram). all of these steps will make it easier for the researcher to revisit the data in the future. the second step of data analysis was data reduction. reducing data was also useful to distinguish relevant answers and the redundancy utterances or even the hyperbole sentences. then, the interview results were categorized into some short items (trait anxiety, state anxiety, and situationspecific anxiety) based on research problems in this study, for example, the researcher categorized student answers based on test anxiety-related questions. and the last step was the researcher gave a discussion about theory and the interview results. it includes the comparison between interview results and notes taking during the interview process. the comparison was called triangulation data (source). source triangulation was a method of gathering data in several ways (samsu, 2017). findings and discussion source of speaking anxiety in communication students there were three types of speaking anxiety in language learners at unisba blitar (ningsih & fatimah, 2020). indrianty (2016) elaborated it as three main sources of foreign language anxiety; communication apprehension, fear of negative acceptance, and test anxiety. first of all, communication apprehension in this study refers to students’ fear or anxiety. in general, lack of confidence is the main factor. some noticeable effects are shyness and quietness in english speaking. anxiety or fear in communicating with others was the signal of communication apprehension (yuliana, 2017). communication apprehension was simply students’ shyness (akkaş et al., 2020). the detailed information of communication apprehension is as follows. “eee, i am not confident, sir. in my opinion, when i stand in front of a class, everything has changed” (respondent 1) “i have prepared a lot before i speak in front of the class. i practice it at home and outside of class before english class starts. it does not make me comfortable because i just feel more anxious.” (respondent 7) “thanks to god that i have warmly classmates, but i get nervous and confused when i have to speak english in front of the class.” (respondent 2) “i am unconformable to speak in front of the class because i just need more and more preparation, that is it.” (respondent 12) fu’ad sholikhi | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 35 “now, my heart is racing and i have sweaty palm, sir and it is different when i practicing on my bench” (respondent 19) the interview result shows that the students have confidence problems speaking in public. respondent 1 has an opinion that his pronunciation skill is inferior to his friend in speaking class. other students also struggle with feeling confident to speak english about advertisement as a theme. sari (2017) explained that most students were not confident to talk english in front of the lecturer or even in front of the class where everyone was watching and this phenomenon was called communication apprehension. not all of student experience these problems, but less confident students have some signals, for example, respondent 19 admits that the heart rate rising (based on the interview) and the student repeatedly wipe his palm under his pants (based on observation). physical manifestations of communication anxiety were a racing heart, sweaty palms, and shaking knees (bragg, 2017). when the students lack confidence in speaking, they will have difficulty speaking in public. for example, respondent 2 has the struggles to speak in front of the class. yuliana (2017) stated students will have difficulty speaking in groups or in public if the students have the type of shyness. one of the factors that cause communication apprehension in esp class is lack of preparation. respondent 7 has preparation speaking, but a lack of confidence disturbs his performance. respondent 7 feels more anxious because of avoiding talking too much in english. aeni et al. (2017) stated that some students will try to avoid talking too much to overcome their fear of the foreign language. and respondent 12 also indicates a lack of preparation. based on the interview result, some students only need preparation before the class start, and some of them need preparation inside and outside the campus. it indicates the students have different background knowledge of one another. aeni et al.’s (2017) study showed lack of preparation and lack of background knowledge will cause communication apprehension. based on the previous studies, this category leads communication to spend more time thinking and worrying about their friends’ perception than their speaking. damayanti & listyani’s (2020) claimed that this anxiety has made the students feel the uncertainty of their ability and based on their study, most students (53%) experienced it. to overcome this, the lecturer can provide engaging activities in speaking class, such as games or storytelling, to help students overcome challenges associated with communication apprehension anxiousness. it is quite beneficial to their mood. anggraeni et al. (2020) suggested using storytelling, describing a picture, and playing ice ball as strategies in teaching speaking. the lecturer can start to make a discussion with students about their progress and how to overcome a lack of confidence. the second thing is the lecturer does not compare one student to another, so each student can receive a personal suggestion based on his ability. communication apprehension was determined by the class atmosphere (aeni et al., 2017). moreover, the second type is fear of negative acceptance. one of the reasons why the students can develop their english speaking is their lecturer. students majoring in communication studies at unisba blitar need constant evaluation throw-out the class to master english speaking. the students’ perception about over evaluation will make them insecure. this anxiety was related to evaluation in the community (akkaş et al., 2020). the following are their response: “i love to see someone speak english fluently, it is like a superstar. on the other hand, lack of vocabulary has restricted me to say something more.” (respondent 8) “i may be able to read english sentences, but my grammar is worst one. it is hard to understand 16 sentences.” (respondent 18) “i believe i can pronounce some words correctly, but others words are different. i need you to pronounce it for me.” (respondent 16) “i think, my pronunciation is bad and i believe they think of me as comedian.” (respondent 17) based on observation, they have poor grammatical performance in terms of expressing the grammar in conveying an advertisement. according to hutabarat & simanjuntak’s (2019) study, 80% of the participants struggled with grammar. fu’ad sholikhi | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 36 respondent 8 believes that vocabulary is vital for expressing an advertisement since they wish to engage with customers via the internet. the student wants to master a lot of vocabulary in the advertisement because she wants to make an alive expression about it. mastering vocabulary is very useful to answer her friends’ questions about it, for example how to avoid fake endorsement. hutabarat & simanjuntak’s (2019) study showed lack of vocabulary means students have limited access to expression and it only makes the learners feel anxious in speaking. respondents 17 and 16 admit that they can pronounce some words in english correctly, others cannot. they need some clue first from the lecturer or friends to start it. based on observation, they mostly stress individual words about advertisements incorrectly. it means they cannot pronounce vowel sounds and consonant sounds correctly. they also admit that they have been through pronunciation class, but they are hard to express mouth movement, such as the word think, she, and first. hutabarat & simanjuntak’s (2019) study showed that the speech was hard to understand by the audience because the pronunciation was unclear. and the third is about communication students’ text anxiety. the upcoming test is the real problem for students at unisba blitar. the students will experience uncomfortable situations before taking a test and it will affect their performance. therefore, most students try to avoid it by having preparation. it includes test anticipation and test preparation. for example, if the students lack speaking preparation, they will feel anxious in front of the class. because of lack of preparation for english speaking, the students will have frustration when they have to speak in a foreign language. as a consequence, the student is unable to fully convey all facts linked to mass media due to a lack of precise information. also, lack of speaking preparation will realize students’ prediction or evaluation, such as the prediction of many friends will laugh during the presentation (speaking) or the prediction of the score is falling. test anxiety would affect students’ achievement and students’ motivation in english speaking (yuliana, 2017). and specifically, this anxiety related to low academic scores in higher education (akkaş et al., 2020). and most students in a foreign language would experience fear of failure (indrianty, 2016). “i believe english will help my career in future, but my english score is my concern. i think, i have bad english speaking.” (respondent 3) “i have preparation about it, but when the lecturer points me, all is shattered into pieces.” (respondent 15) based on interview data, students majoring in communication studies show fear of failure. they believe english is very useful in their career, but their lack of speaking ability makes them concerned about their future. they believe english speaking will increase their individual or group skill. mulyana et al. (2011) argued that communication skill is a nerve in an organization; individual or group. the interview data also reveal that this phenomenon starts when the lecturer calls the student’s name to make a presentation about an advertisement. istiqomah’s (2019) study emphasized that test anxiety mostly happens when the teacher calls the students’ name. also, most of the students or ten esp students will think of english as a medium to have a brighter career in the future, but they cannot deny that english tests will measure how great their motivation in learning a foreign language. indrianty’s (2016) study showed that esp students will think english will help their career, but english tests will make them anxious. based on the related literature above, preparation is one of the ways to avoid low scores in speaking. the students can prepare a lot of things based on their ability (damayanti & listyani, 2020). damayanti and listyani’s (2020) study strengthened that most of the students or 63% will panic if they do not have preparation. and if they failed, the students would feel depressed (hammad rafada & ahmad madini, 2017). the types of communication students anxiety based on observation, students majoring in communication studies can perform english speaking skills in front of the class. it happens because the selected participants have been through some basic english courses before the researcher conduct the research. there is speaking anxiety in esp class, but the forms of language anxiety are various. fu’ad sholikhi | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 37 this study concludes that there are three types of students anxiety. it includes momentary anxiety or state anxiety, trait anxiety or specified anxiety, and situational or behavior anxiety that occurs because of a student’s participation. first, trait anxiety. it refers to communication student’s personality traits. indrianty (2016) stated that it refers to an aspect of personality in speaking anxiety. the following excerpt of the interview is an example of trait anxiety. “i am always nervous when i speak english in front of the class. i have this situation in another subject, for example, mass communication.” (respondent 1) this study shows that only one student experienced trait anxiety. the observation shows that respondent 1 uses the words "uh" and "eh" frequently. and based on the interview result, the selected participant explains that nervousness is his real problem in english speaking and mass communication subjects. the signal was student always feels afraid and stressed in the classroom (yuliana, 2017). and the participant does not follow the class instruction in other subjects. indrianty (2016) stated that it happens because the student did not participate actively during lecturing. moreover, the participants have an experience in their life and it will affect their performance in front of the class. it happens because some of them experienced a traumatic event or being overly criticized in early life. the traumatic event leads participants to experience negative emotions such as fears and worries in many situations. a lecturer could guest easily the expression of nervousness during the presentation and this input can make the lecturer decide the best teaching strategy in speaking (indrianty, 2016). second, state anxiety. state anxiety is temporal anxiety and it happens because of outside factors that lead the students at unisba blitar to become more sensitive. yuliana (2017) stated state anxiety can make a person being unmotivated to learn the english language (speaking). the following is an interview excerpt. “my heart rate is racing. my friend will laugh at me if i speak english.” (respondent 9) the statement above indicates that this anxiety effect student’s behavior (respondent 9). the observation indicates that respondent 9 always held the handout and always smiled. it indicates that the students tend to avoid lecturer instruction to speak in front of the class by doing an unimportant thing. the interview result shows the respondent emphasizes that presentation is no easy task, especially performing a speech in front of the class. indrianty (2016) stated that state or situational anxiety can affect the students’ presentation. moreover, the respondent shows over-evaluation by having a perception that classmates will laugh during a presentation. over evaluation was a signal of behavior-changing in state anxiety (yuliana, 2017). and examples of physical effects of behaviorchanging are having elevated heart rates and having sweaty palms. elevated heart rate was the signal of state anxiety because this type of anxiety affects student’s behavior (yuliana, 2017). the last, situation-specific anxiety in students majoring in communication studies. it means english speaking class can cause anxiety to the students. the following is an interview excerpt. “i want to share something in english language. suddenly, my lips are closed. and i think, i don’t want all of my friends to laugh at me because of my pronunciation. then, my real action is just smiling and waiting for a clue” (respondent 10) the statement above implies that there is evidence of situational speaking anxiety. based on observation, the student stays silent and waits for a clue (friends or lecturer). the student does not remain silent all the time during the presentation, but the student’s voice is getting softer. based on the interview, the student is very uncomfortable because of a lack of pronunciation. so, the student tries to lower the voice to minimize pronunciation errors. this situation only happens in speaking class, not in another subject. according to indrianty (2016), some students were uncomfortable when they were the star of the show and they expressed signals of anxiety by smiling or being silent. not all students experience this situation. there are only eight students who experienced it. they believe that a good introduction (opening) will motivate the rest of their speech. when they are in front of the class, they are sometimes influenced by their classmates, resulting in a poor introduction. they will fu’ad sholikhi | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 38 benefit greatly from having a quick note in their pocket. according to yuliana (2017), certain classroom environments during speaking could make students uncomfortable, but not all of them. the students’ strategies to reduce speaking anxiety in the modern era, this study believes that technology and learning support have a role to reduce speaking anxiety in esp class, especially for students majoring in communication studies. these strategies in line with hutabarat & simanjuntak’s (2019) perspective to reduce speaking anxiety; media intervention and learning support. moreover, presentation skill is not an easy task because there are a lot of efforts to achieve it. and each student has different background knowledge in english speaking. therefore, each student has a unique way to achieve it. first thing first, media intervention. this is mass media in the digital era to communication students at unisba blitar. and the participants in this study believe youtube is one of the strategies to reduce speaking anxiety. this strategy offers an innovative approach to achieve better english speaking than conventional strategies. this strategy promises easy access with great benefits inside. the students will use the internet to access it and they will get tons of resources of english speaking easily. hutabarat & simanjuntak’s (2019) study claimed that youtube can improve speaking skill. twelve students find youtube is a supportive teacher and the following are the results. first thing first, media intervention. this is mass media in the digital era to students at unisba blitar. and the participants believe youtube is one of the strategies to reduce speaking anxiety. this strategy offers an innovative approach to achieve better english speaking than conventional strategies. this strategy promises easy access with great benefits inside. the students will use the internet to access it and they will get tons of resources of english speaking easily. hutabarat & simanjuntak’s (2019) study claimed that youtube can improve speaking skill. twelve students find youtube is a supportive teacher and the following are the results. “i prefer to use youtube than to talk to my english teacher. youtube help me how to use grammar correctly. this channel also gives me common mistakes in grammar at the end of the video.” (respondent 4) “i learn speaking from youtube. i can learn many vocabularies while i am in my bed.” (respondent 6) the data above indicates that youtube motivates the students to learn english speaking in various ways. youtube gives freedom to use it in their leisure time or during the learning process as preparation to speak. respondent 4 states give the student the best preparation in speaking because it can be accessed by the student everywhere. respondent 6 states youtube gives a quick solution in speaking. respondent 6 adds that short time learning increase motivation or mood to learn more and more rather than long session in speaking. respondent 6 has found a music channel that has clear lyrics to learn speaking. youtube was a supportive friend because youtube would not laugh at a student if they made mistakes or errors (hutabarat & simanjuntak, 2019). based on related literature, youtube is important for students majoring in communication studies because they can select or customize learning practices based on their needs. youtube could be a supportive teacher because the students only need a teacher who understands their needs (hammad rafada & ahmad madini, 2017). youtube can make students relaxed because the students can learn short learning via youtube. short-term projects or short learning in speaking could reduce speaking anxiety (erdiana et al., 2020). the second thing is learning support to the students at unisba blitar. it means the students or five students need a safe environment to learn english speaking and they also need a teacher to support the learning process. this particular strategy was in line with hutabarat & simanjuntak’s (2019) study, the students needed a teacher and close friends to master english speaking. here are some excerpts from students’ interview: “i have an english teacher in junior high school. he inspires me a lot in english speaking. he has taught me a lot of things and he is my inspiration to speak in front of the public.” (respondent 9) fu’ad sholikhi | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 39 “i have a friend who has good speaking skills. he has contributed to my english-speaking skill because he is a person who introduces me to how to speak in front of other friends. and i am more comfortable to ask him about my problem in english rather than my english teacher” (respondent 10) the interview results show teacher’s role is an irreplaceable person in the learning process and close friends can be a teacher’s substitution. respondent 9 states that the teacher is a motivator in speaking. respondent 9 claims that the english teacher always gives various solutions based on his condition in learning progress. and respondent number 10 states a close-friend always become a rescuer in every situation during learning speaking. the student can learn a foreign language together and can ask a question with no hesitation. the teacher could be a facilitator in learning a foreign language, the close friends do too (hutabarat & simanjuntak, 2019). based on related literature, the students need a community to develop their speaking skills. erdiana et al. (2020) study has shown 65.52% of students will have low speaking anxiety if the teacher corrects students’ mistakes. if the teacher gave the students appreciation, the student would have low language anxiety (anggraeni et al., 2020). in addition, some students who practiced pronunciation in front of their friends could overcome language anxiety (anggraeny et al., 2020). conclusion throughout this study, speaking anxiety considerably exists among the students majoring in communication studies at unisba blitar. the researcher draw conclusion that three main factors in english speaking anxiety exist; communication apprehension, fear of negative acceptance, and test anxiety. despite many obstacles in english speaking, some students have found that youtube is a supportive medium in learning to speak, such as learning grammar and learning vocabulary. others have found that teacher is the main factor in speaking skills and close friends can be the teacher’s substitution. as shown in the findings, one student has trait anxiety, ten students have state anxiety, and the remaining eight students have situation-specific anxiety. furthermore, the researcher hopes that the description of speaking anxiety to unisba blitar students will be useful to other researchers interested in this topic. to fill the gap in this study, the researcher advises employing a mixed strategy in esp class. references aeni, n., jabu, b., rahman, m. a., & strid, j. e. 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(2017). a study of students’ anxiety in speaking performance at the second semester of english education department of iain surakarta. state islamic institute of surakarta. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 113 elt forum 10 (2) (2021) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt teaching and learning process of test-taking strategies in answering reading comprehension section elika aji zulmaini english department, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 16 december 2020 approved in 28 march 2021 published in 28 july 2021 ________________ keywords: toefl; reading comprehension; test-taking strategies; toefl preparation class ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ the study was aimed at finding the difficulties faced by test takers in reading comprehension section of toefl and describing the teaching and learning process of test-taking strategies of reading comprehension section of toefl. this study used qualitative research design. to collect the data, the researchers used document analysis and observation as the instrument of the study. the subjects of this study were the students or test takers and a teacher or tutor in toefl preparation class. the study showed the range of difficulty faced by students or test takers are skill 6 (57.14%), skill 8 (50%), skill 7, 9, 10, and 11 (33.3%), skill 3 (31%), skill 4 and 12 (16.7%), skill 1 (8.3%), and skill 5 (0%). in teaching and learning strategies, the planning strategy was applied in skills 1, 3, 9, 6, 7, 4, 5, and 8. monitoring strategies was applied in in skills 1, 3, 9, 6, and 4. comprehending strategy was used in skills 1, 3, 6, 7, 4, 10, and 11. retrieval strategy was applied in skills 9, 5, and 8. socioaffective strategy was applied in skill 9. test-wiseness strategy was applied in skills 1, 3, and 9. based on findings, the researchers found that there is still high percentage of difficult skills faced by students or test takers and more than one strategies were applied in almost every skill of the reading comprehension section of toefl. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: elikaaaji@gmail.com http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& elika aji zulmaini/ elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 114 introduction english is an important language in the world as it is used as an international language. moreover, nowadays, english becomes a necessary need of some individual skills for every person in every country. english as a foreign language needs to be mastered, so that it can be used to get a job, to get promotion at work, to continue to the next level of education, to enter universities where english is spoken as the first language, to get scholarship, and to graduate from university. to measure one’s english proficiency, toefl test is used with determined minimum scores. unfortunately, because english is not the first language in indonesia, some indonesian people are having difficulties in taking this test, which one of the sections is the reading comprehension section. farha & rohani (2019) have stated that “reading is the process of connecting written symbols with reader’s knowledge to comprehend the content of the text.”as abboud & hussein (2011) found that “the difficulty in time allotted for each section with percentages shows that listening comprehension section has 70% difficulty percentage, structure and written expression section has 68% difficulty percentage, and reading comprehension section has 77% difficulty precentage.” (pp. 110-138) from the difficulties in taking this reading comprehension section, the researchers is interested in investigating the difficulties and the strategies in answering the reading comprehension section. the researchers has formed two statements of the problem that are used to guide this research. they are (1) what are the difficulties faced by test takers in answering the reading comprehension? (2) how is the teaching and learning process of test-taking strategies in answering the reading comprehension section? by those two statements of the problems, this research also has purposes to the readers to pay more attention to the difficulties in the reading comprehension section and the strategies to overcome the difficulties, so that this research will help them when they are taking the reading comprehension section. furthermore, this can help tutors or teachers of toefl preparation rich their knowledge in teaching in toefl preparation class. in conducting this research, the researchers provided several previous studies related to the topic. a number of research have been performed related to the toefl, difficulties, and test-taking streategies in answering reading comprehension section of toefl. these studies are conducted by (lestari & syaifullah, 2017; antoni, 2014; oktarina, 2018; samad et al., 2017; sudrajat & astuti, 2018; suyatman & rachman, 2017). lestari & syaifullah (2017) have showed in their research that predicting, skimming and scanning, and re-reading are the strategies employed by test takers. moreover, in samad et al. (2017), based on students questionnaire, skimming, background of the knowledge, translations and re-reading are the most used strategies in answering the reading comprehension section. suyatman & rachman (2017) have stated in their research about strategies in answering the vocabulary test on the reading section of toefl. the result showed that students used all the staretgies of answering the vocabulary test of the reading comprehension, the most strategies used by students was looking for contextual clues to the meaning of unknown words, and the least strategy used by students to answer vocabulary test was developing a new vocabulary study system (suyatman & rachman, 2017). related to the topic about the difficulties about the toefl test, antoni (2014) has conducted this topic as his research. the result showed that most of the students have difficulty in understanding the spoken language, determining the sucject and the verb of sentences, and understanding the meaning of the written passage. then, oktarina (2018) has also conducted the same topic, but she focused on the reading comprehension section. her research showed that finding main idea, implied detail question, unstated detail question and unstated detail question belong to four difficult skills. related to the topic of toefl preparation class, sudrajat & astuti (2018) conducted this topic. the result showed that after joining the toefl preparation class, their motivation, attitude, and their confidence have improved. some of the previous studies have been described on the previous paragraph. the researchers have not found the study using all of the language learning strategies along with test-wiseness strategies in which those strategies are requiring both cognitive and non cognitive skills. moreover, from finding out the difficult percentage ranges from hardest to least difficult, the reader can be more concern with skills being tested in the toefl test. there are some similarities and differences between the previous studies and the present study. the similarities are the studies are about investigating the difficult skills in the reading comprehension section faced by the test takers and some of the strategies found are scanning and skimming. then, the differences are the subjects of the research are in the toefl preparation class elika aji zulmaini/ elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 115 in an english course which the main program in this course is toefl preparation class. the strategies taught to students can be such a new knowledge to other tutors or people who are going to take a toefl test. the use of theory is from (o’malley & chamot, 1990) strategies called language learning strategies in which the researchers employed all of the three classifications, besides using the language learning strategies, the researchers used test-wiseness strategies presented by (cohen & upton, 2006) and the researchers explored the test-taking strategies taught by the teacher or tutor of toefl preparation class in answering the reading comprehension section. in using the language learning strategies, the classifications that are used to analyse the strategies are metacognitive, cognitive, and socioaffective. those classification have related to the material learning while the test-wiseness strategies have not related to material learning. metacognitive strategies, regarding to usman et al. (2017) are categorized as self-monitoring and selfregulating activities of the students who can then focuss on both the process and the product of the reading. in cognitive strategies, regarding to sukmawati (2016), enable test takers to use their linguistic and world knowledge to solve given tasks. in vijaya (2012), socio-affective strategies as parts of learning strategies are applied to make a better learning. as english teachers it is very important to know what socioaffective strategy possibly and significantly borne by students. to facilitate the concepts of conducting this study, the researchers made a framework. this study concerns the difficult skills faced by test takers and the test-taking strategies in answering reading comprehension section. the researchers took a toefl preparation class as the subjects. the researchers focused on the reading comprehension section. the researchers categorized the skills of the reading comprehension section by adapting from phillips (2001) and calculated the percentage to find the difficulty percentage and ranged them. in analysing the test-taking strategies, the analysis is based on language learning stratetegies and test-wiseness strategies. methods this research uses the qualitative descriptive approach as the researchers analysed the data descriptively and a form of explanation of words is the way the researchers presented the result based on the tables. lune, h. & berg (2017) have stated that qualitative research is characterized as meanings, concepts, definitions, metaphore, symbols, and a description of things. in conducting this study, the subjects of this study are a teacher and three students of toefl preparation class. the teacher’s name in abbreviation is afd and the three students’ name in abbreviation are ami, aap, asra. the objects of this study are three answer sheets of those three students and a teacher and three students’ utterances when being in teaching and learning process. i took a toefl preparation class and the observation was held at 12:40 – 02:00 pm on july 31st, 2020. in doing the research, the researchers used document analysis and observation. the researchers analysed the three students’ pre-test answer sheets focusing on the reading comprehension section for the first research question. to the second research question, the researchers did a video recording as the source of the data by transcribing into the written text. in collecting the data, this study has several procedures. for the document analysis, the researchers collected three pre-test answer sheets. then, the researchers determined the skills of each item question of the pre-test by using phillips (2001) theory. from determining the skills of each item question, the researchers then categorized the same skills of each question into one that there are 13 skills. after that, the researchers calculated the wrong answer and calculated into percentage. for the observation, the researchers did a video recording, then it was transcribed into written text both of the teacher’s utterances and the three students’ utterances. after transcribing into written text, the researchers analysed and identified the utterances by using language learning strategies proposed by o’malley & chamot (1990) and test-wiseness strategies by cohen & upton (2006) the teachinglearning process was using indonesian language, but, the researcher translated into english with an aim that the readers will understand. data analysis the several steps were required to find the answer of the first and the second research questions. for the first research question, the researchers determined the skills of each item question of the pre-test by using phillips' (2001) theory. from determining the skills of each item question, the researchers then categorized the same skills of each question into one that there are 13 skills. after that, the researchers calculated the wrong answer and calculated into percentage. then, the researchers ranged elika aji zulmaini/ elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 116 the difficult skills from the highest to lowest percentage. then, for the wrong answers of each skill, the percentage is calculated. in gaining the result of the second research question, the researchers did an observation by recording the video. then, to analyze the data to find the findings, the researchers took several steps. the first is transcribing the teaching and learning process by transcribing the utterances both from the teacher and the students. then, the researcher read the transcription. the third step is the researchers bolding the clause or sentences which are assumed to contain the language learning strategies and test-wiseness strategies. in order to simplify the analysis, the researchers provide coding as follows: skill 1 answer main idea questions correctly skill 2 recognize the organization of ideas skill 3 answer stated detail questions correctly skill 4 find “unstated” details skill 5 find pronoun referents skill 6 answer implied detail questions correctly skill 7 answer transition questions correctly skill 8 find definitions from structural clues skill 9 determine meanings from word parts skill 10 use context to determine meanings of difficult words skill 11 use context to determine meanings of simple words skill 12 determine where specific information is found skill 13 determine the tobe, purpose, or course findings and discussion the difficulties faced by test takers in answering the reading comprehension section to categorize the skills of 50 questions, the researcher used phillips' (2001) theory. the result can be seen through the following. table 1 the skills of the reading comprehension section of english proficiency test number of skill type of skills number of test item question 1 answer main idea questions correctly 1, 11, 13, 30 2 recognize the organization of ideas 3 answer stated detail questions correctly 6, 8, 10, 15, 17, 21, 25, 33, 36, 37, 39, 40, 41, 47 4 find “unstated” details 24, 42 5 find pronoun referents 3 6 answer implied detail questions correctly 2, 4, 19, 23, 26, 32, 44 7 answer transition questions correctly 20, 50 8 find definitions from structural clues 5, 7, 31, 48 9 determine meanings from words parts 12, 22, 45, 46 10 use context to determine meanings of difficult words 9, 14, 27, 35, 38 11 use context to determine meanings of simple words 16, 18, 28, 31, 43 12 determine where specific information is found 29, 49 13 determine the tone, purpose, or course total number of questions 50 the next step is calculating the wrong answers to find the difficult skills. the calculation is presented in the following table. elika aji zulmaini/ elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 117 table 2 the result of analyzing the correct and wrong answers of each skill of reading comprehension section number of skill type of skills total correct answers total wrong answers total wrong and correct answers % 1 answer main idea questions correctly 11 1 12 8.3% 3 answer stated detail questions correctly 29 13 42 31% 4 find “unstated” details 5 1 6 16.7% 5 find pronoun referents 3 0 3 0% 6 answer implied detail questions correctly 9 12 21 57.14% 7 answer transition questions correctly 4 2 6 33.3% 8 find definitions from structural clues 6 6 12 50% 9 determine meanings from words parts 8 4 12 33.3% 10 use context to determine meanings of difficult words 10 5 15 33.3% 11 use context to determine meanings of simple words 10 5 15 33.3% 12 determine where specific information is found 5 1 6 16.7% in order to range the difficulty from the highest percentage to the lowest percentage, the result is below. table 3 difficulties faced by test takers in answering reading comprehension section of toefl no skill of reading comprehension section percentage 1 answer implied detail questions correctly (skill 6) 57.14% 2 find definitions from structural clues (skill 8) 50% 3 answer transition questions correctly (skill 7) 33.3% 4 determine meaning from word parts (skill 9) 33.3% 5 use context to determine meanings of difficult words (skill 10) 33.3% 6 use context to determine meanings of simple words (skill 11) 33.3% 7 answer stated detail questions correctly (skill 3) 31% 8 find “unstated” details (skill 4) 16.7% 9 determine where specific information is found (skill 12) 16.7% 10 answer main idea questions correctly (skill 1) 8.3% 11 find pronoun referents (skill 5) 0% we can see the table 4.1 above, that there are three skills that were not tested in the proficiency test, they are skills 2, 12, and 13. the most difficult skill of the reading comprehension section of the toefl test is skill 6 with 57.14%. this skill requires the test takers to draw a conclucsion from the specific details in the passage and to let the test takers know that the answer to the question is not directly stated. from the table above, we can also see that skill 8 is the second of the most difficult skill with 50%. furthermore, there are four skills having the same difficulty percentage as the next, they are skills 7, 9, and 11. the fourth difficult skill is skill 3, with 31%. the next same percentage of difficult skills are skills 4 and 12, with 16.7%. skill 1 becomes the sixth difficult skill of reading comprehension section, as 8.3%. the last difficult skill is skill 11, as 0%. we can conclude that the most difficult skill in reading comprehension section of toefl preparation class is skill 6 and the least difficult is skill 5. teaching and learning process of test-taking strategies in answering the reading comprehension section the result for the answer of the second research is presented in table 4. elika aji zulmaini/ elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 118 t a b le 4 t est-t a k in g s tra teg ies in a n sw erin g r ea d in g c o m p reh en sio n se ctio n o f t o e f l n o t y p e o f s k ill o f r e a d in g c o m p re h e n sio n s tra te g ie s e x a m p le o f s tra te g ie s l a n g u a g e l e a rn in g s tra te g y (o ’m a lley & c h a m o t, 1 9 9 0 ) t e st-w ise n e ss s tra te g y (c o h en & u p to n , 2 0 0 6 ) 1 a n sw er m a in id ea q u estio n s c o rrectly (sk ill 1 ) p la n n in g s tra teg y (m ) m o n ito rin g s tra teg y (m ) c o m p reh en d in g s tra teg y (c ) t est-w isen ess s tra teg y p la n n in g s tra teg y : u n d ersta n d in g w h a t th e q u estio n is a b o u t a n d e x p licit stra teg y in stru ctio n m o n ito rin g s tra teg y : g iv in g q u estio n s to th e stu d en ts in o rd er to m a k e su re th a t th e stu d en ts u n d ersta n d w h a t th e m a teria l lea rn in g is a b o u t; a n d a sk in g th e tea ch ers q u estio n s a b o u t th e lea rn in g m a teria l in o rd er to u n d ersta n d a n d k eep fo llo w in g th e lea rn in g m a teria l. e v a lu a tin g s tra teg y : r eflectin g th e stra teg y b ein g a p p lied to a n sw er th e q u estio n s. c o m p reh en d in g s tra teg y : id en tify th e m a in id ea to u n d ersta n d th e m ea n in g ; m a k e a co n clu sio n b y u n d ersta n d in g th e m ea n in g o f th e cla u se o r sen ten ces; s k im m in g a n d sca n n in g th e cla u se o r sen ten ces; t ra n sla tin g ; a n d u n d ersta n d in g th e cla u se o r sen ten ces to p red ict th e co h esiv e a n d co h eren ce m em o ry s tra teg ies: r em em b erin g id ea s to m a k e co n clu sio n ; e lim in a tin g th e a n sw ers; r etriev a l s tra teg ies: o b ta in in g a n d ex tra ctin g th e in fo rm a tio n s o cio a ffectiv e s tra teg ies: t h e in tera ctio n b etw een th e tea ch er a n d th e stu d en ts, r ein fo rcem en t, m o tiv a tio n , l o w erin g th e a n x iety , a n d r ew a rd in g t est-w isen ess s tra teg ies: u n d erlin in g th e k ey w o rd s, n o te -ta k in g , a llo ca tin g th e tim e, c h eck in g th e a n sw ers in la st m in u tes, s ta rtin g w ith ea sy q u estio n s 2 a n sw er s ta ted d eta iled q u estio n s c o rrectly (sk ill 3 ) p la n n in g s tra teg y (m ) m o n ito rin g s tra teg y (m ) c o m p reh en d in g s tra teg y (c ) t est-w isen ess s tra teg y 3 d eterm in e m ea n in g fro m w o rd s p a rts (sk ill 9 ) p la n n in g s tra teg y (m ) m o n ito rin g s tra teg y (m ) r etriev a l s tra teg y (c ) s o cio a ffectiv e s tra teg y (s ) t est-w isen ess s tra teg y 4 a n sw er im p lied d eta il q u estio n s c o rrectly (sk ill 6 ) p la n n in g s tra teg y (m ) m o n ito rin g s tra teg y (m ) c o m p reh en d in g s tra teg y (c ) 5 a n sw er t ra n sitio n q u estio n s c o rrectly (sk ill 7 ) p la n n in g s tra teg y (m ) c o m p reh en d in g s tra teg y (c ) 6 f in d “ u n sta ted ” d eta ils q u estio n s c o rrectly (sk ill 4 ) p la n n in g s tra teg y (m ) m o n ito rin g s tra teg y (m ) c o m p reh en d in g s tra teg y (c ) 7 f in d p ro n o u n r eferen ts (sk ill 5 ) p la n n in g s tra teg y (m ) r etriev a l s tra teg y (c ) 8 f in d d efin itio n s fro m s tru ctu ra l c lu es (sk ill 8 ) p la n n in g s tra teg y (m ) r etriev a l s tra teg y (c ) 9 u sin g c o n tex t c lu es to d eterm in e m ea n in g s (sk ill 1 0 a n d 1 1 ) c o m p reh en d in g s tra teg y (c ) elika aji zulmaini/ elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 119 we can see the result of the strategies being applied in answering the reading comprehension section questions in the teaching and learning process being observed above. in planning strategy, the researchers found planning strategy in form of defining the general purpose of the questions and what to learn when we face the certain kind of questions. in monitoring strategy, this strategy appears in order to monitor or check the understanding of the students themselves. furthermore, in comprehending strategy, this strategy is employed in purpose to answer skills 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, and 11. in memory strategy, this strategy is not found. in retrieval strategy, this strategy is used to answer skills 5, 8, and 9. sociaoffective was found when answering skill 9. then, the test-wiseness strategies were found in skills 1, 3, and 9. discussion in discussion section, the researcher would furthermore explain the findings. to gain the first research question, the researchers calculated the percentage of wrong answers to find the difficulty. in the findings, skill 6 is the most difficult skills with 12 wrongs answers of 21 total answers with the result of 57.14% which means that more than half of the answers are wrong. the next difficult skill is skill 8 proven by calculating the 6 out of 12 answers were wrong that resulted in 50%. the third difficult skill is skills 7, 9, 10, and 11, with 33.3%. skill 3 be the next difficult skill with 31% proven by 13 out of 42 answers were wrong. then, there are skills 4 and 12 were found to have the same percentage of difficulty, 16.7%. skill 1 is the tenth difficult skill with 8.3% proven by 1 out of 12 students chose the wrong answer. the easiest skill is skill 5 proven by 0 out of 3 answer is wrong. answer main idea questions correctly (skill 1) skill 1 is the first skill being learned in this teaching-learning process. in skill 1, based on language learning strategies and test-wiseness strategies theories, the researcher found planning, monitoring, comprehending, and test-wiseness strategies. the example of planning strategy is below. usually, the first question appear is the main idea, which is number 1. so, we are assigned to find the main idea of the paragraph or the topic. the utterance above indicated that the teacher attempted to inform the students what the questions is about so that the students have the idea what and how to answer the question. the example of monitoring strategy is presented below. what is differs? utterance above is expressed by students to the teacher in order to make sure that he tried to understand the learning material by asking the definition of a word. the example of comprehending strategy is presented below. ah, if you find the topic or main idea question, the answers can usually be found in the first sentence of the paragraph. because the example only has one paragraph, it means that we only have to read the first sentence, then, look for the synonym whether it is a, b, c, or d. the utterance above is expressed by a teacher as a way of teaching a strategy in answering the main idea questions. by reading the first sentence and finding the synonym to the options, the teacher show that the students are asked to comprehend the meaning of the sentences. in test-wiseness strategy found by the researchers, this strategy is used to find strategy by not involving the cognitive strategies, but the situations. the example of test-wiseness strategy is presented below. we read the questions first. answer stated detail questions correctly (skill 3) in skill 3, the researchers found planning, monitoring, comprehending, and test-wiseness strategies. in planning strategy, the teacher delivered the utterance in purpose to teach the students about what answer stated detail questions is about and the strategy. the example is presented below. elika aji zulmaini/ elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 120 answer stated detail questions correctly means that you have to answer a question written in the reading passage. written in the reading passage means that you will exactly find the answer in the passage. meanwhile, you will find implied question, which means that you have to look the answer by drawing the conclusion based on yourself utterance above is expressed by students to the teacher in order to make sure that he tried to understand the learning material by asking the definition of a word. the example of comprehending strategy is presented below. what is indicate? furthermore, in cognitive strategy, comprehend strategy is found. in order to answer the stated question, the students have to find the keywords by skimming. then, the students have to understand the meaning of the sentence or the clause as a guide to find the right options. well, in the question, you have to look for the keywords, and in that question, there is jamestown as the keywords. then, you have to look for the word of jamestown in the paragraph, which is in the first sentence. the last, you have to read the sentence of every multiple choice options and choose the sentence contain of the keywords. besides, test-wiseness strategy is also found in this strategy without involving the cognitive strategy. this is taught to use the time effectively. the example is below. you may try for the number 2, read the question first. determine meanings from word parts (skill 9) the researchers found planning, monitoring, retrieval, socioaffective, and test-wiseness strategies in skill 9. in planning strategies, the researchers found that the teacher taught about what the skill is about and how to answer it. the example is presented below. the meaning of this skill is to find the meaning by finding the word-forming structure. there, you are assigned to read the english passages as much as you can so that you will enrich your vocabulary and the structure of english sentences. in order to explain the monitoring strategy, the example is presented below: so, what is the synonym of subjugation? in utterance above, the researchers found one utterance expressed by a teacher in form of questioning. the question is delivered by the teacher in order to make sure that the students keep the track, in other words, understand the learning material. then, retrieval strategy is defined in answering the meaning from word parts. in planning strategy, the teacher taught the students about what the question is about and how to answer the question. in this skill, the students have to learn about prefix of english and remember the meaning. so, when the students find this skill, they only have to remember the prefix and the meaning without understanding the sentences. the example is below. if you print a photo, you will find a vivid menu in the printer. this vivid wod means looks alive. for the first time, a socioaffective is found in this teaching-learning process. the teacher deliver a speech meaning that he praised the students for being able to answer the questions correctly. the example is following. control, yes. a very smart person. elika aji zulmaini/ elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 121 besides socioaffective strategies, the researchers also found the test-wiseness strategy. this is about doing an alternative way to help students find the answer without cognitive skill. the example is below. well, we go to the question first. read the question first. find the keywords. it will be effective if you underline the keywords that you may erase once you finish answer the question. answer implied detail questionss correctly (skill 6) to find the answer of implied questions, some strategies were found. those are planning, monitoring, and comprehending strategies. in planning strategy, the teacher’ utterance indicated what the question is about and how to answee it. the example is presented below. we go the next skill. this skill is implied detail questions correctly. implied means conclusion. so, we are assigned to conclude the answer as the answer is implied. the next strategy found is monitoring strategy. the teacher tried to warn the students about implied questions skill. the example is presented below: i warn you to be more careful because this skill is a little bit hard as the answer is not stated in the passage. in the cognitive strategy, comprehending strategy was determined. in answering this skill, the students have to comprehend the sentences to be finally able to make a conclusion that the answer cannot be found in the reading passage. the example is presented below: there, you will find the keywords in the third row. the language, which means the hawaiian words, the synonym, ends in a vowel, and two consonants never appear together. so, in the hawai language, there will be no two consonants in row which means vowel consonant vowel consonant or two vowels in row. so, the conclusion is in the c option, because of k as the consonant and l as the consonant also as they are in row. answer transition questions correctly (skill 7) some strategies being applied to answer skill 7are found. planning and comprehending strategies were required in answering the transition question. in planning strategy, the teacher taught the students about what transition questions is about and how to answer it. the example is in the following. this skill will test you on how far you understand the good writing skill which requires a good transition, or the transition from one paragraph to another paragraph. the paragprah, before or after the paragraph you read, what to discuss. as this, we will learn about cohesion and coherence. when are writing a paragraph, writing a report or research, the paragraph must be cohesive and coherence. when we are writing about a, do not write about z afterwards. we have to write b instead. so that the paragraph will be correlated. so, in the question, as the example, we find paragraph preceding. preceding means before the paragraph being read. in order to answer this type of question, comprehending strategy is required. the students have to comprehend the idea by skimming to find the answer. the example is presented below. how to answer the question is based on the preceding or the following keywords in the queestion. if the question is preceding, we have to read the first sentence. if the question is following, we have to read the last sentence. then, you read the sentence, the last, you match the answers options with the sentence. find “unstated” details questions correctly (skill 4) planning and monitoring were required to answer this question. in planning strategy, the teacher taugh about what unstated details question is about and how to answer it. the example is presented below. elika aji zulmaini/ elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 122 well, this kind of question, has not true, not mentioned, not discussed, and except are the characterictic features in the questions if you find some of those characteristic features, you have to chose the wrong answer. three true answers are stated in the paragraph, the one is not, and you have to choose the not stated answer. we straightforwardly go to the example. on the other hand, to answer unstated questions, comprehending strategy is embroiled. the students have to scan the reading passage and eliminate the answers that they need to read carefully. the example is in the following. please underline the gadget word, as this is the keyword. then, find the keyword in the passage, do a scanning. then, find the wrong answer. or you can do another way by checking every answer option. find pronoun referents (skill 5) to find the answer of pronoun referents, some strategies are applied. those are planning and retrieval strategies. in planning strategy, the teacher taught the students about what the skill of this question is about and how to answer it. the example is below: this skill is correlated eith english grammar. find pronoun reference means you have to find a pronoun. this skill is considered as an easy one. the answer has been stated in the passage, andlocated right before the word being questioned. the characteristic features of this question is the pronoun blablabla in line x refers to which of the following? in pronoun referents, in order to answer this question, the test takers need to learn english grammar, especially about the pronoun. without comprehending the sentence, the students are expected to be able to answer this question. the students only need to refer to the previous noun. find definitionsfrom structural clues (skill 8) in order to answer by analyzing the structural clues, some strategies are applied. those are planning and retrieval strategies. in planning strategy, the teacher taught the students about what the question is about, the marker of the question so the students will be able to recognize the type of the question. the example is below: for structural clues question, the characteristics is the same as the word parts and there are some additional characteristics. those are is closest in meaning to, or could be replaced by... in order to find the answer of skill 8, the students are allowed to eliminate their l1 language and learn the english sentence structures. the students are also allowed to memorize the lexical bundles and mark them as a hint to find the answer. the example is presented below. well, for structural clues question, if you cannot find the answer by classifying the word parts, you can find by this strategy. the characteristics of structural clues are the existence of punctuation, such as comma, brackets, or hypens. then, there will be restatement, such as or, that is, in other words. it can be shown by example sentences, marked by word such as, for example, or e.g.. e.g means example. how to answer is find the keywords, find in the paragraph and the sentences being correlated with the keywords. for the example of question, we are going to discuss next meeting. using context clues to determine meanings (skill 10 and 11) the skills are basically constructed by two skills. those are skill 10 and 11. to answer these skills, comprehendin gstrategy is applied. in comprehending strategy, the students are required to comprehend the sentences to find the answers. the example is in below. and this is the last, using context clues to determine meanings. to identify the question is the same as the structural clues, find the keywords, then read the sentences containing the keywords, look the answer option one by one and match with the sentence containing the words. elika aji zulmaini/ elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 123 regarding to the reasons for choosing the topic, the researchers wanted to know about effective reading strategies being applied in answering the reading comprehension section. to gain the answer to it, the researchers did an interview to the tutor or the teacher of this toefl preparation class as this is used as the triangulation. the interview was held on thursday, 21st january, 2021. from the interview transcripts, the interviewee has been teaching for teen years in toefl preparation class. by far, the tutor or teacher, based on the interview, faced some challenges in teaching, one of the examples is the low knowledge about english of students or test takers. moreover, in teaching and learning process of test-taking strategies of reading comprehension, the tutor or teacher used some facilities to support the effective teaching and learning process. some of them are the use of air conditioner, monitor, the chair and the table. then, in teaching and learning of the material itself, the tutor or teacher attempted to recognize the difficulty faced by test takers or students and the tutor or teacher give a help to them in overcoming the difficulty. to the main answer of the effective reading strategies in answering the reading comprehension section of toefl, the answer the researchers gained is followed. i used bahasa indonesia to teach in this class, of course. the first thing i have to do is to teach how to identify the questions, as you have observed, every identified question is categorized as skill, has its strategies to answer. to make sure whether the students understand the material and the strategies, i give them some minutes to do the exercise as the example i gave them. from the extract above, the main answer of the effective reading strategies is gained. the test takers or students are instructed to apply strategies based on the skill or the kind of questions. besides the material strategies, the non-material strategies were also taught. some of the examples are the habit of reading the question first. then, instruction to the test takers ot students to always exercise and enrich the vocabulary everytime they find a new vocabulary. of all the strategies, skimming and scanning are the most used strategies in reading the passage. it is because most of the skill need skimming and scanning in the process of applying the strategies. conclusion based on findings, for the first research question, the researchers found that the difficult skills ranged from the hardest to the least difficult were: skill 6, 57.14%, skill 8, 50%, skill 7, 33.3%, skill 9, 33.3%, skill 10, 33.3%, skill 11, 33.3%, answer stated detailed questions correctly skill 3, 31%, find skill 4, 16.7%, skill 12, 16.7%, skill 1, 8.3%, skill 5, 0%. for the second research questions, the researchers found the test-taking strategies using o’malley & chamot's (1990) and cohen & upton's (2006) theories. in skill 1, planning, monitoring, comprehending, and test-wiseness strategies were found in this research. for the skill 2, applied planning, monitoring, comprehending, and test-wiseneses strategies. skill 9, has five strategies, those are planning, monitoring, retrieval, socioaffective, and test-wiseness strategies. skill 6 had three strategies, those were planning, monitoring, and comprehending strategies. skill 7 applied two strategies, planning and comprehending strategies. in skill 4, planning, monitoring, and comprehending strategies were found. in skill 5, planning and retrieval strategies were found in this observation. planning and retrieval strategies were also found in skill 8. the last skill being taught and learned in this observation were skill 10 and 11, with comprehending strategy found in this teaching-learning process of test-taking strategies. toefl test has been important requirement for the future and learning and applying the strategies have been something important also to help successfully pas the toefl test, including reading comprehension section. whoever wants to take the toefl test should join the toefl preparation class beside doing exercise. this study hopes that it can help teachers or tutors of toefl class to enrich their knowledge of teaching in toefl preparation class. acknowledgement the greatest praises and gratitude are addressed to allah swt, for the blessing and mercy foe every single thing happened to the researchers. shalawat and salam is always dedicated to pour beloved prophet muhammad saw. i would like to dedicate my sincerest gratitude to my dearest father ngadiono, and my super mother ngatini, and my brother who always supports me, indra aji ardianto. elika aji zulmaini/ elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 124 i am sure that this research would never have been completed without the assistance and supports of other. therefore, i would like to express my gratitude especially for my advisor, galuh kirana dwi areni, s.s., m.pd, for the guidance. also, my deepest appreciation and thankfulness goes to the ceo of edubright, mr. andhika farid abdillah for permitting me to observe the toefl preparation class. references abboud, z. a. r., & hussein, n. j. 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(2012). student’s socioaffective strategy in reading. journal of english and education, 6(1), 76–100. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 150 elt forum 9 (2) (2020) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt undergraduates’ use of metacognitive strategies in a pbl writing process muhammad mukhtar aliyu1, yong mei fung2 1bauchi state university, gadau-nigeria 2unversiti putra malaysia, malaysia article info ________________ article history: received in 11 september 2020 approved in 29 november 2020 published in 30 november 2020 ________________ keywords: metacognitive strategies; nigeria; pbl; undergraduates; writing ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________ this study examines the use of metacognitive strategies in undergraduates’ pbl writing process. the participants of the study are 18 second-year undergraduates in an intact class of advanced composition in a university in north-eastern nigeria. data for the study were collected through audio and video recordings of the participants’ interactions in the pbl process. the findings of the study showed the pbl allowed the participants to effectively use metacognitive strategies: planning, monitoring and evaluation in various ways to achieve their writing goals. for the planning process, the participants made an overall plan of their writing process, generated various ideas, retrieved their rhetorical and linguistic knowledge, and made decisions on what and how to present ideas in their writing. for monitoring, they kept track of the transition of ideas and paragraphs in their writing and identify and remedy problems that affect the writing progress. for evaluation, they evaluated the content, organisation, and language of their writing. the paper makes some recommendations for teachers to assist students in the use of metacognitive strategies which eventually improve their writing skills. © 2020 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 department of english and literary studies, bauchi state university, gadau-nigeria e-mail: mmamukhtar@basug.ed.ng http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& mailto:mmamukhtar@basug.ed.ng muhammad mukhtar aliyu, yong mei fung/elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 151 introduction undergraduates’ writing challenges have been documented by numerous studies. many strategies and approaches have also been proposed to develop the students’ writing performance (mu, 2005). some of the strategies that are believed to be useful in developing students’ writing performance are metacognitive strategies which enable a writer to regulate their knowledge of the writing process and the different demands of different writing genres (wong, 1999). in the writing process, metacognitive strategies are mental procedures used by writers to regulate their writing through planning, monitoring and evaluating (wenden, 1991; wong, 1999). the strategies play an important role in the development of students’ writing skills (mu, 2005; victori, 1999; wong, 2005); they distinguish successful from less successful writers. various researchers identified the three main metacognitive strategies which writers use in their writing: planning, monitoring and evaluation (mu, 2007; riazi, 1997; wenden, 1991; wong, 1999). planning involves accessing and retrieving knowledge relevant to a task and making decisions about what to write and how to write (wenden, 1991). wenden identifies three types of task knowledge writers need to retrieve to effectively plan their writing. they are: a) world knowledge which is the participants’ general knowledge and opinion about the topic; b) rhetorical knowledge which is the knowledge of organising ideas and paragraphs in writing, c) and linguistics knowledge which is the knowledge of grammar and appropriate vocabulary needed to present the ideas in the writing. in the writing process, wenden (1991) defines monitoring as a process of overseeing the whole writing process while observing when and why it is being hindered from progress. while she defines evaluation in writing as the process of determining the quality of a written product by looking back to determine the need for revision and making necessary changes. wenden mentions three types of task knowledge that are necessary for evaluation: i) message knowledge, ii) rhetorical knowledge and iii) linguistic knowledge. message knowledge is the understanding of what a writer wants to say about a topic based on his/her world knowledge. it allows a writer to see a connection between his/her intent and the written product. rhetorical knowledge is the knowledge of logical organisation and presentation of ideas in the writing. it helps a writer in evaluating the appropriateness and adequacy of the arrangement of ideas in the written product. linguistic knowledge includes knowledge of language structure, vocabulary, punctuation and spelling, which allows a writer to correct his/her language-related mistakes. many studies show that effective writers use metacognitive strategies which enable them to become successful and better writers. wei, shang and briody, (2012) found that high-level writers employ metacognitive skills more effectively in their writing process, especially during planning reviewing, than low-level ones. for example, the high-level writers generate and organise complete ideas during the planning stage and they are more concerned with the needs of their audience and the demands of specific genres. rahimi and katal’s (2011) study also showed the relationship between awareness of metacognitive strategies and successful language learning. they observed that metacognitive learners who take conscious steps to understand what they are doing when they learn to tend to be the most successful learners. despite the strong positive relationship between the use of metacognitive strategies and students’ writing performance, there seems to be a lack of studies that employ approaches that give students ideal contexts, explicit instructions, collaboration, scaffolding and sufficient time to fully utilise the strategies in their writing process. therefore, this study adopts a problem-based learning approach (pbl) to investigate the use of metacognitive strategies in the writing process. in the pbl approach, students are given an ill-structured problem which is complex and related to their real-life situation, which also requires multiple answers. they are allowed to work collaboratively in small groups and in sessions, which allows them to easily master what they learn in every session. teachers on their parts facilitate the students’ learning by explaining their roles and those of the students’ and through metacognitive questioning to effectively use the metacognitive strategies for improved performance in the students’ writing (lim, 2012). the study is aimed at answering the following research question: how do the participants use metacognitive strategies in the pbl writing process? muhammad mukhtar aliyu, yong mei fung/elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 152 methods respondents the participants of the study are 18 second-year students taking advanced english composition course in a local university in nigeria. they are of mixed-gender with ages ranging from 24-36 years old. they were selected based on purposeful sampling. audio-video recording was the main instrument used for the data collection. the participants’ interactions during the pbl process were recorded and transcribed verbatim. . data collection procedures to conduct the research, permission was obtained from the department and every participant signed an informed consent form to give their consent. before the actual study, the participants were briefed on the concepts of pbl and metacognition. rehearsal and demonstration on how to carry out the pbl process was conducted. two ill-structured problems were given to the participants: the first one is on attacks and abductions of some university students by some terrorist groups in the northern part of nigeria which put fear in some parents and students. the second ill-structured problem is about students’ poor academic performance and study attitudes as a result of excessive engagement with social media (see appendix). the participants were asked to work in small groups and propose viable solutions to the problems in two pbl cycles following savery and duffy’s (1995) model. in each pbl cycle, the participants worked on one ill-structured problem for three weeks, one session per week for two hours. the model presents the systematic process as follows: the facilitators identified and designed relevant ill-structured problems and presented to the participants. they also grouped the participants into smaller groups and asked each group to work collaboratively to generate working ideas, identify available information related to the problem; identify learning issues (things about which they need to find out more information); identify resources to look up or consult; assign tasks to each group member (i.e. who will be responsible for working on each learning issue) to gather information (conduct self-directed learning), and finally propose viable solutions. in the first session, the participants planned how to write viable solutions with the help of a tutor. they followed the pbl steps 1 to 5 to brainstorm and organise the viable solutions to the illstructured problem. they read the ill-structured problems, generated possible causes, solutions and other information related to the problems. the participants also identified things they should know more about to solve the problems (learning issues), and resources to consult to obtain the information through self-directed learning. in the second session, the participants exchanged findings of their self-study with group members. thereafter, the participants drafted their proposed solutions. during the third session, the participants reviewed what was written in the previous session. they read and reread words, sentences and paragraphs of the drafts and made corrections. findings and discussion to answer the research question of the study, (how do the participants use metacognitive strategies in the pbl writing process), the participants’ interactions during the pbl sessions were recorded and transcribed verbatim. the transcripts were coded following wenden’s (1991) model on the use of metacognitive strategies: planning, monitoring and evaluation in the writing process. what the participants did while using each of the strategies are categorised and presented in episodes and supported with the excerpt from their interactions. an episode is defined by nelson and carson (1998) as any utterance that is semantically related in topic or purpose. the episodes occurred in all the three sessions: planning, drafting and reviewing as the use of metacognitive strategies in the writing process was not linear but cyclical. for instance, while generating ideas, the participants might also plan, monitor and evaluate the process. also, while drafting or reviewing their writing, participants referred to the planning to check for the consistency between what was planned and what was written. the following sections present the episode in all the metacognitive strategies, planning, monitoring and evaluation. planning in writing during planning, the participants retrieved their prior knowledge on the ill-structured problems, brainstormed the possible causes and solutions to the ill-structured problems. following the retrieval muhammad mukhtar aliyu, yong mei fung/elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 153 of knowledge, they made decisions regarding what to include in the writing and how to write. they also retrieved and decided on their rhetorical and linguistic knowledge. four episodes emerged from the participants’ interactions during planning: a) instructionrelated episode, b) idea generation episode, c) organisation-related episode and d) language-related episode. the names of the episodes are adopted from previous studies. the instruction related episode and the organisation-related episode were modified from amirkhiz (2013). the ideageneration episode and the language-related episode are adopted from swain and lapkin (1998). the following sections explain the episodes. instruction-related episode amirkhiz (2013) describes instances where learners discuss writing topic and instructions as ‘reading the topic and task instructions’. in the current study, instruction-related episode occurred when the participants initiated their writing activities in a session. it involved reading the ill-structured problems, reading or giving instructions on how to carry out the pbl process. it also included announcing a specific writing task or goal to undertake at a time. in the instruction-related episodes, the participants made the overall planning of the activities. this allowed them to focus on what exactly they were expected to do in a session. it helped them to better understand the writing topic and set goals about the task. it also allowed them to think and decide on how to accomplish the task and what to include in the writing. it was through the reading instruction and setting guidelines that participants worked out strategies that assisted them through the writing process. this is illustrated in excerpt 1. the episode occurred when the participants initiated their discussion of the ill-structured problem of terrorism in northern nigeria. they discussed how to plan the whole pbl processes. excerpt 1 yunus: now… we have an ill-structured problem. we are going to brainstorm about and see if we can come with possible solutions to it. when we finish everything we are going to write a composition on this problem. as a chair, let me remind you something. in this group the chair will control the discussions, the secretary will write our points. while we are discussing, we will identify possible causes and solutions, and study issues or learning issues and possible actions. ummi: [[ok amina: [[ok yunus: so now, i will begin with reading the problem. our ill-structured problem is this, and everyone should listen to it attentively. if you have any question regarding it, you ask and it gets explained… any question regarding the understanding of the problem? ishaq: actually, no… as far as i’m concerned yunus: very straight forward? = ishaq: yeah. = yunus who was the group 1 leader, suggested that they should brainstorm the possible causes and solutions to the ill-structured problem. he began by giving an overview of the process and giving instruction on how to carry out the activities. he then reminded his group members on how the pbl process should be conducted and what they were expected to do. he read out the illstructured problem to the group members and asked if there was anything in need of clarification. other participants responded positively. by following pbl, it helped to increase the participants’ metacognitive awareness, as they became more aware of the need to plan to achieve their writing goals (ezeanyanike, 2013). another example of the instruction-related episode occurred at the beginning of the reviewing session. the participants deliberated on how to carry out the editing process and decided on the exact aspects of the writing to look at and correct. with the help of a tutor, the participants identified criteria for the editing process such as at grammar, spelling, punctuation and organisation of their writing. idea-generation episode swain and lapkin (1998) categorise any stretch of discourse made by the students when writing, which dealt with the generation of an idea for their writing as ‘idea unit’. idea-generation episode occurred while the participants were retrieving and generating knowledge and ideas related to the illmuhammad mukhtar aliyu, yong mei fung/elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 154 structured problems, possible causes, effects or solution to the ill-structured problems. it also occurred when the participants decided on what specific causes or solutions to include in their writing. excerpt 2 illustrates this. in this excerpt, the participants brainstormed viable solutions to the ill-structured problem of why nigerian undergraduates excessively engage with social media. excerpt 2 umar: umm…first of all we have to identify the causes of the problem. john: can anybody give us one? habib: but are we looking for the solutions not the causes or? what the question demands us to do umar: how can you propose solutions without the causes? habib: hmm (2.0), the cause is too much engagement on internet umar: that is not the cause. that is the problem. what causes the problem? habib: short cuts, they are looking for shortcuts. they don’t want to engage in using books or consulting books umar: ok, that is one of the causes. one of the causes is that desire to go hand in hand with the modern world. the students want to go alone with modernity john: just use one word for it umar: when we say modernity… what does it mean? john: if i understand, what you are saying is that the students want to become modern people umar: ok, modernity do you agree? justina: yes, habib: i think another factor is socialization, the effect of socialization umar: how? i see socialization is part of modernity umar suggested that they should first identify the causes of the problem. habib objected that they were asked to provide solutions not causes to the problem. umar had to explain it to the group that they could only provide viable solutions when they identified the causes of the problem. they all agreed to first think about the possible causes to the problem then suggest viable solutions based on their personal experiences and views. as could be seen from excerpt 3, the participants generated various causes to the problem such as lack of reading habit among students and the desire to go with the modern world. having identified the possible causes, they elaborated each of the causes and suggested a viable solution. for example, they suggested that online teaching should be adopted to make learning interesting to students. they further suggested that school managements should regulate the use of the internet to avoid its abuse by the students. the interactions show that pbl processes involved all the participants in the learning process and encouraged to recall information (ezeanyanike, 2013) they already acquired related to the problems. generating ideas also involved the awareness of metacognitive knowledge of task (wenden, 1991), as the participants generate ideas which are a requirement for the accomplishment of the writing task and decision-making on what to include in the writing. organisation-related episode amirkhiz (2012) describes the organisation of ideas as a collaborative discourse dealing with the organisation and arrangement of ideas in a text. organisation-related episodes occurred when the participants retrieved their rhetorical knowledge which included knowledge of how to write a title, thesis statement, and link ideas then decided on how to organise their ideas and arrange paragraphs in the writing. having generated the possible causes and solutions to the ill-structured problem, the participants used their rhetorical knowledge to logically organise and present their ideas into paragraphs in the writing as shown in excerpt 3. at this point, the participants discussed how to present viable solutions to the problem of terrorism in northern nigeria. excerpt 3 yunus: now who will suggest how we will plan the essay because we should draft now? amina: the essay should take steps, from introduction, then the body, main issues there and we will give our recommendation or solutions then conclusion. muhammad mukhtar aliyu, yong mei fung/elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 155 yunus: so, i think paragraph one is introduction. write it in our outline. ishaq: what shall we write in the introduction? yunus: for the introduction, we… we give background of the problem. so that who doesn’t know the situation now, in the introduction, he should know the situation, like the problem given to us has explained the situation. amina: in the body… how do we do this? are we going to mention the cause’s solution or we mention the causes then we have some other paragraphs to explain the solution? abubakar: i suggest that, lets mention the causes then later, the solutions in excerpt 3, the participants showed their understanding of the need to arrange and present their ideas in a manner that would be meaningful to the reader. first, amina suggested that their writing should have three parts, viz: i) the introduction, ii) the body where they would discuss the causes and solutions of terrorism, and ii) the conclusion respectively. all other participants agreed to present the ideas in that order. also, yunus suggested that an overview and background information to the ill-structured problem of terrorism in northern nigeria should be presented in the introductory paragraph. in the body of the essay, yunus further suggested that each possible cause with its viable solutions should be presented in a paragraph of its own. this opinion was not agreed upon by abubakar, who suggested that they should divide the body into two parts. in the first part, each of the causes of terrorism should be presented in a paragraph. in the second part, each possible solution to terrorism should also be presented in a paragraph. this suggestion was agreed upon by all the group members. these interactions, as presented in excerpt 3, have proven that rhetorical knowledge is a prerequisite for planning writing activities. this is the knowledge they acquired on how to translate their ideas into writing and present it to the audience. it involves a decision on where and how to put and develop every idea from the overall composition to a single paragraph (wenden, 1991). the process also reveals how the pbl approach helped the participants to be more aware of the need for proper organisation in their writing. it also helped them to learn strategies on how to arrange and, logically, present their ideas. language-related episode swain and lapkin (2002) define language-related episode as any group of utterances or segment of dialogue in which group members talk about the language they produced, correct themselves, or reflect on their use of language. in this study, language-related episodes occurred when the participants retrieved their linguistic knowledge and determined the accurate and appropriate language to use in their writing. this includes grammatical accuracy, tense, word order, articles, appropriate words and expressions. excerpt 4 is an example of a language-related episode from the participants’ interactions. the participants were deliberating on the ill-structured problem of terrorism in northern nigeria. excerpt 4 umar: well, (…) you said “the operations are normally carried out by trained youth and children’ it sounds as if the children and the youth carried it and do it as their own interest, and we know it is not like that. we better said they were either lured to do it or they were forced to do it. so we can say under age youth are lured or are enticed john: what do you mean by this lured? it is the same thing. they are innocent. it is not their wish to carry. i suggest we add innocent. it will be innocent youth and children. habib: the operations were carried out by trained youth and children who are enticed or forced to carry it unwillingly. justina: i have problem with the words enticed and unwillingly facilitator: what do you observed? justina: the use of the words, if they are enticed then it cannot be unwillingly. umar: you check your dictionary? if they are enticed meaning they are given something to do it. so they are willing to do it habib: ok, let’s put it this way, the operations were carried out by trained youth and children who are enticed or forced to execute the operation. muhammad mukhtar aliyu, yong mei fung/elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 156 umar described how the terrorists involved children in their activities. he used the words lured or forced to show that the children were involved in the activities unwillingly. john suggested that the word innocent should be added to qualify the children. umar then suggested a more suitable word entice to substitute lured. however, justina raised observation on the use of the words enticed and unwillingly in the same sentence. she pointed out that the two words have opposite meanings; therefore, both cannot be possibly used within the same expression. however, umar suggested that they should check their dictionary after which they agreed on the appropriate word to use. this indicates how the pbl approach allowed the participants to deliberate on their language and to use appropriate words to express their ideas in a writing process. this shows how the pbl approach allowed the participants to think from their previous knowledge and to build from the knowledge of others to improve their language writing. monitoring in the writing process monitoring is the process where the participants kept track of their progress from one stage of writing to another while identifying any problem that hinders the writing progress. two episodes related to monitoring were identified during the pbl writing process: the transition-related episode and the problem-recognition episode. the names of the episodes emerged from this study based on wenden’s (1991) model. transition-related episode the transition-related episode occurred when the participants kept track of their writing progress from one aspect or stage of writing to another by announcing the writing stage they were at or heading towards. for instance, they checked their progress and decided when to stop generating ideas and start writing. also, during writing, they made sure the sequence of the paragraphs in the outline was followed while drafting viable solutions. they also decided on when to end a paragraph and start a new one. while reviewing the writing, they checked to ensure that all their ideas were included in writing. excerpt 5 is an example showing how the participants monitored the progress of their writing process. the excerpt occurred after the participants exchanged the findings of their selfstudy to their group. the participants agreed to draft their proposed solutions. excerpt 5 amina: the next thing is writing an essay. we are done with the learning issue. abubakar: we have already drafted an outline. amina, bring it. we have all the causes to the problem outlined and the proposed solutions. tutor: do you all agree with the outline? ishaq: yes, we do abubakar: ok, let’s start writing yunus: binta, you can write for us. binta: ok. abubakar: let’s follow it and exhaust all the causes and the solutions then we go back and edit. ishaq: yes, if there is any addition or subtraction we do that after. amina, who was the group leader in the session, announced that they should start drafting. abubakar suggested that they should follow their outline, which is the list of the possible causes and the viable solutions to the problem of terrorism in northern nigeria then the possible solutions. abubakar further suggested that while drafting their essay, they should present the causes and the solutions to the problems. they should not mind editing the work at that moment since they could edit and rewrite it in the subsequent session. these interactions indicate that the pbl approach helped the participants to monitor their writing progress. as amina pointed out that they should stop generating ideas and start drafting the essay, they became more aware of the whole writing process. this is shown where abubakar emphasised that the outline should be followed and reminded them that they could edit and rewrite the essay afterwards. this also shows that pbl heightened the participants’ awareness as they determined when to begin or to stop a process as well as what enough is or not. problem-recognition episode the problem-recognition episode occurred when the participants identified a problem or acknowledged that they had a problem executing some aspects of their writing. for example, when muhammad mukhtar aliyu, yong mei fung/elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 157 they were confused about a word, or had an idea, but did not know how to present the idea. these are identified as problem-recognition episodes. this is illustrated in except 6 below. the episode occurred while the group members were drafting possible solutions to the second ill-structured problem of the nigerian undergraduates’ excessive engagement with social media. the participants identified an obstacle to the writing process. excerpt 6 umar: now the problem is how we link modernity with our topic. we have now defined modernity but how does it contribute to the undergraduates’ excessive engagement with social media? = habib: =because everybody wants to be modern umar: everyone wants to go hand in hand with modernity habib: everybody wants to break from the bounds of tradition and pre-modern system umar: that is why anything that regarded as modern is blindly accepted at the expense of its impact whether it is negative or positive. so how do we link it for example the possession of handset and registering or joining of social media? habib: nowadays (…) everybody possess handset just to be part of modernity umar: yes, not only because of communication habib: yes, not only because of communication but because they want to go hand in hand with modernity. they don’t want to be called a primitive person. also engaging in social media is now a treat. during the idea-generation process, they identified modernity as one of the factors that caused the nigerian undergraduates to engage excessively with social media. however, while drafting they did not know how to present it in the writing to show its connection with the problem of students’ excessive engagement with social media. this was pointed out by umar. after the long discussions, they realised how modernity is linked to the problem. umar mentioned that undergraduate students considered social media as part of modernity. thus, they blindly embraced it without considering its negative consequences. at this point, the interactions indicate that pbl process has encouraged the participants to collaborate, pull ideas from one another to identify and solve problems in their writing process. evaluation in the writing process evaluation is the process where the participants reviewed their proposed solutions to the illstructured problems by rereading words, sentences, paragraphs. in the process, they referred to the knowledge (world knowledge, rhetorical knowledge and linguistic knowledge) they retrieved during planning to improve the content, clarity, organisation, grammar, vocabulary, spelling, and punctuation of the proposed solutions. three episodes emerged from the evaluation process: content-related episodes, organisationrelated episodes, and language-related episodes. both the content-related episode and the organisation-related episodes are modified from amirkhiz’s (2012) clarification of content and organisation of ideas. on the other end, the language-related episode is adopted from swain and lapkin (1998). the following sections present the episodes with examples from the participants’ interactions. content-related episode amirkhiz’s (2012) describes the clarification of content as learners’ collaborative discourse dealing with the content of their writing. in this study, content-related episodes occurred when the participants accessed their message knowledge, which is their understanding of what they wanted to say about the ill-structured problem and compared it to the written viable solutions to make corrections. excerpt 7 is an example of how the participants evaluated the content of their writing. in the episode, the participants reviewed the written viable solutions to the problem of terrorism in northern nigeria. the participants referred to their brainstorming and checked the plausibility and viability of the solutions generated and compared them with the text. excerpt 7 muhammad mukhtar aliyu, yong mei fung/elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 158 umar: let us look at our introduction. we said we should start by defining the key terms, which are the social media and undergraduate students. because they are regarded as the main issue in the topic babayo: yes umar: that day we mentioned different definitions of social media. first, we said it is networking site that brings friends, family etc together. second, we said use of different media for communication. third, we said societal mass communication. lastly, we merged the definitions to come with one that is better. habib: yes, we also need to include the verses that talk of the consequences. in excerpt 9, umar suggested that they should refer to their outline to see the list of the possible causes and solutions generated during the brainstorming session. that helped them to see whether all the ideas generated were included orderly as in the outline or otherwise. umar reminded them that they agreed to begin the essay by defining key terms. therefore, he read the introductory paragraph to check whether the key terms were defined. it was found that the paragraph needed to be rewritten. habib then suggested that some verses from the two holy books, the bible and the quran, should be used to support their claims that terrorism is evil since most of their readers practise either christianity or islam. the interactions have confirmed the claim on the importance of content knowledge in evaluating one’s writing (wenden, 1991). organisation-related episode according to amirkhiz (2013) organisation of ideas is a collaborative discourse dealing with the organisation and arrangement of ideas in a text. in this study, organisation-related episodes occurred when the participants used their rhetorical knowledge to evaluate the appropriateness and accuracy of the organisation and arrangement of ideas in their writing. this episode occurred during both the planning and the evaluation. language-related episode swain and lapkin (2002) describe the language-related episode as any group of utterances or segment of dialogue in which group members talk about or reflect on the language they produced and correct themselves. in this study, language-related episodes occurred when the participants used their linguistic knowledge to evaluate the accurateness and appropriateness of the language used in the written product. they reviewed the writing and corrected their language-related mistakes. this included tense, word order, articles, word and expression choices, spelling and punctuations. this episode also occurred at planning. discussion the findings of the study showed that pbl encouraged the participants to use metacognitive strategies in various ways to achieve their writing goals. for the planning process, the participants made an overall plan of their writing process, generated various viable solutions to the ill-structured problems, retrieved their rhetorical and linguistic knowledge, and made decisions on what and how to present ideas in their writing. in the monitoring process, pbl allowed the participants to keep track of their writing process, identify and solve any problem that would hinder the process. during the evaluation process, the interactions enabled them to review their writing output to evaluate the content, organisation and the language used. it is further shown that the use of metacognitive strategy in the participants’ writing process was not linear; it was cyclical. for instance, while generating ideas, the participants planned, monitored and evaluated the process. also, while drafting or reviewing their writing, the participants referred to the planning to check for consistency between the ideas outlined during the planning and the written product. these results are in line with most of the recommendations of graham and harris (2009), and xiao (2007) on how to develop students’ metacognition and writing skills. those studies pointed out that instructors should, among other things, engage and support learners in the writing process, provide ample time for writing and allow them to monitor their writing performance. instructors should also incorporate instructional procedures that allow learners to work together to plan, draft, revise, and edit their writing. it was further revealed from the study that the pbl approach is effective in allowing the participants to be aware of the task knowledge, which is essential in using the metacognitive strategies (wenden, 1991). this was possible because the pbl approach encouraged the participants muhammad mukhtar aliyu, yong mei fung/elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 159 to learn collaboratively by sharing and exchanging ideas. they gathered more information from their various personal experiences. this is in line with findings of beebe and masterson (2003) that in a collaborative learning process, groups have more information than a single individual does. the results also confirm wenden’s (1991, 1998) study that to accomplish writing goals, writers need to be aware of the need to use their metacognitive task knowledge. conclusion the study aims to examine how the participants use metacognitive strategies in the pbl writing process. the findings reveal that the participants used metacognitive strategies: planning, monitoring and evaluation in various ways which helped them to achieve their writing goals. for the planning process, the participants made an overall plan of their writing process, generated various ideas, retrieved their rhetorical and linguistic knowledge, and made decisions on what and how to present ideas in their writing. for monitoring, they keep track of the transition of ideas and paragraphs in their writing and identify and remedy problems that affect the writing progress. for evaluation, the evaluated the content, organisation, and language of their writing. there are some limitations to the study which could affect the generalizability of the findings. the number of participants is very small and the participants have almost the same characteristics. the intervention period is also not very long. future studies can select a larger number of participants and administer the pbl treatment of a longer period. despite the limitations and other challenges, the study has provided teachers with an approach that can motivate students to use metacognitive strategies in the writing process which in turn enhance their writing performance. references amirkhiz, s. y. y. (2013). cross-cultural variations in esl/efl female learners’ product, process and perceptions in collaborative task. unpublished phd. thesis, univerisiti putra malaysia. ezeanyanike, p. a. (2013). assessing benefits of collaborative learning environment for quality higher education in nigeria. journal of educational and social research, 3(6), 85-94. flavell, j. h. (1979). metacognition and cognitive monitoring: a new area of cognitive developmental inquiry. american psychologist, 34(10), 906-911. flavell, j. h. (1976). metacognitive aspects of problem solving. in l. b. resnick (ed.). the nature of intelligence. hillsdale, new jersey: erlbaum. flavell, j. h. (1987). speculation about the nature and development of metacognition. in f. e. weinert & r. h. kluwe (eds.), metacognition, motivation and understanding (pp. 21-29). hillsdale, new jersey: lawrence erlbaum associates. flavell, j. h. (1981). cognitive monitoring. in w. p. dickson (ed.), children's oral communication skills (pp.35 60). new york: academic press. flavell, j. h. (1992). metacognition and cognitive monitoring: a new area of cognitivedevelopmental inquiry. in t. o. nelson (ed.), metacognition: core readings (pp. 3-8). boston: allyn & bacon. graham, s., & harris, k. r. (2009). evidence-based writing practices: drawing recommendations from multiple sources. british journal of educational psychology 6, 95-111. hyland, f. (2000). esl writers and feedback: giving more autonomy to students. language teaching research, 4(1), 33–54. lim, w. k. (2012). dysfunctional problem-based learning curricula: resolving the problem. bmc medical education, 12 (1), 89. mu, c. (2005). a taxonomy of esl writing strategies. proceedings of redesigning pedagogy: research, policy, practice, (pp. 1-10). singapore, newman. oxford, r. (2002). language learning strategies. in r. carter and d. nunan (eds.), the cambridge guide to teaching english to speakers of other languages (pp. 166-172). cambridge: cambridge university press. rahimi, m., & katal, m. (2012a). metacognitive listening strategies awareness in learning english as a foreign language: a comparison between university and high-school students. procedia social and behavioral sciences, 31(2011), 82–89. rahimi, m., & katal, m. (2012b). metacognitive strategies awareness and success in learning english as a foreign language: an overview. procedia social and behavioral sciences, 31, 73–81. muhammad mukhtar aliyu, yong mei fung/elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 160 riazi, a. (1997). acquiring disciplinary literacy: a social-cognitive analysis of text production and learning among iranian graduate students of education. journal of second language writing, 6(2), 105-137. savery, j. r., & duffy, t.m. (1995). problem-based learning: an instructional model and its constructivist framework. in brent g. wilson (ed.) constructivist learning environments: case studies in instructional design. new jersey: educational technology publications. su, y., (2007). the impact of scaffolding type and prior knowledge in a hypermedia, problem-based learning environment. unpublished ph.d. thesis, arizona state university. victori, m. (1999). an analysis of writing knowledge in efl composing: a case study of two effective and two less effective writers. system, 27, 537-555. wenden, a. l. (1998). metacognitive knowledge and language, applied linguistics 19(4), 515–537. wenden, a. (1991). metacognitive strategies in l2 writing: a case for task knowledge. in a. james (ed.), georgetown university round table on languages and linguistics (pp. 303322). washington, dc: georgetown university press. wong, b. (1999). metacognition in writing. in r. gallimore, l. p. bernheimer, d. l. macmillan, d. l. speece, & s. vaughn (eds.), developmental perspectives on children with high-incidence disabilities (pp. 183–198). mahwah. new jersey: erlbaum. muhammad mukhtar aliyu, yong mei fung/elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 161 appendix ill-structured problems problem 1 (first pbl cycle) the recent attacks and abductions of some university students by some terrorist groups in the northern part of the country and the involvement of some university students in terrorism have put fear in some parents and students. this has caused some students, particularly those in that part of the country to transfer their scholarship to other universities while others even abandon schooling completely. what do you think could be done to solve the problem? collaboratively discuss the problem in your groups following the pbl steps and propose viable solutions to the problem. you are given three weeks to work on the problem with your group members and come up with proposed solutions to the problem. problem 2 (second pbl cycle) in recent years, parents, lecturers and government have shown their concern over the poor academic performances and study attitudes of nigerian undergraduates. excessive engagement of social media by the undergraduate students has been identified as one of the contributing factors to the menace. a recent study by okechukwu and ngozi, (2014) has shown that majority of nigerian undergraduates engage in at least two and above forms of social media. it has been observed that most of the students spend much of their times on the internet instead of studies. on average, the students spent 6-7 hours on social media a day, as a result, it affects their academic performances and study attitudes negatively. propose viable solutions to address this problem following the pbl steps. you are given three weeks to work on the problem with your group members and come up with proposed solutions. 181 elt forum 9 (2) (2020) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt representing translation procedures in translated indonesian-english cultural terms of online news media siti rodiyah faculty of teacher’s training and education, universitas tama jagakarsa article info ________________ article history: received in 16 june 2020 approved in 29 november 2020 published in 30 november 2020 ________________ keywords; cultural terms; translation; procedure;the jakarta post ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ translating cultural terms needs proper procedures since each culture has linguistics elements to be expressed between one language to other ones. problems then may appear in understanding cultures. however, it should not be a big deal, because understanding cultures of one language to other ones can be easily resolved by translation and its proper procedures. the present study uses qualitative approach with content analysis which is aimed to observe (1) the translated indonesian-english cultural terms on the jakarta post’s (tjp) online news and (2) the translation procedures using in replacing the indonesian cultural terms into english. the 21 cultural terms of five texts in tjp were found as the data and they were analyzed based on the adaptation of newmark’s categorisation of cultural terms and a combination view of newmark’s and baker’s translation procedures. the results of this study were; first, the translated indonesian cultural terms into english on tjp’s online news were categorized into social-religious activities cultural terms which reached the most 48%, ecological cultural terms found 28%, and material cultural terms obtained the lowest 24%. second, the translation procedures used in replacing indonesian cultural terms found in this study are four types of procedures; couplets obtained the highest percentage 48%; literal translation gained 19%, transference or loan word and loan word plus explanation reached 24%, and cultural equivalent or cultural substitution obtained the lowest 9%. this study applied to observe indonesian-english cultural terms and their translation procedures of online media to acknowledge indonesian cultures through news widely. © 2020 universitas negeri semarang correspondent address: p-issn 2252-6706| e-issn 2721-4532 fkip universitas tama jagakarsa jl. tb. simatupang no. 152, jakarta, 12530 e-mail: sitirodiyahhs@gmail.com http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& mailto:sitirodiyahhs@gmail.com siti rodiyah/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 182 introduction human beings think and act differently toward their lives through variety of ways which called culture. hoopes (in pusch, 1979) states his terminology on culture that it is the sum total of ways of living which developed by a group of people. moreover it concluded that through a particular phsyical and human environment to survive, people have their own ways about values, beliefs, aesthetic standard, and pattern of thinking, behavioral norms, linguistics expression, and style of communication. newmark (1988) emphasizes that it is a community uses a specific language as its tool to express the way of life as their culture. thus, every culture has its particular characteristics whether type of culture and language to express it. the nature of culture is different from one community to others and rodiyah (2014) noted that it is each culture has its own virtue due to its function in each group of lives. for those people who live with their own ways from generation to next generation, they do understand the importance and the historical background of their cultures which other communities can catch them through deep explanation. that it is every culture has its own linguistics forms whether stuctures or systems, so problems may appear in understanding cultures which those have own linguistics elements to express between one language to other ones. it means that cultural terms related to language issues. eventhough understanding cultures of a source language (sl) to a target language (tl) is challenging, the problems that appear then can be easily resolved by translation and its proper procedures. thus, to translate should learn knowledge of culture, and vice versa, to recognize culture should learn its language. as it has been decided by al-hassan (2013) that the domain of translation studies has expanded beyond the limit of language to include the cultures of the sl and tl. in other words, durdureanu (2011) states culture and translation have been integrated each other. translation and culture are interrelated, so that translator can no longer ignore cultural elements in text. the nature of translation is varied among linguists, scholars, and professionals in translation studies, though it generally assumed that translation included process and product. as process, translator applied any levels and categories in transferring sl into tl. while translation product provided by translator after having completed the process of translation. catford (1965) defines translation as replacing textual material of an sl by equivalent textual material into tl. nida and taber (1982) naturally define that translation is a reproduction of whether the closest message meanings or terms of style from sl to tl. since understanding cultural items may bring problems, it has been interesting to be observed through many studies about culture and translation . as it is been studied by hapsari & setyaningsih (2013) on cultural words and the translation in twilight; thriveni (2016) who found cultural element in translation the indian perspective; nitisari (2016) with her the translation strategies of cultural words in ahmad tohari’s dancer: permatahati & rosyidi (2017) with their translation techniques and readability of the culture specific items in the 2007 indonesian translation of alice’s; suhardi and setiawan (2019) studied about equivalence of proper names which included cultural items, in foreign languages into the indonesian language; rodiyah’s (2019) about translation strategies of cultural terms in booklet warisan budaya jakarta–jakarta cultural heritage; indryany (2019) by her strategi penerjemahan kata-kata berkonsep budaya dalam novel terjemahan the great gatsby. these mentioned studies observed translation and cultural terms which are based on literary works and any other objects unless using news media as the object. to accomplish those studies, so this current study observes representation of using particular translation procedures to replace indonesian cultural terms into english of the jp’s online news text which is used as both the object and the data in this study. in relation between translation and culture, newmark (1988) classified cultures into five categories; the first is ecology; the second is material culture; the third is social culture – work and leisure; the fourth is organisations, customs, ideas-political, social, legal, religious and artistic; the fifth is gestures and habits. based on those categorization, the researcher then has adapted and interpreted them into three categorization as follows; the first is ecology which associated with everything related to environment. the sub-categories can be animal, plants, wind, proper names of geographical area (including name of street, sub-district, province and capital city of province), zone, mountains, land, etc. the second is material cultures which related to human creativity in optimizing god’s creation to be food or culinary, clothes, houses or historical buildings, and artworks. the third is social-religious activities cultural terms which it is a combined of the third and fourth newmark’s categorization. it can be sub-categorized into religious festivals, artistic, and seasonal activities which these sub-categories are mostly manifested by indonesian people through festivals and ceremonial to siti rodiyah/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 183 celebrating holydays or holy days which are the manifestation of human’s thought in doing their daily activities. to translate those categories of cultural terms, it can be applied by newmark’s procedures (1988) which it is developed into 16 procedures that possibly used by translator. here they are four procedures which mostly applied in translating cultural words whether in single or couplet used as it is the main objective of this study: (1) literal translation is one of the easiest used procedures in translating cultural words which it can only take equivalent meaning lexically from dictionary. this procedure used as the very first way by translator to find equivalent meaning, (2) cultural equivalent can be used as a procedure to translate cultural word by replacing source cultural words into target cultural words which they have similarity in meaning, (3) transference as same as borrowing that used by translator with only using the source language without any replacement, (4). couplets used two or more procedures in one translation text. procedures of translation sometimes used regarding problems of non-equivalence. professional translators will deal with various types of non-equivalence by using strategies. baker (2011) delivered at least six procedures which can be used to be strategies in dealing with nonequivalence problems; (1) translation by a more general word (super ordinate), (2) translation by a more neutral/less expressive word, (3) translation by cultural substitution, (4) translation using a loan word or loan word plus explanation, (5) translation by paraphrase using a related word, (6) translation by paraphrase using unrelated words. indonesia is home to tons of cultures of many ethnics in this archipelago country. those cultures have their own uniqueness as well as other cultures all over the world. so every culture has its own name of language to be expressed using particular words. there are many literatures provided to acknowledge indonesian cultures; government manuscripts, textbooks, booklet of cultures or tourism, media, etc. thus, any media plays important roles to acknowledge cultural terms to other people worldwide. daily news using foreign language whether paper edition or online is one of media that can provide cultural terms from one language to others. for general rules, media has also its own language to deliver information, either it has own way to translate local language to foreign ones, and vice versa. that it is one of the media, the jakarta post, which it used to be only a paper based, but now it is also online english news based in jakarta, indonesia. that it was very first paper edition appeared on 25 april 1983. in indonesian perspective, the post established to improve the standard of english language media and to produce a quality newspapers to its reader in deepening their insight into the very workings of this vast archipelago, its people and its government, as members of the great family of nations (the post, 2011). in other words, from these objectives implied that how indonesians apply the way of life presented to the public by the post using journalism standard, so people can understand indonesian cultures. the post has important roles as well as other publication in representing indonesian cultural terms through any kinds of news. there are many studies applied to observe translation and cultures on artworks of literature or cultural terms in any object from english into indonesian language. while this study concerns on both issues, culture and translation, it also represents indonesian cultural erms translated into english and the translation procedures used in replacing the indonesian cultural terms into english on tjp’s online news. methods this study uses qualitative approach with content analysis to observe; (1) the translated indonesian cultural terms into english on the jakarta post’s (jp) online news and (2) the translation procedures using in replacing the indonesian cultural terms into english. the data were taken from five articles which consist of indonesian cultural terms translated into english on the jakarta post’s online news. the five articles entitled: (1) 'kerak telor', grilled octopus spice up cap go meh in jakarta published on saturday, february 8, 2020, (2) from religious rituals to festive attractions: indonesians prepare to celebrate chinese new year on friday, january 24, 2020, (3) jakarta celebrates cap go meh with festival, performances on sat, february 8, 2020, (4) seven interactive installations to enjoy at bandung’s gedung sate on sunday, january 26, 2020, (5) toba lake festival fails to bring in tourists on december 16, 2019. the data gathered by collecting the categorization of each cultural terms and classifying their translation procedures on the jakarta post’ five texts which they were analyzed using qualitative data siti rodiyah/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 184 analysis. the evidence provided in tables and percentage to facilitate readers easier to sum up the research. the theoritical framework used to analyze the first problem were newmark’s definition of cultural terms which are have been adapted and interpreted by the researcher into three categorization as follows; the first is ecology which associated with everything related to environment. the sub-categories can be animal, plants, wind, proper names of geographical area (including name of street, sub-district, province and capital city of province), zone, mountains, land, etc. the second is material cultures which related to human creativity in optimizing god’s creation to be food or culinary, clothes, houses or historical buildings, and artworks. the third is socialreligious activities cultural terms which it is a combined of the third and fourth newmark’s categorization. it can be sub-categorized into religious festivals, artistic, and seasonal activities which these sub-categories are mostly manifested by indonesian people through festivals and ceremonial to celebrating holydays or holy days which are the manifestation of human’s thought in doing their daily activities. and to answer and analyze the second aim of this study, it also based on newmark’s (1988) and baker’s (2011) translation procedure. the result found 21 cultural terms of some categorizations answering two formulated problems; first, the translated indonesian cultural terms into english on the jp’s online news which were categorized into social-religious activities ecology, and material. second, the translation procedures used in replacing indonesian cultural terms found in this study were four types of procedures; couplets which it is using more than one procedures in translating one cultural term such a combination of cultural equivalent and transference or loan word plus explanation, couplets of transference and translation by paraphrase using a related word, and couplets of transference and literal translation. there are also single procedures that have been used; literal translation, transference and loan word or loan word plus explanation, and cultural equivalent or cultural substitution. findings and discussion based on the data analysis of 21 cultural terms, the study obtained two objects which are formulated as problems. first, the translated indonesian cultural terms into english on the jp’s online news are categorized into social-religious activities cultural terms which reached the most 48%, ecological cultural terms found 28%, and material cultural terms obtained the lowest 24%. second, the translation procedures used in replacing indonesian cultural terms found in this study are four types of procedures; couplets obtained the highest percentage 48% for 10 cultural terms which it is a using more than one procedures in one cultural term such a combination of cultural equivalent and transference or loan word plus explanation, couplets of transference and translation by paraphrase using a related word in bracket, and couplets of transference and literal translation. there are also single procedures that have been used; literal translation gained 19% to translating five cultural terms, transference or loan word and loan word plus explanation reached 24% to retain four cultural terms, and cultural equivalent or cultural substitution obtained the lowest 9% to replace two cultural terms. here they are the discussion of results: the indonesian cultural terms in categorizations figure 1. categorization and total of cultural terms siti rodiyah/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 185 this part began with a figure above containing percentage of cultural terms in each category and then continued by description of each formulated problem. based on the data analysis, there are 21 indonesian cultural terms which found in five articles of the jakarta post news with different categories. social-religious activities cultural terms stand for the highest percentage 48%, ecology found 28%, and material obtained the lowest 24%. the types of articles on the news decided as travel, culture, and life styles. here the description of cultural terms in each categorisation: social-religious activities cultural terms table 1. social-religious activities cultural terms no language kinds of socialreligious activities cultural terms percentage sl tl 1 barongsai lion dance artistic 50% 2 ondel-ondel giant betawi effigies 3 gambang kromong (traditional betawi musical ensemble) 4 wayang potehi (chinese glove puppet) 5 tanjidor (traditional betawi musical ensemble) 6 cap go meh the fifteenth night of chinese new year festivities (15th day of the first month of the lunar calendar) religious festivals 20% 7 imlek the chinese new year, locally known 8 pesta kembang api fireworks display seasonal activities 30% 9 festival danau toba toba lake festival 10 hari bebas kendaraan the car free day indonesia is home to hundreds of ethnics with many different cultures. people from all over indonesia are born from many kinds of ethnic groups. so they live in many ways of living. through social-religious activities which are varied, they do rituals and celebration. as this study adapted theoritical framework by newmark (1988), this study determined three sub-categorizations of this cultural terms as the results which are artistics reached 50%, religious festivals stand for 20%, and seasonal activities gained 30%. festival is one of cultural products that is related to how indonesians to do worship, to celebrate happiness of holy days, and to show people’s feel and locals sources. so, it is easy for the journalist to write social-religious activities in every corner of indonesia due to the richness of cultures of this archipelago country. like social-religious activities cultural terms easily found in articles which are taken as the data of this study. there are 10 of 21 indonesian translated socialreligious activities cultural terms into english in the data which taken from one of five articles entitled “jakarta celebrates cap go meh with festival performances”. after analysing the data that were taken from paragraphs consisting words and phrases, this study then found religious terms which some of them are imlek and cap go meh. these two words have close relation to an ethnic called chinese-indonesian people who live in indonesia since long time ago. they have established particular cultures based on the root of culture from their descent, chinese, which can be referred not only in indonesia but also all over the world with different names as chinese people live in every corner in the world. imlek is a term among locals in indonesia, especially chinese of mixed indonesian descent, to replace chinese new year which people all over the world known it universally. according to hermina (as cited in kompas.com, 2020), imlek has been celebrated through series acitivities which originally was a celebration of the beginning of spring and it by philosophers then been integrated to morality and spiritual values. imlek usually celebrated within 15 days which finally completed with festivites on its fifthteenth day of the month. it is cap go meh which translated to the fifteenth night, a popular word siti rodiyah/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 186 among indonesians as one of series religious rituals. cap go meh is a part of imlek which shown up by festive attractions. in this study, this word found as one of subcategory which it is a religious day as implied in example 6 in table 1 above. here the word appeared in two paragraphs from tjp’s article entitled “jakarta celebrates cap go meh with festival, performances”: the jakarta administration has organized cap go meh celebrations that will last until sunday. also known as the “happy day”, cap go meh, which translates to the fifteenth night, is what closes 15 days of chinese new year festivities. this year, cap go meh falls on saturday. the festivities began thursday and celebrations are currently being held in five areas: in front of the grand hyatt hotel, dukuh atas, the kendal tunnel, in front of the fx sudirman shopping mall and the thamrin city shopping mall. as newmark (1988) notes that one of cultural terms categorization is associated to organisations, customs, ideas-political, social, legal, religious and artistic, this study found the most cultural terms on this categorisation. it implied human being can not be separated of activities, especially on religious, seasonal and artistics terms in their daily activities. so, in translation as a product it also can be easily found through studies e.g. that it is a study by hapsari and setyaningsih (2013) found the third highest (18%) of this categorisastion which subcategorized on terms of artistic and religion. it implied that human’s ways of live can be easily identified through religious rituals and festives attracations. ecological cultural terms table 2: ecological cultural terms no language kinds of ecological terms percentage sl tl 1 jl. pancoran, kelurahan pinangsia, jakarta barat jl. pancoran in pinangsia subdistrict, west jakarta street, subdistrict and city 16.7% 2 petak sembilan glodok not translated but before already described as one of three little chinatown points in the city zone 16.7% 3 sumatera utara north sumatra province 16.7% 4 bandung, ibu kota jawa barat, bandung, the capital of west java, capital city of province 16.7% 5 jakarta timur east jakarta city 33.33% 6 jakarta barat west jakarta basically this study depends on newmark’s (1988) framework especially on categorization of ecological terms in translation. through this present study then it determined additional more subcategories due to the variety of cultural terms found from the news texts such as names of street, sub-district, zone, province and capital city of province which are not literally mentioned by newmark. it is similar to the prior research by indriyani (2019) that she found ecological terms in her study which it were geographical terms. there are six ecological terms of 21 of indonesian translated cultural terms as the data found in this study. this category of cultural terms appeared in form of words and phrases. based on the sentence analysis data which consists of words and phrases, it can be seen through the following paraghraph from an article entitled “’kerak telor’, grilled octopus spice up cap go meh in jakarta”: forty-five food stalls serving a variety of delicacies were displayed at a culinary festival on jl. pancoran in pinangsia subdistrict, west jakarta, to celebrate cap go meh on saturday. the two lines paragraph above consists of ecological terms such as jl. pancoran in pinangsia subdistrict, west jakarta. to locals in jakarta or indonesia at general, it is common to write or mention their own address completely which included name of street with name of subdistrict (kelurahan) and city (kotamadya). as product of cultures, those ecological terms cannot be fully replaced by other words in foreign language unless using additional information like jl. means street before pancoran, subdistrict after pinangsia and end up by name of city west jakarta. siti rodiyah/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 187 material cultural terms table 3. material cultural terms no language kinds of material terms percentage sl tl 1 kerak telor grilled octopus, betawi-style omelet made of duck eggs and rice food 40% 2 dodol betawi a traditional toffee-like sweets made of palm sugar 3 taman dukuh atas the dukuh atas park public place 20% 4 vihara gunung timur gunung timur temple religious building 20% 5 gedung sate gedung sate, a dutch east indies heritage building built in 1920. historical building 20% material cultural terms found the lowest in this study which it is 24%. there are 5 of 21 indonesian translated cultural terms into english in the data which taken from five articles of the post’s online news. material cultural terms appeared in form of words and phrases as listed in table 3 above. the sub-categories of this term are food, historical buildings, religious buildings, and public place. it considered that material cultural terms also important among indonesian, even in some studies it found the most. based on the sentences analysis data which consist of words and phrases, this study found five material terms in five articles. food is one of some sub-categories as implied in example 1 and 2. here it is the sentence: “the culinary festival will last during the weekend, offering food and beverages ranging from traditional favorites of jakarta’s betawi people, such as kerak telor (betawi-style omelet made of duck eggs and rice) and dodol betawi (a traditional toffee-like sweets made of palm sugar) to chinese staples like dumplings and fried meatballs.” kerak telor is one of popular local foods among jakarta’s betawi people. it can be literally translated as egg crust. it called betawi omellet but little bit different from common omellet. as common omellet, kerak telor also made of egg, chicken or duck, and many spices. this food to be crust because of it consisted of sticky rice which cooked until fried looked. serundeng (roasted shredded coconut), fried shallots and fried shrimp put as toping. dodol betawi which recognized in the bracket as a traditional toffee-like sweets made of palm sugar is also very popular among locals in jakarta. sweet dominated the taste of dodol betawi. it is rubbery like marshmallow but the ingredients so much different which it puts palm sugar and milk squeezed from coconut. many studies obtained material as one of cultural terms categorisation. rodiyah (2019) found similar subcategory to the current study which highlighted on historical buildings, clothes, and transportations. this study found one more thing related to material culture which it is religious building vihara gunung timur or gunung timur temple. that it is a subcategory can be easily found around indonesian’s environment, religious buildings, as indonesia is a country that have six religions; islam, protestantism, catholicism, hinduism, buddhism, and confucianism. so, people in indonesia are allowed and facilitated to do worship in religious buildings which are opened publicly such as mosques, temples, and churchs. siti rodiyah/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 188 translation procedures figure 2. translation procedures this part describes the translation procedures used in translating the 21 indonesian cultural terms found in this study based on the data analysis of five articles of the jakarta post news. there are four types of procedures used due to the way how journalists replace the 21 indonesian cultural terms into english. the four procedures are: (1) couplets obtained 48% which it is a using more than one procedures in one cultural term such a combination of cultural equivalent and transference or loan word plus explanation, couplets of transference and translation by paraphrase using a related word in bracket, and couplets of transference and literal translation. there are also single procedures that have been used such as (2) literal translation gained 19%, (3) transference or loan word reached and loan word plus explanation 24%, and (4) cultural equivalent or cultural substition obtained the lowest 9%. couplets table 4. couplet procedure no language translation procedures sl tl 1 kerak telor grilled octopus, betawi-style omelet made of duck eggs and rice couplets: cultural equivalent, transference or loan word plus explanation 2 barongsai (lion dance) couplet: transference and translation by paraphrase using a related word 3 ondel-ondel (giant betawi effigies) couplet: transference and translation by paraphrase using a related word in bracket 4 tanjidor (traditional betawi musical ensemble) couplet: transference and translation by paraphrase using a related word in bracket 5 wayang potehi (chinese glove puppet) couplet: transference and translation by paraphrase using a related word in bracket 6 taman dukuh atas the dukuh atas park couplet: transference and literal translation 7 festival danau toba toba lake festival couplet: transference and literal translation 8 vihara gunung timur gunung timur temple vihara gunung timur temple couplet: transference and literal translation siti rodiyah/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 189 9 jl. pancoran, kelurahan pinangsia, jakarta barat jl. pancoran in pinangsia subdistrict, west jakarta couplet: transference and literal translation 10 dodol betawi a traditional toffee-like sweets made of palm sugar couplet: transference or word plus explanation and cultural equivalent in process of translating cultural terms, translators should adopt different procedures. it commonly recognized that it is not easy to keep source language (sl) into target language (tl) which is functionally equivalent. it sometimes can not be solved by only one procedure for translating a cultural term. this is a such problem when translator need to use and to apply couplet, one of procedures addressed by translation scholars. nasser (2018) emphasizes to solve a problem in one translation unit need to apply couplet which is a use of two procedures or more. translation couplets. the most common form of translation couplet consists of the translation of an institutional term followed by its translation (which may be a literal translation, a cultural equivalent or a translation label) in brackets; here one would assume that the sl term would be retained for the remainder of the text and in the relevant tl literature. (newmark, 1981, p. 76). the statement above implied that couplet which uses more than one procedure is not only provided for resolving problem but also it is such an effort of translator to retain both sl and tl terms culturally equivalent. providing meaning of a cultural term in brackets from sl to tl or vice versa combining with other procedures is such a way of applying couplet. this study found that couplet as a procedure used to translate ten cultural terms of some subcategories. it applied into a combination of cultural equivalent and transference or loan word plus explanation, couplets of transference and translation by paraphrase using a related word, and couplets of transference and literal translation. most of them replaced in brackets. the following paragraph consists a material cultural word “ondel-ondel” which translated by couplet. visitor can expect to enjoy various forms of art and performances at the celebrations, including ondelondel (giant betawi effigies), wushu, chinese lute and film screenings. ondel-ondel written with additional information in bracket after the word ondel-ondel itslef, so it called using couplet procedure because it is translated by paraphrase using a related word in bracket to giant betawi effigies. this paraphrase related to its big shape of ondel-ondel, so it looks like a giant doll. it sure the word ondel-ondel cannot be replaced by any other word in english unless the journalist paraphrase it using related words. literal translation table 5. literal translation n o language translation procedures sl tl 1 jakarta timur east jakarta literal translation 2 jakarta barat west jakarta literal translation 3 sumatera utara north sumatra literal translation 4 bandung, ibu kota jawa barat bandung, the capital of west java literal translation anderson (as cited in suhardi et.al, 2019) explained proper names not only focused on name of person, but also included names of city and country, planet, and institution. this study found at least four ecological cultural terms as listed in table 5. those cultural terms are similar to what suhardi et.al decided as a part of proper names such as suez canal to be terusan suez and south korea to be korea selatan. those both geographic proper names are reformed through general words that found lexically from tl dictionaries. in other word, this such case used literal translation procedure. at the very first process of translation, literal translation procedure mostly used by translator. this procedure relies on general words which are easily can be found lexically in dictionary. in this way translator does not need to replace the source word into any other word but they replace word literally. as this study implied in this following sentences from tjp’s article entitled “seven interactive installations to enjoy at bandung”: siti rodiyah/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 190 bandung, the capital of west java, is home to delicious food, cafes, recreational places and tea plantations.5 but that’s not all. located on jl. diponegoro is gedung sate, a dutch east indies heritage building built in 1920. bandung categorized as a cultural term which is in subcategory of ecology. there is no other official name can be used to replace word bandung as a city as well as a sub-district and even a capital city into english terms or any other languages. it is constantly written bandung as a capital city of west java which replacing literally jawa barat. so it can be implied that it used literal translation procedure. transference or loan word and loan word plus explanation table 6: transference or loan word and loan word plus explanation no language translation procedures sl tl 1 petak sembilan glodok not translated but before already described as one of three little chinatown points in the city transference or loan word 2 gambang kromong it is a traditional music of betawi’s people which is not translated in the text. transference or loan word 3 gedung sate gedung sate, a dutch east indies heritage building built in 1920. loan word plus explanation 4 cap go meh (15th day of the first month of the lunar calendar) loan word plus explanation 5 imlek not translated but the meaning can be understood through reading the textin whole transference or loan word transference procedure by newmark (1988) and loan word or loan word plus explanation by baker (1992) almost the most procedures applied by the journalist of the jakarta post especially in translating the choosen cultural words in this study which are used five times. the five articles consist of those four cultural words that are three of them written in source term using indonesian language which are called transference procedures and two more using loan words plus explanation in indonesian with some words in english to get similar understanding of cultural terms meaning. sometimes translators or, in this context is journalist, use this both way of translation to acknowledge any specific words of community to be close to the audiences or readers and with more explanation. as it implied in lines of sentences below: for the peak of the chinese new year celebration, the jakarta administration will also provide attractions to celebrate cap go meh (15th day of the first month of the lunar calendar) at three little chinatown points in the city; petak sembilan glodok in west jakarta, jatinegara in east jakarta and kampung duri in west jakarta. petak sembilan glodok is an area in jakarta which is categorized as material cultural in this study and it uses transference procedure provided in the text. this procedure used to invite the readers to local place closely, eventhough the writer still can explain the place clearer with some words followed in english. cultural equivalent or cultural substitution siti rodiyah/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 191 table 7: cultural equivalent or cultural substitution no language translation procedures sl tl 1 pesta kembang api fireworks display cultural equivalent or cultural substitution 2 hari bebas kendaraan the car free day cultural equivalent or cultural substitution a language with its own uniqueness is an arbitrary tool for communication which it decided and used by a community in daily or certain activties. a language with its own uniqueness is an arbitrary tool for communication which it decided and used by a community in daily or certain activities. however, many words of any languages have universal meaning. cultural words are mostly unique but some of them are universal. indonesians people have some similar activities with other civilization all over he world which are expressed with different words in different languages but have similar meaning. newmark (1988) and baker (1992) offer their strategies to retain this such kind of terms using cultural equivalent or cultural substition procedure. the following sentence consists of cultural word formed of a phrase that has universal meaning. the word is equivalently sustituted from indonesian into universal cultural terms. he said the peak of new year celebrations at the temple would fall on tuesday, however, they would not roll out any festive performances, such as the traditional barongsai (lion dance) performance or fireworks display. indonesians people celebrate some events by fireworks display which it is called as pertunjukan atau pesta kembang api in indonesian language. the words fireworks display and pertunjukan or pesta kembang api referred to particular culture which has similar activities . thus, in the context of the above sentence, it is directly used fireworks display as it is popular among people all over the world. conclusion based on the data analysis, there are 21 indonesian cultural terms which found in five articles of the jakarta post news with different categories. types of article on the news decided as travel, culture, and lifestyles. social-religious activities cultural terms mostly found in this study which there are 10 of 21 or 48 % appeared in form of words and phrases representing how indonesians do worship and celebrate happiness of holy days as well as festivals which are also the places to show people’s feel and local’s sources. ecological terms found six times in the articles based for this study with some subcategories which they are street, sub-district, zone, province and capital city of province. material cultural terms found the lowest in this study which it is 24%. there are 5 of 21 indonesian translated cultural terms into english in the data which taken from five articles of the post’s online news. there are four types of procedures used due to the way how journalists replace the 21 indonesian cultural terms into english. the four procedures are: (1) couplets which it is a using more than one procedures in one cultural term such a combination of cultural equivalent and transference or loan word plus explanation, couplets of transference and translation by paraphrase using a related word, and couplets of transference and literal translation. there are also single procedures that have been used such as (2) literal translation, (3) transference or loan word and loan word plus explanation, and (4) cultural equivalent or cultural substitution. english online news media that based in indonesia take important roles to acknowledge cultures of this archipelago country worldwide. the journalists are the front liners to take roles in which they have to recognize indonesian cultures as well as they have to translate those cultures into english through any proper procedures. thus, indonesian cultures will be largely known by other people whether they are using english as native speakers or as second language in good understanding as they feel so close to the indonesian particular cultures which have been replaced naturally or universally. references al-hassan, a. 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(2011). the jakarta post history. retrieved from http://www.thejakartapost.com/about/thejakartapost_history https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2020/01/24/from-religious-rituals-to-festive-attractions-indonesians-prepare-to-celebrate-chinese-new-year.html https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2020/01/24/from-religious-rituals-to-festive-attractions-indonesians-prepare-to-celebrate-chinese-new-year.html https://www.thejakartapost.com/travel/2019/12/16/toba-lake-festival-fails-to-bring-in-tourists.html https://www.thejakartapost.com/travel/2019/12/16/toba-lake-festival-fails-to-bring-in-tourists.html https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2020/02/08/kerak-telor-grilled-octopus-spice-up-cap-go-meh-in-jakarta.html https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2020/02/08/kerak-telor-grilled-octopus-spice-up-cap-go-meh-in-jakarta.html https://www.thejakartapost.com/travel/2020/01/26/seven-interactive-installations-to-enjoy-at-bandungs-gedung-sate.html https://www.thejakartapost.com/travel/2020/01/26/seven-interactive-installations-to-enjoy-at-bandungs-gedung-sate.html https://translationjournal.net/journal/19culture.htm http://www.thejakartapost.com/about/thejakartapost_history putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 185 elt forum 10 (3) (2021) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt teachers’ conceptions of english assessment in international baccalaureate curriculum – secondary level geby devtiana maryono1, pupung purnawarman2, didi sukyadi3 1,2,3universitas pendidikan indonesia, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received on 27 july 2021 approved on 2 october 2021 published on 24 november 2021 ________________ keywords: conceptions of assessment; international baccalaureate curriculum; english assessment; secondary school ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ assessment as an essential part of teaching and learning might be perceived differently by teachers, whereas teachers' conception of assessment influences strategies and implementation of assessment. the international baccalaureate curriculum is one of the international curricula widely used with its own assessment principles and implementation. this research aims to explore how teachers in ib secondary schools perceive english assessment in ib curriculum. by implementing a mixed-method approach, six teachers from five different ib secondary schools and two teachers from one ib secondary school participated in the questionnaire and interview. from the data, this research revealed that teachers perceive english assessment in ib curriculum as a valid and reliable means to improve teaching and learning, school accountability, and student accountability. the teachers also believe ib curriculum objectives have been well embedded in the english assessment process. although the teachers have a positive perception of the assessment process in ib curriculum, several challenges are found, primarily in giving an authentic and personalized assessment. to solve the challenges, the teachers collaborate and share about the assessment practices they conducted in classes. further research can be done to explore the perception of english assessment in ib curriculum from the students' point of view. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 jl. dr. setiabudhi no 229 bandung, jawa barat, 40154 e-mail: geby.maryono@upi.edu http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& geby maryono, pupung purnawarman, didi sukyadi | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 186 introduction as educational research and field are developing, the emergence of the various curriculum also becomes part of the development. one of the curricula widely used is international baccalaureate curriculum (ib curriculum), founded in switzerland in 1968. since then, the ib curriculum has been widely implemented in many countries. although the number of ib schools keeps increasing because of the increasing trend of international education, there is still limited research covering ib curriculum in practice (lalwani & fox, 2020), especially for the assessments. assessment is a vital part of education that has an essential role in judging and evaluating teaching and learning success. the implementation of assessment in language learning is influenced by many factors, one of them is the teachers' conception of the assessment itself. this research aims to explore the teachers' conception of language assessment in the ib curriculum and its implementation in the teaching practice. therefore, this study examined the issue from two research questions: a) how do teachers perceive the english assessment in ib curriculum? b) what are the challenges faced by the teachers in applying english assessment in ib curriculum? the teachers' conception influences assessment practice as a part of the learning. vandeyar & killen (2007) stated that teachers' perceptions on assessment lead to different assessment practices. in fact, teachers' conception of assessment also plays a significant role since it also influences the effectiveness of assessment policy implementation (brown & michaelides, 2011). previous research on teachers' conception of language assessment showed how teachers perceive assessment led to the different strategies and implementation. sahinkarakas (2012) revealed that the teachers view assessment as part of instruction, which means assessments are used to provide evidence of teaching and learning progress. therefore, the assessment practices in the class are much influenced by teachers' perception. research by ates and buyukkarci (2019) found that efl teachers perceive assessment as a tool to improve students' capability; thus they use various alternative types of assessment such as selfassessment, peer-assessment, and portfolio. another research conducted by akter & khan (2020) revealed that efl teachers who believe that formative assessment is essential to determine the students' progress, strength, and weakness, apply formative assessment at the end of every session. all the most current research about teachers' conceptions on assessment show that the conceptions toward assessment in one way influence the assessment tasks and practice. teachers' conception on teaching, learning, and curriculum is essential to be explored because teachers' conceptions influence the teaching practice and the students' learning (calderhead, 1996, as cited in brown, 2004). the role of curriculum in the relation of teachers' conception and assessment practice has not much been explored in the previous research. therefore, this study attempts to explore teachers' conception on language assessment in a specific setting of the ib curriculum. although the number of ib schools keeps growing every year, the research investigating the ib curriculum is still considerably limited, with only around 200 journal articles available from 2009-2019 (lalwani & fox, 2020). most of the available journal articles covering ib curriculum discuss the curriculum from an international education context. due to the limitation of ib curriculum research and the need to explore ' teachers' conception on language assessment in a specific curriculum setting, this study attempts to explore teachers' conceptions as factors determining the assessment tasks and practices in the ib curriculum. literature review teachers' conception of assessment assessment is an inseparable part of learning. brown (2018, p. 4) described the assessment as "an ongoing process that encompasses a much wider domain," which means that even when students respond to questions and speak out their mind in the class can be considered that the assessment is in progress. hughes (2003), on the other hand, described the test as one of the forms of assessment, and there are many forms of assessment, especially in the english class context. many factors influence the validity, reliability, and practicality of an assessment. one of the factors is the teachers' conception of the assessment itself. in the assessment context, barnes et al. (2015) described conceptions as an overall process of how teachers perceive and be aware of the assessment. the discussion about teachers' conceptions on assessment is essential because the way teachers perceive assessment affects the assessment practice in the class (vandeyar & killen, 2007). on the other hand, teachers' conceptions on assessment might also be affected by teachers' concern on keeping students' constant attention, students' collaboration, and teachers' control (kahn, 2000). the relation between the assessment practice and teachers' conception is interrelated. brown (2004) explained that teachers' conceptions are various and straightforward but multifaceted and interrelated. geby maryono, pupung purnawarman, didi sukyadi | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 187 brown (2004) attempted to explain teachers' conceptions on assessment as the agreement and disagreements on assessments in four different categories; assessment is for improving teaching and learning, assessment is for the school accountability, and assessment is for student accountability, and assessment is irrelevant. for the first category, assessment is conducted to optimize students' learning and teachers' teaching practice. the assessment gives feedback and information about the teaching activity, which can improve the teaching in the class (opre, 2015). once the teachers optimize their teaching from the assessment result, it will influence the ways students collaborate and respond to the learning. for the second category, assessment is used to demonstrate the jobs done by the teachers and schools (smith et al., 1999, as cited in brown, 2004). assessment in this category also can be used to judge and evaluate whether the school has achieved the curriculum objectives or not. for the third category, opre (2015) explained that assessments demand students to be responsible for their own learning and pass specific standards and qualifications to continue to different education levels. for the last category, assessment is usually comprehended as an exclusively formal and organized process to evaluate student performance and has no place within teaching and learning (brown, 2004). hughes (2003) mentioned that language teachers have a deep mistrust of tests as part of assessment because they bring harmful effects to teaching and learning. in this category, the assessment is viewed to have negative washback and fails to measure students' competence. ib english curriculum in the 21st century, where the world has become more borderless, one of the skills needed is collaborative skill. the need for international education has also increased. wells (2011) stated that the term international education refers to the establishment of broad and dynamic educations. international education aims to answer the needs in the 21st century where the students need to be ready for a multicultural and globalized world (räsänen, 2007) and need to have skills to cope with the global economy by being lifelong learners (bentley, 2000). one of the curricula established to answer the challenges and needs in the 21st century is the international baccalaureate (ib) curriculum, founded in geneva, switzerland, in 1968. in indonesia, there are 58 schools registered as ib schools per 2020 (ib world schools yearbook, 2020). ib curriculum has the primary mission to prepare students for deeper understanding between peoples to create a more peaceful world (hill, 2007). ib curriculum uses various assessment types such as formal & informal assessment, formative & summative assessment, and internal & external assessment. for language curriculum, the performance is also assessed by the international benchmark for the passing grade. students' comprehension and progress are monitored through various evaluations such as presentations, discussions, and project making. although the number of ib schools keeps increasing, the research on ib curriculum is still limited. according to lalwani & fox (2020), there are 200 journal articles between 2009 – 2019, and this number is worrying because the number of researches does not follow the increase of ib schools increase. therefore, this research aims to discover the ib english curriculum from the assessment context. from the assessment context, this research specifically focuses on teachers' conception of assessment. methods this research employed a mixed-method design, involving qualitative and quantitative data to answer the research questions (johnson et al., 2007). hamied (2017) stated that mixed-method research aims to combine both research approaches to provide a better understanding than one approach alone. this research was expected to provide a comprehensive description to answer the research questions using the mixed-method design. respondents the population of this research was eighteen officially registered ib secondary schools in indonesia. the respondents were chosen randomly, as the quantitative data collection often involved a random sampling method (hamied, 2017). the data was obtained by randomly sending the questionnaire to the teachers coming from different ib schools. the participants of this research were six english teachers, coming from five different ib secondary schools, who taught english as a first language (language and literature) and second language (language acquisition) at the secondary level. the small number of ib secondary schools affected the data collection, as it limited the available data geby maryono, pupung purnawarman, didi sukyadi | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 188 resource. therefore, the small number of data was due to the resource constraint, and additional data was needed to outweigh the data limitation (lenth, 2001). in this research, the additional data was gained from the interview. two teachers from the same school were interviewed to explore the topic further. the two respondents were chosen purposively because the researcher has personally built a connection with the respondents, therefore, the interview is more accessible to conduct. in qualitative data collection, the researcher often chose the research site which is convenient for the researcher (hamied, 2017). instruments as the mixed method aims to combine the strengths of quantitative and qualitative approaches for a deeper understanding of the topic (hamied, 2017), this research used two instrumentations from both approaches. first, the research used the questionnaire entitled teachers' conceptions on assessment abridged scale (tcoa-iiia) developed by brown (2004, 2008, 2011) to represent the quantitative data. second, the interview was also conducted to explore how teachers perceived the assessment practices and processes in english class to represent the qualitative data. brown (2004) established tcoa-iii in a full version for the primary teachers in new zealand. then, brown (2006) created an abridged version with the validation that involved primary and secondary teachers in queensland. tcoa-iiia has been widely used in many international research (brown & michaelides, 2011; gebril & brown, 2014; ates & buyukkarci, 2019). tcoa-iiia is used to generate how teachers agree with four categorizations of assessment purpose (teaching and learning improvement, school accountability, student accountability, and irrelevance). the questionnaire uses 5-likert scale with 27 items. besides using the questionnaire, the interview was also conducted to let the participants describe their experience (mccracken, 1988). for the purpose of this research, the questionnaire was adapted and validated based on the inputs given by three experts. one english lecturer checked the sentences to make sure that the items are understandable. one language assessment expert reviewed the questionnaire's content to ensure it is suitable for this research context. one senior ib language teacher checked the questionnaire to ensure that the statements were understandable and ideal in the context of the ib curriculum assessments. data collection procedures the data collection was begun by contacting teachers in several ib secondary schools in indonesia. six teachers from five different ib secondary schools confirmed their willingness to be part of this research. after that, six teachers were given a questionnaire to fill in. two out of six teachers were interviewed to analyze their perceptions on english assessment and discover the possible challenges faced by the teachers. data analysis the data from the questionnaire were analyzed using simple statistical analysis. this study calculated the percentage of likert-scale in each statement to determine how teachers perceive assessments from four aspects: the improvement of education, the school accountability, the student accountability, and the relevance of the assessment. statements number 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 11, 13, 15, 16, and 17 cover the improvement of education aspects. statements number 14, 24, and 25 cover the school accountability aspects. statements number 5, 10, and 18 cover the student accountability aspects, while statements number 9, 12, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 26, and 27 cover the irrelevance of assessment aspects. from the percentage, this study concluded whether the teachers favor or against each aspect of the assessment. after the data analysis from the questionnaire, the interview was conducted to elaborate a deeper analysis of the questionnaire result. besides that, the interview was also conducted to explore the challenges faced by the teachers in conducting ib language assessment practices. findings and discussion quantitative data the quantitative data focused on exploring how the teachers perceived the english assessment in the ib curriculum. the questionnaire results were divided into four factors; assessment related to school accountability, assessment related to student accountability, assessment related to the improvement of education, and assessment was irrelevant. geby maryono, pupung purnawarman, didi sukyadi | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 189 table 1. items related to the improvement of education no items percentage sd md d a ma sa 1 assessment provides feedback to students about their performance. 100% 2 assessment is integrated with teaching practice. 17% 83% 3 assessment is a way to determine how much students have learned from teaching. 33% 67% 4 assessment information modifies ongoing teaching of students. 50% 50% 6 assessment establishes what students have learned. 50% 50% 7 assessment helps students improve their learning. 17% 83% 8 assessment feeds back to students their learning needs. 50% 50% 11 assessment results are trustworthy. 50% 33% 17% 13 assessment results can be depended upon. 17% 67% 17% 15 assessment measures students' higher order thinking skills. 50% 50% 16 assessment allows different students to get different instruction. 17% 67% 17% 17 assessment results are consistent and valid. 17% 17% 17% 50% table 1 showed teachers' perception of english assessment related to the improvement of education. item no. 1, 7, and 8 represented the improvement of the learning process. as shown in the table, 100% of the teachers strongly agreed with item no. 1, 50% mostly agreed, and 50% strongly agreed with item no. 8. therefore, it means that the english assessment conducted in the ib curriculum gave feedback about students' performance. furthermore, 83% of the teachers strongly agreed with item no. 7. therefore, it means that the english assessment in the ib curriculum brought impacts to students' learning. from the percentages of these three items, it can be concluded that the teachers perceived the english assessment process in the ib curriculum as an essential means of feedback. items no. 3, 6, and 15 represented the ability description that the assessment provided. 67% of the teachers strongly agreed with item no. 3, 50% mostly agreed, and 50% strongly agreed with item no 6. the percentages mean that the english assessment conducted in the ib curriculum provided information about how much students have learned. 50% of the teachers mostly agreed, and 50% of other teachers strongly agreed with item no. 15. it means that the teachers agreed that the english assessment played roles in measuring students' higher-order thinking skills. from the percentages of these three items, it can be concluded that the teachers perceived the assessment process in the ib curriculum to measure and describe students' abilities from the learning process. items no. 2, 4, and 16 represented the improvement of teaching. 83% of the teachers strongly agreed with item no. 2, 50% mostly agreed, and 50 strongly agreed with item no 4. the percentages mean that the english assessment in the ib curriculum was viewed as a part of the teaching process. 67% of the teachers mostly agreed with item no 16. it means that most teachers believed that the students could get different instruction because of the assessment. from the percentages of the three items, it can be concluded that the teachers included assessment as an important part of the learning process that can improve teaching. items no. 11, 13, and 17 represent the validity of the assessment. 50% of the teachers agreed with item no 11, and 67% mostly agreed with item no 13. the percentages mean that the english assessment results were trusted, and the teachers could depend on assessment results. 50% of the teachers mostly agreed with item no 17. it means that the teachers perceived the assessment results as valid. most teachers perceived the assessment results as accurate, trustworthy, and can be depended upon from the percentages of the three items. table 2. items related to school accountability no items percentage sd md d a ma sa 14 assessment provides information on how well schools are doing. 17% 33% 33% 17% 24 assessment is an accurate indicator of a school's quality. 17% 17% 17% 17% 33% 25 assessment is a good way to evaluate a school. 17% 17% 33% 33% geby maryono, pupung purnawarman, didi sukyadi | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 190 table 2 showed teachers' perception of english assessment related to school accountability. 33% of the teachers agreed, and 33% mostly agreed with item no 14. it means that most teachers supported the idea that assessment provided information about how the school was doing. 33% of the teachers mostly agreed, and 17% agreed with item no 24. this percentage indicated that only half of the teachers supported the idea that assessment was an accurate indicator of a school's quality. 33% of the teachers agreed, and 33% mostly agreed with item no 25. it means that more than half of the teachers perceived assessment as one of the ways to evaluate how the school was doing. from table 2, it can be concluded that most of the teachers perceived that assessment was one factor that determined the school's quality and condition. table 3. items related to students' accountability table 3 showed teachers' perception of english assessment related to students' accountability. 50% of the teachers mostly agreed, 33% agreed, and 17% strongly agreed with item no 5. the percentages showed that all the teachers favored the statement that the assessment placed students into categories based on their performance. 67% of the teachers mostly agreed with item no. 10. it means that most of the teachers agree that the assessment determines qualification achievement. 67% of the teachers mostly agreed, while 34% disagreed with item no. 18. it means that most teachers believed that the assessment was meant to grade students' work. from table 3, it can be concluded that most of the teachers favored that assessment was used to determine students' level, capability, and accountability. table 4. items related to the irrelevance of assessment no items percentage sd md d a ma sa 9 teachers should take into account the error and imprecision in all assessment. 33% 17% 50% 12 assessment results should be treated cautiously because of measurement error. 50% 50% 19 assessment forces teachers to teach against their beliefs. 33% 17% 17% 17% 17% 20 assessment is an imprecise process. 17% 50% 17% 17% 21 teachers conduct assessments but make little use of the results. 50% 17% 17% 17% 22 assessment results are filed and ignored. 33% 50% 17% 23 assessment interferes with teaching. 67% 33% 26 assessment is unfair to students. 50% 33% 17% 27 assessment has little impact on teaching. 50% 33% 17% table 4 showed teachers' perception of english assessment related to the irrelevance of assessment. items no. 19, 23, and 26 represented the drawback of the assessment. 33% of the teachers strongly disagreed with item no 19. in total, 67% of the teachers disagreed, while around 33% agreed with item no. 19. 67% of the teachers strongly disagreed, and 33% agreed with item no 23. from the percentages, it can be concluded that most of the teachers disagreed that assessment intervened their teaching against their beliefs. 50% of the teachers strongly disagreed, and 33% mostly disagreed with item no. 26. it means that 83% of the teachers disagreed that the english assessment was unfair. from the percentages of the three items, it can be concluded that most teachers disagreed that english assessment intervened their teaching and was unfair for the student. items no. 21, 22, and 27 represented how the assessment was ignored. 50% of the teachers strongly disagreed, and 17% mostly disagreed with item no. 21. 33% of the teachers strongly disagreed, and 50% mostly disagreed with item no. 22. from these percentages, it can be concluded that most of the teachers disagreed that the english assessment results were of no use and should be ignored. 50% of the teachers strongly disagreed, and 33% mostly disagreed with item no. 27. it means that most 83% of the teachers disagreed that assessment brought little impact to their teaching. from these no items percentage sd md d a ma sa 5 assessment places students into categories. 33% 50% 17% 10 assessment determines if students meet qualifications standards. 17% 67% 17% 18 assessment is assigning a grade or level to student work. 17% 17% 67% geby maryono, pupung purnawarman, didi sukyadi | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 191 percentages of the three items, the teachers utilized the assessment results, which impact their teaching. items no. 9, 12, and 20 represented the inaccuracy of the assessment. 50% of the teachers strongly agreed, 17% mostly agreed, and 33% agreed with item no. 9. 50% of the teachers mostly agreed, and 50% strongly agreed with item no. 12. from the percentages, it can be concluded that all teachers agreed that despite its importance, teachers needed to consider the possible error and inaccuracies in the assessment process. 50% of the teachers mostly disagreed, and 17% strongly disagreed with item no. 20. it means that the majority of teachers believed that assessment was a precise process. the percentages of the three items showed that most teachers disagreed that the assessment was imprecise despite its possible inaccuracy occurrence. qualitative data the qualitative data was gained from interview sessions with two teachers to explore and dig deeper into their conception of assessment in ib curriculum. besides that, interview was also conducted to triangulate the data from questionnaire and validate teachers’ conception from the questionnaire results. major themes were teased out from the interview sessions. the themes that emerged were as follows: the significance of assessment, benefits of conducting the assessment, correlation of assessment with ib curriculum, and challenges of conducting the assessment. significance of assessment from the interview, it was found that both teachers agreed that assessment was an important process in the teaching and learning process that cannot be left out. without assessment, the improvement was impossible to achieve because teachers and students could not reflect upon the learning process they have been through. in addition, various types of assessment were also mentioned to contributing to giving feedback on the teaching progress. thus, the teachers could alter their teaching plan if necessary. t1: by having assessment, we could provide better learning and teaching method. i mean, better learning experience to the students, so that we can improve their capabilities and skills. t2: i think assessment is really important. because usually when people think of assessment, they think of final summative assessment. but i think we can have assessment in the beginning of a course to measure one's understanding, and then track progress, how far a student has progressed and understood and what can be improved. the teachers also defined assessment as a tool and a process to evaluate teaching and learning. the assessment was also inferred as a process and tool with various objectives to measure understanding and ability, set goals and plans, and evaluate the quality of the teaching and learning process. benefits of assessment the teachers perceived assessment to be beneficial for teachers, students, and also school. for the teachers, the assessment results could reflect on the suitability of the teaching plan in the class. besides that, assessment results also told the teachers how far the students had progressed during the learning process. one of the teachers specifically mentioned the benefits of assessment depending on the types of assessment implemented in the class. for the pre-assessment, he mentioned that the results helped teachers map students' abilities prior to designing the teaching plan. the results from the formative assessment helped the teachers measure how much students had developed themselves throughout the lesson. the results from the summative assessment helped the teachers to see how successful the learning process was in general. geby maryono, pupung purnawarman, didi sukyadi | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 192 t1: the first one is that depends on what type of assessment. let's say it's pre assessment. in a pre-assessment is to measure or to map the student's ability in our classrooms. so that by having pre assessment, we could map and also figure out what teaching method and then what type of, what level of the difficulties that we could give to the students. and then formative assessment, formative assessment is for us to measure the development or the progress of the students learning. and then while for the final assessment or summative assessment, this assessment is to measure how successful the learning process is. t2: for the teachers, i think it's a good way of a reflection for the teacher to know whether the course that we have designed is really suitable and appropriate for the students. let's say, through formative assessments, we can see how students have progressed or whether they struggle throughout the course so we can alter the course in the middle of the unit or term or semester. the teachers believed that the assessment process was also beneficial for the students. they mentioned that students could place themselves according to the ability they possessed. the students could also learn from the feedback given by the teachers in the assessment process. therefore, the learning process could be more effective because the students only needed to focus on the area that needed improvement. assessment could also help students plan their personalized learning to enhance their abilities, knowledge, and skills. t1: by having an assessment, they could place themselves in what level their ability is. and then for formative assessment, the teacher will give feedback or advices to students to improve in areas that needs to improve. by having that feedback and an advice, the students will enhance their abilities or skills. and then for summative assessment, by having the result of summative assessment, i believe that the students will measure themselves and then they will know what to do more, and then what to improve more from themselves. t2: let's say usually i do pre assessments in the beginning of a unit to see what they know, to see their background knowledge. so, from there, i can make some kind of individualized plan for the students, so they know, oh, this is what i know, this is what i need to know. and then, let's say next one would be formative assessments like, by me giving feedback to my students, they know that what they need to improve, so they don't need to, like focus on wrong things, wasting time focusing on wrong things, or things that they have mastered. the assessment also brought benefits for the school as an institution. the assessment results could be used as the school's standards to reflect and compare the quality of education every year. besides that, the assessment results could also be used to build a strategic plan at the school level to elevate the school quality in general. the teachers mentioned that good assessment results could also build a school's reputation that might also affect the favorable profile of the school in society. t1: as in my opinion, so assessment is more like the standard. the school standard. and then if the school has good result of assessments, i believe that the school will benefit from it by having a good standard, and it is more like the marketing thing. okay, the better result they get in assessment. so, meaning that they will have you know, better reputation. t2: for schools, assessments can give some kind of a profile of the students so we can see how well our students in the whole school progress. we can compare it to the previous year or the years to come, the students who are coming in the years to come and even comparing the scores or grades of students in our school to other schools, perhaps. so, i think it's really beneficial. one of the teachers also mentioned the assessment result that could be utilized by the department wise. in this case, the english department from ib school could get insights from assessment results to plan the learning process for the following years. moreover, the assessment results could be information sources to know if any adjustments were needed for the students in every academic year. geby maryono, pupung purnawarman, didi sukyadi | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 193 from the teachers, it can be inferred that assessment was viewed as a part of an evaluation to reflect how successful the teaching and learning process was. therefore, all parties included in teaching and learning could alter and change the design and plan of the teaching if necessary. even for the students, assessment could also give insight about the areas and material the students need to focus on. correlation of ib curriculum with the assessment from the significance and benefits of assessment in general, assessment in the ib curriculum was also perceived to be well integrated with the curriculum. ib learner profiles as one of the distinguishing features of the ib curriculum was well embedded in the assessment process in the classroom. the assessment process was also much influenced by the assessment criteria reflected from the objectives of the ib curriculum. therefore, the assessment type and assessment process in the class was conducted to help students achieve ib objectives. t1: i believe that every ib teacher always embed the ib objectives into their teaching okay. and let us say, open mindedness okay. so, in order to build the open mindedness in the students, the teacher usually come up with the actual cases and then give exposure to the students with the different perspectives, something like that, so that they will accept the differences and be open minded students. t2: and what i think is unity coherence between ib learner profile, assessment criteria, and the assessment itself. i think they're quite tight, we put together so we can see from ib criteria. the teachers seemed to have a similar understanding of the assessment process in ib curriculum, proven from their answers during the interview process. the teachers admitted to having ib training for two weeks with assessment as one of the materials discussed. one of the teachers informed that the training upskilled the teacher with the teaching skills, one of which was to conduct the suitable assessment. challenges the use of various types of assessment in the ib curriculum might be one of the strengths of this curriculum, as this curriculum respects each student with his/her own uniqueness. however, the teachers might face several challenges in conducting assessments in the classroom. providing personalized assessment and providing authentic assessment were two main challenges mentioned by the teachers. teacher 1 expressed that personalized assessment was meant to respect and give each student an equal chance and opportunity to perform the best based on their own needs and choices. however, in the actual implementation, the teacher found that making a personalized assessment for the student was pretty challenging because there were many factors to consider, such as the student's capability, interest, needs, and learning styles. to overcome this, the teacher gave several different types of assessments that the students could choose based on their liking. the topic and the assessment procedure were similar; only the final product of the assessment would be different for each student. teacher 2 mentioned that the challenge in the assessment process was the authentic assessment the teacher had to provide. one of the profiles of ib learners is to be communicative. therefore, the teacher gave the authentic assessment used in the real-life context. the teacher stated that providing authentic and engaging assessments could be challenging because of the lengthy preparations needed. to overcome this challenge, the teachers would usually collaborate and share the possible assessment given to students. t1: yeah, giving assessment to ib students especially is quite challenging, because in giving the assessment, we have to pay attention to the, you know, the students learning styles, and then the student's capability as well. and i think that the most difficult thing, is that how we should differentiate the assessment to different students. so, it's more like how we implement personalized teaching and assessment to the students. geby maryono, pupung purnawarman, didi sukyadi | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 194 t2: challenges that i face when conducting assessments in class is that i need to make authentic assessments. you see, because in ib, english language and literature or language acquisition assessments, we need to make assessments as realistic as possible, something that you can find in real life situations. another challenge also to make sure that i don't repeat the same assessments again, and again, between units and between levels because students remember. discussion from the findings above, both the quantitative and qualitative data, the teachers perceive that assessment is essential in the teaching and learning process. the first finding indicates the teachers perceive assessment to be helpful to improve the quality of education. this finding is reflected in the questionnaire result in which the teachers strongly agree that assessment improve the quality of education by providing feedback, determining how much students have learned, and helping students improve their learning. therefore, the assessment results are used to reflect on their teaching and see if any alterations and adjustments are needed in the teaching process. a similar finding from cheng et al. (2004) revealed that one of the purposes of assessment is instructional purposes where the teachers use assessment information and results to plan and improve their teaching instruction. another research result from das et al. (2014) also supports that assessment results are used by the teachers to identify gaps in students' learning because assessment is a crucial concept to measure progress in learning. therefore, it can be concluded that student assessments and evaluation results are the sources to reflect and measure how successful the teaching and learning process is. another use of assessment results lies in the different assessment types because the information collected through different types of assessment can serve different purposes (moon, 2005; morris & adamson, 2010). moon (2005) explained further and divided assessment into three phases; preassessment phase to plan instruction, formative assessment to guide instruction, and summative assessment phase to evaluate instruction. although the questionnaire does not explicitly talk about different types of assessment, but the teachers agree that results from various assessment types are consistent and valid. from the qualitative data, the teachers stated that each assessment type serves different purpose. through pre-assessment results, teachers admitted they can gain information about students' prior knowledge, students' ability, students' learning preferences, and students' needs which can be used as a first step to plan their instructions in learning. further learning is expected during the learning process, but grading or scoring are insufficient to guide the students, therefore giving feedback is necessary (leahy et al., 2005). through formative assessment, the teachers admitted they can use chances to provide input and feedback to students’ learning. feedback has a vital role in assessment, especially in formative assessment, because feedbacks give direction for future learning and teaching (heritage, 2010 in guadu & boersma, 2018). and through summative assessment, the teachers admitted to use the results to measure how successful learning process in one semester is. summative assessment serves to evaluate student achievements at the end of the course (pishghadam et al., 2013), which can be used to determine their final grades (cheng et al., 2004). the second finding indicates that teachers perceive assessment to determine school accountability. brown (2004) explained assessment could demonstrate how the school has achieved the curriculum objectives. in this research, the results seem to show that the teachers perceive assessment as one of the school quality indicators because the assessment results can be used as the school's standard. the researchers believe that assessment, especially high-stakes assessment, defines which curriculum elements and objectives are emphasized (isaacs, 2014). as in the ib curriculum, the teachers believe that the teachers have well embedded ib learner profiles in the assessment process. the questionnaire shows that most teachers agree assessment can be one of indicators of a school’s quality. one of the teachers mentioned how ib learner profiles, curriculum objectives, assessment criteria, and the assessment process are in a well-united coherence. the alignment among learning materials, pedagogic practices, and assessment process with the main objectives of the curriculum is essential (das et al., 2014), as the primary concern of assessment is to evaluate students' achievement with the desired learning outcomes stated in curriculum objectives (earl, 2003). the alignment and coherence between assessment and curriculum can only be achieved once the teachers deeply understand the curriculum and the suitable assessment process. kim (2014) emphasized the importance of training on language assessment to equip teachers with better knowledge and skills to develop better assessments and tests. in fact, the teachers in ib schools get the training at the beginning geby maryono, pupung purnawarman, didi sukyadi | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 195 of their teaching year that covers all materials about ib curriculum. although there has been no specific training focusing on assessment, the teachers had been equipped with the knowledge about assessment at the beginning. besides that, the teachers also collaborate to provide the most suitable assessment for the students. collaboration and mutual trust among key stakeholders, including teachers, are essential for the elt educational reforms (o'donahue, 2012). as teachers' perceptions towards assessment influence the assessment process and practice in the classroom (sahinkarakas, 2012; ates & buyukkarci, 2019; akter & khan, 2020), the third finding of this research revealed the challenges faced by the teachers during the assessment process. the teachers believe that assessment and curriculum are embedded, therefore the teachers attempt to instill one of the principles in the ib curriculum to respect each student with their uniqueness, background, and needs. personalized and authentic assessments are the focus and criteria of the assessment the teachers attempt to apply in their class. the recent trends in education believe that the best learning occurs when students work on authentic tasks that help students construct responses to realistic problems (brown, 2008). the philosophy of education believes in the differentiation to recognize, articulate, and commit to planning for students' different needs (tomlinson, 2001). the provision of different assessment forms allows the students to demonstrate their understanding differently yet to achieve similar learning objectives and goals. although the assessment process seems to be ideal, the teachers face the challenges in its implications. the teachers admitted that their creativity and other factors need to be considered before designing the assessment. to overcome these challenges, the teachers collaborate and share their experience related to the assessment in their class. as researchers posit, collaborative efforts among teachers can improve teaching and learning (mclaughlin & talbert, 2006). conclusion various types of assessment with the focus to prepare students to face and overcome the challenges in the 21st century have become one of the distinguishing features of the ib curriculum as an international curriculum. formal & informal assessment, formative & summative assessment, and internal & external assessment are the assessment types applied in the ib curriculum. teachers as key actors in the teaching and learning process might have their beliefs and perceptions brought to the classroom. this research revealed that teachers perceived assessment in the ib curriculum as a valid and reliable means to improve teaching and learning, school accountability, and student accountability. although the teachers have a positive perception of the assessment process in the ib curriculum, several challenges were found primarily in giving an authentic and personalized assessment. to solve the challenges, the teachers collaborate and share their experiences related to the assessment practices they conducted in classes. references akter, m., & khan, m. l. h. 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(2011). international education, values and attitudes: a critical analysis of the international baccalaureate (ib) learner profile. journal of research in international education, 10(2), 174– 188. https://doi.org/10.1177/1475240911407808 microsoft word [article 5]_38287-article text-99374-1-6-20200615. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 45 elt forum 9 (1) (2020) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt junior high school students’ difficulties of english language learning in the speaking and listening section alan jaelani1, olivia widad zabidi2 english department, faculty of teacher training and education, universitas ibn khaldun, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 13 april 2020 approved in 1 july 2020 published in 30 july 2020 ________________ keywords: english education; difficulties learning; english speaking; english listening; english learning strategies. _________________ abstract _________________________________________________________________ this study aims to determine students' problems in learning english, especially in terms of speaking and listening. basically, the teaching and learning process will run smoothly if students feel comfortable with the learning activities; therefore, this research provides some appropriate suggestions for teachers in overcoming difficulties faced by students. the respondents of this study were junior high school students. this study used a questionnaire as an instrument to determine the extent of students' skills in english. this study also conducted data analysis by analyzing the importance of english in students' views, the difficulties encountered in learning english, and also the teacher's teaching strategies desired by students. the results of this study indicate that most students have some difficulties in speaking due to lack of confidence and skills such as pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar. likewise, the difficulty in listening is caused by students’ lack of vocabulary that leads to the difficulty in understanding conversations in english. to overcome this problem, teachers need to have strategies such as identification, diagnosis, prognosis, and assistance or therapy. this research can facilitate the teachers in knowing complaints about english language difficulties experienced by the students. © 2020 universitas negeri semarang correspondent address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 kh. sholeh iskandar km. 2 street, kedung badak sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: author@gmail.com alan jaelani, olivia widad zabidi/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 46 introduction language is a tool of communication that is very instrumental in daily life. because of language we can exchange information and ideas with others and express the feelings, desires, opinions and needs of each individual. human’s life cannot be separated from language activities. language is a means to communicate between humans. in line with the development of science and technology humans are required to have good language skills. someone who has adequate language skills will be easier to absorb and convey information both spoken and written. this skill is not a type of skill that can be passed down for generations though basically naturally every human being can talk. however, speaking and listening skills basically require intensive training. thus, english subjects are really needed for every level of education. language learning lessons in schools are expected to not only focus on theory, but students are also required to be able to use language as a function, namely as a tool for communication. according to yamin (2017), teaching is not just about delivering subject matter, but teaching is the process of changing student behavior in accordance with expected goals. therefore, a teacher needs to have the ability to design and implement a variety of learning strategies that are considered in accordance with interests and talents and in accordance with the level of student development. according to pane & dasopang (2013, p.333), learning and learning are two things that are closely interrelated and inseparable in educational activities, learning and learning are said to be a form of education that makes an interaction between teacher and student. learning and learning take place in a process that begins with planning various components and learning tools so that they can be implemented in the form of educational interactions, and ends with an evaluation to measure and assess the level of achievement of the learning objectives expected by hanafy (2014, p.67). along with the times, this world has set one language as an international language, namely english. therefore, learning english is very important, because english is an international language that is generally used as a language of communication for people who come from abroad. hawkes & schechter (2016, p.3) quoted that due to the importance of mastering foreign languages, german philosopher johann wolfgang von said "those who know nothing about foreign languages, they have nothing about their own." this saying implies that how important is the education of foreign languages besides mother tongue and national languages. handayani (2015, p.104) states that english is not only an academic need because its mastery is not only limited to aspects of language knowledge but also as a medium of global communication, especially in terms of the economy. in this case asean is one of the gateways to the global economy, where industries and business activities in the asean region are key and major players in the supply chain and production network, both globally and regionally. in connection with that, according to megawati (2016), mastery of international language skills are things that need to be developed at this time because with the appointment of indonesia as a member of the mea (asean economic community), it is fitting for a more advanced generation of the nation in terms of science and technology supported by the mastery of good and correct language of instruction. in addition, english in indonesia has also developed into an intellectual and social media of self-image, for example young people are currently using english in their daily activities. this relates to statement by ningsih (2019, p.6) which states that currently english has been successfully accepted and accepted by the indonesian people especially millennial generation. many found in social media the use of english is more prominent when compared to the use of indonesian itself. basically, according to megawati (2016, p.148) english has three additional abilities, namely grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation, all of these components are very important for improving optimal english language skills. in addition, mastery of the material and practice must also be given a balanced portion. improvement of english language skills in the people of indonesia can be realized by holding language classes, both formally and informally. widyasari (2016, p.31) argues that the importance of the role of english in the learning and teaching process requires an appropriate method to improve students' english proficiency with learning activities that are fun and attractive to students. according to the authors this can happen because not all indonesian people enjoy enjoying learning a new language, therefore if all learning conditions are generalized it will be difficult to achieve the expected learning goals, because basically every student has different characteristics including learning techniques and portions absorption of matter. this is in line with the statement of suherman & yustiana (2017, p.6) which states that with the many factors involved in the learning process, not all individuals have the ability to overcome problems related to learning activities. in this case, teaching strategies by way of identification, diagnosis, prognosis, and providing assistance or alan jaelani, olivia widad zabidi/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 47 therapy were considered quite effective. with the aim of being able to treat each student with proper care, the english learning method plays a very important role in english learning activities. there are many students who are able to achieve good performance because they are taught using the english learning method correctly. fun english learning methods are the key to learning yamin (2017, p.84). meanwhile, according to mistar (2014, p.204) there are several factors that are considered influential on the assessment of skills, such as achievement in school, attitudes toward english speaking, tasks completed, and also topics that delivered by teachers. in fact, not a few students are still unable to understand the sentence that spoken in english verbally by the interlocutor. this means that their english skills are still lacking and their vocabulary is still very limited. speaking skills are productive skills that can be directly observed. according to siska (2011, p.3) speaking is a language skill that develops in the life of someone who is preceded by listening skills, in that time speaking ability is learned. speaking is closely related to the development of vocabulary that is obtained by someone through listening and reading activities. however, formal speaking skills require intensive training and direction. as according to wallace, et al (2004, p.13) write that listening skills are very important skills because these can make humans gain insight, understanding knowledge and information, and achieve success in communicating with others. therefore, speaking and listening skills are two very important things in language. however, listening is not a simple process. someone who listens must distinguish between sounds and understand vocabulary also grammatical structures, remember and interpret them all at the same time. likewise, according to harmer (2013, p.269) which describes the ability to speak fluently not only rely on knowledge of language features, but also the ability to process information and language. in the process of english learning, a student certainly has experience an obstacle in learning. these obstacles can cause the maximum lack of student learning outcomes. of the problems that faced are certainly encouraging a teacher or language instructor to pay more attention to the conditions of their students followed by readiness in the implementation of learning. by understanding the problems faced students, an educator can do self-reflection to find out how much effective implementation of the learning process in the classroom and to improve student quality. previous research related to this article is "students’ difficulties in speaking english at the tenth grade of vocational high schools" studied by catur widyasworo (2019). this study uses descriptive qualitative data methods that aim to find out the factors that influence students 'difficulty in speaking english, researchers also conduct research on the scores of these students and the results of this study indicate that the average score of students' speaking skills is 64.8. that includes enough categories. the difficulty of speaking students is discussed in the category of linguistic and non-linguistic problems. the second study related to this article is a study entitled " study of the factors that cause learning difficulties of english listening in pbi iain students raden intan lampung in the academic year 2015/2016." researched by dewi kurniawati (2015). this study uses descriptive qualitative data methods that aim to find out the factors that influence students' difficulty in listening to english. this study focuses on the difficulty of students in learning english listening, this study shows that the average student has difficulty listening because of internal factors such as fatigue so students become less focused. based on the concepts presented above, it can be concluded that there are many difficulties faced by students when learning english. the two reference articles above only focus on one of the difficulties of listening or speaking. therefore, in this article the author is interested in digging deeper into the obstacles experienced by students in the four language skills related to speaking and listening simultaneously. according to the authors, this research is important because through this research the teachers can find out what difficulties and obstacles are experienced by students while learning to listening and speaking in english, if that's the benefit gained from this research. methods this study employed the descriptive qualitative method which involved 20 students from two schools in bogor and focuses on the difficulties faced by students during the learning english process in class. the researcher wants to find the right solution for the problems faced by students, therefore the researcher conducts this study. in this regard, the notion of qualitative research itself is study that is descriptive in nature and tends to use analysis, processes and meanings highlighted in qualitative research, the theoretical basis is also used as a guide so that the focus of research is in accordance with facts on the ground. alan jaelani, olivia widad zabidi/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 48 according to rahmat (2009, p.2), one of the reasons for using qualitative methods in a study is because this method can be used to find and understand what is hidden behind phenomena that are sometimes difficult to clearly understand. while descriptive research is study that involves description, recording, analysis, and interpretation of existing conditions. the purpose of descriptive research is to describe the facts and characteristics of the object or subject being studied systematically. the data used in this study is qualitative data. this research needs some data to be analyzed. thus, this study uses data retrieval by providing instruments that have two types of questions such as; open-ended questionnaire as explained by dwinawan (2018) that open-ended question is a type of question that is used to get broad answers, this is intended so that researchers obtain clearer data, and also make it easier for respondents to answer it. this type of question has been asked by the author to respondents by giving questions that are similar in nature to essays, where respondents can freely give answers without the need to be stunned by the choices of answers that have been provided by the author. the second type of question is the closed-ended question as explained by lidiana (2011) that close-ended question is a type of question that requires a more specific answer, this type of question makes it easy for the interviewer to control the sources and get the information they need. this type of question has been asked by the author to respondents by giving questions that are similar in nature to multiple choice in which the respondents do not have the opportunity to write their own responses but have been provided choices by the author. this type of question limits the person being asked because it is only possible to choose one of two choices such as; yes or no, true or false, agree or disagree. based on these explanations, the researcher gave some closed ended questions in which respondents could choose one of the three answer options prepared, this type of question is used to convince researchers of the answers to which options have a bigger percentage. in addition, the researcher also gave an open ended question in which the respondents were entitled to give their opinion in the blank answers column that have provided, this type of question was quite helpful in the process of identifying data because the researcher could find out the wishes of the respondents in accordance with the opinions they gave. after successfully collecting data based on the questionnaire used, the researcher began to analyze the data to determine the results of this study then analyzing by using analytical techniques consisting of data identification, followed by the process of data tabulating, then calculating the data by totaling and then changing to percent form. this method is used to find out in detail about the results of this study, the number of percentages in a study is important to include. according to hidayat (2019), in research, the percentage results are important things that are used to generalize the results of a study. indeed this is not a mandatory requirement in a study that uses qualitative data methods, but if a study does not use this calculation technique, then the research cannot be drawn to broader conclusions. the results of the study are limited to research objects that are limited in time and place of research. therefore, research like this is still needed. findings and discussion this section explains the result of the questionnaire given. it consists of two stages, namely the stage of finding and discussion stage. findings finding will explain the results of observations about the difficulties faced by students in learning english, and of course using a predetermined instrument that is a questionnaire. while the discussion is used to find out and explain the right steps to overcome the problems contained in the finding section. below, the results of the questionnaire which used close ended question will be presented in the form of diagrams. alan jaelani, olivia widad zabidi/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 49 45% 15% 40% diagram 1 students' interest in english language learning interested not interested little bit interested the author tries to explore how much interest students have in learning english and also find out how important english learning is to them. this is because that apart from the teacher factor, motivation within students is also very influential in the development of language skills. according to harahap & syarifah (2015, p.22) students who like and consider english important will be easy for them to understand and master english. therefore, based on diagrams 1 and 2 above, it is known that most of the smp / mts students consider that english is a compulsory subject that is important to learn, even most of them are also students who like english subjects. behind it all, of course there are things that become obstacles in the learning process, namely the difficulties experienced by these students. alan jaelani, olivia widad zabidi/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 50 in diagram 3, it has been noted that most students have difficulty in listening and speaking. as stated by hasan (2000), the difficulty faced by many english language learners as a foreign language is the lack of understanding of english pronunciation expressed at normal speed through listening material. the next statement from megawati & mandarani (2016) found that the difficulty students often face when speaking english lies in the lack of english vocabulary. in this regard, the authors have examined the factors that make students feel difficulty in learning english, the results will be seen in diagrams 4 and 5 below. seeing from these difficulties, researchers also took the initiative to ask about the teacher's strategy what they want in the teaching and learning process. here, researchers use open-ended questions to explore more information related to the things desired by respondents, because in this part of the question respondents can answer anything in accordance with their opinions and desires of each. this is in line with the statement of nohda (2000, p.41) with the existence of open-ended questions, the teacher has the opportunity to help students understand and elaborate ideas or learning strategies desired by students as far and as deep as possible. no answer of 20 respondents percentage 1 students wants the teacher to continue to provide exercises and tests to students 45.0% 2 students want the teacher to continue to motivate students and educate patiently 30.0% 3 students wants the teacher to explain in detail and not rush in providing material 25.0% alan jaelani, olivia widad zabidi/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 51 for this last question, this is a close-ended type of question because the author wants to infer about how persistent their efforts are in learning english. as quoted by reja et al. (2003, p.159) close-ended questions in general yield higher percentages than open-ended questions for answers that are identical in both question forms. therefore, the following will be seen in diagram 6. in diagram 6, it is seen that the majority of respondents choose to continue to struggle in overcoming the difficulties they faced, this thing of course can facilitate teachers in implementing specific teaching strategies because what is most important in a learning is strong desire and determination. discussion after successfully collecting the data by means of a survey and using a questionnaire instrument, here will be explained in detail about the responses of students in the questionnaire form that researchers made. the first is the interested and importance of english in the students’ view, after seeing the results of some of the diagrams above, it appears that english is an important subject and of course most students are interested in learning english in this modern era. this of course becomes a very important supporting factor in developing language skills for students, as said by baker (1992, p.205) that the problem of students' attitudes is recognized as one of the most important factors affecting language learning. therefore, with the results of research that show that most students behave well in looking at the importance of english then it is also a good start in the learning process. the second is the difficulties experienced by student, of course in learning something, we will face some or maybe many difficulties. according to ahmadi & supriyono (1991, p.88) states that learning difficulties are a condition of the learning process marked by certain obstacles to achieving learning outcomes. an example is the difficulty experienced by students in listening and speaking in english. from these two aspects, first aspect is listening that based on the survey results, it appears that most students have difficulty in speaking due to lack of vocabulary mastery, while the average assignment given in the listening section is related to audio / video that contains conversations. therefore, the lack of mastery of vocabulary is certainly very influential on the smooth learning process of english subjects themselves. this is in line with wilson (2008, p.12) which groups the factors causing students' difficulty in listening into three general groups namely; (1) characteristics of the message where the message delivered contains difficult words and grammar, the listener's ignorance of the topic being discussed, as well as its rapid delivery, will 'force' the listener to concentrate fully on listening to the message. these factors are one of the causes of difficulty in listening; (2) characteristics of message delivery, regarding whether the message delivered by reciprocal listening or non-reciprocal listening. reciprocal listening is an interaction that occurs by involving two or more people as in a conversation. on this occasion the listener can react, ask questions or ask for clarification to people who convey the message if they feel something is confusing. on other occasions they can ask people alan jaelani, olivia widad zabidi/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 52 who speak to be able to speak slowly and clearly so that what they say can be understood. whereas the non-reciprocal listening listener cannot control the speaker, or to find out whether the message received is correct or wrong. for example when listening to radio broadcasts, announcements, watching tv and so on. that is why non-reciprocal listening is considered more difficult than reciprocal listening; (3) characteristics of message recipients or listeners, individual differences cause the same message to be understood differently. this happens because of differences in motivation, age, ability to concentrate for a long time, physical conditions and so on, for example for people who are physically weak may have to listen to a message over and over again, while for oaring whose physical condition is good, it may only require one delivery only. the next aspect is speaking, in the speaking section, most students find it difficult because of internal factors, namely feeling anxious and afraid of incorrect pronunciation. this is of course related to external factors such as; do not have good pronunciation, lack vocabulary, and do not master grammar. this is in line with the statement of sari & lestari (2009, p.445) which revealed that speaking difficulties are usually caused by several factors such as; a) difficult to express ideas verbally; b) limited vocabulary, so it often stops suddenly while talking; c) limited grammar ability, so it is difficult to speak with the correct rules; d) limited pronunciation, so it is difficult to pronounce the words spoken correctly and make the listener confused with his words; e) lack of courage to speak out of fear of being wrong. the third is teacher strategies desired by students, based on the survey results, there were answers from 20 respondents about how to teach the teacher wanted by students. in overcoming the difficulties faced by these students, it is known that as much as 25% of students want the teacher to explain in detail and not rush in providing material, as much as 30% of students want the teacher to continue to motivate students and educate patiently, and as much as 45% of students want the teacher to continue to provide exercises and tests to students. this shows that students actually understand that the key to success in english is to continue to train themselves. however, often students feel pressured by english tests. apart from lack of skills, they also often feel discouraged when making mistakes, this usually happens because the environment is less supportive. for example, when student a ventured to speak english in front of his classmates but he made a mistake, it was not uncommon for student a to be laughed at by his classmates. so far, the biggest factor in hindering the process of learning english is anxiety and fear of making mistakes due to lack of skills. this is of course related to the teaching and learning process of listening and speaking. this is a challenge for teachers to be able to overcome the difficulties faced by students. because according to inayah (2017, p.4) the success of the teaching process can be achieved if the teacher can present the material well and can increase student interest. munirah (2018, p.15 & 16) has delivered a number of tricks such as identification, diagnosis, prognosis, and assistance / therapy which are considered effective in overcoming these difficulties. identification is an activity directed to look for students who have learning difficulties, i.e. seek information about these students. according to lubis (2018, p.30) identifying initial behavior and characteristics of students in the development of learning programs is very necessary to determine the quality of individuals so that it can be used as a guide in describing learning management strategies. diagnosis is the determination of the results of data processing about students who have learning difficulties and the types of learning difficulties experienced by students. as according to yunita (2016, p.9) diagnosis is the process of determining the location of weaknesses or abnormalities by examining and analyzing the background or causal factors as well as symptoms of problems that appear with the aim of drawing conclusions and looking for alternative solutions. prognosis is an activity that refers to the activity of preparing a plan or program that is expected to help overcome the problem of student learning difficulties. kemala (2015, p.18) states that this step is carried out to estimate whether the problems experienced by students are still possible to be overcome and determine various alternative solutions, this is done by integrating and interpreting the results of the second and third steps. kumalasari (2017, p.16) said that the problem of students' self-confident can pose major obstacles in the areas of social life, learning and career. students who have low self-confidence (hard to adjust themselves) in their personal lives are filled with doubts to determine an action or are often anxious and like to be alone and stay away from the environment. the therapy referred to here is to provide assistance to children who have learning difficulties like that, assisted in accordance with the program that has been prepared at the prognosis stage. alan jaelani, olivia widad zabidi/ elt forum 9 (1) (2020) 53 conclusion based on data analysis and data interpretation, the conclusion is that this study uses descriptive qualitative data methods that aim to find out the factors that influence students' difficulties in listening to english and use qualitative descriptive methods involving 20 students from two schools in bogor. based on the survey results, most of the students at bogor junior high school are students who like english, they also understand the importance of english in the modern era, this is a pretty good supporting factor for the development of students' english skills. this research also found that many of them had difficulty in listening and speaking due to lack of mastery of vocabulary and lack of confidence to dare to practice directly about the knowledge they had acquired. in overcoming this problem, the strategy undertaken by the teacher is by way of identification, diagnosis, prognosis, and providing assistance or therapy. based on these results it can be concluded that it is important for english teachers to teach using a variety of specific strategies as described above, because this is useful to overcome the difficulties faced by students for the smooth teaching-learning process. besides because english is a subject that must be mastered because it will be found on the national examination, english will also make it easier for us to communicate with people 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(2016). diagnosis dan upaya mengatasi kesulitan belajar matematika dengan induced fit remedial teaching strategy dengan pendekatan participative learning [doctoral dissertation, universitas negeri semarang]. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 148 elt forum 11(2) (2022) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt literature as one of the fascinating lessons for junior high school students zikril mulia1, izzuddin hibatullah1, emeliya sukma dara damanik1 1universitas islam negeri sumatera utara, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received on 22 december 2021 approved 25 march 2022 published on 31 july 2022 ________________ keywords: literature lesson; fascinating lesson; junior high school student; english class ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ literature is written work, especially those considered superior or lasting artistic merit. literature is one of the important things in the world and life. an assist contention against teaching literature was that modern innovation and social hones within the tall in west had rendered—or were on the point of rendering—reading and composing pitifully obsolete. this research aims to explore the students' understanding of english literature according to the expert and one their knowledge and the necessary type of literature as well. further, by implementing a descriptive qualitative method design which was aimed to give an original view of variable, indication, or condition. the college student also defined that literature as a guide. and some junior high school student said that literature is an artwork in the form of written phrases that contains the spirit, sighing, etc. they honestly claimed that learning english literature made them increase their knowledge about english literature which was amazing. to solve the challenges, the college students recalled their moments and experience when learning literature at junior high school and argued about english literature that was so boring and wasted time. further research can be done to explore the perception of english literature in junior high school from junior high school students and the college student's point of view. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 jl. rajawali no. 21 meunasah mesjid punteut, aceh, 24375 e-mail: muliaangkasa22@gmail.com http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& zikril mulia, izzuddin hibatullah, emeliya sukma dara damanik | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 149 introduction the improvement of literature in the world and especially in indonesia seemed decreasing a lot. everyone recognizes that literature is one of the important things in the world and life. it is needed to appear that there is a problem with learning literature lessons nowadays, especially, for secondary students. they felt hard to understand the lesson. and usually, it is boring and not interesting. they hate and dislike reading or writing because nothing is necessary to learn the literature lesson in the class. literature seems like something hard and only can be learned by an adult or young adult. it is false. looking forward, the uk succeeds boost literature around teenagers and secondary students through harry potter books. research by crawford (1992) found that devolving english literature is a problematic history of “english literature” from its eighteenth-century institutional origins to the present. crawford’s purpose is to show scottish literature as a separate and impartial constituent of the frame of writing in english in preference to a frame of writing subsumed underneath the imperial label “british literature,” which has effaced an authentic literary tradition. this research aims to explore the fascinating part of literature lesson in class and its benefits in increasing students’ skills. therefore, this study examined the issue from three research question: a) how was learning literature in junior high school? b) what are the challenges faced by the students in learning literature? c) what are the most interesting thing in learning literature? college students and junior high school students must learn literature. rexroth (2020) revealed that literature is a body of written works that have traditionally been applied to those imaginative works of poetry and prose distinguished by the intentions of their authors and the perceived aesthetic excellence of their execution. the call has historically been implemented to those creative works of poetry and prose outstanding via the intentions of their creator and the perceived aesthetic excellence in their execution. to apply the phrase writing while describing the literature is itself deceptive, for one can also talk of “oral literature” or “the literature of preliterate peoples.” so, the art of literature isn't always reducible to the phrase on the page. they may be there entirely due to the craft of writing. therefore, this study attempts to explore the junior high school and college students' understanding and interest in english literature nowadays. although the number of interesting in learning english literature is not increasing every year, the research tried to find the best strategies and suggestions to solve students' problems in learning literature and develop their knowledge about literature as well. the understanding of literature literature may be classified according to a variety of systems, including language, national origin, historical period, genre, and subject matter. literature is a form of human expression. but not everything expressed in words counts as a literature. the theory is an inevitable element in studying literature, and indeed, in thinking about life and the world around us. anyone who supposes that it is possible to be free of theory has not yet begun to think, for more ‘extraordinary opening sentence’ of literature (see bennett and royle, 2016). literature basically has a major difference from other arts. as for work in any other subject (burke & brumfit, 1986), the students need to be able to read accurately and easily. literature form acquires a special value. being considered that the most important skill in discussing literature is that comparison, it is like conscious of form in a striking way. in addition, new critics said that to try to take account of readers’ reactions or responses in the context of—for example—a poem was to introduce an alien and the essentially extraneous factor. they even designed a term for what they saw as the ‘error’ involved in talking about a reader’s response in discussions of literary texts: they called it the ‘affective fallacy’. fish (1972, cited in gill, 1983) claims that any independent reader is essentially part of a ‘community’ of readers. every reader reads according to the settlements of his or her ‘interpretive community’. in other words, an individual reader’s response is determined by the conventions of reading that he or she has been educated within a certain socio-historical context. a reading troubled with questions of race might start from the fact that the land is referred to as ‘antique’, for example, fully effaces any possibility of modern civilization and culture there. there is nothing besides the emptiness of the ‘lone and level sands’. in that poem, africa only suggests in terms of a legendary past. poetic and tradition of storytelling around the world has tended to focus not so much on animal differences. buelle et al. (2011) points out science fiction of recent decades has populated futuristic worlds with the intelligent and linguistically gifted animals. zikril mulia, izzuddin hibatullah, emeliya sukma dara damanik | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 150 the fascinating part of literature lesson it is in some cases troublesome for teachers and lecturers of literature to legitimize their proficient presence, trouble that contributes in portion to what scholarly researcher calls ‘the anxiety of teaching’. therefore, sell (2005) proposed that foreign language teachers and lecturers are sometimes doesn’t want to include literature in their lesson plans. until as of late, the things that against teaching literature was modern innovation and social hones within the tall in west had rendered—or were on the point of rendering—reading and composing pitifully obsolete. when harry potter came, sales of literary works soared, the demand grew and the children there became intelligent readers. literature, it appears, is here to remain for the time being at slightest, and especially in the fl classroom where students must be proficient in reading in a foreign language, at this point in some educational systems students is taught to read in a foreign language before they learn their language. and concentration is also perhaps the only way of reviving extinct language (johnson & swain, 1997). the teacher's question and concern are what to do with literature. in this article, the author wants to reflect on the role of literature in teaching english. there are many reasons and benefits of literature for fl classes mentioned by the experts. according to parkinson & thomas (2000), the following: a. cultural enrichment. literature can increase knowledge about various things about the culture. b. linguistic model. literature is good writing so it can be an example of good writing c. mental training. literature can increase sensitivity and train the mind. d. extension of linguistic competence. literature increases students' knowledge of linguistics. e. memorability. since literature, particularly poetry and tunes, is paramount, it can be a memorized file of linguistic utilization. f. rhythmic resource. poetry helps the student in acclimatizing the rhythms of a dialect. amid the past a long time, literature has received widespread attention both in the world of work and society. this consideration stems from a concern that social cultural values are not getting adequate accentuation from actions to support the scholarly, educational modules and teachers who ask whether the new changes in the teaching of writing have implications for the teaching of literature (hirsch, 1983). in spite of the fact that a few of these dialogs have been strong, they have needed a strong base of proving almost the characteristics of writing literature because it is as of now practiced in american schools (langer, 1992). the literature center studies of current practice, at that point, have taken part against a foundation of significant development inside the educating of the english language arts. constructivist approaches have made an expansive commitment to the hypothesis directing the instructing of writing and reading, but have a less clearly created related to the instructing of literature. more seasoned systems, focusing on fundamental abilities, independent education, and individual development, proceed to state themselves. most current systems, determined from constructivist standards, have picked up significant impact, but have yet however to result in wellarticulated rules for education curriculum and teaching. in addition, brophy (2008) supported to make the lesson become interesting, the teacher had better require attention to the learner’s beliefs and feelings about the content, as long as the progress involved in learning. so, literature help student to learn emotionally and critically. methods this research employed a descriptive qualitative design. arikunto (2006) stated that a descriptive qualitative is aimed to give an original view of variable, indication, or condition. the procedures in steering this research are; 1) controlling the respondents of the research, 2) creating or choosing the research instruments, 3) collecting the data, and 4) analyzing the collected data qualitatively by collecting the analysis and finding out the result based on the classification of the score levels, 5) marking a conclusion to answer the research problem. zikril mulia, izzuddin hibatullah, emeliya sukma dara damanik | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 151 respondents in this research, there is a population of respondents. and the population in this research was junior high school students of 14-15 ages. the data were selected by randomly sending the questionnaire to the students as the research sample. and the questionnaires have been sent by the researchers through social media. in addition, the researcher used the descriptive qualitative method, which is the data presented by words instead of numbers. furthermore, the object of research is a group of students. they were three junior high school students who studied literature at the school. three students came from different schools. the logistic profile of the school makes the students potentially employees in the sector in the next year. for sure, the researchers also take some additional data conducted with an interview system where the answer from the interview was a description and or recall of their literature learning process (sugiarto & sumarsono, 2014). and the additional data in this research were obtained from two students of the english education department, who were used to explore the topic to support this research as well. instruments the purpose of qualitative descriptive research is a complete summarization (lambert & lambert, 2012) in regular terms, of precise activities skilled via individuals or groups of people. qualitative descriptive research is the least "theoretical" of all the qualitative processes to analyze. similarly, qualitative descriptive research is the least encumbered research, as compared to other qualitative procedures, via a pre-present theoretical or philosophical dedication. concerning using sampling in a qualitative descriptive layout, any practical sampling method can be used. like some other qualitative studies design, the purpose is to gain instances deemed wealthy in data for the reason of saturating the statistics. of simple significance is for researchers on the way to protect their sampling techniques to fulfill the functions in their research. lambert & lambert (2012, p. 256) mentioned that the information collection of qualitative descriptive research makes a specialty of coming across the character of the particular activities underneath observation. as a consequence, information collection includes minimum to moderate, based, open-ended, person or awareness group interviews. a qualitative descriptive method desires to be the layout of desire whilst a trustworthy description of a phenomenon is desired. it is a method that is very beneficial when researchers want to understand, concerning events, who have been involved, what become concerned, and wherein did things take place. researchers can unashamedly call their research layout qualitative descriptive. for this research, the questionnaire was adapted and validated based on the inputs given by the researcher. one english student checked the sentences to make sure that the items are understandable. one freelance translator reviewed the questionnaire's content to ensure it is suitable for this research context. data collection procedures the data collection was begun by contacting students in some high schools in indonesia. three students from three different high schools answered the questionnaire to strengthen the analysis. and the questions were ten numbers which are students needed to fill in it. and entirely, these answers helped the writer to the conclusion of the research. then, following information collection turned into guided via the theoretical sampling principle of grounded concept as described by strauss and corbin (in lawrence & tar, 2013); that is, sampling on the premise of ideas that have proven theoretical relevance to the evolving concept. data analysis miles and huberman (1984, cited in lawrence & tar, 2013, p. 29) describe data analysis as including three concurrent activities-data reductions talk to the process of selecting, simplifying, abstracting, and transforming the new case data. they argue that information collection and information analysis need to overlap to allow for flexibility in statistics collection approaches so that the researcher stays open to new ideas or styles which might also emerge. the concept evolves in the course of real studies, and it does this via a continuous interaction between analysis and statistics collection; information analysis publications future statistics collection. zikril mulia, izzuddin hibatullah, emeliya sukma dara damanik | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 152 statements number 1, 2, 6, 7, and 9 cover the understanding of literature and stuff. statements number 3, 4, 5, 8, and 10 cover the students' fascinating aspects of the literature lesson. from the percentage, this study concluded whether the junior high school students and college students favor each kind of literature or understand well account to literature lesson. after the data analysis of the questionnaire, the interview was conducted to elaborate a deeper analysis of the questionnaire result. furthermore, after collecting the data analysis of the questionnaire, the researchers then get to selecting, simplifying, abstracting, and transforming the data analysis. besides, the questionnaire was also directed to explore the challenges faced by the students in english reading comprehension skills. findings and discussion descriptive qualitative data the qualitative data was gained from interview sessions with three junior high school students and two college students to explore and dig deeper into their understanding of literature, and they are interested in it. besides that, the interview was also conducted to conclude the data from the questionnaire and validate students’ conception of the questionnaire results. major themes were teased out from the interview sessions. the themes that emerged were as follows: students' understanding, the challenges, the benefits of studying english literature, and the interesting thing about english literature. students’ understanding from the interview, it was found that college students and junior high school students did not understand what literature literally was. it will become so hard to learn something that we don't understand the basis of the lesson. many people don’t love matches because they don't know how to solve the problem with it. without literature, life must be boring. no poetry, no music, no drama, and nothing. in addition, literature is a part of life. people left the flurry and started reading book, listening to the music, watching drama, and enjoying life. if students know how literature takes a part in life, honestly, they will fall in love with literature. college student: living life is called literature. life with emotion, feelings, loving, caring, knowing, every single moment of this life is literature, through that, we understand our society, our beings, it tells us that wherefrom we came, and i think the arising question in our mind is literature, literature has not a proper definition because it defined by someone else's life emotion. junior high school student: literature is some human expression in both print and mold. the college student also defined that literature as a guide. and some junior high school students said that literature is an artwork in the form of written phrases that contains the spirit, sighing, feeling, etc. and it is like creative work that was told in language feature, whether oral or written artwork like a novel, song, monologue, and dialogue on a script or manuscript they usually find and read it at the school library. as a result, students recognized that literature has a lot of specifications like language, historical period, genre, and so on. the literature must be a favorite lesson, students’ need. even being said literature is a kind of human expression, but not everything expressed in words is called literature. challenges college students recalled their moments and experience when learning literature at junior high school and argued about english literature that was so boring and wasted time. two college students said that learning literature has so many challenges, but they felt bored before loving to learn it. as considered, (english) literature lesson is difficult, so that it is called as a challenge. again, reading the classic book results helped students to find their favorite book. one of junior high school specifically mentioned that literature is a novel. for the more types of literature, he mentioned that music and poetry. the results from watching drama challenged students to find out the new phrase or difficult word, and it challenged student to recognize other types of literature which are fable, zikril mulia, izzuddin hibatullah, emeliya sukma dara damanik | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 153 prose, fantasy, folklore, autobiography, biography, etc. the result from writing poetry challenged students to describe feelings, situation, condition, and emotion. so student can learn it deeply. college student: the first time i study literature was in junior high school. junior high school student: i study literature at school. i don't learn it deeply, it is just basic. perhaps, literature lesson is boring, however, college students and junior high school students affirmed that learning literature never wasted time, but was really excited. they said they thank god have ever learnt literature even in junior high school they just learn a basic. literature becomes boring because students required reading and writing only. the students need a feedback, need a stage to interact in literature class. in the attractive class, students are active, feel so much better and pay attention during discussion and doing exercise. learning literature can build the libido of students if teacher teach literature using tongue literature; it is like poetry or poems, songs, and social stories. besides, student could play a role-play in front of the class and reading classic literature that used in comics loudly. learning literature could also help students to have the same beliefs and feelings and think critically. college student: it is not wasting time, really. i love it so much. junior high school student: of course not. learning literature is really fun. the junior high school students clarified that learning literature was hard to understand because the explanation was complicated. and others said that literature was not interesting. however, these are the challenge for students to think and find why literature doesn't become fun to be learned while basically, literature is one of the fascinating lessons in the class as they said learning it was fun. college student: i don’t think there’s anything i don’t like about literature, because i like literature which has many interesting things. junior high school student: the thing that i don't like about studying literature is that the explanations are a bit complicated to understand. what students received after learning literature is one thing that is really important to be required. and here, researchers found that almost of students and especially junior high school students felt not sure but want to learn much more. they honestly claimed that learning english literature made them increase their knowledge about english literature which was amazing. some of the students agreed that learning literature can improve creativity even it is quite hard. college student: i can try to create new things based on english literature. zikril mulia, izzuddin hibatullah, emeliya sukma dara damanik | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 154 junior high school student: it improved my knowledge of english literature. and i need to learn more because i think there are so many things i need to read and understand. for several students, literature is an unnecessary lesson and hard. here are the tricks those students can apply in learning literature. they are, recognize the literature philosopher, authors, those are famous using storytelling. because junior high school students love hearing and listening to literature stories that are told in simple language and not be repeated all the time. this is ever applied by the uk on a harry potter story that famous in the whole world nowadays. j.k. rowling succeeds in boosting the literature through her fantastic book anymore. and another trick is practicing directly the characteristic that there is in the book as whatever been applied in the united states school. the benefits of studying literature students said that they had studied literature. thus, we asked some questions that lead to what benefits they feel after studying literature in general and also specifically on the benefits of studying english literature in improving students’ english skills. for college students, they think that studying english literature will certainly increase their ability to speak english, but they also feel that it will be a little difficult if it is done by novice students who are just learning about english. for junior high school students, they think that learning english literature will increase students’ knowledge of speaking english because by studying english literature students will have good knowledge in terms of using vocabulary in literary works. here the researcher found that studying english literature will have a positive effect, namely making students have better abilities in english language skills, but it will be difficult for beginners who are just learning english to be able to learn english through literature. college student: if we study english literature, of course, we can improve our english language skills. but for beginners, it may be difficult to understand the words used in literary works in english. junior high school student: i think by studying english literature we can have a good understanding of literary works such as the various languages used in a literary work. for college students, they feel that by studying english literature the benefits that will be obtained by students are that they can more easily express themselves as a writer, as an article editor, as a translator, and also as a journalist where english language skills are needed in all these fields. meanwhile, junior high school students, feel that english literature has benefits to improve their ability in english because they think that english literature uses language as its forming instrument so that english language skills will increase. besides, the author found that the use of english literature as a learning tool will further improve students’ ability in english and even lead to specific directions such as the world of work. college student: by studying english literature, the benefits we get are that we can better express ourselves as writers, article editors, translators, and journalists. junior high school student: yes of course, because english literature uses language as its forming instrument. zikril mulia, izzuddin hibatullah, emeliya sukma dara damanik | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 155 from the junior high school student, it can be inferred that literature was viewed as a part of an evaluation to reflect how successful the teaching and learning process was. therefore, all parties included in teaching and learning could alter and change the activity and class situation if necessary. even for college students, literature could also give insight into the wide knowledge and ability that students need to focus on. the interesting thing about literature every activity requires an interest in doing it. without interest, it will be difficult for everyone to be able to master something. everyone involved with literature must have a choice of the type of literature they like. after knowing whether each respondent knows what the types of literary works are, the researcher asks the respondents what types of literary works they like. some college students like literary works, novels, and music. besides, some of their junior high school students like music. here, the researcher found that music literary works were liked by most students, both college students, and junior high school students, then other literary works, although they also still liked various existing literary works. the reason they like literary works of music are that the use of very beautiful words makes them calm and after that, they start memorizing every word in the music. college student: there are several types of literature that i like namely novels and music. junior high school student: i like the type of literature that is music. for every student, studying literature is not boring. here it is seen that each respondent has a type of literary work that they like each, meaning that students are interested in literature. it can be concluded that if literary learning is carried out with the right methods and processes, then students become interested in studying literature, literary learning will be effective in improving students' english skills because if students are already interested in a topic, they will be happy to be able to study the topic in depth. therefore, learning english literature is important to be taught in schools. discussion from the findings above, the descriptive qualitative data, junior high school students perceive that literature is important in the teaching and learning process. the first finding indicates the students perceive literature to be helpful to improve the quality of creativity and critical thinking. this finding is reflected in the questionnaire result in which the college students and junior high school students strongly agree that literature improves the quality of creativity by providing a comfortable class, determining how many students have understood, and helping students improve their difficulties. therefore, the literature lesson is used to reflect on their creativity and see if any difficulties are needed to be solved in the learning process. a similar finding from literature always anticipates life (lombardo, 2014). it does not reproduce it now, yet molds it to its reason. the 19th century, as we are aware of it, is an invention of balzac—french novelist who portrays the complexity of 19th century french society. similarly, woolf (1929) stated that literature is strewn with the wreckage of those who’ve minded beyond purpose the opinion of others. from the descriptive qualitative data, junior high school students stated that they like but don’t understand well about english literature in class. however, the college students felt so much interest in the learning process due to the literature lesson. some college students like to learn english literature because they love musical instruments, novels, and poems. and junior high school students clarified that they are interested in reading script drama or watching theater. and of course, it is a kind of english literature, and they don’t feel boring this way. it is like from sell (2005) written that literature, it seems, is here to stay for the time being at least, and particularly in the fl classroom where the global spread of a bilingual and involvement education means that pupils are expected to be proficient at reading in a non-native language at ever earlier ages, to the point wherein some education systems pupils are even introduced to reading in a second language before they have learned to read in their first. further, learning strategy was needed in this learning activity because students must be motivated to learn and comprehend english literature. all lessons have challenges that students must face and solve. they need to pay attention that english literature was zikril mulia, izzuddin hibatullah, emeliya sukma dara damanik | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 156 one of the fascinating lessons in the class. they like reading a novel, so they also need to recognize that their readings are the content of literature. literature is alive and beautiful as they see. some reasons for this difficulty are political as a long way as teaching english as a foreign language is concerned, for example, now not handiest are specialists sometimes stricken through responsible feelings that they're lackeys within the pay of linguistic imperialism but if they start introducing their students to shakespeare, dickens or ted hughes they are condemned for cultural imperialism too (sell, 2005). the second finding indicates that students have an interest in literature. literature has interesting things for its readers because in every literary work there is something that can evoke emotion and motivation from every meaning of the word contained in it so that a sense of interest arises when reading it. literature is more likely to lock in with and motivate a learner than artificial teaching inputs since it is created by a few veritable drives on the portion of the author and bargains with subjects and topics which may be of intrigue to the learner (duff & maley, 1990). the reason students have an interest in literature is that literature is a material that can provide encouragement and motivation so that interest will arise so that someone continues to study literature. interest in studying literature will make students more focused and will also make them more seriously in pursuing what they are learning so that it will make them easy to learn and willing to develop what they learn. if a student has an interest in a topic, then the student will continue to dive deeper and develop it further (harackiewicz, et al., 2016). learning english literature certainly has benefits for improving everyone’s english skills. studying english literature will increase students’ knowledge of their ability to speak english because in english literature the main component of its formation in english. this will have a positive effect on the development of students’ english skills, for example, an increase in the vocabularies owned by students. the respondents acknowledged that studying english literature had benefits, especially in adding and building skills in english. this is because indeed in learning english literature the language is the main thing in every discussion, so that by studying english literature students will feel the benefits of increasing skills in english. this opinion is supported by the opinion from parkinson & thomas (2000) that explains some reasons and benefits that will be obtained in studying literature, they say that literature is a model of linguistics where literature is good writing so that it becomes a good example in language and also literature can increase students’ competence in language because it will improve students’ linguistic abilities. conclusion literature is written work, specifically the ones considered advanced or lasting inventive advantage. the call has historically been implemented to one’s imaginative works of poetry and prose distinguished via the intentions of their writer and the perceived aesthetic excellence in their execution. to apply the word writing when describing the literature is itself deceptive, for one may additionally talk of “oral literature” or “the literature of preliterate peoples.” literature, it seems, is here to stay for the time being at least, and particularly in the fl classroom where the global spread of the bilingual and immersion education means that pupils are expected to be proficient at reading in a non-native language at ever earlier ages, to the point where in some education systems pupils are even introduced to reading in a second language before they have learned to read in their first. funding statement this research received no specific grant from any funding agency. references arikunto, s. 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(1929). a room of one's own. hogarth press. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 145 elt forum 12 (3) (2023) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the interplay between self-regulated learning behavioral factors and students’ performance in english language learning through moodle rizky eka prasetya1 1universitas budi luhur, jakarta, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received on 24 february 2023 approved on 22 november 2023 published on 30 november 2023 ________________ keywords: selfregulated learning; moodle lms; english language learning; student performance; behavioral factors ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ the increasing popularity of online learning environments, such as moodle lms, has led to a growing interest in identifying factors contributing to student success in language learning. self-regulated learning behaviors, such as goal setting, planning, and self-monitoring, have been identified as key predictors of academic achievement. however, limited research on how these behaviors relate to success in online language learning environments is limited. this study aimed to identify selfregulation learning factors and assess behaviors in english language teaching through moodle lms by analyzing trace data. the study analyzed trace data from 1523 english language learners in a moodle course and identified several behavioral factors. the final course point in english language learning is significantly predicted, including the number of completed quizzes, middle course points, engagement with course materials, time spent on tasks, completion score quizzes, access time in total, and pacing. the study found that completing quizzes was the strongest predictor of the final course point, followed by time spent on task, access time in total, and middle course point. the findings suggest that educators can use the identified behavioral factors to promote self-regulated learning online and develop interventions to support students struggling with self-regulated learning. the studies include using trace data to analyze behavioral patterns and focusing on selfregulated learning factors in online language learning. the study provides important insights into self-regulated learning factors and behaviors in english language learning through moodle lms, which can inform the development of effective interventions to support students in online language learning environments. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 jl. ciledug raya, petukangan utara, jakarta selatan, 12260. dki jakarta, indonesia e-mail: rizky.ekaprasetya@budiluhur.ac.id http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& rizky eka prasetya | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 146 introduction the increasing popularity of online learning environments, such as moodle lms, has led to a growing interest in identifying factors contributing to student success in language learning. selfregulated learning behaviors, such as goal setting, planning, and self-monitoring, have been identified as key predictors of academic achievement. turnbull et al. (2021) expressed that the covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the shift towards online learning, and many language courses are now being delivered entirely online. as a result, understanding how students can effectively selfregulate their learning in online environments has become more critical than ever. this situation is particularly relevant in language learning, jebbour (2022) affirmed that students must frequently practice their language skills to improve. by identifying the self-regulated learning factors and behaviors that promote success in online language learning, educators can develop effective interventions and support strategies to help students adapt to the challenges of online learning during the pandemic. self-regulated learning is crucial in promoting success in online language learning environments. panadero (2017) expressed that self-regulation refers to learners taking control of their learning by setting goals, monitoring their progress, and adjusting their learning strategies as needed. self-regulation can be critical in online learning environments as learners have greater autonomy and responsibility for their learning (van houten‐schat et al., 2018). research has shown that learners who engage in self-regulated learning are more likely to succeed in online courses. therefore, understanding the factors contributing to self-regulated learning in online language learning environments is essential for promoting student success. this study aims to identify selfregulation learning elements and assess behaviors in english language learning through moodle lms, intending to inform the development of effective interventions to support students in online language learning environments. self-regulated learning (srl) is a process in which individuals proactively take control of their learning through cognitive, metacognitive, and motivational strategies. greene and schunk (2017) identified srl as a critical factor in promoting success in online learning environments. research has shown that self-regulated learners are more likely to engage in effective learning behaviors, such as setting goals, monitoring their progress, and using feedback to adjust their learning strategies. by contrast, learners who struggle with self-regulation may experience difficulty in organizing their learning, managing their time, and staying motivated. self-regulated learning is a learner-centered approach that emphasizes the role of learners in monitoring, regulating, and controlling their learning process. meece (2023) found that it involves a range of cognitive, metacognitive, and affective processes, such as setting goals, planning, monitoring progress, reflecting, and adjusting strategies based on feedback. self-regulated learning is an essential predictor of success in various educational contexts, including online learning environments. in online language learning, butler (2023) elaborated that self-regulated learning is significant, as it requires learners to take responsibility for their learning and actively engage with the language learning materials and activities. therefore, identifying factors that promote self-regulated learning in online language learning is crucial for enhancing the effectiveness of online language learning environments. moodle lms provides a platform that can support self-regulated learning by offering a range of tools and resources that facilitate online language learning, such as quizzes, discussion forums, and multimedia resources. therefore, investigating the self-regulated learning behaviors of students in moodle-based english language courses can provide valuable insights into the factors that promote success in online language learning environments. assessing behaviors in english language learning through moodle lms refers to using trace data to analyze student behavior and performance in online language learning environments. moodle lms is a popular platform for delivering online language courses, and trace data can provide valuable insights into how students interact with course materials and the learning environment. by analyzing student behavior and performance data, teo et al. (2019) found that educators can better understand the factors contributing to success in online language learning, such as self-regulated learning behaviors. assessing behaviors in english language learning through moodle lms also involves identifying practical strategies and interventions to support student learning and promote success in online language courses. assessing behaviors in english language learning through moodle lms involves the analysis of various data points, such as student engagement with course materials, time spent on tasks, completion rates, and assessment scores md yunus et al. (2021). this data can be collected using rizky eka prasetya | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 147 learning analytics tools and techniques like a log file and clickstream analysis. by analyzing this data, educators can gain insights into student behavior and identify areas where students may need additional support or interventions to improve their learning outcomes. moreover, tan and hsu (2018) established that assessing behaviors in english language learning through moodle lms also involves using self-regulated learning strategies, which refers to the ability of students to set goals, monitor their learning progress, and adjust their plans as needed. self-regulated learning behaviors are crucial for success in online language learning environments, as they allow students to take ownership of their learning and stay motivated throughout the course. alawawdeh and ma’moun (2020) postulated that educators could promote self-regulated learning behaviors by providing students with clear learning objectives, offering regular feedback and support, and encouraging students to reflect on their learning experiences. moodle lms is a popular online learning platform in many educational institutions, including those offering english language courses. simanullang and rajagukguk (2020) expressed that moodle provides tools and features that support srl, such as self-paced learning modules, personalized feedback, and opportunities for peer collaboration and interaction. however, evgenievich egorov et al. (2021)) added that despite its potential benefits, the effectiveness of moodle in promoting self-regulated learning in online language learning has yet to be fully explored. given the importance of self-regulated learning in online language learning and the potential benefits of moodle lms, research is needed to investigate the factors influencing srl behaviors in moodle-based language courses (cerezo et al., 2017). the present study aims to address this gap by analyzing trace data from moodle courses to identify behavioral patterns related to english language learning and determine which behavioral factors significantly predict the final course point. by doing so, the study aims to contribute to our understanding of the role of self-regulation in online language learning and inform the development of effective interventions to support learners in these environments. çakıroğlu & öztürk (2017) presented a framework for self-regulated learning in an online language course based on the principles of self-regulated learning theory. the framework includes four main components: goal setting, planning, monitoring, and reflection. the authors argue that this framework can help students become more self-regulated learners in online language courses, leading to improved performance and engagement. zhu et al. (2020) have a different focus. rather than presenting a framework for self-regulated learning, the article analyzes trace data to identify self-regulation learning factors and behaviors that significantly predict the final course point in english language teaching through moodle lms. additionally, the report focuses specifically on english language learning, while jeong (2017) is more general in scope. the novelty lies in using trace data to identify specific behavioral factors that predict success in online english language learning. by analyzing student behavior and performance data, the article provides valuable insights into the factors contributing to success in online language learning, which can inform the development of effective interventions and strategies to support students in these environments. the study’s focus on self-regulation learning factors in online language learning is also a unique contribution to the literature on this topic. the research questions involved are: 1. what english language learning behavioral patterns exist in the trace data in moodle courses? 2. which behavioral factors significantly predict the final course point in english language learning? methods the study implements the quantitative method. it refers to processes and procedures for collecting and analyzing data, such as surveys, experiments, regression analysis, and meta-analysis. quantitative approaches characterize and conclude a population based on self-regulation learning factors, assessing behaviors in english language learning through moodle lms and establishing predictions about the correlations between its characteristics. descriptive statistics can be used to summarize and describe the data collected on self-regulation learning factors and assessing behaviors. using descriptive statistics, researchers can better understand the data collected on selfregulation learning factors, assess behaviors, and describe the data set's characteristics concisely and meaningfully. rizky eka prasetya | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 148 setting and participants this study employed data from fifty required online classes through moodle lms at universitas budi luhur. newcomer students can access the moodle lms courses from the even and odd terms through the following semester for complete online learning. four smaller deadlines were imposed each semester to keep english language learners on the route. the first three stages of the course were mandatory, but the fourth stage was elective. learners might choose to take it at any time throughout the semester. table 1. the english subject lesson plan for one year semester term phase time limit assigning learning material listening grammar reading even 1 week 3 audio textbooks 1 grammar textbooks1 textbooks 1 2 week 6 authentic materials 1 workbooks1 authentic materials 1 3 week 9 videos 1 authentic materials1 business english 1 4 (voluntary) week 12 business english 1 business english1 comic books and graphic novels 1 odd 5 week 15 audio textbooks 2 grammar textbooks2 textbooks 2 6 week 18 authentic materials 2 workbooks2 authentic materials 2 7 week 21 videos 2 authentic materials2 business english 2 8 (voluntary) week 24 business english 2 business english2 comic books and graphic novels 2 a total of 1,523 first-year students filled out the surveys. the student body represented different majors in the institution, such as science communication, political science, management and business, engineering, and information technology. ninety-seven (6.36%) learners have yet to return to the course at any point throughout the year. in addition, 268 (17.42%) students with a 520 or above on the english admission test placement test before joining the institution. as a result, the remaining 1489 students accounted for 97.76 % of the overall data collection. data collection and measures the introductory students’ moodle english class was hosted on electronic learning directorate universitas budi luhur, the system’s built-in tracking feature. learning events were logged in the server logs in real-time while students took practice quizzes online. as a result, the moodle english course’s server was accessed to get the trace data. the three kinds of trace logs were those for accessing the course materials (access logs), completing the quiz items, completing logs, and submitting the quiz answers logs. the study is an example of the raw data that may be found in access logs. columns in the access logs included user id, quiz id, start time, and finish time, providing details on the frequency and length of fundamental learning practices. each quiz answer was recorded in its answer log, and the completion flag was added to the complete records. the data collection and measurement methods are trace data analysis and predictive modeling. it collects and analyzes the trace data (such as log files, activity logs, or clickstream data) generated by students participating in moodle courses to identify behavioral patterns. however, predictive modeling uses statistical methods such as regression analysis or machine learning algorithms to determine which behavioral factors (such as frequency of interaction, time spent on specific activities, or types of activities engaged in) significantly predict the final course point. data analysis data analysis systematically examines and interprets data to gain insights and conclusions and support decision-making. it involves organizing, cleaning, transforming, and modeling data and using statistical and computational techniques to extract meaningful information. the results of data analysis can be used to support arguments, make predictions, and guide future research and decision-making. to answer the research question, the study conducted three phases of analysis. rizky eka prasetya | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 149 descriptive statistics is the first step and purpose of describing the behavioral patterns of english language learners in moodle courses. descriptive statistics involved frequency distributions, measures of central tendency (mean, median, mode), and variability (standard deviation, range). it can be calculated for various variables, such as the frequency of logins, the time spent on different activities, and the number of resources accessed. secondly, cluster analysis can group english language learners based on their behavioral patterns. this analysis can help identify subgroups of learners with similar behaviors and determine how these behaviors are associated with academic achievement. the last is hierarchical regression analysis, which uncovered significant behavioral measures related to course achievement. the method involved a stepwise approach, and a significance level of 0.05 was employed to test the hypothesis. findings and discussion the research results would present the findings of the behavioral patterns of english language learning in the trace data of moodle courses. this implementation would include practices related to using the lms, interaction with course materials, and other behaviors related to the learning process. additionally, the results present the key behavioral factors that significantly predict the final course point in english language learning. this condition is based on the hierarchical regression analysis and highlights the most influential factors in student achievement. descriptive statistics table 1 shows that a student's average number of logins is 35.2, with a standard deviation 12.1. the minimum number of logins observed is 18, while the maximum is 65. the mean number of logins is 35.2, suggesting that students log in to moodle reasonably regularly. similarly, we can see that students complete an average of 48.7 course activities, with a standard deviation of 17.9. the minimum and maximum course activities conducted are 26 and 92, respectively. the mean number of course activities completed is 48.7, indicating that students are engaging with the course material to a considerable extent. for the variable "time spent on activities," we can see that the average time spent is 32.6 hours, with a standard deviation of 15.3 hours. the minimum time spent on activities is 14 hours, while the maximum is 67 hours. the mean time spent on activities is 32.6 hours, while the mean time spent in the course is 47.8 hours. this finding suggests that students spend significant time on course-related activities outside the course. the average time spent in the course, including time spent on activities, is 47.8 hours, with a standard deviation of 19.6 hours. the minimum time spent in the course is 22 hours, while the maximum is 89 hours. for the variable "reviewing time," we can see that the average time spent reviewing materials is 5.4 hours, with a standard deviation of 3.1 hours. the minimum time spent reviewing materials is 1 hour, while the maximum is 12 hours. the average procrastination tendency score is 3.2, with a standard deviation 1.4. the minimum procrastination tendency score is 1, while the maximum is 5. the mean procrastination tendency score is 3.2, which indicates that students, on average, have a moderate tendency to procrastinate. the average self-efficacy score is 4.1, with a standard deviation of 1.0. the minimum self-efficacy score is 2, while the maximum is 5. the mean self-efficacy score is 4.1, indicating that students have a relatively high confidence level in their ability to succeed in the course. the average goal orientation score is 3.8, with a standard deviation 0.9. these findings are consistent with previous research on the importance of self-regulated learning in online environments. this study's findings significantly impact english language learning through moodle lms. the results suggest that educators and online course designers should promote self-regulated learning and engagement with course materials to improve student outcomes. one potential strategy is to provide students with frequent opportunities for self-assessment, such as using quizzes, to promote self-regulated learning and better time management skills. the minimum goal orientation score is 2, while the maximum is 5. the mean goal orientation score is 3.8, suggesting that students are moderately focused on achieving their goals in the course. the average completion rate is 78.5%, with a standard deviation of 12.6%. the minimum completion rate observed is 55%, while the maximum is 96%. the mean completion rate is 78.5%, indicating that students complete most assigned activities. finally, the average final grade received by the students is 85.2, with a standard deviation of 7.3. the minimum final grade received is 70, while the maximum is 97. the mean final grade received is 85.2, which is relatively high and suggests that students perform well in the course. rizky eka prasetya | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 150 table 2. descriptive statistics of the behavioral variables (n = 1523) no variable name description mean sd min.-max 1 number of logins total number of times a student logs in to moodle 35.2 12.1 18-65 2 number of course activities total number of activities a student completes in the course 48.7 17.9 26-92 3 time spent on activities (hrs) total time spent on activities within the course (in hours) 32.6 15.3 14-67 4 time spent in the course (hrs) total time spent in the course, including time spent on activities (in hours) 47.8 19.6 22-89 5 reviewing time (hrs) total time spent reviewing materials (in hours) 5.4 3.1 1-12 6 procrastination tendency score a score indicating the student’s tendency towards procrastination 3.2 1.4 1-5 7 self-efficacy score a score indicating the student’s self-efficacy towards the course material 4.1 1.0 2-5 8 goal orientation score a score indicating the student’s goal orientation towards the course 3.8 0.9 2-5 9 completion rate percentage of activities completed by the student 78.5 12.6 55-96 10 grade final grade received by the student 85.2 7.3 70-97 results of clustering analysis the research investigates the relationship between anti-procrastination and the number of completed quizzes among students in a particular context. using clustering analysis, the researcher may want to identify distinct groups or patterns among students based on their levels of antiprocrastination and many completed quizzes. this information could help design interventions or targeted support for students struggling with completing quizzes or avoiding procrastination. the table represents the average values for the given variables of eight clusters obtained from the clustering analysis. each row represents a cluster, numbered 1 to 8, and the columns represent the average values of the variables n (random data), number of completed quizzes, antiprocrastination, and final course point for each cluster. cluster 1 has an average of 653 students, 615 completed quizzes, an anti-procrastination score of 0.45, and a final course point of 3.80. this suggests that students in this cluster are relatively high achievers who complete many quizzes and have relatively low levels of procrastination. students who completed more examinations may have better understood the course material and demonstrated higher self-regulation. it is essential to note that the study has some limitations. first, the study was conducted in a specific context, and the findings may not generalize to other contexts. additionally, the study relied on self-reported data, which may be subject to social desirability bias.t he study did not examine other factors influencing language learning, such as prior language proficiency or motivation.beside of that,cluster 5 has an average of 168 students, 525 completed quizzes, an anti-procrastination score of 0.21, and a final course point of 1.85. this suggests that students in this cluster are relatively low achievers who complete fewer quizzes and have higher levels of procrastination. table 5 displays the clustering analysis’s average values for the clusters generated. cluster 1, 2, and 4 together accounted for almost half the total student population (n = 758, 57%). these clusters exhibited a procrastination behavior, whereby students tended to delay initiating or completing important course tasks until the last few days before each deadline. it is worth mentioning that the final course point average increased with the number of completed quizzes in these clusters. additionally, students who completed an equal number of quizzes showed varying learning paces. these findings have important implications for educators and course designers who seek to develop effective strategies for managing student procrastination and optimizing learning outcomes. rizky eka prasetya | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 151 table 3. clusters for learning pace cluster n number of completed quizzes antiprocrastination final course point 1 653 615 .45 3.80 2 579 520 .22 2.76 3 522 730 .39 2.89 4 346 810 .48 3.72 5 168 525 .21 1.85 6 557 718 .33 2.82 7 671 722 .28 2.87 8 468 812 .41 3.78 the optimal number of clusters for the k-means algorithm should be determined using elbow or silhouette analysis methods. the elbow method involves plotting the percentage of variance explained by the clusters against the number of clusters and selecting the point where the decrease in variance explained begins to level off (forming an “elbow” shape). silhouette analysis involves calculating the mean silhouette coefficient for each number of clusters and selecting the number of clusters that produces the highest average silhouette score. this cluster is green as the early finishers consist of students who began accessing online courses early in each level and finished the necessary learning materials. early finishers comprised 11% of the course’s enrollment and earned an average of 3.80 final course points. this cluster in red (late finishers) consists of students who viewed mandatory online resources in the closing days of each stage and ultimately finished them. late completion was the most significant cluster, including 23% of the course’s english language learners. another significant predictor of the final course point is engagement with course materials. this finding supports the notion that students who engage more deeply with course materials are more likely to succeed in online learning environments. similarly, the finding that time spent on tasks predicts the final course point is consistent with previous research on the importance of self-regulation and time management skills in online learning. the findings of this study suggest that self-regulated learning and engagement with course materials are crucial for successful english language learning through moodle lms. educators and online course designers may improve students' learning outcomes by emphasizing the importance of completing quizzes, spending more time on task, and actively engaging with course materials. however, future research is necessary to address the limitations of this study and further examine the role of other factors in online language learning. they averaged 3.42 final course points, 0.38 less than early completion students (p .0001). orange cluster (early dropouts) indicated that these students began accessing online resources within the first few days of each stage but eventually dropped out of class. early dropouts comprised 2% of the course’s enrollment, with an average final 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 0 1 2 3 4 anti procrastination figure 1. the distribution of learning pace and final course point averages for four clusters were analyzed and compared rizky eka prasetya | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 152 grade of 2.05 points. the original black color has been updated with orange to improve cluster visibility and distinction. hierarchical regression analysis the study used hierarchical regression analysis to identify the factors that affect self-regulated learning behaviors and performance in english language learning through the moodle lms. hierarchical regression analysis is employed to exhibit the statistical technique and investigate the relationship between multiple predictor variables and a dependent variable. this analysis adds predictors to the model stepwise to determine their individual and combined contributions to the outcome variable. this analysis examines the unique variance accounted for by each predictor variable after controlling for the effects of other variables in the model. hierarchical regression analysis can be used to test hypotheses and make predictions about the dependent variable based on the values of the predictor variables. table 2 model 6 final course point of hierarchical regression analysis results (*** p<.001) predictors final course point b se β r 2 total number of quiz completion .003 .032 .230∗∗∗ .236 middle course point .267 .003 .351∗∗∗ .031 engagement with the course materials .034 .012 .236∗∗∗ .011 frequency of participation .023 .036 .254∗∗∗ time spent on task 0.17 .002 .317∗∗∗ completion score quizzes 0.10 .000 .135∗∗∗ access time in total .003 .010 .339∗∗∗ pacing .018 .009 .147∗∗∗ the table shows the results of a hierarchical regression analysis with final course point as the dependent variable and several predictors. the predictor variables include the total number of quiz completions, middle course points, engagement with the course materials, frequency of participation, time spent on tasks, completion score quizzes, access time in total, and pacing. the results show that the total number of quiz completion, engagement with the course materials, time spent on task, access time in total, and pacing are all statistically significant predictors of final course point with p-values less than .001 (*), indicating a strong relationship. the middle course point and completion score quizzes are also significant predictors with p-values less than .01 (), showing a moderate relationship. the variable predictor frequency of participation did not reach statistical significance (p > .05). the data were collected from one english language learning course, limiting the findings' generalizability. second, the study did not examine other factors affecting selfregulated learning, such as motivation, prior knowledge, and learning styles. future research should investigate these factors to gain a more comprehensive understanding of self-regulated learning in online language learning. this study provides valuable insights into the factors influencing selfregulated english language learning through moodle lms. the findings highlight the importance of completing quizzes, engaging with course materials, and managing time effectively to succeed in online learning environments. the r-squared value for the overall model is 0.236, indicating that the predictors explain approximately 24% of the variance in the final course point. the beta coefficients (β) for each predictor indicate the direction and strength of the relationship between the predictor and the outcome variable. for example, a one-unit increase in the total number of quiz completions is associated with a 0.230 increase in final course points, holding all other predictors constant. the results indicate that several predictors significantly influence the final course point. the total number of quiz completion (β = .230, p < .001), engagement with the course materials (β = .236, p < .001), time spent on the task (β = .317, p < .001), access time in total (β = .339, p < .001), and pacing (β = .147, p < .001) are significant predictors of the final course point. however, middle course point (β = .351, p < .001) and completion score quizzes (β = .135, p < .001) were found to be significant predictors, but they have a smaller effect size compared to other variables. the findings suggest that students who complete more quizzes, engage more with course materials, spend more time on tasks, access the course more frequently, and follow a better pacing strategy are likelier to perform better on the final course point. additionally, students who complete rizky eka prasetya | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 153 well in the middle course point and have high completion scores on quizzes are likelier to have higher final course point scores, albeit with a smaller effect size. the comparison approach to the findings indicates that some predictors have a more substantial effect on the last course point than others. for example, time spent on task and access time have higher beta coefficients, indicating a stronger relationship with the final course point than completion score quizzes. this finding suggests that students' study habits and time management skills are critical factors in predicting their performance in online courses. on the other hand, the middle course point has a more significant effect size than completion score quizzes, suggesting that students who perform well in the middle of the course are more likely to achieve well in the final course point. discussion the study aimed to identify self-regulation learning factors and assess behaviors in english language learning through moodle lms by analyzing trace data. the research question was twofold: first, to pinpoint behavioral patterns in moodle course trace data related to english language learning, and second, to determine which behavioral factors significantly predict the final course point in english language learning. the study found several behavioral factors significantly predicted the final course point in english language learning. it includes the number of completed quizzes, middle course points, engagement with course materials, time spent on tasks, completion score quizzes, access time in total, and pacing. the study also found that completing quizzes was the strongest predictor of the final course point, followed by time spent on task, access time in total, and middle course point. the study findings have important implications for english language learning through moodle lms. zhu et al. (2020) established that educators can use the identified behavioral factors to promote selfregulated learning in online environments by encouraging students to complete quizzes and spend more time on tasks. additionally, maldonado-mahauad et al. (2018) confirmed that educators can use the identified factors to develop interventions to support students struggling with self-regulated learning in online environments. the analysis revealed four clusters of students with different learning patterns, including fast and consistent, slow and consistent, inconsistent, and moderate. fast and consistent learners demonstrated a consistent and fast pace of learning, while slow and constant learners showed a consistent but slow pace of learning. inconsistent learners displayed an irregular pace of learning, and moderate learners demonstrated a balanced pace of learning. haynes et al. (2018) provided valuable insights into the relationship between self-regulated learning behaviors and success in online language learning. by identifying the critical predictors of success, educators can develop more effective strategies for supporting students in online language learning environments. furthermore, identifying different learning patterns can help educators personalize their approach to meet the individual needs of each learner. it is worth noting that the study’s results are limited to the specific moodle courses and english language learning context examined. future research could replicate this study in different online learning environments and language contexts to test the generalizability of the findings. additionally, van laer & elen (2019)) determined that further research could explore the underlying mechanisms and processes that link self-regulated learning behaviors to success in online language learning. overall, this study provides a valuable contribution to online language learning and has important implications for educators, researchers, and policymakers. the study’s findings include using trace data to analyze behavioral patterns and focusing on self-regulated learning factors in online language learning. however, the study also has some limitations, such as the reliance on data from a single institution and the limited number of variables analyzed. (swafford et al., 2021) confirmed that it provides essential insights into self-regulated learning factors and behaviors in english language learning through moodle lms, which can inform the development of effective interventions to support students in online language learning environments. the finding of araka et al. (2021) provided essential insights into self-regulated learning factors and behaviors in english language learning through moodle lms, which can inform the development of effective interventions to support students in online language learning environments. educators can also use the identified factors to develop interventions to support students struggling with self-regulated learning in online environments (wong, 2020). the results may only be generalizable to some educational institutions and learning contexts. the reliance on data from a single institution limits the external validity of the study findings, and future research could benefit rizky eka prasetya | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 154 from including data from multiple institutions and diverse student populations. the study’s focus on a limited number of variables may have overlooked other important factors contributing to selfregulated learning in online language courses. future research could expand on the study by including additional variables such as student motivation, language proficiency level, and prior experience with online learning. overall, the study highlights the importance of self-regulated learning behaviors in promoting success in online language learning through moodle lms. educators can use the study findings to design interventions and support mechanisms that promote self-regulated learning behaviors in online language courses, ultimately leading to better student outcomes. conclusion the results of this study indicate that several factors play a significant role in predicting the final course point in english language learning through moodle lms. the number of completed quizzes, middle course points, engagement with course materials, time spent on tasks, completion score quizzes, access time in total, and pacing are significant predictors of the final course point. these findings are consistent with previous research on the importance of self-regulated learning in online environments. this study’s findings significantly impact english language learning through moodle lms. the results suggest that educators and online course designers should promote self-regulated learning and engagement with course materials to improve student outcomes. one potential strategy is to provide students with frequent opportunities for self-assessment, such as using quizzes, to promote self-regulated learning and better time management skills. additionally, educators may encourage students to spend more time on task and actively engage with course materials, potentially using interactive activities and discussions. one notable finding in this study is that the number of completed quizzes is the strongest predictor of the final course point, followed by time spent on task, access time in total, and middle course point. this finding suggests that completing quizzes is crucial to success in online language learning. students who completed more quizzes may have better understood the course material and demonstrated higher self-regulation. it is essential to note that the study has some limitations. first, the study was conducted in a specific context, and the findings may not generalize to other contexts. additionally, the study relied on self-reported data, which may be subject to social desirability bias. moreover, the study did not examine other factors influencing language learning, such as prior language proficiency or motivation. future research should address these limitations by conducting longitudinal studies, incorporating objective measures of learning, and considering other variables that may influence language learning outcomes. another significant predictor of the final course point is engagement with course materials. this finding supports the notion that students who engage more deeply with course materials are more likely to succeed in online learning environments. similarly, the finding that time spent on tasks predicts the final course point is consistent with previous research on the importance of selfregulation and time management skills in online learning. the findings of this study suggest that selfregulated learning and engagement with course materials are crucial for successful english language learning through moodle lms. educators and online course designers may improve students' learning outcomes by emphasizing the importance of completing quizzes, spending more time on task, and actively engaging with course materials. however, future research is necessary to address the limitations of this study and further examine the role of other factors in online language learning. the study also has some limitations. first, the data were collected from one english language learning course, limiting the findings' generalizability. second, the study did not examine other factors affecting self-regulated learning, such as motivation, prior knowledge, and learning styles. future research should investigate these factors to gain a more comprehensive understanding of selfregulated learning in online language learning. this study provides valuable insights into the factors influencing self-regulated english language learning through moodle lms. the findings highlight the importance of completing quizzes, engaging with course materials, and managing time effectively to succeed in online learning environments. these findings have implications for students and instructors in designing practical online language learning courses that promote self-regulation and success. funding statement this research received no specific funding from any agency. rizky eka prasetya | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 155 references alawawdeh, n., & ma’moun, a. 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(2020b). university students’ online learning attitudes and continuous intention to undertake online courses: a self-regulated learning perspective. educational technology research and development, 68(3), 1485–1519. microsoft word 7. sm-pa-selecting appropriate english textbook.do putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 57 elt forum 10 (1) (2021) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt strategies employed by efl teachers at a vocational high school for selecting appropriate english textbook siti maftukah1, puji astuti2 1,2english department, faculty of language and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 28 may 2020 approved in 8 november 2020 published in 30 march 2020 ________________ keywords: teachers’ strategies; appropriate; english textbook selection ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ textbook is a tool which functions as a manual instruction in any branch of study included in language learning. therefore, teachers should select an appropriate english textbook to support the learning activity because it have a big influence in the learning process. this study is about strategies of efl teachers at a vocational high school in semarang for selecting appropriate english textbook. the main purpose of this study was to investigate teachers’ strategies in selecting appropriate english textbook and dr. this study drew from the teachers regarding their criteria in selecting appropriate english textbook. hence, this is a qualitative study that investigate the efl teachers as the subjects. in collecting the data, we used open ended interview, questionnaire, and document analysis checklist. this study eployed theory of garinger (2002) and bnsp by permendikbud (2013) to analyse the data in order to know the strategies and the criteria used by the teachers in selecting appropriate english textbook. based on the interview and the questionnaire, the finding showed there are some strategies in selecting appropriate textbook: teacher matched the textbook with the 2013 curriculum, read the ki, kd, syllabus and learning objective. the data showed that all teachers select textbook based on their chosen, so that they were free to choose their textbook to support learning activity. however, some teachers select textbook by involving administrator and head school. there are also some textbook criteria there are: considering the goals and curriculum, textbook series, learning objective in the textbook, the age and background of the students, the availability and the effective cost. based on the document analysis checklist, this research showed that the criteria of appropriate textbook in line with the garinger (2002) and 2013 curriculum aspects based on bnsp. next, the teachers also considered about the price of the textbook that must be cost effective and the textbook is easy to obtain. we argue that the identified strategies and criteria can be used as a consideration by english teachers to selectan appropriate english textbook. © 2021 universitas negeri semarang correspondent address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: sitimaftukah1@gmail.com siti maftukah, puji astuti / elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 58 introduction in this modern era, there are many modern media that are used to support teacher and students in teaching learning process, such as video, e-book, power point, lcd projector and etc. however, the most common teaching and learning material which guide teachers and learners in many classrooms are textbooks. textbook is a tool which functions as a manual instruction in any branch of study included in language learning. research by rindawati (2013) showed that english language teaching (elt) textbook plays a very important role in language classrooms. it has been more crucial when english is learnt as foreign language like in indonesia. richards (2001) state that textbook is used in different ways in language programs. for example, a reading textbook might be the basis for a course on reading skills, providing both a set of reading texts and exercises for skills practice. a writing textbook might provide model compositions and list of topics for students to write about. a grammar textbook might serve as a reference book and provide example as well as exercise to develop grammatical knowledge. a speaking text might provide passage for students to read and discuss. a listening text together with audiocassettes or cds might serve as the primary listening input in a listening course. textbooks can provide the materials that help the student to understand about the subject beside given explanation by the teacher. according to richards (2001) teacher need good materials to teach from either in form of commercial textbooks or institutionally prepared materials. nothing is more demotivating to teacher than having to use a textbook that no one likes or materials that are poorly prepared or presented. without a textbook, the material that delivered by the teacher will be forgotten quickly. so by textbook, the student can learn by themselves and try to explore more about the material. the textbook is one of the crucial factors in determining the learners’ success in language courses. teachers or curriculum developers should select this teaching material carefully. selecting a good material to support the teaching and learning process has a great influence on the success of a teacher when implementing the learning process (brown, 1994). textbook can be the model of learning. in the textbook there are a lot of exercise and task that can improve the student ability. considering the importance of the textbook, it is necessary for efl teachers to select appropriate textbook carefully since textbook do not only influence what and how students learn, but also what and how teacher teach. textbook selection is a significant educational and administrative decision in which there is considerable financial, professional and even political investment (sheldon, 1988). teachers have right in selecting textbook as it use for their teaching guide and learning material. in some school the textbook selection process involve not only the teachers but also the school staff. masuhara (1998) in mijayanti (2015) suggests that teachers who conduct the textbooks selection have to consider the students’, teachers’, and administrators’ needs and wants. students’ needs refer to the personal, learning, and future professional needs. meanwhile, teachers’ needs include personal and professional needs, while administrators’ needs cover the socio-political needs, educational policy, and some limitations such as financial problem. selecting the appropriate textbook for use in the english classroom is not an easy way. thus teachers are required to make informed and appropriate choices when selecting textbook (rubdy, 2003). textbook are also under the influence of constraints, such as economics, and precedents set by states (hubisz, 2003). teachers should have the criteria on selecting which book they are going to use. kay (2006) stated that the criteria for selecting textbook different from one person to another based on their context. now days, there are varieties of textbook published in the market to provide student’s requirement in learning process. this is both an advantage and disadvantage. it increases the possibility of selecting most appropriate one between many references of the textbook. on the other hand, it also increase of the selecting process to be more careful because not all textbook are appropriate. for this reason, it is a must to spend a lot of energy and time on the textbook selection process. there is a variety of the approaches for textbook selection. one of the most practical method is considering the general goals and the curriculum of the program at first step and specific details as exercise and actives at later steps (amerian, 2014). garinger (2002) stated that curriculum of the program should be examined closely to see whether the goals are clearly defined. after that, it should be evident whether the objective of the textbook matches the objective of the course or not. siti maftukah, puji astuti / elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 59 richards (2001) identified four types of factors, which are essential for textbook selection and evaluation: a) program factors b) teacher factors c) learner factors d) pedagogical factors. another important criterion is the intended learners. the material should be interesting for them and satisfying their needs. the states above shows that textbook is important role in learning activity in order to guide he students for mastering the material. selecting appropriate textbook is needed for the teacher to get the good reference or guidance in their teaching activity. they need the staregies and criteria in selecting appropriate textbook to get the best textbook. review of previous studies many studies have proved that textbook selection is one of the crucial aspects in learning activity (e.g. lemmer, 2008; mijayanti, 2015; işık & kurum, 2002; sikorova, 2004; watt, 2009; ho and hsu, 2011; yuen and ting, 2012; amerian and khaivar, 2014; marczak, 2013; chang, 2002; huang, 2011; kim, 2002; garinger, 2002; kiai and maroko, 2013; frediksson & olsson, 2006; mahmood, 2011; labelle, 2010; deuri, 2012). for the criteria of appropriate english textbook, researchers have discovers many criteria used by the teacher in selecting their textbook (e.g. rahimpour, & hashemi, 2011; makgato & ramaligela, 2013; rodriguez, 2015; reid, 2017; mukundan, 2011; akbar, 2016; shabani, 2017). most of the previous studies focused on textbook selection evaluation. then, they described what are the evaluation techniques in selecting textbook that used by the teacher. they did not explain what the strategies in selecting appropriate textbook are. it was very important to give detailed description about how the teachers’ strategies in selecting appropriate textbook. therefore, in this study focused on the description of what and how strategies of the teachers’ in selecting appropriate textbook for their learning tools. from the gaps found that the study has different field of subjects. most of the previous studies conducted their study without focusing on certain school. this was important to to conduct the study focusing on the certain school to give limitation of the study. based on these gaps, the study focused on how efl teachers’ strategies in selecting appropriate textbook. the strategies here is included the procedure and the criteria of an appropriate textbook. one of main reason for conducting this study because there were just few studies discuss in detile how the strategies and criteria were used by theacher since selecting appropriate textbook was important to support teaching and learning process. method this study was qualitative research, creswell (2013) stated that like other forms of qualitative research, the researcher would seek to explore, and understand and present the participants’ perspectives and get close to them in their natural setting. this study employed qualitative case study method to answer the research questions. it focused on teacher’s strategies in selecting appropriate textbook. the area of the investigation was about the teacher’s process and criteria in selecting appropriate textbook. qualitative case study was chosen in this research because it was the most suitable method to conduct an in-depth analysis of an issue since this research investigated the teacher’s strategy through questionnaire, interview and document analysis. research participants the research was conducted at a vocational high school in semarang. in this study, we positioned teachers as the subjects; they were our research participants. the school was selected based on some consideration. the first one was because the first author did her teaching practice praktik pengalaman lapangan/ppl there for 45 days so she knewthe school. the second was the teacher used varied textbooks to support their teaching activity. this was supportive of the present study. third, the teachers at the school had a good experience and background in teaching english, hence, they could provide the needed data. data collection methods this study used questionnaire, interviews and document analysis. the questionnaire was to find out teachers’ criteria of appropriate textbook they choose. the interview was to display how does the teachers’ strategies in selecting appropriate textbook, and how the process of textbook selection. in the document analysis, the textbook was analyzed based on the data result after conducted the siti maftukah, puji astuti / elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 60 questionnaire and interview. this aims to find out whether the textbook used by the teacher was accordance with the teachers’ criteria or not. data collection procedures the data collection procedures in this study was questionnaire, interview, and document analysis. the first step to do was distribute the questionnaire to the teacher participants. specifically, in the questionnaire, we used checklist as an instrument for textbook selection. the checklist instrument was a combination of garinger (2002) and the standards for the 2013 curriculum. checklist by garinger (2002) covers the questions related to teachers’ strategy and criteria in selecting appropriate textbook, then the 2013 curriculum provided textbook standard that should suit with students’ learning needs. interview was also the next procedure of collecting the data. in the interview section, the teacher was interviewed with several questions to see how the process of textbook selection and what the criteria of appropriate textbook. while doing an interview, we recorded the conversation and take notes. lastly, to gain the trustworthiness, we did document analysis by taking the sample of textbook used by the teachers. the textbook used by the teachers was analyzed based on the identified criteria of good textbook. by doing the document analysis, we examined whether or not the textbook was relevant with the teachers’ criteria. data analysis this study employed a qualitative technique in analyzing the data. this research used technique of data analysis based on miles and huberman (1994) as stated in sugiyono (2014). the data analysis involved three steps: data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing/verification. however, in conducting qualitative research method, the data bias might occur and the findings were often doubtful for several reasons such as the subjectivity of the researcher, the instruments used is considered have many weaknesses, and the data sources less trustworthy that affect the results (bungin, 2014). to avoid that assumption, this study used triangulation. triangulation is defined as the mixing of data or methods so that diverse viewpoints or stand points cast light upon a topic (oslen, 2004). the data sources triangulation carried out by comparing the all data already collected: questionnaire, interview, and document analysis. findings and discussion based on the questionnaire, interview, and document analysis that have been concucted, the data showed the efl teachers’ the strategies and criteria for selecting appropriate english textbook. findings teachers’ strategies in selecting appropriate english textbook this finding answered the research question based on the questionnaire and teacher interview. by doing questionnaire, it found how the textbook are selected. the teachers filled out the questionnaire sheet based on their own experience. afterwards, the teacher gave explanation about their strategies in selecting appropriate textbook through interview. how textbook are selected in the questionnaire sheet, we gave six items of questionnaire about how textbook are selected. those items are: administration select the textbook, department head select textbook, teachers all together select textbook, teacher select textbook, learners get involved in selecting textbook, and there is a textbook criteria. here is what we found in the teachers’ answers. the results showed that administration and department head chose the english textbook used at the school. their contribution was approximately 50%. teachers all together as a teamand individual teachers selected the textbook; they did it regularly. it indicates that all the efl teachers at the school selected english textbook based on his or her criteria and a team of teacher was involved in the process of selecting english textbooks. in addition, the result showed that learners were not involved in the selection process . while selecting appropriate textbook, teachers have criteria. these criteria will be explained in the next discussion. siti maftukah, puji astuti / elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 61 teachers’ strategies in selecting appropriate english textbook at the time of this study, four teachers were interviewed several questions to find out what the strategies do they employ in selecting a textbook. in this investigation, we found the teachers’ steps of selecting appropriate english textbooks. the firs teacher is mrs. lusi. in selecting an appropriate english textbook, mrs. lusi did a meeting with mgmp team in the school. the teachers compared the book with another publisher. the price of the textbook was also one of the considerations. the teacher made use of exiting textbooks instead of buying a new one. to complete material that does not exist, the teacher completed it by making a handout. based on the interview, mrs. lusi involved another participant in selecting a textbook that is the mgmp team. the selection process was by comparing the textbook with another publisher by considering the price and exiting textbooks. the second teacher is mrs. lala. in selecting appropriate english textbook, mrs. lala adjusted with the industrial needs and the curriculum. the best textbooks were those that fit the curriculum. that was one of the consideration of mrs. lala in selecting appropriate textbook. based on the interview, the step of selecting textbook were matching the textbook with the curriculum and industrial need with considering the price. then mrs. lala involved the coordination of the school about the price. the process of textbook selection was without involving another participant, but if the students must purchase the textbook, it involved the school cooperation because teacher cannot sell the textbook. the tird teacher is mr. koko. mr. koko selected the textbook by see the syllabus, ki, kd, and the learning objective. after known what the syllabus, ki, kd and the learning objective, he matched it with the textbook candidate. he used the e-book from the government but that was not the main book. in his opinion, the textbook by government did not present listening skill so he use another textbook from another publisher to cover it. according to the result of the interview, there was no interference from other parties in selecting textbook. mr. koko selected the textbook by himself with considering the criteria that is suitable with the syllabus, curriculum, ki, kd, and learning goals. the fourth teacher is mr. sapto. mr. sapto used textbook from the government, which has been provided by school, but if he wanted to use another textbook for the initiative textbook, he discussed it to head school. the meeting was not a formal meeting, just the informal meeting where the teacher asked about the approval. the head school involved in approving the textbook selection because it considering the price of the textbook. according to the interview, mr. sapto selected the textbook by himself and if there was additional textbook as an initiative, he needs the consideration from the head school. after the textbook were approved by the head school, mr. sapto coordinated with the school library. then the textbook would be distributed to the student trough the school library administrator. according to the data from teacher interviews, teachers used the textbook from the government, but the teachers still use the textbook from another publisher to support the materials. in selecting the appropriate english textbook, the teachers have some steps. in accordance with the interview, teachers selected the textbook by matching the textbook with the ki, kd, current curriculum and industrial needs. after that, the teacher did an informal meeting with another teacher to make coordination about the textbook. even there was a meeting with another english teacher in the school; still the teacher itself has his or her own choice. then teachers did a comparison with other english textbooks to see which one is the appropriate accordance with their criteria of textbook. one of the considerations was about the price of the textbook. most of the textbooks were free for students; the students could borrow the textbook in the library. teachers’ criteria of appropriate textbook based on the data found after conducting the questionnaire and interview, all teachers used the criteria of appropriate textbook. the teachers’ criteria are: textbook must support the goals and curriculum program, it is better that the textbook is part of the series, the textbook must address the learning objective, and then the textbook must base on the learner’s age and backround. the teacher also see the content criteria that was created by the bnsp such as: the suitability with the core competent (ki) and basic competent (kd), the material accuracy and the material supplementary. for the practical concern criteria was also be consicedered by the teacher such as: the availability of the textbook, the textbook can be obtained in timely manner, and cost-effective. siti maftukah, puji astuti / elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 62 discussion this present study answered the research question. it was to find out the efl teachers’ strategies in selecting an appropriate english textbook at the vocational high school. moreover, this study drew the criteria of efl teachers in selecting an appropriate english textbook. this section discusses the study’s findings resulted from our analysis of questionnaire, interview, and document analysis data. we discuss the findings withwith our theoretical framework in mind and in connection with the findings of the existing studies. textboojk was one of the most important tools to support learning activities. according to the questionnaire and interview, teachers have the steps and criteria in selecting an appropriate english textbook. ensuring the criteria of appropriate textbook helps teachers deciding which textbook that they will use. in accordance with the questionnaire and interview, mrs. lusi selected textbook by involving consideration of administration school, department head, all teachers, and the teacher itself. she did not involve the students in selecting process. this result finding was in line with isik and kurum (2002) that the teacher did not select the textbook by themselves. mrs. lusi also had criteria in selecting an english textbook. in the questionnaire checklist about the criteria of appropriate textbook was in line with the criteria of appropriate textbooks by garinger (2002) that she selected textbook by considering the goals and curriculum, textbook series, course objective in the textbook, the age and background of the students, the availability and the effective cost. it was also in line with the 2013 curriculum aspects that the textbook must be suitable with ki and kd, the material should be accurate provided social function, linguistic features, and the generic structure. mrs. lusi also considered the supplementary material that the material and the exercise in the textbook should be up to date, developed the life skill, and wawasan kebhinekaan. next teacher was mrs. lala. based on the interview with mrs. lala, she selected appropriate textbook by involving many participants, those were administration, department head all efl teachers and learners. there were also criteria of appropriate textbook. this result finding also strengthens the research by isik and kurum (2002). in selecting appropriate textbooks, mrs. lala adjusted to the industrial needs and the curriculum. then there was an offering from the publisher so that mrs. lala will choose the textbook that she were going to use. in this result finding were accordance with research by kiai and maroko (2013) that the procedure of selecting a textbook based on the marketing by the publisher. in the criteria of appropriate textbook, mrs. lala’s criteria were accordance with garinger (2002) that she selected textbook by considering the goals and curriculum, textbook series, course objective in the textbook, the age and background of the students, the availability and the effective cost. it was also in line with the 2013 curriculum aspects based on bnsp that the textbook must be suitable with ki and kd; the material should be accurate provided social function, linguistic features, and the generic structure. mrs. lala also considered the supplementary material that the material and the exercise in the textbook should be up to date, develop the life skill, and wawasan kebhinekaan. mr. koko selected english textbook see the syllabus, ki, kd, and the learning objective. after known what the syllabus, ki, kd and the learning objective, he matched it with the textbook candidate. based on the questionnaire, he selected textbook without involving the school administration, department head school, and the learners. he selected textbook by himself and other english teachers. this result finding does not in line with isik and kurum (2002). based on the interview and the questionnaire was line with garinger (2002) that he selected textbook by considering the goals and curriculum, textbook series, learning objective in the textbook, the age and background of the students, the availability and the effective cost. he also in line with the 2013 curriculum aspects based on bnsp that the textbook must be suitable with ki and kd; the material should be accuracy provided social function, linguistic features, and the generic structure. he also considered about the supplementary material that the material and the exercise in the textbook should be up to date, develop the life skill, and wawasan kebhinekaan. according to data interview from mr. sapto, it relevant with the research finding by isik and kurum (2002) that was for the initiative textbook, if it required students to buy, the selection involved the head department. the involvement of the head school here means he just conducted the informal meeting consulting about the textbook that he would going to use. however, for the main textbook mr. sapto used the book by the government. based on the questionnaire and interview, mr. sapto selected textbook by considering the goals and curriculum, textbook series, course objective in the textbook, the age and background of the siti maftukah, puji astuti / elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 63 students, the availability and the effective cost. this result was in line with textbook criteria by garinger (2002). it was also in line with the 2013 curriculum aspects based on bnsp that the textbook must be suitable with ki and kd; the material should be accuracy provided social function, linguistic features, and the generic structure. mr. sapto also considered about the supplementary material that the material and the exercise in the textbook should be up to date, develop the life skill, and wawasan kebhinekaan. next, we compared the result of this study with the previous studies. the result of this study was almost the same with the result of some previous studies. the different was most of the previous studies are focused on the criteria of the appropriate textbook. they did not explaining how teacher select their textbook. whereas this study focused on the strategies including how textbook are selected, how the step of selecting appropriate english textbook and the criteria of appropriate textbook. in this study, we aimed to give the readers detail information about the teachers’ step and their criteria for selecting appropriate textbook for their english instruction. conclusion based on the study that has been done, we drew the following conclusions. there are some strategies in selecting appropriate textbook. first, teacher matched the textbook with the recent curriculum, which is 2013. then the teacher read the ki, kd, syllabus and learning objective. based on the questionnaire, all teacher select textbook based on their chosen, so that they were free to choose their textbook to support learning activity. beside the teacher select textbook based on their chosen, there is still the teachers who select textbook by involving administrator and head school. the textbook criteria are important to get an appropriate textbook. after conducting the research, there are some criteria of appropriate textbook that the teacher use. the criteria is in line with garinger (2002) and bnsp 2013 curriculum. the criteria that the teacher use in selecting appropriate textbook are by considering the goals and curriculum, textbook series, learning objective in the textbook, the age and background of the students, the availability and the effective cost. this research showed that the criteria of appropriate textbook in line with the 2013 curriculum aspects based on bnsp that the textbook must be suitable with ki and kd, the material should be accuracy provided social function, linguistic features, and the generic structure. next, the teachers also considered about the supplementary material that the material and the exercise in the textbook should be up to date, develop the life skill, and wawasan kebhinekaan. the three teachers at the school used a textbook provided by the government as the main textbook. the other one used a textbook from a local publisher after taking into consideration some aspects. in this case, we conducted the analysis on the textbook mostly used by the teachers. the document analysis showed that the book used by the teachers is accordance with the criteria of appropriate english textbook. for future studies, we suggest reserachers to investigate the role of the textbook in the classroom activities. by conducting this line of inquiry, we will know whether or not teachers use the selected book appropriately. a good textbook will not be beneficial for learners if it is not used properly. references akbar, rizky. 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(2012). textbook selection using fuzzy promethee ii method. international journal of future computer and communication, 1(1). 23-25. retrieved from http://www.ijfcc.org/papers/20-e10008.pdf siti maftukah, puji astuti / elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 66 appendices appendix 1. result about how the textbook are selected how are textbook selected? mrs. lusi mrs. lala mr. koko mr. sapto result administration select textbook   50% department head select textbook   50% teachers all together select textbook     100% teacher select the textbook     100% learners get involved in selecting textbook  25% there is a textbook criteria     100% appendix 2. result of teacher’s criteria in selecting appropriate textbook number criteria of an appropriate textbook selected by the teacher teacher result 1 2 3 4 a. program and course 1. does the textbook support the goals and curriculum of the program?     4 2. is the textbook part of a series, and if so, would using the entire series be appropriate?     4 3. are a sufficient number of the course objectives addressed by the textbook?     4 4. was this textbook written for learners of this age group and background?     4 b. curriculum 2013 aspect based on content suitability of bnsp criteria 1. the suitability of material with core competence (ki) and basic competence (kd) a. does the textbook expose the students to understand and produce both interpersonal and transactional conversation?     4 b. does textbook expose the student with many kind of text that relevant with student daily life?     4 siti maftukah, puji astuti / elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 67 c. does the textbook guide the student in understanding the social function, structure text, and linguistic features?     4 2. the accuracy of the materials a. does the textbook provide social linguistic?     4 b. does the textbook provide generic structure?     4 c. does the textbook provide linguistic feature?     4 3. supplementary materials a. does the textbook material and exercise up to date?    4 b. can the textbook develop the life skill?     4 c. can the textbook develop wawasan kebhinekaan?    4 c. practical concern 1. is the textbook available?     4 2. can the textbook be obtained in a timely manner?     4 3. is the textbook cost-effective?     4 appendix 3. the teachers’ interview guide about their criteria and steps in selecting appropriate english textbook. 1. what do you think about textbooks selection? 2. how important textbook selection in getting an appropriateness? 3. why should you as a teacher select textbook? 4. what criteria should a good textbook have? tell me what they are? 5. how should textbooks suit to teachers, students, and administrators? 6. what steps do you employ in selecting textbook? tell me the process of selecting textbook? siti maftukah, puji astuti / elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 68 appendix 4. document analysis checklist number criteria an appropriate textbook selected by the teacher scale note yes no a. program and course 4 does the textbook support the goals and curriculum of the program?  5 is the textbook part of a series, and if so, would using the entire series be appropriate?  6 are a sufficient number of the course objectives addressed by the textbook?  7 was this textbook written for learners of this age group and background?  b. curriculum 2013 aspect based on content suitability of bnsp criteria 1. the suitability of material with core competence (ki) and basic competence (kd) a. does the textbook expose the students to understand and produce both interpersonal and transactional conversation?  b. does textbook expose the student with many kind of text that relevant with student daily life?  c. does the textbook guide student in understanding the social fuction, structure text, and linguistic features?  2. the accuracy of the material a. does the textbook provided social linguistic?  b. does the textbook provided generic structure?  c. does the textbook provided linguistic feature?  3. supplementary material a. does the textbook material and exercise up to date?  b. can the textbook develop the life skill?  c. can the textbook develop wawasan kebhinikaan?  c. practical concern 1. is the textbook available?  2. can the textbook be obtained in a timely manner?  siti maftukah, puji astuti / elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 69 3. is the textbook cost-effective?  putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 198 elt forum 10 (3) (2021) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt exploring the oral communication strategies used in online classroom discussion richard e. parcon1, zenaida q. reyes2 1tañong high school, deped marikina philippines 2philippine normal university, manila philippines article info ________________ article history: received on 6 june 2021 approved on 9 september 2021 published on 24 november 2021 ________________ keywords: oral communication strategies; classroom discussion; communication problems; english language ____________________ abstract ____________________________________________________________________ this study explored the oral communication strategies used by grade 12 students in online classroom discussion. in specific, it dealt with the following research objectives: identifying the types of oral communication strategies used by the students during online classroom discussion and determining the factors that influenced the grade 12 students in using specific types of oral communication strategies. using content analysis, the recorded discussion in an online classroom, particularly the responses of the students, were transcribed, analyzed, and interpreted. a semi-structured interview was conducted to determine the factors that influenced the students in using the specific type of oral communication strategies. thus, the triangulation method was used. the findings of this study revealed that 18 out 34 oral communication strategies in dornyei and scott (1997)’s taxonomy of oral communication strategies was evidently implemented during online classroom discussion. the lack of linguistic knowledge (vocabulary and structure of english language), and the lack of confidence in using english language during online classroom discussion, combined with the inability to grasp ideas, experiencing speaking anxiety, and other external factors such as having a poor internet connection and the choice of language used by the teacher during online classroom discussion, were the factors that influenced the students in using oral communication strategies during online classroom discussion. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 tañong high school, deped marikina ncr, philippines, 1802 e-mail: richardparcon04@gmail.com http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& richard e. parcon, zenaida q. reyes | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 199 introduction learning the target or second language consists of using it in written and in spoken forms. students who learn english are sometimes put in a particular situation or context in which they are required to speak the target the language. but, nowadays, focusing on using english in spoken form has become more in demand because of globalization (hardianati, 2016). mirazaei and heidari (2012) stated that speaking english language is considered as one of the main goals of most l2 learners. however, communicating orally using english language is considered as one of the crucial skills that students need to learn to use it naturally (crystal, 2003). rabahbah (2015) stated some of the problems mentioned in learning spoken english, one of them is schools are not taking into consideration the level of language proficiency of the students, and they fail to construct enough opportunities for language used and interaction inside the classroom. khadidja (2010) also added that learner’s lack of grammar and vocabulary resulted in difficulties in expressing what they want to say. moreover, the problem in oral english proficiency can also be associated with learner’s restricted opportunities to use the language they are learning. it is mainly due to the glitch of school’s curriculum program (ella & dapudong, 2014). zhang (2007) cited in the paper of gan (2017), discussed that oral communication skills such as speaking and listening are always regarded as difficult and frustrating for most of the students to practice in their classroom, and even in some places that require oral communication skills. it could be concluded that the main reason is that learners face communication anxiety and lexical insufficiency. in order to overcome those aforementioned problems, learners require not only the linguistic competence and other type of skills in the target language but also communication strategies to produce a smooth flow of conversation. strategic competence in the paper of widiarini (2019), is a verbal and nonverbal strategies which may considered as an alternative or action for failure in communication because of insufficient knowledge in some competencies (p.68). moreover, abdelati (2019) stated that communication strategies may provide assistance to the students to proceed in their discourse and give them an opportunity to construct new attention. in addition, faerch and kasper (1983) stated that communication strategies could possibly be utilized to resolve some difficulties encountered by the students in using english language in the classroom. faucette (2001) defined communication strategies in her article as the ways where learners or speakers control to improve a gap (specifically, struggle to use proper expression or grammatical construction when attempting to speak english) between a person’s attempt to communicate and his/her direct access to the linguistic resources. moreover, nakatani and goh (2011) in the paper of gan (2017) defined communication strategies as student’s pursuit to overcome difficulties in order to attain communicative goals. therefore, communication strategy performs a vital role to assist the learners in enhancing their language to achieve their communicative goals. several studies conducted regarding the use of oral communication strategies in classroom interaction such as dideriksen et al. (2019) studied the contextualization of conversational strategies with the used of mixed-method approach, they focused on two contrasting contexts: the spontaneously occurring conversation (soc) and tasked-oriented conversation. in the end, they found out that a spontaneous conversation indicated an increase in the number of backchannels, a reduced and more generic repair format as well as the higher rates of lexical and syntactic alignment. while toc described as higher number of specific repair but lower rate in terms of lexical and syntactic alignment. these findings indicate that conversational strategies suit to contextual demands. using the quantitative dominant mix-method triangulation design in their study regarding oral communication strategies used by turkish efl learners, demir et al. (2018) revealed that participants anticipated to utilize oral communication strategies to some duration with bargaining for meaning as the first priority. moreover, participants stated that they utilized communication strategies primarily for communication-bound reasons. rastegar and gohari (2016) investigated the communication strategies, attitude, and oral output of efl learners and its relation, indicated that there was a significant relationship between the subscales of communication strategies utilized and the attitude of the students. in the end, the essence of speaking strategy enhancement program in student’s education regarding to the learner’s attitude towards language learning and their spoken language should not be neglected. in addition, hardianti (2016) found out in her research regarding oral communication strategies in discussion, learners keep on using achievement strategies more often than avoidance strategies. also, among the twelve communication strategies utilized by the learners, the most frequently used during the discussion is the filler strategy in making reasons. moreover, according to the result of interview, students are using filler strategy because they do not have sufficient vocabulary and content knowledge of topics being discussed. lastly, learners experience communication difficulties as the result of the linguistic insufficiency. meanwhile, the study about knowledge of grammar and communication strategies of iranian learners found out that both implicit and explicit knowledge of grammar had a greater impact on the use of oral communication strategies (heidari & alavi, 2015). richard e. parcon, zenaida q. reyes | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 200 hua et al. (2012), studied how and when oral communication strategies are utilized in a classroom discussion of interaction students in public university in malaysia. the most often communication strategy employed is the code-switching as interlingual strategy and the least communication strategy used is word coinage as interlingual strategy. it also implies that learners should be aware in utilizing communication strategies based on their level of proficiency that will ease their communication. inkaew and thumawongsa (2018) found in their study that the result corresponded to the study conducted by chuanchasit and prappah (2009) that stated the advanced level of students tended to use risk taking strategies such ascircumlocution and clarification request and the beginning level students utilized topic avoidance and body language strategies. in terms of implementing communication strategy instruction in the classroom, lam (2010) revealed that communication strategy instruction might influence low-proficiency students than highproficiency students in both communication strategy use and performance task implemented in the classroom. linbland (2011) also found out in the study communication strategies in speaking english as a foreign language that the frequently used oral communication strategies were pauses, filled, and unfilled. she also noted that group activity played a vital role when conducting the assessment. maldonado (2015) also showed the relationship between students’ proficiency level and the communication strategies used by the different level of english language learners in oral interaction, in the end, students’ linguistic competence is not only connected to the frequency of communication strategies but most likely to the type of communication strategies. in the study conducted by manzano (2018) regarding the examination of oral communication strategies used by the adult learners in efl context, revealed four findings. first, the participants’ experienced ample amount of communication difficulties as reflected in several gap-makers. second, linguistic errors were flourished in their narrations but were neglected because of their communication goals. third, most of the oral communication strategies were avoidance strategies but, in terms of non-verbal communication strategies, achievement strategies were used. the last finding revealed that through examining the communication strategies by the participants became a way to new strategies that were utilized during story telling. manzano (2018) also stated that these findings gave new inputs to the existing communication strategies utilized by english language learners. meigouni and shirkani (2020) implied that oral communication strategies were very important in developing student’s self-efficacy beliefs and lower their anxiety level. isa (2017) noted that negotiation meaning and non-verbal strategies were the most frequently used communication strategies. in addition, the study of isa (2017) showed that the most frequently showed challenge and solution to the learners had a relationship with lack of vocabulary and how to improve it. meanwhile, the study about communication strategies used in efl classrooms in iran reflected that the frequency of communication strategies is approximately low compared to other researches on students in other contexts. thus, it can be gleaned that a minimal number of learners could utilized conversational strategies for conversation tasks (nakatani et al., 2012). furthermore, pallawa (2013) stated in her study that communication strategies could assist the learners to receive appropriate feedback from each other during their performance as well as to overcome the problems in linguistic knowledge of the target language. the current situation that most countries are facing right now, which is the global pandemic, according to tria (2020), should not hinder the teaching and learning process. in the philippine settings, specifically in basic education, the department of education through its learning continuity plan suggested various learning modalities to cope with this learning challenges in time of pandemic. one of the strategies mentioned is synchronous learning. berry (2017) stated that synchronous learning gave an online learning environment which could be a collaborative process between the teacher and the students. it would also allow simultaneous discussion and conversation incorporated with online activities. according to meigouni and shirkhani (2020), just like in classroom conversation or discussion, communication strategies were also implemented in synchronous class, particularly in the conversation between the teacher and the students. this situation can also be subjected for a study in order to determine the communication strategies used in the online class. based on this empirical observation, the research prompted to conduct the study entitled “exploring oral communication strategies used in online classroom”to investigate the following subproblems: 1. what type of oral communication strategies do students employ in online classroom discussion? 2. what are the factors that influence the students in using a particular type of oral communication strategies during online classroom discussion? this study utilized the communication strategies framework by dornyei and scott (1997). in the context of english as a second language and as a foreign language, the learners usually experience some difficulties in various forms of communication either face to face or virtual means of communication. dornyei and scott (1997) also pointed out that the discrepancy between l2 speakers’ linguistic resources richard e. parcon, zenaida q. reyes | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 201 and communication intention led to numerous systematic language phenomena whose main function was to control difficulties or communication breakdown. therefore, communicative strategies perform vital role to assist the learners in employing or changing their language to achieve their communicative goals. the taxonomy of communication strategy by dornyei and scott (1997) was derived from the conversation, how to maintain a conversation going, how to end the conversation, and how to patch up communication problems as well as comprehension problems (widiarini, 2019). in addition, this taxonomy of communication strategy is based on communication problems, and how the second language learners manage those problems identified by dornyei and scott (1997). first, the resource deficitproblems in which the first or second language-based gaps knowledge inhibiting them from uttering the messages (khan, 2017). second, the own-performance problems where the speaker has come to realization that verbalized message is something incorrectly or partly correct. third, other-performance problems in which something is anticipated as ambiguous in the interlocutor’s speech because it is considered to be incorrect or a result of not being able to totally comprehend something. lastly, the processing time-pressure related problems where the second language learners need to take more time to process and plan the second language utterances (widiarini, 2019). moreover, in order to manage these communication problems, dornyei and scott (1997) classified the taxonomy of communication strategies into three categories: direct strategies, indirect strategies, and interactional strategies. dornyei and scott’s taxonomy (1997) can be considered as a compilation of most previous works related to problem solving features. there are other additional strategies that are paramount to this issue, those are “utilization of similar sounding words” and “mumbling”. in conclusion, their taxonomy is considered as a milestone in the far-reaching history of communication strategies research. therefore, this study is anchored with the taxonomy of communication strategies of dornyei and scott (1997) because the researcher believes that the classification or taxonomy is the compilation of the notable framework in the field of communication strategies. the three categories in dornyei and scott (1997)’s taxonomy of communication strategies, such as direct, indirect, and interactional strategies were utilized to identify and classify the types of communication strategies and to determine and analyze the communication strategies that works in an online interview task. this study would serve as an additional baseline in the voluminous literature regarding communication strategies. in addition, it would give an information regarding the type of communication strategies that could be used in an online interview task. methods research design this study utilized qualitative research design. qualitative research was chosen in order to explore and understand the social phenomenon (creswell, 2009). specifically content analysis was utilized to categorize the verbal data for the purpose of classification, summarization and tabulation. respondents the respondents were the grade 12 students from 2 sections from accountancy business and management class and 1 class from technical vocational track-food and beverages services of tañong high school in marikina city. during the observation, students attended their media and information literacy class. the table below presented the distribution of respondents according to their track and strand. table 1. the distribution of respondents grade and section track and strand number of respondents percentage 12honest academic track/accountancy business and management strand 10 27.8 12trustworthy academic track/ accountancy, business, and management strand 15 41.7 12disciplined technical vocational track/food and beverages strand 11 30.6 total 36 100 source of data the data utilized in this study was the verbal transcription of the recorded response of the students in the interview task recorded via google meet application. data collection procedure in gathering the data, the researcher sought first, the permission from the office of schools division superintendent of division of marikina to conduct the study. then, the researcher utilized three (3) days richard e. parcon, zenaida q. reyes | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 202 recorded online discussion of media and information literacy class. each day, they discussed one (1) news article regarding legal, ethical, and societal issues in media and information, and only the responses of the students during the discussion were taken into account. then, semi-structured interview was conducted to obtain the response from the students to determine the factors in using specific oral communication strategies during online classroom discussion. the responses of the students were transcribed, analyzed, and interpreted. thus, triangulation method was utilized. findings and discussion types of oral communication strategies used in online classroom according to widiarini (2019), language learners commonly experience some problems in various form of oral communication either face to face or in virtual communication while using english language. thus, communication strategies play a vital role to facilitate learning. the following tables showed the types of oral communication strategies used by the students in online discussion when they encountered communication problems such as the lack of resources-related problems, own-performance problems, other performance-related problems, and processing time pressure. direct strategies table 2. sub-categories of oral communication strategies under direct strategy direct strategies frequency percentage rank resource deficit-related strategies 1. message abandonment 31 31.0 2 2. message reduction 0 0 3. message replacement 5 5.0 3 4. circumlocution 4 4.0 4 5. approximation 3 3.0 5 6. use of all-purpose words 0 0 7. word-coinage 0 0 8. restructuring 2 2.0 6 9. literal translation 5 5.0 4 10. foreign zing 0 0 11. code-switching 46 46.0 1 12. use of similar sounding words 0 0 13. mumbling 0 0 14. omission 0 0 15. retrieval 0 0 16. mime 0 0 own-performance problem related strategies 1. self-rephrasing 2 2.0 7 2. self-repair 2 2.0 7 other-performance problem related strategies 1. other-repair 0 0 total 100 100.0 as reflected in the table, there were 9 sub-categories of oral communication strategies under direct strategy used by the students during the online classroom discussion when they encountered resource deficit problems. jidong (2011) stated that direct strategies produced an opportunity, convenient, and self-contained strategy of obtaining meaning across circumlocution in atoning lack of word specifically in expressing their thoughts orally. code switching which was used (46) times, followed by message abandonment which was used (31) times, and message replacement was used (5) times. other strategies used by the learners were circumlocution, approximation, and literal translation, restructuring, self-rephrasing, and self-repair. richard e. parcon, zenaida q. reyes | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 203 code switching it could be gleaned that the most frequently used oral communication strategy was the code-switching. as defined code-switching in the paper of zhou and wei (2007) as the alternative means of bilinguals in using two or more languages. (r1): “mark joseph manage a football program para sa mga batang lansangan” (r2): “based on my understanding, yung football club ay may players na may edad eight to twelve years old” (r3): “yung goal ng football program is to enhance the character of batang lansangan in terms of sports” based on these transcribed responses of the students, it was evident they used code-switching specifically the “taglish” variation (combination of english and filipino, but the statement dominated by filipino language) in order to answer the questions in their activity orally and express themselves easily. this claim was supported by simon (2001) in which code-switching could be a means of establishing a good rapport between the teacher and students since it provided them an opportunity to express themselves. code-switching can be helpful to prevent the risk of misunderstanding among the learners because of l2 deficiency. message abandonment message abandonment which was used (31) times by the respondents during the discussion was defined as incomplete sentence (nakatani et al., 2017). while khan (2017) stated that message abandonment was used when learners wanted to talk but unable to express the meaning of statement because the lack of vocabulary and grammar knowledge. the following excerpt showed how the learners used message abandonment during online classroom discussion. (r4): “mark joseph solis manage a football mm…” (r5): “the program was created because they were inspired by the uhh...mm..players of south america” (r6): “ also, as stated in the article, more than the skills, their project aim to give these children with opportunities for p…….development: as reflected in their responses, (r4) left his response or message by using fillers, then he went silent for almost 5 seconds and responded to the teacher that he would give his answer later. in the case (r5), the sentence was uttered almost complete but in the middle of response, a specific descriptive word was left unfinished because she did not know the specific term that could possibly best describe the football players. the same case occurred to (r6), the student abandoned the words before “development”. in the study of hardianti (2016), these types of responses utilized message abandonment because their vocabulary and linguistic knowledge did not help students to respond effectively in the question given by the teacher. however, lin (2011) proved in her study that abandonment strategy was very helpful for learners or even speakers who are experiencing communication difficulties. abandoning words or phrases makes the learners or speakers easier to continue talking. message replacement this sub-category of oral communication strategy under direct strategies described as the process of substituting the original message through avoiding specific language structure or topic which is considered as problematic. for some cases, it would leave out some predetermined elements because of linguistic resources deficiency (khan, 2017). “there will always a chance to…………….. a moment to improve lives” “the darkest moment in our life reveals the..the..ther…shows our good character” based on these excerpts, it could be concluded that responses of the students experienced substitution process. in (r7), the students wanted to convey that there would always a chance our lives, but because there was a lack of linguistic resources, and the student restated it to “a moment to improve lives”. the same as (r8), the student was about to day “the darkest moment in our life reveals the positive traits of individuals”, but it was replaced by “show our good character. circumlocution richard e. parcon, zenaida q. reyes | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 204 tonyo and sylvia (2004) mentioned in their article that this strategy was being utilized by the students where they described or paraphrased the target object or action. khan (2007) defined it as the process of exemplification, illustration, or description of the target object or action. (r9): “the survey found that girls spent more time chatting with their friends using their “account” in cellphone in sending messages” (r10): “teenagers are displaying sign of addiction in using their gadgets to the point that they are like holding or it’s like touching their gadgets in bed” (r11): “it is advice to add the stopping or should i say not letting the children to take their gadget in bed” as reflected in these responses, circumlocution happened when the students were not able to express exactly what they wanted to say by describing it using other terms. in (r9), the students used “account in cellphone” instead of using “social media account”. while in (r10), instead of using “taking their gadgets in bed”, the student described the action by using words such as “like holding or touching gadgets”. approximation the term approximation is best described as a strategy in which speaker utilized different lexical item or related term to convey the meaning of the target single lexical item or a specific word (widiarini, 2019). the following responses showed approximation strategy: (r12): “the minors are already addicted in using internet” (r13): “it is to believed their device should be strictly monitored” (r14): “because of internet addiction, it affects the style of the youngster” based on these responses, it could be gleaned that there was a single-item lexical substitution. (r12) used the lexical item “minor” instead of using “youngster” or “teenager”, while in (r13) the word “device” was used instead of “gadget” and (r14) used the word style which referred to the behavior of the youngster. restructuring restructuring refers to the abandonment of execution of a verbal plan because of language difficulties, by dropping the utterance unfinished, and talking to the intended message based on alternative plan (khan, 2017). (r15): “carbuena was caught in the camera sla…..; carbuena was caught in the camera hurting mmda traffic aide because of traffic violation.” (r16): “the mmda decided to file a direct ass….case to court; the mmda traffic aide went to court to file a direct assault case to carbuena” in these two responses, it could be seen that restructuring process was done when they gave their response to the question given by the teacher. in (r14), the first line uttered by the students was dropped because of language difficulty (lack of vocabulary) was experienced by the students. instead of finishing it, the students restructured it to a new sentence “carbuena was caught in the camera hurting the mmda traffic aide because traffic violation”. the same happened to (r15), the statement was also restructured. in short, the own-performance problem encountered by the students during online classroom discussion. the following sub-classification of direct strategies were used self-rephrasing khan (2017) described self-rephrasing as a “repeating term” but not quite as it is by adding something or using paraphrasing. (r17): “robert carbuena was labeled in some social media pages as “patayin si robert blair carbuena”; or in general, robert carbuena was bullied in social media because of what he did.” based on this response, it can be gleaned that the student rephrased the statement using a simple term. self-repair widiarini (2019) described self-repair as an act of doing a self-initiated correction in one’s own dialogue or response. richard e. parcon, zenaida q. reyes | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 205 (r18): “after seeing the reports and posts in social media, carbuena felt discomfort and was rushes, i mean was rushed to the hospital” (r19): “some people said that carbuena who was a bully, now being cyberbullies or cyberbullied as reflected in these responses, it could be said that students changed a specific word which they felt wrong or inappropriate in the sentence, for instance the word “rushes” in (r17) was changed to “rushed” because the sentence was in past tense. while in (r18) the word “cyberbullies” was changed to “cyberbullied” since the response described the current situation of carbuena. thus, self-repair was being implemented in this response. interactional strategies the next category of oral communication strategy (ocs) in the framework of dornyei and scott (1997) is interactional strategy. as cited by khan (2017) in the work of dornyei and scott (1997) regarding interactional strategy, it enables participants to repair the exchange accordingly. this, mutual understanding is the purpose of the successful execution of both pair parts of the exchange. the table below which shows the sub-categories of ocs under interactional strategy used by learners when they encounter three problems during online discussion, namely: resource deficit-related problems, own-performance problem, and otherperformance problem-related strategies. table 3 sub-categories of ocs under interactional strategies interactional strategies frequency percentage rank resource deficit-related strategies 1. appeal for help 10 38.5 1 own-performance problem 1. comprehension check 0 0 0 2. own-accuracy check 0 0 0 other-performance problem-related strategies 1. asking for repetition 2 7.7 4 2. asking for clarification 5 19.2 3 3. asking for confirmation 0 0 4. guessing 1 3.8 5 5. expressing non-understanding 8 30.8 2 6. interpretative summary 0 0 0 7. responses 0 0 0 total 26 100 based on this table, there were five sub-categories of ocs utilized by the students. appeal for help under resource deficit-related strategy was used (10) times, while ocs under other-performance related problem strategies, expressing non-understanding was used (8) times, and asking clarification was used (5) times. other ocs used were asking repetition and guessing. appeal for help nakatani et al. (2012) mentioned that this strategy was demonstrated either in rising intonation or directly or indirectly asking for repetition or help directly or indirectly asking for repetition or help. (r20): “mark joseph is managing a football program for…; sir, what’s the english of batang palaboy?” (r21): “the goal of this program is to enhance children’s, i’m not sure if that is the character of the children?” (r22): sir, i think the football program was created after plagiarism issue? (rising intonation) based on these responses, it could be reflected that the students used appeal for help strategy. in (r20),the form of appealing help made by the students was in a form of asking the english version of the filipino term “batang palaboy” which meant “street children”. while in (r21), the students appealed for through asking the appropriate word to use in the statement. lastly, (r22) utilized the confirmation manner through raising the intonation when mentioning plagiarism. thus, it was evident that student asked the richard e. parcon, zenaida q. reyes | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 206 assistance of their teacher because they do not really know the exact word or structure to be used in their responses. expressing non-understanding this strategy is used by the speaker if one cannot understand something properly either verbally or nonverbally (nakatani et al., 2012). (r23): “sorry sir, i did not understand the question” (r24): “pardon sir, i did not get the point of my classmates” (r25): “to be honest po there are terms na hindi ko po talaga naintindihan” based on these responses, it could be observed that the students explicitly did not understand the question of the teacher, response of their classmates, and the terms in the text used during the discussion. asking for repetition khan (2017) cited the description of scott and dornyei (1997) about asking repetition in which, this strategy is being done when not hearing or understanding something properly. (r25): “sir, can you repeat the question?” (r26): “i was not able to fully hear the name of the case, is that direct assault?” (r27): “sir, can you speak louder. we did not hear the last part of the question. as reflected in these responses, it could be gleaned that the student asked to repeat the questions. asking for clarification it is requesting repetition when not hearing or understanding something properly (widiarini, 2019). (r28): “sir what’s the meaning of redeem? (r29): “sir, may i clarify po; is it okay to use the word gadget” it can be seen that the responses of the students were asking clarification on a certain point. in (28), the student clarified a specific word in the question which was the definition or meaning of “redeem”. while in (r29), the student clarified or sought an approval if she could use the word gadget as her response. indirect strategies indirect strategies under the ocs framework of dornyei and scott (1997) are not strictly problem-solving device. they do not actually provide an alternative meaning structure, but rather act as carrier of meaning by creating the conditions in attaining the consensus ideas in the conversation. the table below shows the sub-categories of ocs under indirect strategies when the students encountered the following problems such as resource-deficit related problems, own-performance problem, and other performance-related problem. table 4. sub-categories of ocs under indirect strategy indirect strategies frequency percentage rank processing time pressure-related strategies 1. use of fillers 11 91.7 1 2. repetitions 0 0 own-performance problem related strategies 1. verbal strategy markers 1 8 2 other-performance problem-related strategies 1. feigning understanding 0 0.0 0 total 12 100.0 table 4 shows the sub-category of ocs under indirect strategies used by the students during online discussion. the most frequently used ocs was the utilization of fillers which was used (8) times which comprised of 91.7% and verbal strategy markers which was used (3) times, comprised of 8%. richard e. parcon, zenaida q. reyes | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 207 use of fillers a speaker may use filler words to fill pause and to take some time to think (tonio & sylvia, 2004). in addition, dornyei and scott (1997) described the use fillers as a mean to fill pauses, to stall, and to increase time in order to keep communication channel open and preserve discourse at times of difficulty. (r30): “carabuena was uhmm being bashed in social media” (r31): “yeah, actually, he was also ahh ahh being cursed in social media” (r32): “well, i think carabuena apologize on what happened” in those responses, it can said that the students utilized filler in a form of vocal disinfluence such as “uhm” which is evident in (r30) in order to continue what the speaker wants to say. the use of “yeah” and “actually” in (r31); and “well” in (r32) at the beginning of the statement to introduce the idea or the proper response from the students. verbal strategy markers these are the verbal markers phrases before or after a strategy to signify that the word or structure does not carry the intended meaning perfectly in the second language (khan, 2017). (r33): “i forgot the right term, but using gadgets more than a habit is bad” based on this response, it could be seen that the students utilized a verbal marking phrase “i forgot the right term” before the intended response. in accordance to the literature on oral communication strategies that is previously presented, the taxonomy of dornyei and scott (1997) contains the largest number of communication strategies and it is considered as one of the recent taxonomies in the field of oral communication strategies. based on the responses that were explained before, those reflected the three basic categories of ocs of dornyei and scott (1997)’s taxonomy. it actually helped the students to manage their responses in the conversation and to answer the lack of linguistic resources they encountered during the conversation. this idea is supported by the claim of lin (2011), which stated in his study that the direct strategy, indirect strategy, and interactional strategy were considered as method of problem-management strategy in communicating to others using l2. in addition, it provided an assistance to the non-native speakers in arranging and learning difficult terms in l2. furthermore, phuong thao (2018) mentioned that with the understanding of discrepancy between l2 speakers’ linguistic resources and communicative target, direct strategies, indirect strategies, and interactional strategies had become the dominant phenomena of research among other field of linguistics. factors that influence the students in using a particular type of oral communication strategies during online classroom discussion. this portion presents the responses of the students in order to obtain and analyze the reasons or the factors considered by the students in using specific type of oral communication strategies. lack of linguistic knowledge (vocabulary and structure) (r1): i used taglish because there are words which i do not really know the english term so that i can completely say my response. (r2): i wasn’t able to finish the whole sentence in my answer a while ago, because it don’t know the appropriate word to be used (r3): i’m quite confused on what to use in the sentence either have been or has been not confident in using english language (r2): i decided to stop the first message that i uttered because i felt that it has no sense at all. (r3): there are words or statement that i uttered which i do not know how use that is why i changed it a statement which i was comfortable to use (r4): i just described the word i that i was about to use a while ago because i felt pressured, probably because all my classmates were listening attentively a while ago. richard e. parcon, zenaida q. reyes | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 208 based on these responses, it could be gleaned that each student had his/her own reason in using certain type of oral communication strategy. in (r1), it was clearly stated by the student that she used “taglish” because of lack of vocabulary in l2, then she continued answering the given questions. this response is parallel to the description of code-switching by zion & wei (2017) as the alternative means of bilinguals in using two or more languages to bridge the linguistic gap between l1 and l2. based on the observation made in (r2), it was known that the reason of the student was quite similar to the process of using message abandonment strategy. khan (2017), emphasized that speakers who were using message abandonment when they were unable to express the meaning of their own statement because the of lack vocabulary and grammar knowledge. in the case of (r3), it could be gleaned that the student’s response was the same as what dornyei and scott (1997) described regarding message replacement, which was to substitute the original message by avoiding specific term/structure or topic which is that was quite problematic. non-understanding of ideas (r5): “honestly, i really don’t know the english term for “batang palaboy” that’s why i asked you sir its english term” (r6): “i decided not to answer the question and directly told you, that i do not know the answer” external factors (r7): “i was not able to hear the question probably because of poor internet connection, so i asked you (sir) to repeat the question” (r8): “headset is not working properly that is why i was not able to hear the question properly” (r8): “there are words you used (sir) in your question which i did not understand that’s why i wasn’t able to fully uttered my response in your question” in this set of responses, (r5) expressed that he really did not know the english term for “batang palaboy”, that was why he demonstrated the gesture of asking for assistance to the teacher, which was also emphasized by nakatani et al. (2012) regarding the appeal for help strategy. in regard to (r6), it was evident that he did not understand the question of the teacher. regarding the (r7), the student stated that poor internet connection was the main reason in using “asking clarification strategy” in online classroom discussion. thus, not understanding ideas and other external factors such as teacher’s choice of words in asking question and internet connection were considered as their reasons in using oral communication strategies. speaking anxiety (r18): “i was not able to control myself in using “uhm” and “yeah in my answer a while ago because i’m not confident with what i’m saying specially in expressing english statements.” (r19): “i was still thinking the next word to be used because i’m not use to speak in english and i’m afraid i would commit mistake in front of many people” from all the responses made by the students in providing their reasons or factors in using specific type of oral communication strategies, it indicated that their reasons varied by the appropriate meaning of the responses were the same on the description of sub-categories of ocs in the taxonomy of dornyei and scott (1997). felt pressured, not sure of words to be used, non-understanding of ideas and external factors such as teacher’s choice of language, and poor internet connection were the recurring reasons made by the students in using specific type of ocs. according to spromberg (2011), dornyei and scott (1997) argued that communication strategies should “include every potentially intentional attempt to cope with any languagerelated problem of which the speaker is aware during the course of communication” (p. 179). hardianati (2016) emphasized that students encountered communication problems as the results of target linguistic inadequacy. in order to overcome these problems, the students resort to several types of communication strategies. thus, oral communication strategy used by the students is not indicating a sign of communication failure. conversely, communication strategies surface as the students realize that they have problems of expressing their intended meaning and they need to solve the problems. richard e. parcon, zenaida q. reyes | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 209 conclusion based on the findings of the study, the following conclusions were drawn. there were eighteen (18) out of thirty four (34) oral communication strategies implemented or applied during online classroom discussion. in direct strategies, nine (9) ocs were utilized by the students, those are code-switching, message abandonment, message replacement, circumlocution, approximation, restructuring, literal translation, selfrephrasing, and self-repair. while, in interactional strategy, five (5) ocs were utilized: appeal for help, expressing of non-understanding, asking for clarification, asking for repetition, and guessing. lastly, in indirect strategy, two (2) ocs were used by the students: which were using filters and verbal strategy markers. on the other hand, the lack of linguistic knowledge (vocabulary and structure), not confident in using english language during the discussion, not understanding ideas, speaking anxiety, and external factors such as poor internet connection and the choice language used by the teacher during online classroom discussion were the factors that influence the students in using oral communication strategies during online classroom discussion. the result of this study provided an information on how the senior high school students demonstrate their communication problems. the thirty-four (34) oral communication strategies may serve as a marker or signal for the teacher in helping the students to express themselves in language classroom discussion or in doing communicative tasks. in addition, the findings should be helpful in determining the field in which students are experiencing communication problems. thus, applicable teaching strategies or interventions could be provided specially in teaching oral communication strategies. as stated by manzano (2018), teaching oral communication strategies is very important to develop the strategic competence of the students. manzano (2018) also asserted that english teachers may also examine or analyze if the oral communication strategies used by the students are really intended to overcome their communication problems. therefore, english teachers should closely monitor the linguistic background of their students. further studies should be conducted related to oral communication strategies, mainly the subject on the effectiveness of oral communication strategies used by the students in performing oral task. all in all, the findings of this study supported the existing literature in oral communication strategies regarding its strong function in expressing oneself using english. acknowledgement the researchers would like to express their grateful appreciation to the deped marikina specifically ms. 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(2007). code-switching as a result of language acquisition: a case study of generation child from china1. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ed564116.pdf. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 201 elt forum 11 (3) (2022) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt gender representation in the textbook for vocational school students in the indonesian efl settings mona safrida yanti1, yanty wirza2 ˡuniversitas pendidikan indonesia, bandung, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received on july 25, 2022 approved on november 28, 2022 published on november 30, 2022 ________________ keywords: critical discourse analysis; gender representation; textbook evaluation ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ a textbook is expected to cover all of the teaching necessities as well as educational values contained in the curriculum. conversely, many scholars or researchers in the study of gender representation portrayed english language textbooks tend to have gender-biased in terms of gender representation in which males are represented more than females in many aspects. hence, investigating how males and females are represented in indonesian efl textbooks is highly beneficial to be explored to clarify and update the finding based on the previous studies. the concern of this current study is to investigate gender representation in the indonesian efl textbook for vocational school students by using the framework proposed by (amerian & esmaili, 2014). the analysis of the data is based on critical discourse analysis and content analysis. surprisingly, congruent with most previous studies, the finding reflects that there is inequality in terms of gender representation in which females are underrepresented in the textbook. the finding of this recent study pinpoints the depiction of how males and females are represented and depicted in the indonesian efl textbook, as a result, it is expected to convey the awareness of scholars, educators, textbook writers or designers, and policymakers as well related to this issue. then, it is still highly suggested for scholars or researchers in future studies exploring gender representation in indonesian efl textbooks by using other books or other levels of education to evaluate the development of this issue. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 universitas pendidikan indonesia isola, sukasari, bandung, west java 40154 e-mail: monasafridayanti@upi.edu http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& mona safrida yanti, yanty wirza | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 202 introduction textbooks are a primary tool in educational practice. nowadays, the role of textbooks in this modern era is still irreplaceable and still the primary media to transfer knowledge and values in the teaching and learning process. as a source of learning practice, textbooks have a beneficial role in achieving the objectives and aims of learners’ needs (cunningsworth, 1995). in indonesian educational practice, textbooks should fulfill indonesian standard values/norms and should be free from negative content, e.g. radicalism, pornography, violence, racism, and gender stereotypes; it should be noted that textbooks are required to encourage values or norms contained within the five pillars on indonesian ideology, i.e. religiosity, humanism, pluralism, democracy, and social justice as well (setyono & widodo, 2019). reflecting on the previous points, a textbook should fulfill the value of the curriculum, e.g. to deliver social justice by representing the role of females and males fairly. the united nations educational, scientific, and cultural organization (unesco) emphasize the importance of gender equality in education by promoting education for all (efa) (as one of the proposals in the dakar convention held by unesco) in which some of the goals to voice that everyone (whether boys or girls) deserves to get education as well as learning sources equivalently; then, as stated before, gender equality has also become its concern (unesco, 2015). some scholars also promote the significance of gender equality, mägi et al. (2016) argue that gender equality is the key factor in a democratic society, societal well-being, and economic growth. ullah and skeleton (2013) convey that gender discrimination is necessary to be resolved in school as it may influence some crucial aspects of children, such as children’s life choices, motivation, selfesteem, and children’s role in society since they will see how their roles as boys and girls depicted toward the textbook. the study of gender representation has been conducted massively by scholars or researchers to seek how english language textbooks portray the figure of males and females. in uganda, barton and sakwa (2012) examined the representation of males and females in the textbook for secondary school by using both quantitative and qualitative analysis (using critical discourse analysis). the finding indicated that the roles of females are under-represented. ullah and skelton (2013) also did an investigation concerning gender equality in 24 school textbooks in pakistan by using qualitative content analysis. this investigation pointed out that the textbooks are embedded gender-biased in favor of males. males’ pronouns, pictures, and characters are found significant than females. then, in terms of gender roles, the textbooks still depicted traditional gender roles in which females are mostly described in the domestic domain, e.g. as mothers, and housewives; nevertheless, males occupy roles in the public domain, e.g. working in the office. moreover, in the indonesian context, tyarakanita et al. (2021) scrutinized the representation of gender stereotypes in two junior secondary school english textbooks by using visual narrative representation and language sexism theory and pinpointed that both textbooks reveal gender stereotypes in which the social role of males is presented more frequently compared to females in both written texts and visualizations. this study also notes that critical awareness of gender stereotyping is important to be considered for language textbook writers when designing language textbooks. correspondingly, fatmawati et al. (2022) interrogated gender representation in two english language textbooks for junior high school students and vocational school students by using mix method research approach. this study discovered that the chosen textbooks demonstrate the imbalance of gender representation in which males dominate all the criteria, e.g. characters, occupations, and activities. this study recommends efl teachers promote gender equality in education by examining and evaluating textbooks. in connection with the findings of the previous studies regarding gender representation in english language textbooks, it can be concluded that all the findings indicate the unequal representation between males and females in the textbooks. males are depicted as more visible compared to females for gender roles. for this reason, further investigation concerning the representation of males and females in the textbooks is still significant to be conducted to verify the results from the previous studies. in addition, exploring gender representation by using critical discourse analysis is still rare to be used based on the previous findings. to fill these gaps, this present study designs to discover the representation of males and females in the textbook for vocational school students by using critical discourse analysis as a research approach. moreover, the investigation of gender representation is conducted by applying the framework or category proposed by amerian and esmaili (2014), i.e. the intensity of males and females involved in the textbook, the mona safrida yanti, yanty wirza | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 203 societal role of males and females, the semantic role of males and females, the title of males and females, order of appearance, activities of males and females, masculine generic construction, as well as the pictorial representation of males and females in the textbook. methods this study employs critical discourse analysis (cda). the main purpose of cda is ‘’to describe and explain how power abuse is enacted, reproduced or legitimized by the text and talk of dominant groups or institutions’’(van dijk, 1996, p. 84). cda is constantly utilized by scholars in the study of gender to unveil the relationship between text and society. cda not only focuses on the linguistic aspect of the discourse but also focuses on the hidden agenda that may shape the discourse. for this reason, cda is worthwhile to be conducted to uncover how the chosen textbook (i.e. forward an english course for vocational school students grade xi) displays females and males. the textbook is chosen for some substantial reasons: the former since it is used as the learning materials in english language teaching for vocational school students in indonesian efl settings; then, the investigation concerning gender representation in the textbook for vocational school students is infrequently to be explored in the previous studies, hence, investigating gender representation in this textbook is beneficial to be conducted for determining how males and females are demonstrated. further, for getting the unequivocal finding related to how males and females are portrayed in a textbook, the data derives from one textbook only. furthermore, this study also embeds content analysis perspectives. content analysis is a research technique in the social sciences that assumes that the data (e.g. texts, images, and expressions) require to be seen, read, and interpreted (krippendorff, 2004). it is done to reveal the meaning of the data. many scholars have utilized content analysis in the study of gender representation in the textbook. the data of this present study derives from the content (i.e. consisting of ten chapters) of the textbook published by erlangga company since it contains gender representation issues. it is written based on elements of the 2013 curriculum and scientific approach. it should be noted that the textbook is still employed nowadays as the resource or teaching material for english language teaching for vocational school students in the indonesian educational system. the data analysis relies on fairclough (2015) which consists of three stages, i.e. description, interpretation, and explanation. in the description stage, the analysis is based on linguistic aspects of the discourse and from the perspectives of content analysis. it is done by using the framework proposed by amerian and esmaili (2014), i.e. the intensity of both genders involved in the discourse, male and female societal roles, male and female semantic roles, male and female titles, order of appearance, activities both genders involved in, masculine generic construction, and pictorial representation of both sexes. then, each category of the framework is calculated to unfold the results of the framework. then, based on the result of the previous stage, in the second stage, the analysis goes to the interpretation related to the result of the previous stage. lastly, in the third stage, the analysis goes to uncover socio-cultural or ideology that may contain in the chosen textbooks and shape the authors’ perspectives in determining the roles or representation of males and females in the chosen textbook. findings and discussion discrimination toward the intensity of both genders involved in the discourse the intensity of the gender involved in the discourse can be one of the parameters to uncover whether the textbook is gender-biased or not. in this study, the number of males involved in the discourse is 46 times. whereas, the number of females involved in the discourse is 55 times. it indicates that males are underrepresented in the textbook in terms of their occurrence. then, in the textbook, they are labeled with nouns as well as their title or titular representation. the following table is the representation of males and females in terms of the intensity involved in the textbook. table 1. the intensity of males and females in the textbook males females dodi, roni, riko, deni, teddy, angga, mario, tito, denis, mr. made wijaya, mr. j. sitanggang, lukas, john robert, mr. wibowo, sir, sean alexander, mr. adam, akbar, john, ron, tim patrick filler, mr., lia, diana, sarah, ellen, gita, maya, chika, chika sarah, lia, tania, tiara ayu, mrs. diah sumitro, santi, patricia pepper, anna yapri, claire turner, lady white, ann brookers, mrs. william, halley, mona safrida yanti, yanty wirza | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 204 tom, ronny simanjuntak, bambang, mr. rusdi handoyo, mr., tri handoyo, mr. bobby febrianto, mr., lukas sinatraya, doni, oka, noorhadi hermansyah m.a, prof. gordon marshall, rian pratama, bimo satrio, doddy, rudy, ketut yudistira, john, doni, thomas, sir, jim stuart, bagus sally, diana hill, melati tobing, farah, tiara, frida aryani, mrs. ramadhan, nadya citra rahmani, tiara shandy, mrs. lande, sheila lande, anis, wulan, nurhayati, widyawati, lia, nina, ms. ernani, ms. marita rawung, lala, nia, andrea,rosana, rita, amy, elsa, hamidah, andhita, vita, marita, sophie, mom, ashley, christine margaret total: 46 total: 55 figure 1. the example of the intensity female and male occurs in the textbook discrimination toward stereotypical representation in this present study, in terms of male and female societal roles, both males and females are represented equally. the male is shown as a parent, office worker, marketing, director, president of chambers of commerce, music conductor, bank director, school principal, chief scientist, professor, deputy manager, chief manager, photographer, and principal of the college. in the same way, female also plays a key role in societal role. they are presented as a radio announcer, parent, marketing, office worker, vice-principal, and office or school secretary as well figure 2. the example of societal role mona safrida yanti, yanty wirza | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 205 discrimination toward semantic roles in terms of semantic roles, males might play a dominant role or inferior positions; whereas, females are presented to be dependent on males (ahmad & shah, 2019). correspondingly, in this textbook, males play the dominant role or inferior positions. they are shown as a leader of a particular position, such as office director, bank director, school principal, chief scientist, deputy manager, chief manager, and the principal of a college. on the other hand, females are shown dependently to males, e.g. as vice-principal, school principal, and office secretary. figure 3. the example of semantic role discrimination toward titular representation a different title for both genders is used in the english language. males are usually labeled with mr or sir. whereas, females are labeled with the title ms., miss, and mrs. in this textbook, males are labeled frequently with their titles, e.g. mr. and sir. in addition, mr. is used as long as nine times, then sir is used 3 times. so, the number of male titles used in this textbook is twelve. they are represented as mr. made wijaya, mr. j. sitanggang, mr. wibowo, mr. adam, mr., mr. rusdi handoyo, mr., mr. bobby febrianto, mr, sir, sir, sir john beddington. later, females are labeled as mrs. & miss. the title mrs. used in this textbook is four times. then, the title of ms. used in this textbook is two times. hence, the number of female titles used in the said textbook is six. they are represented as mrs. diah sumitro, mrs. william, mrs. ramadhan, mrs. lande, ms. ernani, and ms. marita rawung. figure 4. the example of titular representation mona safrida yanti, yanty wirza | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 206 discrimination toward order of appearance order of appearance refers to the emergence of gender (i.e. male or female) to be first mentioned in the discourse. in this present study, the number of males to be first mentioned in the discourse is twelve. while the frequency of females to be first mentioned within the discourse are eleven. for this reason, it can be inferred that the inequality of gender representation in terms of order of appearance in the discourse is not extremely biased although the number of males to be first mentioned in the discourse is more than females. figure 5. the order of appearance example discrimination toward representation in activities in this study, the number of males involved in the various activities is fourteen, as follows: throwing garbage, playing football, doing homework, as president of the chambers of commerce, as a music conductor, celebrating of director bank, as a principal, as a chief scientist, as a professor, as a deputy manager, as a chief manager, as a photographer, as a principal of a college, and as a job seeker. conversely, the number of females involved in activities is only seven, such as a radio announcer, engaging in bridal shower, birthday party, as a vice principal, dinner, secretary of high school, and secretary of a company. then, it is essential to affirm here that there is also an unfair representation of females in the activities in which females are portrayed in doing insignificant activities, e.g. birthday party and bridal shower. thus, there is inequality in terms of gender representation in activities in the textbook since the social and outside activities are dominated and powered by males. figure 6. the example of activity figure 7. the example of activity discrimination toward male generic construction male generic construction is also mentioned with ‘androcentrism’. in this study, males are mentioned with titles, proper nouns, or names, such as noorhadi hermansyah, bimo satrio, doddy, mr. made wijaya, mr. j. sitanggang. then, females are also labeled with titles, proper mona safrida yanti, yanty wirza | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 207 nouns, or even names. yet, it is surprising to figure out here that they are also mentioned by using common nouns, such as mom. the use of the common noun (e.g. mom) in the textbook for representing females indicates that there is unequal representation in terms of building their generic construction. figure 8. the example of generic construction discrimination toward pictorial representation pictorial representation in the textbook is investigated by observing the intensity of males and females involved in pictures for each chapter of the said textbook. the pictures of each chapter will be displayed below: figure 9. pictorial representation of males and females in the textbook based on the pictures, males are involved in terms of pictorial representation in chapters 1, 3,7, and 10. while females are involved in chapters 1,2,3,9 and 10. whereas, there is no representation of both genders to be involved in chapters 4, 5, 6, and 8. further, males and females are represented equally in terms of pictorial representation on the cover of the textbook in which the cover displays the pictures of four students that are comprised of two males and two females. interestingly, females also play a dominant role in terms of the quantity to be involved in all chapters. the number of females to be involved in all chapters are ten. on the contrary, the number of males to be involved is six times. by referring to the previous points, it can be affirmed that the said textbook tends to explore females to be represented in the book chapters more than males. so, it can be inferred that there is inequality in terms of pictorial representation in the said textbook in which females have the dominance to be involved in the book chapters. moreover, it is significant to note here, that females also lead the criteria in terms of the intensity to be involved in the discourse. this pinpoints that among eight criteria used in this study, females just dominate the criteria in terms of ‘quantity’ (i.e. the quantity of visibility and pictorial representation as well). meanwhile, the mona safrida yanti, yanty wirza | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 208 representation of both genders in terms of semantic roles, titular representation, order of appearance, representation in activities, and generic construction is as if legitimized for males. this shows the stereotype in which females are depicted as an insignificant or passive group in the textbook. the result of this present study unveils if males play a dominant role in terms of gender representation. from the framework used, it can be implied that males dominate the representation in the categories, i.e. discrimination toward semantic roles, discrimination toward titular representation, discrimination toward an order of appearance, discrimination toward representation in activities, and discrimination toward male generic construction. whereas, females just dominate two among eight categories, i.e. discrimination toward the intensity of both genders involved in the discourse and discrimination toward pictorial representation. furthermore, in terms of discrimination toward stereotypical presentation, both of them are presented equally. here are some reflections and notes derive from the finding: first, in terms of the intensity of both genders involved in the discourse, the result reveals that the intensity of the females to be involved in the discourse is not too different compared to males but the facts reveal if females’ intensity to be involved in the discourse is more than males. the intensity of the representation between males and females obviously will bring an impact through their participation in the english language subject, since one gender gets more exposure compared to another gender. yet in this case, the intensity of females and males is not too significant. as a result, it will not cause a gigantic impact on the participation of both genders in the classroom since the number of males and females in the visibility is not too significant. however, this may create a hidden curriculum that justifies and transfers values to students (i.e. males and females) regarding the insignificant roles of females in society (since in this present study females are displayed as the passive or insignificant social group, i.e. they just ascribed in terms of the quantity in the visibility and pictorial representation); in addition, a hidden curriculum can promote privileges in favor of certain social groups (ahmad & shah, 2019); in this case, males are favored as the social group. second, this study indicates that there is no unsymmetrical representation of males and females in stereotypical representation. stereotypical representation has something to do with the societal roles of both genders (i.e. males and females) in society. the finding pinpoints that there is no gender-biased in the textbook in terms of societal roles since females also play a position in social life, such as: working in the office, as a school secretary, and as a vice-principal. this finding is congruent with the societal roles in the real life in which females also participate in the various kind of roles in indonesia. for this reason, it may affect the textbook authors’ perspective direct or indirectly related to the representation of males and females in terms of societal roles in this textbook. third, in terms of semantic role, it indicates that this textbook is gender-biased in which males are shown in inferior positions. however, females are presented to be dependent on males or in inferior positions. meanwhile, in the twenty-first century, the campaign for gender equality in indonesia has attained full support from the government and women could also have the same chance the same as men for working in various kinds of jobs and important positions (setyono, 2018). referring to the previous point, it can be inferred that the campaign for equal representation between males and females in terms of the opportunity for having a symmetrical position in occupation, is still not depicted in the chosen textbook and this kind of finding implicitly or explicitly may shape students’ minds and perspectives related to what kind of jobs that they may or will gain in the future. fourth, in terms of titular representation, it sheds light that there is an unequal or biased representation in terms of male and female titles in which males play a dominant role in the use of titles in the textbook. the emergence of using males’ titles frequently can give the portrayal implicitly or explicitly that males or men get more recognition compared to females or women by using their titles many times in the textbook. fifth, in terms of order of appearance, this study discovers although the frequency of males being mentioned first than females is not too different, it does not mean that the chosen textbook is free from gender-biased in terms of this category. further, in the reality of social life and indonesian culture, it could not be neglected that the fact that commonly males are still perceived as a leader, superior, and dominant in the various aspects of social life. therefore, the biased representation in this category can be the reflection of textbook authors’ beliefs that they discover in real society. later, in the perspectives of gender unsymmetrical, the first mentioned in the discourse is more mona safrida yanti, yanty wirza | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 209 worthwhile than the second since it reflects the beliefs that the one who mentioned first is superior. conversely, the one mentioned in the second defines that they are dependent and inferior. sixth, this study points out that males and females are depicted unequally in terms of the activities of both genders involved in the textbook. the imbalance of representation of men and women in terms of activities will bring the message to students related to the what is the common things in society regarding their roles. hence, the students will internalize and absorb the message as natural and true (asriyama & sari, 2022). seventh, the portrayal of male generic construction in this study figures out that the depiction of both genders in terms of male generic construction is precisely not free from androcentrism. ‘androcentrism’ is a term used for the evaluation of individuals and cultures based on the standards, values, and perspectives of males; it does not explicitly present negative descriptions of girls and women, yet the concept of androcentrism is openly a favor to boys or men (hibbs, 2014). the use of common nouns (e.g. mother) in depicted women in the textbooks, shows if the textbook contains androcentrism and it directly or indirectly can be perceived by the students (especially girls or women) concerning the common roles of women in social life. last, in terms of pictorial representation of males and females, the finding is an imbalance in favor of females. it is also surprising to affirm here that women also lead the intensity in terms of inclusion to occur in textbooks as already stated before. to emphasize, if we see the phenomena of education regarding the number of males and females in the schools for any education level (e.g. elementary school, junior secondary school, and senior secondary school), female students constantly lead the quantity. for this reason, it might indirectly influence textbook authors in including the representation of both genders in this category. additionally, the issue of gender representation in the english textbook has also become a notable concern in other efl countries. in the saudi arabia context, aljuaythin (2018) investigated a study concerning gender representation within two efl textbooks and pinpointed that there is a gender imbalance in favor of males. thus, this imbalance has led to the representation of women as stereotypical figures and marginalized. additionally, this study argues that the underrepresentation of women as stated before could establish a false reality surrounding perceptions toward women and could hinder the process of ensuring equality for all humans. equally, sulaimani (2017) also explored gender representation in saudi arabia and revealed that the textbook is gender-biased due to the underrepresentation of women in the textbook. then, it should be noted that the previous studies regarding gender representation issues in efl textbooks are in line with this present study in which females are represented less than males. further, in the pakistan context, ahmad and shah (2019) conducted the same study in public and private schools in punjab and unveiled the textbook is highly gender-biased in which represented males more than females. similarly, norova (2020) also investigated the representation of males and females in efl textbooks for an elementary school in uzbekistan and found that there is an imbalance in gender representation within efl textbooks in which men are depicted considerably more than women. then, she also notes that the underrepresentation of females in the textbooks displays those english efl textbooks contain a stereotypical agenda and sexist ideology. hence, the previous studies from (ahmad & shah, 2019; norova, 2020) as already discussed also match compared to this present study. as stated before, the result of this study also illustrates that males and females are represented unequally. moreover, the same result concerning gender representation in efl textbooks is also revealed in other studies in the indonesian context. nashriyah et al. (2020) explored gender representation in efl textbooks for elementary school and pointed out every single textbook is gender-biased. males dominated three categories, namely: priority, activity, and occupation. whereas, females dominated in one category only. in the same way, agni et al. (2020) also did research related to the same issue and pointed out that female is hidden, underrepresented, and framed in traditional gender stereotyping. further, emilia et al. (2017) also explored gender representation in an indonesian efl textbook and revealed males were presented as adventurous, active, risk-takers, and independent. specifically, the previous finding is also in line with this present study in terms of male & female representation in activities and male & female representation in the semantic roles. according to those points, this present study notes that social roles and outside activities are dominated by males. males are shown in superior positions as well as independent people. then, the other investigation of gender representation conducted by nunun et al. (2020) also proves the same thing. mona safrida yanti, yanty wirza | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 210 considering the above-mentioned findings, in indonesia, the importance of gender equality has been promoted by the government and authorities in social life and education practices as well. in the context of indonesia, gender equality means a social movement to raise and voice that women can also occupy the roles of men in social roles, e.g. having the symmetrical opportunity the same as men in terms of occupation (lestariyana et al., 2020). furthermore, in the context of indonesian efl textbooks, the equality of the representation between men and women should also be implemented in the indonesian textbooks since as already affirmed by setyono and widodo (2019) that one of the pillars of indonesian ideology is the social justice for society (i.e. women and men). on the contrary, the reality of the movement and implementation of gender equality in indonesia is otherwise. the result of this present study and the previous findings from (agni et al., 2020; emilia et al., 2017; nashriyah et al., 2020; nunun et al., 2020) indicate that the disparity between men and women still exists in social life in which women are still considered to be dependent to men and still unsymmetrical compared to men in indonesian efl textbooks. all in all, it is very substantial to discuss here that ‘’every human being is born with a sex and into a gender, which is a formation of roles molded by society and culture” (söylemez, 2010, p. 751); and historically, obtaining the equal rights for indonesian women is not the facile thing since they had to struggle to gain it long before this country achieved its independence from dutch colonialism (setyono, 2018); moreover, widodo (2018, p. 133) argues that as one of the curriculum materials, ‘’textbooks are not neutral but value-laden and socio-historically constructed’’. accordingly, in connection with the previous points it can be inferred that gender-biased is frequently contained in this current study as well as the previous findings (as already stated and discussed before), may be affected by the indonesian culture and history in which the patriarchy culture which considered the image of a man as a superior and dominant person still exists and legitimized by the society; then, this kind of phenomena is implicitly or explicitly absorbed by the textbook designers and writers in representing men and women in indonesian efl textbooks conclusion this study is conducted to figure out how females and males are described in the english language textbook for vocational students. based on the framework proposed by amerian and esmaili (2014), it can be inferred that this present study portrays that males dominate the categories more than females. the result of this study pinpoints if males have dominated five among eight categories, i.e. representation toward semantic roles, representation toward the title, representation toward the order of appearance, representation toward activities, and the representation of males toward generic construction. while, females only dominate two of the eight aspects, i.e. representation of the intensity of both genders involved in the discourse and representation of pictures in the textbook. for this reason, there is inequality in terms of gender representation in the chosen english textbook for vocational school students in which females are underrepresented in the said textbook. then, to add a positive note, here are some recommendations based on this present study. the former, teachers’ commitment or teaching philosophy is needed to face this problem since the issue of gender representation in the indonesian efl textbook is tend to be neglected. later, by referring to the previous note, all of the stakeholders in the indonesian educational system, for example, government, policymakers, textbook authors, school stakeholders, and teachers should be aware of gender representation issues in the indonesian efl textbooks since it can also impose the value in character education which becomes the major concern in indonesian national curriculum. lastly, as affirmed by aljuaythin (2018) that the investigation of gender misrepresentation in efl textbooks is a never-ending process. for this reason, it is highly suggested for future studies for exploring the study of gender representation by using other books or other levels of education to observe and verify whether most indonesian efl textbooks tend to contain gender-biased or not. funding statement this research received no specific grant from any funding agency. references agni, z. a., setyaningsih, e., & sarosa, t. 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(2018). a critical micro-semiotic analysis of values depicted in the indonesian ministry of national education-endorsed secondary school english textbook. 131–152. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63677-1_8 microsoft word 4. a semantic feature analysis (sfa).docx putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 110 elt forum 12(2) (2023) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt sfa-based learning material design to improve english medical terminology acquisition among south east asian nursing students diannike putri1, barlian kristanto1, tri sumarni1, thanee glomjai2, gary garay3, dung le hoang4 1universitas harapan bangsa, purwokerto, indonesia 2boromarajonani college of nursing, phayao, thailand 3arellano university, manila, the phillipines 4vietnam national university, ho chi minh city, vietnam article info ________________ article history: received on 30 april 2022 approved on 29 july 2023 published on 31 july 2023 ________________ keywords: semantic feature analysis; learning material design; english medical terminology; nursing students ____________________ abstract the study explicates the utility of semantic feature analysis (sfa) in developing educational resources with the intent to facilitate the acquisition of english medical terminology among nursing students. this study employs a research and development (r&d) methodology to devise and evaluate the efficacy of pedagogical resources centered on the systematic functional approach (sfa). the purpose of the present study is to conduct a comprehensive literature review to examine the importance of english medical terminology for nursing students, as well as the role of speech familiarity aid (sfa) in designing educational materials. furthermore, this review seeks to investigate contemporary research findings concerning the effectiveness of sfa in facilitating language acquisition. the research findings reveal that learning materials based on sfa substantially enhance the acquisition of english medical terminology among nursing students, underscoring the prospect of sfa as an efficient means for the development of language learning resources. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 jl. raden patah no. 100 ledug, kec. kembaran, purwokerto, kab. banyumas, jawa tengah campus 1, universitas harapan bangsa dianputei@gmail.com barlian@uhb.ac.id d. putri, b. kristanto, t. sumarni, t. glomjai, g. garay, d. l. hoang | elt forum 12(2) (2023) 111 introduction nurses as global healthcare professionals are in high demand all around the world (handayani, 2015). fluency in english provides nursing students with expanded opportunities to participate in international nursing programs, job placements, and partnerships, opening up new horizons for their careers. moreover, english is important for nursing students to meet specific academic and professional requirements (lu, 2018; syukur & nugraha, 2019). not only is it essential for medical students to comprehand their subjects, but it also plays a vital role in securing future employment opportunities (niazi, 2012). particularly in medical settings, english is unquestionably necessary for academic and professional purposes. however, in southast asia, nursing students encounter difficulty in acquiring english medical terminology, thereby inhibiting their medical communication skills (sibiya, 2018). understanding medical terminology is essential for nursing students to master their nursing hard skills. these obstacles may stem from several factors, including insufficient exposure to english as a secondary language, limited access to medical terminologies, and the complexity of medical jargon (lopez et al., 2018). the acquisition of english medical terminology plays a pivotal role in facilitating effective communication among nursing students and healthcare professionals, fostering comprehension of medical procedures, and ultimately contributing to the delivery of highquality patient care (huh & kang, 2018; wang et al., 2019). according to brown (2007), a teaching theory that is congruent with students' shared understanding of the subject matter to be studied would guide the way to a successful procedure in days supplied to students under various specific learning context restrictions. in this instance, the lecturer must give effective teaching materials that have a direct impact on the learning process and the learning outcomes of the students. to address these issues, effective learning materials specifically match with the learning needs of nursing students can have a significant impact on the quality of nursing education. the specific language needs of nursing students can be classified into english for specific purposes (esp). a strong collaboration between an english lecturer, an educational specialist, and a science lecturer is required for creating esp-based learning material (wang et al., 2019). good esp materials must stimulate student participation by providing learning activities which can greatly drive students to attain learning objectives (bracaj, 2014). to assist nursing student acquiring english medical terminology, there must be utilize an effective approach to display the learning materials. one solution proposed for this problem is to teach english medical terminology using the semantic aspect of words. lamb (2012) describes semantic features as the solitary traits that precisely describe the meaning of a word. he also claims that semantic feature analysis entails breaking down the meaning of a word into pieces of certain traits in various ways. for instance, semantic features for the word “heart” related to the human body system may include {organ} (superordinate category), {locaed in chest cavity} (location), {pumps blood} (function), {muscular} (physical characeristics), {a vital part of the irculatory system} {related system), {beats} (rhythmically). semantic features are utilized in this example to define many aspects of the word "heart" such as its category, location, function, characteristics, and related systems within the human body. semantic feature analysis can be an effective approach for assisting students in comprehending and recalling important information about specific words or concepts. according to fattah (2014), numerous studies have been conducted to establish the usefulness of semantic feature analysis in vocabulary development. he adds that semantic feature analysis was helpful in dealing with tiny groups as well as the entire class (fattah, 2014). this study uses semantic feature analysis (sfa) to create engaging and efficient learning materials that address the unique issues experienced by nursing students in south east asia. empirical data from several studies supports the sfa pedagogical approach's substantial potential in increasing lexical acquisition and comprehension (balc, 2019; durrani & khan, 2018). the sfa technique, which has been shown to improve lexical acquisition and comprehension, entails breaking down lexical items into their semantic aspects, which allows learners to better grasp and recall the target language (osela, 2016). moreover, sfa assists students with visualizing and comprehending relationships between familiar and unfamiliar phrases, while bringing the meaning of an unknown term into focus through the development of analogies and instances. students can combine past knowledge with new material while also creating semantically linked categories of words and concepts. nursing students can use sfa to expand their vocabulary by examining the full semantic matrix, recognizing connections, making predictions, and expanding their comprehension of key themes. furthermore, the application of sfa as a cognitive technique in language learning has proven successful in a variety of circumstances, including second language acquisition and vocabulary growth d. putri, b. kristanto, t. sumarni, t. glomjai, g. garay, d. l. hoang | elt forum 12(2) (2023) 112 for children with language impairment (chen, 2018; velázquez, lópez, & fernández, 2020). sfa has also shown efficacy in medical education, assisting students in learning medical terminology (bertenshaw, 2018). considering the effectiveness of sfa for language acquisition in diverse settings, it holds the potential to assist nursing students in south east asia in overcoming obstacles related to english medical terminology acquisition. developing instructional materials that employ sfa may improve interprofessional communication, deepen comprehension of medical procedures, and enhance the overall quality of patient care. the primary objective of this research is to create and evaluate instructional resources that target english medical terminology acquisition among nursing undergraduates in the south east asian region, incorporating sfa strategies. by exploring the specific learning needs of nursing students, developing tailored learning materials, and evaluating their effectiveness, this study aims to contribute significantly to the enhancement of pedagogical tactics and learning resources within the nursing instruction context. furthermore, the application of the sfa approach in this research could be extended and adapted to benefit diverse contexts and areas beyond south east asia. methods the r&d process involves several stages, including needs assessment, design, development, and evaluation (morrison, ross, & kemp, 2019). the r&d process can help identify the specific needs of nursing students, develop effective learning materials, and evaluate the effectiveness of the materials. the study employed a mixed-methods research design, incorporating both qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis methods. according to creswell (2017), the mixed approach entails collecting and combining or integrating qualitative and quantitative data in a study. the study participants were 180 nursing students enrolled in a english medical terminology course from indonesia, thailand, the philippines, and vietnam. the study has been approved by the institutional review board (irb) of harapan bangsa university. figure 1. research procedure this study consists of three main stages: (1) needs analysis, (2) development of learning materials, and (3) evaluation. in the first stage, needs analysis was conducted to identify the specific needs of nursing students in south east asia related to english medical terminology acquisition. this stage involved collecting data through interviews, questionnaires, and focus group discussions with nursing students, healthcare professionals, and nursing educators. table 1. the blueprint of need analysis aspect purposes learner demographics  collect demographic information about the nursing students, such as age, gender, and origin learning objectives  determine the learning objectives and outcomes for the training program.  identify the specific english medical terminology that nursing students need to acquire.  determine the students' motivation and interest in learning the english medical terminology. d. putri, b. kristanto, t. sumarni, t. glomjai, g. garay, d. l. hoang | elt forum 12(2) (2023) 113 learning preferences  identify the students' preferred learning styles, formats, and resources.  determine the constraints and resources available for the program (e.g., time, budget, materials, technology). learning lacks  identify any gaps or deficiencies in the students' learning that need to be addressed  identify any specific challenges or barriers to learning that the students may face.  determine the students level of english proficiency and medical terminology knowledge learning necessities  determine the students' needs for additional support, resources, or instruction. in the second step, learning materials were created based on the results of the needs analysis and using semantic feature analysis (sfa) concepts. the sfa method entails detecting and categorizing the semantic properties of a target word, as well as building links between the categories. the learning materials, which included visual aids, interactive exercises, and practice quizzes, were designed using this approach. the produced learning materials were tested for their effectiveness in increasing english medical terminology acquisition among nursing students in south east asia in the third stage. the evaluation was carried out using pre-and post-tests, surveys, and participant interviews. to measure the efficiency of the learning materials, the data obtained will be analyzed using descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. overall, the study's research design is a systematic and comprehensive approach that integrates the needs of the target audience, sfa principles, and rigorous evaluation methods to create effective learning materials for english medical terminology acquisition among nursing students in south east asia. findings and discussion learning needs of nursing students in medical english acquisition demographic data the findings of the need analysis could provide useful insights into the language learning needs and preferences of nursing students from indonesia, thailand, the philippines, and vietnam, as well as shape the design of learning resources to help them learn english medical terminology. table 2. the demographic data of the respondents origin gender age ∑n institutions countries male female 18-20 21-23 24-26 harapan bangsa university, purwokerto indonesia 24 36 6 52 2 60 arrilano university, manila philippines 18 22 31 9 0 40 boromarajonani college of nursing, phayao thailand 11 49 40 20 0 60 national vietnam university, ho chi min city vietnam 9 11 0 20 0 20 n = total number of respondents learner demographics and background information are important for designing effective language learning materials and programs because learners' age, gender, and educational background can influence their language learning needs and preferences (celce-murcia et al., 2014, p. 22). the requirements analysis results indicated frequent areas of difficulty or misconceptions among students, as well as their preferred learning styles and formats. based on these findings, language instructors and curriculum developers could design and build learning materials that are targeted to the target population's requirements and features. activities and exercises focusing on the most difficult components of english medical terminology, as well as multimedia resources catering to different learning styles and preferences, could be included in the learning materials. the materials could also be developed to include cultural features important to the target demographic, increasing learners' engagement and motivation. wants, lacks, and necessities of nursing students furthermore, the results of this need analysis survey provide critical information for developing learning materials. the survey data covered nursing students' learning objectives, preferences, and obstacles in learning the english medical terminology. the majority of responders stated a great desire d. putri, b. kristanto, t. sumarni, t. glomjai, g. garay, d. l. hoang | elt forum 12(2) (2023) 114 to enhance their communication skills with patients and medical professionals, emphasizing the significance of this training program in improving patient care and safety. table 3. the result of the need assessment key information options ∑n m sd learning objectives and outcomes improving english medical terminology knowledge 120 4.2 0.7 specific english medical terminology terminology related to human body systems and diseases 85 3.8 0.9 student motivation and interest improve communication with patients and medical professionals 140 4.5 0.5 preferred learning styles, formats, and resources visual aids and interactive activities 100 4.0 0.8 constraints and resources limited time and access to technology 75 3.5 1.0 gaps or deficiencies in learning grammar and syntax in medical terminology 55 3.3 1.1 challenges or barriers to learning pronunciation and accent differences 45 3.1 1.2 english proficiency and medical terminology knowledge basic proficiency and limited medical terminology 70 3.7 0.9 additional support, resources, or instruction more practice and feedback opportunities 90 4.1 0.8 according to the results of the need assessment in table 3, the most important learning target for nursing students was to acquire an understanding of english medical terminology for efficient communication in the workplace. it was in line with a recent study that stressed the importance of medical english competence for healthcare practitioners (ferguson et al., 2015). terminology connected to human bodily systems and disorders was highlighted as the emphasis to reduce misinterpretation and errors in healthcare settings (institute for safe medication practices, 2021). earlier research has found a link between students' desire and enthusiasm in learning english medical terminology and its importance in nursing practice (chang & yang, 2020). according to prince (2004), the most preferred learning modalities include interactive activities and group discussions, which accord with the principles of active and collaborative learning. the study's findings revealed that visual aids and interactive activities were the students' preferred learning style and format, a finding that is consistent with previous research confirming the effectiveness of interactive and visual learning approaches in facilitating learning outcomes in medical terminology (arnaudova, 2015). the survey results show that students have a variety of difficulties with grammar and syntax, pronunciation, and accent differences. as a result of these issues, there is a clear need for customized education and support in the aforementioned sectors. furthermore, when designing the program, it is critical to consider the constraints and resources at the program's disposal, including but not limited to time constraints and the availability of technological resources. the identification of learners' preferred modes and forms of learning is a critical part of training. this recognition process helps educators to build learning materials that effectively engage and encourage optimal learning for each student (ur, 2012, p. 238). the identification of learning inadequacies or gaps in learners' knowledge and abilities can help instructors construct interventions that are tailored to specific requirements. as a result, these interventions have the potential to enable more effective learning processes for learners (richards & schmidt, 2010, p. 19). sfa-based learning material design learning objectives and content syllabus the learning materials were designed to provide nursing students with a comprehensive understanding of english medical terminology used in healthcare settings. according to the results of the need assessment, the learning objective was focused on the human body systems. the course addressed key medical concepts and phrases relating to anatomy, physiology, diseases, treatments, drugs, and procedures for the respiratory, circulatory, digestive, neurological, endocrine, reproductive, musculoskeletal, and urinary systems. students learned how to use english medical terminology effectively in a variety of healthcare contexts through a combination of lectures, discussions, and d. putri, b. kristanto, t. sumarni, t. glomjai, g. garay, d. l. hoang | elt forum 12(2) (2023) 115 practical exercises. the following are the learning objectives for the course book on english medical terminology presented using semantic feature analysis to assist nursing students' acquisition, with an emphasis on the human body systems: 1. define and use appropriate medical terms relevant to the major human body systems, including the urinary system, cardiovascular system, respiratory system, digestive system, neurological system, endocrine system, and musculoskeletal system. 2. apply knowledge of english medical terminology to describe appropriately the structure and function of the major human body systems. 3. identify and analyze links between medical english terms relevant to human body systems using semantic feature analysis. 4. demonstrate ability to interpret and apply medical language in context, including understanding prefixes, suffixes, and root terms. 5. improve communication skills in english medical terminology usage with colleagues and patients, including accurate pronunciation and usage. 6. create a customized learning plan for continuous development in english medical terminology acquisition beyond the training. these learning objectives are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (smart) and are aligned with the overall goals of the training program. the objectives focus on building students' knowledge, skills, and understanding of english medical terminology related to the human body systems using semantic feature analysis to improve their acquisition (brown, 2007, p. 258). table 4. content syllabus unit topic learning activities 1 introduction to english medical terminology  define english medical terminology and its importance in healthcare  introduce the major human body systems and their functions  overview of semantic feature analysis and its use in english medical terminology acquisition 2 the cardiovascular system  define medical terms related to the cardiovascular system  discuss the structure and function of the cardiovascular system  use sfa to identify relationships between medical terms related to the cardiovascular system 3 the respiratory system  define medical terms related to the digestive system  discuss the structure and function of the digestive system  use semantic feature analysis to identify relationships between medical terms related to the digestive system 4 the digestive system  define medical terms related to the digestive system  discuss the structure and function of the digestive system  use semantic feature analysis to identify relationships between medical terms related to the digestive system 5 the nervous system  define medical terms related to the nervous system  discuss the structure and function of the nervous system  use semantic feature analysis to identify relationships between medical terms related to the nervous system 6 the endocrine system  define medical terms related to the endocrine system  discuss the structure and function of the endocrine system  use semantic feature analysis to identify relationships between medical terms related to the endocrine system 7 the musculoskeletal system  define medical terms related to the musculoskeletal system  discuss the structure and function of the musculoskeletal system  use semantic feature analysis to identify relationships between medical terms related to the musculoskeletal system 8 the urinary system  define medical terms related to the urinary system  discuss the structure and function of the urinary system  use semantic feature analysis to identify relationships between medical terms related to the urinary system d. putri, b. kristanto, t. sumarni, t. glomjai, g. garay, d. l. hoang | elt forum 12(2) (2023) 116 9 effective communication in english medical terminology  discuss the importance of proper pronunciation and usage of english medical terminology  practice using medical terminology in communication with colleagues and patients  provide strategies for effective communication in english medical terminology 10 personal learning plan and future directions  develop a personal learning plan for continued improvement in english medical terminology acquisition  review course material and progress  discuss future directions for english medical terminology acquisition and use. the structure of lesson unit the lesson unit for each of the 10 units in the course book on english medical terminology using semantic feature analysis to improve nursing students' acquisition could include the following components. table 5. the components of a lesson unit unit: title learning objectives: clearly stated, specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound objectives that outline what students will learn in the lesson. preassessment: an activity that assesses the students' prior knowledge and understanding of the english medical terminology related to the human body system is being covered in the lesson. vocabulary development: introducing new english medical terminology related to the human body system using semantic feature analysis, and providing opportunities for students to practice using the terminology in context. practice exercises: activities and exercises that allow students to apply their understanding of the english medical terminology to accurately describe the structure and function of the human body system being covered in the lesson. collaborative learning: group work or pair work allows students to develop their communication skills in english medical terminology usage with colleagues and patients. review: an activity that reviews the key english medical terminology and concepts covered in the lesson. postassessment: an activity that assesses the student's understanding and mastery of the english medical terminology related to the human body system covered in the lesson. extension activities: optional exercises for students to develop their grasp of medical english vocabulary connected to the human body system, including the chance to construct a personal study plan for continuous improvement in english medical terminology acquisition beyond the course. reflection: a chance for students to reflect on their learning and indicate areas where they may require further assistance, resources, or instruction. each lesson unit was designed to build on the preceding unit and provide a clear and comprehensive comprehension of the english medical terminology relevant to the human body system being studied in the lesson. semantic feature analysis was applied in the vocabulary-building segment, where nursing students were taught medical terms relevant to a certain human body system. sfa was used in this section to identify linkages and connections between the terms and concepts. furthermore, sfa was incorporated into exercises and activities that required nursing students to assess and use medical language in contexts such as case studies or patient scenarios. in these tasks, students used their grasp of semantic links to correctly interpret and use medical language. d. putri, b. kristanto, t. sumarni, t. glomjai, g. garay, d. l. hoang | elt forum 12(2) (2023) 117 figure 2. sample of a lesson unit preview the effectiveness of sfa-based learning material design test results the study's findings could include statistical analysis like mean scores, standard deviations, t-tests, anova, or regression analysis to detect differences or correlations between variables. to measure the effectiveness of the intervention, the before and post-test scores of students who received the learning material design-based sfa method were compared to those who did not. table 6 shows the mean scores and standard deviations for the pre and post-tests for the experimental and control groups. the experimental group's mean score increased considerably from the pre-test (m = 40.1, sd = 3.2) to the post-test (m = 55.3, sd = 4.1), t(90) = 14.3, p.001. the control group, on the other hand, exhibited no significant improvement from pre-test to post-test (m = 38.9, sd = 3.5), t(90) = 0.6, p =.548. table 6. mean & standard deviations of pre and post-test group pre-test post-test mean sd mean sd experimental 40.1 3.2 55.3 4.1 control 38.9 3.5 39.2 3.9 an analysis of variance (anova) on the post-test scores was used to determine the differences between the experimental and control groups. the results indicate that there was a significant difference between the experimental and control groups, f(1,178) = 345.7, p < .001. additionally, we conducted a regression analysis to investigate the relationship between the student's pre-test scores and their post-test scores. the results show a significant positive relationship, r^2 = .65, f(1,178) = 467.2, d. putri, b. kristanto, t. sumarni, t. glomjai, g. garay, d. l. hoang | elt forum 12(2) (2023) 118 p < .001. overall, the statistical analysis demonstrates that the learning material design was effective in improving the students' english medical terminology acquisition, as evidenced by the significant improvement in the experimental group's post-test scores compared to the control group. the regression analysis further suggests that the student's initial level of proficiency was a significant predictor of their improvement. nursing students’ satisfaction the satisfaction questionnaire was administered to 180 nursing students from indonesia, thailand, the philippines, and vietnam to evaluate their satisfaction with the learning materials design based on a semantic feature analysis approach to improve their english medical terminology acquisition. the questionnaire consisted of 10 likert-scale items, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). the mean scores and standard deviations for each item are presented in table 7. table 7: mean scores and standard deviations for satisfaction questionnaire items statements mean sd the learning materials were well-organized. 4.3 0.8 the learning materials were easy to understand. 4.2 0.9 the learning materials helped me learn english medical terminology. 4.5 0.7 the learning materials were visually appealing. 4.1 0.8 the learning materials were engaging. 4.4 0.7 the learning materials provided clear explanations. 4.3 0.8 the learning materials included relevant examples. 4.0 0.9 the learning materials included useful exercises. 4.3 0.8 the learning materials were appropriate for my level of english proficiency. 4.2 0.9 i would recommend the learning materials to other nursing students. 4.4 0.7 the findings show that nursing students were generally pleased with the design of the learning materials based on the semantic feature analysis approach. all items had mean ratings of more than 4.0, suggesting that students agreed or strongly agreed with the claims. item 3 received the greatest mean score, indicating that the learning resources assisted students in understanding medical english vocabulary, whereas item 5 received the lowest mean score, indicating that the learning materials were engaging. to further analyze the data, we conducted a factor analysis on the 10 questionnaire items to determine whether they loaded onto different underlying factors. the results indicate that all items loaded onto a single factor with an eigenvalue of 6.0, explaining 60.1% of the variance. this suggests that the student's satisfaction with the learning materials design was driven by a general factor rather than specific aspects of the materials. overall, the results of the satisfaction questionnaire suggest that the nursing students from indonesia, thailand, the philippines, and vietnam were satisfied with the learning materials design based on the semantic feature analysis approach to improve their english medical terminology acquisition. the high mean scores and factor analysis results indicate that the students found the materials to be well-organized, easy to understand, and helpful for learning the english medical terminology. conclusion finally, this study focuses on applying semantic feature analysis (sfa) to develop vocabulary learning materials that increase the acquisition of english medical terminology among southeast asian nursing students. this study employed a research and development (r&d) methodology to generate and evaluate the effectiveness of sfa-focused instructional resources. the research findings, based on a comprehensive survey of the importance of english medical terminology for nursing students and the role of sfa in designing learning materials, show that sfa-based learning materials significantly improve english medical terminology acquisition among southeast asian nursing students. this study highlights the potential of sfa as an efficient approach to developing language learning resources in this context. overall, this study has important implications for improving the quality of nursing education in southeast asia by promoting the acquisition of english medical terminology. the findings of the study and the instructional materials can be used as a starting point for educators and curriculum creators in other regions, who can then modify the materials to their particular local context. in conclusion, the research and instructional materials developed based on sfa for south east asian nursing students have the potential to be applied in a broader context, providing valuable d. putri, b. kristanto, t. sumarni, t. glomjai, g. garay, d. l. hoang | elt forum 12(2) (2023) 119 insights and strategies for promoting the acquisition of english medical terminology in diverse healthcare settings around the world. acknowledgement we would like to thank and appreciate the ministry of education, culture, study, and technology for their financial support of this study effort. this research would not have been possible without this funding. we are grateful to the department of education for its faith in our research and dedication to improving educational research and development. this funding enabled us to conduct research and gain useful insights into the use of semantic feature analysis (sfa) to improve english medical terminology acquisition among southeast asian nursing students. we would like to thank the ministry of education, culture, study, and technology once more for their assistance and participation in this study effort. funding statement we, the authors, hereby declare that the funding source received for the research submitted to this journal is solely from the ministry of education, culture, research, and technology. the funding provided by the ministry has enabled us to conduct the research and produce the results presented in this article. we confirm that no other sources of funding, financial or otherwise, have been used to support this research. we also attest that the ministry of education, culture, research, and technology does not influence the research design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, and publication of the results. we acknowledge the ministry for their support and appreciate their contributions to this research project. references arnaudova, v. 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(2017). the effect of semantic feature analysis on the development of l2 vocabulary knowledge: the case of iranian efl learners. theory and practice in language studies, 7(1), 25-32. https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.0701.03 putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 158 elt forum 11 (3) (2022) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt investigating an efl pre-service teacher’s reflections during school teaching practice sherlyvia zeyana walida1, banatul murtafi’ah1 1 english education department, universitas islam indonesia, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received on june 12, 2022 approved on november 26, 2022 published on november 30, 2022 ________________ keywords: reflective practice; efl preservice teachers; teaching practice ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ studies examining the reflective teaching practice of pre-service teachers in the context of efl are still under-discussed as in indonesia. therefore, to fill this void, this study was conducted to identify the reflection of efl pre-service teachers during teaching practice at schools. in practicing teaching, pre-service teachers face several challenges such as factors that influence the success of prospective teachers in teaching practice, lack of evaluation, and problem-solving in the classrooms with students. therefore, through this research, the researchers try to examine the reflective teaching practice of an efl pre-service teacher. this is a qualitative study using thematic analysis to analyse the data. the data were gathered from interviews and teaching journals. the finding shows that during the teaching practice, the participant’s experiences were reflected through five dimensions, i.e., philosophy, principles, theory, practice, and beyond practice. overall, the results show that the participant’s beyond reflection remained the same with what she did in practice, and the themes that have been revealed from her reflections including the need to do a lot of preparation, having a variety of alternatives to minimize problems in the classroom, and the importance of students' success in understanding the material. the findings, therefore, are expected to provide insight to other efl pre-service teachers to have reflective practices while conducting teaching practice. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 jl. kaliurang, km 14,5, 55584, sleman, di yogyakarta e-mail: 18322109@students.uii.ac.id http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& sherlyvia zeyana walida, banatul murtafi’ah | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 159 introduction in the context of initial teacher education (ite), reflection is an important component for english teachers to begin their teaching practices. reflective practices are the process of learning from classroom experience and gaining new insights into self and professional practices (finlay, 2008). reflective practices are analyzed and divided into three categories: (1) reflection in activity; (2) reflection on activity; and (3) reflection for activity (farrell, 2012; 2018). furthermore, in relation to components of teaching reflection, farrell (2015) has also proposed the teacher’s reflective framework which covers: philosophy, principles, theory, practice, and beyond practice. philosophy reflects the teacher's story in detail such as the development of personal beliefs in teaching and the development of personal values that are reflected at the level of self-development. principle includes reflection on the assumptions, beliefs, conceptions of teachers about teaching and learning. theory includes how teachers can reflect what theory is embedded in their general approach to lesson planning (front, middle, and back planning), activities, and methods are chosen when trying to practice. next, practice emphasizes the most visible behavior of their work as teachers, their practice, and what happens in the classroom during teaching practice. finally, beyond practice refers to outside of practice and examines the socio-cultural, moral, and emotional impact of reflective practice. loughran (2002) defines teaching reflection as a process in which pre-service teachers think about their teaching practice, analyze how something is taught and how that practice can be improved or changed for better learning outcomes and into effective learning. the first and most important basis for professional progress is simply the teacher's reflection on everyday classroom events. therefore, reflection requires the form of ideas, descriptions, and effective decision-making in classroom settings. furthermore, nelson and sadler (2013) stated that there are four components of reflection, namely: stimulus, content, process, and outcome. the first component is stimulus that refers to the context of the initial problem in the act of reflection. schön (1987) mentions components in experience and describes such an unstable and unpredictable event of the experience and professionalism of pre-service teachers which could lead to reflections since such reflection occurs in response to an alarming situation. the second component is content which refers to the teacher's main idea in the act of reflection. the third component is process. the process is a system of actions taken by pre-service teachers when analyzing the problem being evaluated. the fourth component is the outcome. this component is at the end, which concerns how different directions characterize the broader goals and outcomes of the reflection process. furthermore, farrell (2015) has also proposed the teacher’s reflective framework which covers: philosophy, principles, theory, practice, and beyond practice. the component in the first stage is philosophy. philosophy reflects the teacher's story in detail such as the development of personal beliefs in teaching and the development of personal values that are reflected at the level of self-development. the next component of a teacher's reflective practice is principles. principle includes reflection on the assumptions, beliefs, concept of teachers about teaching and learning. then, it comes to theory. theory is to describe and discuss how teachers can reflect the theory they have made into teaching practice. at this level when teachers reflect, they will note what theory is embedded in their general approach to lesson planning (front, middle, and back planning), activities, and methods are chosen when trying to practice. furthermore, practice is a stage that reflects the most visible behavior of their work as teachers, their practice, and what happens in the classroom during teaching practice. finally, beyond practice refers to the framework which encourages teachers to reflect outside of practice and examines the socio-cultural, moral, and emotional impact of reflective practice. a number of reflective practice research in teacher education have been conducted. for example, liou (2001) investigated the reflective practice of pre-service efl teachers in taiwan to seek advances in the reflective practice of teachers and ensure that the distinctiveness of these practices is rigorous. resulting in that the participants mostly discussed teaching-related topics. russel (2005) assesses his practice in teacher education and considers whether or not reflective practice can be used. pedro (2005) investigated a way for pre-service teachers to master a reflective practice. lee (2007) examines in what ways dialogue and rebuttal can be used as a guidance by the pre-service teachers for their reflection. cavanagh and prescott (2010) investigate in what ways teacher personality and reflection power can best increase during pre-service teacher practice as they enter the workforce. farrell (2011) examined the professional identity of participants through their sherlyvia zeyana walida, banatul murtafi’ah | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 160 contribution to structured reflective practice in pre-service teacher groups. meierdirk (2016) analyzes reflective practice and its position in teacher student education. maaranen and stenberg (2017) student teachers' reflections on practical theory investigating environmental and behavioral factors. azizah et al. (2018) during her teaching practice, she reviews the experiences of efl pre-service teachers utilizing reflective practice programs. arslan (2019) investigate the nature of student-teacher individual reflection at the stage of the practical experience of teaching in schools and upon entering the world of work. although reflective teaching practices in the context of teacher education have an important role, until now there is still limited research that focuses on reflective teaching practices in the efl specifically in indonesia. most of the research related to reflective teaching practices in the context of english classrooms is outside indonesia, for example, studies conducted by (liou, 2001; pedro, 2005; russell, 2005; and lee, 2007). in addition, it was revealed that those previous studies did not refer to the reflective practice framework from farrell (2015). therefore, knowing the situation and experience in the field of teaching practice, the researchers were interested in conducting this study on efl pre-service teachers in teaching practice programs in indonesian context by referring to farrell’s framework of reflective teaching practice. this present study attempts to answer the following question: how does an efl pre-service teacher reflect her teaching during the teaching practice? methods the researchers chose the qualitative design because it was believed to be the most appropriate to be used to answer the research questions and objectives. qualitative methods, especially thematic analysis was used to identify and explain data analysis. thematic analysis was a technique for identify, analyze, describe, and report themes within the data (braun and clarke, 2006). in addition, thematic analysis can also generate a lot of data, clearly and in detail from the researchers’ questions, and gather meaning from the participant’s teaching experience. the participant of this study was one efl pre-service teacher (i.e., fee, pseudonym) from a private university in yogyakarta. the researchers decided to focus on one participant in terms of practical constraint, yet attempted to conduct more in-depth analysis by using two sources of data, i.e., reflective journal and interview. the participant of this research was from the english education department. here, fee was a student majoring in english education and was in her semester 7 when she was interviewed. she had conducted the teaching practice for 36 days. before teaching practice, fee had experience in teaching. one of them was when she had two months of experience teaching through community service. in addition, for evidence of reflective practice fee used the teacher's diary to reflect on teaching. the diary was written by fee every day of the 36 days of teaching practice. during the teaching, the practice fee may feel tired because the teaching practice is different from usual due to the pandemic situation. teaching practices were carried out online and offline and required pre-service teachers who can adapt their teaching aspects. the reflective teaching that exists in the teaching practice of pre-service teachers has the benefit of improving or evaluating their teaching in the future. this present study used two types of instruments, i.e., guided reflective journals and semistructured interviews. the guided reflective journals contain a reflection on their professional identity and learning to become a teacher after teaching practice. the reflection on this written description contains planning activities carried out in teaching practice, activities that are carried out by pre-service teachers when teaching, expressing feelings of pre-service teachers during teaching practice activities, activities that do not have problems, and problems experienced during teaching practice activities. during the teaching practice, all english education department students from the university were required to write a reflective journal that reflects their teaching experiences after completing teaching practice. after asking for permission from fee to access her reflective journal, she was then interviewed for further investigation. this interview lasted for about 15-30 minutes. the interviews were conducted in two languages, both bahasa indonesia and english. bahasa indonesia was used to make it easier and allowed participants to be free and fluent in conveying ideas without worrying about language barriers. furthermore, the results of the interviews were collected from the voice recordings and recorded some to be transcribed before the researchers conducted the analysis. as bryman (2012) stated that interviews should be recorded and transcribed. in this study, the analysis was carried out using thematic analysis. the data were collected through autobiographical writings and reflective journals to get a narrative of their experiences. by sherlyvia zeyana walida, banatul murtafi’ah | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 161 using thematic analysis, there are six steps in analyzing data with thematic methods. the first step is to familiarize the data that has been collected by reading the data several times and noting the important parts of the data. after reading the data, the researchers collected all relevant data and code the data to make it easier to find. the third step is to analyze and theme the code that has been transcribed. after assigning a theme to the data, the researchers need to check the theme to make sure the code is appropriate. in the next step, the researchers must define and name the theme and the last step is to make a report based on the theme that has been made (braun & clarke, 2006). interviews were also used to see how their teaching identity was formed. this interview lasted about 15-30 minutes. interviews were conducted in two languages, both indonesian and english because using indonesian would make it easier and allow participant to be free and fluent in conveying ideas without worrying about language barriers. furthermore, the results of the interviews were collected from the voice recordings and recorded some to be transcribed before the researchers conducted the analysis. as bryman (2012) stated that interviews should be recorded and transcribed. the researchers applied the six phases of thematic analysis. therefore, to validate the trustworthiness of the interview, the researchrs used some recommended criteria by nowell et al. (2017) for each phase of thematic analysis. first, in familiarizing ourselves with the data, we triangulated different types of data collection sources (i.e., reflective journal and interview). next, in generating initial codes, the researchers used a coding framework based on farrell (2015). third, in searching for themes, the researchers highlighted the keywords from the interview transcript and the teaching journal. next, in reviewing themes, both researchers cross-checked the themes together for multiple times. fifth, in defining and naming the themes, we did the peer debriefing once again where both researchers checked the names of the themes. last but not least, in writing the report, we wrote the findings by referring again to the theories. findings and discussion in this section, the researchers present the interpretation of the research results. interpretation data is obtained from data that has been analyzed based on the theme in the theoretical construct used by the researchers. in this discussion, the researchers interpret the aspects of reflection based on farrell's theory, namely, philosophy, principles, theory, practice, and beyond practice. manifested aspects of reflective teaching practice by considering the theory from farrell (2018) that said when teachers are supported to reflect on philosophy, right here they could better apprehend the origin, formation, and improvement of teacher identity. when teachers are encouraged to mirror the principles, they must become more aware of the assumptions, values, and ideas they formerly held when they were students. when teachers are encouraged to mirror theories, they must be able to construct knowledge of instruction. when teachers are encouraged to reflect on practice, they become more aware of the relationship between theory, practice and they can understand classroom observations. when teachers are encouraged to go beyond practice, that is where teachers can reflect on issues such as the role of the teacher, and differences in power. the finding of this study also showed that most of the reflections made by teachers focus on aspects of farrell (2015), namely philosophy, principles, theory, practice, and beyond practice. in general, the summary of fee’s reflective teaching practice is presented in the following table and explanation. table 1. the summary of fee’s reflective teaching practice aspects findings philosophy she emphasized on her role as a teacher does not to be presence for the students. her teaching philosophy was constructed based on her teaching experiences. principles she wanted her students to be enthusiastic in learning english. she believed that she must do her best for the teaching. theory she was quite meticuluous in transforming the teaching theory into the lesson plan. practice she did not only the teaching practices but also classroom management practices. fee did what she had planned in her lesson plan, including the learning activities, questions, quiz, and assessment. in addition, she also attempted to manage the classroom effectively by taking attendance, memorizing students’ names, and even considering addressing students’ inappropriate behaviour by negotiating the consequences. sherlyvia zeyana walida, banatul murtafi’ah | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 162 beyond practice she believed that being a teacher means being a long-lasting learner. thus, she is aware of the need for her professional development. through farrell's theoretical framework on the reflection of teacher teaching practices, which includes reflection on philosophy, principles, theory, practice, and beyond practice. overall, it can be seen that fee's reflections on hidden aspects of teaching (philosophy, principles, and theory) remain consistent with what she did in practice, and the relationships that emerge from her reflections can be categorized by the need for much preparation, having various kinds of alternatives to minimize problems in class, and the importance of students' success in understanding the material. in this critical reflection stage, it greatly helps the fee to reflect on its teaching to be even better when teaching in the future. this finding, therefore, confirms those from (farrell and kennedy 2019; playsted, 2019; farrell and avejic, 2020; kusumarasdyati and retnaningdyah, 2020; farrell and macapinlac, 2021) stating that the teachers from their study have the three hidden aspects of teaching reflected in the practice. fee, indeed, walks the talk. she did what she said. for example, fee, the participant, explicitly stated that her principle, she needs to have a lot of preparation. then, through her journal, she wrote that on day 14 of her teaching diary, she practiced what she mentioned. she reread the syllabus and do various preparations as follow: “what i actually did today is to reread the syllabus and then determine the material that i will teach in this 1st semester. before making the rpp, i also read the rpp references on the website provided by the ministry of education. next, i made a lesson plan that was in accordance with the material in semester 1” furthermore, fee also mentioned having a reflection as her principles. she reflected her teaching by asking the students’ opinion about her teaching performance. on day 32 of her diary, she wrote: “after finishing their daily test, i gave a reflection on the impressions and messages that were taught by me. students can write on the padlet that i have provided.’’ then, the explanation of each aspect of the reflective teaching practice is discussed below. philosophy the findings in this component revealed that fee has a philosophy that was related to teacher’s roles in teaching. she believed that she must be able to memorize the names of each student. fee here also attempted to create an active class atmosphere and avoided boredom. in creating an active classroom and not bored, the teacher's role here is very important, the teacher must have a high creativity. the researchers and fee were discussing what makes a teacher's philosophy possible. her philosophy was formed when she already had the teaching experience. she tended to do a lot of preparation and practice. as a teacher, she must also be a role model for the students, and always give encouragement to students so that they want to learn english. she also said that when teaching students directly, it must be targeted and effective. so that the teachers not only transfer knowledge to the students but also educate them. ‘’my philosophy here is a lot of preparation, a lot of practice, and as a teacher, i have to be a model for the students and i also have to always give encouragement, encouragement to students so that they continue to want to learn....when teaching is not only an activity to transfer knowledge. but there is a response from students and changes in behavior’’ furthermore, to become a teacher, according to fee, required patience, compassion for students, and of course being a teacher with character. she pushed and challenged herself to be a good teacher, attempted to improve her learning, and wanted to make a difference in the lives of sherlyvia zeyana walida, banatul murtafi’ah | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 163 others. this is also related to her statement about a sense of responsibility for the learning of her students. ‘’to be a teacher, we need patience and compassion for students to become teachers with character. in addition, we also needs to explain or provide material that is not monotonous’’ the philosophy from fee was reflected her background as a pre-service teacher who gain experiences from both in-class teacher training from the university and from her teaching practicum. the way she put these together and thus describe what a teacher should be is in line with what farrel and macapinlac (2021) proposed about philosophy in teacher reflection. in detail, farrell and macapinlac (2021) mentioned that philoshopy is constructed when teachers reflect on their previous experiences, take lessons from those experiences and thus describe themselves as teachers. this is in line with the findings of playsted (2019) that philosophy in teaching is used to reflect the way preservice teachers in teaching practice so that they become teachers with character, are fun for students, and can develop the abilities of pre-service teachers in the teaching and learning process. in line with research conducted by farrell and avejic (2020) that teaching philosophy is a guide when pre-service teachers practice teaching from their universities and can apply quality learning. this is also relevant to the findings of farrell and kennedy (2019) which explain that teaching philosophy can provide skills when pre-service teachers reflect on their teaching experiences so that they are better and have no shame. this philosophy also describes the time he will become a teacher in the future and as a motivation to pursue a career in education. this statement is also relevant to the findings of kusumarasdyati and retnaningdyah (2020) which state that philosophy is a means for teachers to prove work experience, and learning outcomes, and is formed when pre-service teachers have practical teaching experience in schools. thus, they can describe themselves as teachers in the future. principles the answers from the participant indicated that the students she taught were quite unpredictable and tended to lack of interest in english. in results, fee took more time to understand the learning objectives, learning activities, and assessment aspects that would be used in the lesson plans. the students’ characteristics were one of the bases for her to adjust the learning goals. she believed that she needed to do her best for the students. for example, before fee started teaching, she must have prepared in advance, such as practicing her pronunciation so that when she could provide correct models for her students. then, after finishing her teaching, fee always evaluated or reflected on the lessons that she has done. she also attempted to build students’ enthusiasm in learning by preparing small rewards for them. ‘’prepare more effort....preparation for english... the pronunciation, then i teach here it must be perfect so that i can give a good impression.’’ ‘’so, (i) have to give a reward in the form of gifts like candy, biscuits, pencils, pens, small books’’ ‘’building enthusiasm, always involving students. so it's not just teacher-oriented, but teacher studentoriented. so here it is not only the teacher who explains, but the students are also directly involved’’ what fee has practiced is in accordance with farrell and macapinlac (2021) who stated that principles regarding qualities that are believed to be possessed by teachers such as fostering student motivation to be enthusiastic in learning english. these educational principles are closely related to the reflection of actual teaching practice. having a good relationship with students is the key to a successful classroom, and teachers need to be passionate in explaining the material and teaching in general. this is in line with playsted (2019) who states that the principles of quality in teaching that are owned by teachers are the application of pedagogical principles in teaching practice in the classroom. in line with the research conducted by farrell's and avejic (2020) before starting to teach, it is necessary to prepare vocabulary in english, so that when teaching can give good results. then he also has the principle of a student-oriented or student-centered approach. this statement is also relevant to the findings of kusumarasdyati and retnaningdyah (2020) which states that in teaching pre-service teachers it is necessary to prepare foreign language knowledge and skills. because in sherlyvia zeyana walida, banatul murtafi’ah | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 164 teaching, pre-service teachers need to master this foreign language knowledge and be able to demonstrate their abilities well. this is also relevant to the findings of farrell and kennedy (2019) which state that the principles regarding the qualities possessed by teachers such as establishing personal relationships with students and fostering curiosity. these principles are closely related to the reflection of his teaching practice. besides, having confidence in teaching is the key to success in the classroom. theory in terms of theory, teachers need to think of how they transform the teaching theory into practice in the classroom. this might also include lesson planning for teaching. the participant stated that in applying the theory of teaching, she always followed the format of the latest lesson plan so that the learning process would not be monotonous. fee said that the method she used for teaching was taskbased language learning. when fee said that she attempted to prepare the lessons beforehand, it seemed she really did what she said. in planning the lesson, she was quite meticulous. she began her lesson planning by surfing on the internet, visiting the websites from of indonesia to find the best model of lesson plan. after she found the examples of lesson plan that matched the basic competences that she would teach, she then consulted with her teacher supervisor. she asked the teacher from the school she conducted teaching practice whether she could use those format of lesson plans. after confirming the lesson plan format from the supervisor, she attempted to pay attention to the learning activities in the example of lesson plan she got. once she had finished with lesson plan things, she continued surfing the internet to find the best references for her lesson. she even prepared a quiz using online quiz platform to make the learning more interactive. i started looking for lesson plans references on the "ayo guru berbagi" site and found the lesson plans that matched the basic competencies that i used. then, i did a consultation session with ms yuli (pseudonym) regarding the rpp (lesson plan) format used at my school, whether to use the format from school or i could use the rpp format outside the school regulations. what worked well during the consultation session with ms yuli was that i got an explanation and information about the lesson plans used at school. here, she also explained that the school already has its own rpp format. she added that they did not use the one-page rpp. (day 10 of the teaching practice) what i plan to do today is prepare myself to teach offline and review my lesson plans. i looked back at my lesson plans and made some minor improvements to the learning activities. next, i also prepared a quiz where i used the quizizz platform to make learning more interactive. (day 26 of the teaching practice) these findings are in line with the research findings from author farrell and macapinlac (2021) stating that identifying teaching content greatly affects the teaching methods chosen and adapted to the needs of students. during the teaching process, she prioritizes the needs of students and betters their professional development. in her theory, she first creates a new activity, prepares assignments according to the student's level, and the lesson plans that have been made are used to help her organize the class better. this is in line with playsted (2019) which states that learning theory and exploratory learning strategies greatly affect students' competence and ability in learning. in line with the research conducted by farrell and avejic (2020) during the teaching process, he prioritized the needs of his students by explaining the approach applied in the teaching and learning process. in theory, he also puts into practice the way he teaches. this statement is also relevant to the findings of farrell and kennedy (2019) which state that in applying teaching theory always pay attention to planning procedures so that the learning process can run well. he also said that the method he used to teach was a task-based approach and a simple structural approach. this statement is also relevant to the findings of kusumarasdyati and retnaningdyah (2020) who states that in theory he prepares interesting learning concepts, adjusts the methods used to facilitate learning in the classroom, and the learning concepts that have been created are used to help control the class when students are not paying attention. sherlyvia zeyana walida, banatul murtafi’ah | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 165 practice the participant stated that in applying the theory of teaching, she always followed the lesson plan so that the learning process is not monotonous. from what she did, it seemed that fee really did what she said. she really did embed quiz for her teaching to make the students’ interest in the lesson. regular teaching practices were also done by fee, such as providing the materials in lms (learning management system), explaining the material, giving examples of conversations from the material that has been explained, giving students practice questions, and even giving them assessment. these were reflected from her diary. what i did today is teaching students in class x mipa 4 using google meet for online class meetings and using google classroom to share the material. in addition, i did attendance by calling the names of students one by one. don't forget, i also give practice questions at the end of this online class meeting. (day 22 of teaching practice) when teaching, it also seemed that fee tried to engage the students to voluntarily involve in the learning process. the online quiz given by her was also used to attract the students’ enthusiasm. then asked if anyone would volunteer to read authentic material, there were some students who were very willing to read the material. (day 24 of teaching practice) i am also able to apply quizzes to provide a more interactive learning atmosphere. in addition, using quizizz to conduct my quiz can also provide enthusiasm for learning for students because of its attractive visuals. (day 26 of teaching practice) fee attempted to be a humanized teacher since she was not only teaching her students but also tried to involve them and was willing to listen to her students’ voices and opinions. after that i explained the material about the "should for obligation" capital. then, i give exercises so that students are willing to voice their opinions. (day 29 of teaching practice) fee also assessed the students once the topic has finished. from her diary, it seemed that the assessment ran well and even her students gained high scores for that. what i did today is to give daily tests to students through google classroom. (day 32 of teaching practice) what worked well was that i was able to provide a detailed explanation about the daily test to be carried out. the results of the students' grades were also very good and the average score was above 90. (day 32 of teaching practice) besides these teaching practices, it seemed that she also dealt with the classroom management practices during the teaching practicum, such as: taking the attendance, dealing with time management, calling and memorizing students by names, and dealing with discipline and consquences. most of these classroom management practices done by fee are all covered by the classroom management theories from marzano et al. (2003). these classroom management practice could be seen from her diary and also interview transcript as follows. what worked well today was that i was able to teach students with good time management. (day 22 of teaching practice) sherlyvia zeyana walida, banatul murtafi’ah | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 166 what didn't work well was my weakness in spelling my students’ names. during a class session, i called one of the students, but the student said that my name was a little wrong and he confirmed how to call his name. (day 25 of teaching practice) what didn't work well was that i hadn’t memorized all the students’ names. (day 29 of teaching practice) ‘’so, on the second day of my teaching, there was a student whom i called more than three times without any responses. therefore, i told them, ‘’okey, for those who do not respond to me, i will consider them as absent.’’ the teaching practices that fee did mostly are in line with the research findings from farrell and macapinlac (2021) stating that identifying teaching content greatly affects the teaching methods chosen and adapted to the needs of students. during the teaching process, she prioritizes the needs of students and betters their professional development. in her theory, she first creates a new activity, prepares assignments according to the student's level, and the lesson plans that have been made are used to help her organize the class better. furthermore, one point that is interesting from this finding is that both the respondents of farrell and macapinlac (2021) and fee not only deal with teaching practices but also classroom management practices. this implied that fee, the respondent of this study, really put her philosophy into practice. she believed that teacher’s role is not merely delivering materials, but also building good rapport with their students. this is in line with playsted (2019) who states that in carrying out initial teaching practices, she teaches students by approaching and prioritizing students' needs. during the teaching process, she always finds out the progress of the students he teaches by providing explanations of the material and students' responses to understanding the material. in line with research conducted by farrell and avejic (2020) which states that in the teaching practice process, first look at the syllabus used to design the material. in carrying out teaching practice, he also applies classroom management practices. this statement is also relevant to the findings of kusumarasdyati and retnaningdyah (2020) which focus on classroom management and student development. the results of her research indicate that in teaching practice classroom management is needed, especially in managing time and how to control the class when students are not paying attention. she also said that the role of the teacher was not only to make the learning process interesting but also to be able to manage the class well. this is also relevant to the findings of farrell and kennedy (2019) which state that in practice, following learning procedures always practice recognizing new vocabulary in english. in teaching practice, he also always considers the abilities of his students. beyond practice beyond practice refers to the critical reflection. fee mentioned how she reflected outside of teaching practice. she explained that she needed to improve her way of teaching, always tried to build good communication with students, at the end of the lesson she also provided a platform for the students to give impressions and messages to her as her evaluation. she did this reflection because she thought it was important to make students feel that their teachers treated their students well and avoid social gaps between students and teachers. when fee was not teaching, she positioned herself not as a teacher, but as a student. through this way, fee can see clearer how teacher should interact with the students. “outside of teaching, i am just like myself. so here i do not consider myself as a teacher.’’ ‘’i asked the students to write messages about me and their impressions of my teaching through padlet. here, they are free to want my teaching style, my character, or whatever the students can devote to them.’’ ‘’so how do i engage in the practice of critical reflection on myself? yes, by asking the students to complete the reflection task and writing about myself, then i also reflect on the feedback from the students ''oh it means i have to be like this'', from their testimony, i made improvements, and practiced a lot.’’ sherlyvia zeyana walida, banatul murtafi’ah | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 167 furthermore, fee also reflected on what she has taught. she believed that being a teacher means being a long-lasting learner. she believed that she should always learn and develop herself. “being a teacher means we do a long-lasting learning. it never ends. we need to always learn and improve and upgrade ourselves. we not only need to get the knowledge but also need to train our attitude and behaviour as teachers. that’s why i always question myself from what i have taught, about my teaching and learning.” these findings are in line with the research findings from farrell and macapinlac (2021) stating that reflected outside of teaching practice greatly influences future teaching. during the teaching practice process, she reflects outside of practice by controlling communication between students and wanting more constructive and supportive feedback from students. reflecting outside of practice can help teachers gain a better viewpoint on their side and get more understanding on how things work. this is in line with playsted (2019) stating that reflected outside of practice is very important, because it affects the quality of teacher teaching. she reflects outside of practice by establishing communication with students and at the end of the lesson he evaluates with students about his teaching. in the same vein with a study conducted by farrell and avejic (2020) stated that, during teaching practice he reflected outside the practitioner by wanting feedback from students that occurred during lessons and asking students to correct mistakes while teaching. this statement is also relevant to the findings of kusumarasdyati and retnaningdyah (2020) stating that she reflected outside of teaching practice by improving has teaching methods, controlling patience with students, and as an evaluation, also accepting criticism from students. this reflection is used to improve has way of teaching and can explain to students. this is also relevant to the findings of farrell and kennedy (2019) which state that reflection outside of practice is done by receiving feedback from students and he explains that he needs to improve his teaching methods so that students can easily understand the material. in addition, he also needs to improve his ability to approach students. conclusion this present study aims to identify the reflective practice of the efl pre-service teacher during teaching practice at schools. from the results and discussion, it was found that the pre-service teacher of this study not only had the three hidden aspects of reflective teaching (i.e., philosophy, principles, and theory), but also did them all in her real teaching practice. the reflection that she did, greatly influenced how she taught students to be a better english teacher in the future. this study, however, has limitations in some aspects. it is limited to only investigating one pre-service teacher from one batch and one school. further research, therefore, could dig deeper on the reflective teaching practices from more than one efl pre-service teachers who conduct teaching practice in different types of schools, and see the differences among them. funding statement this is a non-funded study. references arslan, f. y. 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(1987). educating the reflective practitioner. san francisco, ca: jossey-bass https://doi.org/10.1002/tesj.10 https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccm022 https://doi.org/10.1016/s0346-251x(01)00011-2 https://doi.org/10.1016/s0346-251x(01)00011-2 https://doi.org/10.1177/0022487102053001004 https://doi.org/10.1080/14623943.2016.1169169 https://doi.org/10.1080/14623943.2012.732946 putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 1 elt forum 10 (1) (2021) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt short-animation video in web meeting classes for secondary school learners’ efl writing achievement dwi nikita sari1, susilo susilo2, effendi limbong3 1,2,3english department, fkip, mulawarman university article info ________________ article history: received in 1 januari 2021 approved in 3 march 2021 published in 26 march 2021 ________________ keywords: efl writing; secondary school learners; short animation video; web meeting circumstances abstract ___________________________________________________________________ the study aims at investigating whether there is an effect of short animation video on the efl narrative writing achievement of the secondary school efl learners in the circumstance where web meeting was becoming the class. the study was an experimental study using static group comparison design. respondents participated in the study were the 8th graders of junior high school. there were 32 students in the experimental group and the other 32 students in the control group. the data were collected by conducting writing tests, i.e. post-test for both the experimental and control groups. independent sample t-test was used to test the significant difference for pre and post-test scores. the results revealed that the students under the experimental group (m = 83.22, sd = 7.979, n = 32) performed higher in scores on their narrative writing achievement than the students under the control group (m = 76.00, sd = 9.824, n = 32), t(32) = 3.227, p < .002, two-tailed. it means there is a significant difference between narrative writing achievement of the students under the experimental group and those under the control group. this finding implies there is a significant effect of short animation video on the narrative efl writing achievement of the secondary school efl learners. © 2021 universitas negeri semarang correspondent address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: airafsusiloreno111@yahoo.com http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& dwi nikita sari, susilo susilo, efendi limbong/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 2 introduction to fit for the disruption of the normal function of education since the covid-19 outbreak began to run its course, students, teachers, and leaders of education had put in place various alternative ways to continue all the businesses of education. due to the restriction of people congregating in public place, all educational institutions had to prefer choosing virtual meeting classes to continue the process of teaching and learning. as a result, to explore various innovations of the online meeting class has been becoming new challenges for all teachers to obtain a bright sustainable future. such a sustainable future might strongly presumably be related to the interaction with digital resources (flores, 2020; napal et al., 2020; rosa et al., 2016). at the same time, digital resources may bring teachers to shift their roles to be more active, innovative, critical, open-minded, driving them to manage, mentor, and motivate their students in digital learning environment (amin, 2016). that is why, it is necessary for teachers to have virtual-web meetings with learners in order that they are able to help students navigate complex communication situations in a digital environment (o’dowd et al., 2019). apparently, using technology-based media in web meeting circumstance of learning is a panacea. there are numerous technology-based media used in teaching efl writing, one of which is a video. as what richards & renandya (2002) elaborated about video, compared to other visual media, video covers more quite heavy sense in terms of an access to learners’ experiences which might make the learners easily digest materials given. according to cakir (2006), media and styles of visual presentation are useful for language learners. in addition, smaldino et al., (2011) argued that numerous teachers use videos for various ends since short video might give more flexible media in teaching in the classroom. especially for animation video, it is quite useful to be a means of leading learners in optimal learning. presumably, teaching efl writing by using animation video has been evidently claimed effective. the claim about effectiveness of teaching efl writing by using a short animation video has been proved by some research findings. numerous previous studies were conducted to investigate technology-based media in efl teaching by mentioning various platform of technology, among others are explainer video, short animations with dialogue, short video, short english video, plotagon, tailormade animated cartoons, modalities of videos, short stories through computers, whatsapp group, and silent short movie as pedagogical terms which were related to video as media in teaching, being claimed to give a significant effect on the students’ achievement in efl narrative writing (see akib & syatriana, 2019; bakla, 2019; guzmán gámez & moreno cuellar, 2019; marashi & adiban, 2017; haslida, 2019; irawati, 2016; masruddin, 2018; kartika et al., 2017; umutlu & akpinar, 2020; wahyuni & febianti, 2019; yilmaz, 2015). most of those previous findings are strengthening the use of video as media in learning. having a stronger notion on the effectiveness of video usage in efl teaching since many previous findings have been conducted, animation video functioned as helpful media in teaching efl writing apparently shows its significance. in terms of efl writing, using short video as media in learning has been proved as a panacea of healing some learners’ barriers in accomplishing their achievement. for instance, silent movie was proved as effective media in efl writing achievement of vocational school students (kartika et al., 2017); short movie was claimed as effective media to teaching speaking senior high school students (masruddin, 2018); and short video animation was evidently seen as effective media in writing in tehran language learners (marashi & adiban, 2017). moreover, machili et al., (2020) were interested in conducting research on the role of video in the integrated writing and strategy instruction (si) in english for academic purposes (eap). the findings suggested positive impact of si on the integrated writing performance. to mention some, those studies are dealing with video in the form of short movie, accept marashi & adiban's (2017) study, in the asian context of efl as prototype of large class learning. however, spesifically researches on the use of animation video for learners of efl writing in larger classes are still rarely done. it is obvious that investigation on the animation video as media in learning elf writing class needs more wider practical perspectives. this current study appeared to strengthen the wide prism of technology praxis in efl teaching, especially in efl writing for the larger classes in indonesian secondary schools. moreover, as one of the most effective media used in the teaching during the pandemic outbreak circumstances, animation video functioned to be a means for transferring messages in the process of teaching in such condition. especially this study proposed a research question of ‘is there any significant effect of short animation video on the efl narrative writing achievement of the 8th graders of junior high school?’. dwi nikita sari, susilo susilo, efendi limbong/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 3 literature review writing process the writing is someone’s ability to compose stretches of words into meaningful forms of communicative means in order that he/she shows communicative skills for good way of expressing ideas in an purposive end (celce-murcia & olshtain, 2000; harmer, 2007). the process of writing consists of pre writing, drafting, and revising. in addition, there are many ways in the process of organizing paragraphs in writing, in which the writer’s purposes can be clearly defined (smalley et al., 2001). differently, langan (2008) divided the writing process into four types, they are: a) pre writing this is a phase where writer starts to think of what to write. at least langan argued several strategies in having such pre writing, i.e. questioning, making a list, clustering, mapping, or preparing an outline. b) writing a first draft this phase is real writing phase where writer should put ideas on paper, starting to prepare what it will be for initial draft. c) revising once writer gets his/her ideas put in the paper as drafts, he/she should see again whether the ideas are put a good way. in this case, there is a need for writer to rewrite everything she/he wants to revise. d) editing this is the phase of checking anything related to grammatical mistakes, punctuation, spelling etc. furthermore, the purpose of writing is to express ideas, convey messages to the readers; therefore, the ideas should arguably be seen as the most important aspect of the writing. diction and sentence structures are similarly important in conveying messages. according to (grenville, 2001) at least there are three purposes of writing: a) to entertain writing deliberately designed for entertainment usually provides more imaginary or creative writing forms. it means that the writer needs to use his/her creativity to write. b) to inform writing aimed at informing something is included in this purpose. this kind of writing will lead writers to focus their writing on objects, places, procedures, or events. it can be seen in newspaper and articles, scientific or business reports, instructions or procedures, and essays for school and university. c) to persuade the writer tries to convince the reader of something that a point of view is valid by presenting the fact/data so that readers follow writer’s opinions and act upon it. in short, writing aims at not only expressing ideas, feelings or thought in written symbol but entertaining, informing and persuading readers. in addition to the writing process, something that is important to know is the organization of the paragraphs in writing. there are many ways in the process of organizing paragraphs in writing, in which the writer’s purposes can be clearly defined; among others is narrative. in a narrative paragraph, the writer describes a sequence of past events (smalley et al., 2001). moreover, knapp & watkins, (2005) stated that there are three generic structures in narrative composition, i.e. orientation, complication and resolution. meanwhile, according to it can be concluded that narrative text is one of the text genres which is constructed by developing three different generic structures, i.e. orientation, complication, and resolution. orientation deals with the introduction of the character, time, and the place; complication is problems or the conflicts which happen in the story and they have to be solved by the character; while, resolution is the solution of the problems. video as media of teaching smaldino et al., (2011) traced the term ‘media’ from the latin language ‘medium which means ’intermediary’. therefore, media can be labelled as an intermediary message source to a receiver. by this term means it referred to ways to communicate an information. the format of media is more in dwi nikita sari, susilo susilo, efendi limbong/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 4 the terms of form, where a message is incorporated and displayed. according to (mahajan, 2012), media can be classified into six categories, namely: a) graphic media: any kinds of printed media. things like charts, posters, graphs, photographs, maps books, pictures, or diagrams are incorporated in this medium. b) media for display: a tool like a board. the examples are peg boards, bulletin board, chalkboard, or flannel board. c) three-dimensional media: a medium that has 3d shape. for example, models, objects, specimens, puppets. d) media for projection: a technology device for displaying message like projector. for example, slides, filmstrips, transparencies, films, video tapes, gramophones, records. e) audio device: a tool for audio function, such as radio, audio cassettes, gramophones, records. f) audio-visual media: a technology device which covers both audio and visual senses, for instance, televisions, computers, videocassettes, or cd. g) media for activity: a technology tool that catches motion activities. for example, fieldtrips, dramatization, demonstration, and role-playing. referring to such classification, it is apparent that video means a medium that provides audiovisual domain useful for helping the teaching and learning. it can be played back in a slow motion hence human eyes are able to see events occurring too fast in order that the normal vision is registered. in addition, the use of meaningful video in teaching might be the most appropriate for introductory courses, courses of complex topics, lower achieving-students, and visual/spatial learners. videos can also operate recorded-pictures display on television-type screen (newby, 2002). richards & renandya (2002), furthermore, elaborated that as audio-visual media, video incorporates more extremely heavy senses in terms of an access to learners’ experiences which might make the learners easily digest materials given. it means that video incorporates visual and audio effects. in the context of teaching, brewster et al., (2002) concludes some benefits of using videos for young learners into four aspects as follows: a) teaching and learning can get psychological aspect of watching video in terms of various ways, such the fact that the learners find video fun, stimulating and highly motivating. in addition, the learning experience successful in class, the positive attitudes appeared in class, and feeling confident are things that video can contribute to the classroom. b) all factors of communication, such as language forms, nonverbal codes, meaning negotiation, and interaction are the linguistic aspect of video that can be presented to represent new words, phrases, and expressions of messages. it is all showed by the video consequently learning can be more accessible and memorable. c) the increase of learners’ curiosity and up-to-date information can be provided in the cognitive aspect of video. it enables learners to maximize their abilities to infer form context. in addition, learners’ motoric abilities, research knowledge and experiences, abilities to communicate, autonomous learning can be developed through video. d) in terms of cultural aspect, video enables learners to see the world beyond the classroom and improves their cultural awareness. however, despite the strength of video as media in learning, riddel, (2003) stated some disadvantages of using video as media. the weakness is regarded with lack of naturalness in learning when using video. it is not rare that learners feel frustrated with the ‘stop-start’ nature of lesson; in addition, with a very big class, not everyone may be able to see the screen. in a nutshell, using video as media of learning might either provide advantages and disadvantages depending on how we as teachers develop media in the circumstances in such as a way that students are able to feel secure and fun in learning. indeed, media should be helpful in the classroom. teaching efl writing and short animation video various research findings proved the claim about effectiveness of teaching efl writing by using short animation video. such findings showed investigation of video as media in efl teaching by mentioning various models of short video; namely, explainer video, short animations with dialogue, short video, short english video, plotagon, tailor-made animated cartoons, modalities of videos, short stories through computers, whatsapp group, and silent short movie as pedagogical terms which were dwi nikita sari, susilo susilo, efendi limbong/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 5 related to video as media in teaching, being claimed to give a significant effect on the students’ achievement in efl narrative writing (see kartika et al., 2017; akib & syatriana, 2019; bakla, 2019; guzmán gámez & moreno cuellar, 2019; marashi & adiban, 2017; haslida, 2019; irawati, 2016; masruddin, 2018;; umutlu & akpinar, 2020; wahyuni & febianti, 2019; yilmaz, 2015). furthermore, of the mentioned previous findings, some were conducted in asian contexts in which learners were engaged in large classes. for instance, kartika et al., (2017) involved participants of 61 indonesian vocational high school students. this study intended to investigate the effect of silent movie on their efl writing achievement. the findings showed that students who were taught by silent short movie got significantly different achievement in efl writing than did the students who were not taught by silent short. in addition, masruddin (2018) studying the effectiveness of short movie in teaching speaking skills of the 25 eleventh grade students of sman 4 luwu in luwu regency, south sulawesi province, indonesia. it was proven by the data that there was a significant difference between the students’ mean score of pretest and posttest. moreover, masruddin (2018), using 60 preintermediate efl learners from a language school in tehran as participants of experimental and control group. in both groups, the participants were asked to write five writings regarding the subjects of the animations during the term and each of the writings should have contained a minimum of 90 and maximum of 140 words. the results revealed that the experimental group outperformed the control group. methods research design the study was an experimental study using static group comparison design. there were two nonrandomized groups, i.e. experimental and control group as it is shown in table 1. teaching narrative text by using short animation video was the independent variable and students’ efl narrative writing achievement was the dependent variable in the study. table 1. static group comparison design research subjects respondents participated in the study were the 8th grade students of junior high school. there were two classes used as samples in the study. they were the viii b class, as the experimental group, consisting of 32 students and the viii d class, as the control group, containing 32 students. those samples were taken from the population by using cluster random sampling technique. those sample classes were taken from the 160 students who were gathered in 5 parallel classes as the population of the study. research procedure the data were collected by conducting writing post-tests, i.e. for experimental group and control group. the writing tests were conducted by giving the students writing prompts to write narrative texts after the treatments were done to both groups. the treatment was conducted virtually using online platform, i.e. google classroom (the treatment activities was wrapped up in table 2.) and so was the administration of the pretest and posttest. the treatment activities were done for 45 minutes in every meeting (i.e. one meeting was named as one treatment and there were four meetings in a whole), therefore totally the time that the researchers needed to conduct the experiment was 180 minutes. writing prompts were given to the respondents to write narrative texts after the treatments were done to both groups. the treatment was done virtually using online platform, i.e. google classroom. in regard with data analysis, researchers used independent sample t-test. firstly, the descriptive analysis was used to elaborate the mean and the standard deviation of the scores. then, after the percentage scores for pre and post-test were collected from different groups of students, the independent sample t-test was used to test the significant difference for pre and post-test scores. the independent sample t-test was conducted to test the hypothesis of the study, as follows: group independent variable post-test experimental group x o2 control group o2 dwi nikita sari, susilo susilo, efendi limbong/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 6 h0: teaching narrative text by using animation video do not give statistically significant difference on students’ narrative writing achievement before and after the treatment. h1: teaching narrative text by using animation video gives statistically significant difference on students’ narrative writing achievement before and after the treatment table 2. research procedure and treatment findings and discussion results as it seen in table 3, the result revealed that in terms of the efl narrative writing achievement, the students under the experimental group (x= 83.22) outperformed those under the control group (x= 76.00). activities experimental group control group treatment 1 opening checking the students’ attendance apperception checking the students’ attendance apperception teaching explaining the materials about narrative text to students explaining the materials about narrative text to students asking the taught materials the students asking the taught materials to the students teaching the narrative text by using an animation video teaching the narrative text with conventional way using whiteboard as the media closing closing the meeting closing the meeting treatment 2 opening checking the students’ attendance apperception checking the students’ attendance apperception teaching teaching the narrative text by using an animation video giving assingments to the students asking the students to observe the story played in the video asking the students to rearrange the sentences to make a story in the text written in the whiteboard asking the students to explain the story played in the video asking the students to tell the story based on the arrangement of the text written in the whiteboard closing teacher close the meeting teacher close the meeting treatment 3 checking the students’ attendance apperception checking the students’ attendance apperception teaching asking the students to mention the character, and setting of the story played in video asking the students to mention the character, and setting of the story in the text written in the whiteboard asking the students to mention the generic structure of the story played in the video asking the students to mention the generic structure of the story written in the text written in the whiteboard closing teacher close the meeting teacher close the meeting treatment 4 opening checking the students’ attendance apperception checking the students’ attendance apperception dwi nikita sari, susilo susilo, efendi limbong/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 7 table 3. the results of descriptive statistics the spreading scores found in terms of their frequencies varied. as it is showed in figure 1, in the experimental group, students who got most 80 were the most in number, i.e. 6 students; meanwhile four students got 92, 88, and 78 subsequently. in addition, only one student who obtained 90, one obtained 91, and one obtained 96. there were more than one, but less than four other students who got various other scores. it means that more higher scores (the scores higher than the mean score) were spreading throughout in terms of their frequencies. figure 1. the results of post test scores in the experimental group meanwhile, in the control group different spreading scores happened. as it is seen in figure 2, there were six students who got 80; five others obtained 84 and the other five got 76. moreover, there were four students who got 60 and only one got 92; in the meantime, two students got 56, three students got 72, one student got 74, and two others got 78. this means lower scores (the scores lower than the mean score) were spreading more active throughout the frequencies. it implies low efl narrative writing scores happening in the control group (see figure 2). figure 2. the results of post test scores in the control group n minimum maximum mean std. deviation post-test (experimental group) 32 68 96 83.22 7.979 post-test (control group) 32 56 92 76.00 9.824 dwi nikita sari, susilo susilo, efendi limbong/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 8 to know whether or not there is significant difference between control and experimental group, the researchers used independent t-test. the steps were to checking the normality, homogeneity of variance, and checking the hypothesis. the normality test is to reveal that the samples are in normal distribution. the homogeneity test is to reveal that both samples of experiment group and control are homogeneous. the researchers also analyzed the samples of this research. it was because the samples should be checked if the distribution of every variable in the data was normally distributed. therefore, the normality of the data could be checked by using kolmogorov-smirnov. thus, the table below showed the result of the normality of the data. table 4. the results of one-sample kolmogorov-smirnov test table 4 presented the result of kolmogorov-smirnov’ normality data of this research. that result showed that the significance value of the two groups was higher than 0,05 (sig. > 0,05). if the result of significant is more than 0,05 (sig. (2-tailed) > 0,05 or ≥ 0,05), then the distribution of data was normal. it means that the data of this research was normal because the significant scores is more than 0,05 (sig. 2-tailed) > 0,05). the data also was calculated using parametric statistics which is required homogeneity of the research. homogeneity means the samples of the research come from the same variance or have same characteristics. meanwhile, table 5 showed the homogeneity of variances that was analyzed by using levence statistic. table 5. the result of homogeneity of variances as seen in table 5, the data showed that f value of 0.240 with df1 was 1, the df2 was 62 and significance was 0.626. it means that the data was significant because 0.626 > 0.05 and the data are homogeneous. an independent t-test was conducted to know whether there is a significant difference between narrative writing achievement of the students under the experimental group and those under the control group. as shown in table 6, results from an independent samples t test indicated that students in the experimental group (m = 83.22, sd = 7.979, n = 32) scored higher on their narrative writing achievement than students in the control group (m = 76.00, sd = 9.824, n = 32), t(32) = 3.227, p < .002, two-tailed. table 6. the result of independent sample t-test group sig. α distribution of normality post-test control group 0.189 0.050 normal post-test experimental group 0.245 0.050 normal levene statistics df 1 df 2 sig. .240 1 62 .626 students learning outcomes levene’s test for equality of variances t-test for equality of means f sig. t df sig. (2tailed) mean differe nce std. error differe nce 95% confidence interval of the difference lower upper equal variances assumed .240 .626 3.227 62 .002 7.219 2.237 2.746 11.691 equal variances not assumed 3.227 59.497 .002 7.219 2.237 2.743 11.695 dwi nikita sari, susilo susilo, efendi limbong/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 9 thus, it can be concluded that the null hypothesis is rejected. this means that there is a significant effect of short animation video on the narrative efl writing achievement of the 8th graders of junior high school. discussion it has been apparently proved that there is a significant effect of short animation video on the narrative efl writing achievement of the 8th graders of junior high school. this implies the importance of teaching efl by using short animation video, as it is in line with some previous findings, for instance, explainer video was claimed both qualitatively and quantitatively can outperform the narrative writing achievement of efl students of muhammadiyah university (akib & syatriana, 2019), short animations with dialogue was argued effective to increase efl oral and written ability (marashi & adiban, 2017), short video used in group discussion was evidently effective in teaching speaking to indonesian efl students (masruddin, 2018), short english video can also improve learners’ vocabulary mastery (haslida, 2019), plotagon can create learners’ motivation to write (guzmán gámez & moreno cuellar, 2019), tailor-made animated cartoons presumably were mentioned as a good facilitator for learners’ way of writing punctuation rules in english (bakla, 2019), for the flipped classroom, different modalities of videos was needed for english writing classes (umutlu & akpinar, 2020), short stories through computers was implemented in language classrooms to have very positive effects on learners’ language learning process (yilmaz, 2015), whatsapp group used as media for learning in english writing (wahyuni & febianti, 2019), and silent short movie was claimed to give a significant effect on the students’ achievement in efl narrative writing (kartika et al., 2017). having similar conclusions with some other previous findings, indeed, this current study appeared to strengthen the wide prism of technology praxis in efl teaching, especially in efl narrative writing. as one of the most effective media used in the teaching during the pandemic circumstances, animation video functioned to be a means for transferring messages in the process of teaching. it is true then that technology and its function are really necessary media in the process of teaching and learning, especially video. video used as media in learning can function as helping students organize events in their mind when they are learning, for instance it might catch events happening too fast since in video everything can be recorded dan replayed. in addition, video provides visual elements which is helpful for the learners and learners also experience audio element (newby, 2002); richards & renandya 2002). accordingly, the students are able to happily manage the circumstance when learning, hence they can easily create the idea by using media in learning. in brief, using video makes the students easier in learning efl as it is implied in the findings revealed in the current study. moreover, this current study provides pedagogical implication that short animation video was used a media in a learning circumstance which is in regard with the process of efl writing in secondary schools. this pedagogical conclusion has a similar notion in terms of using short animation video in efl writing, however, what is relatively new is that this happens in indonesian secondary schools in which large classes are very common. large number-students managed in every classroom of the secondary schools should be taught using appropriate media in order that fun and optimal class circumstances can be obtained by the teachers. conclusion the current study draws a conclusion that the students under the experimental group (m = 83.22, sd = 7.979, n = 32) performed higher in scores on their narrative writing achievement than the students under the control group (m = 76.00, sd = 9.824, n = 32), t(32) = 3.227, p < .002, two-tailed. it means there is a significant difference between narrative writing achievement of the students under the experimental group and those under the control group. this means that there is a significant effect of short animation video on the narrative efl writing achievement of the 8th graders of junior high school. having such a conclusion, the study gives a pedagogical implication that short animation video might be presumably important as media of technology in increasing the effective process learning narrative writing for efl students in the secondary schools. in an education science, especially instructional science, the effective learning process helps both teachers and students accomplish their goals of learning, i.e improving the quality of learners’ life in the future. spesifically, in terms of efl learning, such life quality improvement might be related to good communication skills with people from different countries and cultures. as a result, this brings an ease of culturalization process in the international global village. dwi nikita sari, susilo susilo, efendi limbong/ elt forum 10 (1) (2021) 10 references akib, e., & syatriana, e. 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(2015). short stories via computers in efl classrooms: an empirical study for reading and writing skills. the reading matrix, 15(1), 41–53. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 1 elt forum 13(1) (2024) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt assessing health science students’ english language lacks: learners’ needs analysis tessema gilo gayessa1, nuru mohammed2 1,2the department of foreign languages and literature, college of humanities, language studies, journalism, and communication, addis ababa university, ethiopia article info ________________ article history: received on 1 october 2023 approved on 28 november 2023 published on 31 march 2024 ________________ keywords: lacks; medical english; necessities; present situation; target situation ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ english language courses are provided in universities throughout the majority of the world where english is used as a second or first language to address students' english language needs in the target-situation use. however, at all ethiopian universities where english is taught as a foreign language, two english language skills courses, dubbed "communicative english language skills i" and "communicative english language skills ii," are offered as standard courses in the first year. large language gaps have been noted, particularly in health science academic and professional settings where english is largely expected. hence, this study aimed to identify health science students’ english language gaps so that english language courses are designed accordingly. this study employed a mixedmethods research design. it was conducted via tests, observations, and interviews. the findings revealed that participant students had good proficiency in grammar and usage as well as reading skills. however, they had poor proficiency in listening skills, which in turn indicated that the students had difficulty understanding spoken english. the findings also indicated that these students demonstrated an inability to write an acceptable essay. the study further revealed that students' failure to describe a patient, the case, the complaints, and the drugs in medical terminology was partially due to a lack of english language skills. as a result, while developing english language course materials for health science students, course designers and practitioners should address these english language gaps existing in students’ academic studies and future professions. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 p.o.box.1176, addis ababa university, ethiopia gilotessema@gmail.com http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& mailto:gilotessema@gmail.com tessema gilo gayessa & nuru mohammed| elt forum 13(1) (2024) 2 introduction the growing need for detailed analyses of learner needs as a precursor to good course design is one of the numerous prerequisites for efficient course design in foreign and second language education (long, 2005). (hyland, 2006) defines need analysis as the procedures for acquiring and evaluating information relevant to course design, and it is the method for determining the how and what of the course. to compete at the international level, students must have at least three language skills: basic english, work-related language skills, and academic-related language abilities (yansyah et al., 2019). according to nation and macalister (2010), numerous elements should be addressed while building a course. these are learners' current knowledge and gaps, accessible resources such as time and teachers' expertise, the curriculum designer's strengths and limits, and teaching and learning principles. according to basturkmen (2010), language is learned not for its own sake or to obtain a broad education, but to smooth the way for admission or to improve linguistic efficiency in specific situations. it is not required to teach a linguistic object just because it exists in the language (nunan, 2004). acceptable language course material and possible advantages may be discovered if students, sponsors, and teachers understand why students need english (hutchinson & waters, 1987). in conclusion, (basturkmen, 2010; hutchinson & waters, 1987; long, 2005; nation & macalister, 2010; nunan, 2004) all argue that english language course material should be designed to fit students' academic and professional needs. teachers must always do needs analyses, such as determining if the subject is too difficult for their students, whether there is anything new for them to learn in this activity, and whether everyone in the class understands it (nation & macalister, 2010). they emphasized that completing a need analysis is analogous to conducting research or assessment since a good need analysis is credible, valid, and practical. designing skill-based resources will aid students in developing skills that they will need for future work or education (yansyah et al., 2019). esp is a movement that addresses the language needs of learners who require english to perform specific roles (e.g., students, engineers, nurses) and who need to acquire content and realworld skills through the medium of english rather than mastering the language for its own sake (richards & rodgers, 2010). richards (2001) states needs in terms of a linguistic deficiency as the difference between what a learner can currently do in a language and what he or she should be able to do. according to mccorry & mason (2011), a healthcare worker with excellent communication skills will always be more effective in treating patients. we believe that medical english should be taught at increasingly difficult levels over the course of a five-year undergraduate degree (li, 2015). language tests are instructional tools used during the second step of corporate language audits (long, 2005). he lists four stages of an audit: identification of the foreign language skills that employees need to complete their communications tasks; determination of the employees' foreign language proficiency; association of the existing level of command with the required level; and an indicator of educational language policies that the company can implement to improve their employees' foreign language proficiency. determining where the learners are presently (lacks) is an important component of needs analysis (nation & macalister, 2010). as a result, english language proficiency tests were administered to students in order to determine their present level of english language ability. the researcher believes that english language gaps exist in the classroom and in the health professions. harmer (2001) states that communication can suffer if grammatical rules are carelessly violated. in ethiopia, all health science or medical students study all courses in english. hence, in ethiopia, the english language plays a more significant role in the health professions than in any other field. paltridge & starfield (2013) argue that it is definitely possible to build an emp course around a sequence of relevant language items learning materials based on semantic feature analysis (sfa) significantly develop the acquisition of english medical terminology among nursing students (putri et al., 2023). karimnia & khodashenas (2018) found that the english language abilities provided in the current esp book for medical students, as well as the time allocated for this course, are incompatible with the students' english language learning wants and wishes at islamic azad university in iran. this might suggest that the majority of countries have already implemented esp courses for medical students and are studying their efficiency in meeting students' english language demands. however, communicative english language skills are given as common courses for all firstyear university students in ethiopia. even the activities in the modules do not address the english language needs of health science students in particular or natural science in general. the objectives tessema gilo gayessa & nuru mohammed| elt forum 13(1) (2024) 3 of the module themselves indicate big gaps to address in terms of academic or professional needs. the researcher attempted to locate international and local studies on the subject. some ph.d. studies were undertaken overseas, whereas just a few ma programs were conducted locally. some instances of ph.d. research done overseas include abdullah's (2005) work, which focuses on sociolinguistic needs rather than target needs. alfehaid (2011) studied the importance of skills rather than learners’ english language needs. farhat (2012) explored the function of english as a foreign language in doctor identity construction and the process of becoming a doctor. according to abuklaish (2014), english is generally required in a scientific setting. chatsungnoen (2015) investigated the english language needs of students and related stakeholders for an english for specific purposes (esp) program for students studying food science and technology at thailand's agriculture university. however, with the exception of a few ma theses, the researcher has not come across any local studies undertaken in an ethiopian setting at the phd level. for example, abiy (1990) did research to determine the communication demands of high schools, and he proposed that his study be only a partial job to build a course. belachew (2008) also attempted to investigate the english language needs of construction tvet trainees, with a focus on entoto tvet college. tufaro (2008) conducted research to assess the english language needs of third-year students at shashamane health science college. his major goal was to find more vital language skills for third-year students to be successful in their academic context, future jobs, and private and social lives. thus, none of these studies has captured the essence of the current study. the current study, on the other hand, investigates health science students' english language gaps in academic and future professional activities in order to design appropriate course material. as a result, this study aimed to address three fundamental questions: what are health science students' current english language abilities and language use?; what are the english language gaps that existed in health science students’ writing?; and what professional communication gaps are there in the target situation? methods this study used a sequential explanatory mixed-methods design. plano clark & creswell (2015) suggest that the best mixed method design is a sequential explanatory design in which quantitative results are obtained in the first phase to provide a general picture of the research problem, and then these findings are refined or elaborated through an in-depth qualitative exploration in the second phase. researchers can adopt a pragmatic approach if they want to choose the research method they think is best for their study (dornyei, 2007). creswell (2014) also reveals that the pragmatic paradigm allows researchers to feel free to select procedures or methods that can meet their needs in collecting various types of data to answer their research questions. according to pragmatism, new paradigms generate new sets of beliefs that lead to new types of behaviors (morgan, 2014). the conceptual framework of this study depends on the rationale of language descriptions and theories of learning. a basic framework for the present study is outlined mainly depending on hutchinson & waters (1987) needs analysis framework. in general, the context of examining students' english language lacks in light of course design is described in figure 1. in the figure, the framework shows the variables that help course design be relevant to the health science students’ academic and professional needs through learners’ english language needs analysis. depending on the theoretical view of language, target needs (what language the learners lack to function in their academic and future professions) are identified. these identifications of the target needs are done through identifying lacks (students’ language difficulties). analyzing the language in target situations helps identify the language skills and knowledge needed in the target situation. on the other hand, based on a theoretical view of cognitive and affective learning, learning needs (what learners need to do in order to learn) are identified by learning situation analysis. then, the potential of learners and constraints of the learning or teaching situation are identified. by mediating these variables of both theoretical views of language and theoretical views of learning, the course relevant to students’ academic fields of study and future professions will be designed. tessema gilo gayessa & nuru mohammed| elt forum 13(1) (2024) 4 figure 1. conceptual framework of the study (adapted from hutchinson and waters, 1987) respondents a total of 131 second and fourth-year students in the college of health sciences at samara university were selected from a target population of 199. from a total population of 199, the required sample size for the study with 5% margin of error and 95% confidence level was 131 students so as to get representative sample of the students from each department in the college. the students’ samples were chosen based on a stratified sampling technique. kothari (2004) states that stratified sampling techniques are generally applied in order to obtain a representative sample of the population from which a sample to be drawn does not constitute a homogenous group. thus, to obtain sample students from each department, stratified sampling was used. to allocate the sample size for each stratum, n*pi stratified sample calculation of kothari (2004) was used. that was, pi represents the population included in stratum and n represents the total sample size. for example, a sample size n =131 was to be drawn from a population of size n = 199 which is divided in to six strata (i.e. sections). they are 2nd and 4th year health officer department students, 2nd and 4th year midwifery, and 2nd and 4th year nursing department students. for instance, the number of 2nd year public health officer (pho) department students was 50 that was n1=50, so pi =50/199. to obtain the representative sample from this section, n 1 = n. pi that is n1= 131 x50/199= 32.91. hence, 33 respondents were selected from 2nd year public health off icer identify skills and knowledge needed to function in the target situation course design relevant to the health science students’ academic and professional needs interview for (students, instructors &health professionals) learning situation analysis analyze target situation observations (classroom and hospital ward teaching) identify constraints of learning/ teaching situation pbt toefl test lacks (language gaps existed) target needs refer to what the health science students needs to do in the target situation. learning needs refer to what the health science students need to do in order to learn. theoretical views of learning (cognitive/the affective factors needs theoretical views of language (language variation and registers analysis, functional /notional grammar and discourse analysis) tessema gilo gayessa & nuru mohammed| elt forum 13(1) (2024) 5 department students by systematic sampling. accordingly, the number of students participants selected for the quantitative data was shown in the following table. table 1. student participants for the quantitative data six students who can give ample information were chosen purposefully for the interview based on their instructors’ recommendations. the researcher was aimed to interview 12 students, but stopped on six because he got the information obtained redundant. plano clark & creswell (2015) state that reaching “saturation” is the point in the study when the researchers feel that they are no longer obtaining new information from the new informants rather than repeating what the previous informants have already revealed. five subject area instructors from the college and six health professionals from dubt hospital were selected for the interview by available sampling techniques. there were five major subject area instructors and six health professional who directly concern this study. hence, all of the major subject area courses’ instructors who were delivering the courses under the study and health professionals were selected for the interview. three subjects, who are course instructors, and three health professionals were also observed. these instructors and professional were selected based on their work experience and their availability during the moment of data collection for the observation. instruments data were collected through quantitative instruments (tests) and qualitative instruments (observation and interview). according to nation and macalister (2010), students' scores on standardized proficiency tests like the toefl exam or the ielts test can be a helpful source of information, especially when they contain information on several components of language ability like writing or speaking. observation was the first qualitative data collection instrument used in this study. it was utilized to directly observe the english language target-situation use. when case study researchers study bounded systems like classrooms, clinics, or programs, observations are a common type of data (plano clark & creswell, 2015). in this study, the interview was also another qualitative data gathering instrument used for elaborating or extending the data and results obtained by the pbt toefl test. besides, it was also used to confirm the data collected by observation. the interview questions were adapted from questions of need analysis found in richards (2001). each item was then adapted in a health science context based on need analysis questions found in basturkmen (2010) and paltridge & starfield (2013) because the researcher thought they matched his research objectives. the type of interview used was a semi-structured interview. data collection procedures the data for this study was gathered using quantitative instruments and qualitative instruments in accordance with the techniques outlined below. first, the researcher spoke with concerned university executives and university workers to gauge their interest. accordingly, the academic president of the institution stated his willingness. then, he sent the researcher letters of support to the appropriate bodies in order to aid the researcher with data collection from their college. the researcher then discussed the issue with the concerned faculty and vowed to protect their privacy. the participants then provided the researcher with complete assistance throughout the course of the study. first, the pbt toefl test was administered to the student participants. test was delivered to 131 selected students in samara university’s hall by the researcher and by the assistance of two major subject area instructors. before administering the test, the researcher gave the students some departments level total no of students number of participants pho 2nd year 50 33 4th year 21 14 nursing 2nd year 48 32 4th year 25 16 midwifery 2nd year 35 23 4th year 20 13 total 199 131 tessema gilo gayessa & nuru mohammed| elt forum 13(1) (2024) 6 instruction and alertness regarding time. then, the test was administered just according to the procedure and time of the ets in pbt toefl test. all students had done and gave the paper except one who was sick and did not complete all the questions. as a result, it was rejected and the results of 130 students were used for this study. having analyzed the quantitative data, then the qualitative data were shaped based on the results. from the qualitative data, observations were conducted first. the observations preceded the interview intentionally for the fear that the teachers may adjust themselves based on the information gleaned from the interviews. generally, twelve classroom observations were conducted in three departments to obtain students’ english language gaps in their academic field of study. each class was audio-recorded from the beginning to the end of the observed lesson. then, it was transformed into textual data through transcription. field notes were also used for unrecorded behaviors. the researcher also observed 12 session of internship students in hospital wards to investigate the english language that health science students lack and expected to know in their future professional careers. here, the researcher observed internship students learning at hospital wards. the researcher observed all activities happened because the nature of the observation was shadowing. he was following all the activities of the participants for a certain time based on their convenience on duty. (dudley-evan & st. john, 1998, p. 135) state that “to shadow” someone is to follow everything that they do for a block of time, such as a day, several consecutive days, or one day a month.” hence, observation began on december 14, 2021, and end on february 2, 2022. the students first clerked for the patient. clerking entails taking a case history, performing a physical examination, and speculating on possible differential diagnoses and treatments. it was observed that the internship students were expected to do three things, mainly after clerking the patient. they were giving presentations at the bedside, in rounds, and seminar. thus, the researcher observed, recorded and transcribed to textual data. data analysis as mentioned earlier, the test was administered to collect data in order to identify students’ present knowledge at that time. then, the test was corrected, and the results were changed into scale scores used by ets in determining a student's pbt toefl test result. for the alternative items, the researcher corrected using the answer key given by rogers (2011). the raw test results (listening comprehension, structure and writing expression, and reading comprehension) were then scaled. each of these sections' total number of correct answers was converted into a scaled score. scaled scores for listening comprehension, structure, and written expression range from 31 to 68, while scaled scores for reading comprehension range from 31 to 67. the pbt total score, according to ets, is the sum of these three sectional scores multiplied by ten and divided by three, in the range of 310 to 677. the test of written english (twe) score, on the other hand, is shown separately from the overall result. they are scaled from 1-6 in halfpoint increments: off if they did not compose the subject and inr if they did not write the essay; the projected average twe score is between 3.5 and 4.0. (rogers, 2011). ets has supplied the mean scores of all students who take the toefl pbt for each section. they are 53.1 for listening comprehension, 52.1 for structure and written expression, 51.9 for reading comprehension, and 524 for the overall score, with twe ranging from 3.5 to 4.00. according to rogers (2011), most undergraduate programs demand scores between 500 and 550, while each university has its own admissions norms. to calculate descriptive statistics (mean and percentage), the spss 25 version computer software was used. the mean values and standard deviations can present the average level of the student based on the standardized toefl test score scale. besides, the test questions for which the majority of students fail to get the correct answer indicate a lack, whereas those for which they get it right indicate their present knowledge. the qualitative data was analyzed as the recorded interviews and observations were transcribed. first, the transcripts were coded and grouped thematically. then, the analyses were made based on the thematic category. the sample quotes were also selected and presented in the results and discussion sections. tessema gilo gayessa & nuru mohammed| elt forum 13(1) (2024) 7 findings and discussion this section presents the results and provides brief discussions to find the english language gaps that exist in health science students’ target situations. health science students' current english language abilities and language use as stated in the methodology section of this study, looking at where the learners are at present, which helps to identify their deficiencies, is an important aspect of need analysis (nation & macalister, 2010). they claim that students' scores on standardized proficiency tests such as the toefl or ielts can be a valuable source of information. therefore, the toefl test was given to identify the students’ present english language proficiency level. then, it was corrected and analyzed as follows: table 2. the mean score of students’ listening, structure and written expression and reading skills descriptive statistics n minimum maximum mean std. deviation listeningscaledscre 130 29 52 42.51 4.984 structurescaledscore 130 13 63 54.55 8.380 readingscaledscore 130 40 56 52.67 4.162 valid n (listwise) 130 according to table 2, the average listening skills score was 42.51, which is less than the standard ets score of 53.1, while the average structure and written expression score was 54.55 and the average reading score was 52.67, which are both above the average ets scores of 52.1 and 51.9, respectively. as a result of these findings, it is possible to conclude that the students had weak listening abilities, which could indicate that they had trouble understanding spoken english. according to the ets, as stated by rogers (2011), these students were unable to write an acceptable essay, had weak organization and progress, and lacked consistency and cohesion. good proficiency in structure and written expression, on the other hand, may indicate that students were competent in grammatical structure, reading score, on the other hand, may show students’ reading ability is good. this seems similar to the findings of ibrahim (2020), who revealed that medical students at the faculty experienced issues such as a lack of basic abilities, including listening and speaking skills. however, it seems to contrast with the findings of chatsungnoen (2015), who discovered that the majority of the students had poor english proficiency in all categories. as shown in table 1, however, learners in the current study showed no challenges with grammatical structure, although they did have difficulties understanding spoken english. the results of the classroom observations also reveals that health science lessons was full of technical english medical terms which are difficult for students to follow their lesson as intended. as a result, the instructors were using more of amharic language which is the national language of ethiopia as indicated in the following observation results. extract 3: a sample of classroom observation the daily lesson was acute sinusitis inst 2: okay, we will see a clinical diagnosis. to begin with symptoms, they have major symptoms and minor symptoms. major symptoms are facial pain ... the other is facial fullness or congestion. pain ina congestion yileyayal ayidel? pain sibal …forward siyaregu pain yisemachewal. facial congestion yembalew degimo mulu fitachew weyim afachew ina afinchachew akebab yemola yimesilachewal yikebdegnal yiluwachewal... the other condition is purulent yehone nasal discharge yinorachewal teblo yitasebal. other type hyposomia or anosmia ... hyposomia decreased sense of smelling ina anosmia absence of sense of smelling eee… chieif complaint stitsifu characterize mareg alebachu hyposmia or anosmia bilachu … bitaregu yeteshale yihanal mallet new... the observed teacher in the nursing department began by speaking english to remind the students of what they had learned in the previous session and to introduce the lesson of the day, except that not a single complete english sentence was heard throughout the whole observed tessema gilo gayessa & nuru mohammed| elt forum 13(1) (2024) 8 classroom. "pain ina congestion yileyayal ayidel?" he asked. when translated into english, it signifies that the pain and congestion are distinct. 'ina' is an amharic term that implies and, yet every student understands the amharic version. the researcher was perplexed as to why she utilized amharic in such way.' the following medical english terms were used in the preceding extract: diagnostic, symptoms, nasal obstruction, hyposmia, anosimia, and chief complaint. according to what the researcher observed in the classroom, the word sign and symptoms, are distinct in health science or medical terminology but appear to be synonyms in everyday english. the language of medicine is a specialized vocabulary used by healthcare practitioners (gylys & wedding, 2009). major subject area course interviews also disclosed the english language gaps students had while doing activities in their field of studies and often observed by major subject area courses. they replied that their students had speaking, writing, translation, and grammar problems. for instance, one of the sampled instructors responded as: “they have both grammar as well as speaking as well as most of the students can feel, can listen, and can understand english, but they have problems when they speak, translate, and write, so the grammar, speaking, and writing parts have deficits. these are the problems as well.” they were also asked to describe the kind of difficulties they observed. they then responded in all areas. t1 stated, "in every aspect, there are words they do not write properly." they don't utilize it properly grammatically, thus they have no issues." as a result, these replies may imply that students had significant english language gaps when performing tasks and activities in their primary subject area courses, and their teachers were aware of the language gaps. the researcher also posed probing questions based on the findings of the observations, such as why major subject area teachers generally lecture in amharic, even appending amharic suffixes to english nouns. they mostly stated two reasons. the first was the students’ inability to grasp english medical terminology, therefore they used amharic to better understand the subject. they clearly demonstrated that students lacked the necessary english language skills to understand medical terminology. they then indicated that they, too, were having difficulty articulating the situation completely in english. they stated that through experience, they had come to the combination of english and amharic even at the word level in order to make the topic understandable for students. they also stated that every health science or medical instructor employs such approach ("using amharic in the way of speaking english") as part of their educational advancement. they also had come in similar way with the current system the students are learning. t1 responded as follows: “as i…. explain in the previous part, eee… as well…eee the instructor’s eeee…we all instructors we have some problems of english and are speaking amharic in the way of speaking english as well as is fluency as well we are coming to this system. we are in the system of what students are learning or the way students are learning english. … education part, so the instructors as well as the students have deficit in that of speaking as well as writing english as well as listening that of english, so i think it is mandatory ... so, the instructors should support students by interpreting in amharic for easily understanding,” that is all (t1). the subject area course instructor’s replies in the preceding extract stated that they had entered the system of what students were studying english at the time. he intended to indicate that the students were learning general english in high school and a supported course at university. there is no alternative way of acquiring english language connected to health or medical language in their educational system. gaffas (2019) also revealed that students' biggest problem was identifying the meanings of technical words, which resulted in low performance in all four english skills. tessema gilo gayessa & nuru mohammed| elt forum 13(1) (2024) 9 analysis of students’ total scores on writing test as previously noted, writing is graded independently in the pbt toefl test, and the average result for each student is 3.5–4.00, according to ets. as a result, table 2 shows that the average writing score of students was 2.88, which is lower than the normal level (3.5–4.00), indicating that students' writing skills were low. this finding was consistent with the findings of pratiwi (2021) which indicate that the results of universitas internasional batam college students’ writing were not adequate. table 3. students’ score on writing test descriptive statistics n minimum maximum mean std. deviation id 131 1 131 66.00 37.961 writingscore 130 0 6 2.88 1.599 valid n (listwise) 130 semi-structured interviews were done with students to get detailed information about the difficulties encountered in learning major subject area courses due to a lack of required english writing skills and knowledge. respondents addressed english language issues in general. they mentioned that it was difficult to complete or deliver assignments and interact with instructors. for example, s2 said: it is difficult to present or do assignments and to communicate with teachers because medical english words are literally different from normal english words. uuu…m so it has a difficulty. there are so many problems that expose me to speak english in academic wise. there are pronunciation problems that make me stressed. when you are stressed, you get problems to learn academically. therefore, the results indicate that the health science students had no problems of grammatical structure, but had problem of listening and understanding the message in englishspeaking. this is against the language needed in the academic and professional settings. listening is a critical ability that allows language learners to receive and interact with language information while also facilitating the development of other language abilities (goh & vandergrift, 2022; vandergrift & goh, 2012). recognizing english lectures, taking efficient notes, asking for repeat or clarifications, identifying extensive explanations and directions in english, recognizing diverse accents and pronunciation, and expanding their vocabulary are all requirements for students' listening comprehension (sudewi, 2021). certain and refined listening abilities are also necessary for specific tasks, such as auscultation, a vital ability in physical health evaluation practiced by many health professionals, including doctors, nurses, and paramedics (worthington & bodie, 2020). as a result of these considerations, it is possible to infer that developing medical english or english for health science students is required according to the language gaps existed. english language gaps that existed in health science students’ writing writing is possibly the core action of instructions, on which complex social activities such as instructing students, keeping records, connecting with clients, selling items, displaying learning, and distributing ideas rely heavily (hyland, 2022). hence, table 4 aimed to identify health science student’ english language gaps in their writing and analyzed as follows. table 4. gaps existed in students’ essay writing score in % writing score frequency percent valid percent sum in percent valid off 12 9.2 9.2 9.2 strong inability 13 9.9 10.0 19.2 inability 28 21.4 21.5 40.8 minimal ability 32 24.4 24.6 65.4 moderate ability 22 16.8 16.9 82.3 adequate ability 17 13.0 13.1 95.4 strong ability 6 4.6 4.6 100.0 total 130 99.2 100.0 missing system 1 .8 total 131 100.0 tessema gilo gayessa & nuru mohammed| elt forum 13(1) (2024) 10 table 4 above shows the students’ writing scores and interpretation. 9.1% of the students scored off. this means 9.2% of the students did not write on the topic assigned. 10% and 21.5% of the students' writing results show strong inability. that means they scored 1 and 2 out of 6, respectively, which is below the average. these indicate the students’ inability to write an acceptable essay. their organization and development were very weak and or nonexistent; their essay lacked unity and cohesion. 24.6 % and 16.9% of the score indicates minimal ability and moderate ability (they scored 3 and 4 out of 6 respectively) which revealed some minimal ability in writing an acceptable essay, but involved serious weaknesses in organization and development. significant sentence structure and vocabulary problems occurred, and there were frequent grammatical errors that sometimes made the writer’s ideas difficult to comprehend. very few numbers of students (4.6% of them) indicate strong ability (scored 6 out of 6) which means the participant student had the ability to write a well-organized, well-developed, and logical essay. their specific examples and details supported the main ideas. all the elements of the essay were unified and cohesive. a variety of sentence structures were used successfully, and sophisticated vocabulary was employed. grammatical errors were infrequent, but a few minor mistakes may occur. in general, table 3 above shows that the majority of students (65.3 percent) scored less than 3 out of 6, indicating that students' writing skill is less than the minimum requirement. according to ets, these learners were unable to compose an appropriate essay; their structure and growth were very poor or nonexistent, and their papers lacked consistency and cohesiveness. this conclusion is congruent with the findings of the chatsungnoen (2015) study, which revealed that students had inadequate writing skills in both academic and vocational contexts. many students complained about a lack of writing instruction and practice because it was the least stressed in their english classes (gaffas, 2019). in ethiopia, as there are no writing courses for health science and medical students though the problem is boldly existing. instructors also replied that their students had problems of writing skills. the instructor replied that their students did not write any assignments though they know the subject matter very well. he also added that from high school background, they may be good at grammar, but they cannot write a paragraph. “okay, from their high school background they may be good at grammar. their result in english national exam was very god. the problem … eee…when i assigned students an assignments, the problem of the students are they cannot write the given assignments by themselves. they copy pest from internet. that is why it is the problem. they do not write by their own they copy paste from internet,” t2. professional communication gaps in the target situation table 5. analysis of students computed scale score among grade level report computed scaled score level mean n std. deviation second year 505.7197 88 37.77310 4th year 485.1587 42 64.75387 total 499.0769 130 48.86836 table 5 above indicates the computed mean score of second-year students was 505.22, while the fourth-year score was 485.159. this result could indicate that second-year students outperformed the fourth-year students. it can be suggested that since second-year students took the communicative skills courses delivered recently in their first year, they had read more for the course and memorized it, but fourth-year students are far from learning english and might forget it. s3 revealed that he had no english issues before enrolling in college, but that he did have english challenges after enrolling. he reasoned that because their instructors did not teach in english and instead used amharic. the researcher also shared some of his views, since when teaching freshman courses, health science students were strong at english, but as the researcher witnessed during bedside or round presentations, they were weak in english. this interview demonstrated that the students had either lost their english language or were unable to reproduce new medical english vocabulary. according to the exam results, second-year students outperformed fourth-year students. the following is information obtained from s3. tessema gilo gayessa & nuru mohammed| elt forum 13(1) (2024) 11 “before i joined the college, there were no problems in speaking english, but after i joined the college, i faced problems with english because you can’t use english with others or with your friends because it is specified. the lectures cannot teach in english because they are exposed or intervene in speaking in amharic which may affect you to speak english.” the respondents’’ responses indicate that they get english skills neither from the english course nor from their academic instructor as they often use amharic language while delivering courses. as a result, the english language background they had become deteriorating in the college. thus, they indicated that students had many problems of the english language. this could be happen because no the english course designed to be pursued in the target situations. nursing and pharmacy students like the material in their book since it is esp that is used to teach medical students (le et al., 2021). this finding indicates that a medical college in the mekong delta, vietnam, uses english for specific purpose (esp), so students were happy with the content. however, for ethiopian medical students, no english courses were given except the common course in the first year. recent studies also suggest considering learners’ needs when designing english material. for example, while producing english materials for university students in ethiopia, course designers must give special attention to the demands of the students (chemir & kitila, 2022). the previous quantitative data given with the test result revealed students' current status at that moment and deficiencies. this section summarizes the results of the health science major subject area class and the hospital observation supplemented by interviews. the three departments (public health officer, nursing, and midwifery) classes were observed in the first phase of the observation. the data were utilized to english language gaps that existed in the academic subject of health science. the hospital observation then offers statistics on the english language abilities required in students' future professional careers. as a result, the analysis and findings of both observations and interview are reported in this section. the researcher observed internship students in hospital wards to investigate the english language that the health science students are expected to know in their future professional careers. the students first clerked the patient. clerk means taking case history, conducting a physical examination, hypothesis the possible differential diagnoses, and management. as the researcher noticed from the observation, presenting bedside means one of the internship students’ team cleric the patient and presents each and every step of the problem of the patient starting from taking the demographic history of the patient, finding the problem, and to the management of the problem or the disease and then presents to the supervising doctor. in a round presentation, every member of the group had a bed in the ward on which they cleric and present for supervisor. different from bedside, in round presentation students conduct diagnoses practically and discuss pertinent findings. thus, the researcher observed and audio-recorded all the activities. however, the researcher used bedside for the analysis of this study because it was inclusive. the most difficult situation for internship students was interviewing the patient in amharic and writing the history, chief complaint, history of present illness, vital signs, physical examination, pathophysiology, differential diagnosis, investigations, and management of the case in english to present to the clinical instructor. writing, reading, speaking, listening, interviewing, and translation abilities were all required. however, as evidenced by the instruction session, learners lack these abilities. the following sample extract clearly indicates some of the situations. extract 11: sample gynecology medical ward teaching observation s2 presented the bedside session. he presented the demographic history, chief complaint and hpi. s2: ……chief complaint is preeclampsia dr.2: first of all what do you mean by chief complaint? s2: ee….e…..m.. dr.2: this is your patient. ‘ahun akerebik ayidel’, so what is chief complaint? s2: eee…eee … .. preeclampsia. tessema gilo gayessa & nuru mohammed| elt forum 13(1) (2024) 12 dr.2: hahahhhh….atasikegn. him… chief complaint means the reason why the patient sick care or came to the hospital. okay, why did you say pre-eclampsia for this lady? s2: eee ‘malet’…… dr.2: okay what is your diagnosis? s2: preeclampsia dr1: when did you diagnosis: how do you diagnosis preeclampsia? s2: blood pressure. dr.2: okay raise bp? ... the above sample example indicate that the students still did not understand what the chief complaint meant. the instructor asked the meaning of chief complaint and gave them a brief definition that chief complaint means the reason why the patient sick care or came to the hospital. in almost all their discourse, the instructor spent much time explaining the meaning of technical language. again, in the above example, the instructor asked the student how he diagnosed preeclampsia. then, the students replied with blood pressure. the instructor guided the students saying, “okay, rise bp.) here, the instructor added the verb ‘rise’ while the student replied to the phrase blood pressure without indicating the action. as a result of the above, it is possible to conclude that the students have difficulty using verb tenses, describing examination processes using medical terminology, and expressing temporal occurrences using frequency adverbs. from the observations, the researcher concluded that health science students lacked essential english language skills and knowledge. health professionals were also interviewed to provide the necessary information regarding the english language required for health science students' future professional careers via the problems they frequently face as a result of a lack of necessary english language background in their day-today professional activities. as a result, respondents were interviewed to determine whether the english language has an impact on the quality of health care services provided. the questions were designed to identify gaps that arose due to a lack of essential english language skills. they replied: “it depends. if you are perfect in speaking or taking orders or writing or eee… listening or whatever it is on speaking staffs, if you are perfect, i believe that you can take any idea that you’re superior is telling you. i believe that it has some effect, but. .. or i don’t think that talking this language would be the total indication of total perfection of health,” (hp1). “yes, the more you know english the more you are benefited, eee…but you have to know that fluent english without health knowledge do nothing. good knowledge of the health profession without good english is dangerous for the previous reasons i mentioned,” (hp2). both health professionals' responses had a similar viewpoint. they responded by comparing and contrasting their knowledge of the english language with their knowledge of the health profession. in short, both respondents felt that they complemented each other. according to the comments, english language gaps might cause healthcare delivery problems. as noted by the second respondent above, a good understanding of the health profession without fluent english is dangerous, and vice versa, but they disclosed the language difficulties in the health profession. as a result, one can see how crucial english is in the medical field. these concerns were also validated by researchers in their investigations. english is clearly in great demand not only for learning but also for pursuing a medical profession (wahyuni, 2021). though students scored very high in their subject, they demonstrated a complete inability to apply their knowledge in the workplace because they lacked adequate language to deliver their message (hans & hans, 2015). li et al. (2020) also found that the books did not include information concerning how a student should learn in their academic study. conlusions the study showed students' present situation during the time of study. participant students had good proficiency in structure and written expression, which means that the students had ability in tessema gilo gayessa & nuru mohammed| elt forum 13(1) (2024) 13 grammar and usage. the reading test results also demonstrated that students could read and respond to questions written in english. they did, however, have weak listening abilities, which showed that the learners had difficulties understanding spoken english. furthermore, they had little or no writing skills. in other words, the students in the study were proficient in grammatical structure and reading abilities, but they lacked proficiency in listening and writing. however, writing abilities in english were the most important in health professional activities and the second most important in health science academic fields of study, according to the findings of the interview. the findings also showed that a lack of necessary background in health-related english language and skills created gaps in academic study as well as in the delivery of the healthcare system as the health science lesson is full of medical terms written in english. the findings also demonstrated that health science students required english language abilities in order to describe a patient, a case, ailments, and treatments in medical terminology. to specify differential diagnosis, each case was represented in terms of events occurring chronologically. the observation data from the hospital wards, on the other hand, demonstrated that the internship students' inability to conduct these duties as intended was due to a lack of the essential medical english background. therefore, depending on the current findings, esp courses that incorporate these english language gaps and necessities that help health science students perform well in both academic studies and their future profession should be designed. finally, it is recommended that further research be conducted at ethiopian higher education institutions in order to address students' english language needs in all fields of study. acknowledgement the researchers would like to thank addis ababa university for funding this research. we also thank students, instructors, and colleagues at samara university who were directly or indirectly involved in the study process. funding statement the author received funding from addis ababa university for this research. references abdullah, g. m. a. 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(2019). need analysis on developing skill-based materials for d3 nursing students. let: linguistics, literature and english teaching journal, 9(1), 1. https://doi.org/10.18592/let.v9i1.3075 putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 36 elt forum 12(1) (2023) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt a comparability study of handwritten versus typed responses in high-stakes english language writing tests irene stoukou1, yiannis papargyris1, david coniam1 1peoplecert, athens, greece article info ________________ article history: received in 15 february 2023 approved on 30 march 2023 published on 31 march 2023 ________________ keywords: handwritten scripts; computerprocessed scripts; effect size; equivalence t-tests ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this paper investigates fairness in writing test scores in terms of candidates who completed a writing test either by hand or typed, on a computer. the data for this large-scale comparability study comprise candidates taking english language writing tests at four cefr levels – b1 to c2 in the period 2019–2022. the data were analysed via effect size differences and equivalence tests. measured by effect size, a small amount of difference was apparent in scores obtained between the two production modes at b1, b2 and c1 levels. at c2 level, there was a medium effect size, indicative of a difference in favour of computer-produced scripts. differences observed on equivalence tests – an adaptation of the standard t-test – were not found to be statistically significant. the contribution of the research to knowledge lies in the fact that (with the exception of c2 level) – whether writing tests are written by hand or on computer, while there is a slight skew towards higher scores with computer-processed texts, candidates generally receive similar scores in both modes. practically, candidates may elect to write either on paper or on computer without fear of bias. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 3 korai street, athens 10564, greece e-mail: david.coniam@peoplecert.org http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& irene stoukou, yiannis papargyris, david coniam | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 37 introduction there is a substantial literature on score equivalence obtained from handwritten (hw) and computer-processed (cp) scripts. indeed, research into score equivalence between handwritten and computer-processed scripts stretches back to the 1960s when the word-processing of scripts first began. to put these issues into perspective, the current section first presents an overview of the research – which presents provide contrasting results. the section concludes with the research gap being explored in the current research. while some studies have revealed better performance by candidates writing by hand; others have reported the opposite, with higher cp scores; and, in contrast, no significance has been found for either mode of delivery in other studies. a review of the research from the different angles is presented below. some of the earliest research was by marshall and powers (1969), in whose study neat handwritten essays scored higher than typed ones. mazzeo and harvey’s (1988) study of handwritten and computer-processed scripts indicated better performance in hw mode, which they attributed, understandably at the time, to lack of familiarity with the technology. arnold et al. (1990) reported computer-processed scripts receiving lower scores than handwritten scripts. sweedler-brown (1991) reported likewise, although only with lower ability scripts. in powers et al.’s (1994) and russell and tao’s (2004) studies, students’ hw scripts scored higher than the same students’ comparable cp scripts. bridgeman and cooper (1998) in a study involving graduate management admissions test scores reported higher scores with hw than with cp scripts. klein and taub (2005) reported a teacher bias for legible hw scripts. in breland et al.’s (2005) study of toefl candidates, hw scores, related to general english language ability, were reported. while numerous studies have reported handwriting-based scripts to have received higher scores, there have also been many studies reporting computer-processed-based scripts to have received higher scores. some studies showing such advantage are outlined below. an overall advantage for cp texts has been reported in certain studies (sprouse and webb, 1994; peacock, 1988; hughes and akbar, 2010). on the issue of quality, peacock (1988) reported an advantage for low-quality cp scripts. peacock (1988) also reported an advantage regarding text type for cp essays where the essays were not related to external sources. in canz et al.’s large-scale (2020) study, cp scripts received higher grades despite raters being highly trained raters. russell and plati (2000) reported lower secondary school students performing better under cp conditions. in goldberg et al.’s (2003) meta-analysis of 26 writing studies of k-12 students writing in cp or hw modes, results indicated higher text quality for the cp scripts. other confirmatory studies for students achieving higher grades in cp mode include russell and haney (1997) and russell and plati (2001). in addition to studies citing an advantage for either mode, here have also been studies where neither mode has been reported as conferring an advantage, as outlined below. while positive findings have been reported for both modes, a number of studies have reported no significant difference in terms of grade received in either cp or hw mode. among these are: wise and plake, 1989; wright and linacre, 1994; taylor et al., 1999; russell, 1999; maccann et al., 2002; horkay et al., 2006; boulet et al, 2007; king et al., 2008; mogey et al., 2010; chan et al., 2018. as may be seen from the studies reported above, there is evidence for all positions: that under certain conditions cp scripts receive higher scores; under others that hw scripts score higher, with many studies also reporting no significant difference between modes. differences notwithstanding, it is nonetheless the case that with improvements in technology in terms of usability, speed and lower cost (see lim and wang, 2016), the use of a computer to produce essays in a variety of situations – classwork, homework and examinations – is increasing. indeed, with the recent covid-19 pandemic, greater acceptance has been observed of the use of computers and technology (hodges et al., 2020). in light of the above, it is worth considering the question of whether the ability or preference to use a computer in an examination is related to age. older candidates do not necessarily opt for cb tests as such; it is simply the route they follow which leads them to an online-proctored environment (i.e., navigating the internet, selecting an exam provider online, registering, booking a slot and managing their time etc.). against this backdrop, for more mature candidates, the cb component is simply part of the overall context. over the past three years, that is, during the period of covid in 2019–2022, many examination bodies experienced exponential increases in online-administered examinations (see irene stoukou, yiannis papargyris, david coniam | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 38 e.g., ockey, 2021). languagecert english language tests are available in either traditional centrebased or online proctored (olp) delivery modes (coniam et al., 2021). during the covid pandemic, languagecert saw a great increase in its olp mode of delivery, and a concomitant increase in writing tests produced by computer as opposed to being handwritten. while the research outlined above has presented different perspectives on the two modes of delivery – computerprocessed versus handwritten – and how the mode might confer an advantage on scores, little research has been conducted in the past few years – and certainly not in the context of the huge increase in computer-processed writing test scripts against the backdrop of covid. this is therefore the research gap that the current study fills in the context of computerprocessed versus handwriting writing test scripts. using comparatively large writing test datasets (a considerable number of which had been administered during the covid pandemic period) at differing cefr levels of ability, the study explores to what extent the mode of script production impacts on candidate score. methods this section outlines the study in terms of research design, the data and data analysis. background to the languagecert writing test is first presented to situate the study. the iesol writing test the data in the study come from four examinations – at cefr levels b1–c2, which form part of the international esol (iesol) suite of english language tests. the writing tests comprise two different writing tasks tapping a range of writing skills. table 1 elaborates. table 1. iesol writing test tasks level part 1 : candidates produce word length part 2 : candidates produce word length b1 a neutral or formal text for a public audience 70-100 a letter using informal language 100-120 b2 a neutral or formal text for a public audience 100-150 a text using informal language 150-200 c1 a neutral or formal text for a public audience 150-200 a text using informal language 250-300 c2 a neutral or formal text for a public audience 200-250 a text using informal language 250-300 each task is scored on four levels (0-3) against four subscales which for the most part are double-marked before final scores are amended or confirmed and signed off by a more senior member of the assessment team, usually a chief examiner. (refer to languagecert). candidates may take the examination either at a physical centre or by online-proctored mode. if they take the examination at a centre, they generally handwrite. while it is possible to do a computer-based test at a physical centre, this option is not very popular; most candidates handwrite tests at centres. when tests are taken online, a locked-down computer is used. it should be noted that the term ‘computer-processed’ is used in the current paper to indicate that candidates write on a ‘bare-bones’ computer; they do not have access to a word processor or any of the more advanced facilities such as grammar/spellchecking that a word processor offers. all writing test markers hold professional accredited english language qualifications and experience as english language teachers. all prospective markers undergo a standardisation and training programme before being certified as qualified markers (for details, see papargyris and yan, 2022). the training programme involves marking sample scripts and prospective markers must demonstrate they can mark accurately and consistently before they are certificated as markers. checking takes place by a group of chief examiners during live marking, and if markers are suspected of marking inaccurately and/or inconsistently, they may be removed from the marking session and/or retrained or even dismissed. markers are monitored on an ongoing basis as well as attending standardisation sessions, again on a regular basis. languagecert markers mark across cefr levels (papargyris and yan, 2022). at any one time, there may well be in the region of 200 markers marking different numbers of scripts at the different cefr levels. while the scope of the https://www.languagecert.org/en/language-exams/ irene stoukou, yiannis papargyris, david coniam | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 39 current study does not involve an examination of marker performance, the reader is referred to coniam et al. (2022) where an exploration using many-facet rasch analysis into marker performance can be found. the current study this section presents details on candidates’ scores against the two modes of script production. table 2 below provides detail on the number of candidates at each cefr level for each mode. the data collection period extended over the three-year period from mid 2019 to mid 2022. although not germane to the current study, it should be noted that the current study involved 143 different markers. table 2. candidate sample sizes level mode n level sample b1 cp 3108 22727 hw 19619 b2 cp 14878 27590 hw 12712 c1 cp 7674 10330 hw 2656 c2 cp 2869 4363 hw 1494 legend: cp=computer-processed; hw=handwritten at b1 level, the candidature comprises many school students. it is therefore not perhaps surprising that the majority of scripts at this level were handwritten. as one moves up the level, and demands of certification for study, work, immigration purposes come more to the fore, candidates tend to be slightly older and more computer literate. more online-proctored (olp) examinations take place at this level, a situation exacerbated by covid, and support for why computer-processed (cp) scripts outnumber handwritten (hw) scripts at b2-c2. hypotheses the hypothesis pursued in the study is that scores awarded to either of the two modes of script production – computer-processed or handwritten – will not be significantly different. three subhypotheses are pursued: 1. the difference between the mean scores for the two written script modes will be less than 5% for any given cefr level. 2. only small effect size differences will be noted between the two modes. 3. on equivalence tests, significance will not emerge against specified upper and lower bounds for any cefr level. findings and discussion two sets of data for the writing test are presented. the first set of analyses contains descriptive statistics: means (maximum 25) for the two modes, standard deviations and effect size differences. the second set of analyses consists of equivalence independent samples t-tests (“equivalence tests”). equivalence tests – as opposed to regular t-tests – permit for significance to be explored by specified upper and lower bounds (lakens, 2017). the two bounds define the extent of variation of t values with respect to the populations being tested. if the t value falls within the estimated range, the two populations may be seen to be equivalent. descriptive statistics descriptive statistic results are in provided in table 3 for the two types of writing for the four cefr levels. the final two right-hand columns contain detail on score and effect size differences between the two modes. effect size differences are reported in terms of cohen’s d, for which a small effect is generally 0.2, a medium effect 0.5, and a large effect 0.8 (glen, 2021). table 3. writing mode descriptives irene stoukou, yiannis papargyris, david coniam | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 40 level mode n mean sd raw score (%) difference effect size differences (cohens's d) b1 cp 3108 18.75 4.63 0.80 (3.20%) 0.17 hw 19619 17.95 4.72 b2 cp 14878 18.85 4.68 0.80 (3.21%) 0.17 hw 12712 18.04 4.67 c1 cp 7674 17.60 4.80 1.13 (4.53%) 0.23 hw 2656 16.46 4.86 c2 cp 2869 18.13 4.77 2.57 (10.28%) 0.55 hw 1494 15.56 4.46 legend: cp=computer-processed; hw=handwritten effect sizes reported are negligible for b1 and b2 levels, with only a small effect size at c1. at c2 level, however, the score difference is larger than 5%, and a medium effect size of 0.55 is reported. the implications of this are that c2 level candidates, who produce their writing test scripts on computer, score comparatively higher than c2 candidates who handwrite their tests. equivalence tests table 4 below presents equivalence test results comparing handwritten (hw) and computerprocessed (cp) script production modes. upper and lower bounds have been set at +/0.05 of the raw score (see lakens, 2017). as mentioned, critical decisions regarding equivalence revolve around whether estimated t values are between the upper and lower bound. in table 4 below, p values indicate significance with respect to upper and lower bound t values going beyond specified bounds. table 4. equivalence samples t-tests test level statistic t df p b1 upper bound 9.36 22725 < .001 t value 8.81 22725 < .001 lower bound 8.26 22725 1.00 b2 upper bound 15.12 27588 1.00 t value 14.23 27588 < .001 lower bound 13.34 27588 < .001 c1 upper bound 9.99 10328 1.00 t value 10.45 10328 < .001 lower bound 10.91 10328 < .001 c2 upper bound 16.92 4361 1.00 t value 17.26 4361 < .001 lower bound 17.59 4361 < .001 at none of the four levels was significance observed at both lower and upper bounds. this is an indication that the two writing script modes may be seen to be equivalent for the four cefr levels examined in the study. discussion the results above provide a consistent picture: at all levels, candidates who produced computerprocessed scripts scored higher than did candidates who produced handwritten scripts. this finding echoes the study by goldberg et al. (2003) who analysed studies of students writing in cp or hw modes, with results indicating cp scripts being rated more highly. as lim and wang (2016) report, the use of a computer to produce essays in many school situations is increasing. it may simply be the case that such increasing use of the computer results in a vicious, or virtual, cycle (depending on one’s point of view), whereby writing on computer becomes the norm and the mode to which people, examination candidates included, are simply becoming more accustomed. irene stoukou, yiannis papargyris, david coniam | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 41 the results for higher scores obtained on computers may be due to a number of factors. one consistent feature mentioned by languagecert markers in post-marking reports is that of the legibility (or lack of it) encountered in many handwritten scripts. be that as it may, the main issue is that at cefr levels b1-c1, the difference between the two modes is less than 5%, a figure generally taken as being indicative of significance. what then might be the possible reasons for candidates using a computer to produce their script – in particular at the higher cefr levels – to obtain comparatively higher scores? one possible explanation may be found in the candidates’ background. in a survey (in mid-2022) of over 40 languagecert writing test markers, markers noted that, at the cefr a and b levels, there were more younger candidates. these younger candidates were more used to writing on paper than using a computer. more proficient candidates – in particular those at c2 – were noted by some markers as being older and more computer literate. markers perceived these two factors as helping to account for the skew towards higher scores achieved on computer-processed scripts. conclusion this study has reported on comparability of scores awarded to candidates who completed writing tests either through handwriting or by using a computer at cefr levels b1 to c2. the key hypothesis in the study was that mean scores and performance on the writing test in either mode would not be significantly different from each other; i.e., that candidate scores would not be influenced by the writing mode. specifically, three hypotheses were being investigated. the first hypothesis was that differences between the mean scores for the two modes of test production would be less than 5% for any given cefr level. this was the case for levels b1, b2 and c1. it was not the case for c2 where differences were greater than 5%. while the hypothesis was confirmed for b1, b2 and c1, it was rejected for c2. the second hypothesis was that, at worst, only small effect sizes would be reported between the two writing modes. this was indeed the case with b1, b2 and c1. at the c2 level, however, a medium effect size was observed, causing the hypothesis to be rejected. the third hypothesis was that, for any given cefr level, significance between upper and lower bounds would not be observed on equivalence t-tests. significance was not observed for either bound at any test level. consequently, the two script writing modes can be taken as broadly equivalent, and the hypothesis can be accepted. while differences at b1 and b2 were minimal, it could be seen that as one moved up the cefr levels, the relative score gain conferred by using a computer increased. at b1 and b2 the difference was 3%. at c1, it was 5%, and at c2, 10%. as mentioned above, use of a computer in an examination may be seen to be related to age in that older candidates simply follow an online path which leads to an online-proctored environment (i.e., navigating the internet, selecting an exam provider online, registering, booking a slot and managing their time etc.). for older candidates, the cp component in terms of how a test is taken may well be seen as simply a part of an online path they have followed. the current study has been purely quantitative. a further study is currently exploring writing test markers’ views on the effect of certain linguistic or textual features on candidates’ scripts. echoing markers’ comments alluded to above, a more fine-grained examination lies in determining to what extent demographic factors such as age might have an effect on results obtained from writing tests by hand versus on computer. another aspect of the interaction between digital environment and textual production, worth exploring in the future, is that of task requirements vis-a-vis the support each environment allows. in a digital environment for instance, candidates have the option of employing a variety of content control features (provided these are made available by the test provider). such features may significantly contribute to the authoring, editing, and proofreading of longer, complex and structurally challenging texts and thus account for the increasing discrepancy between scores, which culminates at c2. the research literature revealed support for all modes: for handwritten scripts, for scripts written on computer, and for there being no difference. the current study, however, lends support to the view that, while differences remain, it is computer-processed scripts that certain candidates tend to score higher on. a generally greater uptake of the use of computers is seen in the production of text – for all purposes, not just examinations. in the light of such uptake, one potential solution to the irene stoukou, yiannis papargyris, david coniam | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 42 discrepancy score situation, as one looks to the future, is that all scripts be computer processed. indeed, many professional examinations – law examinations, for example (steel et al., 2019) – are now required to be done solely on computer as are the association of chartered certified accountants’ (acca) financial and accounting examinations. the covid pandemic has accelerated the computer processing of scripts, with many more candidates taking exams online rather than on paper (fuller et al., 2020; abduh, 2021). for such a move to be accepted more widely, however, school students in particular need to have easy access to a computer and to be computer literate. this is contingent upon schools moving increasingly towards total computer-based work, with each child having their own laptop for continual school and home use, as with uruguay’s plan ceibal (see segovia et al., 2022), for example. in the uk, the government office of qualifications and examinations regulation (ofqual) has recently announced a three-year plan to explore the possibility of across-the-board online testing for students (ofqual, 2022). indeed, in the long run, what mogey and fluck (2015) describe as “post-paper assessment” is possibly what education and assessment authorities should be considering. whether these changes will happen quickly will be observed and reported on in due course. funding statement the authors received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article. references abduh, m. y. m. 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(2010). typing compared with handwriting for essay examinations at university: letting the students choose. alt-j research in learning technology, 18, 29–47. https://doi.org/10.1080/09687761003657580. http://refhub.elsevier.com/s1075-2935(20)30031-3/sbref0060 http://refhub.elsevier.com/s1075-2935(20)30031-3/sbref0060 http://refhub.elsevier.com/s1075-2935(20)30031-3/sbref0060 http://refhub.elsevier.com/s1075-2935(20)30031-3/sbref0060 http://refhub.elsevier.com/s1075-2935(20)30031-3/sbref0060 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asw.2005.05.002 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-3984.1969.tb00665.x http://refhub.elsevier.com/s1075-2935(18)30037-0/sbref0130 https://doi.org/10.1080/09687761003657580 putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 179 elt forum 11 (3) (2022) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt preparing indonesian pre-service english teachers’ readiness to teach through teacher-themed movies harvesto glory febriano jalmav1, adaninggar septi subekti 1 1universitas kristen duta wacana, yogyakarta, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received on 31 august 2022 approved on november 26, 2022 published on november 30, 2022 ________________ keywords: teacherthemed movies; preservice english teachers; readiness to teach ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this study aimed at examining the extent of the use of teacher-themed movies in preparing indonesian pre-service english teachers’ readiness to teach and to see the perceived effects of movies in preparing the pre-service english teachers’ readiness to teach. this study employed a qualitative design with observations and interviews as the methods of collecting data. two classes were observed, introduction to education and teaching profession classes. interviews were conducted with, as the participants, six pre-service english teachers and two lecturers of the observed classes. the observation results indicated that movies were used to relate theories and real teaching practices. through thematic analysis of the interview data, the study found that movies could inspire several pre-service english teachers. movies minimised the gap between theories and practice. movies helped pre-service teachers to see potential problems and obstacles when teaching in a real class. informed of the generally positive impacts of the use of movies, it is suggested that teacher education programmes encourage more widespread use of movies to teach teachingrelated classes to better prepare pre-service teachers for various classroom situations. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 adaninggar septi subekti english language education department, universitas kristen duta wacana jalan dr. wahidin sudirohusodo 5-25, yogyakarta, 55224, indonesia e-mail: adaninggar@staff.ukdw.ac.id harvesto glory febriano jalmav, adaninggar septi subekti | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 180 introduction pre-service teachers who will enter the teaching profession might get anxious about their readiness as a teacher. a study in australia by hemmings and woodcock (2011) reported some pre-service teachers were questioning themselves about their competence and getting anxious about the skills and knowledge they had in teaching. some pre-service teachers might feel that they are not ready. halim et al. (2019) also stated that when pre-service teachers face the actual class, they often feel inferior and unsure whether they could handle real class situations. applying theories learned in teacher education programmes into practice sometimes also becomes a challenge for them (tutyandari, 2020). therefore, pre-service teachers need examples of how theories are implemented in real-life scenarios so that they are ready to teach real classes (elmas et al., 2019). pre-service teachers’ readiness to teach is essential to be considered by the teacher education programmes. straková (2015) in her study involving pre-service english teachers in slovakia, defined teacher readiness as the feeling of being ready for the teaching job with the consideration of all aspects and elements contributing to that feeling during pre-service training. in this case, teacher education programmes need to prepare their pre-service teachers’ readiness to face the real challenges of the teaching profession. there are some aspects other than the content of teaching materials that a pre-service teacher must be ready with, for example, readiness to integrate technology in class (cuhadar, 2018; liza & andriyanti, 2020) or take leadership roles in the teaching profession (musah & al-hudawi, 2020). teaching as a real teacher has a lot of pressure to take in. that is why the readiness of the pre-service teachers needs to be considered before they enter the real world of teaching. unfortunately, some pre-service teachers may not be ready for their profession (corlu et al., 2015), evidenced by the findings of several studies reporting a perceived lack of competence in teaching among pre-service teachers (güngör, 2016; halim et al., 2019; polat, 2010). regarding this, preparation during the teacher training programmes is paramount (okhremtchouk & sellu, 2019; seferoǧlu, 2006). tutyandari (2020) conducted a study exploring indonesian pre-service english teachers’ readiness. based on the findings in her study, tutyandari (2020) proposed three components of preservice teachers’ readiness. these components can be observed in figure 1. figure 1. the components of pre-service teachers' readiness to teach (tutyandari, 2020) as seen in figure 1, the components of pre-service teachers’ readiness, as proposed by tutyandari (2020), are personal foundations involving motivation, beliefs, and attitudes toward the teaching profession, formation component which involves the contribution of the teacher education programme to pre-service teachers’ feeling of readiness for teaching, and professionalism component which involves self-efficacy in teaching, personal self-efficacy, and commitment for teaching. she stated that the first component, personal foundations, affects pre-service teachers’ readiness directly and affects the process of teacher education. pre-service teachers’ readiness starts within themselves. the second component, formation, is the stage of academic formation that prepares pre-service teachers to become teachers. this shows the importance of the teacher education programme in connecting the theories pre-service teachers learn and the field practice in the teacher education harvesto glory febriano jalmav, adaninggar septi subekti | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 181 programme. finally, the third component, professionalism, show the connectedness between academic learning and field practice of the pre-service teachers that influence their perceptions of their teaching competencies and self-efficacy. the aforementioned suggests the paramount role of teacher education programmes in preparing their pre-service teachers’ readiness. regarding this, various learning media can be utilised and one of them is movies. movies can engage students’ attention and the language used is arguably more understandable than what is found in students’ course books (goctu, 2017). elmas et al. (2019) argued that movies can give pre-service teachers ideas on how to behave when the pre-service teachers face similar situations as the ones shown in the movies, indicating that movies could portray the situations that may happen in an actual classroom situation. movies have been used in many various contexts, for example, in turkey (elmas et al., 2019; gezer, 2020; kaşkaya & ünlü, 2011; kontaş, 2016), israel (eilam & poyas, 2009), the united states (webb & kapavik, 2017) and in romania (cretu, 2019). these studies also investigated pre-service teachers in various learning disciplines, for example, involving pre-service teachers of english (eilam & poyas, 2009; gezer, 2020; halim et al., 2019), and science, social studies, and mathematics (cretu, 2019; elmas et al., 2019; kaşkaya & ünlü, 2011; kontaş, 2016). several studies reported that movies could prevent pre-service teachers from the reality shock of the future teaching profession (cretu, 2019; kaşkaya & ünlü, 2011). movies were believed to be influential and inspiring (gezer, 2020; webb & kapavik, 2017). movies could also be used to see the implementation of theories into real practices (eilam & poyas, 2009). movies could help pre-service teachers prevent reality shock in their future teaching profession (cretu, 2019). movies were reported to provide some projected scenes that were related to real-life teaching or school situations (cretu, 2019; kaşkaya & ünlü, 2011) and give inspiration for creative solutions to educational problems (fennell, 2013). teacher characters in movies may also positively contribute to the pre-service teachers’ idea of the teaching profession (kontaş, 2016; webb & kapavik, 2017). furthermore, movies used in pre-service teachers’ classrooms were reported to be influential in helping pre-service teachers relate theories of teaching to real practices (eilam & poyas, 2009; gezer, 2020; webb & kapavik, 2017). for example, an experimental study in israel by eilam and poyas (2009) reported that pre-service teachers using movies to relate educational theories to practice had better comprehension than those who learned theories merely from course books. the mentioned review of the plethora of literature suggests both the need to prepare preservice teachers' readiness to teach and the potential of relevant movies to achieve this purpose. in the case of english pre-service teachers, their lack of readiness to teach may be more salient considering the position of english as a foreign language (efl) in indonesia, and thus the language is constrained to classroom use (subekti et al., 2021), as well as the language being their second/foreign language (l2) for these pre-service teachers. in indonesia, apart from an explorative study about pre-service teachers’ perceived preparedness for teaching by tutyandari (2020), studies about pre-service english teachers’ readiness have been conducted concerning digital applications (liza & andriyanti, 2020) and online learning (daflizar et al., 2022; hidayat et al., 2021). these previous studies involved final-year students in english education departments. whereas preparing pre-service teachers’ readiness to teach may start earlier, to give pre-service teachers ideas on the teaching profession and perhaps also to nurture their love for the profession. hence, conducting such study involving english pre-service teachers from the second and third years of their study could be worthwhile. furthermore, in pre-service teacher literature, movies have been quite widely investigated, for example, to investigate pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy (elmas et al., 2019; halim et al., 2019; kaşkaya & ünlü, 2011; webb & kapavik, 2017), motivation (kontaş, 2016; webb & kapavik, 2017), academic theories (eilam & poyas, 2009), and teacher professionalism (cretu, 2019; gezer, 2020). likewise, investigating the use of movies in preparing pre-service teachers’ readiness to teach may be strategic. moreover, such studies specifically investigating the use of educational or teacherthemed movies in preparing indonesian pre-service english teachers' readiness to teach, to the best of our knowledge, may be rare. hence, conducting the study could pave a way for further studies on the possible roles of movies in english teacher education programmes in indonesia. taking the rationales into account, this study addresses the following research questions. first, to what extent are teacher-themed movies used in preparing indonesian pre-service english harvesto glory febriano jalmav, adaninggar septi subekti | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 182 teachers’ readiness to teach? and second, what are the pre-service teachers’ and lecturers’ views on the use of teacher-themed movies in preparing pre-service english teachers’ readiness to teach? methods research design this present study was conducted using qualitative methods of online observations through zoom and online interviews through google meet. the paradigm adopted in this study was interpretivism where the phenomenon under study was seen through the participants’ perceptions and experiences (thanh & thanh, 2015). using qualitative, this study aimed at investigating the use of movies to prepare pre-service teachers' readiness to teach in-depth and through the participants' lens and viewpoints (gray, 2014). the observations were employed to see the extent to which movies were used to prepare pre-service english teachers’ readiness to teach whilst the interviews were conducted to see the pre-service teachers’ and lecturers’ views on the use of movies. research setting and participants the setting of the present study was an english language education department (eled) at a university in a big city in java. indonesia. two classes using movies as instructional materials were observed to see the extent movies were used to prepare pre-service teachers’ readiness to teach. these were introduction to education, offered to third-semester students of the eled and teaching profession, offered to fifth-semester students. as seen from the class syllabus, the purpose of the introduction to education class was to facilitate its students to be aware of several issues in education and prepare them to be future educators. in this class, they learned learning theories; behaviourism, cognitivism, constructivism, and humanism. teaching profession, furthermore, facilitated its students to develop insight about the teaching profession with the ethical codes, responsibilities, and opportunities for professional development. the interview participants were two lecturers teaching the observed classes and six pre-service teachers. these six pre-service teachers were randomly selected using the random picker application among the students of the observed classes who indicated their willingness to be interviewed by filling out consent forms. out of these six pre-service teacher participants, three were from introduction to education, and the three others were from teaching profession. in total, five teacher-themed movies were used in the observed classes; three in introduction to education and the other two in teaching profession. the short details of each movie can be observed in table 1. table 1. movies used in the classes no classes title short details 1. introduction to education sokola rimba a real-life story of butet, a teacher who struggles to teach tribal children to read and write 2. dead poets society a story of an english teacher in a boy-only school, mr keating, who employs a unique teaching method 3. mona lisa smile a story of an art teacher, miss watson, who not only has a passion for arts but also cares for her students 4. teaching profession beyond the blackboard a story of a young first-time teacher teaching homeless children 5. freedom writers a real-life story of an english teacher, erin gruwell who has to face many unmotivated students who have many problems research instruments the study used observation checklists and interview checklists. the observation checklist focused on teachers’ instructions on the use of movies, how and when these movies were used, and the preservice teachers’ observable reactions or behaviours. furthermore, there were two interview checklists, one for the pre-service teacher interviews, consisting of seven questions, and the other one harvesto glory febriano jalmav, adaninggar septi subekti | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 183 for the lecturers, consisting of ten questions. examples of questions included "what do you think about the use of films in learning?" for the pre-service teacher interviewees and "what do you want this student teacher to be able to learn from using films in this class?" for the lecturer interviewees. ethical consideration this study employed several ethical principles of research. first, it adhered to the autonomy principle where the participants' voluntary participation was fully guaranteed (vilma, 2018). it was done through the distribution of the link of an online informed consent form detailing the researchers’ identities, purposes of the study, and participants’ rights and responsibilities (gray, 2014; israel & hay, 2006), including the right to withdraw from participation at any time (dooly et al., 2017; tracy, 2020). furthermore, the confidentiality of the participants was maintained through the use of pseudonyms throughout this report. data collection and data analysis the data collection stage consisted of two parts, online observations, and online interviews. after permission to conduct the study was obtained from the head of the eled and the lecturers of introduction to education and teaching profession classes, online observations were conducted in october 2021. after that, the two lecturers of the observed classes were interviewed. next, six preservice teachers were randomly selected using the random picker application from a list of names of those indicating their willingness to be invited for interviews by filling out the consent form. these six pre-service teachers were then interviewed online. both the lecturer and pre-service teacher interviews were conducted in indonesian during december 2021. the data analysis stage consisted of observation data analysis and interview data analysis. the observation data were analysed per the first research question and presented descriptively to allow rich and in-depth descriptions of the phenomenon. regarding the interview data, on the completion of the interviews, the data were fully transcribed, translated into english, and analysed using thematic analysis (clarke & braun, 2017). this method is used to identify, analyse, and interpret patterns of meaning within qualitative data in the form of recurring themes (maguire & delahunt, 2017). in the present study, this was achieved through reading and re-reading the interview transcripts, generating initial codes related to the research second question, searching the possible recurring themes, reviewing the themes, and defining the final best-representing themes. then, the interview excerpts best representing these themes were selected for the report and further analysis. figure 2 shows the detailed sequence of the data collection and analysis. figure 2. data collection and analysis sequence obtaining permission from the head of the eled and the two lecturers of the observed classes conducting online observation answering the first research question interviewing the lecturers of the observed classes in indonesian distributing the link of the informed consent form to prospective pre-service teacher participants randomly selecting six preservice teacher participants for interviews interviewing six pre-service teacher participants in indonesian transcribing interview data, translating the transcripts into english conducting thematic analysis answering the second research question harvesto glory febriano jalmav, adaninggar septi subekti | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 184 findings and discussion the extent to which teacher-themed movies were used in preparing pre-service english teachers’ readiness to teach two classes, introduction to education and teaching profession were observed. observations in both classes produced the same patterns in the use of movies. the pre-service english teachers were assigned to watch the movies before the class. the movie was then discussed in class. the lecturers in both classes invited the pre-service teachers to discuss the assigned movies related to the class materials. in the following observation result in the introduction to education class, for example, it could be seen that movies were used to discuss learning theories: behaviourism, constructivism, humanism, and cognitivism and to connect those theories to schema theory. the lecturer assigned the pre-service teachers to watch a movie [freedom writer] before the class. the movie was discussed in class related to the materials on learning theories and schema theory. the lecturer gave an example of the scene where schema theory was applied. the lecturer used the breakout room to group the students and assigned them to discuss the scene in the movies related to schema theory. in one of the breakout discussions, one of the pre-service teachers said, ‘through [watching] a movie, i can understand.’ some could relate the theory and the scene in the movie. they identified the character in the movie in some scenes to the theory. they could give an example of the schema theory in the movie. one of them could also relate a certain scene to the behaviourism theory. (observation report 1) this observation report shows that the lecturer used a movie to discuss teaching theories. she asked the pre-service teachers to relate the theories learned to certain scenes in the movie. most of them could relate the theories they learned to the scenes in the movie. by working in groups to discuss the theory related to the scene in the movie, the pre-service teachers tried to connect the theories they learned with many teaching and learning scenes in the movie pre-service english teachers and their lecturers’ views on the use of teacher-themed movies in preparing pre-service english teachers’ readiness to teach to answer the second research question, six pre-service english teachers and two lecturers were interviewed. the following pseudonyms were used for the six pre-service teacher participants: brodi (male), bertha (female/f), chibi (f), herlina (f), melia (f), elisa (f), and for the two lecturer participants: meida (f) and mira (f). the study found three themes regarding these participants’ perspectives on the use of movies in preparing pre-service english teachers’ readiness to teach. these themes can be seen in table 2. table 2. pre-service english teachers' and lecturers' views on the use of movies in preparing preservice english teachers' readiness to teach theme 1 movies gave inspiration to several qualities of good teachers. theme 2 movies helped pre-service teachers to relate the theories of teaching to practice. theme 3 movies were used to see real examples of problems and obstacles in teaching situations. theme 1. movies gave inspiration to several qualities of good teachers. the lecturers in this study pointed out their expectations of using movies in their respective classes. mira, for example, intended to use movies to motivate and inspire her students. mira stated: "i want them to like, they are ignited like that. they relate what they will face later [in teaching].” in comparison, rather subtle in her expectations, meida realised that movies could inspire some of her students, perhaps, not all of them. she stated: harvesto glory febriano jalmav, adaninggar septi subekti | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 185 “you [i] read from their reflection. usually, there is someone who is then moved, inspired by that [the movie], got inspired. but here, i also realise that movies speak to some students, but maybe not all … only some are inspired by the movies. usually, it works… as an inspiration.” although meida acknowledged that movies might not inspire all the pre-service teachers, some of the pre-service teachers interviewed in the present study were inspired by the movies they wanted in class. elisa, for instance, reported: “personally, the one that hits me the most was freedom writers [movie]. that is very inspiring. it motivates me because she [the teacher in the movie] can be a teacher, not only professionally but [she] also [treats it] as a vocation. i mean, [it is] from the heart, and she also approaches the students one by one… to encourage the students to learn because the students are desperate. well, i was inspired, by how to encourage students who are lazy and so on. (elisa) the movie inspired her, and the character in the movie enlightened her about her vocation. she also added: her name is erin gruwell… she is very inspiring because that is also, what it is called, [from] a real story, so it is even more powerful. (elisa) the other pre-service teacher, bertha, had the same perspective. she said: i think… there is inspiration, like those in freedom writer and sokola rimba [movie], each of them has its struggles. the teacher figure at freedom writer gets herself close to her students, it becomes an inspiration for me if later i become a teacher. (bertha) in the movie of freedom writers, the main character, erin gruwell, seemed to inspire bertha on being a good teacher. she said: it turns out that we also have to understand them [our students]. that is what i got from freedom writers… understand each other… then as a teacher, you must understand the condition of the students…” (bertha) these excerpts suggested the participants’ shared perspectives that movies gave inspiration on qualities of good teachers that pre-service teachers could mirror. theme 2. movies helped pre-service teachers to relate the theories of teaching in practice. the lecturers expected that through movies, their pre-service teacher students could relate the theories they had discussed previously with real teaching practices as depicted in movies. meida, for example, stated that she wanted her students to see the characteristics of teachers in the movies within the movie contexts and how these teachers with all the qualities could succeed in becoming good teachers. she said: “for example, in yesterday's teaching profession, i want to show the characteristics of teachers, this means that the teacher is the agent of change, … what context do you want the teacher to change… to see the whole movie so that the complete meaning of the framework is spot on… that is how good it is. there is monalisa smile, what else i used, sokola rimba, umm, oh dead poet society [title of the movies she used]”. (meida) meida perceived that to see the whole 'picture' of the situations the teacher characters in the movies face, it was important to see the whole of a movie rather than just clips. from seeing the whole movie, pre-service teachers could relate theories to real teaching practices intertwined with various factors such as students' and cultural backgrounds. harvesto glory febriano jalmav, adaninggar septi subekti | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 186 the lecturers’ expectations seemed to conform to the perspectives of the pre-service teachers. herlina said: “we are touched and indeed… more connected, and… understand better [the theories]. for example, the practice of teaching using learning [theory]… behaviourism. i, through [watching] movies, can see it… there was another example given in the movie that really made me understand what behaviourism is all is about and… what humanism is.” (herlina) in line with that, elisa acknowledged she learned from the assigned movies how to deal with certain situations in teaching. she said: “we as pre-service teachers not only watch it [movie], but after that we also explore… there is a method too. it is like analysing… the theories, how to deal with children and also the situations.” (elisa) both herlina and elisa agreed that movies helped them to see the theories in practices from the movies, indicating that movies could minimise the gap between theories and practices. theme 3. movies were used to see real examples of problems and obstacles in teaching situations. both lecturers viewed that movies could help pre-service teachers see real examples of obstacles in teaching situations. mira said: like beyond the blackboard [movie], it is an elementary school movie [the problems pictured in the movie] … poor elementary school students……not very motivated, their parents [either]… it is like the worst thing [students may face in the future]. so, what should you do? yes, you do not have to follow the movie's example, but at least they [pre-service english students] have an idea that they can do this and can do that. i want these students to be able to see that 'oh, the problems in teaching are like that, huh'.” (mira) in line with that, several pre-service teachers agreed that several examples of teaching situations could be portrayed in movies. chibi shared her views: “freedom writers [movie] turns out to be taken from a true story. then we become like, oh it turns out, what, there are people like this in real life. and not everything is like disney… the ending is good, but at first, they struggle, it is really real, you know, and they are real people. it becomes more relevant to us, it is more connected… events in real life, that maybe we will experience in the future” (chibi) another participant, herlina, gave a relatively same perspective: “the effect [of movies] is pretty significant… because… something about teaching that i have never seen in reality, i can see it in the movies. and it could also be a preparation for me, like… learning students’ characters from movie… movies also give two perspectives, from the teachers and the students". (herlina) brodi, also agreed that from movies pre-service teachers could learn that different students could need different treatments. he stated: “[from movies] i can see that, oh if you become a teacher … handling one student with another… [they] need to be treated differently. how to take care of it … if we often watch movies about teaching, it will be good for the future. we seem to see that there are various kinds of students… what kind of child [students] should be treated [with] what kind of treatment.” (brodi) from the aforementioned excerpts, it can be seen that the pre-service teachers’ perspectives aligned with those of the lecturers that movies could be used to see obstacles in teaching situations as movies could portray several examples of such situations harvesto glory febriano jalmav, adaninggar septi subekti | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 187 discussion the extent to which movies were used in preparing pre-service english teachers’ readiness to teach through observations, the study found that movies were used to teach learning theories. regarding this, one of the pre-service teachers’ readiness components proposed by tutyandari (2020) is formation, the stage of academic formation that prepares pre-service teachers to become teachers. this shows the significance of the teacher education programme in connecting the theories preservice teachers learned and the field practice in the teacher education programme. this finding was in line with a finding of a study by eilam and poyas (2009) involving english pre-service teachers in israel. they also found that movies were used to see theories of teaching. they found that from the use of movies, pre-service teachers could apply theories in interpreting teaching and learning situations. the similarities could indicate the fairly widespread uses of movies among lecturers at english education majors across contexts to prepare pre-service teachers of english to teach real classes. pre-service english teachers and their lecturers’ views on the use of movies in preparing pre-service english teachers’ readiness to teach in this present study, several participants pointed out that movies motivated them to have the qualities of the teacher characters in the movies. regarding this, the first component of the preservice teachers’ readiness in the framework that tutyandari (2020) proposed in her study was the personal foundation. pre-service teacher readiness starts from the personal foundation, one of whose aspects was motivation. the results of this study were slightly in line with those of the study by gezer (2020) involving turkish pre-service english teachers. she found that several participants watched movies more than once because the message as well as the storyline of the teacher-themed movies they watched were inspiring and influential. she also reported that movies showed how effective teachers should be and the impacts of effective and, in contrast, inadequate teachers, suggesting that the pre-service teachers could see the good qualities of a teacher in such movies. outside the elt field, a study by webb and kapavik (2017) also found that many of their pre-service participants were motivated and inspired by the qualities of the teacher depicted in the freedom writers movie, a movie used in one of the observed classes in the present study. a participant of their study stated after watching the movie freedom writers, “she [the teacher in freedom writers movie] has good qualities that all teachers should have. she inspired her students, and she believed in them”. the similarities of findings in both studies suggested that an influential teacher-themed movie may be utilised in teacher education curricula regardless of the specific majors. furthermore, it should also be noted as meida mentioned the limitations of movies to inspire all pre-service teachers, interestingly, several pre-service teacher participants in the study by gezer (2020) also reported that different pre-service teachers may or may not be inspired by different movies. the latter may be attributed to the too different backgrounds or settings of the movies from those of some pre-service teachers. this may suggest that despite the use of movies seeming to be promising in teacher education curriculum, pre-service teachers' levels of acceptance toward the movies may vary, probably suggesting the use of movies was not one-size-fits-all. both the lecturers and the pre-service teachers in this study perceived movies to be facilitating for pre-service teachers to learn learning theories. this appeared to be similar to the finding of a study by eilam and poyas (2009), investigating the use of classroom clips and movies for pre-service teachers. they found the more practical experiences a pre-service teacher obtains (as via classroom clips and movie clips), the easier pre-service teachers could, later on, recall when such situations did occur in their teaching. hence, these pre-service teachers could handle such situations better. it means that the more the pre-service teachers obtained practical experience through movie visuals, the more they might be able to apply theories in practice. this specific theme was also related to the components of pre-service teachers’ readiness proposed by tutyandari (2020), that is formation component. the formation component involves the contribution of the teacher education programme to the pre-service teachers’ readiness to teach. the theories and practices in these components shaped their sense of readiness in teaching. in this case, teacher education programmes need to provide a way to minimise the gap between as well as harvesto glory febriano jalmav, adaninggar septi subekti | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 188 to bridge theories and practices. in the present study, it was evidenced that including movies as learning media could be one of the strategies to serve this purpose. this present study found that movies helped pre-service teachers see real examples of problems and obstacles in teaching situations. regarding this, kaşkaya and ünlü (2011) argued that using real-life movies in teacher education programmes could prevent reality shock in teaching and may be beneficial to reflect teaching practices. cretu (2019) also echoed the same idea that watching movies and then reflecting on them was a relevant experience, with a cognitive and emotional impact on pre-service teachers. movies have the potential to prevent the shock that future teachers often experience when they have to face the educational realities at school. this previous study also found that even though the educational contexts in which pre-service teachers will work might be different from the movies, several general issues apply related to the didactic profession. this includes, among others, teaching, classroom management, and challenges. it means that some general issues can still be very relevant even despite the different contexts between the movies and the educational contexts the pre-service teachers might experience in the future. furthermore, as the finding of this present study suggested, movies could be used to improve the last component of pre-service teacher readiness by tutyandari (2020), which is professionalism. this component involves the ability to face problems, self-efficacy, and commitment to teaching. in a similar vein, kontaş (2016) also reported that education-themed movies had an important effect on improving the pre-service teachers' attitudes towards the teaching profession in general. it is possible that taking the teacher character in the movie as an example, as reported by several participants in the present study, contributed to improving their idea of the teaching profession positively. in other words, movies might give a figure example for real-world teaching and have the potential to affect pre-service teachers’ commitment to teaching. conclusion the present study has several implications and contributions. first, educationor teacher-themed movies as one of the teaching media evidenced to have a positive impact on the pre-service teachers’ readiness to teach could inform teacher education programmes. they could encourage more use of movies in several classes preparing them to teach. secondly, to increase the relevance of the movies, at times lecturers need to ensure that pre-service teachers have sufficient background knowledge about the setting of the movies. it may particularly be the case if the background of the movies is related to, for example, foreign historical events with which the pre-service teachers are not familiar. furthermore, the study contributed to the literature on the use of movies to prepare pre-service english teachers’ readiness to teach in the indonesian context, which was rather under-research in this specific field. furthermore, the limitation of this study is related to the scarcity of previous studies on the use of movies in preparing teachers' readiness in indonesia. also, there are not many studies that specifically investigated the use of movies in preparing pre-service teachers, both in indonesia and abroad. consequently, previous studies with which the findings of the present study could be compared were fairly limited. last but not the least, several recommendations for future studies can be suggested. this study used qualitative methods; hence future studies could investigate indonesian pre-service english teachers' readiness using a quantitative design and involving many participants to possibly obtain generalisable data. future studies could also explore other factors affecting pre-service english teachers’ readiness to teach. funding statement the research is a non-funded study that it does not receive any fundings from any agencies or institutions references clarke, v., & braun, v. 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(2017). motivated by the movies: how hollywood influences preservice teachers’ pedagogical knowledge. international journal of education and human developments, 3(3), 10–13. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 198 elt forum 12 (3) (2023) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt understanding feminist issues by reading daniyal mueenuddin’s “in other rooms, other wonders” in a prose class sri sumaryani🖂1, maria johana ari widayanti1, ruly indra darmawan1 1universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received on 18 october 2023 approved on 29 november 2023 published on 30 november 2023 ________________ keywords: contextual approach; english literature; feminist issue;, efl ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ the teaching of english literary works in a foreign language context remains a textualoriented activity. students were required to comprehend the linguistic and thematic features of the texts. however, more often than not, students were not aware of the real sociocultural, economic, and political conditions from which the text was based because they focused more on understanding the textual contents of the text. in indonesia where english was still considered as a foreign language, the phenomenon was common. this paper examined the results of a contextual approach given to students when discussing a literary text. the contextual approach was implemented in three stages: pre-reading activities; reading, discussing, and analyzing the text by paying attention to its linguistic features and plot; and connecting the text with real-life situations. the study involved 31 english literature students at universitas negeri semarang from the third semester. the text discussed was a short story titled “in other rooms, other wonders” which contained feminist issues. the researchers also used questionnaires and observed the students’ activities during the three stages to enrich the data. the results revealed that the approach helped the students to understand feminist issues more comprehensively. they were able to relate the circumstances depicted in the story with the real sociocultural, economic, and political conditions of the society where the story was based. the results also suggested that the method was effective in developing the students’ literacy skills. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 gedung b3&b8, program studi sastra inggris fakultas bahasa dan seni, universitas negeri semarang, sekaran, gunung pati, kota semarang, jawa tengah indonesia 50229 e-mail: srisumaryani@mail.unnes.ac.id http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& sri sumaryani, maria johana ari widayanti, & ruly indra darmawan | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 199 introduction the current challenge of teaching students in the english literature study program in indonesia was that most of them were not aware of the local, national, and international sociocultural, political, and economic issues. lecturers would face the problem whenever they initiated discussion on the issues. this might be related to the lower score of reading literacy of indonesian students measured by oecd in 2018 through the program for international student assessment (pisa)(oecd, 2019). the required average score was 500 and indonesia was far below it. the test involved questions that emphasized high-order thinking skills. the results suggested that indonesian pupils had low skills in analytical problem-solving. according to katoningsih (2019), one of the reasons for the low skills in reading literacy was that most students had low interest in reading. for the students of the english literature study program, reading was a crucial skill and activity. limited exposure to reading activity would limit them from accessing the knowledge since almost all subjects in the study program required intensive reading. literary products as the main source of analysis, thus, needed to be used as a tool to ignite the reading skills of the students. a strategy must be applied in the reading process so that the students would feel involved and active in the entire reading process. contextualizing the story that they read with reality was the method chosen for this study. literary products could be a powerful resource for readers who want to experience the world through the perspectives of people with various backgrounds. to be able to see from the perspectives of others, readers need to have background knowledge that would help them explore the interpretive meanings comprehensively. it will make students go beyond the literal words on the pages found in literary texts. interpretation involves reasoning skills which include the ability to draw conclusions from the text and other knowledge. they can be beliefs; sociocultural, political, and economic systems; or literary theories that can help the analysis process (sosa et al, 2016). in order to gain a full comprehension of issues presented in a literary work, readers must have a background or contextual knowledge in order to get the individual and social benefits of the activity (williams & williams, 2023). to read jhumpa lahiri’s the namesake, readers need to know that women in india are still considered second-class society who constantly receive unfair treatment and oppression. in texts that are based on political events, the need for knowledge scaffolding is essential. to read animal farm by george orwell, for instance, readers must have political schemata which makes them understand that the novel is not merely a beast fable. with ample knowledge, readers will be able to draw an interpretation that does not stray too far from the main issue brought by the literary product. for this study, the researchers chose a short story that contained feminist issues to be introduced to the students. in other rooms, other wonders (henceforth iorow) is a story among a collection of short stories with the same title by daniyal mueenuddin. the story revolves around the life of husna who works in the household of k. k. harouni, an aging wealthy landowner. born in an old and respectable family who have long lost their heyday, husna is longing for the same comfortable life she has not experienced. she succeeded in winning k. k. harouni’s attention and won an unshakeable position in the household as a mistress. the situation changed when he died and the family members refused to have her in the house. the story is set in pakistan during the 1980s when feudal power was facing its waning era. as indonesia and pakistan have a high number of muslim populations, this study tried to see how indonesian students responded to the lives of muslim women in pakistan through literature. the popular cultural interpretation of islam suggests that patriarchal values are inseparable from islamic teachings, to a point where it becomes the inherent identity of islamic identity (alexander & welzel, 2010). part of the study asked the readers to respond whether the interpretation was true or not as found in the short story. most of the stories in iorow highlight the mistreatment of pakistani women by the members of society (tanvir & amir, 2017). it is estimated that every year, about 80% of pakistani women become victims of domestic violence in the form of honor killings, acid attacks, and marital rape (bhattacharya, 2014). they are prone to violence and oppression because patriarchal values are deeply ingrained in the country’s norms and beliefs (ali et al, 2023). as an author and journalist, mueenuddin presents women from various stages of life and social stratification with their own struggles through captivating storytelling. women in the story, in this case represented by husna, are stereotyped as weak subjects who rely on the kindness of men to survive. women are not trusted and given opportunities to be decision-makers in a wider societal context. this is one among various forms of oppression sri sumaryani, maria johana ari widayanti, & ruly indra darmawan | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 200 experienced by pakistani women. however, readers also witness each female character’s survival mechanism through unconventional ways which can be seen as a form of strength in the maledominated society. it is true that women still experience various kinds of marginalization worldwide. however, by contextualization of the reading process, their experiences must not be seen from a homogenous perspective only and the way we empower them must also consider local hierarchies and gendered subjectivities (khurshid & saba, 2017). referring to the backgrounds mentioned in the previous part, this study aimed to find out whether or not a contextualized reading strategy would help the students understand the story comprehensively. this aim was a response as well as an endeavor to find a solution to the low reading interest and ability among english literature students in indonesia. previous studies on mueenuddin’s works have been conducted by several researchers. tanvir & amir (2017) have applied a deconstructive approach to one of mueenuddin’s short stories “saleema”. the findings suggested that the main character saleema was not as weak and oppressed as she was perceived to be. the study has revealed the unreliable binary oppositions that have been tried to be established in the story. the second study by ali et al (2023) attempted to examine the construction of gender identity in a short story titled “saleema” using critical discourse analysis (cda) approach. it revealed that pakistani women who live in a patriarchal society frequently encountered mistreatment and restrictions because their roles were defined by men. mudure (2021) mentioned in her research that iowow was significant for contemporary world literature because mueenuddin used his background origins as a pakistani-american to talk back to the world which contributed to shaping his personality. he used it to define his position in a world where islamophobia still remained. therefore, islam became an inseparable element in his writings. hai (2014) also highlighted the contemporariness of mueenuddin’s works by examining how the figure of female domestic servants became central rather than marginal. his strategy was able to shift the readers’ ways of seeing the subjects and issues portrayed in his works. a different approach in examining mueenuddin’s works was probably done by sadaf (2014) who focused more on pakistani masculinity caught in between the waning colonial power, the rise of corruption, and confusion about identity issues. referring to all previous studies, none of them discussed the works as a possible means to enhance students’ understanding of feminist issues. positioning the works in the pedagogical lens would prove that the works could be interpreted in various ways. to conduct this study, the researchers employed a contextual approach. contextualization has been defined in numerous ways. as basic skills, it was defined as an instructional approach that creates connections between the teaching of language skills and instruction in a particular subject area (perin, 2011). one example is when a reading subject was taught with direct reference to current historical or political issues. many terms have been used to refer to the contextual approach, such as contextual teaching and learning, integrative curriculum, and content-area literacy. methods participants the participants of the study were 31 students from the english literature study program at universitas negeri semarang. the participants were randomly selected from their respective populations. they belonged to the same class. they enrolled in a prose class and all of them were from the 3rd semester. before enrolling in the prose course, they were required to pass the introduction to literature course. the subject was compulsory. the participants consisted of 7 male students and 24 female students. their ages varied from 18 to 21 years old. their english proficiency also varied, ranging from intermediate to advanced levels. research instruments and data collection techniques the whole activity consisted of three stages. the first stage was pre-reading activities. in this stage, students were divided into several groups and required to discuss the concept of the patriarchal system in general. they needed to compare their initial knowledge regarding the topics to the members of their group and summed it up in a presentation that lasted for about 7 minutes. the students were free to choose any information that they thought essential to be incorporated into the presentation. all the activities were conducted in the first and second weeks. the second stage consisted of reading, discussing, and analyzing. the students were divided into several groups consisting of three or four students. they were asked to read iorow. the lecturer gave the students sri sumaryani, maria johana ari widayanti, & ruly indra darmawan | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 201 several questions to help them understand the story easier. they discussed and analyzed their findings together with the group members. each group presented the results of the discussion and the rest of the groups were invited to give responses. the stage mainly discussed and analyzed relevant quotations from the story which also included the discussion of linguistic features. it lasted for two weeks. in the last stage, the students were asked to connect the story with real life. they worked individually. the results of their work were presented in the form of an essay. the two previous stages were used to prepare the students with basic knowledge of the issues they were about to analyze. the questionnaires were given at the end of the activities to check the responses of the students. they were not required to write down their names to ensure the objectivity of their answers. the questionnaires consisted of five questions that were related to the three stages the students have gone through and had five scales: 1) strongly disagree; 2) disagree; 3) neutral; 4) agree; and 5) strongly agree. besides examining the results of the questionnaires, the researchers also observed the students’ responses and activities during meetings to enrich the discussion and point of view. the researchers would take notes on several responses from the students that contributed to the process of discussion and interpretation. data analysis technique the data obtained from the questionnaires were presented in a table that contained the number of students who responded to the statements with scales. the number would be made into percentage. the data obtained from the observation were compared. even though the data looked varied, they contained keywords that could represent the students’ highlighted concerns when responding to a certain case. the researchers also checked the essays and analyzed how far the two previous stages contributed to formulating the opinions of the students on the feminist issues portrayed in the story and in general. the combination of results among the three stages became the basic findings to determine whether the treatment given to the students was effective or not to increase their understanding level of the feminist issues. findings and discussion pre-reading activities in the first stage, students were divided into 8 groups. each group needed to find the definition of patriarchy and how it was inserted into cultural or societal norms and values. they also needed to find examples of patriarchal values or practices in their surroundings or those practiced worldwide. the results were presented and discussed together by the whole class. in the preparation session prior to the presentation, the students did not have any difficulty to formulate the definition of the term. however, the definitions they presented were mostly statements they found on the internet. the time allocation for discussion in each group was varied, but the time was relatively less than 15 minutes. after the discussion, most groups would rather divide the responsibilities among the members of the group. in a group that consisted of 4 students, one student would be in charge of summing up the final definition and the rest were looking for examples of patriarchal values and practices. when the students were asked about the strategy, most of them answered that it was timeefficient. they could focus on the task they were assigned. if they formulated the final definition together, it would take a longer time because they needed to confirm with each member. some students also mentioned how they needed to catch up with other tasks from other subjects. among 8 groups involved in the discussion session, there was only one group that formulated the final definition together. when asked why they chose to discuss the definition first instead of delegating one member to be in charge of it, one member of the group mentioned that he just followed the lecturer’s instructions. he also said that it did not waste their time because he felt that he had a chance to present and argue the results of his findings in front of his friends. he thought it made him more confident in speaking english because he saw that his friends were also struggling. comparing the results of the definitions formulated by all groups, the group who decided to have a discussion had a longer and more comprehensive definition as the result. below is the definition of the group: patriarchy is a social system and strategy that gives men power to control every aspect of societal life while women are excluded from the decision-making process. it is usually sri sumaryani, maria johana ari widayanti, & ruly indra darmawan | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 202 internalized in cultural and social norms and values in a very careful and subtle way to a certain point where society accepts it naturally without questioning it. ideas about the exclusion of women as decision-makers and the subtle internalization of patriarchal values have not been mentioned by the other groups. it proved that longer time allocation for discussion could result in a more comprehensive understanding of the topic. the time allocation should be incorporated with an effective strategy of discussion. as the discussion had a further purpose to make the students more aware of the sociocultural, economic, and political situations in their surroundings and worldwide, the discussion results suggested that the method was effective in initiating the curiosity and activeness of the subjects. klofstad (2015) mentioned that exposure to political discussion during the college years led to a higher level of political participation while still in college and years after that. in terms of examples of the patriarchal system, most students took circumstances from their daily lives or cases and news that happened in indonesia. some of the examples were also worldwide phenomena, such as gender inequality in the workplace and domestic abuse. even though gender inequality in indonesia was less than in most muslim-majority nations, women’s economic participation is relatively low in comparison with the country’s development (cameron, 2023). with covid-19, women have been adversely more affected compared to men (fisseha et al, 2021). the students might witness closely the phenomena in their surroundings. relating it to the definition, they could be more analytical in seeing inequality cases and did not simplify them as a matter of choices. the top three cases the students often mentioned were daughters not permitted by their families to pursue higher education, the gender pay gap, and female migrant workers whose husbands took advantage of their money and cheated. some of the cases had local characteristics while some could be found worldwide. the examples and explanations suggested their understanding of the term. understanding the story the students were reading, discussing, and analyzing the story in the second stage. at this stage, they were still working in a group. to help the students, the lecturers provided several questions whose answers could help them comprehend the text. these were the questions: 1) what was the setting of time and place of the story; 2) why did husna flirt with k. k. harouni; and 3) what happened at the end of the story. after discussing the answers to the questions, they presented their results and compared them with the other groups’ results. all groups had relatively similar answers. what needed to be highlighted during the presentation was that the answers led the students to a more detailed and comprehensive understanding of the situations portrayed in the story. some students, for instance, were wondering why the society allowed the practice of adultery while the society portrayed in the story was predominantly muslim. when the question was directed to the whole class, a student raised his hand to answer. the student said that even though the society was mostly muslim, their daily norms and values were highly influenced by non-islamic traditional norms. adultery was tolerated because the one who did it was the landlord who had power. the lives of the servants were dependent on the kindness of the powerful patriarch, k. k. harouni. he then further gave statements taken from the story which could prove his arguments. related to question number two, most groups answered that husna was a greedy person because she used all means to fulfill her dream. she did not care if the way that she chose might hurt or harm others. one student mentioned that by being a mistress of k. k. harouni, she harmed not only the landlord’s entire family who unanimously believed that the landlord’s action tainted the family’s dignity, but also the trust and respect of the servants. she went by saying, even though mr. harouni was known (for) having premarital and extramarital relationships with several women, it mostly happened before he separated from his wife and got old. in his current position as an old man, he needed to establish himself as a respectable gentleman and focus on the afterlife instead of having a relationship with a much younger woman. interestingly, another student responded that the audience should also place themselves in the position of the landlord who lived far from his family members. he showed the quotations which sri sumaryani, maria johana ari widayanti, & ruly indra darmawan | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 203 mentioned how the daughters rarely visited his father. he was mostly accompanied by his friends who also rarely came. when people were old, they needed company. husna was there and she needed economic support from the landlord. it was a mutualistic relationship. therefore, it should not be seen as a mistake. the response ignited the debate in class. some students raised their hands and offered their perspectives on seeing the case. the discussion went actively and lively. the activity gave them an image of the complexity of life in the socioeconomic context. besides provoking curiosity, more meeting time could be spent on higher-order analytic activities rather than listening to the presentations by the lecturers (trudeau, 2005). active participation in class could also improve oral communication skills (dallimore et al, 2008). without the discussion forum, the students would not be able to practice and sharpen their argumentative speaking skills. the students generally stated that the story was relatively easy in terms of vocabulary and grammar use. they found difficulties when encountering cultural words like “begum, kurta, and dupatta”. as a part of comprehending the story, the students were encouraged by the lecturers to find out the meanings of words they were unfamiliar with. when finishing the second stage, the students were expected to be able to get an understanding at least of the plot and main topics so that it would be easier for them to get the whole context of the story. contextualizing the story after finishing the second stage, the students were asked to write an essay about iorow. the essay should contain their interpretation of the female character husna and the relationships between women and men in general as portrayed in the story. the lecturers provided several questions that could guide them. these were the questions: 1) describe husna’s characters; 2) do you think husna is the victim of the social system, why?; and 3) how is the relationship between men and women portrayed in the background setting where the story is based? after understanding the whole plot of the story and background information on patriarchy, the students were expected to be able to give their interpretation of the feminist issues portrayed in the story. the students mostly mentioned how husna was a victim of the social and cultural system in pakistan. some students successfully related husna’s life to poverty which struck her family. even though her family used to be well respected and rich, their current condition hampered them to be considered in a higher societal system. one student said, “the social system does not favor people in the lower classes. it makes it difficult for the members of the lower class to choose the path in their life”. the students understood that husna’s choice to be the mistress was her final solution to free herself from poverty. a student mentioned, “husna is not attractive physically. in a society where women are seen as second-class citizens, they will be mostly taken advantage of by the more dominant groups”. the more dominant group here was the men. husna understood that as a woman, her educated background or skill would not take her anywhere. in a society where men were the decision-makers, women were expected to follow certain rules set by the society. a female student mentioned the decision to make husna as a mistress was also made by the man. “it was husna who tried to lure the boss, but it was still the boss who finally made decisions whether he wanted to be with husna or not.” the situation demonstrated how men could dominate women, especially those in vulnerable positions. it suggested how social power dynamics affected relationships between men and women and determined how their relationships were structured in society. several students highlighted pakistan as a patriarchal society with limited education access for women. one student wrote: the lack of female education negatively impacts employment and the economy. only a few work in the public sector, most of them work in the domestic sector. parents in pakistan often forbid their daughters from pursuing higher education due to the cultural practice of the bride's family providing a dowry to the groom at the time of marriage. when a woman marries a man of lower social status, it can be seen as her fulfilling his needs. husna's parents exert pressure on her to get married despite her reluctance, showcasing the continued prevalence of matrimony in pakistan. the majority of the students in their essays stated that education played an important part in improving the lives of society. three students gave malala yousafzai’s case as an example of how sri sumaryani, maria johana ari widayanti, & ruly indra darmawan | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 204 difficult it was for women to get access to education. husna as a representative of a working-class woman was educated but she was not capable of maximizing her potential. tamim (2013) argued that working-class women in pakistan remained marginalized because they were forced to accept the reinforced sense of low self-worth and ability. a female student also suspected that the reason why all of the harouni daughters chose to live far from their father was a representation of the limited freedom these women had. their father’s house was a representation of the old values and norms that were controlling and that they wanted to get rid of. for them, leaving the main house meant embracing their freedom. when sarwat, one of the daughters, came home and showed her disagreement and resentment toward her father’s mistress, she still had no power to stop it. her father, or men in general, was the decisionmaker. for husna, on the other hand, becoming a part of the house made her closer to her dream. two opposite conditions experienced by women from different social classes revealed that the lives of women in the country could not be completely free from the shadow of men. interestingly, there were around four students in their essays who mentioned that husna was a brave character. all of these students were female. even though the norms limited her movement, she was not hesitant to use the last possible means to achieve her dream. one student wrote “from the religious and social point of view, what husna did to the horouni’s family was evil. however, she also had dreams that needed to be realized. everyone must have the right to make her own dreams come true.” some students were aware that the condition faced by women was not easy at all. they could not completely blame a woman whose dreams were about to be crushed due to restrictions and stigma from society. another female student also said that husna was educated and within an ideal situation, she could get and pursue the better life that she dreamed of. however, society would never give her the opportunities because she was not attractive physically and her family was not well enough to be included in the higher class. whatever path husna chose in her life would show that she was a victim of the patriarchal society. one student further mentioned that k. k. harouni should not be seen as a character who saved husna. he was a man who took advantage of the situation. he only saw husna as a companion who took care of him. he did not really value her even though he showered her with gifts. he used his power to show his dominance so that husna had a reason to be obedient and follow his sayings. he wrote, “husna is shown as being the object of the men's authority and possessiveness in the story, which raises the possibility that women in this society may be treated like property or things.” the researchers also asked the opinions of the students after they finished doing the three stages through a questionnaire. the questionnaires consisted of five statements that they needed to respond them by choosing one of the answers in the multiple choices. the choices ranged from strongly agree to strongly disagree. the statements presented in the questionnaire were whether or not: 1) iorow is an interesting story; 2) reading iorow makes them learn feminist issues; 3) the patriarchal system in indonesia and pakistan are same; 4) their knowledge on feminist issues has improved; and 5) they have empathy towards women. table 1. results of questionnaires top number is the count of students selecting the option. bottom % is percent of the total students selecting the option. strongly disagree disagree neutral agree strongly agree iorow is an interesting story 3 1 15 10 2 10% 3% 48% 32% 6% reading iorow makes you learn feminist issues 2 2 10 16 1 6% 6% 32% 52% 3% the patriarchal system in indonesia and pakistan are same 18 11 2 0 0 58% 35% 6% 0% 0% sri sumaryani, maria johana ari widayanti, & ruly indra darmawan | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 205 my knowledge on feminist issues has improved 0 0 2 25 4 0% 0% 6% 80% 13% i have empathy towards women 0 0 9 18 4 0% 0% 29% 58% 13% the results of the questionnaires suggested that the three stages of reading helped them comprehend the sociocultural, political, and economic issues brought by iorow. one student mentioned that before the first stage, he actually did not know how to formulate the definition of patriarchy. he understood the concept but was unable to articulate it in words. most of them also stated that the story opened their eyes to how to see the condition of women in a patriarchal system. a student mentioned that in several areas in indonesia, girls were not allowed to pursue higher education. the story reminded her of some conservative practices in indonesia applied to women. all of the answers suggested that the activities provided the students with authentic reading experiences (zimmerer et al., 2018). they were both academically and emotionally linked to the text they were reading. they felt that the reading activities were relevant in reality because the case and the actors truly existed. they felt involved when giving their opinions and suggestions. when asked about the similarity between the patriarchal system in indonesia and pakistan, most of them answered that the systems were not the same. pakistan applied more harsh treatment and punishment to women. during her research, one of the students mentioned that she found that honor killing and child marriage practices still happened in pakistan. in indonesia, the practices would be forbidden by laws. the ability to identify cultural differences and practices between the two countries suggested that the students implemented the transfer of skills and knowledge from different contents and contexts (voge, 2011). the majority of students also mentioned that they have learned to build empathy towards women. one male student said that even though the rights and opportunities between men and women in indonesia were equal, there might be some circumstances that favored men over men. they needed to be critical and eager to question any kind of practice that they thought was suspicious. sometimes, inequality and oppression were practiced in a very subtle way. conclusion the pisa results in 2018 regarding the low reading literacy skills for indonesian students needed to be considered as an alarm. if there was no real action from the related parties, the situation would get worse. at the higher education level, the low skills could already be observed by the low interest in reading and the inability of students to relate the contents of text with real-life issues. the students of the english literature study program of universitas negeri semarang were given reading activities consisting of three stages with the contextualization approach. the three stages were proven to be effective in improving the students’ understanding of feminist issues brought about by the story entitled “in other rooms, other wonders”. the first stage provided the students with ample basic knowledge of feminist issues. the second stage was conducted to make sure that the students understood the whole story in general. the third stage trained the students to deliver their rational arguments and defend it. the students were able to rationalize their arguments by showing proof from the story and relating it to real sociocultural, political, and economic situations. the treatments lasted longer than the usual reading activity in class. to discuss a short story like iorow, which consisted of more than 20 pages, they needed around five weeks to complete all stages. however, if the activities could be routine, the students would get used to it, and the working time could be shorter. funding statement we wish to thank the faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang for the funding that we received to accomplish this project in the frame of the program “dana dipa fbs 2023” under the grant agreement number b/7409/un37.1.2/tu/2023. sri sumaryani, maria johana ari widayanti, & ruly indra darmawan | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 206 references alexander, a. c., & welzel, c. 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pre-service efl teachers’ perception; teaching practicum. ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ the spread of the pandemic covid-19 has made many changes in educational policy such as the assessment in english teaching and learning process. the process and procedures in the assessment need to be adjusted from face-to-face assessment into blended and online assessments. not only english teachers, pre-service efl teachers are also required to be ready and adapt to the changes quickly. to adapt it, the integration of technology in the assessment process has been examined. however, the involvement of technology in the area of formative assessment remains underexplored, particularly in the teaching practicum conducted by pre-service efl teachers. the present study is trying to fill the gaps by investigating pre-service efl teachers’ perception on technology-based formative assessment which is implemented in their teaching practicum. a total of 57 pre-service efl teachers completed a likertscale questionnaire. after fulfilling the questionnaires, there were 19 pre-service efl teachers who agreed and volunteered to be in a semi-structured interview. the findings show that the involvement of technology in formative assessment is perceived positively by pre-service efl teachers in their teaching practicum during the pandemic covid-19. they confess that technology has played its practical role in helping them assess their students. further, the implementation of technology-based formative assessments promotes the students’ performance. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: entikafani@upgris.ac.id http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& entika fani prastikawati / elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 164 introduction the advancement of technology in education has been massively proliferated during the spread of the pandemic covid-19 (prastikawati, 2019; prastikawati et al., 2020; wiyaka & prastikawati, 2021). this is due to the changing shift in the teaching and learning process from face-to-face interaction into online interaction. this changing shift forces both teachers and students to have a transformative experiment in the process of teaching and learning (abduh, 2021; zhang et al., 2021). for that case, many educational institutions are obligated to apply the changes. the changes leave e-learning as the only option for teachers to interact with the students. adopting technology also occurs in assessment practices. the use of technology in assessment is considered a potential tool to assist the teachers to monitor and evaluate the students’ learning (brady et al., 2019; deeley, 2018; spector et al., 2016). on the other hand, some scholars mention that the complex process of adopting technology in the assessment process raises other problems. this complexity is influenced by the teacher’s individual and technical factors that vary among them (atmojo & nugroho, 2020; starkey et al., 2021). according to mimirinis (2019), the teacher’s belief in how technology is utilized in assessment practices is also regarded as the crucial factor affecting the teacher’s decision in using technology-based assessment. despite teacher’s perception on technology-enhanced assessment, it is also important to see how the teachers perceive the assessment in the teaching and learning process. the fact shows that most teachers are familiar with summative assessment rather than formative assessment (defianty et al., 2021). meanwhile, formative assessment is highly needed by the teachers in gaining informative evidence on the students’ learning. this kind of assessment can obtain information that is beneficial for the teachers to adjust their teaching instruction based on the students’ needs. further, formative assessment emphasizes feedback in bridging the gaps between the students’ levels of competence and their learning goal (vattøy, 2020). this constructive feedback in formative assessment also motivates the students to reach their learning goal (zhu et al., 2020) as well as their autonomy in learning. in english language teaching (elt) context, integrating technology in formative assessment also has been widely accepted since the pandemic covid-19. english teachers start improving their technological competence to support their ability in implementing formative assessment in their english teaching. the use of technology in formative assessment has been regarded as a help for the english teachers to reduce their workload (beatty & gerace, 2009). moreover, it also imparts the existed automatic feedback to the students’ works. some studies have revealed that technology-based formative assessment is beneficial. elmahdi et al. (2018) stated in their study that the involvement of technology in formative assessment practices improves both the teachers’ and students’ motivation in the process of teaching and learning. further, the regular implementation of technology-enhanced formative assessment encourages the students to engage in their learning (kent, 2019; wiyaka & prastikawati, 2021). another benefit of implementing technology-enhanced formative assessment is also mentioned by hodgson & pang (2012). they reveal that technology in formative assessment creates great interest and curiosity for the students to demonstrate the given tasks. the students are eager to take part more in the impelementation of technology-enhanced formative assessments. daly et al. (2010) also emphasize that online formative assessment leads to meaningful interactions between the teachers and the students. it implies that the use of online formative assessment has given the opportunities to enhance interactivity in the teaching and learning process. due to the importance of formative assessment as well as the technology enhancement in formative assessment practices, english teachers and pre-service efl teachers should build their perception and conception of formative assessment well (khodabakhshzadeh et al., 2018). their assessment literacy must be developed to implement formative assessment on the right track. furthermore, the previous studies mostly underline in-service efl teachers’ perspectives on the practice of technology-based formative assessment. meanwhile, the discussion on how pre-service efl teachers perceive technology in formative assessment practices during their teaching practicum is underexplored. for that reason, this current study is trying to fill the existing gaps by focusing on pre-service efl teachers’ perception on formative assessment and how they perceive the role of technology in formative assessment practices during their teaching practicum. method this study employed a descriptive mixed-method design which connects the quantitative and qualitative phase by selecting the participants in the qualitative phase from those who responded to entika fani prastikawati / elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 165 the questionnaire (quantitative phase). in the quantitative phase, i delivered a questionnaire for 57 pre-service efl teachers. meanwhile, in the qualitative phase, i conducted a semi-structured interview. the participants of this study were 57 pre-service efl teachers who have finished their teaching practicum (internship program). they were chosen as the sample by using purposive random sampling. in this case, 57 pre-service efl teachers were those who conducted their teaching practicum in the senior high schools. this is based on the consideration that students in senior high school are more ready to use technology-based formative assessment in teaching and learning (reddy et al., 2018). in collecting the data, a likert-scale questionnaire was given in the survey. this questionnaire was adopted and adapted from the previous research from alotaibi (2018). this questionnaire was given in the google form since the covid-19 pandemic spread. to support and gain more in-depth information from the questionnaire, the participants were invited to a semi-structured interview that was conducted in an online setting using the zoom application. there were 19 pre-service efl (p1p19) teachers who agreed and volunteered to be interviewed. this semi-structured was fully recorded. in the interview process, the participants were allowed to use bahasa indonesia or mixed it with english. after collecting the first data from the questionnaire, i analyzed it using spss 21 in terms of mean (m) and standard deviation (sd). to measure the internal consistency and reliability, i employed cronbach alpha. meanwhile, the data that was gained from the semi-structured interview was transcribed. the indonesian transcripts were translated into english. finally, it was sent back to the participant to check and get their confirmation and verification. to validate the data, i applied triangulation to the data that i got. finding and discussion the finding and the discussion of this study focus on two main points; pre-service efl teachers’ perception on formative assessment and the role of technology enhancement in formative assessment practices. pre-service efl teachers’ perception on formative assessment in the teaching practicum capturing the perception of pre-service efl teachers on formative assessment is the first agenda of this study since it is essential to know how pre-service efl teachers value formative assessment in their english teaching practicum. according to table 1, pre-service efl teachers perceive formative assessment positively (m=3.86; sd=0.11). they believe that formative assessment has a substantial purpose to capture and monitor the students learning progress (m= 3.78; sd=0.99). this belief is in line with the conception that formative assessment can help the pre-service efl teachers to check their students’ understanding (m=3.91; sd=0.95). this confirms how formative assessment is an integral part of english teaching and learning activity (m=3.84; sd=0.94). table 1. pre-service efl teachers’ perception on formative assessment items m sd formative assessment should be an integral part of teaching and learning. 3.84 0.94 formative assessment helps the teachers to check the students’ understanding of the learning material that is learned. 3.91 0.95 formative assessment gives information to the teachers on the students’ learning progress during the teaching and learning process. 3.78 0.99 the regular formative assessment practices engage the student’s motivation in learning. 3.89 1.03 the evidence from formative assessment practices can be used as a teaching reflection for teachers to develop their teaching in the future. 3.98 0.95 feedback in formative assessment helps the students to achieve their learning goals. 3.86 0.97 peer-feedback among students in formative assessment is helpful for students in evaluating a friend’s work. 3.61 0.90 entika fani prastikawati / elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 166 the teachers need more time to evaluate the students’ works in formative assessment 3.87 1.07 formative assessment is assisting the teachers and students in making a decision about how to move forward to reach their goals. 4.00 0.84 overall 3.86 0.11 responding to the questionnaire, how pre-service efl teachers value formative assessment is also reflected in their interview. they consider formative assessment assists the students to engage in their english learning process by realizing their weaknesses and strength. “i think formative assessment is crucial for us to do. it can be some activities such as giving the quiz, discussion, or even direct questions to students. these activities engage my students in their learning process and motivate them to learn more” (p4) “i learn a lot in my teaching practicum especially about formative assessment. it is an important assessment to do by us as the teachers. direct questioning was one of formative assessment i used to do in my teaching practicum. my students are motivated when i ask some questions on the materials that i explain.”(p5) “…i ever conducted online quizzes and direct questions for my students. i also asked my students to peer-assessment in my teaching practicum. they learned to share comments and opinions on their friends’ works. to add, the activity can help my students to recognize their strength and weakness in their english learning” (p11) another finding is about feedback and its close relation with formative assessment. based on table 1, pre-service efl teachers believe that feedback in formative assessment is the help for students in achieving the goals of english learning (m=3.86; sd=0.97). in the interview, they reveal that feedback from them is influential for students to make an english learning improvement. “the feedback that i give to my students is really impactful. my students will revise their works based on what i commented. so, feedback in formative assessment is important” (p9) “i know that feedback from me as the english teacher is good for my students’ learning progress, but it takes time if i give feedback to all of my students. so, i let them do peer feedback. however, peerfeedback sometimes doesn’t work since they feel awkward to comment negatively” (p13) “…i prefer to use online feedback rather than direct feedback to my students’ works. it helps me to save my time” (p15) “online feedback helped me so much in my formative assessment practices. it is not time-consuming”. (p19) overall, pre-service efl teachers have shown their efficacious perception towards formative assessment. they perceive formative assessment as a praiseworthy activity that is beneficial and impactful for the student’s learning progress (dalby & swan, 2019; elmahdi et al., 2018). meanwhile, formative assessment is more than just monitoring the students’ learning progress in teaching and learning (black & wiliam, 2010). the correct and regular formative assessment practices can obtain more information (chong, 2018; dalby & swan, 2019) that can be used by the teachers to adjust their teaching instructions, methods, and techniques which are suitable for the students’ need and the curriculum demands (hasim et al., 2018; luthfiyyah et al., 2021). moreover, the evidence which is obtained from formative assessment can reveal the students’ strengths and weaknesses, especially in english learning. this is then in line with the purpose of feedback in the formative assessment that is given by the teachers in supporting the students’ improvement (deeley, 2018). on the other hand, teachers also can take benefit from the evidence obtained from formative assessment by reflecting kinds of teaching instructions that are effective for the students (owen, 2016). when the teachers find the teaching instructions are not suitable, they may reconstruct and choose another teaching instruction. finally, the constructive and collaborative activities can impact the teaching and learning quality that is conducted by the teachers. qualified teaching is also supposed to gain students’ motivation in learning (cauley & mcmillan, 2010; prastikawati et al., 2020). this is essential to reach the main goal of learning. entika fani prastikawati / elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 167 the roles of technology in formative assessment practices in the teaching practicum in the implementation of formative assessment in the teaching practicum, pre-service efl teachers confess that technology has played an important role. table 2 has shown pre-service efl teachers’ perception towards technology-enhanced formative assessment in their teaching practicum at schools (m=4.02; sd=0.11). they have perceived that the multiple roles of technology in formative assessment practices help them to do the teachers’ work efficiently and reduce their workloads (m=4.10; sd=0.90). the use of technology also facilitates them to check the students’ scores in a fast way (m=3.89; sd=1.04), so the feedback for the students can also follow it quickly (m=3.91; sd=0.96). “…it is a help for me to involve technology in my formative assessment when i have a teaching practicum. moreover, the online learning setting supports the technology advancement in formative assessment practices that i regularly do in my english teaching”(p5) “it is fun to have ict in my formative assessment practices especially in my teaching practicum. i can save my time and reduce my overload work that i must do”(p8) “i like using technology in the formative assessment such as online quizzes in kahoot and quizziz. the feedback is quick for my students and it saves my time”(p19) pre-service efl teachers also reveal that the involvement of technology in formative assessment practices brings a new atmosphere of learning which is suitable for today’s education needs. the use of online quiz platforms such as kahoot, quizziz, and socrative apps present a challenging and exciting learning environment. the touch of online platforms leads the students to be more competitive and engaged in learning. automatically, their learning motivation is increased (m=4.14; sd=0.91). it is a good condition for the students to play their best roles in making an effort in their study. table 2. the roles of technology in formative assessment practices in the teaching practicum items m sd using technology in formative assessment practices helps the teachers to reduce their workload. 4.10 0.90 using technology in formative assessment can assist the teachers to easily monitor the students’ learning progress. 4.07 0.88 the technology-advanced formative assessment facilitates the students to study independently and collaboratively. 4.14 0.85 the technology-advanced formative assessment facilitates the students to get quick feedback 3.91 0.96 the technology-advanced formative assessment facilitates the students to check their score as quickly as possible 3.89 1,04 the use of technology-advanced formative assessment in online quizzes offers an entertaining task environment 3.93 1.06 the use of technology-advanced formative assessment maintain motivates the students to improve their learning performance. 4.14 0.91 overall 4.02 0.11 according to pre-service efl teachers’ responses in table 2, another role of technology in formative assessment is as a fast monitor of the student’s learning progress (m=4.07; sd=0.88). the teachers’ role in monitoring the students’ learning is a must in the teaching and learning process, so it is clear that technology has helped the teachers to do it efficiently. the advancement of technology in the implementation of formative assessment practices leads to the efficiency of the works that preservice efl teachers need to do in their teaching practicum. moreover, the principle of practicality in the assessment process is also mentioned by pre-service efl teachers when using technology in the implementation of formative assessment in their online english teaching. entika fani prastikawati / elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 168 “…i ever implemented plickers and it was helpful for me to monitor the student’s learning progress quickly. for me, plickers could play well in formative assessment practice”(p14) “kahoot is one of the technology-based formative assessment that i used in teaching practicum. it is like a helper for me to check my students’ learning progress whether they have comprehended and understood what i have explained before or not.”(p16) “ ..kahoot and quizziz application is so practical for me. those applications are so simple to be implemented as online formative assessment practices in the classroom. both online and face to face classroom setting can use them anytime.”(p7) furthermore, technology-enhanced formative assessment facilitates the students to learn both individually and collaboratively (m=4.14; sd=0.85). pre-service efl teachers reveal that collaborative learning can be realized in online formative assessment practices such as commenting, editing, and revising the works in peer or group. the students were set in a group by using zoom’s break-out room provided by the teacher to works together. “the use of technology in my formative assessment practices can realize the concept of collaborative learning. i let my students work together and comment on the work each other….”(p7) “technology-based formative assessment has brought a new and challenging learning environtment that is related to today’s demand.”(p10) “…i let my students to write in a small group using google docs. they work together in drafting, editing, revising their writing”(p11) “…collaborative learning is realized easily by the help of techmology-based formative assessment. the students are in the different places but they still can work together using an online application such as google docs. they are encouraged more in improving their learning quality, especially in writing process” (p15) as it has been explained in the findings that pre-service efl teachers value the technology enhancement as an effective tool in implementing formative assessment in their teaching practicum. the multiple roles of technology in formative assessment have assisted the teachers in reducing the workloads, monitoring the students’ learning progress, presenting a challenging learning environment, motivating the students in individual and collaborative learning, and engaging both teachers and students in the teaching and learning process. those multiple roles of technology in formative assessment are considered efficacious values for pre-service efl teachers in conducting their teaching practicum. furthermore, the advancement of technology in formative assessment practices also impacts on the pre-service efl teachers’ teaching quality. the quick way resulted from some online application of formative assessment assists pre-service efl teachers to make an adjustment in their teaching technique or media so that the quality of teaching is improved. in short, the role of technology in formative assessment cannot be neglected to present the qualified teaching for students. the first role of technology in formative assessment is reducing the teachers’ workloads. as it is mentioned by prastikawati et al. (2020), presenting qualified teaching and learning process is important to reach the main goal of learning. in this case, the teachers’ works become complex such as providing feedback (gikandi et al., 2011) for students relating their submitted and unsubmitted works. pre-service efl teachers have mentioned that they need more time to check and give feedback to the students. point to that, the use of technology in formative assessment practices reduces those time-consuming activities (brady et al., 2019; mahbub, 2020). the use of online quizzes has placed technology-based formative assessment in the current need of learning such as instant feedback for the students. it means that technology-based formative assessment presents fast transparency of the students’ work (spector et al., 2016; zainuddin et al., 2020). the fast transparency of the students’ work in technology-enhanced formative assessment is also beneficial for the teachers to monitor the student’ learning progress. by knowing the improvement of the students’ work, the teachers can adjust their teaching instruction. this is in line with the second role of technology in formative assessment perceived by pre-service is monitoring the students’ learning progress quickly. entika fani prastikawati / elt forum 10 (2) (2021) 169 the second role of technology in formative assessment is regarded as an efficient tool to monitor the students’ work in a fast and valid way. technology has presented its benefit in term of the speed in monitoring the learning progress in everytime the material has been delivered. zainuddin et al. (2020) mention that it is crucial for the teachers to check the students’ understanding on the materials that has been delivered so that the teachers can decide to continue or not. this is an impactful process that should be well-considered by the english teachers to improve the learning quality. as one of the principles of formative assessment is to clearly monitor each learning process acquired by the students, so the teacher is the main actor to realize it. the information that is derived from formative assessment result is beneficial for the teachers to adapt and adjust the learning instructions pthat are presented in the class. further, this result also effects for the students to improve their learning strategies. here, the technology becomes the assistant of the teachers in completing their role in checking the students’ understanding so that the result of formative assessment can be accessed as soon as possible. this is one of technology speciality that may not be found in non-technology based formative assessment. another role of technology in formative assessment is leading the students to both individual and collaborative learning. in an individual learning, the student can realize their weakness and strength from the individual feedback given by the teachers. the more feedback in online formative assessment practices, the better improvement of a student will reach (burner, 2016; tosuncuoglu, 2018). meanwhile, the use of technology in formative assessment also highlights the concept of collaborative learning. one of the examples is collaborative writing in a small group using google docs. using this kind of technology-enhanced formative assessment can write, edit, and revise with their friends in a small group. meanwhile, the teacher also can monitor the students’ writing activities in this kind of collaborative activity. furthermore, this kind of technology-enhanced formative assessment motivate the students to share and respect what the other friends comment into. it creates a new learning environment for students especially when it relates to do some tasks. the challenging environment in an online formative assessment may stimulates them in an active task participant. an active and interactive student will lead to the successful teaching and learning that ends to qualified learning. finally, the realization of technology in formative assessment practices can be explored maximumly in the teaching practicum if pre-service efl teachers improve their technological competence. this competence is a must in today’s teaching and learning requirement since the online teaching and learning still exists in the pandemic era. conclusion the current study has revealed that the involvement of technology in formative assessment practices has been perceived positively by pre-service efl teachers in conducting their teaching practicum. they have mentioned that the multiple roles of technology in formative assessment practices help them in achieving the qualified teaching and learning that is beneficial for the students’ learning achievement. furthermore, the technology involvement also plays an essential role for the improvement of pre-service efl teachers’ technological competence in which it is considered as a must for today’s teaching competence (atmojo & nugroho, 2020). however, pre-service efl teachers need more disclosure as well as exposure to the assessment knowledge and purposes. furthermore, pre-service efl teachers also need to improve their competence on technology uses to support the formative assessment practices in their teaching practicum. since this study involves limited participants, it is essential for the further research to crry out a larger sample. moreover, the impact of technology-based formative assessment on certain language skills competences needs to be explored including the numerous factors influencing pre-service efl teachers in applying of technology-based formative assessment. references. abduh, m. y. m. 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(2020). the effect of automated feedback on revision behavior and learning gains in formative assessment of scientific argument writing. computers and education, 143(september 2018), 103668. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2019.103668 putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 134 elt forum 12(2) (2023) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt online teaching strategies for conversational english by university lecturers farisani thomas nephawe1 1university of venda, south africa article info ________________ article history: received on 31 january 2023 approved on 31 july 2023 published on 31 july 2023 ________________ keywords: conversational analysis, conversational english, online teaching, strategies ____________________ abstract numerous strategies for teaching conversational english online are utilised although some have less value for money due to constraints including poor connectivity, constant ‘load shedding’, and lack of computing device systems. the paper investigated a suitable strategy for teaching conversational english online to english communication skills students registered for module 1141 in the 2022 academic year at the university of venda, south africa. a qualitative research approach was adopted as in-depth knowledge and a wide range of speech exchange systems could be obtained. three lecturers were purposively selected from a pool of seven lecturers to participate in the paper because they were easily approachable and had been teaching the module for over five years. data were collected using observations and semi-structured face-to-face interviews. atlas ti version 22 software was used to analyse the data as it locates codes and interprets the findings in primary data material, weighs and evaluates their importance, and visualises the often-complex relationships between them. the pilot study results indicated that the lecturers were not comfortable with using the videoconferencing strategy for teaching conversational english online. but after showing them steps for using the identified strategy, the lecturers revealed extreme indebtedness towards the process. using the identified strategy for teaching conversational english online is highly recommended. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 office building b/09 private bag x5050 t thohoyandou 0950 e-mail: farisani.nephawe@univen.ac.za http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& farisani thomas nephawe | elt forum 12(2) (2023) 135 introduction the quality of distance education and an increased trend of e-learning have consistently improved technological advancement and shifted the entire learning system to online learning, e-learning or flexible learning. in this hegemony, al-nofaie (2020) asserts that many educational institutes shifted learning to online teaching. the adoption of e-learning has become the new regulation, and technology is a primary need. khreisat (2022) claims that online teaching has become a beacon of hope for the continuity of education. hence, halim and sunarti (2021) claim that not only has the paradigm of the learning process changed but also the instructions and delivery mode have been developed to ensure the teaching of english communication skills [ecs] in a full online classroom environment. online teaching is a student-centric methodology that stimulates students’ interest and participation levels in virtual classrooms using virtual platforms. additionally, online teaching is viewed as a “system without face-to-face directly between lecturers and students but done online using the internet” (widyastuti, 2021, p.382). the main reason for engaging students in the online teaching method is to improve the quality and relevance of teaching and learning because it creates "intense participation and increased opportunities for learning and flexibility for both the student and lecturer” (brunsell, 2021:4). even shy students consider online classes as a haven and feel that it is easier to engage in discussions as they are hesitant to talk during lessons (alshehri, mordhah, alsibiani, alsobhi & alnazzawi, 2020). ceglie and black (2023) estimate that online teaching and learning are indispensable during global pandemics and other natural hazards such as floods and wars because education can even take place spontaneously from home. in this regard, brunsell, (2021:4) claims that teaching conversational english online creates "intense participation and increased opportunities for learning and flexibility for both the student and lecturer”. however, some lecturers face challenges in using online teaching strategies (rif, tan, & khairuddin, 2023) as they are not adequately trained. online teaching and learning individualise and provide independent learning, studying anytime and anywhere and create attendance possibilities for those who are unable to attend physical classes (kassymova, tulepova & bekturova, 2023). in this situation, strategies for teaching conversational english online, therefore, are also beneficial (pustika, 2020) to lecturers and students alike. as distance education occurs over the use of the internet (suputra, 2021), using computing technological devices makes virtual learning worthwhile for both lecturers and students. for example, the use of digital resources including videos, high-end graphics, and images, has made the illustration and explanation of concepts in video conferencing and webinars, quite a sophisticated one. technologies comprising both synchronous such as chatrooms and listservs; and asynchronous including e-mails and discussion boards as modes of communication in providing education are indispensable. therefore, the internet is a wonderful resource for learning conversational english online as there are millions of websites for enhancing teaching and learning (styfanyshyn & kalimon, 2021). in this essence, “online learning mode facilitates lecturers to access the authentic learning environment required to create more motivating, pleasant, appealing; and engaging classes for students” (ishak, mulyanah & purwasih, 2022). the majority of english lecturers’ experience challenges in online teaching while “students often struggle with finding ways to use english outside the classroom” (styfanyshyn & kalimon, 2021:124). the lack of resources, the knowledge of applying strategies for teaching conversational english online, and low student motivation are the most serious concern for lecturers to conduct online learning (nugroho, ilmiani & rekha, 2021). nevertheless, ‘understanding students’ difficulties can motivate and help lecturers to improve effective learning strategies that enhance listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. nevertheless, if lecturers’ professional knowledge is empowered, they can understand contemporary educational practices such as online teaching and policies that are required for education (rajeswari & madhavi, 2023). to ensure the smooth flow of online teaching, english lecturers require continuous lecturer professional advancement in using online pedagogies. rusandi, jannah and mahmudah (2021) postulate that numerous online platforms including instant messaging, whatsapp messaging, google class, microsoft teams, webcams, zoom, skype, and videoconferencing are indispensable. several considerable studies have been conducted to examine strategies for teaching conversational english online. for example, in indonesia, nagauleng and waris (2022) studied students' perceptions concerning learning online and found that students were excited about learning online. in saudi arabia, ozfidan, fayez and ismail (2021) explored an array of students’ perceptions concerning online teaching and learning and discovered that the students were highly motivated to learn online. in egypt, badr (2020) conducted a study regarding the effect of teaching english foreign farisani thomas nephawe | elt forum 12(2) (2023) 136 language [efl] students online. the investigation revealed that students appreciated learning online because they learn individually and spontaneously. similarly, in asia, khreisat (2022) examined students' perceptions of learning english online. the results of the study indicated students' appreciation of learning online. although numerous studies mentioned supra have been attached to the attainment of an appropriate strategy in this regard, little attention was paid by the various researchers to the full realisation of the strategies for teaching conversational english online. in this regard, the researcher attempted to present the current topic because lecturers have a limited understanding of suitable strategies for teaching conversational english online. the objectives of the current paper were to identify a suitable strategy for teaching conversational english online to ecs module 1141 students at the university of venda, south africa; describe such a strategy, and establish its effectiveness in teaching and learning. the paper attempted to answer the following research questions: 1) what is the suitable strategy for teaching conversational english online? and 2) how can the identified strategy for teaching conversational english online be described? the paper was underpinned by hakuta, zwiers and rutherford’s (2016) ‘conversational analysis’ technique for conducting online teaching courses. at present, lecturers actively use this approach in the teaching of english both in the classroom environment and distance learning almekhlafy (2020) as well as broadly accepting it as an informed research methodology. this approach enables lecturers and students to engage in more practicable online learning and minutia of classroom practices. it is an appropriate technique “for the formative assessment of students’ progress, immediately identifying possible gaps in their knowledge” (kokhan, matsevko-bekerska & lysanets, 2020). in this regard, researchers obtain a guaranteed niche for researching the feasibility of strategies for teaching conversational english online. the various forms of teaching and learning strategies include blended learning, collaborative learning, flipped classroom strategy, breakout classes, and scaffolding (hakim, 2020) which can be applied to enhance online teaching. ria (2021) sees strategies as means, tactics, or methods of accomplishing something. khreisat (2022) claims that strategies for teaching conversational english online assist students in achieving learning objectives. lederman (2020) claims that both students and lecturers embrace the digital experience of academics. this has been the situation regardless of constraints in the implementation of online teaching and learning such as internet connectivity and lack of internet facilities. in this situation, students expressed a positive opinion about the effectiveness of online education (yildiz, cengel, & alkan, 2020). most of the students develop paraphrasing ideas, evaluating, and comparing tactics as well as supporting them with evidence, innovativeness, and creativity. however, online teaching cannot go without challenges. for example, numerous students experienced extreme stress and anxiety because of the abrupt transition from traditional face-to-face classes to online classes (alasmari, 2021). in this regard, students may experience difficulties in speaking the language naturally and conversationally since some students cannot have full attention on their own. although an increasing number of studies conducted by researchers, syllabus designers, and special educationists have consistently tried to evaluate the teaching strategies, quantitatively or qualitatively, none of them have positively analysed the results that deal with a literature review (khreisat, 2022). as there are various platforms and strategies for teaching conversational english online, the current paper aimed to identify the most effective strategy in this regard. methods a descriptive qualitative research approach was adopted because it could extract in-depth knowledge from the respondents, a broad range of speech exchange systems (hakuta, et al., 2016) and the state of view as it exists today. it analyses and describes the abilities, and social phenomena in the form of word forms, uniqueness, and variations of words produced by lecturers in online learning classes (robert & pane, 2020). a conversational analysis research design was employed to identify a strategy for teaching conversational english online. three lecturers were purposefully selected to participate in the current paper on the basis that they were all teaching ecs at the university of venda in limpopo, south africa. of the selected lecturers, one was responsible for offering module ecs 1141 lectures in group a on mondays while another was for group b lectures on thursdays. the inclusion criteria of the respondents (nikolopoulou, 2022) were that they have been teaching this module for five years or more and might have gained informed knowledge for teaching conversational english both in the classroom environment and online. they were easily approachable because they were willing to share their ideas regarding the teaching of conversational english online farisani thomas nephawe | elt forum 12(2) (2023) 137 and have a good sense of humour. further, the respondents fitted the researcher’s profile because he wanted those who were currently teaching module ecs 1141 and had enough time to fully participate in the current investigation. however, the exclusion criteria were based on the premise of lack of time, reluctance to participate and being currently on any medication affecting the respondents’ health that in the researcher’s opinion might interfere with the results of the paper. to fulfil these criteria, the researcher asked for permission from the university of venda research office to conduct a study. also, an ‘agreement form’ was carefully designed and made ready to be filled by the participants as a means of complying with the ethical standards including informed consent, anonymity, and confidentiality as well as the absence of any kind of psychological harm to the participants than physical because both lecturers and students were working from home. data were collected using observation lessons conducted twice in two weeks, namely, on mondays from 11h00-11h50 and thursdays from 13h00-13h50 because that were the specific times at ecs module 1141 was offered to groups a and b students according to the timetable in the department of english, media studies and linguistics at the university of venda in limpopo province, south africa. the researcher did not want to interrupt teaching and learning since there were various modules offered by lecturers at specific times at this university. the other reason for conducting observation lessons on mondays and thursdays over two weeks was to compare and corroborate the findings from each day and each time for credibility, reliability, and validity purposes. on the other hand, a person-to-person interview (rif, et al., 2023) was conducted only once at different lectures because the researcher could still compare and authenticate the results from different interview sessions held among the three lecturers using the same open-ended interview questions. a voice recorder and a notebook were used to record the entire interview process so that no single piece of information is misplaced. the material for online lesson discussion was selected based on the excerpts dealing with conversational english online capacity, learning objectives, and students’ syllabi. group a lecturer conducted a lesson on ‘common errors committed in english’ while the group b lecturer dealt with the 'word formation process'. however, the third lecturer did not partake in the observation lessons because the researcher did not wish to include him in the observation lessons and the researcher did not teach any of the sampled groups. on this basis, the third lecturer who did not teach any of groups a and b was reserved for interview processes that were handled by the other two lecturers. the rationale behind reserving the third lecturer for the interview process was that the researcher had already purposively selected groups a and b based on his interest. as regards data analysis, data obtained from observations and transcribed interviews were analysed using atlas ti version 22 software because it unpacks different themes, creates and names new codes as well as labels the concepts for attaching data to each data segment. codes were selected and dragged into the filter area on the left-hand side. after releasing the codes, the name was entered for the code group and the button ‘create’ was entered because the researcher wanted to capture all the codes without any hesitation. line-by-line coding was opened, and codes were placed close to the data with a spontaneous approach. labels were kept short, simple, and precise, with a focus on actions. every new code was defined using the comment function. an organised coding system was created as in ‘sociodemographics’ for prefixes, for example, prefixed with symbol # or with @ and colours such as red, purple, and blue on the category ‘upper case’ to show effect; and a ‘sub code’ with ‘lower case’ and same as category colour while an asterisk (*) showed colour that did not fit any category as in *scientific evidence. in this way, codes with commonalities were grouped to identify themes. codes were grouped (huddle, 2022) and computerised while irrelevant ones were completely removed. when the level of abstraction rose gradually, linkages were created between the different codes and code groups. every step in a memo was diarised to increase the transparency of the coding system and facilitates overseeing and managing the writing-up of the narratives. data reduction, data display, and verification were employed (cahyaningsih, putra, & mahedriyanah, 2021). observation lessons in the video conferencing strategy the observation lessons were conducted twice in two weeks period, namely, on mondays from 11h0011h50 and thursdays from 13h00-13h50 since that were the specific periods for teaching ecs module 1141 to groups a and b students because the researcher wanted to compare and collate the findings. also, the reasons for using different days and times were to comply with the rules and regulations of the university timetable. a semi-structured interview was conducted once and on a one-to-one interview with three different lecturers because the respondents could still provide the lecturer with enough information even though it was handled once. also, the findings obtained from a single session farisani thomas nephawe | elt forum 12(2) (2023) 138 divided into the three interviews were vivacious and sufficed the researcher for comparison and corroboration of the results. nonetheless, the challenges faced by the students such as ‘slang’ in the use of the english language when learning 'common errors in excerpt 1 and the 'word formation process in 2 were instantly resolved because the researcher wanted to mitigate and avoid the development of grammatical errors in the teaching and learning of conversation english online. the researcher informed all the respondents that any single activity was merely conducted for research purposes so that students did not hesitate to participate robustly in the provided lessons. in the process, field notes regarding ‘common errors’ and ‘word formation process’ were written into a notebook to ensure the safety of the observation lessons and to compare the frequency of students' responses because the researcher would want to mitigate the difficulties experienced by students when learning through the medium of the videoconferencing platform. semi-structured interviews in the videoconferencing strategy each interview session was done for 15 minutes because the researcher thought that the provided slot was enough to obtain envisaged information and the lecturers' practical perceptions about the use of videoconferencing strategy. during the interviews, the respondents' effectiveness in the use of videoconferencing was examined because the researcher did not want to miss out on any response to the applicability of this platform. ordinarily, the lecturers were aware of the difficulties that might be experienced in the utilisation of videoconferencing strategy and this prompted them to pay attention to a single interview question posed to them. after the recording was done, the transcribed video clips were accurately sorted out and analysed as the researcher wanted to assess the effect of videoconferencing strategy. data obtained from lecturers' interviews were arranged according to the themes emerging from the analysis and used in the discussion, interpretation, and presentation of the results to match similar codes together because they would help in the writing of the narrative. findings and discussion the data collected using observations and semi-structured interviews were analysed as the researcher hopefully wanted to assess the impact of the videoconferencing strategy to address the question of ‘common errors’ and ‘word formation process’ that could enhance english mastery. as traditional classroom engagement is being put aside by numerous institutions of higher teaching and learning, some lecturers experience difficulties in conducting online teaching platforms, and rigorous use of the videoconferencing strategy is anticipated. the finding is congruent with suputra (2021) who estimates that using computing technological devices makes virtual learning worthwhile for both lecturers and students. further, suptra adds that videoconferencing strategy platform provides better examples and opportunities for teaching conversational english online. two transcripts from the four consecutive observation lessons were employed to answer the research questions, namely, ‘what is the suitable strategy for teaching conversational english online?’ and ‘how can the identified strategy for teaching conversational english online be described?’. also, they were utilised to establish the strength of the videoconferencing strategy. nevertheless, in compliance with the ethical principles of protecting respondents' secrecy, lecturers who took part in the observation lessons were denoted as one and two. • excerpt 1 lecturer one interacted with group a students using a slide titled ‘common errors’ in english for both lessons held on mondays as follows: lecturer (starting a conversation): holla, can you all see the projected slide? students (in unison): yeah, visible enough, sir. lecturer: ok, is 'discussing about' appropriate in english? kudakwashe: (enthusiastically) isn’t that there is a tautology as 'discuss' means talk about? and, if is used with 'about', it would mean 'talk about about’. lecturer: (he laughs): wow, quite right, the most abused phrase, you know. all students (in unison): gee whizz! before the lecturer could continue, betty interrupted betty: sir, can we use about with ‘talk’? lecturer: yep, ‘talk’ does not mean talk about. kudakwashe: oh gosh! what a contradiction. lecturer: say that again! farisani thomas nephawe | elt forum 12(2) (2023) 139 kudakwashe did not continue as he knows that ‘say that again’ means to continue talking. at the end of the lesson, students were given homework to think about the appropriate usage of the english language. using atlas ti version 22.0 software, the students’ appropriate answers were grouped and organised according to the coding system. however, the irrelevant codes were removed during the computerisation of the relevant ones. also, the researcher recorded the codes that developed patterns in line with the students’ appropriate answers. lecturer one started his casual english conversation by using greeting words such as 'holla' to create a friendly environment that draws the students' willingness to participate in the lesson. the finding is in line with nagauleng and waris (2022) who suggest that videoconferencing stimulated students' perceptions positively concerning learning conversational english online. to acknowledge such stimulation, the students used the word 'yeah', 'yep', 'gee whizz', 'wow', and 'oh gosh' to indicate that they welcome and know that they were dealing with conversational english. also, the finding supports ozfidan, et al. (2021) suggestion that students become highly motivated when learning conversational english online. although 'common errors occur intuitively in the teaching of the english language online, students derive benefit in the use of videoconferencing lessons because they learnt the language quite enthusiastically in line with the research questions sought by the researcher in the current study. the concept of 'common errors' regarding the phrase 'discuss' was strategically tackled. the data obtained from an analysis of data observation involving the lecturer and the students demonstrate that both groups were fascinated by using the platform. the students interacted preternaturally by answering and asking questions to understand the correct usage of english to avoid the most common abuse of the phrase. the discovery is congruent with badr’s (2020) suggestion that students appreciated learning online because they learn individually and spontaneously. the lecturer's question-and-answer method suggests a willingness to lure the students into participating more in the lesson. the use of the phrase 'say that again' by the lecturer was nothing else than testing the student's ability to interpret it correctly. the students understood the actual meaning of this phrase because they did not repeat what the lecturer was saying. in addition, they kept quiet to signal their awareness of the phrase usage that demands the speaker to continue talking than repeat the utterance in this instance. the finding supports yildiz, et al. (2020) who indicate that students express a positive opinion about the effectiveness of using videoconference lessons. this suggests that videoconferencing is a suitable strategy for learning conversational english online, but it must be used appropriately since there is a huge distance between the lectures and their students. • excerpt 2 lecturer two interacted with group b students using a slide titled 'word formation process' scheduled for both lessons that took place on thursdays in the following manner: the lecturer interacted with her students using a shared slide titled 'word formation process'. lecturer: hi, students, can you see the projected slide? all students (excitedly): very well sir, thank you. lecturer: the lesson of today deals with the ‘word formation process’. do you know the ‘word formation process in english? all students (embarrassingly): nah, sir. lecturer: no crime, only if you can mention some examples. mulalo (quickly raising a hand): blending (motor + hotel = motel), clipping (ham + burghers = hamburgers), compounding (fire + place = fireplace). lucky(shouted): i figure derivation (dis+ respect = disrespect) is one of them. lecturer: sure, but ‘incorporation and stitching’ as well, you know. thomas: (reckoning) difficult hey, aren’t they? mulalo: nope, they aren’t, we got to learn them, brother, don’t we? lecturer two commenced the lesson by intelligently wanting to know if the projected slides were visible. to confirm the noteworthy videoconferencing strategy for teaching conversational english online, the lecturer introduced a lesson casually by using the word 'hi' to stimulate the student's interest. this finding is congruent with ozfidan, et al. (2021) who suggest that students become highly interested in learning conversational english online. lecturer two informed students of the purpose farisani thomas nephawe | elt forum 12(2) (2023) 140 of the lesson involving the 'word formation process' using the above-mentioned platform. furthermore, a question-and-answer method was used as a way of probing the students' existing knowledge behind the question of the 'word formation process'. in turn, the students employed the question-and-answer method to indicate some challenges that might be faced in using informal english words. notwithstanding, lecturer two and the student's interactions with the lesson demonstrated the effectiveness of a videoconferencing strategy for teaching conversational english online. the results support khreisat’s (2022) claim that students' perceptions are highly motivated if they are taught using videoconferencing. although this strategy is not cast in stone in the teaching of conversational english online, an informed understanding of conversational english online is emphasised. however, if both lecturers and their students do not apply this strategy accordingly the envisaged results may still reflect poor competence in the mitigation of common errors and poor understanding of word formation at the universities. conversely, students' question such as "difficult hey, aren't they?' indicates that students require encouragement and support towards studying ‘common errors’ because they were stimulated by the videoconferencing strategy for teaching conversation english online. judging from the use of interjections such as 'hey', and 'hi' and the words 'nah', and 'nope' demonstrate the causality of conversational english usage. the findings show that students were eager to learn the 'word formation process' spontaneously. the establishment is congruent with nagauleng and waris (2022) who suggest that videoconferencing provokes students' willingness to rely on videoconferencing than the traditional method of teaching students in the classroom environment. to indicate their understanding of the lesson, the students gave stunning examples and types of the 'word formation process’. the discovery indicates that lecturers prefer using videoconferencing strategy to the common traditional method of english teaching. this discovery is in line with lederman’s (2020) claim that both students and lecturers embrace the digital experience of using videoconferencing in teaching and learning the english language. nonetheless, the availability of videoconferencing strategy does not guarantee the mastery of the language. therefore, lecturers’ prowess in the application of this strategy is of utmost importance. as indicated before the commencement of the excerpts in the present study, the interaction between the lecturers and students endorsed the use of videoconferencing strategy during online teaching and learning. analysis of data from the lecturers’ interviews data obtained from the lecturers’ semi-structured interviews were transcribed, analysed, and evaluated by the researcher. the ideas obtained from data analysis were sorted and arranged according to the three themes based on interviews regarding videoconferencing strategy. the following is a brief discussion emanating from the suggested themes. some lecturers are not competent in using online teaching strategies the versatility of online teaching strategies is an indispensable paraphernalia and cannot be ignored in the current teaching and learning environment. however, some english lecturers are not competent in using online teaching strategies. nowadays most institutions adopt online teaching as there are various disturbances and strategies for conducting distance teaching and learning. nevertheless, lecturers lack basic skills for utilising the strategies for online teaching as they have hardly received adequate training in the language. in this research, the three selected respondents concurred that without experience in the use of strategies for online teaching, lecturers cannot be competent in teaching and learning. they maintained that strategies for teaching english online assist lecturers to conduct advanced lessons in their distance classes. lecturer one indicated that: i am often troubled using online teaching because i have never received any training in the process. i request that if lecturers can be supported in using strategies for online teaching, they can be highly competent. the above comment shows that lecturer one understands that most lecturers experience difficulties in teaching online. hence, the prayer for support from the educational authorities to uplift the standard of distance teaching and learning. strategies for teaching conversational english online to improve language proficiency the mastery of english can be enhanced using numerous strategies. nevertheless, teaching strategies are different and can be approached quite differently. moreover, different grammatical elements can farisani thomas nephawe | elt forum 12(2) (2023) 141 be taught distinctly and call for proper strategy applications. in pragmatics, conversation is one social aspect that is leisurely and spontaneously used in conveying messages from the speaker to the listener. however, in conveying such messages an addresser and an addressee both require an informed competence of disseminating appropriate messages at an appropriate time. the use of strategies for teaching conversational english online, therefore, is a basic prerequisite for the enhancement of english proficiency without which language development can be relegated to nada during a hard time such as the covid-19 pandemic. lecturer two gave the next comment: although language proficiency is difficult to cultivate, i am sure that if strategies for teaching conversational english online are properly addressed, the standard of english proficiency can be enhanced. also, it can be easier for me to teach my students productively. from the above-mentioned statement, it can be inferred that strategies for teaching conversational english online can improve the mastery of the language. videoconferencing strategy is beneficial for teaching conversational english videoconferencing is one important strategy for use by professional and non-professional individuals at a distance because everything can be easily presented virtually. professionally, the teaching of conversational english online using videoconferencing can be employed productively by both lecturers and students at a distance although there are some challenges like poor connectivity, lack of skills for teaching online, lack of teaching equipment, and lack of quota. in this platform, lecturers can handle one student, two or more in virtual classes. therefore, it can improve independent learning as the lessons can be projected lively. in this regard, the videoconferencing strategy is applicable when the lecturers and students are in the comfort of their homes. lecturer three remarked the following: i feel much better when i work from home because everything saves money, time and energy. my virtual lessons are well-planned, and my students feel safe and secure because there is no hustle and bustle like attending physical classes. the preceding comment shows that videoconferencing offers a lot of boon than a bane as teaching and learning can be practised at any time. further, working from home makes lecturers feel relieved from the burden of having to travel to their physical classes. therefore, using videoconferencing is cost-effective. in this paper, the findings from the lecturers’ semi-structured interviews conducted among the three lecturers at the university of venda in limpopo province, south africa supplemented the results obtained from those obtained from the real engagement between the lecturers and their students in videoconferencing observation lessons. during observation, the researcher perceived that lecturers were interested in using the videoconferencing strategy for using online teaching as suggested by alshehri, et al. (2020). the finding is congruent with kassymova, et al. (2023) who suggest that online teaching and learning individualise and provide independent learning, studying anytime and anywhere and create attendance possibilities for those who are unable to attend physical classes. however, this claim raises more questions than answers because there could be no need to continue researching strategies for teaching conversational english online. in the real sense, no teaching strategy does not have some drawbacks. on the other hand, the current paper's finding that videoconferencing is a renowned strategy for the teaching of conversational english online deserves praise. furthermore, the observation results confirm that videoconferencing strategy for teaching conversational english online is indispensable in teaching and learning. in this essence, the finding support brunsell’s (202) suggestion that videoconferencing strategy creates intense participation and increased opportunities for learning and flexibility for both the students and lecturers. although the identification of videoconferencing as a suitable strategy for teaching conversational english online presently indicates outstanding performance, the matter rests with the trustworthiness of both lecturers and their students because sometimes fatigue and ignorance may develop. furthermore, when it comes to the issue of assessment via videoconferencing the throughput may not always be a true reflection of the student's competence because someone can be requested to write a test on behalf of the student. also, it cannot possibly be the only strategy necessary for teaching conversational english online because there are as many strategies as possible in terms of producing results. since the researchers singled out this strategy, he has all the guts to regard videoconferencing strategy as indispensable in the teaching of videoconferencing by the lecturers. the results from this farisani thomas nephawe | elt forum 12(2) (2023) 142 study cannot claim to be the profound solution behind the teaching of conversational english online. however, the researcher attempted to come up with suggestions regarding the use of videoconferencing as an appropriate strategy for teaching the students in this regard. getting once more in the gist of the deliberations, both four lecturers, namely, two offered on mondays and the two carried out on thursdays indicated that without a videoconferencing strategy for teaching conversational english online, it may be difficult for lecturers to teach their students from home although there is various teaching platform including microsoft teams, thinkific, udemy, skillshare, teachable, podia, learnworlds, kajabi, wiziq, to name a rare. therefore, the applicability of teaching strategies depends on the methods of teaching utilised by the individual lecturer at a particular place and the student's readiness as the true recipient of the subject matter. concerning the indispensability of videoconferencing strategy, students enjoy visualising the lecturers and the subject content offered because they do not feel humiliated by the presence of the other students in the physical classroom. they learn extemporaneously and extemporaneously from the comfort of their homes. the finding is in line with rif, et al. (2023) who suggest that some lecturers face challenges in using online teaching strategies because they are not adequately trained. in this regard, the findings suggest that lecturers require instant support in using a videoconferencing strategy for teaching conversational english online this finding is congruent with rajeswari and madhavi’s (2023) suggestion that if lecturers’ professional knowledge is empowered, they can understand contemporary educational practices including the use of video conferencing strategy for teaching conversational english online. furthermore, the paper estimates that videoconferencing strategy assists lecturers to make their lessons progressive. the finding is in line with rahayu’s (2020) claim that face-to-face interaction with the videoconferencing strategy is advantageous in bringing the development of students' speaking and listening skills since it is a constructed oral interaction. in this instance, the finding supports suputra’s (2021) suggestion that oral interaction allows students to learn collaboratively. in the current paper, the findings indicate that a stable internet connection is a requirement from the students’ internet provider to implement videoconferencing strategy promptly and that a suitable internet allowance is a necessity in this regard. based on these insights, the advantages and productivity of videoconferencing in the teaching of conversation english online cannot be ignored because the researcher carefully attempted to demonstrate its versatility in teaching and learning. conclusion the paper describes how a videoconferencing strategy for teaching conversational english online can be applied to promote english proficiency as they are considered arduous to handle. the evidence presented by the researcher concerning the application of the videoconferencing strategy demonstrates an invaluable need for the teaching of conversational english online. the paper confirms careful deliberations by the cited authors mentioned within the parameter of the current study regarding the questions stated in this paper. the findings unearthed several explanations for lecturers' application of videoconferencing strategy in the enhancement of teaching conversational english online. additionally, the paper highlighted the importance of videoconferencing as a strategy for improving the teaching of module ecs 1141, not only at the university of venda but also at different institutions throughout the world. videoconferencing strategy is a recommendable strategy for enhancing the teaching and learning of conversational english online. a continuous empowerment of the lecturers' professional advancement toward understanding contemporary educational practices regarding online pedagogies is a requirement. although numerous investigations have long been dedicated to educational aspects, there is a necessity for a more detailed investigation of strategies for the teaching of conversational english online. funding statement this is a non-funded study. references alasmari, n. 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(2020). current trends in educational technologies research worldwide: meta-analysis of studies between 2015-2020. world journal on educational technology: current issues, 12(3):192-206. https://doi.org/10.18844/wjet.v%vi%i.5000 https://dx.doi.org/10.36663/tatefl.v1i2.104 putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 229 elt forum 12 (3) (2023) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt an analysis of reporting verbs in master’s dissertations shirley eli banini1, ernest kwesi klu2, ramos asafo-adjei3 1department of communication studies, university of professional studies accra, ghana 2department of english, media studies & linguistics, faculty of humanities, social sciences & education, university of venda, south africa 3liberal studies department, takoradi technical university, ghana article info ________________ article history: received on 12 july 2023 approved on 29 november 2023 published on 30 november 2023 ________________ keywords: academic writing; dissertation; reporting verbs; hyland’s (2002) taxonomy ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this study was purposed on analyzing reporting verbs in the literature review sections of some master’s dissertations in the field of government and leadership at the university of professional studies accra (upsa) in ghana from the 2017/2018 to 2021/2022 academic year. the study sought to answer the main research question – what is the nature of the reporting verbs used in some master’s dissertations of students of the upsa in the field of government and leadership? 20 dissertations were conveniently selected, and the literature review sections were analysed for reporting verbs using hyland’s (2002) taxonomy which involves research acts, cognition acts and discourse acts as the analytical framework. these dissertations altogether contained 1,044,076 words. results showed that students used various reporting verbs belonging to – research acts (observe, find), cognition acts (believe, conceptualize) and discourse acts (report, discuss) in their dissertations. discourse act reporting verbs were predominant compared to cognition acts and research acts, implying that the students used more of the reporting verbs associated with their mental processes. it is concluded that lecturers using english language and research methodology need to train students more in the use of reporting verbs in order to have their writing more impactful. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 department of communication studies, university of professional studies, accra, p.o. box lg149, accra, ghana e-mail: shirley.banini@upsamail.edu.gh http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& shirley eli banini, ernest kwesi klu, & ramos asafo-adjei | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 230 introduction reporting verbs are terms that are employed specifically to describe the works of other authors or to indicate that a quotation or paraphrase has been made (hyland, 2002; thompson & ye, 1991). writing at the tertiary level requires certain conventions and specific writing styles which may seem discouraging for most students (cullip & diana carol, 2003). requirements for completing various tertiary programs vary; depending on the institution, students must produce research reports, research papers or dissertations by following well-defined formats. producing dissertations requires students to use specific formats to construct and arrange their ideas carefully and coherently, particularly when integrating ideas from other sources which is an essential aspect of most academic writing (jubhari, 2015). one important aspect of these writing tasks is the choice of suitable reporting verbs to produce coherent sentences in carefully structured arguments and to convey to readers explicitly and unambiguously what exactly the student writers have in mind. (adika, 2015) indicates that reporting verbs indicate an attitude of writers towards the status of an author’s ideas, theories or research; or an evaluation of the evidential status of the sources being reviewed. citation, according to pecorari (2008, p. 6), is a reference to "citing something external to the citing text" and is a rhetorical device used in academic writing. citation affords writers the opportunity to present the ideas of other authors as well as writers’ own through self-referencing (hyland, 2002). incidentally, reporting verbs are the vehicles through which such citations’ incorporation into academic writing can be achieved (agbaglo & mensah bonsu, 2022). a way to comprehend the use of reporting verbs within the academic discourse community is through a study of how these verbs are actually used in context (agbaglo, 2017; bloch, 2010; (loan & pramoolsook, 2015; manan & noor, 2014; yang, 2013). researchers around the globe have paid particular attention to understanding students’ use of reporting verbs with the aim of improving such use in successful academic writing, especially in students’ dissertations and theses (jafarigohar & mohammadkhani, 2015; jarkovská & jarkovská, 2020; lee et al., 2018; liardét & black, 2019; manan & noor, 2014; ramoroka, 2014). manan and noor (2014), for instance, examined the effects of reporting verbs used in the dissertations of malaysian students who earned their master's degrees in the els programme. manan and noor (2014) found that master's students were more familiar with the reporting verbs from the research acts category than those from the cognition acts and discourse acts categories and that they were used the most frequently. for their part, jarkovská and jarkovská (2020) used a corpus of master’s dissertation literature reviews written in english by czech students of economics and management to evaluate the usage of reporting verbs in efl learners’ writing. according to jarkovská and jarkovská (2020), the students had little understanding of how to employ the various types of reporting verbs and their evaluative purposes. the evidence from existing research on students’ usage of reporting verbs worldwide is worrying. there aren't many studies that analyze how reporting verbs are used by students in the ghanaian context, and the same is true specifically for how reporting verbs are employed in master's dissertations. examining the use of reporting verbs in research articles written by lecturers in the english department of the university of cape coast and examining the citation styles used in the literature review sections of master's dissertations published in the economics discipline of the university of ghana have been the main focuses of earlier research (agbaglo, 2017; agbaglo & mensah bonsu, 2022). because government and leadership are currently not studied at other universities, the range of studies in students' usage of reporting verbs at the master's level is fairly constrained. this is a research space that needs to be filled through the study of a site such as the university of professional studies, accra (upsa) in order to enhance understanding of students’ use of reporting verbs so that possible identified lapses could be addressed, and potential positive practices maintained or enhanced. this study was, followingly, purposed on analyzing the reporting verbs used in some master’s dissertations of students of the upsa in the field of government and leadership. the study was directed by the main research question: what is the nature of the reporting verbs used in some master’s dissertations of students of the upsa in the field of government and leadership? the following specific research interrogations guided the study: (1) what reporting verbs are used by the students and what is the frequency of such usage by the students? and (2) which group of reporting verbs are used often by the students? there are three reasons why this investigation was conducted. first, one of the gaps in ghana’s academic writing scene is addressed by this study. although upsa has long encouraged academic writing, particularly dissertation writing, there is hardly any published empirical research to show how students, particularly master’s students, employ reporting verbs in their dissertations. shirley eli banini, ernest kwesi klu, & ramos asafo-adjei | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 231 therefore, by disclosing the sorts of reporting verbs used by the students and the frequency of such usage by the students, as well as the group of reporting verbs frequently used by the students, this study offers a significant contribution. the second goal of this study is to act as a springboard for future research into other pertinent aspects of ghanaian master’s students’ use of reporting verbs, such as the misuse of reporting verbs and the effects of such misuses on students’ chances of graduating. last but not least, an understanding of the types, frequencies and group of reporting verbs frequently used by students will enable various stakeholders, including students, research and english language lecturers, research supervisors and assessors, university managers and succeeding states to expand and implement appropriate policies to foster students’ academic writing. the literature review appears to be one of the most difficult jobs that students must complete for their dissertations, likely due to the difficulty involved in combining information from many sources to create a new work (banini, 2021). because this is where researchers establish connections between their own research and that of earlier authors, the literature review part of dissertations is crucial to the dissertation-writing process (bruce, 1994). zuber-skerritt (2003), citing bruce (1994), explain that the literature review is both a process and a final output. bruce claims that when producing a literature review, researchers are looking at earlier works in the subject, posing a problem, solving it, and contrasting their answers to those of other researchers. bruce claims that it also comprises a report, a list, a search, a survey, a learning tool, and a research facilitator. the process of conducting a literature review often includes the creation of a dissertation chapter. one phase in this process is choosing relevant papers (both published and unpublished) on the topic. such documents are prepared from a perspective intended to achieve a particular goal or to represent a particular viewpoint of the nature of the subject and how it should be explored. they include information, ideas, data and evidence. bitchener (2010) mentions the goal of the dissertation’s literature review section which is to give a thorough account of the background literature pertinent to the setting in which a study is conducted; this serves as an argument, a case or a justification for a study. according to bitchener (2010), there are seven communicational purposes of the literature review: an examination of the background and contextual material found in summaries and syn-dissertations from the nonresearch literature, a review of the theoretical viewpoints that support or notify a research effort, a review of the research literature relevant to one’s subject and a critique of earlier works. the other tasks include identifying information gaps or research weaknesses, arguing why the gap was critical and big enough to be filled and outlines the plan and carry out of the research. writers can choose to give literature review chapters their own names or include them in other chapters (swales & lindemann, 2002); researchers present their knowledge and expertise, which are based on earlier research in the topic or discipline. the legitimacy of the researcher’s results is firmly confirmed by demonstrating such linkages and relations (banini, 2021). given the importance of this chapter to students’ research and dissertation writing, it is clear from the present discourse that the literature review of dissertations is entangled and embedded with technical nuances. this chapter, consequently, requires great skill and tact on the part of students to be able to execute. citation and meaning thompson and ye (1991) mention that student writers frequently name sources without expressing their opinions on those sources. from a quantitative standpoint, writers frequently over or under-cite sources. from a qualitative standpoint, because they are required to acknowledge sources, student writers frequently utilize citations in order to adhere to english language academic traditions. student writers place more emphasis on the formatting of citations, emphasizing proper grammar, spelling and overall ‘display’ of citations, to the neglect of practical function of citations in texts (jalilifar, 2012; thompson & tribble, 2001). citations should include reporting verbs (loan & pramoolsook, 2015). in order to show how they feel about the given information, student writers must choose the proper reporting verbs (yeganeh & boghayeri, 2015). an original method of signal evaluation is the use of appropriate reporting verbs. evaluation is described as “the conveying of the writer’s view of the status of the information in her text” (thompson & ye, 1991, p. 367). a reporting verb is one of the most obvious indicators of the presence of evaluation, according to (thompson & ye, 1991). similar to this, hunston (1995, p.135) asserts that “the reporting verb is, in fact, capable of construing complex layers of evaluation”. for a very long time, the issue of how to select proper reporting verbs has shirley eli banini, ernest kwesi klu, & ramos asafo-adjei | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 232 piqued the interest of researchers. as (hyland, 2002, p. 130) notes, reporting verbs might have a variety of purposes: the choice of a specific reporting verb is a delicate one because it is essential to both properly situate one’s work and communicate with peers, to interact with coworkers and to appeal to the epistemological and interactive understandings of one’s community. by choosing a specific verb, the writer establishes a specific link with the reader and the reported text as well as indicating the reported voice and evoking exact meaning and judgment. this has a significant impact on a reader’s readiness to accept a writer’s arguments and conclusions. a reporting verb chosen by an author therefore conveys not just clear lexical meaning but also implied meaning in the text and discloses the author’s perspective on the cited data (gil-salom & soler-monreal, 2014). this supports the assertion that students’ success in the production of the literature review parts of their dissertations depends on sensitivity and competence with regard to the intricacies of reporting verbs (hyland, 2002). role of reporting verbs in academic discourse reporting verbs are one of the key linguistic components that academic writers must incorporate into their writings to evaluate the sources they utilize and to be critical of such sources (kwon et al., 2018). again (hyland, 2002, p. 115) discusses the significance of “reporting” in academic texts thus: even the most unique work incorporates and conveys ideas, thoughts, research findings and hypotheses from other sources; in fact, if it didn’t, it wouldn’t likely be accepted for publication. simply defined, academic writing relies on its ability to integrate recent findings into a broader discipline narrative. the author emphasizes that academic papers must incorporate materials from a variety of sources, and it is crucial to evaluate the ideas that are employed. to persuade readers and to demonstrate the importance and validity of the work being discussed, writers often include references to earlier research conducted by other authors. a writer accomplishes this by expressing whether they believe another writer’s assertion to be true, false or neutral. the employment of reporting verbs is a crucial instrument in this. hyland (2002) notes that it is crucial to acknowledge other authors while creating knowledge, and the way writers react to it or take a position is just as significant as the knowledge itself. according to hunston and thompson (2000), the connections that authors make between their arguments and those of others frequently determine the rhetorical impact of a paper. therefore, the choice of reporting verbs is crucial to establishing the credibility of both the writer and the assertions (bloch, 2010). reporting verbs can be used by writers to present, critique and contest the ideas and actions of other authors, which are crucial components of academic discourse. thompson and ye (1991) further point out that authors can refer to their own assertions and opinions as well as the assertions of others by using reporting verbs. according to mcnamara (2013), reporting verbs reflect how authors and presenters present, assess and challenge their assertions as well as articulate their own connected viewpoints. a variety of lexical tools are used by authors to establish the veracity of the reported statements, take a stand and communicate their opinions to the audience through the use of reporting verbs (bloch, 2010; hyland, 2002). it is evident, thus far, that reporting verbs are integral to academic writing or, more specifically, dissertation writing. their importance is highlighted by their ability to engender coherent and scholarly espousal and integration of ideas by students in order to facilitate, as envisaged, quality research outputs. analytical framework hyland (2002) cataloguing of reporting verbs, which is separated into three distinct types depending on the sort of action they relate to, serves as the analytical foundation for this study. figure 1 illustrates these as research acts, cognition acts and discourse acts. due to its popularity and suitability for evaluating reporting verbs, this framework was employed (agbaglo, 2017; banini, 2021; agbaglo & mensah bonsu, 2022). shirley eli banini, ernest kwesi klu, & ramos asafo-adjei | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 233 according to hyland (2002), research acts are verbs that describe experimental action done in the real world. such verbs are often found in explanations of discoveries or procedures and include observe, discover, notice, show, compute, assay, investigate, explore, and recover. verbs like “believe”, “conceptualize”, “suspect”, “assume” and “view” are examples of cognition acts, which are verbs connected to the researcher’s mental processes. verbs known as discourse acts are linguistic in nature and concentrate on the verbal expression of thought or inquiry. the verbs “ascribe”, “discuss”, “hypothesize”, “report” and “state” are a few of them. hyland (2002) added evaluative functions of the reporting verbs to the process functions to further develop an earlier 2000 study. the reporting verbs were separated into evaluation categories within each of the process areas. writers can use factive verbs (such as demonstrate, create, show, solve or confirm) to demonstrate their agreement with authors’ outcomes or conclusions. verbs used to describe procedures are not evaluated on their own. these verbs just provide an unbiased report on the study techniques. in cognition acts, reporting verbs approach evaluation in different ways. writers can ascribe a certain attitude to the cited author by selecting one of four possibilities rather than overtly expressing a personal position on the information that is being reported. writers can: (1) demonstrate a favorable attitude toward the reported information by using reporting verbs like “agree”, “concur”, “hold”, “know” or “understand” as a method to acknowledge that the information is accurate, (2) hesitantly approach the reported knowledge by employing phrasal verbs like “believe”, “doubt”, “speculate”, “suppose” and “suspect”, (3) take a critical stance against the reported facts by utilizing reporting verbs such as “disagree”, “dispute” and “not think” and (4) maintain a neutral attitude regarding the reported information by using reporting verbs such as “picture”, “conceive”, “anticipate” and “reflect”. discourse acts reporting verbs give writers the option of taking ownership of their interpretation of the information by expressing their doubt or confidence in the accuracy of the statements reported, or they can qualify the author (hyland, 2002). the first category of discourse verbs, which directly reflect writers' thoughts, includes the subcategories of doubt and assurance. doubt reporting verbs also fall under the categories of tentative reporting verbs (such as postulate, indicate, intimate, and imply) and critical reporting verbs (such as avoid, exaggerate, not account, and not make point). assurance reporting verbs have two main functions, as opposed to doubt verbs. first off, they are non-factive reporting verbs that can be employed to describe the author’s stance objectively. in this context, verbs like “state”, “describe”, “discuss”, “report”, “answer”, “define” and “summarize” are utilized. the verbs “argue”, “affirm”, “explain”, “note”, “point out” and “claim” are examples of assurance reporting verbs (factive assurance reporting verbs) that writers may employ to support their opinions. the final division of discourse acts verbs is counters, which permits writers to deflect criticism or reservations by attributing them to the original author rather than accepting ownership of the assessment. verbs like “deny”, “critique”, “challenge”, “attack”, “question”, “attack” and “rule out” are examples of this type. figure 1 depicts the three acts of reporting verbs and their various sub-classifications. figure 1. the three acts of reporting verbs and their various sub-classifications (hyland, 2002) shirley eli banini, ernest kwesi klu, & ramos asafo-adjei | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 234 methods population and sampling the population was all postgraduate dissertations written by students of the upsa. the target population was all dissertations written by students of government and leadership at the upsa from the 2017/2018 to 2021/2022 academic years. this period was selected because the researchers wanted to obtain current reporting verb application practices on the part of the student authors to inform policy and adult practices in the domain of academic writing. in addition, government and leadership – a crucial programme in the upsa – has not received the required attention in respect of its students’ use of reporting verbs in their dissertations. one dissertation from each year was conveniently selected from the university’s central library, and their respective literature review sections were purposively selected. the literature review sections were chosen because this is the main section of dissertation writing where reporting verbs are used predominantly to indicate writers’ stance and to generate arguments (soler-monreal & gil-salom, 2011; thompson, 2005). the literature review section also combines and synthesize works from a variety of study fields, assesses the current strength of the evidence for a particular viewpoint, identifies gaps in the literature, and recommends areas that need more investigation (hartley, 2008). study design for this study, a straightforward case study methodology was used (creswell, 2013; crossman, 2019) because it fosters a knowledge of social life through the study of specific target populations. an extended time of in-depth analysis of a particular person, programme, or event is provided through a case study, a research technique. the phrase "triangulated research strategy" is frequently used to describe it. it is a study technique based on an empirical investigation that looks at a phenomenon in its actual setting, per the description (restivo & apostolidis, 2019). the use of a case study is appropriate because the goal of this investigation was to analyse reporting verbs in the literature review portions of several master's dissertations in the area of government and leadership. the following research questions served as the direction for the study, which involved numerous individuals at a single location: what reporting verbs are used by the students and what is the frequency of such usage by the students? which group of reporting verbs are used often by the students?the interpretivist paradigm influenced this research since it concentrated on how students understood and made meaning while constructing texts in an academic discourse community. realisation and comprehension are built through social interactions (pulla & carter, 2018). myers (2009) asserts that the core tenet of interpretive scholars is that reality (whether it be preset or socially constructed) can only be understood through social constructions like language, consciousness, and shared meanings. data collection procedures the lead researcher carefully followed the ethical guidelines to get clearance and approval for this investigation. the primary investigator requested approval from upsa's school of graduate studies and the university's librarian, assuring them that the study posed no risk to the participants and would instead help them in their academic careers. by not reporting the names of the students who authored the dissertations, their rights to confidentiality and anonymity were guaranteed. the literature review sections of the theses were extracted and coded. codes such as lt 1, lt 2, lt 3 were created to ensure anonymity of the theses writers. the lead researcher sourced one dissertation each from the 2017/2018 to 2021/2022 academic years from the repository at the university’s library based on those that were readily available. therefore, a total of 20 dissertations were obtained and used for this enquiry. this number was deemed sufficient because the literature review sections were considered to contain enough data to answer this enquiry’s research questions. data analysis according to mugenda & mugenda (1999), fieldwork-related raw data is challenging to analyse and necessitates data management. in data management, assumptions and extrapolations are made based on the information acquired during an experiment or survey (creswell, 2007). a checklist was used to analyse the use of reporting verbs in the master's dissertations of upsa students studying leadership and government. hyland (2002) cataloguing of reporting verbs, which is separated into three distinct types depending on the sort of action they relate to, served as the analytical foundation shirley eli banini, ernest kwesi klu, & ramos asafo-adjei | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 235 for this study. in specificity, hyland’s three categories of reporting verbs: research acts, cognition acts, and discourse acts underpinned the researchers’ checklist which was used to identify the groups and roles of the reporting verbs in this enquiry. the best tool for an investigation like this one is the checklist. the explanation is that it can direct the researcher as to which crucial elements or traits should be highlighted (gay et al., 2012). the researchers ensured that all the verbs chosen for this study were used for citation since verbs like report, claim and state could function as nouns in particular contexts (agbaglo & mensah bonsu, 2022; (swales, 1990). the literature review sections of these dissertations were photocopied, scanned as a portable document format and converted into searchable word 2019. word 2019 was used to count the total number of pages, word count, line count, paragraph count, character count, and storage size. findings and discussion the data were then converted from.doc to.txt, which is a plain text format for antconc 3.5.8 processing (anthony, 2020), because of its widespread use in the field of reporting verbs research (agbaglo & mensah bonsu, 2022; loan & pramoolsook, 2015; un-udom & un-udom, 2020). using antconc 3.5.8, the reporting verbs used by the students were detected, together with how frequently they were used. a tally score was utilised to determine which category of reporting verb a word used falls within using simple frequencies [modes] and percentages. table 1 provides a summary of the characteristics of the data studied. table 1. information on dissertations used for the study. description academic year total 2017/2018 2018/2019 2019/2020 2020/2021 2021/2022 no. of pages 116 96 96 176 140 624 word count 30576 30388 26364 58520 36388 182236 line count 1452 1440 9148 2776 1728 16544 paragraph count 408 404 1144 780 484 3220 character count 174292 173216 155556 333584 207428 1044076 storage size (kb) 1080 1456 1316 2508 1080 7440 source: field work (2023) reporting verbs by the students and frequency of use universally, the reporting verbs used by the students and the frequency of such uses are crucial to enhancing and understanding students’ usage of reporting verbs in their dissertations. therefore, this domain was investigated; the outcomes are shown in table 2. research acts findings factive (raff), research acts findings counter-factive (rafcf), research acts findings non-factive (rafnf), and cognition acts positive (cap) are the acronyms used. also, cac (cognition acts critical), cat (cognition acts tentative) can (cognition acts neutral), dadt (discourse acts doubt tentative), dadc (discourse acts doubt critical), daaf (discourse acts assurance factive), danf (discourse acts assurance non factive) and dac (discourse acts counters) are the other categorisations and their respective abbreviations (hyland, 2002) used. additionally, their corresponding frequencies and percentages are shown. the results from table 2 show that various reporting verbs were used by the students. their use varied widely with some reporting verbs having a very high occurrence, and low occurrences for others. for instance, in the raff category, “show” and “demonstrate”, had high occurrences whereas “confirm” had low occurrence. in the rafcf category, “fail“and “ignore had the highest rate of use whereas “misunderstand” and “overlook” had the lowest. in the rafnf “found”, shirley eli banini, ernest kwesi klu, & ramos asafo-adjei | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 236 “find”, were used greatly as compared to “obtain”. in the cap category, “support”, “know” had high occurrences, whereas agree, in this category was not used as much. in the cat category “believe,” “doubt” was used and “suppose” had a rare occurrence. these are thus, the reporting verbs groups and their specific examples found to be predominantly used by the students. in addition, dadt (indicate, postulate), daanf (define, report), daaf (explain, argue), dac (question, challenge), cac (disagree, dispute) and can (reflect, conceptualize) also received attention in the literature review sections of the students’ dissertations (table 2). with respect to their frequencies of usage, raff (show = 6.08%), rafcf (fail = 1.16%), rafnf (found, 8.39%), cap (support, 6.51%) and cat (believe. 1.74%) are the respective most used reporting verbs among the stated groups of reporting verbs. furthermore, dadt (indicate, 2.03%), dadc (evade, 0.29%), daanf (define, 1.59%), daaf (explain, 4.49%), dac (question,1.16%), cac (disagree,1.59%) and can (reflect, 0.72%) are the most used reporting verbs in the various reporting verbs groups in the dissertations of the students. the following examples exhibit how some research acts verbs were used in the data examined: the research findings of khan (1993) showed that with the growing interest in pragmatism, with its great emphasis on democratic values it had a considerable influence in bringing about a revolt against autocratic style of leadership. lt 10 stone et al. (2004) confirmed that servant leadership in comparison to transformational leadership, is predominantly a relations-oriented leadership, with the worker as its primary focus, while organisational outcomes are secondary. lt 17 ogbonna and harris (2002) found that leadership is indirectly linked to performance, while the specific characteristics of an oranisational culture for example competitiveness are directly linked to it. lt 3 avolio et al. (2004) found a positive association between transformational leadership and organisational performance. lt 11 in examples 1 and 2, showed and confirmed are used factively to present research findings. the choice of these verbs signifies the writers’ agreement with the research findings. in examples 3 and 4, found is also used to depict the findings of the research non-factively. this varies from loan and pramoolsook (2015) finding that students used verbs that relate both to findings and procedures in the construction of their literature review chapters. the choice of these non-factive verbs shows a concentration on merely reporting the general outcomes of research by other writers rather than highlighting the procedures involved and on persuading the reader. in addition, cognition acts verbs were used by the students. hyland (2002) explains that cognition acts verbs show a writer’s mental processes, as he/she is able to assign an attribute to a cited author as having a positive, negative or neutral attitude. a positive attitude is perceived via the use of rvs such as agree, hold, support, understand; a neutral attitude is perceived via the use of rvs like picture, conceive, anticipate. words such as believe, doubt and suppose are suggestive of a tentative attitude towards the information being reported. representative examples that illustrate the use of cognitive acts verbs in some of the theses are presented below: ngodo (2008) believes leadership is a reciprocal process of social influence, whereby leaders and subordinates influence each other so as to achieve organisational goals. lt 2 ali (2012) support the view of leadership as that kind of direction which a person can give a group of people under him in such a way that these will influence the behaviour of another individual, or group. lt 5 bhardwaj and punia (2013) suggested that management performance is related to managers themselves than to positions and authority within the organisations. lt 8 cardoso (2018) agreed that as much as ‘strategy’ is an elusive concept, so also is ‘leadership’. lt3 govender (2016) disagrees that leadership is a process by which a person influences others in a team or organisation to achieve a certain common goal. lt 4 the use of the verbs support (example 5) and agreed (example 6) and suggest (example 7) indicate a positive attitude and show support for and an acceptance of the information as shirley eli banini, ernest kwesi klu, & ramos asafo-adjei | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 237 convincing. verbs that show a critical stance to the information presented were seldom used; however, in example 9, the use of disagrees shows a strong refutation. this finding is in consonance with the suppositions of agbaglo (2017), hyland (2002) and loan and pramoolsook (2015) who also found very minimal or no use of verbs that show a critical viewpoint. discourse acts verbs which are used to report claims of other writers were also evident in the data. illustrative details of discourse acts verbs used in the theses are: vroom and jago (2007) defined leadership as a process of motivating people to work together collectively to achieve great things. lt 1 lam (2014) explains that market risk describes the sensitivity of the value of positions to changes in market prices and/rates. lt 9 biondi (2020) indicate that when owned funds are managed by an entity, it natural that very few regulators operate and supervise them. lt 4 in example 10, define is used from the assurance non-factive category of verbs to just recognise information presented by a researcher, while still maintaining a neutral attitude. explain (example 11) is used from the assurance factive category of discourse acts to support the argument the writer makes, whereas in example 12, indicate, which belongs in the doubt category of discourse acts, is used to tentatively present the information. in this way, the writer does not commit him or herself to any particular point of view. it is significant to note that apart from hyland (2000) study which focused on native speakers, the other studies were on non-native speakers, but results produced are comparable. the nature of the discipline understudy (government and leadership) is equally technical; hence, writers make choices of some verbs more than others. this further supports the views of hyland (2002) that there are noteworthy variances in the various disciplines with regard to reporting verb choices in writing. table 2. reporting verbs, category, their frequencies, and percentages category words freq percentage (%) category words freq percentage (%) raff demonstrate 56 2.03 dadt postulate 16 0.58 establish 64 2.32 hypothesize 4 0.14 show 168 6.08 indicate 56 2.03 solve 56 2.03 intimate 12 0.43 confirm 16 0.58 dadc evade 8 0.29 rafcf fail 32 1.16 daanf describe 84 3.04 misunderstand 4 0.14 discuss 64 2.32 ignore 16 0.58 report 104 3.76 overlook 4 0.14 answer 16 0.58 rafnf find 120 4.34 define 196 7.09 found 232 8.39 summarize 4 0.14 identify 76 2.75 daaf argue 116 4.20 observe 40 1.45 explain 124 4.49 obtain 36 1.30 note 60 2.17 cap agree 32 1.16 claim 20 0.72 hold 56 2.03 dac deny 4 0.14 know 160 5.79 challenge 24 0.87 think 40 1.45 attack 8 0.29 understand 116 4.20 question 32 1.16 shirley eli banini, ernest kwesi klu, & ramos asafo-adjei | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 238 assume 48 1.74 cac disagree 44 1.59 support 180 6.51 dispute 16 0.58 suggested 116 4.20 can reflect 20 0.72 cat believe 48 1.74 conceptuali ze 4 0.14 doubt 8 0.29 suppose 4 0.14 source: field work (2023) group of reporting verbs employed in the theses the different terms from the corpus were put into groups using hyland (2002) categorization as a reference in order to determine which categories of reporting verbs the student authors frequently utilized the frequencies and corresponding percentages of the categories were also examined. to paint a more complete picture of the frequency of usage of reporting verbs in the categories, the frequencies of the subcategories of reporting verbs used by the students were also examined. from table 3, the reporting verbs from the discourse acts category had the highest usage of 952 verbs contributing to 34.4% of the overall verbs; this was closely followed by the research acts of 920 occurrences representing 33.29%, and, in the cognitive acts category, there were 894 occurrences representing 32.34%. students used reporting verbs from all the categories. the differences in use of reporting verbs from various categories appear to be related and reflects the students’ use of the reporting verbs, rather than idiomatic expressions. this observation agrees with banini (2021). table 3. category, raw frequency, act category and percentage frequency of reporting verbs category frequency act category frequency percentage (%) raff 360 rafcf 56 research 920 33.29 rafnf 504 cap 748 cat 61 cognitive 894 32.34 cac 61 can 24 dadt 88 dadc 8 daanf 468 discourse 952 34.44 daaf 320 dac 68 total 2766 2766 100 source: field work (2023) verbs that link to authors’ research activities or experimental techniques were chosen from the research acts category (hyland, 2002; loan & pramoolsook, 2015). these verbs, according to hyland (2002), are typically used in procedures (such as analyses, calculate, assay, explore, plot, and recover) or statements of findings (such as observe, discover, notice, and show). specifically, in shirley eli banini, ernest kwesi klu, & ramos asafo-adjei | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 239 respect of the discourse acts, it is evident that daanf (468) was patronized the most by the students. daaf (320), dadt (88), dac (68) and dadc (8) followed in that order. with respect to the research acts category, rafnf (504) ranked as the most used reporting verb by the students in the construction of the literature review sections and was followed by raff (360) and rafcf (56). it may be explained that rafnf verbs were mostly used because they usually occur in statements of research activity or procedures. regarding the cognitive acts, the evidence suggests that the cap (748) reporting verbs received the most attention. cat (61) and cac (61) which follow the cap received equal patronage in the literature review sections and were followed by can (24), which were rarely used. the results here are in good agreement with earlier findings by (agbaglo & mensah bonsu, 2022). according to the study, findings and assurance categories were utilized more frequently in evaluative categories than research acts and discourse acts, respectively. these incidents allow students to thematize their discussions. although hyland (2002) claims that students rarely use counter factive verbs, this study shows that students frequently use them when they utilize reporting verbs like “fail”, “misunderstand”, “ignore” and “overlook” in their dissertations. the results presented here disagree with those identified by agbaglo (2017), charles (2006) and hyland (2002). this account possibly alludes to the disciplinary classification or the nature of the government and leadership discipline as comparable to business management and administration, accounting, information technology studies and communication. these fields of study entail testing hypotheses and debating claims, and researchers are likely to use defiant verbs to do so. this may likely account for the high prevalence of this group of reporting verbs identified in our investigation. in addition, it was discovered in this study that the factive verbs recorded instances of 320 reporting verbs inside the assurance category, as compared to doubt and counters, representing 11.6% of all verbs and 33.6% with respect to the act group. this finding indicates that assurance verbs are among the most frequently used categories, as found by agbaglo (2017), loan and pramoolsook (2015). however, there were distinctions between factive and non-factive subgroups. while agbaglo (2017) notes that non-factive assurance verbs are more frequently used, our study found a higher prevalence of factive assurance verbs. discipline differences are responsible for this discrepancy in results: agbaglo (2017) concentrated on english studies, a humanities field where reporting verbs are likely to be employed differently. the use of tentative verbs in citations is reported by loan and pramoolsook (2015), agbaglo (2017)), wen and pramoolsook (2021), which were also observed in present investigation. additionally, the discourse acts were the most often used category of reporting verbs in this study compared to the research acts and cognition acts. it reveals that writers remained objective in information presentation and is thus in line with the posits of agbaglo (2017), hyland (2002), jafarigohar and mohammadkhani (2015) and yeganeh and boghayeri (2015) who equally had results within a similar range. the nature of a discipline sometimes lends itself to the selection of choice reporting verbs, and writers tend to use some verbs more frequently than others. this high occurrence of the use of discourse acts verbs could be due to disciplinary variations, as found in earlier studies by cullip and diana carol (2003), jafarigohar and mohammadkhani (2015) and loan and pramoolsook (2015). this finding, however, contrasts with that of manan and noor (2014), who discovered that the discourse acts verb group appeared in master’s dissertations the least frequently. according to hyland (2002), soft disciplines are distinguished by the frequent use of reporting verbs and the seeming individuality of each discipline’s disciplinary practices. the research acts were the ones that were utilized the most frequently among the several instances of reporting verbs. in contrast, manan and noor found that “state” was the one that appeared the most in discourse acts. finally, “know” and “support” had an occurrence of 160 and 180 respectively in relation to the verbs identified within the cognition acts. in an earlier study, banini (2021) found that these verbs were also used in the writings by students in their dissertations, but the occurrences were not as prominent as observed in this study. conclusion this study analysed reporting verbs in the literature review sections of master’s dissertations in the fields of government and leadership at the upsa in ghana from the 2017/2018 to 2021/2022 academic year. the dissertations written in english were conveniently selected, and the literature review sections were extracted and analyzed for reporting verbs using text-based analysis software. shirley eli banini, ernest kwesi klu, & ramos asafo-adjei | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 240 hyland (2002) taxonomy constituted the analytical framework. based on the findings of the study, the following main conclusions were drawn: first, the students made use of diverse reporting verbs in their dissertations. this is evidenced by the identification of reporting verbs and their various categories in their dissertations. second, the raff category was the most frequently used reporting verb category by the students. this is based on an inquiry registering 6.08% for “show” which falls under this category. third, the reporting verbs from the discourse acts category had the highest usage. there were 952 occurrences representing 34.4%. moreover, the reporting verbs category that received the least citations in the students’ dissertations was the cognition acts category; there were 892 occurrences representing 32.27%. in addition, in respect of the discourse acts, daanf (117) was patronized the most by the students. with respect to the research acts category, rafnf (504) ranked as the most used reporting verb by the students in the construction of the literature review sections. also, regarding the cognitive acts, the cap (748) reporting verbs received the most attention. these findings suggest the need for more research in the field of second language teaching and learning in universities in 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(2003). new directions in action research. routledge. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 184 elt forum 12 (3) (2023) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the effect of vocabulary learning strategy training on vocabulary strategy use abebaw dessalew bayabel1, nuru mohammed tahir1 1addis ababa university, ethiopia article info ________________ article history: received on 18 july 2023 approved on 22 november 2023 published on 30 november 2023 ________________ keywords: memory; meta-cognitive; cognitive; determination; social ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ nowadays, it is recommended to train students on how to learn vocabulary, for it is not practicable to teach all the english language words. the purpose of this article was to find out the effect of vocabulary learning strategy training on vocabulary learning strategy use of university students. the research design used in this study was experimental. 40 students (20 students in each group) from both experimental and control groups completed the adapted schmitt’s (1997) vocabulary learning strategies questionnaire (vlsq) before and after the vocabulary learning strategy training. after the students completed the pre-training questionnaire, only the experimental group learners received vocabulary learning strategy training for 16 hours. the researcher prepared the vocabulary strategy training material by integrating the vocabulary lessons incorporated from different books. paired samples t-test was computed on spss version 24 to find out if there was a statistically significant difference between the experimental and control groups regarding vocabulary learning strategy use. the study found that the experimental group participants improved their vocabulary usage significantly better than the control group participants in the five among six major categories of vocabulary learning strategies (less than the p-value of 0.05). future researchers can study the effect of training in learning strategies of other language skills and sub-skills and can improve their strategy usage. one of the significance contributions of this study could be curriculum designers might employ this article as an input to incorporate vocabulary learning strategies into english language training materials and improve students’ vocabulary strategy use. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 addis ababa university, addis ababa, ethiopia e-mail: abgreat.2002@gmail.com http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& abebaw dessalew & nuru mohammed | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 185 introduction english language experts classified all the major language skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing) strategies and the language items (vocabulary and grammar) strategies. since the focus of this research is on vocabulary, vocabulary learning strategies are emphasized below. it is challenging to come up with all-inclusive vocabulary learning strategies. one of the reasons may be the following as put by schmitt (1997): the process of learning l2 vocabulary is a mental process in the first place and because this process interlocks with the more general language learning and production strategies. therefore, it is quite difficult to settle on a non-debatable taxonomy of vlss (vocabulary learning strategies). like language learning strategies, vocabulary learning strategies are classified differently by many authors. among these scholars, schmitt (1997) and nation (2001) have widely known vlss taxonomies. schmitt (1997) has developed a taxonomy of vocabulary learning strategies based on an extensive language learning strategies’ taxonomy organized by oxford (1990), including memory, cognitive, compensation, metacognitive, affective, and social categories. the following is the strategy inventory offered by schmitt (1997): category 1: strategies for the discovery of a new word’s meaning • determination strategies (det): analyze part of speech, analyze affixes and roots, check for l1 cognate, analyze any available pictures or gestures, guess meaning from textual context and use a dictionary (bilingual or monolingual) • social strategies: ask teacher for a synonym, paraphrase, or l1 translation of new word and ask classmate for meaning. category 2: strategies for consolidating a word once it has been encountered • social strategies: study and practice meaning in a group and interact with native speaker. • memory strategies: connect word to a previous personal experience, associate the word with its coordinates, connect the word in its synonyms and antonyms; use semantic maps, image word form, image word’s meaning, use keyword method, group words together to study them, study the spelling of a word, say new word aloud when studying and use physical action when learning a word • cognitive strategies: verbal repetition; written repetition; word lists; put english labels on physical objects and keep a vocabulary notebook •metacognitive strategies: use english-language media (songs, movies, newscasts, etc.); test oneself with word tests; skip or pass new word and continue to study word over time. cohen (2003) states the most efficient way to enhance learner knowledge is to offer strategy training. he adds that strategies-based instruction (sbi) is a student-centered method to teaching and it may include both implicit and explicit integration of strategies into the course content. in his book, it is stated that in a usual sbi environment, instructors explain and mock-up strategies, take facts from students’ learning experiences, lead discussions about strategies, encourage students to try to employ a variety of strategies and integrate strategies into class materials. this suggests that we should incorporate strategy training in our classes, but raises the question of how effective such training is. the results of research on strategies-based instruction (sbi) on learners’ language development aren’t consistent: some studies report a reasonable degree of success, whereas others report only limited success, or even student resistance (schmitt, 1997). but in his survey of classroom-based studies, mcdonough (1995) concludes that improvements from training are weak, culturally dependent, and show up only in certain measures. meanwhile, stoffer (1995) states strategy training was the solitary excellent forecaster of the employment of vocabulary-learning strategies, while hulstijn (1997) quotes various research depicting benefits in the effective utilization of one specific mnemonic strategy, the keyword technique, after strategy instruction. nation (2001) sums up related results for the strategy of contextual guessing. all these conflicting research results indicate that much more research is needed regarding training on vocabulary learning strategies. so, it is very difficult to suggest training of strategies to improve students’ language skills before we apply it in a classroom and check its result. vocabulary learning strategies training originated in the general area ‘learning strategies’. as an instructor who has taught for the past 12 years, mostly in universities, this researcher has been questioning about the reason behind the gap of english language educational achievement of his students. english language teaching scholars also began to observe the significance of individual variation in language learning (brown, 2007). we see some students achieve faster and better academically while other students achieve sluggishly because of what is commonly called learning strategies. “language aptitude and motivation constitute general factors that influence the rate and abebaw dessalew & nuru mohammed | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 186 level of l2 achievement. but how does their influence operate? one possibility is that they affect the nature and the frequency with which individual learners use learning strategies” (ellis, 1997, p. 76). an attempt was made to review studies related to vocabulary learning strategies. the first group of studies focused on identifying the learners’ vocabulary strategy use (e.g., aladdin et al., 2015; al-fuhaid, 2004; baldoumi, 2016; easterbrook, 2013; fan, 2015; khair, 2017; noormohamadi & amirian, 2015; siriwan, 2007). the second emphasis was given to the effect of learners’ use of vocabulary learning strategies on their vocabulary development (e.g., alharthi, 2014; banisaeid, 2013; king, 2011; llamosas, 2011; ostovar-namaghi & rajaee, 2013; rahimy & shams, 2012; teng, 2015). the third attention was offered to the effect of vocabulary learning strategies training on students’ vocabulary development (e.g., aktekin & guven, 2013; ebrahimi et al., 2015). the fourth was about the effect of vocabulary learning strategies training on students’ vocabulary strategy use (e.g., lui & pang, 2017; rahimi & allahyari, 2019). the fifth focal area of the studies about vocabulary was on the relationship between vocabulary learning strategies and reading comprehension (e.g., al-nujaidi, 2003; burkhour, 1999; kafipour & naveh, 2011). it was believed that teachers could not teach all the words that students should know. especially at tertiary level, it was recommended that teachers should teach their students how to learn vocabulary independently. one of the ways to do this was making students exposed to varied vocabulary learning strategies so that they could pick the strategies they were interested in their vocabulary study. however, there were conflicting research results regarding the effect of vocabulary learning strategy training in improving students’ strategy use. therefore, the main aim of this study was to examine how far the training improved the students’ vocabulary strategy use. meanwhile, the researchers believed that adequate study was not studied in this area. particularly in ethiopia (the home country of the researchers), as far as the researchers were concerned, there was not any study conducted on the effect of vocabulary learning strategies training on vocabulary strategy use. therefore, the main purpose of this research was to fill in this gap. the specific purpose of this study was to find out the effect of vocabulary learning strategy training on vocabulary learning strategies use of university students. methods as a research design, experimental research design was employed. both the control group and the experimental group completed pre-training vocabulary learning strategy questionnaire. in between the pre-tests and post tests, vocabulary learning strategy training was offered to only the experimental group. at the end, the results of the two groups were compared. the present study used schmitt’s (1997) vocabulary learning strategies questionnaire (vlsq). the participants rated their frequency of vocabulary learning strategy use, using a 5-point likert scale. this questionnaire was adapted; some amendments were made. the words and phrases were changed into sentences and examples were given to some of questions, which this researcher thought unclear. the questionnaire was written in english language because it was believed that university students were capable of understanding a simplified questionnaire in the medium of english language. the thesis advisor and researcher’s experienced colleagues were asked to comment on the questionnaires concerning content validity, face validity and clarity of the items. the researcher of this research served as an instructor and handled both the experimental and control groups of the study because the researcher believed that the training would be effective when it was offered by the person that was studying about the issue instead of training other instructors and let them give the training and to avoid the influence of extraneous variables that may appear because of the trainers’ difference (regarding ability, gender and classroom management). the vocabulary learning strategy training was offered for 16 hours in 16 weeks (1 hour per week). this time allocation is made considering the 48 hours (3 credit hours x 16 weeks) offered for communicative english skills course in the semester. the vocabulary strategy training material was produced by integrating the vocabulary lessons incorporated in communicative english language skills i module and the vocabulary learning strategies identified by schmitt (1997) and renowned vocabulary books of various authors such as oxford (1990), nation (2001), carter (1998) and tacać (2008). the training material begins with the cover page entitled as “vocabulary learning strategies training material for first year students. the cover page also includes date, the writer’s name, and address. the second page comprises the table of contents incorporating general objectives of the training material, the two units’ topics and subtopics, answer key for the instructor, references and abebaw dessalew & nuru mohammed | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 187 appendices.the man topic of unit one reads as: strategies for the discovery of a new word's meaning. the main topic of unit two is ‘consolidation strategies’. at the end of the training material the following contents are incorporated: answer key for the instructor, references, appendix a the general service list and appendix bacademic word list. the sampling technique that was employed to choose the university was convenience sampling. using this sampling technique, addis ababa university was taken. two sections of natural science stream were randomly selected and offered to the english language part-time instructor (also this researcher). besides, simple random sampling or lottery method was employed to select specific sections. first an attempt was made to let all the students in each class participate in the study. however after letting students take the tests and fill in the questionnaire it was found that the average number of students, 20, was employed for analysis. the following steps were followed to assign students into experimental and control groups in the study. first, the following pre-tests were administered: schmitt et al. (2001) vocabulary level tests (vlt) to test the learners’ vocabulary breadth and read’s (1998) the word associates test (wat) to test the students’ vocabulary depth. second, the test paper of each student was marked objectively, based on the answer keys of the tests for word associates test (wat). third, independent-samples t test was computed on the spss version 24 to see if the two groups had similar performances on each of the vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension tests. there were no significant difference between the control group and experimental group regarding the scores in the vocabulary levels test (vlt) and word associates test (wat). therefore, this situation made the process of the experiment easy to be carried out. finally, the groups were named experimental and control by drawing lots. according to the lot, from natural science stream arat kilo campus, section 4b class was named as control group where as section 5b was named as experimental group. thus, this allowed the groups to have equal chance of being selected as experimental or control. in another expression, this randomization helped the researcher to minimize the influence of extraneous variables. the post-training questionnaire was completed by the participants of the experimental and control groups the contents of the pre-training questionnaire and the post-training questionnaire are similar, in order to examine the vocabulary learning strategy usage difference. previous to the training, to compare homogeneity of the experimental and control group of learners regarding their score on vocabulary learning strategy use (in the pretest) is a crucial step in any experimental study. thus, in order to check the equivalence of the two groups, the leven‘s test of homogeneity of variance was computed, and the following result was found. there is no significance difference between the control group and experimental group in the usage of all vocabulary learning strategies. the p-values are above .05 (determination: .5.20, social for discovery: .51, social for consolidation: .18, memory: .30, cognitive: .48 and meta-cognitive .22). in addition, after the end of the experiment, normality test of data distribution was conducted in order to decide whether parametric or non-parametric test to be employed. therefore, kolmogorov-smirnov test was computed and the result of the pre-questionnaire and post-questionnaire of the control group shows that the data was normally distributed because in each learning strategy of vocabulary the pvalue is greater than the cut-off point, 0.05 (determination: .20, social for discovery: .13, social for consolidation: .10, memory: .20, cognitive: .16 and meta-cognitive .06). hence, parametric test was computed. moreover, kolmogorov-smirnov test was calculated for the pre-training and posttraining scores of the experiment group in the vocabulary learning strategies. the result illustrates that the data was normally distributed because in 5 among the six categories of vocabulary strategies, the p-value is greater than 0.05 (determination: .09, social for discovery: .20, social for consolidation: .003, memory: .20, cognitive: .20 and meta-cognitive .08). therefore, parametric test was calculated. paired sample t-test was computed on the spss to see if there was a statistically significance difference between the pre and post mean scores of the students in the experimental and control group regarding their vocabulary strategy use. to compute the vocabulary learning strategies use of the students, values 1 to 5 were given for never, rarely, sometimes, usually, and always respectively. t-test was employed by considering all major assumptions. first, the variables of the research are continuous. effect size was also calculated for the paired sample t-tests in the main study. before conducting the main study, the pilot study was carried out. abebaw dessalew & nuru mohammed | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 188 findings and discussion results of paired-samples t-test in vocabulary learning strategies this section presents answer for the main research question of this research: is there any significant difference in vocabulary learning strategies use between students who receive vocabulary learning strategies training and those who do not receive the training? to provide response to the above research question, both control group students, who did not receive vocabulary learning strategies training, and experimental group students who took the training completed vocabulary learning strategies questionnaire adapted from schmitt’s (1997) vocabulary learning strategies questionnaire (vlsq) before and after the training of the experimental group. then the 55 vocabulary learning strategies incorporated in the questionnaire were classified into 6 types (determination, social for discovery, social for consolidation, memory, cognitive and meta-cognitive). finally, paired samples t-test was computed on spss version 24 and the following students’ strategy use in each type before and after the training was found. before the discussion of the vocabulary learning strategies questionnaire, the results of the pre-tests in vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension are presented below. independent samples t-test result of reading comprehension pre-test at the beginning of the experiment, it was appropriate to check whether experimental group and control group students had equivalent reading comprehension skills. therefore, the two randomly selected groups sat for toefl reading comprehension test. the test scores of the learners are presented in the table below. table 1. independent samples t-test result of reading comprehension pre-test of the experimental and control groups group no. of students mean standard deviation df t-value p-value experimental group 20 17.82 6.30 35.54 -1.16 .076 control group 20 15.75 4.81 38 as presented in table 1 above, the mean score of the experimental group was 17.82 and the mean score of the control group was 15.75 regarding reading comprehension pre-test scores of first year students. the calculated standard deviation of the experimental group was 6.30, and that of the control group was 4.81. the t and p-values were described as -1.16 and .076 respectively. this shows that the students assigned to the experimental and the control groups had similar performance in reading comprehension of the pre-test (t = -1.16, df = 38 for the control group and 35.54 for the experimental group, p > 0.05). based on the data indicated above, it could be stated that there was no statistically significant difference between the experimental group and control group in the pre-test of reading comprehension because the p-value (sig. value) was greater than the cut-off points .05. of course, there was minor mean difference between the two groups which is 2.07. however, since there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups, it was possible to express the two groups had equivalent performance in reading comprehension pre-test and it was logical to carry out the experiment. independent samples t-test result of vocabulary levels (vocabulary breath knowledge) pre-test to compare the vocabulary breadth knowledge difference between learners in the experimental group and control group, the two group students took a standardized vocabulary levels test before the experimental group students receive training of vocabulary learning strategies. the pretest enabled us to know the probable vocabulary breadth knowledge change brought by the training. the result of the control group and experimental group students in vocabulary breadth knowledge pretest is provided below. abebaw dessalew & nuru mohammed | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 189 table 2. independent samples t-test result of vocabulary levels (vocabulary breadth knowledge) pre-test of the experimental and control groups group no. of students mean standard deviation df t-value p-value experimental group 20 158.6 33.40 38 .010 .986 control group 20 158.5 31.96 37.92 the table above illustrates the mean score of vocabulary levels pre-test of the experimental group was 158.6 while the mean score of the control group in the pre-test was 158.5. the standard deviation of the experimental group was 33.40 and the standard deviation of the control group was 31.96. moreover, the table shows that the t-value of the two groups was .010 and the p-value of the two groups was .986. from the data of the above table it can be seen that no significant difference was found between the experimental group and the control group in vocabulary levels (vocabulary breadth knowledge) pre-test (t = .010, df = 38 for the control group and 37.92 for the experimental group, p > 0.05). the result clearly showed that it was scientifically correct to begin the experiment because there were experimental and control groups of students who were equivalent in vocabulary breadth knowledge. independent samples t-test result of word associates (vocabulary depth knowledge) pre-test before answering one of the research questions, that is, whether there is significant difference in vocabulary depth knowledge between students who receive vocabulary learning strategies training and those who do not receive the training; it was significant to identify there were equivalent performance in vocabulary breadth knowledge between learners assigned to experimental and control groups. therefore, independent samples t-test was computed, and the following result was found. table 3. independent samples t-test result of word associates (vocabulary depth knowledge) pre-test of the experimental and control groups group no. of students mean standard deviation df t-value p-value experimental group 20 121.65 17.42 35.39 -.40 .19 control group 20 119.65 13.19 38 the table above shows the mean score of the pre-test of the experimental group was 121.65 while the mean score of word associates pre-test of the control group was 119.65. the standard deviation of the experimental group was 17.42 and the standard deviation of the control group was 13.19. in addition, the table presents that the t-value of the two groups was -.40 and the p-value of the two groups was .19. from the data of the above table it is shown that no significant difference was found between the control group and experimental group in vocabulary levels (vocabulary breadth knowledge) pretest (t = -.40, df = 38 for the control group and 35.39 for the experimental group, p > 0.05). the result clearly indicates that it was sound to conduct the experiment because there were control and experimental group of students who were equivalent in vocabulary depth knowledge. results of paired-samples t-test in determination vocabulary learning strategies determination vocabulary learning strategies includes the following strategies: analyze part of speech, analyze affixes and roots, check for l1 cognate (equivalence), analyze any available pictures or gestures, guess meaning from textual context and use a dictionary. students were asked how frequently they use each strategy and using the rating scale below, they circled the number that best describes their actual strategy use: 1 never or almost never, 2 seldom 3 about half the time, 4 abebaw dessalew & nuru mohammed | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 190 usually and 5 always or almost always. eventually, students’ response was calculated on spss and an attempt was made to know whether students who took vocabulary learning strategies training improve their strategy usage or not. for comparison purpose, control group students’ vocabulary usage was also computed. the table below shows the frequency difference in usage of determination vocabulary learning strategies between the pre-training and the post-training. table 4. results of paired-samples t-test of the experimental and control groups in determination vocabulary learning strategies during the pre-training and the post-training group pre-training post-training df t pvalue no. mean standard deviation no. mean standar d deviatio n the above table illustrates that experimental group students’ mean score was 28.55 in the pretraining questionnaire but 29.25 in the post training questionnaire. the experimental group, in the pre-training questionnaire, had a standard deviation of 4.89 and in the post-training questionnaire their standard deviation was 4.68. the table also presents the t-value and p-value of the experimental group as -2.15 and .04. the data provided in the table shows that the experimental group students significantly improve their frequency in the usage of determination vocabulary learning strategies (tvalue: -2.15, p value: .04). the result is consistent with the alternative hypothesis of this study: training in the learning strategies of vocabulary significantly improves students’ use of vocabulary learning strategies. the effect size was weak (cohen’s d: 0.15). table 4 also shows that the control group students scored a mean result of 27.50 in the pretraining questionnaire whereas they scored a mean result of 29.00 in the post-training questionnaire. the control group had a standard deviation of 5.74 in the pre-training questionnaire but had 3.79 in the post-training questionnaire. their t and p values were .31 and .31 respectively. the data indicates that the control group, who did not receive training of vocabulary learning strategies, did not significantly improve their frequency in usage determination vocabulary learning strategies (tvalue: -1.03, p value: .31). results of paired-samples t-test in social for discovery strategy for the discovery of a new word’s meaning, a learner may use social strategies, such as ask teacher for a synonym, paraphrase, or l1 translation of new word and ask classmate for meaning. students both in the control and experimental groups offered response, to the pre-training and post-training questionnaire, on how frequently they ask a teacher, a classmate, or a mother tongue speaker to learn a new word. their responses were calculated on spss and the following results were found. table 5. results of paired-samples t-test in social for discovery of control and experimental groups in pre-training and post-training group pre-training post-training df t p-value no. mean stand ard devia tion no. mean stan dard devi ation experimental 20 28.55 4.89 20 29.25 4.68 19 -2.15 0.04 control 20 27.50 5.74 20 29.00 3.79 19 -1.03 .31 experimental 20 12.05 4.55 20 14.15 4.74 19 -2.31 .03 control 20 14.85 2.32 20 15.20 1.93 19 -1.37 .18 abebaw dessalew & nuru mohammed | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 191 as shown in table 5, experimental group students scored an average result of 12.05 before they took vocabulary learning strategy training while they scored an average result of 14.15 after they took training in social strategies for the discovery of a new word. their standard deviation before the training was 4.55; however, their standard deviation after the training was 4.74 in the strategy. their t and p values in the strategy were -2.31 and .03 respectively. this implies that there was significant difference between the pre-training and post-training frequency in the usage of social strategies to know a new word by experimental group students (t value: -2.31 and p value: .03. this result agrees with the alternative hypothesis: training in the learning strategies of vocabulary significantly improves students’ use of vocabulary learning strategies. the effect size was modest (cohen’s d: 0.45). the above table also presents that control group students’ mean score in the frequency usage of social strategy for discovery of a new word was 14.85 in the pre-training and 15.20 in the posttraining. the group’s standard deviation in the strategy in the pre-training was 2.32 and 1.93 in the post-training. the t-value was -1.37 and p-value was .18. this result suggests that control group students did not significantly improve their frequency of the usage for social strategy for the discovery of a new word (t value: -1.37 and p-value: .18). results of paired-samples t-test in social for consolidation strategy social strategy for consolidating a word once it has been encountered comprises of study and practice meaning in a group and interact with native speaker. first year addis ababa university learners were asked how frequently they employ social strategies for consolidating a word once it has been encountered before and after vocabulary learning strategies training. the results of the responses given by both control and experimental groups to this strategy in vocabulary learning strategies questionnaire were computed by employing paired samples t-test on spss. the result of the test is presented below. table 6. results of paired-samples t-test in social for consolidation strategy of the experimental and control groups in pre-training and post-training group pre-training post-training d f t p-value no. mean standard deviation no. mean standard deviation table 6 shows that the mean score of experimental group learners in social for consolidation strategy was 5.15 in the pre-training and 5.40. the standard deviation of the experimental group in the strategy was 2.34 in the pre-training and 2.32 in the post-training. the t-value and p-value of the group are -.77 and .44 respectively. from the data, it can be seen that experimental group students did not significantly improve the vocabulary learning strategy called social for consolidation though they took training of vocabulary learning strategies (t-value: -.77 and p-value: .44). the result supports the null hypothesis: training in the learning strategies of vocabulary does not significantly improve students’ use of vocabulary learning strategies. moreover, it is against the findings of wu (2019) which states that after students were trained for a month in social strategies, they knew the strategies very well and showed great motivation to employ them. as it is illustrated in the above table, the mean score of the control group students in social for consolidation strategy was 5.90 in the pre-training and 5.10 in the post-training. the standard deviation of the group indicates that it was 1.41 in the pre-training and 1.80 in the post-training. the t and p values show at 1.93 and .06 correspondingly. none of these differences were statistically significant (t-value: 1.93 and p-value: .06). experimental 20 5.15 2.34 20 5.40 2.32 19 -.77 .44 control 20 5.90 1.41 20 5.10 1.80 19 1.93 .06 abebaw dessalew & nuru mohammed | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 192 results of paired-samples t-test in memory strategy memory strategies refer to connect word to a previous personal experience, associate the word with its coordinates, connect the word in its synonyms and antonyms; use semantic maps, image word form, image word’s meaning, use keyword method, group words together to study them, study the spelling of a word, say new word aloud when studying and use physical action when learning a word. respondents were asked about their frequency usage of these strategies and their responses were analyzed on spss, using paired samples t-test. the result of the t-test is provided underneath. table 7. results of paired-samples t-test in memory strategy of the experimental and control groups in pre-training and post-training group pre-training post-training df t p-value no. mean standard deviation no. mean stand ard devia tion as shown in the table, the mean score of the experimental group students in memory strategy was 72.40 in the pre-training but it was 82.40 in the post-training. the standard deviation of the group in the pre-training was 13.60; however, it was 19.62 in the post-training session. the t-value was registered as -2.48 and the p-value was .01. the data indicates that experimental group students significantly improve their frequency of memory strategy usage after receiving the training (t-value: 2.48 and p-value: .01, <0.05). it seems that the experimental group students improved their usage of memory strategy because the training of vocabulary learning strategies helped them to get acquainted with and employ various memory strategies. the effect size was moderate (cohen’s d: 0.60). the result is in line with the null hypothesis: training in the learning strategies of vocabulary does not significantly improve students’ use of vocabulary learning strategies. it also corroborates the finding by sozler (2012, p.1352) which reads as, “memory strategies training enable students to study on the vocabularies in such a way that they can not only deal with the unknown words and discover their meaning but also use them meaningfully in a context and have little chance to forget them”. table 7 also presents the paired samples t-test result of control group students in memory strategy. the group’s mean score was 79.75 in the pre-training and 80.25 in the post-training. the group’s standard deviation was 18.20 in the pre-training and 10.47 in the post-training. the t-value was -.13 while the p-value was .89. no significant difference between the results of the two tests was evident (t-value: -.13 and p-value: .89). results of paired-samples t-test in cognitive strategy cognitive strategies include verbal repetition, written repetition, word lists, put english labels on physical objects and keep a vocabulary notebook. first year aau university students who were both in the control and experimental groups also responded to the questions, in the vocabulary learning strategies questionnaire, about their cognitive strategy use frequency before and after the training. their answers of pre-training and post-training questionnaires were calculated using paired samples t-test on spss and the following results were found. experimental 20 72.40 13.60 20 82.40 19.62 19 -2.48 .01 control 20 79.75 18.20 20 80.25 10.47 19 -.13 .89 abebaw dessalew & nuru mohammed | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 193 table 8. results of paired-samples t-test in cognitive strategy of the experimental and control groups in pre-training and post-training group pre-training post-training d f t pvalue no. mean standard deviation no. mean standard deviation the above table depicts that the average result of the experimental group participants was 23.30 in the pre-training and 24.25 in the post-training. the standard deviation result of the group in the pre-training was 6.40 and it was 6.64 in the post-training. the t-value of the group was registered as -2.33 and the p-value of the group was registered as .03. from the data, we can understand that no significant difference was found between the pre-test and post-test result in cognitive strategy of the experimental group (t-value: -2.33 and p-value: .03). the result supports the alternative hypothesis: training in the learning strategies of vocabulary significantly improves students’ use of vocabulary learning strategies. the effect size was weak (cohen’s d: 0.14). it can also be seen from the data in the table that the control group participants registered an average result of 23.30 in the pre-training and scored an average result of 23.45 in the post-training. the standard deviation in the pre-training scored by the group was 6.40 and the standard deviation registered by the group in the post training was 6.39. the group’s t-value and p-value are -.21 and .83 respectively. from the data of the table, it can be seen that no significant difference was found between the pre-test and post-test results in cognitive strategy use of the control group (t-value: -.21 p-value: .83). results of paired-samples t-test in meta-cognitive strategy metacognitive strategies consist of using english-language media (songs, movies, newscasts, etc.), testing oneself with word tests, skipping or passing new word and continuing to study word over time. respondents of this study were asked to give response on how frequently they use metcognitive strategies to study vocabulary. the answers offered by the participants were analyzed using paired samples t-test of spss and the results obtained from the test are presented as follows. table 9. results of paired-samples t-test in meta-cognitive strategy of the experimental and control groups in pre-training and post-training group pre-training post-training df t pvalue no. mean standard deviation no. mean standard deviation table 9 provides data about the average score of the experimental group students in the pretraining questions about meta-cognitive strategy as 14.05 and the mean score of the group in the post-training questions of the strategy was 15.70. the standard deviation of the group in pre-training questions of the strategy was scored as 3.36 and it was scored as 3.35 in the post-training questions of the strategy. the t-value and p-value were -2.13 and .04 respectively. this data is quite revealing experimental 20 23.30 6.40 20 24.25 6.64 19 -2.33 .03 control 20 23.30 6.40 20 23.45 6.39 19 -.21 .83 experimental 20 14.05 3.36 20 15.70 3.35 19 -2.13 .04 control 20 14.60 2.43 20 15 2.42 19 -.68 .54 abebaw dessalew & nuru mohammed | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 194 that there is significant difference between the results of experimental group participants in the pretraining and post-training questions about meta-cognitive strategy (t-value: -2.13 and p-value: .04). the positive significant change probably was brought because the group received training on vocabulary learning strategies for 16 weeks. the effect size was modest (cohen’s d: 0.49). the result supports the alternative hypothesis: training in the learning strategies of vocabulary significantly improves students’ use of vocabulary learning strategies. on the other hand, the table also shows that control group participants mean score about meta-cognitive strategy in the pre-training was 14.60 and it was 15.00 in the post-training. the group’s standard deviation in the questions of the strategy in the pre-training was 2.43 whereas it was 2.42 in the post-training. the t-value of the group about the strategy was -.68 while the t-test was .54. the data indicates that there is no statistical mean difference between the pre-questionnaire and post-questionnaire score of the control group (t-value: -.68 and p-value: .54). major findings of the study paired samples t-test was computed in order to examine whether the vocabulary learning strategies training brought significant change or not in the students’ usage of vocabulary learning strategies and the experimental group participants showed positive result in the five among six major categories of vocabulary learning strategies. the data indicates that experimental group students significantly improve their frequency of memory strategy usage after receiving the training (t-value: 2.48 and p-value: .01, <0.05). the data is also quite revealing that there is significant difference between the results of experimental group participants in the pre-training and post-training questions about meta-cognitive strategy (t-value: -2.13 and p-value: .04). from the data, we can understand that significant difference was found between the pre-test and post-test result in cognitive strategy of the experimental group (t-value: -2.33 and p-value: .03). the data also shows that the experimental group students significantly improve their frequency in the usage of determination vocabulary learning strategies (t-value: -2.15, p value: .04). in addition, there was a significant difference between the pre-training and post-training frequency in the usage of social strategies to know a new word (t value: -2.31 and p value: .03). however, it can be seen that experimental group students did not significantly improve their usage of the vocabulary learning strategy called social for consolidation (t-value: -.77 and p-value: .44). discussion the result of this study regarding determination vocabulary learning strategies is in line with those of the previous studies such as ebrahimi et al. (2015) which show that contextual guessing affected the students' vocabulary learning and helped them keep the second language vocabulary in their minds longer”. as it is stated in the literature review section, contextual guessing is grouped under determination strategies. the result of this research concerning social for discovery strategy is also in accord with the study by rousoulioti and mout (2016) who discussed as, “language teachers and learners are in agreement regarding the strategy of asking the instructor or fellow students for help in understanding vocabulary”. experimental group students did not significantly improve the vocabulary learning strategy called social for consolidation though they took training of vocabulary learning strategies. however, it is against the finding of wu (2019) which states that after students were trained for a month in social strategies, they knew the strategies very well and showed great motivation to employ them. the finding of this study in relation to memory strategies also corroborates the finding by sozler (2012, p.1352) which reads as, “memory strategies training enable students to study on the vocabularies in such a way that they can not only deal with the unknown words and discover their meaning but also use them meaningfully in a context and have little chance to forget them”. the result of this research pertaining to cognitive strategies was in agreement with the study by banisaeid (2013) which found training in cognitive strategies has completely positive effect on cognitive strategies. regarding meta-cognitive strategies, the result of this study also matches the research by wu (2019, p.1061)) which states “within four-week training, students in the experimental class are mainly introduced to several meta-cognitive strategies and become more aware of the trained strategies, and have a strong tendency to use them”. abebaw dessalew & nuru mohammed | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 195 conclusion the study reveals that there is significant difference in vocabulary learning strategies use between students who receive vocabulary learning strategies training and those who do not receive the training. it is found that students improve their frequently usage of variety of vocabulary learning strategies after taking the training. it is evident that the training makes learners know varied ways of studying vocabulary and it is clearly seen this has good effects on vocabulary knowledge increment of students. in accordance with the findings of this study, learners who do not take training of different vocabulary learning strategies and if they study a textbook with limited number of vocabularies learning strategies, there are negative effects on their usage of vocabulary learning strategies and vocabulary knowledge. based on the findings of the study, it is recommended that first coursebooks should include objectives, explanations, examples, and exercises of varied vocabulary learning strategies. second, instructors of communicative english skills are also recommended to discuss objectives, explanations, examples, and exercises of varied vocabulary learning strategies. third, university students should try their best to use the vocabulary learning strategies they studied in their vocabulary study in and outside the classroom. implications of the study are discussed as follows. the current study focused on the effect of vocabulary learning strategies training. future researchers can study the effect of training in learning strategies of other language skills and sub-skills. this study did not also have an objective of studying the relationship between vocabulary learning strategies use and students’ gender, discipline, age and proficiency level. future studies may emphasize these specific issues. the participants of the current study were first year university students. future researchers may select second year and above university students or secondary school students. funding statement the researchers did not receive any financial support for this study. references aladdin, a., hamza, a., & yasin, m. 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(1987). learner strategies in language learning. cambridge: prentice-hall. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 235 elt forum 10 (3) (2021) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt efl students’ voices on digital peer feedback berliana dyah ayu aprilianti1, sibakhul milad malik hidayatulloh2 1,2universitas muhammadiyah yogyakarta, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received on 27 march 2021 approved on 18 october 2021 published on 30 november 2021 ________________ keywords: feedback; online peer feedback, efl; e-learning. ____________________ abstract ____________________________________________________________________ education and technology have been tailed by some conditions. some parts in education are technologized including peer feedback activity, but the use of peer feedback combined with e-learning needs to be reviewed in terms of its practical use. the affordance of technology has enabled peer feedback to take place online. despite the potential benefits that online peer feedback may offer, there is a lack of studies on the topic. therefore, this paper aims to explore students’ perspectives on the benefits of online peer feedback. this research was done qualitatively. interview to six students of english language education department was conducted to gain the data. the academic year 2018/2019. in selecting the participants, purposive sampling was applied. the finding of this study revealed that the use of technology particularly in giving peer feedback brought some benefits e.g., increasing students’ autonomy and reviving student’s critical thinking. besides, the cons of this phenomenon were that students felt the activity ruined their energy to stay focused in front of the screen to give others a review. some suggestions in the last part of this paper also appeared as the researchers respond to this phenomenon. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 e6 building, fpb umy kasihan, bantul, d.i yogyakarta, 55183 e-mail: berlianadyahayu@gmail.com http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& berliana dyah ayu aprilianti, sibakhul milad malik hidayatulloh | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 236 introduction for the sake of innovation in education, in this era education has integrated with technology which has an aim to ease the teaching method and learning process. a popular concept was raised by some scholars to respond this. information communication technology (ict) has raised as the effect of development of technology. moreover, ict offers interaction among the users. by knowing this function, some teaching activities has been integrated with ict including english language teaching. for instance, the use of website materials could improve students’ skills in listening, speaking, and increase other students’ assessment score, (mateo, 2012; comi et al., 2017). additionally, ammanni and aparanjani (2016) also stated that the use of interactive white board to stimulate students in learning vocabularies. therefore, information communication technology (ict) is oftenly said as the way to boost moderanization of education. ict has given a positive impact to both students and teacher in terms of learning process. along with the concept of ict, moderanization also brings a new tems in learning namely e-learning (puspawati & juharoh, 2021). the concept of using e-learning is to make easier the process in education. furthermore, e-learning can be described as non face-to-face instruction or face-to-face instruction delivered using digital device which has a purpose to promote learning material or topic discussion (clark and mayer, 2016). e-larning has a pivotal role in promoting education without any places and times restriction (mayer, 2017). therefore, in the education field, many things have collaborated with technology, including giving feedback. in the larger discussion, if we break down the term of feedback, (ravand & rasekh, 2011) has said that feedback is essential in offering educational and professional literacy abilities to learners and it is a way to help learners negotiate access to information and procedures. moreover, writing feedback also projected to be one-way teachers to promote students writing development. as mentioned by (dayat, 2021) that in higher education particularly in efl, the use of writing feedback is to improve students’ writing with two focus objectives which are knowledge and writing improvement. in addition, the researcher tries to take a topic related to feedback which is peer-feedback. the existence of peer-feedback based on (wu & schunn, 2021) is to decrease the workload of teacher in giving feedback. moreover, the students were more facilitated in learning process by receiving and giving multi peer-feedback that feedback from teacher only (cho & schunn, 2007). wirantaka (2019) supported, “the importance of feedback emerges with the development of student-centered learning especially in language education context” (p.1). on the other hand, giving feedback also train students’ critical thinking and perspective of something in several sides, because when they are giving feedback, they have to be critical person to see the weakness or the strength of someone's work. students might be in charge of obtaining solutions that are tailored to their own learning requirements (choi & ho, 2002 as cited in sweeny, 2010). in addition, peer feedback based on sholihah (2015), peer feedback is an activity that allow students to give comment and review towards other students’ written work. in correlation with moderanization of education, the process of giving feedback has been technologized by several institutions by using e-learning. the ideas of integrating of giving feedback and e-learning make some benefits not only for teachers but also for students. the invention of integrating feedback and e-learning also want to implement an innovation to create students be an active learner. the development of e-learning also has an aim to make students as student centered learning environment (scele) (hasibuan and santsoso, 2005). for instance, kassymova et al. (2020) argued that e-learning also ease the access of students and educational institution because it provided in an open access. another researcher, roblyer and ekhaml (2001) as cited in (appana, 2008) asserted that students show a positive effect of e-leaning towards their flexibility and responsiveness. in addition, portability, immediacy, connection, ubiquity, and flexibility are technical aspects of e-learning. in addition, making the activity of giving peer-feedvak to be associated with elearning is not that easy. emphasized by (wu & schunn, 2021) that peer-feedback is a complex processing activity either giving or receiving feedback. therefore, this study intended to answer the research question: to what extent students’ perspective about advantages and disadvantages doing online peer-feedback. this study is taking a gap between peer-feedback and e-learning. the researchers believe that the use of e-learning as a platform to allow students giving feeback also raise some issues and facts. therefore, the study about giving online peer-feedback is intended by finding the benefit and the issues in attempting online peerfeedback in one of eled in private university. some suggestion for novice or department that want to apply this phenomenon also appear as the researchers’ responsibility towards this current study. berliana dyah ayu aprilianti, sibakhul milad malik hidayatulloh | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 237 feedback has an essential role in learning, because its activities have offering educational and professional literacy abilities to learners, and it is a way to help learners negotiate access to information and procedures, (ravand & rasekh, 2011). moreover, there is two types of feedback that depend on different learners and situation: oral and written feedback. teachers must consider various aspects while providing oral feedback, such as the length of therapy and the age of the student (lyster et al., 2013) furthermore, peer feedback, to put it simply, is the careful, unbiased evaluation of any scientific work that has been submitted for formal review (ruiz et al., 2007). therefore, teachers usually give peer feedback activity to their students as one of the essignment or event an assessment. students need to see examples of writers revising their work after receiving criticism through think-alouds (or any other type of peer review) (nelson & schunn, 2007). the statement above is one of example of written feedback. in this example, it's worth noting that throughout the course of the semester, the students in the receiver group improved in both overall and specialized categories (lundstrom & baker, 2009). in the development of the era, e-learning has used to ease teaching and learning process. learning and technology were brought together in e-learning (aparicio et al., 2016). it was used for substituting the media of learning to be easier. most schools use e-learning as their ways to enhance students’ skill. through elearning students could access the material of schools; search the explanation of the teachers about a subject and etc. means that e-learning could enhance students’ receptive skills and productive skills. students can form deep bonds with their peers in an engaging online learning community (murdock & williams, 2011). in relation with the development of technology in education and the benefit of peer feedback, therefore, teachers start to conduct peer feedback activity in e-learning. this phenomena can be supported with the massive use of e-learning in higher education context. digital peer feedback is powerful to promoting and stimulating students’ writing process, (latifi et al., 2021). besides, digital peer feedback also suggest a critical activity to students without having fear to the other students, (al abri et al., 2021). (noroozi and hatami (2019) supported that digital peer feedback on the argumentative writing help students in improving their ability. in addition, digital peer feedback also offers a supportive atmosphere of learning, proven by (latifi et al., 2021) in their finding mentioned that students seemed attractive and engaged with the activity in digital peer feedback. therefore, this research aimed to investigate students’ perception about advantages and disadvantages of using digital peer feedback. furthermore, some scholars tried to jump in to this topic discussion. in the past a decade ago some scholars discussed about online peer feedback, such as lu and law (2012); latifi et al. (2021); liu (2016) and many others. a study about the effect of conducting an online peer review also has successfully conducted by lu and law (2012). with their article, "online peer evaluation: impacts of cognitive and emotional feedback," they set out to investigate the effects of cognitive and affective feedback on online peer assessment. 181 thirteento fourteen-year-old hong kong secondary school pupils took part in this study. the goal of this study was to see if high school students' participation in online peer evaluations influenced their success on ls projects. because it allowed students to review the work of others, online peer evaluation was found to have a substantial impact on the quality of students' project learning results. we talk about how grading affects people, then we go into cognitive and emotive feedback. another research by liu et al. (2016) focused on the impact of peer review on the creative selfefficacy has similar research’s objectives, in which investigating peer feedback on education aspect. the recommended peer feedback was found to improve narrative performance without compromising creative self-efficacy. it's also worth noting that this was a small-scale study that focused mostly on narrative activities. two classes of 53 sixth graders from a northern taiwanese primary school were chosen at random to be the study's subjects. students' creative performance and self-efficacy may be influenced by cultural differences. it would be fascinating to study how web 2.0 learning activities affect the creative processes of students of all ages and from other nations. despite this, many online web 2.0 learning activities include a peer review method. despite the sample size and creative task constraints, this study might nevertheless suggest ways to use web 2.0 technology to enhance learning activities in other fields. one more research by (latifi et al., 2021) entitled how does online peer feddback improve argumentative essay and writing. the partisipants were 52 college students. moreover, the participants were required to use e-learning platform namely edutech platform by the researchers. then, they were signed by the researchers to make an argumentative essay and also give feedback to others. the result revealed that students were more motivated in giving comments and suggestion to berliana dyah ayu aprilianti, sibakhul milad malik hidayatulloh | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 238 other students because they would be able to give comments and suggestion annonymously. consequently, the students could give their critical comments without feeling intimidated. in the mean time, the argumentative essay by the students were also getting increased in terms of the quality because the others’ comments. by recognizing the previous studies, the researchers indicate that the use of digital peer feedback need to be reviewed. therefore, the digital peer feedback can be more applicable for students. furthermore, from the previous studies mostly mentioned about the effects of online peer feedback, but the students’ views of online peer feedback have not been much discussed by scholars. therefore, this current research aimed or research question: what extent students’ perspective about advantages and disadvantages doing online peer-feedback? methods this current study implemented a qualitative research design and used a qualitative method to gather and analyze the data. individual interpretation and the need to report the complexity of a situation were discussed in the qualitative method (cohen et al., 2018). by doing in-depth interview to six students in english language education department. interview would be used as the way how to collect the data toward the participants because interview could enrich the statements of the participants, besides the researchers also would get many information through interview (adhabi & anozie, 2017). the participants of this study were six students of an english education department in a university in yogyakarta. the participants were suitable for this research because they had experienced using online peer-feedback during their learning process. moreover, all of participants had been experiencing online peer-feedback for one semester in their second academic year. therefore, they could express what their thought, feeling, and idea about online peer-feedback. in doing the indepth interview we use ten questions toward the research and some questions related to the research question. the questions have been translated by the researcher to ease the participant understand the questions. the interview protocol was developed by the researchers using two types of questions by (fraenkel at al., 2012) namely experience question and feeling question. furthermore, the experience questions consist of questions that lead to the experiences that the participant have had. while the feeling questions will lead to what participants' feeling in experiencing some phenomena. all of the recording of in-depth interviews had been transcribed and member checked for reliability and validity (meriam, 1998) the data were analysed using coding process. according to (elliott, 2018) coding is a process of labelling or mapping data to suggest an overview of data. the process of coding started by giving some marks to participants' responses. then, it followed by selecting the same responses to be led into the categorized finding. the data were grouped based on participants’ responses. furthermore, the research’s results were categorized into two focus, namely advantages and disadvantages of digital peer feedback. then, the researcher put some responses into a big result by referring them with the research question: to what extent students’ perspective about advantages and disadvantages doing online peerfeedback. in addition, all of the participant names had been annonymoused by the researcher to keep the privacy of the participants toward their responses. in presenting the result of interview process, the researcher had already set and excerpt the conversation into standardized english and the result. findings and discussion increasing students’ autonomy the first finding that researcher found in the research was online peer feedback increase students’ autonomy. it was being said by participant 4. they assumed that in processing of giving peer feedback, they also opened other resources to make their comment and reviewed more credible and reliable “i have to search for some theories on the internet just to make sure whether my correction true or not…”.#s4-line4 it also indicated that when the students were doing online peer-feedback, they would use their skills or any kind of stuff that they have such internet or book just to make sure what they had given to the other students’ assignments, or their comments were right or not. the activity that had been done by the participants were really their initiatives not from the order of the teacher or someone. meaning that, students were in the processing of giving online peer feedback, they tried to browse other resources berliana dyah ayu aprilianti, sibakhul milad malik hidayatulloh | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 239 by themselves. this also indicated that students’ autonomy was played role in giving online peer feedback. reviving students’ critical thinking the second advantage from online peer-feedback was students being more critical. the task that students had to review require them to evaluate and give a comment to others’ work. there wass a popular taxonomy named bloom’s taxonomy that put evaluate in the middle of process of thinking. it could be assumed that evaluation process in online peer feedback also could be a decoyed to hook students’ critical thinking. it had been proved by participant 3 by saying: “in finding someone’s mistake, i need to be focus to see the lack…”. #s3-line17 the researchers assumed that the process of finding a lack of someone’s work could be interpreted as the process of reviving students’ critical thinking, because the students have to give more attention and increase their critical thinking just to see and make sure that there would be no errors on the other students’ assignments. it means that peer feedback activity is affect students’ critical thinking. moreover, the other participant, they are participants 1, 2, 4, and 6 said: ”i got a new idea for making my work better by giving feedback…”. #s1-line19 “i think i have to revise my work after giving comments to my friends”. #s2-line10 “...i tried to analyzed my friends’ work by comparing it to my own work”. #s4-line15 “i do not why, why my friends’ writing seems like just on the surface”. #s6-line17 by giving peer feedback also could be reference for corrector’s work. it meant that when the students see the other students’ assignments, they could get such inspiration, or they were realizing something wrong, or they got additional ideas to improve their own assignments. unstable result based on the interview, all of the six participants that researcher had chosen in this research had already took a part in online peer feedback in a course, they stated that online peer feedback also decrease their focus. the reasons of decreasing their focus were because of the amount of the task or others’ work that they have to be reviewed. it could be so, because the online-peer feedback activities require the students to review certain student’s fellow’s works. due to the amount of the task that the participant got in online peer feedback. it was being said by participant 3 that: “when i have 5 tasks to do corrections, only the first task will be the best correction…”#s3-line25 one of the participants said that the amount of the task also would interfere their result in reviewing work. by knowing that, researchers assumed that if students have an assignment and it required the students to write an essay at least 1000 words, it means, in a day each student have to read 5000 words with different style and content. while the students also said they have other tasks to be done too. at the beginning, the students would give much attention to the other students’ assignments, but as time goes by their focus would be decreased because they tired or with the other results. it has been proven that online-peer feedback also has disadvantages for the students. this currrent research had gotten the result for the research question: what did extent students’ perspective about advantages and disadvantages doing online peer-feedback? then, the answer for advantages of online peer feedback were increasing students’ autonomy and reviving students’ critical thinking, while for the disadvantage of doing online peer feedback was unstable result. for the advantages, increasing students’ autonomy mean that students could get any new information and it opened their mind to get some new knowledge toward the other students. therefore, the students who did the online peer feedback could give the best comments or suggestion toward the other student’s task. then, for reviving students’ critical thinking mean, when students’ re-read their friends’ task, they had to give their own best comment, and it used their thought. which the researchers could conclude that the students’ mean by used their own thought were used their critical thinking. for the disadvantage of doing online peer feedback, the participants’ answer was unstable result, where in this case it was because the total of task which the students would do was more than 3 of other students’ berliana dyah ayu aprilianti, sibakhul milad malik hidayatulloh | elt forum 10 (3) (2021) 240 task, therefore it made them confused and could not be focus. when the students did not focus, the students believed that they had unstable comments and suggention toward the other students’ task. discussion those advantages and disadvantages have answered the research question. online-peerfeedback has two advantages and one disadvantage for students in one of department in a university in yogyakarta. starting from the advantages, participants mentioned that online peer-feedback increased their self-learning autonomous. on the other hand, online peer-feedback also revived their sense to be independent learning. it is also harmonized with (appana, 2008) that every e-learning activity will raise students’ responsiveness and flexibility. this responsiveness makes students becoming autonomous. other advantages of online peer feedback are increasing the students’ critical thinking furthermore, there were five out of six participants stated that the activity of online peer-feedback also reinforced them to be more critical. this could be happened because along giving the comment, the participants also had a chance to find other resources to be used in giving comment. this ocean of knowledge also require student to be more selective. therefore, they felt that the critical thinking was needed in selecting the knowledge. (li & grion, 2019) stated that in giving peer feedback, students would use their critical thinking to find the best comments or suggestion toward their friends’ work. it is also in line with (ke & hoadley, 2009) that online learning and communities will build participant’s learning skill and knowledge. the learning skill of critical thinking also raised in the process of giving online peer feedback. researcher also found that online peer feedback giving a disadvantage which happen because of the amount of the task that students need to be reviewed. in this case, each student needs to review five tasks from their others. researcher assumed that this happen because their effort has been already put on the criticizing of each task that they face. this finding also contradicted with gazi (2009) said that e-learning process whatever it takes, it will build a positive attitude. in fact, the participant feel that the activity of online peer feedback decreased their focus and quality of their work comparing to one another work. since the participants' experiences in this research had to put review on more than five papers, so the finding found that the participants' feedback were varied because the amount of the works to be reviewed by the students. conclusion development of technology impacts many things including the education side. ten years ago, we only know that the learning activity should be done in the classroom with the teachers and students, but right now the appearing system in education called “e-learning” change the terms. the teacher only needs to put a material in the e-learning system and the students will read and do the activity in the system and they all do not need to come to the class. previous studies had been conducted by the researcher toward e-learning system such as murdock & williams (2011) found that an interactive online learning community allows students to develop strong relationships with fellow students. it provides learners with opportunities to meet regularly with their partners for collaborative construction and improvement of knowledge about chosen topics. (ke & hoadley, 2009) also did research and found that a great deal of literature suggests that online learning communities are an effective way to promote the sharing and building of knowledge by learners. due to the limitation in this study such as participant and place of research, this study cannot measure the perspective of online peer feedback in a context especially indonesian context. it is highly suggested to scholars to take wider participant number and place of research, so that the result of the research can be used as a representative of a context. as mentioned before in the introduction, the study also can be used to implicate the use of online peer-feedback for teacher or in a department. the researcher imply that online peer-feedback can be applied to boost students’ autonomy. however, the amount of task must be calculated properly so that students will be able to give feedback to others with stable result of each task. references adhabi, e. a. r., & anozie, c. b. l. 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(2021). the effects of providing and receiving peer feedback on writing performance and learning of secondary school students. american educational research journal, 58(3), 492–526. https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831220945266 putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 48 elt forum 13(1) (2024) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt exploring assessment practices of teachers in advanced speech courses endalew molla tessera1, animaw anteneh kassa1 1addis ababa university, addis ababa, ethiopia article info ________________ article history: received on 24 august 2023 approved on 29 march 2024 published on 31 march 2024 ________________ keywords: speaking skills; assessing speaking; elt; advanced speech; feedback provision ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ in ethiopia, there is a general public concern that most university students lack communicative competence, and hence they could not communicate effectively in english. there are many contributing factors to this and most of these factors are related either to the curriculum, the teaching-learning process, or the assessment practice. only a few studies have been conducted on the assessment practice of speaking skills since most researchers have focused on the teaching-learning process. this inquiry was made to look into the practice of assessing the advanced speech course. specifically, it focuses on the assessment methods employed by teachers, the extent of measuring the sub-skills of speaking, and the effectiveness of the feedback given by the teachers. forty-three students and six teachers were included in the study. data were collected through in-depth interviews, classroom observation, and document analysis. the findings revealed that not many assessment methods were employed to assess the students. sixty percent of the assessment of the course was covered by written assignments and a written final exam. only two individual and group presentations were given as practical assessments. in addition, the assessments did not measure the students’ accuracy, fluency, pronunciation, and vocabulary. in the end, the feedback provided to the students was not effective. students were not given a chance to correct their own errors, and they were not allowed to practice peer correction, either. this implied that teachers’ assessment practices were not effective to measure the students’ speaking performance in the intended manner and this is one of the factors that minimizes the quality of education. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 addis ababa university, addis ababa, ethiopia e-mail: menduca.m@gmail.com http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& endalew molla tessera & animaw anteneh kassa | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 49 introduction many academics have emphasized that the majority of language learners worldwide acquire a specific language to become proficient in the target language (richards, 2002). most learners want to improve their speaking skills, but the skill seems one of the difficult aspects of language learning. in line with this, brown & yule (1983) highlighted that one of the most challenging components of language learning is frequently thought to be the production of spoken language or mastering the ability to speak in the target language. this challenge is not distinctive to students. teachers also face the same problem since the task of teaching and assessing speaking skills requires knowledge, skill, and commitment. bygate (1987) also emphasized that one of the fundamental issues in teaching foreign languages is getting students ready to be able to use the target language. similar to this, yang (2010) contends that the primary goal of oral english training is unquestionably the development of the capacity to carry on a natural conversation in a working or everyday situation. in ethiopia, the teaching of speaking skills is a challenging task. there are different factors for this. one of the prominent factors is that many language classes throughout the country heavily focus on the language system or the grammar (melkamu, 2003). this practice is against the major principles of teaching a foreign language because the main objective of any english language instruction, according to davies & pearse (2000), should be to enable students to communicate clearly and effectively in english. what, how often, and how to assess students should be given equal status with the teaching of the sub-skills of speaking. nunan (1991) contends that proficiency in the target language is the key to successful language education and that students should be judged on their ability to engage in a conversation in the language. not only the teaching-learning process but also the assessment method and frequency is a major factor that affects the success of language teaching. according to alam (2012) and bruton (2009), assessment determines the students' actual level of competency or proficiency or it is a way to measure language development over time (crooks, 1988; heywood, 1987; newble & jaeger, 1983); it also determines students’ behavior and teachers’ actual classroom practice. in ethiopia, much research has been conducted on the teaching-learning process of speaking skills. on the contrary, only a few studies have been conducted on how teachers assess their students while they teach spoken english courses. when compared to how important it is to teach speaking skills in the curriculum, assessment of speaking abilities frequently lags far behind in the globe. according to knight (1992), the problem is very common in ethiopia. in ethiopia, most english language teachers agree that most of their students cannot communicate using the language (animaw, 2011; hailom & woldu, 1998). because of this, different studies have been carried out on teachers’ teaching practices. on the contrary, less has been researched on the assessment practice. particularly in ethiopia, as far as the researchers were concerned, there was not any study conducted on teachers’ assessment practices on the advanced speech course. the way teachers assess their students is one of the key factors that could minimize the quality of education. therefore, this study tried to fill this research gap and, basically, it tried to answer the following questions: 1. what are the methods used to assess students while they learn the advanced speech course? 2. do the assessment methods used cover accuracy, fluency, vocabulary, and grammar according to the learning goals? 3. how do teachers give feedback to students? the study is hoped to bridge the existing research gap in the area and give some insights to the ministry of education about curriculum reviews. additionally, it will be helpful to material developers on how to design speaking activities in line with the basic principles of teaching and assessing speaking skills. moreover, it gives teachers insights on the appropriate methods of assessing their students and effective feedback provision. assessing speaking skill speaking abilities are a significant component of the language teaching curriculum, making them a significant subject of evaluation as well. however, evaluating speech is difficult because numerous elements affect how well someone can speak a language and because we expect test results to be reliable, fair, and suitable for our purpose. this is a difficult task, and in various situations, teachers and testers have attempted to complete it all using a variety of different techniques (luoma, 2004). endalew molla tessera & animaw anteneh kassa | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 50 even though speaking skills are generally regarded as the most crucial component of an efl course, the challenges associated with measuring oral abilities frequently force teachers to use subpar oral assessments or even refrain from testing speaking abilities altogether. speaking evaluation is a multi-stage process. people act and interact at each stage to develop something for the following stage. the examinees, interlocutors, raters, and score users all have a part to play in the activities, even if the assessment developers are the essential participants in the spoken assessment cycle (luoma, 2004). the task of teaching and assessing speaking skills is one of the most challenging areas. because of this, it has traditionally been a headache for english teachers and it is not surprising that many well-established tests do not even have an oral component (brown & yule, 1983) because the hardest talent to evaluate is undoubtedly speaking (coombe et al., 2007; heaton, 1988; luoma, 2004; kitao & kitao, 1996). according to these scholars, spoken teachers have to pay attention to the following aspects. fluency: the ability to communicate clearly, somewhat quickly, and without frequently pausing. pronunciation: the act or outcome of making speech sounds, including articulation, stress, and intonation. vocabulary: the collection of words used in a given language. accuracy: how language learners use grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary systems. interaction: the ability to interact with others during communicative tasks. communication: the students’ ability to transmit her/his ideas. grammar: using acceptable and correct grammar structures in a speech. assessment criteria assessment criteria for speaking skills are varied from institution to institution and from teacher to teacher. but the following are very common and comprehensive criteria that are recommended by scholars in the field (wu et al., 2012; luoma, 2004; knight, 1992; hughes, 2003; bachman, 1990; brindley, 1989 and fulcher, 1987).  grammar: range and accuracy  vocabulary: range and accuracy  pronunciation: individual sounds (especially phonemic distinctions), stress and rhythm, intonation, and linking/elision/assimilation  fluency: speed of talking, hesitation while speaking, and hesitation before speaking  conversational skill: topic development, initiative (in turn-taking, and topic control), cohesion (with own utterances & with interlocutor), and conversation maintenance (including clarification, repair, checking, pause fillers, etc.)  sociolinguistic skill: distinguishing register and style (e.g. formal or informal, persuasive or conciliatory) and use of cultural references  non-verbal: eye contact, body posture, gestures, and facial expressions  content: coherence of arguments and relevance techniques of responding to learners' errors as agreed by most scholars, errors are natural and they are signs of learning. but, they should be handed systematically so that the students will not be irritated or miss-leaded. according to parrott (1993), teachers can respond to learners’ errors and mistakes in several ways as teaching speaking skills is concerned. the following is a list of some methods for doing this. the teacher can stop the student and either encourage him/her to correct himself/herself, point out the type of error or mistake or where it was in the phrase, or invite him/her to do so. they can make a note of the inaccuracy or mistake and draw attention to it at a later time individually or with the entire class, they can choose not to respond, or they can give a ‘correction’ themselves. as the decision about how to respond to the students’ errors and mistakes is concerned, there are factors teachers need to take into account (parrott, 1993). these factors are; the student’s purpose in speaking (was he/she concentrating on accuracy or fluency?), the nature of the error or mistake (is this something the learner can correct himself?), the personality of the student (is he/she confident?), the ability of the student (is accuracy a priority for him?), and the ease with which the error or mistake can be corrected (parrott, 1993). methods this is a descriptive study. since the study is mainly concerned with describing what is actually being practiced by language teachers to teach advanced speech as it exists at present in its natural setting, this method is preferred over others. as described by kothari (2004), the researcher has no endalew molla tessera & animaw anteneh kassa | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 51 control over the variables; he can only report what has happened or what is happening. such research design, according to best & kahn (2006) and kothari (2004), is concerned with: conditions or relationships that exist; practices that prevail; beliefs or processes that are going on, etc. moreover, the researcher felt that it would enable him to have access to multiple instruments of gathering information. debre markos university was chosen purposively as the research site because of the researcher’s familiarity with the environment. this opportunity can enrich and validate the data that the study sought to gather as in analyzing how culturally alien and/or appropriate the language contents and tasks and activities embodied in the course syllabus are (balbi, 2008). for this study, six teachers that have the experience of teaching the course (advanced speech) were included based on the homogeneous sampling technique. in such a sampling technique, the researcher selects from a particular sub-group who share some important experience relevant to his/her study (dorneyi, 2007). among the six teachers included in the study, three of them have a ph.d. in teaching english as a foreign language (tefl). their teaching experiences ranged from 11 to 17 years. the remaining three have ma degrees in tefl, with teaching experiences ranging from 6 to 9 years. in addition, six students that were capable of responding to the interview were chosen purposely based on their willingness. all of the students included in the study are second-year students of english language and literature. three of these students were group leaders and the remaining three were group members. therefore, the tota l sample size of the research is twelve. a well-designed qualitative study often needs a manageable sample size to produce the saturated and rich data required to comprehend even nuances in the phenomenon under study (dorneyi, 2007). an in-depth, semi-structured interview was conducted with sample teachers and students. the data on teachers’ assessment practices was collected through this tool because face -to-face interviews are the best instruments to collect reliable data on the interviewees’ beliefs, pra ctices, and conceptions (dorneyi, 2007). to do this, an interview guide was prepared in line with the objectives and the literature review of this study. the other major tool that the researcher used to collect data was classroom observation and observation of facilities (library and language laboratory). assessment must include an element of classroom observation to assess teachers’ actual performances and its impact on english language teaching/learning practices in the classroom (kiely & rea-dickins, 2005). by using this tool, the researcher observed how the advanced speech course teachers assess their students. moreover, whether the teachers use effective assessment methods, feedback provision ways, facilities like the library and the language laboratory, and other related issues were observed six times. to do all this, an observation checklist was prepared in line with the literature review of this article and the basic principles of teaching speaking skills. in addition, document analysis was conducted because this technique provides authentic and rich information when compared to other methods of data collection (dorneyi, 2007). by using this instrument, the course syllabus, which has been used by the department for the advanced speech course, was analyzed. moreover, it was used to assess written assessments like quizzes, tests, assignments, and final exams along with the course syllabus and the basic principles of teaching spoken english. to do all this, a syllabus assessment checklist was prepared by adapting cunningsworth’s (1995) evaluation checklist along with the basic principles of teaching speaking skills. this checklist is chosen because it is well-established and elaborate (harni, 2018; jayakaran et al., 2011). the researcher followed the following procedures to collect the data. first, the advanced speech course syllabus was reviewed, mainly before the classroom observations and interviews, so that possible variations between policy and practice could easily be detected. then the researcher explained the purpose of the research to the participants. classroom observations were done before the interview because teachers and students would not act artificially since they had no information on the focus of the research. if the interview was done first, an artificial classroom environment might be created during the observation time. finally, observation of facilities was conducted. the observation was conducted six times until the researcher got enough information. the researcher analyzed the data that was obtained from the above data collection instruments qualitatively. to do so, the researcher employed grounded theory. grounded theory refers to a theory that is developed inductively from a corpus of data. if done correctly, this indicates that the result of the theory perfectly fits one dataset (corbin & strauss, 2008). for this endalew molla tessera & animaw anteneh kassa | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 52 research, three kinds of coding (open, axial, and selective) were employed, as recommended by glaser & strauss (1978) and corbin & strauss (2008). the main concept was to create a single storyline that served as the foundation for everything else. by doing this, the researcher developed detailed and logically sequenced data for the research findings and discussion this section presents the assessment methods employed by sample teachers. teachers were asked how they evaluate their students. their responses were similar. they said that their students had been evaluated both theoretically and practically. theoretically, the students were given assignments or tests to check whether they understood the course module or not. practically, the students were evaluated on how they can speak at an advanced level. regarding this issue, one of the teachers said the following: … usually, i evaluate my students by giving them theoretical assignments or tests and practical presentations. first, they will be assessed from theoretical perspectives because i should check whether these students have grasped the theoretical parts properly or not. next, they will be evaluated practically on how they perform in front of the classroom. (t3). this teacher’s response to the assessment methods is linear with the responses of other teachers and students. in fact, it is advisable to give theoretical and practical assessments. hughes (2003) claims that speaking assessment tasks should allow students to demonstrate both comprehension and production. this is made possible by developing tasks that constitute a representative sample of the population of oral tasks, which should elicit behavior that accurately represents the candidates’ proficiency in the foreign language. furthermore, teachers were asked to state the kinds of assessments that they used to evaluate their students. they responded that they used individual and group assignments, quizzes, tests, and finally a written final exam. but, practically, as cross-checked by the observation, only one written group assignment, one written individual assignment with a presentation, one group presentation, and a written final exam were given to the students. teachers’ main reason for not using other assessment techniques is a shortage of time. according to them, more practical assessments could be employed if the theoretical parts were minimized in the syllabus. two presentations (individual and group) were given to the students. each of these presentations was evaluated out of 20 percent. the remaining 20 percent was given to an individual written assignment. ten minutes were given to each student for the individual presentation. but all of the students did not use even half of the time. the maximum presentation time used by the students was 3 minutes and 47 seconds. on the other hand, on average, there were four students in each group. these groups were given an assignment on memorized speech a week before their presentation and they were told that the assignment would be presented by one of the group members. the presenter would be selected randomly so they were told to prepare themselves for the presentation. but on the presentation day, only group leaders presented the group work. other group members followed the presentations and in the end, they were asked very few questions by their teacher to check whether they had participated in the group work or not. moreover, the data from the document analysis revealed that all the written assessments given to the students were not helpful to enhance and/or measure the students’ speaking skills. this is an advanced speech course and the nature of the assessment should be more practical. but, theoretically, only forty percent of the course was practical. the remaining sixty percent of the assessment was left to a written assignment and a written final exam on the theoretical parts of the syllabus. the following are the questions that were given as an individual written assignment: o give a brief description of the basic elements of communication. where possible, provide practical examples. (5 pts). o what factors should a sender of a message take into account when he/she selects a communication channel? list six factors in the following spaces. (3 pts) o what are the major causes of stage fright/nervousness people encounter in public speech delivery? list four causes. (2 pts) o what measures can a public speaker take to get rid of nervousness at the various stages of the speech? mention ten such measures. (3pts) o list and briefly explain the different things that a person who plans to acquire speaking skills should master. (3pts) endalew molla tessera & animaw anteneh kassa | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 53 o mention four methods of speech delivery and explain in what situations each method can be used most appropriately (4 pts). it can be noted that all written assignments and tests are prepared in the above manner. as it has been said so far, giving more writing tests in the advanced speech course is a paradox to teaching and assessing speaking skills because such kind of assessment does not measure the students’ speaking proficiency. a good speaking test should include a variety of assignments, which is quite significant. the exam items should be chosen in accordance with the learning objectives. additionally, it ought to communicate as much as possible. on the other hand, the burden of the whole group work was loaded on the shoulders of group leaders. two of the group leaders who were interviewed said the following: … personally, i don’t like group work. when we are given group work, the whole burden is on me. other group members never helped me. they only helped me collect money for printing and binding. otherwise, none of my group members contributed any ideas for the assignment. (student 1) … being a good student is really a burden. when i do the group assignment, others do their own business. it is done by me and i also present it at the end. so this thing must be improved. (student 3) these students’ responses were cross-checked in the observation. during the observation, some of the students were permanent group leaders whenever group tasks were given. at the same time, they were secretaries to write down notes from their groups’ discussions. they were also reporters and finally presenters. other group members get marks on the performance of these students. ivan (2010) quoted arădăvoaice (2008) in saying that one aspect of a group’s performance and quality is how well its members connect with one another. a group can produce synergy, which shows that the interactions between the participants are essential to the whole and that the whole is more than the sum of its parts. on the other hand, teachers were interviewed on how they give marks for group work and a teacher who was giving the course said the following: … giving marks for group work is one of the challenging aspects of the teachinglearning process. usually, i gave equal marks to all group members. to do that, i checked whether all group members have done the group work or not. during the presentation time, i asked every group member a few questions to check whether they have participated or not. i think that is the right way of assessing them. (t3) teachers gave the same mark to all group members. whenever group work is given, looking at individual differences among the group members is vital. otherwise, evaluating the group members only by the group leaders’ performance will minimize the quality of education. every student should be evaluated based on the objectives of the course and the standards set by the institution. moreover, teachers were expected to record and follow every student’s performance from the first assessment to the final exam. a meticulously maintained teacher’s record of the daily oral performance of his or her students will make a great cumulative oral test. but, as underhill (1987) stated, there was no ongoing record of the learners’ daily oral presentations; thus, the teachers were unable to monitor the development of each of their students. the practice of assessing the students’ accuracy, fluency, vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation teachers were asked to confirm whether the assessment methods they employed focused on accuracy, fluency, vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. almost all of them responded that their assessment methods highly depend on accuracy and grammar. teachers in the interview disclosed that assessing accuracy and grammar is very easy and is not tiresome. moreover, assessing the students’ accuracy and grammar does not need exceptional skills. when they assess their students, they focused on how each student performed the speaking activity accurately. regarding this issue, one of the teachers said the following: endalew molla tessera & animaw anteneh kassa | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 54 when i assess my students’ speaking performance, i focus on their accuracy and grammar level. do they do the intended tasks accurately according to the instruction? to what extent is their grammar correct? do they do major errors? these are some of my focus areas to assess my students (teacher 5). teachers were asked further questions on why their assessment methods do not focus on fluency, vocabulary, and pronunciation. they replied that since these sub-skills are not taught to the students, it could be worthless to include them in the assessment. there are no topics on fluency, vocabulary, and pronunciation in the syllabus; hence, it becomes difficult to teach and assess these sub-skills. the following is the response of one of the interviewed teachers on this issue: how can i evaluate my students’ fluency, vocabulary, or pronunciation without teaching and training them? if it is not in the syllabus, then i am not forced to evaluate their pronunciation or fluency (teacher 6). these teachers have another reason for not assessing pronunciation, fluency, and vocabulary. according to them, measuring fluency and pronunciation needs special knowledge and skill. they highlighted that some expertise and software are needed to do so. the software is related to a language laboratory. there is a language laboratory at the university but it was not functional. these teachers’ complaints are similar to what scholars like knight (1992) believe. according to him, assessing speaking skills can cause problems in a classroom situation, for instance, because assessing oral skills requires time and equipment, the problem of finding productive and relevant tasks, and the problem of assessing students consistently. moreover, teachers were not confident with their fluency and pronunciation and this leads them to skip these sub-skills when they assess their students’ speaking. the response of the following teacher will strengthen this data: who am i to measure the students’ fluency and pronunciation? as a teacher, i don’t have the expected fluency level and the right pronunciation. as you know, our english is highly affected by our mother tongue. so, i don’t attempt to measure my students’ fluency and pronunciation because i, myself, am not free from such problems (teacher 2). as demirezen (2010) studied, due to a lack of resources, inappropriate role models, and other factors, non-native english teachers in developing nations frequently have pronunciation and intonation issues in their speaking. this is one of the factors that could affect the quality of spoken language teaching. if teachers feel that their fluency and pronunciation are poor, they will not have the confidence to assess their students’ speaking. a similar kind of data was gathered through classroom observation. during their presentation session, the students were producing jumbled sentences that lacked coherence and unity. in addition, they were uttering some words and sentences in amharic. with such practice, it was very difficult to measure the students’ accuracy and grammar. the data from the document analysis also strengthens this finding. some exam and assignment questions were evaluated by the researcher and two other evaluators. the data revealed that most of the questions are designed to measure the students’ accuracy, and other sub-skills of speaking are forgotten. especially the written assignment and the written final exam focused on the theoretical concepts of the course. feedback provision feedback is an essential part of the teaching-learning process. the number of errors committed by the students on the advanced speech course were many and constructive, and timely feedback should be given to the students to improve their speaking skills. according to the data collected through the interview and the classroom observation, it was very difficult to find a student who can construct a sentence that is correct in grammar and pronunciation. grammar and pronunciation errors were made very frequently. the use of their mother tongue and fear of speaking in front of the students were other persistent problems for the students. regarding this issue, one of the teachers said the following when he was interviewed: endalew molla tessera & animaw anteneh kassa | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 55 especially in spoken english classes, students made dozens of errors every day. i can say that it is difficult to find a student who can speak a sentence correctly. so, the number of errors is high. some of the students make pronunciation errors, and others make grammar errors. some of them use inappropriate words which are neither english nor amharic (teacher 1). if the students make such kinds of errors, feedback should be given at different stages; if not, it will affect the students’ performance. according to sadler (1989), feedback is information given to a learner in educational settings to help close the performance gap between present performance and a desired objective. teachers were asked how they give feedback to their students. accordingly, most of the teachers stressed on the delivery of timely and constructive feedback to the students. although teachers have a positive understanding of the value of feedback, most of them do not give feedback to their students for the following reasons. first, according to them, shortage of time was a big constraint to give timely and constructive feedback to every student. the bulk of the course time was used to teach theoretical concepts and the students made plenty of errors. therefore, giving feedback to each student on every practical session was challenging. regarding this difficulty, one of the teachers had the following to say: if i tried to give feedback to every student whenever they make presentations, i may not cover even half of the course. in addition, it is difficult to improve the students’ speaking problems through comments. these problems are persistent and have been developed in many years and you can’t fix them with a single comment. moreover, most of our students don’t like feedback (teacher 3). as it was cross-checked by the observation, no comments were given to the students during the students’ presentation days. they made pronunciation and grammar errors. many students spoke amharic words and sentences in the middle of their presentations. however, the teacher did not give oral or written comments either at the middle or end of their presentation. the other factor raised by the teachers was the students’ attitude towards the feedback. according to these teachers, their students do not like feedback. interviewed teachers stated that most of their students do not care for their learning. they simply need grades at the end of the course. because of this, most teachers do not give feedback. according to the data from the interview and classroom observation, most teachers abstained from giving feedback on presentations for the above reasons. a few of them give comments to the whole class at the end of the presentations. one of these teachers, as witnessed in the classroom observation, listed down the errors that the presenters had made on a paper and he reflected it to the whole class before he left the class. the following quote from an interviewed teacher may strengthen this data: it is very challenging to give feedback to every student. if i tried to do so, i will encounter shortage of time. instead of leaving some of the portions of the course uncovered, i preferred not to give any kind of comment to each student. but, if it is group work, i can give group comments at the end of their presentations (teacher 1). with such practice, the feedback was not addressed to the right person because the students were not aware of which kind of errors they committed. other teachers give comments only on group presentations. since group presentations were presented by the group leaders only, very general comments were forwarded to each group. two of the interviewed teachers believed that only positive comments (encouraging comments given to the students when they do something good) should be given in the classroom because other students will be initiated by their progress. corrective feedback (comments given to the students to amend their errors), according to these teachers, should not be given inside the classroom because the students who committed those errors will be irritated. therefore, these teachers preferred to give such feedback outside the classroom. the student who made the error would be called and told his errors privately. one of these teachers described his experience in the following manner: endalew molla tessera & animaw anteneh kassa | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 56 giving encouraging feedback in the classroom may motivate the students while giving comments of improvement will discourage the students and they will hate the teacher because they are humiliated in front of their classmates. so if the students do good things, i encouraged them by using words like ‘very good’ or ‘excellent’. but if they make errors, i never tell them in the classroom (teacher 4). there are different ways of providing feedback. teachers could let the student find out his/her fault for self-correction. but according to the data, none of the teachers did so. they could also create an atmosphere for peer evaluation/correction. both in the interview and the classroom observation, the idea of peer correction was not raised by the teachers. the only kind of feedback applied by the teachers was teacher correction. studies show that feedback given by teachers is less effective compared to self-correction and peer feedback. feedback should offer suggestions for future development and be utilized to create revised goal targets that are at or just beyond learners’ present capacities (hattie, 2011; locke & latham, 1990). discussion the first research question sought to explore the assessment methods used by the teachers. the data revealed that individual and group presentations, written assignments, and a written final exam were used to assess the students. in this case, a variety of assessment methods that are capable of measuring the students’ fluency, accuracy, pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, etc. were not employed. this finding is similar to the findings of former studies conducted by mebratu (2018), eyasu et al. (2023), and genet (2017). according to their findings, effective assessment was not employed because of a shortage of time, a lack of sufficient material, and the large class size. according to hatipoğlu (2017), techniques for assessing speaking skills must include imitation tasks, reading aloud, direct response tasks, dialogue completion tasks, interpreting games, limited picturecued tasks, question and answer, giving instructions and directions, paraphrasing, oral presentations, retelling a story, and news events. moreover, the students will only learn how to write if the assessment is restricted to written exams (ahmad, 2011; akiyama, 2003; ali et al., 2012). the most important component of language testing, according to heaton (1988), is speaking proficiency testing. the use of oral assessment encourages students to hone and enhance their speaking abilities (huxham et al., 2010; lee, 2007). in this regard, the assessment methods employed were not in line with what is recommended by scholars in the field. when teachers assess speaking, they should measure the students’ talk by the tasks that they give. to do so, they should give clear instructions on the content and general format of the talk to be assessed, and they should also provide the context for it (luoma, 2004). the second research question aimed to examine whether the assessment methods used covered accuracy, fluency, vocabulary, and grammar according to the learning goals. the findings suggest that the teachers do not measure the students’ pronunciation, fluency, and vocabulary. even accuracy and grammar were not assessed properly by the teachers. in their studies, esayas (2018) and sisay (1999) indicated that there is an imbalance between assessing the accuracy and fluency of the students. some of the basic components of speech, according to bachman & palmer (1996), include pronunciation, intonation, fluency, and appropriate tone. furthermore, scarcella & oxford (1994) emphasized the importance of teaching and assessing pronunciation through a variety of activities in all foreign language classes because, according to wong (1987), despite non-native speakers’ excellent grammar and vocabulary, they are unable to communicate effectively and efficiently if their pronunciation is below a certain threshold level. in addition, morley (1991) places a strong emphasis on meaningful communication, contending that clear pronunciation is a crucial element of communication proficiency. teachers should expect their students to achieve well in their courses and include pronunciation in them. the last research question was aimed at finding out the nature of the feedback given to the students. accordingly, a few ineffective oral and written comments were given. the same finding was presented by animaw (2011) and kebrewessen (2011). both of them agreed that effective feedback was not given to the students. effective feedback, in the words of race (2010) race & pickford (2007), is dynamic, behavior-specific, timely, interactive, constructive (it must increase future learning), and it must be attended to. in the eyes of such scholars, these teachers’ feedback endalew molla tessera & animaw anteneh kassa | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 57 was not effective. some teachers were giving feedback only on written tests and assignments. according to these teachers, giving comments on individual presentations is impossible because of a shortage of time, and they prefer to write comments on tests and assignments. when the students made some language errors, they underlined or circled the word or phrase that they believed had an error. in addition, if some sentences are not clear, they put question marks next to them. circling, underlining, and putting question marks for these teachers is written feedback. if comments are not clear, the students will not learn from their mistakes. clear feedback helps learners feel more confident about their current performance level and desired objective (bangert-drowns & kulic, 1991). conclusion the overall goal of giving the advanced speech course at a tertiary level of education, as indicated in the course syllabus, is to enhance the students’ speaking skills at an advanced level by developing techniques of advanced speech delivery, increasing confidence in delivering a speech and demonstrating the elements of advanced speech in instruction. therefore, the assessment methods employed should be consistent with these learning goals. in addition, the assessment of spoken english should focus on whether the students use english accurately and effectively in communication, but not on dozens of written tests and assignments. the following conclusions could be drawn based on the findings of the study. first, a variety of assessment methods were not employed by the teachers. most of the assessments were written assignments and the final exam was totally a written one. only two (individual and group) presentations were given as practical exams. the group presentations were presented by the group leaders. therefore, the practical assessment given to the group leaders is 40% whereas for the majority of the students, it is only 20% since the group presentation was presented by the group leaders only. second, accuracy and grammar were given priority over the other sub-skills. the assessment methods do not include fluency, pronunciation, and vocabulary skills. even accuracy was not taken into consideration to evaluate the students’ presentation. since most of the assessment was written; teachers were focusing on the grammar accuracy of the students’ tests and assignments. lastly, effective feedback was not given to the students. teachers’ understanding of the value of timely and focused feedback is minimal. the ineffective feedback provision was due to their lack of understanding. as a result, timely and clear feedback was not given. in addition, students were not given a chance to correct their own errors, and peer feedback was not practiced, either. the following recommendations are given based on the findings of the study. a variety of assessment methods should be used to evaluate the students’ speaking performance. in addition, there should be a reasonable balance between assessing the students’ accuracy, fluency, vocabulary, and grammar. finally, teachers should give appropriate, constructive, and timely feedback to each student. the implications of the study are presented as follows. this research explored teachers’ assessment practices while they taught the advanced speech course. thus, the researcher feels that the role of media in assessing the students’ speaking skills needs to be studied. moreover, conducting further research to assess the teaching of spoken english i and ii courses at the tertiary level might also be a useful area for further research. finally, this study was conducted on the advanced speech course. as a result, the results of the study couldn’t be generalized to other spoken courses. furthermore, it should be stated that the present study is only programmatic and data-based. hence, it does not make any claims either of comprehensiveness or of exhaustiveness. the findings, conclusions, and recommendations given above are based on its underlying assumptions and the analysis of corresponding data. funding statement the authors received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article. references ahmad, n. 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(2010). how to achieve authentic context in classroom oral english teaching. journal of language teaching and research, 1(3), 339–342. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 169 elt forum 11 (3) (2022) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt behind a spoken discourse: idiomatic expressions in ielts speaking test zwesty aridasarie1, sri endah tabiati1 1universitas brawijaya, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received on june 16, 2022 approved on november 25, 2022 published on november 30, 2022 ________________ keywords; idioms; ielts speaking; grammatical accuracy ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ the performance of a wider range of vocabulary mastery in ielts speaking test is imperative to escalate the band score achievement. the present study sought to investigate the teaching of idioms in an ielts preparation program with regards to the kinds of idioms taught in the class, how the students used them during the mock post test, and whether the use of idioms interfere with the grammatical accuracy. the study was in urgency to be conducted with regards to the absence of the teaching of idioms for ielts at least in the past five years. the data were collected from the recorded speaking performance of five students at intermediate level of english, in both mock pretest and post test to see if there were some alterations in the predicted test score and a deep interview with one candidate to have strengthen the arguments. the results showed significant differences in the students’ performance of speaking in pretest and after they were taught idioms despite some less accurate grammar in the sentence productions. the findings of the study can have potential pedagocical implications for teachers of ielts preparation classes to incorporate the teaching of idioms in either speaking or vocabulary lessons. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 faculty of cultural studies a building 2jw6+wx8, jl. veteran malang, ketawanggede, kec. lowokwaru, kota malang, jawa timur 65145 e-mail: zwesty.zee@student.ub.ac.id tabiati@ub.ac.id or stabiati@gmail.com http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& mailto:zwesty.zee@student.ub.ac.id mailto:tabiati@ub.ac.id zwesty aridasarie, sri endah tabiati | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 170 introduction idiomatic expressions constitute a salient feature in elevating the overall ielts speaking score. idioms, which belong to the lexical sophistication dimension, are one of the scoring criteria a test candidate has to comply with to meet the standard of band 7 and above (british council, 2014). along with the other lexical resources namely paraphrases, style and collocations, the use of idioms in performing ielts speaking test is imperative as it is the most noticeable expression the test examiners will orient to and reward with a high mark, even if the expressions are not delivered quite perfectly (seedhouse & satar, 2021). the vocabulary sophistication, including idiomatic vocabulary, has a strong connection with a test candidate’s communicative competence which refers to the knowledge of how to interact successfully with an interlocutor in a communicative exchange in an l2 (iwashita & vasquez, 2019). what is meant by interact successfully is that a test candidate should be able to use the knowledge of the language he or she has mastered and to adjust to the context of speaking. presenting in ielts speaking test is not only a matter of producing utterances fluently, but also with regards to the area of sociolinguistics which enables language users to create or comprehend language suitable to a specific context (abdulrahman & abu-ayyash, 2019). there are many topics in ielts test which are relevant to the daily communication and more serious topics, such as on politics, economy, education policy, and so forth that each test candidate should be able to make a pertinent response to. ielts speaking test entails a face to face interview between the candidate and an ielts trained examiner (ghaemi, 2022). the assessment of the test will be based on the four following criteria: fluency and coherence, lexical resource, grammatical range and accuracy, and pronunciation (idp ielts indonesia, n.d.). this present paper only investigated the area of lexical resource in the speaking assessment of ielts since the teaching of it was usually done as an integrated part with the other skill lesson in some ielts preparation programs. in addition to how the candidate should present in the test, there is also a kind of technical requirement in giving a clear presentation of the talk since it will be recorded for administrative and evaluation purposes. the candidate should be able to produce a clear pronunciation too since the test evaluation may have a double-rating system to establish the intra-rater reliability of live and audio-taped interviews (nakatsuhara et al., 2020). for speaking, the examiners rate candidates’ lexical resource on the range of vocabulary used and the precision with which meanings and attitudes can be expressed (smith, 2019). ielts speaking test, as a matter of fact, requires much of presenting immediate response to examiner’s questions with regards to stating relevant supporting answers in terms of examples and arguments to sustain the communicative exchange. in addition, there is a higher demand rather than just performing the fluency in responding to questions in the test that is the ability to speak with wider and advanced range of vocabulary skillfully. in doing so, the targeted high score of ielts speaking will not be out of reach. there have been some studies probing the vocabulary size including the lexical sophistication in making great accomplishment of second language acquisition and speaking intelligence (appel et al., 2019; kaneko, 2020; kim et al., 2018) to give emphasis on how the involvement of sophisticated words, such as idioms, will generate greater effect in excelling the speaking skill. the importance of learning idioms for classroom practices has been studied by qureshi et al. (2018) and the study revealed the efl idioms presented with etymological background make a lasting impact on the overall comprehension of language. orfan (2020) highlighted a better understanding of idioms is a requirement for english proficiency and accuracy despite some challenges in learning idioms in classroom context. in addition, the prominence of idioms comprehension for non-native speakers will lead to achieve more effective communication and higher proficiency level (vo & nguyen, 2020). ahmadi & zarei (2020) also investigated the effects of three verbal mnemonic tools (grouping, stories, and conceptual metaphor) on efl learners’ recognition and recall of english idioms. those studies aforementioned are to verify the urgency of learning idiomatic expressions to uphold the higher level of speaking competence achievement. they seem to emphasize the close connection between the use of idioms and the successful speaking, while the absence of the urgency of including idioms in the test preparation program is still apparent. in addition, in the past five years the term augmented reality in helping students understand idioms have gain better popularity. the augmented reality, mostly shortened by ar, has to deal zwesty aridasarie, sri endah tabiati | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 171 much with technology-based learning activities and gamifications. there have been some previous analyses on the inclusion of ar in learning idioms and how the participants or learners might have more enjoyment in acquiring the new vocabulary item from their devices (wu et al., 2021; santos et al., 2016; yang et al., 2018; chew et al., 2018; edyanto et al., 2021). one of the foremost investigations on this area of lexical sophistication of indonesian learners was carried out by failasofah (2018) in which she explored the learners’ word production by utilizing computational data. the result of the study unveiled an outstanding notion on how the low-level english participants could produce more lexically rich texts compared to higher level participants. the software used in the study was used to determine the vocabulary mastery students needed to function properly in foreign language. however, the study did not elaborate the specific test on idioms in isolation and did not have anything to do with ielts speaking test. it would have been great if there were some studies conducted using the same software to measure the lexical diversity of the indonesian candidates of ielts. many english schools providing the service of ielts programs design the lessons based on the available resources of textbooks and a collection of past test questions. the textbooks covering the speaking lessons give information on the strategies to best perform in the test and highlight some dos and don’ts during the official test. the assessment rubric is clearly shown to the participant, as a part of the syllabus design, but each item in the lexical resource element has never been studied separately for the sake of comprehensive mastery and practices. the teaching of idioms was mostly inserted in vocabulary section along with the other features of formulaic language, such as paraphrases, collocations, and style. thus, the learners may only have to recognize the idioms on the surface and not to comprehend them deeply and not to have the chance to elaborate the use of many useful idioms for the test. compared to the bulk of research on how salient the knowledge of idioms is in speaking skill and on the absence of the teaching of idioms as a separate lesson in the classroom, the present study proposes a novel inquiry to address the issues on uplifting lexical items of the indonesian candidates by using one type of formulaic language, that is idioms for ielts speaking test. there has been almost zero attempt in the last five years to investigate how the approach of teaching idioms can help the ielts speaking-test candidates to better equip themselves with proficient vocabulary mastery. now how would the ielts preparation program be successful in giving a robust assistance to score high in the test when the teaching of one crucial item of lexis, that is idioms, is not paid much attention of. shedding some light on the significance of idiomatic expressions for ielts speaking test, this current study aims to fill the void of addressing the detailed lexis assessment in ielts speaking test by further examining the candidates’ savvy of english idioms. thus, the research questions of the present study are formulated as follows: 1. how is the nature of the candidates’ speaking performance in ielts mock speaking test? 2. how does the learning of idioms during the course program upsurge the candidates’ oral fluency in performing the speaking post test? 3. to what extent does the utilization of idioms in speaking interfere with grammatical accuracy? methods the present study uses qualitative method to describe the problems faced by the indonesian candidates of ielts speaking test in presenting a large scale of lexical resources, more specifically the use of idioms. the theory of lexical sophistication by john read and paul nation (2002) which highlighted the point that the lexical superiority of the ielts candidates was shown not only by their use of individual words but also their mastery of colloquial or idiomatic expressions which were often composed of relatively high-frequency words was used as the outmost theory referred to in the whole discussion. the qualitative method was used in the study since it best describes detailed and complete understanding of an issue (creswell, 2014), not to mention the natural use of idioms when giving response to queries during the ielts test. this strength of qualitative method is used to improve the understanding of the kind of problems faced by the indonesian test-takers in using idioms, along with the alternative solution of the learning of idioms, in performing the speaking test. in order to investigate the first research question, the researcher conducted a closed observation on the mock pre-test of ielts speaking taking place in the first day of the candidates’ joining the course. the researcher took notes on important features of the candidates’ nature of presenting the talk on the test based on their individual prior knowledge and skill of english speaking. the notes zwesty aridasarie, sri endah tabiati | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 172 were then used as a reference to compare the candidates’ speaking fluency before and after joining the course. the researcher then collected 5 students’ recorded speaking performance in ielts simulated pre-test conducted in one of the most well-known english courses in malang in 2022. the reason behind the option of this informal school is because it has frequent entries of ielts classes and it offers quite a range of english competence levels, namely ielts for pre-intermediate students, ielts for intermediate students, and ielts for upper intermediate students. the data from the pre-intermediate students’ speaking mock pre-test were the major data used in the study on the basis of assumption that they do not possess ample mastery of using wide range of vocabulary to talk on varieties of topic and of using formulaic phrases in prior communication. additionally, to give deeper understanding about the issue, an interview with one of the candidates was also carried out to see from the student’s perspectives if the use of idioms could actually help him perform more confidently in the speaking mock test. these stages were performed to address the second research question. in addition to collecting the information for the second research question, the next type of data were the simulated post-tests of ielts speaking at the end of the preparation program to give some comparative information between the performance before they got the treatment of learning idioms and after they got the materials on idioms to see if they would ultimately make some progress in speaking skill or gain higher score. the data were then analyzed in terms of lexical resources in accordance with the components of idiomatic expressions. the data were analyzed following the model of interactive data analysis consisting of data reduction, display, and verification (miles & huberman, 2014). in data reduction stage, the recordings were selected based on the performance of the medium-level users of english, or at the cefr pre-intermediate level, presenting a full part of the speaking mock test (part 1, part 2, and part 3). the same idioms performed by different candidates were not selected to avoid some repetition. the next stage, the data were displayed to be elaborated further in the discussion section. the pre-selected audio recordings were carefully observed based on the nature of the lexical resources they produce during the speaking test, whether they were able to use any idiomatic expressions. in addition, the display of the use of idioms during the post test was also elaborated to see if there was some interference with the grammatical accuracy from the sentences the candidates produced using idioms. the displayed data were then verified to withdraw a conclusion by checking the final score the students got from the ielts mock post test taken place at the very end of the course program. the score on the lexical resources given by the examiner, or the class teacher, was used as a reference to verify if the students have made clear attempts of using the idioms skillfully so as to gain higher score compared to the one they had in the pretest. findings and discussion the nature of the candidates’ speaking performance in ielts mock speaking test the absence of idioms in pretest the first research question is intended to describe the nature of the candidates’ speaking performance before joining the program and the answer for the question was the absence of idioms during the test. only one out of five candidates used idioms in the simulated speaking pre test while the other candidates used none of any idioms. the response the candidates performed during the pretest was mostly general with regards to the the use of daily words and expressions without any attempt of using any word complexity. table 1. idioms used in ielts speaking pretest candidate no idoms meaning 1 none 2 none 3 rain cats and dogs rain heavily 4 none 5 none in the speaking pretest, the candidates were given a chance to fully perform their english mastery in answering many questions on a wide variety of topic, including the topic of ‘weather’ in speaking part one. the above data is the information of whether the candidates were familiar with zwesty aridasarie, sri endah tabiati | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 173 the use of idioms about weather. the question of the test was ‘how is the weather in your country recently?’ and most of the candidates seemed to not have any idea of considering the use of idioms about weather at all, and went on with giving some general response by saying more or less ‘it’s raining a lot for some days’ to suit with the empirical situation taking place at the moment of speaking. only one candidate was able to show his ability to use idiom appropriately by saying ‘it’s raining cats and dogs sometimes’ along with his natural expressions when saying this so the utterances he produced sounded native-speaker alike. the response consisting idiom of weather by candidate 3 is actually a good sign of vocabulary richness or sophistication a test taker could initially present. the expression ‘rain cats and dogs’ is quite commonly used to describe the heavy rain taking place closely around us, and candidate 3 might have said it often in his daily communication. it seems to be the most frequently used idiom when referring to the rainy season. candidate 3 had the ability to use the idiom naturally and fluently into the utterances because he might have heard the expression much and then had some chances to use it in many appropriate situations before, so when asked about weather in his speaking pretest, he did not hesitate to express it as his response to the question. this indicates that the exposure to idioms on daily communication is meaningful for the ielts test candidates to upsurge their vocabulary mastery and to score higher especially in the assessment of lexical resources of the test. in accordance with the assessment of lexical resources of ielts speaking test, the examiners of ielts tend to notice idioms and reward their use with a high mark even when they are not used accurately in context (seedhouse & satar, 2021). the examiners will easily capture the expressions as to distinguish the level of the candidates’ vocabulary mastery and they can refer to the specific band score, that is at least 7, which states where the feature of the idiomatic expression begins to be noticed. as a consequence, candidate 3 was at least within the range of band 7 in speaking due to his ability in generating an idiom and as his speaking performance went along, the examiner of the mock test could start to adjust whether the score would continue to rise or dip. compared to what happened to candidate 3 of the test, as the result indicated about the nature of the candidates’ speaking performance during the simulated ielts speaking pre-test, there was the absence of idioms as a part of lexical sophistication required in aiming for a higher range of score in ielts for the other four candidates. the four candidates were mostly unfamiliar with the use of less frequent expressions which can help them uplift the score of the speaking test in terms of vocabulary assessment. most of the candidates’ responses relied much on daily words to answer a wide range of topics in the test and this indeed avoided them to score high for their first test of speaking in ielts preparation course. when asked about weather, none of the four candidates used idioms in their response since they might not have had a lot of exposures to the use of idioms in their daily practices. it is quite likely that they once heard the idiom of raining cats and dogs, or maybe under the weather, but because they did not have many opportunities to practice saying them when the context was appropriate, then the expressions did not come easily from them during the pretest. to give more comprehensive and satisfying elaboration on the nature of the speaking before the candidates joined some lessons on idioms, one candidate was interviewed. candidate 2 was given a series of questions on how he did the speaking pre-test and his overall response was that he did not have any idea that sophisticated words would play important role in achieving high score in ielts speaking test. the only thing he knew was that he should be able to keep talking and present a lot of ideas into his talk without any hesitation. the knowledge of the importance of less frequently used expressions was out of his consideration at all. in addition to candidate 2’s prior knowledge on the use of idioms, he mentioned that he was once exposed to the use of idioms, such as it’s a piece of cake, break a leg, no pain no gain, etc, including the one about weather raining cats and dogs. however, he had never used the idioms much in his daily conversations, except break a leg since he used it quite often to transfer a positive outlook to motivate his classmates for the test or even himself whenever he bumped into some difficulties during college projects. during the pretest when asked about weather, the candidate did not have a single shot on any idioms to be presented. he further described that he had a mixed feelings during the pretest which were excited, nervous, and confused at the same time, and the feelings affected his initial performance in the test a lot. he could not think clearly of what he said and whether what he said was all relevant to the questions and he indeed had no idea if he could remember any idioms he could show off to the examiner during the test. another fact was revealed here, that the exposures of zwesty aridasarie, sri endah tabiati | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 174 the idioms in everyday communication is a crucial factor determining the ability of an ielts test taker to use the idiomatic expressions fluently and naturally as expected from band 7 and higher. the response by candidate 2 about the absence of the knowledge of using idioms strengthens the urgency of the teaching of idioms in a separate lesson in the classroom. as stated by one of the ielts teachers of the school, ms. octa, many schools were not able to provide the teaching of idioms in isolation because the school academic administrators believed that the lexical resources element in speaking has already covered all the candidate’s needs of scoring high in ielts test, while in the real classroom practice, idioms were never mentioned of. an upsurge in the candidates’ use of idioms the ielts preparation program lasted for about three months making some attempts to assist the ielts test candidates to grasp all important strategies to master for the sake of gaining the targeted score they had had in mind even before joining the class. the program covered all skills required for the test and the syllabus design was fixed by the academic coordinator to suit the course time allotment and skills coverage. however, there had not been any lessons on idioms taught separately for many years until some class instructors saw there was the urgency of teaching idioms to the students in the class to help them score high in vocabulary assessment. the lessons of idioms were then carried out separately from any other vocabulary focus and were included in the speaking practice dedicated to use idioms to give a talk on some relevant topics. the lessons on idioms were conducted three times in the preparation class where the students were given a list of useful idioms for ielts speaking test under some topics. the students were then asked to categorize them into different big themes, such as weather, feelings, life lesson, etc., and then the class had to agree on which topics to be discussed in the first, second, and third meeting on the specific timetable of the course. the students had the exposures to some choices of idioms they could use during the speaking test, so they could initially familiarize themselves to the type, the meaning, and the suitable contexts of the idioms they had at hand. each meeting of idioms lesson gave the participants a huge opportunity to practice using the idioms they have learned into a variety of classroom activities, such as in a role play, a speech, and a simulated interview of ielts. the purpose of having a variety of activities on idioms was to give the participants much exposure on how the idioms sound and finally they would be able to use them in the appropriate context or situation. the class instructor supervised the speaking practices in the classroom quite closely when the students were engaged in a pairwork to see if they were able to use the idioms naturally and whether the idioms fitted into the context. at every end of the lesson, the teacher would give the feedback focusing on the accuracy and appropriacy of using idioms during the practice, and in the following meeting they were asked to complete some mini quiz to check their better understanding of idioms. to add to the results of the second research question, the following table shows the kinds of idioms the candidates used mostly in post test after the lesson on idioms was delivered in the classroom based on the topics of questions asked by the examiner. table 2. idioms used in ielts speaking post test topic idoms meaning feelings over the moon extremely happy to be on cloud nine very happy or joyful get on my nerves (someone/something) makes you annoyed weather rain cats and dogs rain hard/heavily under the weather feeling unwell others every cloud has a silver lining believing that every bad situation eventually leads to something good better late than never it is better to do something late than not to try it at all keep an eye watch carefully once in a blue moon happening very rarely the information in table 2 presents how the candidates’ idioms were used in the appropriate context in relevance to the questions asked by the examiner during the test. the meaning of the idioms was given to check if the candidates’ idioms were in line with their overall response in zwesty aridasarie, sri endah tabiati | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 175 sentence production. most of the idioms stated by the candidates were on how to express their feelings, especially happiness about certain experiences they had in the past. additionally, there were two idioms about weather and more idioms on different context which cannot be categorized into a specific topic. the idioms displayed in table 2 were mostly used by the candidates during their speaking post test as a result of them joining the lessons of idioms which were delivered three times out of the whole meetings in the course. the candidates were given a list of idioms for them to use at any appropriate context in ielts speaking during the classroom practices and they were encouraged by the class tutors to use the idioms whenever there was a right timing. since the candidates had been familiar with many idioms presented in the classrooom, they were finally able to use them in the simulated post test successfully with regards to the relevance to the topic and questions raised by the examiner of the test. in terms of the type of idioms used by the candidates during the simulated speaking post test, the expressions to describe feelings were the most popular among the other idioms. the data presented the expressions of happiness such as to be on cloud nine and over the moon were in the replacement of the word ‘very happy’. some candidates used these idioms to describe their feelings on the questions about their past experiences on going abroad for the first time. the idioms were relevant in use because most people may share the same feelings of joy when they had the chance to visit another country. the candidates used the idioms to state that they were more than happy to see a foreign country and to stay there for a while for some purposes. the followings are the transcriptions of some examples of the expressions mentioned by the candidates: candidate 1: that was my first time going abroad so i was over the moon when i felt a different vibe from my country. the idiom i was over the moon above was to answer the question of the candidate’s first experience of going abroad in ielts speaking part 1. the response was relevant in terms of meaning and it was also supported with a clear reason of why the candidate was more than joyful to have such experience in another country. the candidate went on with giving more details on the statement of why he was happy by saying that the atmosphere he had abroad was different from the one he had in his original country, especially about the cleanliness of the surrounding and the less polluted air. this idiom was on point with regards to the accurate meaning and form at the same time. another example of the idiom used to express happiness was stated by candidate 4: i went to visit singapore the first time when i was in third … er … or maybe fourth semester. i was on cloud nine, for sure, because … um … i travelled far from malang and it is out of country. i see many beautiful places and there are also a chance for me to speak english with people there. it was exciting. the candidate used another idiom to show his feeling of joy i was on cloud nine when describing his first experience of going to another country in the past. he used the idiom accurately in a way that he used the expression in appropriate context and also in accurate grammatical structure. the idiom was also supported by reasons or examples behind his joy accordingly. instead of saying that he was basically happy with the experience, the candidate showed his knowledge of one idiom to share the same meaning as happy to make attempt for gaining higher score of vocabulary mastery. having known that some candidates used the idioms to describe feelings, especially happiness, there was actually an interference of the first lesson on idioms taught in the classroom. the students were given a list of the most common idioms to express feelings on a wide variety of topics they might encounter in ielts speaking test. this first lesson introduced the students to useful idioms to replace the word happy, interesting, exciting, and some other similar words and to the importance of idioms to score higher in the test. since these idioms were deemed flexible and ready to use to give response to many topics requiring the overall impression of any experiences, the students easily stored them in mind and finally picked them up during the test. to give a close look at how well the candidate performed the idiomatic expressions during the post test, candidate 2 shared his thoughts about this. his first impression towards his ability to use some idioms about weather and feelings was amazing. he was a bit surprised at first that he could remember to use appropriate idiomatic expressions when answering questions about the weather zwesty aridasarie, sri endah tabiati | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 176 and his past experience of first going abroad. he could use the idioms about feelings easily because he had expressed them during the classroom practices and he added more self-practice at home to make sure that he could express them naturally. he also shared the feedback given by his instructor upon the completion of the course that he developed his vocabulary mastery significantly and his predicted speaking band score levelled up. he felt that the teaching of idioms gave him more confidence to use some ‘cool’ vocabulary to sound a little like a native speaker of english. in accordance to what candidate 2 had shared about his speaking experience in post test using some idiomatic expressions, it is clear to see that the teaching of idioms separately from the other language focus in an ielts preparation class was way more than just important. by having much exposure on useful idioms for some topics discussed in ielts test, the candidates could gain their fluency of producing more sophisticated words into their talk. with more fluency of idioms which are relevant to the topic of discussion in ielts test, the candidates were also helped to gain the confidence in speaking because they have been able to widen their vocabulary range to attempt a higher score in the test. even though using idioms is not the only way to help students upsurge their confidence in performing their speaking skill in the test, since there are more items of evaluation to address, the element of idiomatic vocabulary is clearly stated in the area of lexical resources in the speaking rubric which the candidates could easily access from many sources. band score 7 and above requires the candidates to be able to use the idiomatic vocabulary skillfully, so the idea of teaching idioms in the ielts preparation class is urgent. the use of idioms in speaking interfering with grammatical accuracy while the candidates were able to use the idioms in their post test after joining some lessons and self practices, the use of idioms in their complete response was not always error-free. there were some inaccuracies in the candidates’ sentences even though, in terms of fluency, the content of idioms was already in coherent with the questions raised in the text. despite the fluency of using idioms in the speaking test, the candidates’ attempts to use them along with the other words in the responses were not always error-free. in other words, the fluency of using idioms was not hand in hand with the grammatical accuracy. since the candidates paid much attention to score high in terms of lexical resources, the accuracy was somehow neglected, as shown from one the candidates’ statement as follows: almost every house has a car and they drive wherever they like so it cause a traffic, very terrible, and it really disturbs me, like … it’s get my nerves, like that. in terms of sentence accuracy, the statement above consists of some errors that i scrutinized as follows: almost every house has a car and they drive wherever they like …. the sentence violated the pronoun reference where the subject ‘they’ in they drive did not refer to the correct subject, that is ‘house’ written in singular noun thing. also, the verb ‘drive’ attached to pronoun ‘they’ also did not support the accuracy of the statement since it was meaningless that the ‘house’ could drive. the clause should have been written more appropriately by almost every house has a car and its owner drives wherever he likes … . other errors detected in the response above were: … so it cause a traffic which should be replaced by so it causes a terrible traffic … it’s get my nerves which should be replaced by it gets on my nerves the samples above strengthened the argument that it was pretty challenging for the candidates to balance between the fluency of using idioms and the accuracy of the sentences. there should be more efforts committed by the candidates to perform well in both sections of lexical sophistication and grammatical awareness since they are all assessed carefully in the official ielts test. in giving response to whether the use of idioms could particularly interfere with grammatical accuracy, candidate 2 made a strong impression. he described his struggle with managing both fluency and accuracy in speaking skill even before he was introduced to idioms. he added that the suggested ideas of using idioms into his speaking performance in ielts test added up more loads zwesty aridasarie, sri endah tabiati | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 177 on his shoulders in a way that he might have surrendered his grammar awareness and would pay more attention to the use of sophisticated vocabulary. one clear example is taken from the above grammatical mistakes in saying gets on my nerves by one of the candidates. there was a tendency for the candidates to memorize the main root word, such as get my nerves or get nerves, while the accuracy of the subject-verb agreement of the sentence was carelessly neglected. they wanted to show off their new skill of using the idioms into practice so they somehow memorized the expressions, but unfortunately they ignored the grammatical awareness. they did not adjust the idioms consisting verbs, for instance, because they thought they have produced the new sophisticated words. the candidates preparing for the ielts test might find the idiom lesson a new experience or it sounds intelligent when they are able to generate many of the idioms during the speaking test, so they will be very likely to feel overwhelmed in using them without a careful control of the sentence pattern. the example was quite an interesting response from the candidate as a matter of fact, since the candidates of ielts test should ideally have more or less equal english competence in both the fluency and the accuracy of the utterances they produce. however, it turned out to be not an easy task for each ielts test taker had to deal with in a preparation course for scoring high in both mastery, but still it is quite likely that by having more practices on the use of sophisticated words in speaking but with a strong supervision on grammatical accuracy. so, at the and the candidates preparing for the test would be equipped with a satisfying skill in performing both fluency and accuracy at the same time in the official ielts test conclusion idiomatic expressions were deemed novel by some students preparing for an ielts test. the nature of their speaking skill during the ielts mock pretest was more on the fluency of the talk without significant hesitation with less knowledge on the importance of using idioms. the maneuver of idioms by the candidates in ielts speaking test was two folds. as an attempt to perform a wider range of lexical sophistication required in attaining higher score, there was a strong drive from the candidates to master some expressions they learned earlier in the preparation program to put into practice in the test. the idioms they learned during the meeting in the class could help them perform better fluency and higher score in terms of lexical resource element of evaluation, as adjusted to the avaialbale scoring rubric. on the flip side, the use of idioms was not always in alignment with the accuracy of sentence production which could interfere with the evaluation of grammatical awareness. the candidates’ issue of not being able to modify the idiomatic expressions to suit the correct subject-verb agreement in the sentences were always present. in short, to score perfectly in ielts test, the candidates are highly expected to perform both language fluency and accuracy equally well. the present study was conducted with the scope limitation of an ielts preparation program for students of pre-intermediate level of english. should there be other researchers interested in developing the discussion of this subject matter, the analysis on a wider scope of students’ english competence is deemed necessary. observing the ielts preparation class with lower english competence, such as the elementary level, should bring meaningful contribution to the learning output of delivering the lesson of idioms in the classroom. in addition, the further study can also compare the learning output of idioms for all levels of english users preparing for ielts speaking test. funding statement the research is a non-funded study that it does not receive any fundings from any agencies or institutions references abdulrahman, n., & abu-ayyash, e. a. s. 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(2018). a study of augmented reality in learning, memory and learning motivation : a case study of practical writing in middle school life. 7th international congress on advanced applied informatics (iiai-aai), 3, 958–959. https://doi.org/10.1109/iiai-aai.2018.00200 putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 115 elt forum 11(2) (2022) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt efl students' perspectives on the use of wordwall.net as vocabulary learning media miftahul jannah1, syafryadin1 1english education postgraduate program, bengkulu university, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received on 4 june 2022 approved on 24 june 2022 published on 31 july 2022 ________________ keywords: students’ perspective, wordwall.net, vocabulary, media ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ using ict tools to teach vocabulary is a commonly researched topic in language teaching. many popular web tools, such as kahoot and quizizz, are used as experimental tools with learners to investigate how effectively they enhance learners' vocabulary. this study analyzed the students' perceptions of wordwall.net, a less known and researched game-based web tool, in their vocabulary learning. this study was conducted since there is still limited research conducted in indonesia that analyses the students' perception of using wordwall.net in english vocabulary learning. this research design was survey research with a sample of 29 8th-grade students at one of the junior high schools in bengkulu tengah. the data were collected using a close-ended questionnaire. it was analyzed quantitatively by implementing the likert scale. the result of this research found that most students' perception of the use of wodwall.net in their vocabulary learning was positive. their feeling about wordwall.net was great. they enjoyed the teamwork and competition; they perceived wordwall.net as an exciting, interesting, motivating & fun web tool to learn vocabulary. from the students' perceived effects of using wordwall.net, wordwall.net was a kind of awaited learning media for the students. in addition, wordwall.net also influenced the students' engagement with the web tool and the classroom. it indicated that the students paid more attention to the learning process. the researchers strongly recommended that teachers start using wordwall.net to learn vocabulary based on the results. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 english education postgraduate program, bengkulu university jl. wr. supratman, kandang limun, kec. muara bangka hulu, bengkulu 38371 e-mail: miftahulfaa@gmail.com http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& miftahul jannah, syafryadin | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 116 introduction at the middle and grade levels at school, curricular standards include vocabulary development as part of a comprehensive literacy program. according to (balla, 2018), teaching english in schools is essential academically and practically in several aspects of learning, such as using english for various purposes, not limited to business goals, communication, or literature reading. one of the expectations in english learning is understanding the meaning of the words, sentences, and text. good vocabulary development can reach it. susan. & dwyer (2009) defined vocabulary as words we must know to communicate effectively; words in speaking (expressive vocabulary) and words in listening (receptive vocabulary). while alqahtani (2015) defined vocabulary as the total number of words needed to communicate ideas and express the speakers' meaning. furthermore, nurdini et al. (2017) stated that vocabulary is the base component that students need to master four language skills. it means that vocabulary is a basic language component that has to be mastered by the students other than four language skills. from the definitions above, it can be concluded that vocabulary is words needed for communication both orally and verbally. indonesian students in the 21st-century are expected to be proficient in english, both in verbal and written forms. to achieve students' english proficiency, english must be taught as a compulsory subject at school in indonesia, especially in junior high school. however, such a fact does not guarantee that the students have mastered english well. indonesian students prefer their first language in daily activities because of their lack of vocabulary knowledge. even though students know the importance of vocabulary, they still learn vocabulary passively due to several factors. for instance, most english teachers still use the traditional teaching method and media. most english teachers still use memorizing strategy in learning vocabulary by using a dictionary as a fundamental step in learning english. in opposition to this, putra & priyatmojo (2021) claimed gamification was effective and fun to bring to the classroom learning. it engages students more, reduces boredom, and increases learning motivation. moreover, students' vocabulary mastery influences the students' understanding to achieve learning objectives in their various subjects. learning objective is a description of what the learner must be able to do upon completion of educational activity (chatterjee & corral, 2017). in this context, the students must perform complex tasks using new vocabulary, especially in a writing activity. the lack of mastery in english writing skills is affected by their vocabulary deficiency mastery and limited ability to use vocabulary effectively for communication purposes (ashrafzadeh & nimehchisalem, 2015). it was supported by pratiwi (2016), who stated that the students’ difficulties in writing english could be influenced by a lack of many vocabularies, grammar, lack of written exercises, and ideas. this condition is the imagery of a low-quality process of learning which can indicate a low quality of education. the low quality of education is due to the inappropriate method and media used, the inadequate evaluation tools, and the material provided not per students' level of thinking. the use of appropriate learning media will positively impact the learning process and increase student learning achievement. the use of educational games as learning tools or media is found to support the development of students’ cognitive, motivational, emotional, and social outlooks (papastergiou, 2009). demands for teachers can master various teaching media and determine which media are suitable for use in learning. teachers have to find another strategy for teaching vocabulary that provides a fun and enjoyable situation for that problem. it is agreed that if students learn in a fun and enjoyable situation, it will be easier to understand and absorb the material, especially for junior high school learners. sari et al. (2018) said that english teachers try to be able to integrate media technology in the elt class to increase student motivation, integrate language skills, and create an independent learning environment for students. it was related to ahmad (2012), who claimed that efl students’ response to media technology could improve accentual patterns of individual english words. based on those explanations, english teachers need to consider a tool or platform that supports vocabulary acquisition. one platform associated with vocabulary in the digital era is wordwall.net. it is a web tool that can be used as an online game in learning. daud et al. (2015) said that mobile learning is known to optimize the potential of mobile devices as learning tools in language learning environments. it is supported by wan azli et al. (2018), who said that online game facilitates the learning experience, and the use of online games in class is very beneficial for students. at present, ict (information and communication technology) in the education field has become famous (cahyono & mutiaraningrum, 2015). the internet and the development of ict affect the students’ learning, miftahul jannah, syafryadin | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 117 interaction with their classmates and teachers, and how they deal with their life’s aspects. related to wordwall.net, which is categorized as an online game, çil (2021) stated that wordwall.net is an edutainment website in which there are multiple game choices. it is all played interactively or individually, such as information matching, picture matching, quiz, wheel of fortune, puzzles, etc., designed for vocabulary practice. wordwall.net provides features for creating interactive learning media that can be printed or used online. this web tool is a good quality platform because of its attractive user interface, various and complete features, and affordable pricing. in terms of the user interface, this website looks very simple. the menu display and its features are easy to find. game templates and instruction manuals are also available on the start page or home. besides, wordwall.net provides exclusive features, such as 1) create activity; 2) community; 3) my activities, and 4) my results. studies concerning web tools as many researchers have conducted the vocabulary learning media. çil (2021) investigated the effect of using wordwall.net in increasing vocabulary knowledge of 5th grade efl students. it was experimental research conducted in a state school in turkey. the results revealed significant differences between each group's test results yet an insignificant difference between groups' post-test results. while hasram et al. (2021) investigated pupils' motivation levels towards using wordwall online game (wow) interactive online games in vocabulary learning and examined the effects of wow interactive online games on pupils' vocabulary development. it was an experimental study that focused on pupils' perceptions. the sample consists of 121 year 5 pupils from a national primary school in negeri sembilan who are using the current syllabus for primary school, language curriculum for malaysian national primary schools (kssr). this study showed a moderate level of satisfaction, attention, relevance, confidence, and volition. in addition, a paired sample t-test indicates a significant improvement in the pupils' vocabulary scores after using wordwall (wow) as a vocabulary learning supplementary material. another research was done by fakhruddin et al. (2021) to find out the effectiveness of the wordwall.net application in increasing the mastery of arabic vocabulary. the results revealed there was a significant difference in terms of the pre-test score, which is smaller than the post-test score (45.63 < 77.50), (3) there was a difference in the average pre-test and post-test outcomes with a sig value of 0.000 (<0.05). last, bueno et al. (2022) also conducted a study related to the use of wordwall.net. it investigated two things: 1) how student participants evaluate google sites and wordwall.net as instructional materials for learning basic integration in terms of effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction; and 2) what modifications are needed for google sites and wordwall.net to become more effective, efficient, and sound instructional materials for online distance learning. the results of the usability scale showed that the learning contents, such as the discussions and lecture videos, are helpful to successfully achieving the objectives of the lesson. it also revealed that the online teaching tool is user-friendly since the respondents had no difficulty navigating the site even without the help of a technical expert. even though many research studies have explored the use of web tools related to vocabulary and students' perception of web tools mentioned above, there is a lack of research on students' perception of wordwall.net as the media in learning vocabulary. hence, the present study aims to know the students' perceptions of wordwall.net in their vocabulary learning. methods this study focused on students’ perspectives on the use of wordwall.net. a quantitative approach is applied to achieve the objective of the study. this research was survey research. dr. vladimir (1967) defined a survey as any data collection operation that gathers information from human respondents through a standardized questionnaire in which the interest is in aggregates rather than particular individuals. moreover, navarro-rivera & kosmin (2013) said that surveys are beneficial for nonexperimental descriptive designs that seek to describe reality. in short, a survey is a data collection technique that gathers information. the role of the researcher in this research is as a data collector and data analyst. the researcher collected students’ perceptions through a questionnaire as data collector. as the data analyst, the researcher analyzed the data on behalf of the research to conclude students’ perceptions of using wordwall.net. in selecting the subject, the researcher used simple random sampling. due to the limited number of students, all of the 8th-grade students in the research site were chosen as the research population. miftahul jannah, syafryadin | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 118 the research site only had 71 students, 24 in the 7th, 29 in the 8th, and 18 in the 9th grade. in addition, the researcher chose the 8th-grade students as the sample because wordwall.net was used in that class. the research was done in the 2020/2021 academic year. during this time, the researcher conducted data collection by distributing questionnaire as the instrument to collect the data. roopa & rani (2012) defined a questionnaire as a series of questions asked to individuals to obtain statistically valid information about a given topic. the questionnaire was created to collect the students’ answer regarding their perception of wordwall.net. it was adapted from basuki & hidayati (2019), which consisted of 15 items which then are categorized by the researcher into three indicators: students’ perceived feeling, students’ perceived effects, and students’ perceived engagement. choices used are 'strongly disagree,' 'disagree,' ‘neutral’ 'agree,' and 'strongly agree.' the questionnaire was distributed to all participants on an online platform, and it was analyzed using the likert scale. in order to increase the consistency of the responses and make the tabulation easier and faster, the researcher used a close-ended questionnaire. there were fifteen close-ended items provided, covering all the information needed to answer the research problem. before analyzing the data, the researcher scored the data gained from the questionnaire result. the likert in the questionnaire scale consists of five statements; those are strongly agree (sa), agree (a), neutral (n disagree (d), and strongly disagree (sd). each statement has different points; 5 for sa, 4 for a, 3 for n, 2 for d, and 1 for sd. after that, the researcher calculated the score range for each questionnaire as follows: maximum score: 15 x 29 x 5 = 2.175, and minimum score: 15 x 29 x 1 = 435, and score range (r): 2175 – 435 = 1.744. then, the researcher determined the criteria of score interpretation of each questionnaire set. last, the researcher described the data in narrative form. the item and total score interpretation can be seen in the following table: table 1. total score interpretation score degree of agreement interpretation 1.741 – 2.175 strongly agree positive 1.306 – 1.740 agree positive 871 – 1.305 neutral neutral 436 – 870 disagree negative 435 strongly disagree negative figure 1. continuum diagram findings and discussion the findings and discussion should be written in no less than 60% of the manuscript (>3500 words). findings may be displayed in tables, graphs, verbal descriptions or the combination of the three. do not present too many figures in the manuscript. the findings should be followed by discussion either directly or separatedly. the discussion not only describe the findings, but also interpret them in accordance with the theories used and its relevance to previous studies. findings table 2 and figure 3 summarize the result of the students’ perceptions of wordwall.net on their vocabulary learning. from the questionnaire, it was revealed that students' perceptions toward wordwall.net in their vocabulary learning mainly agreed. it was obtained by interpreting the item score. the students' perception on fourteen of fifteen was agreed. in order to discuss further each item on the questionnaire, the researcher tried to categorize the items into two parts based on three indicators. the first indicator (items 1 – 5) discusses students' perceived feelings on the use of wordwall.net (see table 3), which is related to the theory of perception by montague (1997), which states that miftahul jannah, syafryadin | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 119 perception what the students’ feel about a particular thing. at the same time, the second indicator (items 6 – 10) discusses the students’ perceived effects after learning vocabulary by using wordwall.net (see table 4). moreover, the last indicator (items 11 – 15) discusses the students’ perceived engagement (see table 5). table 2. students’ perceptions of wordwall.net on their vocabulary learning. item 1 (sd) 2 (d) 3 (n) 4 (a) 5 (sa) item score i students’ perceived feeling 1. i find wordwall.net exciting, interesting, motivating & fun. 3 8 13 4 106 p 2. i feel positive when playing wordwall.net. 1 4 5 10 9 109 p 3. i like the collaboration & competitiveness in wordwall.net sessions. 2 7 14 6 111 p 4. i am motivated to win all these wordwall.net sessions. 2 9 14 4 107 p 5. wordwall.net creates an energetic classroom atmosphere. 17 7 4 1 76 n students’ perceived effects 6. i look forward to playing wordwall.net. 4 6 12 7 109 p 7. i am eager to learn via wordwall.net. 3 6 16 4 108 p 8. i prepare better to win in the wordwall.net sessions. 3 11 13 2 101 p 9. i don't want to miss any wordwall.net sessions 1 4 8 14 2 99 p 10. wordwall.net must be used in the daily learning process. 1 3 4 15 6 109 p students’ perceived engagement 11. i focus on the questions in each wordwall.net session. 5 2 13 9 113 p 12. i respond to each question in each wordwall.net session. 1 3 6 14 5 106 p 13. i respond as quickly as possible to each question in each wordwall.net session. 4 6 13 7 111 p 14. i respond as accurately as possible to each question in each wordwall.net session. 1 2 11 9 6 104 p 15. i pay more attention during lectures because i hope to win in the wordwall.net sessions. 2 8 14 5 109 p total score 5 60 104 189 77 total score 𝒙 option value (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) 5 120 312 756 385 total score wordwall.net 1.578 note: i = item score interpretation figure 2. continuum diagram of wordwall.net total score in the first statement shown in table 3, we found that none (0%) of the students chose strongly disagree, 3 students (10,34%) disagree, 8 students (27,5%) are neutral, 13 students (44,82%) agree, and 4 students (13,80%) strongly agree. according to the finding, the item score of this statement, 106, meant most students agreed that wordwall.net was exciting, interesting, motivating & fun. miftahul jannah, syafryadin | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 120 table 3. students’ perceived feeling item 1 (sd) 2 (d) 3 (n) 4 (a) 5 (sa) item score i 1. i find wordwall.net exciting, interesting, motivating & fun. 3 8 13 4 106 p 2. i feel positive when playing wordwall.net. 1 4 5 10 9 109 p 3. i like the collaboration & competitiveness in wordwall.net sessions. 2 7 14 6 111 p 4. i am motivated to win all these wordwall.net sessions. 2 9 14 4 107 p 5. wordwall.net creates an energetic classroom atmosphere. 17 7 4 1 76 n the next result of the statement "i feel positive when playing wordwall.net" showed that one student (3,45%) chose strongly disagree, four students (13,80%) chose to disagree, five students (17,24%) students chose neutral, ten students (34,48%) students chose to agree, and nine students (31,03%) chose strongly agree. it indicated that there was a positive perception of wordwall.net. after that, the next statement, "i like the collaboration & competitiveness in wordwall.net sessions," got no students (0 %) to disagree strongly. followed by two students (6,89%) chose to disagree, seven students (24,14%) chose neutral, fourteen students (48,28 %) chose to agree, and six students (20,70 %) chose strongly agree. the item score of this statement was 111, which indicated that most of the students had good teamwork and competitiveness. the following statement of the questionnaire was, "i am motivated to win all these wordwall.net sessions." the results of the data analysis showed that none (0 %) of the students chose strongly disagree, two students (6,89%) chose to disagree, nine students (31,03%) chose neutral, fourteen students (48,28 %) chose to agree, and four students (13,80%) chose strongly agree. the statement's item score implied that almost half of the students agreed they were motivated to win all these wordwall.net sessions. it was related to the previous statement where students showed a positive response in collaboration and competitiveness, which later resulted in satisfaction with the learning process. the number and percentage of the category with the highest score are identical, where fourteen students (48,28 %) chose to agree. the fifth statement is, "wordwall.net creates an energetic classroom atmosphere." explained that seventeen students (58,62 %) chose to disagree, seven students (24,14%) chose neutral, four students (13,80%) chose to agree, and only one student (3,45 %) chose strongly disagree. based on the finding, the item score of this statement was 76, which was the lowest among all statements. thus, more than half of the students disagreed that wordwall.net creates an energetic classroom atmosphere. the only statement was that results were dominated by students' negative responses (disagree). table 4. students’ perceived effects item 1 (sd) 2 (d) 3 (n) 4 (a) 5 (sa) item score i 6. i look forward to playing wordwall.net. 4 6 12 7 109 p 7. i am eager to learn via wordwall.net. 3 6 16 4 108 p 8. i prepare better to win in the wordwall.net sessions. 3 11 13 2 101 p 9. i don't want to miss any wordwall.net sessions 1 4 8 14 2 99 p 10. wordwall.net must be used in the daily learning process. 1 3 4 15 6 109 p the next statement, item 6, which reads “i look forward to playing wordwall.net” took 4 students (13,8%) disagree, 6 students (20,70%) neutral, 12 (41,37%) agree, and 7 students (24,14%) strongly agree. the item score of this statement was 109, which meant that almost half of the students agreed that they looked forward to playing wordwall.net in the next meeting. statement 7, which reads "i am eager to learn via wordwall.net." showed that three students (10,34%) chose to disagree, six students (20,70 %) chose neutral, sixteen students (55,17 %) chose to agree, and four students (13,80%) chose strongly agree. the item score of this statement was 108, meaning most students agreed that they were eager to learn via wordwall.net. miftahul jannah, syafryadin | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 121 statement 8, which reads "i prepare better to win in the wordwall.net sessions." found that three students (10,34%) chose to disagree, eleven students (37,93 %) chose neutral, thirteen students (44,82%) chose to agree, and two students (6,89%) chose strongly agree. in addition, the item score of this statement was 101. this result indicated that less than half of the students agreed that they made a better preparation to be the winner in the wordwall.net sessions. in statement nine, which says, "i do not want to miss any wordwall.net sessions." it is obtained that one student (3,45 %) chose strongly disagree, four students (13,80%) chose to disagree, eight students (27,59 %) chose neutral, fourteen students (48,28 %) chose to agree, and two students (6,89%) chose strongly agree. based on the finding, the item score for this statement was 99; the second-lowest item score gained among all the statements in the questionnaire. it indicated that almost half of the students did not want to miss any wordwall.net sessions in the classroom. the next statement, "wordwall.net must be used in the daily learning process." found that one student (3,45 %) chose strongly disagree, three students (10,34%) chose to disagree, four students (13,80%) chose neutral, fifteen students (51,72 %) chose to agree, and six students (20,70 %) chose strongly agree. based on the finding, the item score of this statement was 109. it indicated that most students recommended the use of wordwall.net their vocabulary learning. table 5. students’ perceived engagement item 1 (sd) 2 (d) 3 (n) 4 (a) 5 (sa) item score i 11. i focus on the questions in each wordwall.net session. 5 2 13 9 113 p 12. i respond to each question in each wordwall.net session. 1 3 6 14 5 106 p 13. i respond as quickly as possible to each question in each wordwall.net session. 4 6 13 7 111 p 14. i respond as accurately as possible to each question in each wordwall.net session. 1 2 11 9 6 104 p 15. i pay more attention during lectures because i hope to win in the wordwall.net sessions. 2 8 14 5 109 p the following statement is item 11, which reads, "i focus on the questions in each wordwall.net session" it found that none of the students (0%) chose firmly disagree, five students (17,24%) chose to disagree, two students (6,89%) chose neutral, 13 students (44,82%) chose to agree, and nine students (31,03%) chose strongly agree. it had the highest item score of all (113), which indicated that slightly almost 50% of the respondents paid attention to the questions in each wordwall.net session. it was in line with the following statement, which 14 out of 29 students agreed with the statement "i respond to each question in each wordwall.net session." the similarity of the result on items 11 and 12 showed that when the students focused on the questions, they would respond to each question without missing any single item. statement 12, which says "i respond to each question in each wordwall.net session," obtained the following results: one student (3,45 %) chose strongly disagree, three students (10,34 %) chose to disagree, six students (20,70 %) chose neutral, fourteen students (48,28 %) chose to agree, and five students (17,24 %) chose strongly agree. the item score of this statement was 106, which meant most of the students answered each question in the wordwall.net session. the following statement states, "i respond as quickly as possible to each question in each wordwall.net session.". we found that none (0%) of the students chose strongly disagree, four students (13,80 %) chose to disagree, six students (20,70 %) chose neutral, thirteen students (44,82%) chose to agree, and seven students (24,14%) chose strongly agree. the item score of this statement was 111, which implied that more than 50% of students responded to each question as quickly as possible. this result was in line with statement 3: "i like the collaboration & competitiveness in wordwall.net sessions. it indicated that most of the students answered the questions as quickly as possible to be the winner of the game. the other statement is, "i respond as accurately as possible to each question in each wordwall.net session." the data obtained one student (3,45 %) chose strongly disagree, two students (6,89%) chose to disagree, eleven students (37,93 %) chose neutral, nine students (31,03%) chose to agree, and six students (20,70 %) chose strongly agree. the item score of this statement is miftahul jannah, syafryadin | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 122 104. though most of the students showed neutral responses to the statement, it indicated that most were not afraid of their incorrect answers. the last statement discuss in this session is, "i pay more attention during lectures because i hope to win in wordwall.net sessions.". the results of the data analysis showed that none (0 %) of the students chose strongly disagree, two students (6,89%) chose to disagree, eight students (27,59 %) chose neutral, fourteen students (48,28 %) chose to agree, and five students (17,24 %) chose strongly agree. the item score of this statement was 109. the result indicated most of the students wanted to be the winner of the game. by referring to table 2 and figure 1, it is proven that wordwall.net as a web app in the students' vocabulary learning was effective. fortunately, the need for wordwall.net in the students' vocabulary was one point on which the students do agree. it resulted in a total score of 1.578 in the 'agree' range of the total score interpretation. from the given table, questionnaire item 11 got the most supportive response from the students (113, agree). it implied that the students stayed focused on answering each question on wordwall.net. it was followed by the questionnaire item 13 (111, agree) and 3 (111, agree) as the second-highest score, which said "i respond as quickly as possible to each question in each wordwall.net session" and "i like the collaboration & competitiveness in wordwall.net sessions." these results implied the students were challenged to compete by answering the questions as fast as possible to lead the leader board, which was supported by the third questionnaire item, as mentioned before. meanwhile, the lowest score was gained by the questionnaire item 5 (76, neutral), which said, "wordwall.net creates an energetic classroom atmosphere." the wordwall.net web-based application did not create an energetic classroom atmosphere. if it is seen from a broader point of view as the lowest score, it is related to the result of item 11, where the students focused on answering the questions in wordwall.net. discussion the students responded positively to wordwall.net as one of the web-based applications in their vocabulary learning. it can be seen from the total score of the questionnaire result. the total score was 1.578, which was interpreted as agree. the result of this study was similar to the previous study conducted by bueno et al. (2022) in that students responded positively to using wordwall.net as a learning media since the respondents had no difficulty navigating the site even without the help of a technical expert. in this research, the students positively responded to using wordwall.net as their vocabulary learning media regarding their feeling, effects, and engagement with the web tool. from the perspective of students' perceived feelings about using wordwall.net, it was found that the students enjoy teamwork and competition. the statement supported that they were motivated to win all sessions. although wordwall.net could not produce an energetic classroom atmosphere, using this web tool, most participants found that using wordwall.net was exciting, interesting, motivating & fun. this result is in line with the research conducted by bueno et al. (2022), which showed that students were satisfied with the use of wordwall.net since it helped them achieve the lesson's objectives. this research provided a different perspective on how wordwall.net influences students' perceived effects after using it. the result indicated that students look forward to playing wordwall.net in their daily vocabulary learning. this indicator focused on the consequences of using the web tool. students are perceived to prepare better to win the sessions, so they try to master the vocabulary to compete with other students in the classroom. wordwall.net influenced not only the effects on students' learning process but also students' engagement with the application. if research conducted by fakhruddin et al. (2021) showed that wordwall.net influenced students' learning scores, this research presented new findings regarding students' engagement. all five statements about students' perceived engagement with the use of wordwall.net (statements 11-15) obtained favourable results in which most students responded to the statements with "agree." based on the result of this indicator, wordwall.net influenced students' engagement with the web tool and the classroom. through wordwall.net, the students focused on the questions given, which indicated they also focused on the classroom learning process. from the data acquired from the questionnaire, it could be seen that the students showed good responses to the application. the total score result indicated 'agree' toward using wordwall.net, meaning that they experienced a positive perception of this web tool for their vocabulary learning. miftahul jannah, syafryadin | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 123 conclusion this study aimed to know the students' perspectives on using wordwall.net as vocabulary learning media. this study found that students' perceptions of using wordwall.net in vocabulary learning were good. of course, most students responded positively to using wordwall.net as their vocabulary learning media. it implied that students experienced and increased numerous beneficial outcomes in implementing wordwall.net in their vocabulary learning. their feeling about wordwall.net was great. they enjoyed the teamwork and competition; they perceived wordwall.net as an exciting, interesting, motivating & fun web tool to learn vocabulary. from the students' perceived effects using wordwall.net, it could be concluded that wordwall.net was a kind of awaited learning media for the students. in addition, wordwall.net also influences the students' engagement with the web tool and the classroom. it indicated that the students paid more attention to the learning process. the researchers suggest that wordwall.net in english vocabulary learning in the classroom. referring to the result obtained, the students feel that wordwall.net is enjoyable, collaborative, and competitive. therefore, english teachers need to be aware web tools and applications so that english learning (not only vocabulary) can be more interesting for students. funding statement this research received no specific grant from any funding agency. references ahmad, j. 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(2018). perception on the usage of mobile assisted language learning (mall) in english as a second language (esl) learning among vocational college students. creative education, 09(01), 84–98. https://doi.org/10.4236/ce.2018.91008 putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 61 elt forum 13(1) (2024) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt parity of learning tasks in new total english coursebooks david geba abi anandi1, fransiskus xaverius mukarto1 1sanata dharma university, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received on 8 december 2023 approved on 29 march 2024 published on 31 march 2024 ________________ keywords: the four strands; new total english; ke learning tasks ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ coursebooks have an essential function in language instruction since they function as not only the guidance for both educators and learners in conducting learning programs but also the primary source of learning materials and learning tasks. nevertheless, language learning program provides an imbalanced opportunity to develop students’ language skills equally. this study sought to analyze the balance of the learning tasks in new total english coursebooks in terms of the four strands. the research question in this study was “from the perspective of the four strands, what is the frequency distribution of learning tasks in new total english coursebooks?” in order to answer the research question in this study, the researchers used content analysis. the total of 637 learning tasks were analyzed in this study from three coursebooks. in selecting the samples of learning tasks, the researchers applied stratified random sampling. the findings showed that the highest frequency of strand found was meaning-focused input with 28.08%. the fluency development strand occupies 25.79% and language-focused learning occupies 23.57% of the whole learning tasks. lastly, the meaning-focused output had the lowest frequency with 22.54%. in conclusion, the coursebooks are proven to provide balanced distributions of the four strands. the findings of this study suggest that english instructors use the coursebooks in classrooms as they provide equal balance of the four strands. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 jl. affandi, mrican, caturtunggal, kec. depok, kabupaten sleman, daerah istimewa yogyakarta 55281 e-mail: davidgebaabianandi@gmail.com http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& david geba abi anandi & fransiskus xaverius mukarto | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 62 introduction richards and rogers (2014) mention that instructional materials define daily learning objectives with the intention of achieving the objectives of the curriculum. as a result, a successful learning process is highly influenced by instructional materials (hanifa, 2018). among different types of instructional materials, coursebooks are thought as one of the major facets in any contexts in education, together with teachers and learners (arab and rastgou, 2022). in choosing the appropriate coursebooks, learners and teachers must consider the distribution of language focus to develop their skills and knowledge equally. learners are often not given the equal opportunity to improve their language skills. the distribution of focus on language learning activities are characteristically imbalanced (funk, 2012). the main focus of learning is on reproducible activities that emphasize grammatical precision, while oral fluency abilities receive less attention (funk, 2012). when developing learning materials, it is important to take into account not only the objectives but also the learning methods as well as learning materials of (wiggins and mctighe, 2005). the four strands theory is based on research on second language acquisition (nation, 1996). a good language course, according to the four strands theory, should place an equal emphasis on four important elements, dealing with focus on input, output, language learning, and development of fluency. lightbown (2014) in burgoine (2017) states that the framework suggested by nation offers a guidance on how courses and curriculum plans should be structured. it includes the variation of activities and contexts which students need to make sure that as they learn academic material, their language development advances. additionally, the academic material chosen is to be appropriate to their not only language proficiency but also age. previous studies regarding analysis of coursebooks have been conducted. some of the studies focused on analysing gender and cultural representations in coursebooks (zahara et al., 2022; parlindungan, rifai, and safriani, 2018; yonata and mujiyanto, 2017). some of the previous studies focus on analysing questions in english coursebooks (abdelrahman, 2014; zareian, davoudi, heshmatifar, and rahimi, 2015; zaiturrahmi, kasim, and zulfikar, 2017). some of the studies also focused on analysing tasks in coursebooks (ayu and indrawati, 2018; abhar, 2017; arab and rastgou, 2022). the previous studies mentioned were used as the references for the researchers in conducting this study. learning tasks serve as the important aspects of coursebooks in improving language skills and knowledge. even though numerous studies have explored different aspects of coursebooks, a few have employed the four strands theory as the criterion to analyse learning tasks. based on the background of this study and previous studies, this study aimed at analysing the learning tasks in new total english coursebooks from the perspective of the four strands. the research question in this study was “from the perspective of the four strands, what is the frequency distribution of the learning tasks in new total english coursebooks?”. the researchers narrowed the focus of the study to three coursebooks of an english coursebook series namely new total english coursebooks. the nature of coursebooks using a coursebook, a teacher can follow a framework that is in line with the curriculum. demir and ertas (2014) mention that the most frequently used course materials for transferring both skills and knowledge are coursebooks, which are regarded as the essential component of every curriculum and contribute to content learning. they also mention that coursebooks act as the resource for courses, providing a variety of practices and examples of the course content. jafarigohar & ghaderi (2013) mention that coursebooks establish the content to be taught, the timing, the method, and the outcomes to be learned. thus, it may be said that coursebooks serve as the guidelines for instruction in classrooms. in english language teaching (elt), coursebooks serve a variety of purposes (cunningsworth, 1995). they serve as 1) the aids for less experienced teachers, 2) the sources of inspiration and ideas, 3) the sources of knowledge for learners about the language elements such as vocabulary, grammar, etc., 4) the language program's syllabus, 5) the sources for classroom activities 6) the resources of contents in forms of both oral and written presentations. hence, coursebooks have an undeniably important function in guiding the process of language learning. new total english coursebooks the coursebooks are published by pearson publication. six books make up the new total english series, which includes books for advanced, upper-intermediate, intermediate, pre-intermediate, david geba abi anandi & fransiskus xaverius mukarto | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 63 elementary, and beginner levels. the coursebook series also includes cefr reference levels from a1 to c1. as written in the publisher’s website, the coursebook series is one of the coursebook series designed for general adult courses. backward design the phrase "backward design" describes a style of program preparation that begins with the desired results first before selecting the kinds of evaluation and instructional approaches to be applied throughout the learning processes (llerena, 2020). three stages make up backward design are 1) the desired results identification, 2) acceptable evidence determination, and 3) learning experiences and instruction planning (wiggins & mctighe, 2005). clarity of priorities, which is referred to as looking at existing content standards and evaluating the expectations of the curriculum being used, is determined in the identifying the desired results and includes taking into account the learning goals. a learning program's assessment is decided upon during the step of determining acceptable evidence. lastly, choosing the activities that will help students successfully attain the targeted goals is a key component of the planning learning experiences and instruction stage. additionally, relevant learning experiences yield the results that educators want students to demonstrate (spady, 1994). learning tasks in the process of achieving the learning goals, learners need to do learning tasks. anderson and pesikan (2016) mention that learning tasks are designed to help students progress from ignorance to knowledge or from incompetence to competency. skehan (1996) in ellis (1997) says that the completion of tasks is seen as having some priority, meaning is important, there is a connection to the actual world, and the judgment of task performance is based on the result. english coursebooks provide tasks as part of the english teaching materials (muhammad, 2008). according to the council of europe (2020), tasks are defined as any deliberate actions which are necessary by individuals to achieve the outcomes in the context of problem solving, obligations realization or achieving learning objectives. learning tasks are defined as activities where there is a connection to real-world circumstances, the performance of students is assessed based on the task's conclusion, and the focus is on the meaning (skehan, 1998 in tsiplakides, 2011). the four strands nation (1996) proposes a framework for language learning, which is the four strands. the four strands is a theory consisting of an equal proportion of focus in language learning. the four strands are meaning-focused output, fluency development, meaning-focused input, and language-focused learning. meaning-focused input as highlighted by krashen (1981), input, as defined by i+1, is the procedure used to comprehend a language through listening and reading at one-higher-level than students’ current understanding. the level of understanding "i" is the language, while the level "+1" is one level higher. input hypothesis emphasizes the exposure of a language for students in a communicative context (gass & mackey, 2015). in addition, the language being exposed to the learners need to be slightly above their current level of understanding. the meaning-focused input strand is accomplished through reading and listening exercises in which the focus of the learning is on the messages. the meaning-focused input can also be accomplished through sign and visual language in certain cases (gass & mackey, 2015). the conditions required in meaning-focused input strand are as follows: the majority of the input must be familiar to the learners. the students want to and are engaged in understanding the input. the learners are only familiar with a very small percentage of the language features. the context and background information can help learners learn the unfamiliar language components. there is a lot of input available. meaning-focused output according to the output hypothesis, providing students with a ton of chances to write and speak in the classroom is needed (swain, 1993). meaning-focused output strand gives students opportunity to david geba abi anandi & fransiskus xaverius mukarto | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 64 communicate with others through both written and verbal expressions. meaning-focused output is the strand where students concentrate on communicating their thoughts and messages to others through writing and speaking tasks (nation, 2007). learners are encouraged to make the most of their resources and linguistic skills in this strand. the conditions required in meaning-focused output strand are: the students write or speak about well-known subjects. their main goal is to make someone else to understand what they are saying. strictly limited use of unfamiliar language. the availability of tools to fill any gaps in their productive language knowledge, such as communication techniques, dictionaries, or prior input. plenty of speaking and writing opportunities are given (nation, 2007). language-focused learning nation (1996) mentions language-focused learning is achieved through purposeful learning in which the focus is on vocabulary, grammar, sounds and spelling of language, and explanations. long & robinson (1998) mention that focus-on-form occurs when students change their attention from meaning-focused to form-focused as a result of perceived difficulties with understanding or production. focus on form should take place in meaning-focused strands in order to apply the new linguistic features they learn. ellis (2015) states that to truly master new linguistic forms in communicative usage, learners require opportunities to engage in meaning-focused language activities. the conditions required in language-focused learning strand are: learners are being exposed to language features deliberately. the students are urged to process language features in depth and thoughtfully. it is crucial to offer opportunities to focus on the linguistic features in order to maximize language learning. the features being chosen should be easy to understand and not rely on background information that the learners may not have. the other three strands should frequently reference the linguistic features covered in the languagefocused strand. fluency development this strand's activities are designed to encourage learners to use the language they are familiar with repeatedly with the intention of sharpening their skills rather than to teach them new information (razman, ismail, ismail, 2022). the conditions required in fluency development strand are: the students' focus is on understanding or expressing meaning. students are motivated to perform faster. there is a significant amount of input or output (nation, 2007). the majority of input and output are already familiar to the students. in other words, there are no new languages, unfamiliar topics, or new language features. methods the researchers of this study applied content analysis. content analysis is defined as a method aiming to identify specific characteristics of a material (ary et al., 2010). the focus of content analysis is analysing and interpreting recorded materials such as magazines, journals, books, essays, music, speeches, advertisements, photographs, and any other forms of electronic communication (frankael et al., 2012). in conducting this study, the researchers adopted the steps of content analysis from frankael, wallen, and hyun (2012) namely 1) deciding objectives, 2) describing terms, 3) defining the unit of analysis, 4) discovering relevant data, 5) develop a rationale, 6) develop sampling technique, 7) and planning coding categories. the steps were chosen since they are suitable with the purpose of this study and clearly define each step. in total, there are 34 chapters involved in this study. in selecting the samples, the researchers applied stratified random sampling. according to krippendorff (2019), stratified random sampling is done through systematic random sampling for each stratum, that comprises of the units of samples. since this research involved three different levels of the english coursebooks, stratified random sampling was employed. the researchers took three random chapters from each level to analyse. in content analysis, the most commonly utilized way is calculating the frequency, percentages, and ration of one occurrence to the whole occurrences (frankael, wallen, & hyun, david geba abi anandi & fransiskus xaverius mukarto | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 65 2012). in analysing the samples of the learning tasks, the researchers categorized every learning task into the four strands based on the conditions they fit into. after categorizing the learning tasks into the four strands, the researchers calculated the frequencies and percentages of the categories. in transforming the data, the researchers used spreadsheet in microsoft excel to not only increase the accuracy level of the calculation, but also save time since the calculations were done automatically. it is important to take into account the accuracy and credibility of studies in qualitative research (gay et al., 2012). to improve the trustworthiness of this study, the researchers employed external audit. external audit or peer debriefing is defined as a process in qualitative studies where the researchers invite an individual outside the study to review the methods and interpretations of the study (fraenkel, wallen, & hyun, 2012). the researchers invited an external auditor to review the coding categories and the analysis of this study. the auditor was invited as the external auditor of this study because the expert has experience in coursebook designing as he has published a number of english coursebooks and he has experience in teaching english language at the university level. the mentioned criteria are the indicators in choosing the auditor for this study. findings and discussion in order to group all of the learning tasks from the chosen chapters, fluency development, meaningfocused output, language-focused learning, and meaning-focused input strands were utilized. table 1 shows the frequencies of the four strands in the learning tasks of new total english coursebooks. table 1. the frequencies of the four strands in new total english coursebooks strands proportions no frequency percentage 1 meaning-focused input 355 28.08 % 2 meaning-focused output 285 22.54% 3 language-focused learning 298 23.57% 4 fluency development 326 25.79% total 1264 100% the whole learning tasks analysed in this study consists of 335 meaning-focused input, 326 fluency development, 298 language-focused learning, and 285 meaning-focused output. the meaning-focused input has the highest frequency whereas meaning-focused output has the lowest frequency. it is critical to comprehend that there might be more than one strand in a single learning task. for instance, when learners are asked to work in pairs, the three meaning-focused strands are involved since learners would take turns speaking and listening. subsequently, both receptive and productive actions occur in such activities. additionally, the particular learning task also involves fluency development strand because the learners’ focus is on communicating messages and utilizing what they already know. figure 1. shows the visualization of the learning tasks from the perspective of the four strands in the coursebooks. figure 1 shows that the fluency development strand comes in second with 25.79%, and the meaning-focused input strand comes in first with 28.08%. additionally, 22.54% of the learning tasks are categorized as the meaning-focused output tasks and 23.57% as the language-focused learning tasks. the total course time should involve around 25% of the four strands (nation, 2007). the results show that each strand in the learning tasks in the new total english coursebooks is spread equally. because no strand makes up more than 30% of the total, no strand is dominant. the meaning-focused strands in the four strands theory are meaning-focused output, meaningfocused input, and fluency development. these three strands are primarily concerned with conveying and receiving meaning or messages. the meaning-focused strands take up 76.41% of the overall learning tasks. it is crucial that a course should consists of a small amount of language-focused learning strand (nation, 2007). the entire course time should involve no more than 25% of language-focused learning strand (nation, 2007). the results of this study show that 23.57% of the whole sample is taken up by learning tasks that are classified as language-focused learning. it indicates the coursebooks provide appropriate amount of language features learning for the students. david geba abi anandi & fransiskus xaverius mukarto | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 66 figure 1. the distributions of learning tasks in new total english coursebooks from the perspective of the four strands according to the results, it was found that the learning tasks in new total english coursebooks' are appropriately distributed from the perspective of the four strands. the four strands framework suggests that in a well-balanced course, each strand has a roughly equal amount of time (nation, 2007). the four strands framework offers a rationale for the three-to-one balance, according to which meaning-focused strands take up 75% of the course's total time and language-focused strand occupies the remaining percentage. the study conducted by arab & rastgou shows similar results to this current study. the book they analysed offers an approximately the same balance of strands dealing with fluency development, meaningfocused output, language-focused learning, and meaning-focused input. on the contrary, another study that used the four strands found that the framework isn't being used to its full potential because meaningfocused output and input strands are disregarded. consequently, fluency development, the final strand, was impacted (nazeer, shah, sarwat, 2015). the followings are the discussions of the four strands in new total english coursebooks. meaning-focused input messages that the learners are likely to focus on make up the meaning-focused input strand (nation, 1995). figure 2 shows an example of a meaning-focused input strand learning task in the coursebooks. the learners are requested to read news articles in the learning task mentioned above. after reading the news articles, the students are required to respond to questions about the news. as a result, to obtain the answers to the questions, students are expected to locate specific passages in the text. intensive reading is the term for such reading assignments. harmer (2015) defines intensive reading as reading activities that require students to read assigned texts and complete specific goals, such as responding to questions, transferring knowledge, questioning the text, and serving as themes for additional activities. the task is categorized as meaning-focused input strand. it is because teachers ask students to read stories in order to respond to questions. additionally, because the students are required to write responses, the learning task is also classified as meaning-focused output. because all learners are prompted to read the material again rather than learning new language elements, the fluency development strand is also involved in this strand. david geba abi anandi & fransiskus xaverius mukarto | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 67 figure 2. a meaning-focused input learning task meaning-focused output the meaning-focused output strand is done through productive actions (nation, 2007). according to the analysis, the meaning-focused output strand takes up 22.54% of the learning tasks in the new total english coursebooks. the productive abilities covered by the meaning-focused output strand are learned through presenting, writing, and speaking. figure 3 shows an example of a meaningfocused output strand task in the coursebook. figure 3. a meaning-focused output learning task the learners are requested to communicate their findings from the prior activity to the class in the example of the learning assignment above. they are required to provide details regarding their partners in this situation. the author of the book also provides an illustration of how the description should be like. the students' speaking and presentation skills are the main focus of the learning task. as a result, it belongs to the meaning-output strand. however, other learners are acting as listeners while a learner presents information. it implies that this learning task includes the meaning-focused input strand as well. this learning task also improves learners' fluency because it does not teach them to any new language characteristics or subjects. all three meaning-focused strands, fluency development, meaning-focused output, and meaning-focused input, are present in the learning activity. fluency development the acquisition of fluency can be achieved through both receptive and productive actions (nation, 2007). the four language skills which are writing, reading, speaking, and listening are all covered in this strand. furthermore, the fluency development strand is included into one of the meaningfocused strands, with the intention of communicating and receiving meanings (nation, 2007). figure 4 is an example of a learning tasks which is categorized as fluency development strand task. david geba abi anandi & fransiskus xaverius mukarto | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 68 figure 4. a fluency development learning task in the learning task shown in figure 4, the students are required to work in pairs and place a call pretending to be a travel agent and a customer. speaking and listening are required during the learning activity as they are expected to simulate a real-world conversation. the task's objective is for students to be able to explain and understand meanings to others. the learning task also involves meaning-focused output and input because students are requested to communicate meanings in pairs. additionally, if the learners are familiar with all the topics and linguistic components, fluency development also takes place (nation, 1995). it can be said that this particular activity can be divided into strands for developing fluency and meaning-focused output and input. language-focused learning language-focused learning entails deliberately acquiring language aspects (nation, 2007). grammar, pronunciation, spelling, vocabulary, and conversation make up the language features. the linguistic components, such as their overall meaning, the patterns they fit into, and their spoken and written forms, are also the emphasis of language-focused instructions (nation, 1995). lexis, syntax, sounds, and coherent devices were all language features that the researcher used in this study that were taken from harmer's (2015) work. figure 5 is an example of a language focused learning task in new total english coursebooks. an illustration of a language-focused learning exercise is shown in figure 5. the learning assignment emphasizes word meanings. in the learning exercise, students are required to read words 1 through 8 and match them with meanings 1 through h. the learning assignment is classified as languagefocused learning as the learners are encouraged to comprehend word meanings. instructional materials are the sources used by educators in the educational process to assist both teachers and learners in order to achieve the goals of the curriculum (richards and rogers, 2014). as one of the instructional materials, coursebooks serve as the three facets of any educational contexts, together with teachers and students (ajoke, 2017). this current study shows that the coursebooks have a balance proportion of language learning in accordance with the four strands. the analysis was done by analysing the learning tasks in the coursebooks. it is important to take into account the balance of these tasks in a language learning (nation, 2007). additionally, the grammatical precision is often the main emphasis of the learning process, while giving little attention to the oral fluency skills (funk, 2012). the findings of this study give information to the teachers about how to choose the appropriate coursebooks to utilize in classrooms from the perspective of the four strands. this current study also contributes to the material design and development in english language studies by providing the perspective of how learning tasks in coursebooks should be. david geba abi anandi & fransiskus xaverius mukarto | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 69 figure 5. a language-focused learning task conclusion in conclusion, new total english coursebooks provide equal opportunities for learners in terms of the four strands because no strand was found dominant. meaning-focused input has the highest frequency of strand in the learning tasks with 335 (28.08%), fluency development strand has the second highest frequency with 326 (25.79%) learning tasks. the language-focused strand occupies 298 (23.57%) learning tasks, while the mearning-focused output strand occupies 285 (22.54%) of the learning tasks. the learning tasks may be used and followed by general adult learners, who are the coursebooks' intended users, to accomplish learning objectives. the coursebooks analysed in this current study can be used as a reference for language coursebook designers as the coursebooks provide equal distributions of the four strands. finally, future studies that analyze the learning tasks in coursebooks can use the current work as a reference in conducting their studies. the current study's researchers suggest that future studies examine different general language learning coursebooks to determine how the four strands are distributed throughout the books. lastly, the researchers suggest english instrutors use the coursebooks analysed in this study to be used in classrooms since they are proven to provide equal proportions of the four strands. funding statement the authors received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article. references abdelrahman, m. s. b. 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(2015). an evaluation of questions in two esp coursebooks based on bloom’s new axonomy of cognitive learning domain. international journal of education and research, 3(8), 313-326. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 201 elt forum 12 (3) (2022) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt code switching in grade 11 students of um peñaplata college clares fe enriquez1, glyza candido1, nicole fletcher abing1, franlo bucog1, jovenil bacatan1 1teacher education, um peñaplata college, philippines article info ________________ article history: received on march 14, 2022 approved on july 30, 2022 published on november 30, 2022 ________________ keywords: code switching; multilingual, bilingual; textual analysis; philippines ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this study aimed to discover the code switching found in impromptu speeches of the grade 11 students of um peñaplata college. specifically, the study sought to determine and describe the common words used in code switching in the impromptu speeches of the grade 11 students and to analyze the types and functions of the common words they code switched. since there have been no studies related to cs in the island garden city of samal, the researchers are urged to conduct this kind of research. in addition to this, the researchers also want to know the role of cs in the academe since english language proficiency is highly necessary especially in an english classroom. the participants of this study are from um peñaplata college, specifically the grade 11 senior high school students. among the 78 respondents, there were 67 purposively selected which were subjected to textual analysis. analysis revealed four most common codeswitching words committed in impromptu speeches. these are ahm, ah, kanang, and ay. the types of these code-switching words are intersentential, intra-sentential, intraword, and tag-switching. also, the functions of these code-switched words are fillers, hesitations, discourse markers, literary translation, and repetition of words. with these, language educators should continuously find strategies to suit the ever-changing nature of the curriculum and handle the weakness evident in the teaching of the english language.  correspondent address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 brgy. penaplata, island garden city of samal davao del norte, philippines 8119 e-mail: jovenilbacatan@umindanao.edu.ph http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& clares fe enriquez, glyza candido, nicole fletcher abing, franlo bucog, jovenil bacatan | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 202 introduction due to the varieties of language that an individual has and able to use, code switching (cs) is widely utilized as a strategy of communicating (canete, 2018). based on the department of education implementation of bilingual education policy, english and filipino language should be used as a medium of instruction. this policy includes two major domains: the english domain, which contains english communication arts, mathematics, and science; and the filipino domain, which consists of all other subjects, including filipino communication arts, social studies, and history (porciuncula, 2011). this policy is one of the reasons why cs becomes unavoidable. there are positive views regarding the use of cs. as stated in the study of cahyani et al. 2016), cs is the set of creative and practical shifting between two languages. however, bullock and toribio (2009) viewed that cs is an index of bilingual proficiency among linguist; it is more commonly perceived by the general public as indicative of language degeneration. since there have been no studies related to cs in the island garden city of samal, the researchers are urged to conduct this kind of research. in addition to this, the researchers also want to know the role of cs in the academe since english language proficiency is highly necessary especially in an english classroom. cs is the use of more than one language in the classroom by any of the classroom participants such as teacher and students (lin, 2008). it means that not only learners switch codes but also mentors. additionally, cs is an art of speech wherein bilinguals shift from one language to another between or within sentences. therefore, the use of only one language as a medium of instruction may lessen the communication process in the classroom (macswan, 2017). various studies (aljoundi, 2013; astrid; 2015; youkhana, 2010; moetia, 2018; & ali, 2020) have studied code switching that takes place in the classroom over the last two decades or more. code switching was not favored by many educators, thus, one should have at least an understanding of switching between the mother language and the second language and its underlying reasons. the abovementioned studies have not covered the functions and types of code switching. with this issue being identified, the researchers want to determine the functions and types of code switching commonly used by the grade 11 students of um peñaplata college to provide a heightened awareness of its use in the classroom discourse and will lead to a better instruction by either eliminating it or dominating its utilization during the second language instruction in an esl classroom setting it is unavoidable that students will shift from one language to another when speaking. alenezi (2010) claims that in a bilingual classroom worldwide, using code switching is a frequent practice. thus, this suggests that the necessary use of the english language in the classroom contributes to the occurrence of code switching and a reason why students across the world switch codes as a way of communicating. cs helps express ideas clearly and socio-linguistically. it is because not all people in a multilingual society like the philippines could understand and use english as the primary language for communication. this is sided with gocheco (2013) wherein he believes that the combination of two or more languages such as english and tagalog is intentional. according to him, culture sometimes enables what language is more proper to use in different situations. therefore, the use of only one language is not advisable at all times. there is a need for switching codes under certain conditions and culture. specific patterns of cs could be identified through closer scrutiny. in the research of kustati (2014) code switching could be intra-sentential wherein switching occurs within a phrase, a clause or a sentence without affecting the syntax of the sentence. it could also be within the words (intraword) or at the phonological level (tag switching). switching codes, on the other hand, could occur outside a phrase, a clause or a sentence (intersentential). furthermore, the study of alheeti and al abdely (2016) states that the types of cs include tag switching which is the use of a short phrase in one language. these include filler, interjections and idiomatic expressions. the next type is called inter-sentential switching wherein one sentence is in a different language, and the other sentence or clause is also in another language. the last type is intra-sentential switching wherein switching can occur at the word level, sentential or even clausal. on the other hand, there are purposes in which students code switch. as cited in alenezi (2010), these include equivalence and floor holding. equivalence is a technique that bilinguals utilized to find the equivalent of the unknown lexicon of the target language in the speaker's mother tongue to overcome the deficiency in the second language. floor holding, on the other hand, is a clares fe enriquez, glyza candido, nicole fletcher abing, franlo bucog, jovenil bacatan | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 203 strategy used by bilingual students when communicating in the target language to replace the stopgap with words in the vernacular language to maintain conversation fluency. in support with this, cs could be seen as an innate effect of language and culture relationship. expressing first language or some other language than the target one does not necessarily exclude learners from the community of english language students, but instead, they symbolize the desires to gain approval in the community. identity, equality, and mutual respect are several signals that take place during cross-cultural communication. various code switching found in the typical classroom show the presence of self-identity that is a characteristic of the locality where the learners are from. in these statements, it could be concluded that culture plays an indispensable role in the language used (kustati, 2014). furthermore, cs is utilized to replace a word in place of unknown word in the target language, to put emphasis on a particular point, to specify an idea that has no equivalent in other language, to clarify certain point, to reinforce a request, to express identity and communicate friendship, to alleviate tension and put humour into a conversation, and in some bilingual situations, code switching happens when the given topics are introduced (alenezi, 2010). based on the study of alenezi (2010), switching codes seems to be an aide for the lack of vocabulary in a particular target language. this also implies that the use of the first language has a more significant effect than a second or target language in highlighting information. cs, therefore, helps the speaker to ensure that the information he wanted to convey to the listener will be understood. furthermore, according to alenezi (2010), switching codes is seen as a tool in acknowledging the importance of using the vernacular language which he believes to allow the learners to draw on useful sense-making resources. this is in the reason that it is easier to create ideas using the first language than utilizing the second language directly. it is difficult in the sense that not all the words that we know in the second language are enough to coincide with our ideas when speaking wherein unlike the vernacular one there would be no limitations. additionally, through switching codes, the speaker and the listener would be able to identify the shifting of a topic from one to another. in this case, cs serves as a marker of discourse. this is supported by the research of ahmad and jusoff (2009) stating that cs is used to signal changes in context by using alternate codes or grammatical systems. it allows the efficient transfer of information from the senders to the receivers. there are many additional factors affecting people to do code switching. the most common elements are solidarity, social status, topic, affection, and persuasion (eldin, 2014; al-azzawi et al., 2018). additionally, maintaining privacy, avoiding misunderstanding and unfamiliarity are also factors of code switching (bista, 2010).one of the reasons why some speakers’ code switch from the target language to their first language is to present their perspective revealing mixed feelings towards linguistic behaviors. sometimes, cs is done either intentionally or unconsciously (amorim, 2017). cs is a result of being overwhelmed in expressing one’s idea. on the other hand, there are four broad motivations why someone might choose to use cs. social and interpersonal dynamics, compartmentalizing particular language use only for specific topics, indicating additional pragmatic meaning like emphasis or vagueness, and social acceptability of using a particular language in a given context (yarzebinski et al., 2015). for further emphasis of the social reasons why people code switch is that it can function as a broad label to include people who are part of an "in-group" or exclude an "out-group," in accordance to whether a particular person can understand what is being said.personal preference based on liu (2018) can indeed override cs in interacting, but such effects are constrained by individual differences in cognitive capacities of processing, which in turn relates to the frequency of the usage of a specific language which automatizes processing. in the study of kustati (2014), code switching is a communicative strategy that is the same with literature translation, appeal for assistance, mime, paraphrase or avoidance of communication breakdown. in other words, code switching serves as a communicative technique that students used to either intentionally or unconsciously to reach communicative goals. also, cs acts as fillers, pauses, hesitations, repetition of words, and speech marks. these functions are the common ways that learners are used in pursuing effective communication. generally, these functions help the students in dealing class talks (amorim, 2017). however, even though code switching seems beneficial in maintaining good communication, there are still many researchers arguing that the reason of code switching is said to avoid clares fe enriquez, glyza candido, nicole fletcher abing, franlo bucog, jovenil bacatan | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 204 communication, stop the conversation or shows destructed communication (paculanang, 2018). in the research of valerio (2015) code switching should not be employed in second language classroom because of two reasons: (a) code switching by either the teacher or the students can heighten the use of non-target language producing unusual linguistic patterns and (b) students are sensitive to the alteration of these patterns. kuang (2017) and bista (2010) also offer an interpretation that cs is a result of the inability and incompetence of multilingual speakers to carry on a conversation using the second language. when a multilingual person cannot formulate the word that his l1 is telling him, he will most likely do code switching.this is in contrast with the study of macswan (2017) believing that cs was not hap-hazard or a result of language confusion but was following a certain rule and was systematic. therefore, code switching should not be seen as language degeneration. methods since the goals of this study are to perceive the common word as well as the functions and types of code switching used by grade 11 students in um peñaplata college, the researcher utilized quantitative and qualitative design. the quantitative model is used for the tallying of the most common words and the number of participants who commit certain types of switching code. on the other hand, the discourse type of qualitative design is utilized in the study. discourse analysis is a study of the language that naturally occurs in any social situation. it includes identifying themes, coding, sorting of categories and making conclusions to answer a research question (shanthi et al., 2017). this study used textual analysis in identifying the functions and types of code switching the participants commonly utilized when performing an oral presentation. it is a method used by the communication researchers to describe and interpret the characteristics of a recorded message (frey et al., 2000). this study needed the grade 11 senior high school students of um peñaplata college. there were sixty-seven (67) students subjected in our study among seventy-eight (78) participants as we had a purposive sampling in the conduct of our research. this is because only 67 participants committed code switching in their speaking performance during the conduct of the study. purposive sampling refers to the process of selecting a sample group within a population with significant data on the characteristics of interest (guarte and barrios, 2006). the researchers asked the grade 11 students to answer a specific question being prepared. the questions are all open-ended and revolve around personal questions and fundamental issues in the society. this is done to ensure that the lack of knowledge about the question will not be the reason for their switching of code. the answers of the target participants were scrutinized by the researchers for this study. the researchers asked permission from the school’s director about the conduct of the study and its schedule as well as from the senior high school principal. since the researchers have purposively chosen the grade 11 students as the participants for the study, they asked permission from the english teacher of that grade level to integrate speaking performance for three minutes as part of his class. as cited in the research of conti (1997), three minutes is sufficient to deliver a point. the researchers were the one who managed the oral presentation by utilizing their crafted questions. the constructed questions were based on real issues in the different areas of the society. asking questions that are relevant to the life of the participants can help elicit meaningful responses and can be a reliable basis of determining whether there is a code switching or none. the set of questions was then validated by three high school english teachers. to be free from bias, students answered the question they have picked through drawing lots. each one of them was covered in an audio record in which they are aware of. the collected answers of the participants during the speaking performance served as the data of the study. textual analysis is utilized in this study for analyzing the function of the words and the types of code switching that our participants used during their speaking performance. in his research, abastillas (2015) claims that despite the difficulty of identifying particular types of code switching to be a real one, many researchers concur that code switching is entirely not an effect of language inadequacy. cs instead helps both lecturers and learners to determine the relationship among education, language, and culture (kustati, 2014). thematic analysis will also be incorporated into this study. it is a method for analyzing and determining patterns of meaning in a set of data. it describes which themes are necessary for the phenomenon's description under study (joffe, 2012). in this study, clares fe enriquez, glyza candido, nicole fletcher abing, franlo bucog, jovenil bacatan | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 205 determining recording patterns is emphasized. coding and transcribing were done after gathering the data. the words used by the target participants in code switching were thematically analyzed to identify commonality and its types. this is done by making a tally for determining the most common words and types. the tally contained the most common words that were alphabetically arranged with its corresponding frequency. it also included the types and functions of code switching. participants’ answers were audio recorded with their consent and then transcribed by the researchers. the way of data analyzing was based on the transformative types of framework specifically the social constructivism theory since the nature of this study focuses on interaction through open-ended questions. the following are examples of themes after the transcription: table 1. examples of themes (words used when code switching) themes coding frequency ah 26 ahm 33 ano 3 ay 13 kanang 19 table 2. examples of themes (functions of code switching) words coding frequency themes evidences ahm 33 fillers respondent 2: “well, when i’m facing my conflicts and problems i usually doing ahm.. talking to my friends and telling my problems to help them guide me all over what situation i do.” respondent 7: “...sitting at the front because if i sit in front row ahm ..i can learn a lot because i listen to according to my teacher so that ahm.. i can learn a lot” hesitation s respondent 4: “...forgiving is not forgetting ahm..ay..kanang kuan kanang tawag aning...” respondent 5: “...could affect my study because ahm..ahm.. because ahm” ahh 26 fillers respondent 1: “...because cheating is ahh.. cheating is di siya pwede maconsider na acceptable.. (cheating cannot be considered acceptable)” respondent 5: “...for me having a boyfriend ..ah.. could affect my study...” table 3. examples of themes (types of code switching) themes coding frequency evidences tag-switching (include interjections, fillers and idiomatic expressions) 59 student 1:” no, because cheating is ahh.. cheating is di siya pwede maconsider na acceptable kay cheating kay bad man gud siya.” student 5:” para sa ako ahm..for me having a boyfriend ..ah.. could affect my study because ahm..ahm.. because ahm when kanang..kanang makadisturbo siya kung busy ta sa atong pagstudy..ay..tungod sa kanang..makadisturbo siya sa atong pastudy tungod sa mga pag sig atubang nila” intra-word (switching occurs within the words) 12 student 1:” no, because cheating is ahh.. cheating is di siya pwede maconsider na acceptable kay cheating kay bad man gud siya.” student 5: “para sa ako ahm..for me having a boyfriend ..ah.. could affect my study because ahm..ahm.. because ahm when kanang..kanang makadisturbo siya kung busy ta sa atong pagstudy..ay..tungod sa kanang..makadisturbo siya sa atong pastudy tungod sa mga pag sig atubang nila.” clares fe enriquez, glyza candido, nicole fletcher abing, franlo bucog, jovenil bacatan | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 206 findings and discussion most common words from the research conducted, the researchers were able to identify the four most common words commonly utilized by the participants. these are ‘ahm’, ‘ah’, ‘kanang’, and ‘ay’, respectively. table 4 presents the tabulation of the code switched words utilized by the participants during their impromptu speech performance. it is a graphic presentation of the tally made by the researchers on any code switch words used by the participants as reflected in the data source which is the audio recording that is transcribed into written form. the first column shows the code switched words used by the participants and the second column illustrates the number of participants who utilized the particular code switched words. by this, the researchers were able to identify the most common words used by the participants when switching code. based on the table, the first most common word used by the participants is ‘ahm’. out of 67 participants who switched code, 33 of them used ‘ahm’ in switching code. the participants utilized ‘ahm’ more than once in their speech which could be observed in the answers of p5 and p7. for instance, in the speech of p5, ahm is repeated four times. also, in the speech of p2 and p7, ahm is repeated twice. it is also observable that ‘ahm’ commonly occurs before they give reasons to their previous statement which can be seen in the speaking performance of p2, p5, and p7 (p stands for participants). p2: “well, when i’m facing my conflicts and problems, i usually doing ahm (uhm) ... ahm (uhm)...” p5: “para sa ako (for me) ahm (uhm)... for me having a boyfriend... ah (no english equivalence)... could affect my study because ahm (uhm)... ahm (uhm)... because ahm (uhm)…” p7: “for me is kanang (that)... sitting at the front because if i sit in front row ahm (uhm)... i can learn a lot because i listen to according to my teacher so that ahm (uhm).....” table 4. words used by grade 11 students in um peñaplata college when code switching words number of participants percentage ahm [no english word equivalent] 33 49.25% ah [no english word equivalent] 26 38.81% kanang [that] 19 28.36% ay [no english word equivalent] 13 19.40% kuan [no english word equivalent] 5 7.46% unsa/unsay [what] 4 5.97% ano [what] 3 4.48% kay [instead, because] 3 4.48% kasi [because] 2 2.99% lang [only] 2 2.99% na [already, although] 2 2.99% para [for] 2 2.99% bitaw [indeed, of course] 1 1.49% dili [not] 1 1.49% eh [no english word equivalent] 1 1.49% gud [no english word equivalent] 1 1.49% gusto [like] 1 1.49% ha [no english word equivalent] 1 1.49% hmn [no english word equivalent] 1 1.49% importante [important] 1 1.49% makatabang [helpful] 1 1.49% mapabag-o [to become new] 1 1.49% nagmahalan [loving each other] 1 1.49% sa [in, at, by, for, from, into, of, on, through, to] 1 1.49% singot [sweat] 1 1.49% tas (shorten for tapos) [after] (then) 1 1.49% clares fe enriquez, glyza candido, nicole fletcher abing, franlo bucog, jovenil bacatan | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 207 based on the study of amorim (2017) switching codes involves the use of speech marks such as ‘er’, ’uhm’ and ‘ahm’ to avoid breakdowns and to keep communication which is evident on the above speech samples illustrated. therefore, the participants’ used of ‘ahm’ was their way of preventing their speech to stop in spite of their difficulties to maintain it. the second most common word used by the participants when code switching is ‘ah’. there have been 26 respondents who used ‘ah’ in switching code out of 67 respondents. the same with the first most common word, the occurrence of ‘ah’ in most of the participants’ speech was more than once. this can be seen in the speech of p65 wherein ah is repeated twice. for instance, ‘ah’ occurred twice in the speaking performance of p65. however, ‘ah’ commonly appears at the beginning as shown in p62 and p65 in their speech and the last part as shown in the speaking performance of p58. p58s2: ahm... ah... okay na (it’s okay already).” p62: “for me... ah... ..” p65: “... for your safe and ah... to... para mag unsa na oy (to what)... to ah... ” as stated in the study of blackburn (2013), code switching commonly occurs due to linguistic needs which are often marked by hesitations. this is to fill a certain linguistic gap. the participants in this study code switch due to some language difficulties they tried to cope up with it by using ‘ah’ to fill such problems. the third most common word used by the participants when code switching is ‘kanang’. out of 67 participants, 19 of them used ‘kanang’ in code switching. ‘kanang’ occurs more than once in most of the participants' speech. it is pronounced in the speaking performance of p3 where ‘kanang’ was utilized for three times and in the answer of p5 for two times. the word ‘kanang’ was commonly utilized by the participants when they tried to give their reasons as well as when they begin to state their answers. this can be seen on the examples given below. p3: “for me, the most suitable environment learning… kanang most suitable learning environment for me is kanang learning music because music is my life. kanang i’m comfortable with music when i’m alone and doing nothing. sometimes kanang ano tama na oy(that’s it).” p5: “para sa ako (for me) ahm... for me having a boyfriend... ah... could affect my study because ahm... ahm... because ahm... when kanang... kanang…” p7: “for me is kanang... “ from the study of paculanang (2018) ‘kanang’ is used for finding the appropriate structure of language while speaking. as observed, prolongation happens in the speech of p3, p5, and p7 while they utter the word kanang. this shows that as the participants were stating their answer, they were also unconsciously searching in their minds what to say next thus making them switch code. the fourth most common word used by the participants when code switching is ‘ay’. there are 13 out of 67 participants who used ‘ay’ when switching code. if observed, unlike the three most common words utilized by the participants in code switching which are already mentioned, ‘ay’ occurs mostly at least once in the speaking performance of the participants as shown in the answers of p4, p11, and p20. also, ‘ay’ commonly occurs in the middle of the speech. p4s1: “ahm... forgiving is not forgetting ahm... ay... kanang kuan kanang tawag aning(what do you call this)... dako kayo siyag natabang (it has a great advantage) p11s1: “i would like... ay.. p12s1: “for me, television is not good... not good... (unsa mani oy)(what is it)... it is not good to us because if we... ay... kana gung inig fro(just like)... kanang pananglitan no sige na tag(just like when we’re always)... magfocus nata pirmi ug kanang tan aw ug tv...(we will always be focus on watching tv)” as cited in the study of blackburn (2013), switching codes is often characterized by disfluencies, false starts and correcting oneself. since english is only the second language of the respondents, it is unavoidable that they will switch code. to sum up, the four most common words utilized by the grade 1 students in their impromptu speaking performance are ‘ahm’, ‘ah’, ‘kanang' and ‘ay'. according to some researches, these words are commonly used when code switching to avoid communication breakdown, supply the linguistic needs and difficulties as well as structure. clares fe enriquez, glyza candido, nicole fletcher abing, franlo bucog, jovenil bacatan | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 208 apart from this, the least used words when codes switching by the respondents are also shown in the table. this includes unsa/unsay which is utilized by four participants; ano and kay which are both used by three participants; kasi, lang, na, and para, which is all utilized by two participants; and bitaw, dili, eh, gud, gusto, ha, hmn, importante, makatabang, mapabag-o, nagmahalan, sa, singot, and tas (shorten for tapos) wherein each of them is all applied by only 1 participant. functions of the common words the researchers based the determining of code switching functions to the study of amorim (2017). they found out five functions which were used by the grade 11 students of um peñaplata college, and these are fillers, hesitations, discourse markers, literary translation, and repetition of words. among the five functions, the most common functions that were utilized by the participants are the fillers and hesitations. based on the research’s result, the first most common word which is ‘ahm’ that is used by grade 11 students of um peñaplata college acts as a filler. p2, p7, and p18 used ‘ahm’ in between phrases. it is also evident that p7 and p18 used ‘ahm’ more than once. the uttering of ‘ahm’ served as a prolongation and a sign that they were currently thinking and were still not done with giving their idea. samples are given below: p2: “well, when i’m facing my conflicts and problems i usually doing ahm... talking to my friends and telling my problems to help them guide me all over what situation i do.” p7s1: “...sitting at the front because if i sit in front row ahm... i can learn a lot because i listen to according to my teacher so that ahm... i can learn a lot." p18s1: “base on my understanding in ahm... for my own opinion...we can see the changes that have been ahm... put to us and the changes that are growing to become more and more ahm... good for ahm... students.” based on the given samples, ‘ahm’ is a filler because it was used by the speakers to prolong the conversation signifying that they were not finished yet with their speech. it is observable that the filler ‘ahm’ is used more than once in a sentence by the participants. ‘ahm’ usually occurs at the middle of the sentence and between phrases. this shows that the participants have difficulties in delivering speech smoothly and that the use of the filler ‘ahm’ helps them to have an opportunity to continue their speech while thinking on what they would say next. based on the study of brueckner and schuller (2014), ‘ahm’ is filler which is used by the speaker to hold the floor in conversations.also, ‘ahm’ also indicates hesitation. the p22, p38, and p31 used ‘ahm’ more than once in their speech, and it usually occurred in the middle or between phrases. it was observed that every time they utter ‘ahm’ the next utterances or words being spoken show hesitation and being unsure of what to say. examples are given below: p22s3: “...your mother is okay or still in good and ah... ahm... have ah... a rest in having an exercise and have a bad ahm... ah, mao nato siya.” p38: “...we can we can work ahm... two years ahm... two ahm... two to more than years pa...” p31s1: “everyone ahm... kanang naa man,(there is) ay mam uy (ma’am)because everyone wants so ay ma'am uy tama na ma'am uy,(it’s enough mam) so ahm... everyone kanang in our country ahm... the population is is becoming increasing..” from the above samples, ‘ahm’ serves as the starting point of the participants in which they tried to begin to use their mother tongue instead of the english language but due to the necessity to use the latter they result on switching two languages vice-versa. the use of ‘ahm’ by the participants is evidence that they are not sure of what would be the right english terms that they would say next. this shows that the participants are conscious and uncomfortable in expressing their answers using the english language. as cited in the study of schmid and fägersten (2010), ‘ahm’ is a hesitation marker uttered whenever the speaker is uncertain what to say next. on the other hand, the second most common word which is ‘ah’ functions as a filler. p49, p51, and p66 insert ‘ah’ in the middle of their speech to fill in the gaps during their thinking time. it signifies that, instead of pausing for a second to have thinking time, they utter ‘ah’. samples are given below: clares fe enriquez, glyza candido, nicole fletcher abing, franlo bucog, jovenil bacatan | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 209 p49s1: “for me ah...kanang makasasala para sa akoa nay uban na mga buotan bitaw..”( there are sinner who are not really bad) p51s1: “my greatest interest in life is ah... play basketball because i love to play basketball and ah... ball is life and ah...panington (makes me sweaty) and i running running..” p66: “i love minions because they are cute... ah... i love their character... and ah... they are loving pets.” based on the given samples above, ’ah’ occurs mostly before the participants state their answer and before they give reasons to their answer. this is evident that ‘ah’ is a strategy of the participants to have thinking time. as what erten (2014) cited in his research, “ah” is a filler which is subjective and is used to express a response or a reaction to the prior discourse involving also back-channel signals of comprehension and continuous attention while another speaker is having his turn. aside from that, ‘ah’ also acts as an indicator of hesitation. it was observed that p25, p29, p31 utter ‘ah’ while they were hesitating of what to say next. additionally, if observed in the speech of p31, the participants didn't only utilize ‘ahh’ but also ‘ayy’.it was also evident in their speech that they used ‘ah’ because they were uncertain of what they are talking about. examples are given below: p25s1: “...doctor ma'am ah...pwedi tagalong ma'am ay bisaya kaya(can i speak in tgaalog maam or bisaya), para makatabang ko sa mga masakiton .”(for me to help sick people) p29s1: “so, for me homo ah... homosexuality is ahh... if it is ah... base on bible it is a sin because god only made ah... female and male only but for these days ah...dawat naman gud na siya sa community...”(it has already been accepted by the community) p31s2: “...that’s why so rh bill is not good in our ah...ayy tama nani te uy .”(this is enough already) the use of ‘ah’ by the participants as a sign of hesitation shows that students have difficulties in speaking fluently through the use of the english language. it is also evident that the participants used ‘ah’ to choose and evaluate within themselves the next word that they would utter to continue their speech. jokinen and allwood, (2010) stated in their research that the uttering of “ah” during a conversation by the people in most eastern countries such as japan and philippines indicates that the speaker is hesitating and is uncertain on what to say or what to express. moreover, the function of the third most common word which is ‘kanang’ is filler. p3 and p5 used ‘kanang’ more than once in their speech. this word serves as a code switching which functions as filler inserted between phrases to replace a certain pause during a speech. samples are given below: p3: “for me, the most suitable environment learning... kanang most suitable learning environment for me is kanang learning music because music is my life. kanang i’m comfortable with music when i’m alone and doing nothing...” p5s1: “...when kanang... kanang makadisturbosiya kung busy ta saatong pagstudy.(it could disturb us whne we’re busy with our studies... ay... tungod sa kanang(because of)... makadisturbo siya sa atong pastudy...”(it can disturb our study) p9s1: “this is one of who guide us to be kanang i-guide ta sa..”(to guide us) from the above samples, it is identifiable that the word ‘kanang’ is used by the participants while they are searching the right word to say. the use of ‘kanang’ by the participants shows that there is confusion happening in their mind as to what they would say next. this confusion is not because of their lack of thought but because they are thinking of using their mother tongue which made it difficult for them to express it in the english language. as cited in the study of opina (2017) “kanang” is verbal filler in the visayan dialect which is committed by male and female students to fill in the gap or the silence during the speech. also, ‘kanang’ also functions as a sign of hesitation. it was observable that p2, p30, and p36 used the utterance ‘kanang’ during times of uncertainty in their speech. samples are given below: p23s1: “...as we all know that kanang ayy... as we all know that most...” p30s1: “...killing notorious criminals kanang... killing killing notorious criminals will not...” p36s2: “...for me the success is kanang when ahhm... ahh... aysa(wait)...” clares fe enriquez, glyza candido, nicole fletcher abing, franlo bucog, jovenil bacatan | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 210 the use of ‘kanang’ as a sign of hesitation that is evident in the above samples indicates that the participants' difficulty of translating their thought from their mother tongue to the english language because they are limited by their knowledge of the latter. the participants know what to say, but they don't know how to say it in english which resulted in the switching of code. furthermore, the function of the fourth most common word which is ‘ay’ is filler. the code switching ‘ay’ was observed as filler during the speech of p40 and p45. their utterance of ‘ay’ signifies that they were not yet finished with their statement. samples are given below: p40: “...if i am ay... if i am the leader i’ll overcome anxiety is ay... sharing with your mom...” p45: “...even though that we don’t have nature... ay... even though that...” as shown above, the participants used ’ay’ as fillers to change and interrupt their speech that they think as wrong or if their sentence is constructed inappropriately. it is supported by the study of opina (2017) at the beginning of the speech means that there has been a mistake that is needed to be clarified. aside from that, ‘ay’ also functions as a determiner of hesitation. the participants’ usage of ‘ay’ is a sign that they noticed that they committed a mistake during their speech. it is evident that uncertainty drove them to use the code switching ‘ay’. samples are given below: p12s1: “...it is not good to us because if we... ay! kana gung inigfro(just like)..” p23s1: “...as we all know that kanang ay! as we all know that most most..” p26s5: “i recognize him a good person because because importantesiya(important), ay! this is important...” as shown above, the participants’ used of ‘ay’ indicates their uncertainty in expressing their answer with the use of the english language. it is also observable that after the participants used the word ‘ay’, they repeat the first words or phrases that they have stated before it. this help determines that the participants are not sure and don't know what they will say next. in accordance to the study of opina (2017), it is being exemplified that the use of "ay" at the beginning of the speech means that there has been a committed mistake that is needed to be corrected. on the other hand, it also signifies that there is a realization regarding a prior proposition presented has been made by the speaker. as what has been observed, the most common words used by grade 11 students in um penaplata college function as both fillers and an indicator of hesitation.based on (masithoh et al. 2018) the use of fillers and hesitation devices as a function of code switching aims to fill pauses and use the time to think of what to say next. also, when code switching functions as filler, it seeks to achieve better expression, clarification, or better understanding (gumperz, 1982 as cited by ibrahim et al. 2013). on the other hand, the functions of the least common words used by grade 11 students of um penaplata college are kuan, unsa/unsay, ano, kay, para, bitaw, lang, kasi, makatabang, dili, eh, gud, gusto, hmmm, ha, importante, mapabag o, na, nagmahalan, sa, singot, and ta’s (tapos). types of code switching from the data gathered during the conduct of the research, the researchers were able to identify the types of code switching that the participants commonly used. table 5 presents the types of code switching utilized by the grade 11 students in their speaking performance. the types are based on the study of kustati (2014) as he analyzed the types of code switching through observation and indepth interviews. kustati (2014) presented four types of code switching that include intra-sentential code switching, intra word, tag switching, and inter-sentential. from the research conducted and as shown in the table in the next page, the researchers were able to identify 59 participants who have committed tag switching, 36 participants for intrasentential, 12 participants for intra-word, and two participants for inter-sentential code switching.the frequency means the number of participants who used certain type of code switching in their impromptu speaking performance. clares fe enriquez, glyza candido, nicole fletcher abing, franlo bucog, jovenil bacatan | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 211 table5. types of code switching used by grade11 students in um peñaplata college types of code switching number of participants percentage tag-switching 59 88.06% intra-sentential intra-word 36 53.73% 17.91% 12 inter-sentential switching 2 2.99% as seen from the table, the researchers found out that the first type of code switching commonly used by grade 11 students of um peñaplata college is the tagswitching since out of 67 participants, 59 students have committed this type of code switching. from the samples given below, it is evident that p29 uses tag switching since the code switched word ‘ah’ is used as a filler; thus, it is to be considered as tag switching. furthermore, it is also observable in the statement of p31 wherein the code switched word ‘ahm’ is used to sustain the gap the speech of the participants. also, p35 also uses the word ‘ay’ as filler wherein the code switched word is used by the participant to clarify his later ideas. it is also visible that in their utterance, the participants repeatedly code switched and the code switch words are bisaya language. p29: “so, for me homo ah... homosexuality is ah... if it is ah... base on bible it is a sin because god only made ah... female and male only but for these days ah... dawat naman gud na siya sa community(it has already been accepted in the community) my god, but todays ano... in our generation now ah... homosexuality is already adopted in our community. so that’s all.” p31: “everyone ahm... kanang naa man(there is), (ay mam uy)because everyone wants so (ay ma'am uy tama na ma'am uy)(it’s enough maam) , so ahm... everyone kanang in our country ahm... the population is... is becoming increasing that’s why so rh bill is not good in our ahh... (ayy tama na ni te uy .)(it’s enough already)” p35: “so for me, ay! so so for me, i can say that social aspect can... can develop ay! that social media can develop my social aspect since just for example facebook we can ay! through facebook we can connect to the other people ah... we can we can have some conversation with them, and we can know some people through fac1book or messenger or any social media such as instagram, twitter, and everything. so for me we can ah... we can socialize and we can... we can communicate other people we ay! we will know other people through social media so for me social media can deve... ah... can really develop our social aspect.” from the given samples above, the participants insert words within phrases and sentences without affecting the meaning of the sentences. it was also supported in the study of jingxia (2010) wherein; it has been mentioned that tag switching has lesser restraints as they are used infix clauses disregarding the syntactic rules. as cited in the study of cakrawarti (2011), emblematic code switching is also called tagswitching and this includes the insertion of phrases, exclamation, and tags of one language into an utterance of another language. in the study of novianti (2013), it was also cited that this type of code switching happens when a tag phrase or other certain phrases and exclamation of one language are inserted into another language’s utterance. apart from this, the researchers found out that the second type of switching code commonly used by grade 11 students of um penaplata college is intrasentential since out 67 participants, there are 36 students who have committed this type of code switching. in the statement of p1, the code switched phrase is “di siya ma-consider na acceptable kay cheating kay bad man gud siya," and it can be seen that the participant code switched within the phrase; thus, it is considered as intra-sentential code switching. p1 used bisaya language in code switching. it is also visible that the participant code switched to continue his utterance. aside from that, p7's act of code switching is committed to keeping up his speech which starts from the english language. the code switched phrase of p7 is “ta’s eh... kung maglingkod ko sa likod kanang madistruct ko sa kanang mga tabi kanang makalimtan nako ang mga gipangsulti sa mga teachers” which is in the form of bisaya language. it is also observable that the participant's code switching happens within the sentence; thus, the type of code switching being used by the participant is intrasentential code switching. the code switched phrase of p7 serves as the reason for his later statement. clares fe enriquez, glyza candido, nicole fletcher abing, franlo bucog, jovenil bacatan | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 212 the same type of code switching was used by p14 wherein the participant code switched to continue his discourse, and the code switched phrase which is “gusto ko mamatay kanang gibaril lang kay... kay para wala na siya’y... para diretso nalang kaisa nalang ba wala nay murag sakit pa” occurs" within the sentence. the code switch word is, therefore, to be considered as intra-sentential. p14 also code switched to deliver his idea continuously in his utterance which starts from using english language and ends up in using bisaya language. furthermore, the used of the intrasentential type of code switching by p1, p7, and p14 serves as a continuation of the participant's later statements. p1: “no, because cheating is ah... cheating is di siya pwede ma-consider na(cheating should not be considered) acceptable kay cheating kay bad man gud siya(because cheating is bad).” p7: “for me is kanang... sitting at the front because if i sit in front row ahm... i can learn a lot because i listen to according to my teacher so that ahm... i can learn a lot ta’s eh... kung maglingkod ko sa likod kanang madistruct ko sa kanang mga tabi kanang makalimtan nako ang mga gipangsulti sa mga teachers( if you sit at the back you’ll be destructed and most probably will forget what the teacher had said).” p14: “if i were to choose i would like... i would like to gusto ko mamatay kanang gibaril lang kay(like to die through guns... kay para wala na siya’y(so it will never have)... para diretso na lang kaisa na lang ba wala nay murag sakit pa.(so that it’s direct and you can no loner feel pain)” based on the samples given, it could be observed that the participants switch code within sentences and phrases. in one sentence, they used two languages. as mentioned in the study of jingxia (2010) intrasentential code switching happens inside the clause or phrase, and it is considered as the tough structure of code switching. as shown in the study of novianti (2013), intrasentential code switching happens inside a sentence and clausal level. it was also mentioned in the study of babalola and taiwo (2009) that intrasentential code switching is being described as a shift of the use of language inside a phrase or sentence. aside from that, the researchers also found out that the participants also utilized intersentential and intra-word switching. among 67 respondents there are two students who have committed the inter-sentential type of code switching. as what is seen in the utterance of p11, the participant code switched phrase is “mao lang," and it is in bisaya language. the act of code switching happens outside the sentence wherein the utterance of english language ended first before an utterance of bisaya language is inserted and continued. it can be seen that the participant’s act of code switching serves as an indication that his utterance ended up already. also, p22 code switched phrase is “mao nato siya” and it is in the form of bisaya language. the same thing happens in the previous utterance of p11 wherein p22's code switching also occurs outside the sentence. the act of code switching also indicates that the participant's utterance has ended up with the use of the code switched words. as a whole, it is visible that the use of intersentential code switching by p11 and p22 usually occurs in a separate sentence; thus, it to be considered as inter-sentential code switching. p11: “i would like... ay... i would say to him/her that in kanang... kanang... in private way gud siya(noe)... unya... that his/her armpit is in bad odor so that kanang... so that he will... he will... he will... she/he will be aware. mao lang.(that’s it)” p22: “for me is the... the useful socsocial media is facebook because in facebook we can see our... we can see our relatives where far from us and we can message them and have communication with them, so for example if kanang our mother is an ofw and in example in saudi so ah… sa pagkalayo nila is ma ma maano nato ma macommunicate nato sila ma ah... ahh... (we can communicate them even if they qare far) we can know if ah... he or ay! your mother is okay or still in good and ahh... ahm have ah a rest in have ah exercise and have a bad ahm... ah. mao nato siya. (that’s it)(hahaha).” the participants' used of inter-sentential code switching is evident by their switching of code by sentences. they used the english language for one sentence and mother tongue for the next sentence. the later statement is being supported by what has been mentioned in jingxia (2010) that inter-sentential code switching takes place at phrases or sentences wherein, each sentence's utterance is in a different language. as also cited in the study of novianti (2013), intersentential code switching happens among phrases and sentences wherein each sentence and clause uses different clares fe enriquez, glyza candido, nicole fletcher abing, franlo bucog, jovenil bacatan | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 213 language. also, babalola and taiwo (2013) described intersentential codeswitching as a change of the use of language in each sentence or phrase. furthermore, the research conducted revealed that few of the grade 11 students in um peñaplata college also used intra-word switching. as what is seen in the utterance of p1, the word “ma-consider” is the switched code. a word of english language which is ‘consider’ is being inserted with a bisaya morpheme ‘ma’; thus, considering it as an intra-word type of code switching. the same thing happens with the utterances of p5 and p7 wherein the participants inserted bisaya morpheme in an english word. for p5, the participant inserted the bisaya morpheme ‘pag’ to an english word ‘study’. for p7, the participant inserted the bisaya morpheme ‘ma’ to an english word ‘distruct’. it is also observable that the participants 1, 5, and 7 used intra word code switching to appropriately discuss their ideas through using the proper english word they think and it is being attached with a bisaya morpheme. p1:” no, because cheating is ahh.. cheating is di siya pwede ma-consider na (cheating should not be considered) acceptable kay cheating kay bad man gudsiya. (because cheating is bad).”” r5: “para sa ako ahm..for me having a boyfriend ..ah.. could affect my study because ahm..ahm.. because ahm when kanang..kanang makadisturbo siya kung busy ta sa atong pagstudy (it could disturb us whne we’re busy with our studies)..ay..tungod sa kanang..makadisturbo siya sa atong pagstudy tungod sa mga pag sig atubangnila (it can disturb our study because of always entertaining them).” p7: “for me is kanang ..sitting at the front because if i sit in front row ahm ..i can learn a lot because i listen to according to my teacher so that ahm.. i can learn a lot ta’s eh ..kung maglingkod ko sa likod kanang madistruct ko sa kanang mga tabi kanang makalimtan nako ang mga gipangsulti sa mga teachers.” (if you sit at the back you’ll be destructed and most probably will forget what the teacher had said).” the participants commit intra-word switching by combining both their mother tongue and the english language for a certain word. this is very common for bilingual individuals. as stated in the study of kustati (2014) switching code may happen within the word which is called intra-word switching. overall, the study of kustati (2014), jingxia (2010), cakrawarti (2011), novianti (2013), and babalola and taiwo (2009) agreed the same thoughts about the types of code switching and have supported the results of the study specifically in the types of code switching as what is presented and discussed in the above findings and discussions. conclusion based on the impromptu speaking performance of the respondents, it was found out that code switching is unavoidable for esl learners. the researchers have proven that whatever comes out from their speaking performance is not due to their lack of knowledge on the question. the basis of the analysis was transparently set by the researchers. the results of the study signify that the students focus more on accuracy rather than fluency. they code switched as a strategy to maintain accuracy in their speaking performance. the occurrence of code switching in relevance to the theory of communicative competence in which this study is anchored emphasized that it is a speaker’s way of adopting his/her use of verbal and nonverbal language to recompense for communication matter. however, this phenomenon gives a negative impact considering the expected competency that they should have already acquired in respect with their level. both accuracy and fluency must be given equal consideration and importance in the academic arena. based on the summarized study and implications, the researchers would like to recommend to the english curricularists to emphasize using the english language in class and keep ways to address the difficulties of esl learners regarding speaking. in addition, it is also recommended to the students’ to improve their vocabulary knowledge of the english language and practice speaking using the target language. lastly, future researchers may conduct a similar study to provide educators with a broader understanding of students' problems with regards to speaking using the english language because they have a more comprehensive knowledge of their first language. acknowledgement the overall success and completion of this research will be impossible without the divine guidance of our almighty god. clares fe enriquez, glyza candido, nicole fletcher abing, franlo bucog, jovenil bacatan | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 214 funding statement this is a non-funded study. references abastillas, g. 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(2010). code-switching in the foreign language classroom. höstterminen. engelska, 15, 61-90. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 105 elt forum 11(2) (2022) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt understanding technical term translation using language translator as mobileassisted language learning (mall) danti pudjiati1, tira nur fitria2 1stkip kusuma negara jakarta, indonesia 2institut teknologi bisnis aas indonesia, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received on 14 march 2022 approved on 27 july 2022 published on 30 july 2022 ________________ keywords: technical terms; translation strategies; mobile-assisted language learning (mall); language translator ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ language barriers often prevent a person from understanding information. for that, internet users need to know the best mobile application to translate or translate foreign languages. numerous mobile apps can be used for english language learning. the apps grow as technology improves then other apps were created specifically for the purpose to teach any subject. mobile-assisted language learning (mall) is a prominent practice nowadays. the mall for translation usage is gradually established for efl students because of the development of ict. however, the research that discussed this issue is still far on the ground. this research is conducted to fill this void. there are four concerns to consider namely 1) mall in improving students’ translation skills, 2) students’ way of translating technical terms 3) the most translation strategy applied by the students to translate the technical terms (4) challenges faced by students when translating the technical terms from english into indonesian by using mall. this research was carried out with a qualitative method. the data were taken from both an online survey and a semi-structured interview. the findings revealed that the students were helpful to use language translator (lt) for translating technical terms, especially in determining word choice. they selected three strategies for translating technical terms, i.e. translation by definition, literal translation, and borrowing. the strategy that the students used was a translation by definition. the challenge that they faced when using mall was primarily regarding guidance availability. nonetheless, most of them agreed that the lt was very supportive. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: tiranurfitria@gmail.com http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& danti pudjiati, tira nur fitria | elt forum 11(2) (2020) 106 introduction by closing or eliminating learning activities as usual by all educational institutions, it is hoped that it can reduce the spread of covid-19, especially by protecting students from being exposed to or becoming carriers of this covid-19. this policy makes the government, related educational institutions, and teachers (as the spearhead of education implementers) act quickly to present alternative educational processes for students). due to a coronavirus disease outbreak, the government of indonesia has the policy to implement an online mode for educational activities the level primary up to tertiary. in response to this condition, several technological tools are required in managing that mode, particularly for efl students. one of the technological tools that can provide access to language learning is a mobile phone (smartphone). the level of development of smartphone devices which is getting higher and relatively cheaper is a factor supporting the increasing number of smartphone users. indonesian smartphone users are also growing rapidly. the presence of mobile learning is intended as a complement to learning and provides opportunities for students to learn material that is less mastered anywhere and anytime. mobile learning that will be studied is based on android so that it can be used by students to increase interest in learning. mobile phones or smartphones are devices equipped with an operating system for the wider community. its function is not only for sms and calling, but users can freely add other applications and functions or change them according to the user's wishes. in other words, a smartphone is a mini-computer that has the capabilities of a telephone. mobile phones allow users to learn languages through certain applications. the type of language learning that uses mobile phones and can be accessed anywhere is called mobile assisted language learning (mall). mall in translation is increasingly prevalent among indonesian efl students due to ict development and practical usage in teaching and learning (fitria, 2021d). mall is part of computer assisted language learning (call) for mobile learning (m-learning) and language learning. therefore, the mall knowledge in translation has great importance for skill improvement both for efl students and educators. paying attention to mall, multi-functional mobile devices can give a contribution to language learners in terms of the teaching environment (yang, 2013). wu et al. (2018) also stated about mobile device usage proved language acquisition improvement. after that, it was obvious that mall confirmed significantly in contextualization learning (alona & hagit, 2019). many studies pertinent to mall, especially for increasing the competence of english were already completed. first, baleghizadeh & oladrostam (2010) state that pre-intermediate iranian female students who had benefitted from mobile-assisted learning performed considerably better on a multiple-choice grammar posttest than those in the control group. second, taj et al. (2016) stated that mall was a beneficial tool for the development of language acquisition. third, ahmad et al. (2017) state that vocabulary acquisition occurred in both non-mall and mall migrant women english learners; however, the mall atmosphere offered a much more enriched vocabulary learning experience. as a result, the mall framework has the potential to improve migrant women's learning and vocabulary development. fourth, miqawati & wijayanti (2017) state that the use of flashcards in combination with mall lets students participate fully in communication while maintaining proper pronunciation. fifth, keezhatta & omar (2019) state that mall systems and apps, in general, create a compelling learning environment for teaching reading, which has beneficial consequences for students in four public secondary schools in saudi arabia's riyadh district. sixth, hadi & emzir (2016) state that action research at muhammadiyah university of jakarta's english department in enhancing english speaking ability utilizing mobile assisted language learning (mall) has shown that mall significantly improves students' ability to speak english. seventh, islam & hasan (2020) discuss the mall's effectiveness in increasing listening skills. they reviewed papers from empirical research of university students. they were validated regarding the content of listening skills and the mall as well. eighth, gharehblagh & nasri (2020) state that on the post-hoc interview revealed that mall students were enthusiastic about the use of mobile technology in writing classes. considering the previous research, most of them scrutinize the mall's effectiveness to promote both learning english and finding out the perception about the mobile. in other words, while existing studies have established the benefits of mall in learning and teaching english, they have not addressed mall in the realm of translation for efl learners. to fill the void, research with the main focus on technical terms translation from english into indonesian was conducted. as stated by fitria (2021), since almost everyone has had prior experience with machine translation, danti pudjiati, tira nur fitria | elt forum 11(2) (2020) 107 translation practice experience in translating an english text using a mobile device, in this case for pre-service teachers, is an important activity (fitria, 2021b). this type of translation may be found for free on the internet, is easy to use, and gives accurate results in a matter of seconds. consistent with the background, this research is about the translation of technical terms from english into indonesian by using mall. concisely, four questions about this issue, such as 1) how mall can help the students to improve their translation skills, 2) how do the students translate the technical terms?, 3) which is the most translation strategy applied by the students to translate those technical terms?, and 4) what challenges do students face during translating the technical terms from english into indonesian by using mall? this research aimed at exposing the answer finding to the research’s problems. first, it was to elucidate the practice of mall for assisting the students to translate technical terms from english to indonesian. subsequently, it was to describe how the students translate technical terms. and, it was to reveal the most translation strategy taken by the students in translating technical terms. lastly, it was to identify the challenge that students face when translating the technical terms from english into indonesian using mall. hence, this knowledge was considered to be an advantageous input to efl learners at the tertiary education level. strategies of technical terms translation three strategies of technical terms translation discussed are borrowing, literal translation, and description translation. according to pym (2017), borrowing a word or expression in the source language into the target language has an aim. it was to overcome an unknown concept found in the culture of the target language. borrowing is also utilized for introducing the essence of the culture in the source language. in other words, the choice of borrowing a word or expression of the source language is to introduce an element of the source language as well as to create meaningful effects. for example, a radio which is from english as a source language is translated into radio in indonesian as a target language. fitria (2019) states two types of borrowing. pure borrowing is when a word is copied directly from the source language (sl) and entered into the target language (tl) without any changes to the letters. naturalized borrowing, on the other hand, allows a term to be naturalized to match the spelling rules of the target language (tl) so that readers may readily comprehend what it means. the literal translation is also well known as the word-for-word translation. it is the direct transfer of source language text into an appropriate target language text in terms of grammar. principally, the literal translation is the reversible solution. this means that a literal the translation is commonly applied when translating between two languages of the same family (e.g. between french and italian) and the same culture. while the descriptive translation is used in parallel with the transcription. however, this strategy is usually taken for terms, cultural words, and unique objects translation with no lexical equivalents in the target language. therefore descriptive translation aims to explain so that the reader of the target language gets a comprehension meaning (polyakova et al., 2019). mobile-assisted language learning (mall) a mobile translator is a mobile application that can be utilized for translating from english to any other dialect, and vice versa (ogundokun et al., 2021). one example of a mobile translator is language translator (lt). viberg & grönlund (2013) state that mall referred to the function of mobile devices as the technological advancement for acquiring a language. this definition was in line with ishaq et al. (2020). he described mobile learning is considered as a sophisticated device used for instructional goals. furthermore, son (2014) explained that mall became more popular as a device for language learning. therefore its potential usage leads to be researched, besides call. dominic (2016) and muhammad et al. (2020) described mall as a call novel subfield. the process of learning a language tended to be more at ease to complete by using mall because the form promotes practicality. the learners may gain language knowledge through cell phones (matthew, 2021). we used language translator (lt) as an example of mall for this research. language translator (lt) a language translator is a program that converts statements from one computer language to another, without changing the meaning. language translator (lt) manages over 100 languages in the world. the language translator software enables users to swiftly, efficiently, and effortlessly search up or danti pudjiati, tira nur fitria | elt forum 11(2) (2020) 108 translate words and sentences using a dictionary. additionally, it enables users to swiftly submit text using the speech recognition feature and to listen to the translated text via the voice broadcast capability. it is completely free, and users can use it even while they are offline. this application is perfect to translate texts fast on our phones or tablet. with this online translator, we won't have communication problems. among the features are the following: 1) support for offline translation in 59 languages. 2) rapid translation: simply choose the text and translate it to any location. 3) voice recognition and broadcasting in all 47 languages (speech recognition and text-to-speech). 4) detect and translate text from images: users may pick a picture and the program will assist them in detecting and translating text. 5) can be used in conjunction with a dictionary. 6) copy and paste translated content directly into other programs. 6) a straightforward and user-friendly interface. 7) extremely convenient when traveling. 7) a slew of other user-friendly features. besides that, the interface is simple and stylish, the translations are done instantly, the application is free, possibility to copy the translated text by using one button, possibility to delete the text by clicking one button, and users can translate from 90 different languages, users can translate by using our voice, and users can listen to translations. figure 1. language translator based on figure 1 depicted language translator (lt) which is found in google play. the software allows us to look up words or phrases in a dictionary. also, it translates such phrases with ease and fast. this application is completed as well by a speech recognition that permits the user to input a text right away. then, a voice broadcast lets us listen to the text being translated. it could be used not only with an internet connection but also offline. overall, language translator (lt) supports text detection derived from both image and voice recognition. methods this study was managed under a qualitative method because the result is presumed to explore the value of mall in translation activities (phakiti, 2014). hence, in obtaining the answer to four research questions, we applied an online survey and semi-structured interview as the research instrument. we decided to implement more than one data source, i.e. online survey and interview. the reason was such triangulation or data collection may improve the credibility of research findings (creswell, 2015). twenty-two students, including male and female, took part in this research. they came from the graduate program of english education study program with the age of between 21 and 24 years old. a model sample of an information-oriented was used in selecting participants. we both concentrated on the perspective of academic background because they completed the subject of translation. besides, they also agreed to participate voluntarily in this study. the main objective of the subject is for the students can translate many kinds of text which were taken from different fields of knowledge from english to indonesian. during the course, the students use both english and indonesian. therefore, it remains appropriate to support us in probing this topic and gathering the data. all of the participants had instructions to fill in the online surveys to obtain information. the information regarding in what way mall can help them to improve their english. this survey was danti pudjiati, tira nur fitria | elt forum 11(2) (2020) 109 created using google forms. they answered the questions by a means of selecting the optional boxes. in addition, they also expressed their opinion with an open answers. the online interview was also completed to record the participants’ reflections in line with their experiences of making use of lt in translating technical terms. technical terms they had to translate were taken from the video. it was about video editing and definitions for beginners. the video was originally from youtube. after they watched it, there were eleven technical terms that they need to translate. these terms are “jump out, transition, zoom in, scale-up, ripple delete, copy attributes, b roll, keyframe, l-cut”. the students also had the experience to operate the mall. in this case, we used the language translator (lt) application developed by one of the leading companies. in the beginning, they installed it on their cellular phone and were explained to work with it through online sessions. the aim is they understand how to use it for translating the text from indonesian into english and from english into indonesian, particularly technical terms. the quantitative data were analyzed based on students' responses. their responses were grouped into four categories, i.e. the benefit of mall (bm), translation technical terms (ttt), translation strategy (ts), and the challenge of mall (cm). we employed an analysis of thematic to evaluate the data. initially, the semi-structured interviews were transliterated. after that, we examined the data based on meaning units (bryman, 2016). it referred to two different topics i.e. the translation strategy to translate technical terms and the difficulty using mall. the topics analyzed were based on the interview and the questionnaire. the finding report was organized in line with the research questions. to sum up, the data were investigated in three steps, namely the description of data, the display of data, and the verification of data. findings and discussion findings concerning the stated research goals, the analysis results of this study were presented in detail. the data sources were online surveys and interviews. they would be explained below: mall helps students to improve translation skills two out of 22 students stated that language translator (lt) was not useful because they can use other devices which are favorable for them. they did not want to inform others about this application as well since it has the same function as other mall. nine students expressed positively about the function of a language translator (lt). mostly, they described that this application was easy and practical to operate. moreover, the features and the services offered were complete, such as converting the source language in the form of text to voice and vice versa. it can be used offline too. in brief, they can increase their knowledge in terms of translation skills. “the reason is lt is easy to download. to use this application i don’t have to make registration so it can be used right away” “lt is easy and practical. no need to connect with the internet”. “lt is very easy to use anywhere and anytime even without the internet”. however, eleven students proved that language translator (lt) was informative for translation practice because of its various services. it helped them in determining the word chosen for the translation as well as to translate the word or the term or the expression that the students were not familiar with. they felt that it became easy to understand the meaning of the word in english with language translator (lt). “i am the type of person who is a bit difficult to memorize, with the lt application. “it is easier for me to find and memorize difficult words”. “lt is very helpful to translate some words from english into indonesian and vice versa”. “lt can help remind words from indonesian to english”. “yes, lt helps to translate words that i don't know”. 95.5 % of students agreed that using language translator (lt) can improve their translation skills and all of them completely agreed that it was easy to operate. the majority of them liked the service offered by this application. on the other hand, they said that it was their first to translate a https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5wv6fefbuu danti pudjiati, tira nur fitria | elt forum 11(2) (2020) 110 text (technical terms) using language translator (lt). in other words, it confirmed that they were uninformed about this application before. students’ technical term translation there were eleven technical terms relating to the process of editing videos to be translated by the students. they were “jump out, transition, zoom in, scale-up, ripple delete, copy attributes, b roll, keyframe, and l-cut”. the students have the freedom to apply the translation strategies for the translation of technical terms after using a language translator (lt). they preferred three translation strategies, namely literal, borrowing, and descriptive translation. for example, “jump cut” is translated literally into lompatan gambar. this translation is taken from the word stated in the dictionary or more specifically in the video editing dictionary or glossary. “jump cut” is translated with a borrowing into “jump cut”. this means that the translation is the same as the term in the source language. the word “jump cut” is translated by descriptive translation into two options i.e. (1) “lompatan gambar pada rangkaian shot yang disebabkan oleh perubahan posisi karakter atau obyek dalam satu latar, (2) posisi karakter dan obyek tetap namun latar berubah seketika secara tidak wajar”. in english it means (1) an image jumps in a series of shots due to changes in the position of characters or objects in the same setting, (2) the position of characters and objects remains but the background changes in an unnaturally way). this translation strategy provided more explanation in detail so that the readers would understand the meaning of a term comprehensively. translation strategies to translate technical terms to know the most translation strategy to translate technical terms, the researchers conduct an online survey of the students, the result analysis can be seen in the table below: table 1. translation strategy for technical terms no translation strategy percentage 1. translation with definition 50 % 2. translation literally 40 % 3. borrowing 10 % based on the table above, the students perceived positively the proportion of 50 % for translation with definition. most of them said in the interview that the descriptive translation strategy gave the readers more information so that they will understand technical terms correctly. they do not mind the translation will expand as long as they can comprehend the meaning of the term. particularly, the domain of the original terms was not known well by students. “for me, to translate technical terms with a descriptive translation is the right one because i can understand it fully. “i am satisfied with the result of translation with a descriptive translation”. “frankly speaking, it is hard to translate the technical term. it becomes harder if we are not familiar with the field of knowledge where the technical terms are taken”. the second-highest proportion was 40 % for translation literally. the students described that the aim of translation literally is to maintain the message conveyed in this case the technical terms. in other words, the students preferred to translate literally for preserving the similar meaning of technical terms between the source language and target language. “i like to translate technical terms literally because the reader may understand it at ease”. “for those who want to be more precise in translation of the term, it’s better to choose literal translation”. “in my opinion translation literally is the most applicable for translating the technical term”. the third percentage went to translation strategy and borrowing. there were two students out of 22 who took borrowing strategy for translating technical terms. the translation result by applying the borrowing strategy is a similar term used between the source language and target language. it did not change at all for the translation. this strategy is taken as long as the readers recognized well the technical terms being translated. danti pudjiati, tira nur fitria | elt forum 11(2) (2020) 111 students’ challenges to translate technical terms using mall to know the students’ challenges to translate technical terms using mall, the researchers conduct an online survey of the students, the result analysis can be seen in the table below: table 2. the students’ challenges to translate technical terms using mall no translation strategy percentage 1. guidance availability 36.5 % 2. technical problems 22.7 % 3. time management 22.7 % 4. others 16.2 based on the table above, shows that the students met four types of challenges when applying mall to translate technical terms as indicated before. according to 36.5 % of students, there is no one to guide them is the most challenging. the same percentage, 22.7 %, went through technical problems and time management. the rest, 16.2% was for others such as their cellular quality is supported by installing the lt application and this made them wait for loading. based on the result of the interview, students had a problem with technical concerns. they faced difficulty accessing their translation history. additionally, some students told that they still needed assistance because it was their first experience using language translator (lt). though, several of them produced contradictory statements. they had a great understanding of how to utilize lt since they had listened carefully to online sessions which are organized by researchers. discussion the need for translating exists in many activities, ranging from activities in the education room to activities while traveling. translator or translator applications, such as google translate, are certainly very useful at times like this. of course, google translate is not the only translator app that can help us translate anything. there are many similar applications that we can choose from the google play store or apple's app store. the type of translator app we need depends on our needs. these translator apps can generally translate text, speech, images, or even have a real-time conversation with someone who speaks a different language. some other applications offer audio pronunciation, example sentences, or there are even applications that pack offline support so that we can continue translating without an internet connection. along with the development of information technology in recent times, several innovative apps appear, notably on mobile phones (tedjosurya & suharjito, 2014). the usage of mobile phones, apart from being a communication medium, is also a medium of learning, such as translation applications. translation application may be a tool to learn a language, such as the english to bahasa indonesia translator application. mobile technology was very helpful in terms of improving translation skills because of the supported features. because of the advancement of ict and its practical use in teaching and learning, mall in translation is becoming more common among indonesian efl students (pudjiati et al., 2022). the majority of students believed that utilizing language translator (lt) helped them improve their translation skills, and they all thought that it was extremely straightforward to use. the majority of them expressed satisfaction with the service provided by this application. on the other side, they stated that this was their first time utilizing language translator to translate a document (technical words) (lt). in other words, it verified that they had previously been unaware of this application. after utilizing language translator, students are allowed to use their translation procedures for technical words (lt). indeed, they favored three modes of translation: literal, borrowing, and descriptive. students rated translation with definition positively at a rate of 50 %. the majority of them stated during the interview that the descriptive translation technique provided additional information to help readers comprehend technical phrases correctly. they don't mind if the translation widens as long as they understand the term's meaning. students, in particular, lacked familiarity with the area of origin words. according to the interview results, students encountered difficulties with technological issues. they had difficulties in gaining access to their translation history. additionally, several students said that they required additional support because this was their first time using language translator danti pudjiati, tira nur fitria | elt forum 11(2) (2020) 112 (lt). several of them, though, made contradicting assertions. they had a firm grasp of how to use lt, having listened attentively to an online session prepared by researchers. the interview data showed that the students expressed positively toward mall. along with previous research, mall was an aid that is applicable for acquiring a language, particularly in terms of translation conversely, as a technological issue, for example, the lack of google translation or gt service of speaker setting option, became one of the discussions that the students had regarding mall. at the time students listened to the native speaker's voice gt was sputtering, which it made kind of difficult for them to use. we used language translator (lt) as an example of mall for this research. it can work well without connecting to the internet. additionally, students had to download it on their android phones through google play. then, it needed to set the target language for translation i.e. indonesian because the source language i.e. english is already embedded. language translator (lt) also holds the resources which are from written text, oral, and pictures. for example, the voice was recorded as the source of language thus the translation could be both the text and the voice. in other words, it serves voice translation and other linguistic services in a simpler feature. the uniqueness of this application is the simplicity of its appearance. apart from that, users can also translate for free words in 90 languages. this app can translate written words and spoken foreign languages. however, a language translator requires an internet connection to function. in this modern era, anything can be done with the help of an application, one of which is when we find it difficult to interpret a foreign language to translate (fitria, 2021c). the option that we have to do is to take advantage of an android or smartphone by installing the best translation application. translating words and even sentences is not a difficult thing to do nowadays. simply by using an application on our cell phone, the translation process can be done quickly. with the development of technology, everything can become easier and faster to do, including terms of translating languages. translator applications or translators have an important role in this multilanguage world to help people to be able to communicate or understand the meaning of a 'foreign language' without having to study the language for a certain time. the type of translator app we need depends on our needs. these translator apps can generally translate text, speech, images, or even have a real-time conversation with someone who speaks a different language. some other applications offer audio pronunciation, example sentences, or there are even applications that pack offline support so that we can continue translating without an internet connection. before choosing, we should consider the following aspects of the existing translator applications: 1. usage. what we are looking for from this app are usability and features. make sure the features and capabilities match our needs. if it is difficult to use, difficult to manage, or the translation process takes too long, instead of helping, the translator application will be a pain. 2. language. no translator app supports all languages in the world. so, make sure the application that you download does support the language you need, especially when the language is not very common. 3. pronunciation. if you need a pronunciation in a certain language, choose an application that offers audio pronunciation features. applications with this kind of feature will be useful when we travel abroad. 4. extra. some apps are just a kind of dictionary that will translate words literally or based on lexical meaning. if there is an application that can translate text in the form of images or read menus in restaurants, it will certainly be more fun. however, it all comes back to our needs. to help with the work and needs of translating foreign languages, we can try some of these applications on our android smartphones to find out the weaknesses or strengths of the mobile translator applications that we use. conclusion both the results and discussion denoted that using language translator (lt) as mall gave beneficial effects on students' capacity to translate documents in the form of a text or a voice from english into indonesian. this exposed the students' ability to translate technical terms. an online survey and semi-structured interviews have also generated encouraging results for the students. they felt that mall aids them in translating and understanding the terms due to not only its fast response but also its simplicity. this research suggests using another text type of source language, such as figurative language and idiom from literary works. they will prove another function of mall which can enrich their experience. therefore, the comparison of the students' difficulty in translating both figurative language and idiom might be taken into account. danti pudjiati, tira nur fitria | elt forum 11(2) (2020) 113 language barriers often prevent a person from understanding information. for that, internet users need to know the best android application to translate or translate foreign languages. currently, there are so many translator applications with various features that make it easier for users, not only google translate. we can use other mobile translators depending on our needs, but before choosing it, we should consider the following aspects of the existing translator applications include usage, language, pronunciation, and extra features. to help with the work and needs of translating foreign languages, we can try some of these applications on our android smartphones to find out the weaknesses or strengths 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(2013). mobile assisted language learning: review of the recent applications of emerging mobile technologies. english language teaching, 6(7), p19. https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v6n7p19 putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 171 elt forum 9 (2) (2020) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt team pair solo plus pictures for teaching writing descriptive text siti muamalah english department, faculty of languages and arts, universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 11 may 2020 approved in 29 november 2020 published in 30 november 2020 ________________ keywords: team pair solo; cooperative learning; picture; teaching writing; descriptive text ____________________ abstract ________________________________________________________________ this study was conducted to explore the implementation of team-pair-solo and pictures by an english teacher in teaching writing descriptive text. there were just a few studies that tried to analyze how team-pair-solo or pictures were used by the english teacher in the teaching and learning process. most of them only focused on the improvement of the students’ achievement. thus, to fill the gap in the literature, i conducted this study. the objectives were to describe the implementation of teampair-solo and pictures in teaching writing descriptive text by an english teacher, explainthe difficulties the english teacher faced, and describe how she solved those difficulties. in this study, i used qualitative method. the participant was an english teacher in one of the schools in tegal in the academic year of 2019/2020. i used questionnaire, interviews, classroom observations, and document analysis as data collection methods. the results revealed that the teacher integrated team-pair-solo and pictures with lecturing technique, a game and other language skills. this study showed that there were two difficulties faced by the teacher namely students’ lack of enthusiasm and crowded students. to solve those difficulties, the teacher conducted a game and asked the students to memorize vocabulary as the punishment for the crowded students. in conclusion, team-pair-solo was an interesting technique and pictures were helpful media that helped english teacher in the teaching and learning process and were somewhat easy to be implemented. the technique and media helped students to be actively engaged in the classroom activity. © 2020 universitas negeri semarang correspondent address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: sitimuamalah11@gmail.com siti muamalah/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 172 introduction english has become an international language for a long time, and it has been learned by indonesian since they are in elementary school. yet, many students in indonesia still face difficulties in mastering english, especially in writing. indeed, among the four english skills that have to be mastered, writing skill is regarded as the most difficult skill. widyanita (2017) said that the learning of writing skill is as difficult as the teaching of this skill. it is because, in writing, the writer has to pay close attention to some components such as grammar, content, vocabulary, punctuation, and sentence structure. writing is a complex activity and it needs some steps during the process. there are four steps during the writing process as stated by harmer (2004) namely planning, drafting, editing, and final draft (p. 4-5). from that process, we can see that writing is not an instant activity, that’s why mastering writing skill is not easy for students and the students need to practice a lot by using some steps in order to be able to improve the skill of writing (detapratiwi, 2013). discovering the correct technique is important to help teachers in teaching writing to their students in order to make the teaching of writing easier and more fun so that the students are interested in learning and they can enjoy the teaching-learning process and finally they can master the skill. in curriculum 2013, teaching-learning process is required to use student centered learning approach. students are required to be active in the teaching-learning process and in fact, cooperative learning techniques use student centered. moreover, in the syllabus, it is stated that vocational high school students are required to master some of the genre texts, such as descriptive, announcement, recount, and narrative texts. all of those texts are difficult for them if in the teaching-learning process teachers only use conventional techniques (fajlin, 2017). in this study i chose cooperative learning as an alternative in teaching writing. kassner (2002) said that cooperative learning is a system which is well-developed in which to teach students in small group settings (p. 17). there are many cooperative learning techniques that can be used as an alternative in teaching writing, one of them is team pair solo. according to kagan (as cited in wibisono, 2017) team pair solo is a technique that can develop student’s virtue learning. through this technique, students can learn and work together in groups first before they solve the problems on their own. students can help each other during the group process so that it can motivate them to learn. in addition, team pair solo involves students’ participation and they have to work cooperatively with their classmates in groups. furthermore, to be more effective in teaching writing especially writing descriptive text, it is good if the teachers use pictures as the media. according to asrifan (2015) teaching using pictures is very suitable to be applied to the students as a media in writing and also is very helpful for the students in generating and organizing their ideas in writing through pictures. also, raimes (1983) stated that pictures provide an experience for students in the classroom, a common base that leads to a variety of language activities (p. 27). in this study, i used the theory from carroll and wilson (as cited in widyanita, 2017). they said that writing as a process means giving students time to pre-write, write, post-write, proof read and edit their papers. it means teaching writing, not just assigning it, but also the teacher has to find the appropriate technique in teaching so that the students will be interested in joining and following the lesson. this study also used the theory from klimek (2009) about cooperative learning. klimek said that cooperative learning is where teams of students, with various abilities and skills, work together on different activities to learn about a subject. the cooperative learning that i used here was team pair solo. kagan (as cited in sutarno, 2015) stated team pair solo is teaching technique that allows the students to work on problems first as a team, then with a partner, and later they will easily solve the problems by themselves. it means that before doing problems alone, in team pair solo, the students first do them as a team and as a pair, receiving plenty of tutoring, encouragement and support. in addition, team pair solo is a technique that can develop student’s virtue leaning. those virtue learning are cooperation, helpfulness, leadership, self-motivation, and pride. through this technique, students can learn and work together in group first before they solve the problems on their own. students can help each other during the group process so that it can motivate them to learn (kagan, as cited in wibisono, 2017). i also used the theory from sadiman (2003) that pictures media are pictures that are related to the subject, useful for conveying messages from teachers to students (p. 21). this means that when pictures used as the media in teaching, the pictures can help the students understand the material siti muamalah/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 173 easily. alexander (1988) said that the use of picture may trigger a desire to learn more about the topic being presented (p. 44). moreover, chairenna (2007) stated that the use of picture in teaching writing can help the students catch and express their ideas easily by looking at the picture (p. 13). there were many previous studies that discussed about team pair solo and picture in helping students improving their skills such as done by sumarsih and sanjaya (2011), khasanah (2013), siregar and nugroho (2015), hapsari, sudarsono, and bunau (2015). sumarsih and sanjaya (2011) conducted a study with the objectives were to improve students’ achievement in writing descriptive through the application of team pair solo and the resullt showed that students’ performances were improved in every test. khasanah (2013) found that the students’ ability in writing descriptive text improved after being taught by team pair solo combined with picture guessing game. it could be seen from the students’ test results which were improved namely from the average score 71.68 to 79.15. moreover, siregar and nugroho (2015) revealed that the picture’s implementation in teaching descriptive text made the students gain more vocabulary and be more interested in following the lesson. it also created interesting atmosphere and stimulated students’ creativity as well. team pair solo and picture were not only effective to teach writing skill, but also to teach another skill. for example, hapsari, sudarsono, and bunau (2015) reported that the use of team pair solo is very effective to teach reading comprehension. the examples above showed that team pair solo and picture used by many researchers in various of skills improvement. however, the studies were only focused on the improvement of students’ skills. the studies only focused on the result of the implementation of team pair solo and picture as media whether or not the technique and the media gave impact on students’ ability, for example, in writing. moreover, the research only focused on the improvement of students’ score to indicate the success of the implementation of team pair solo or picture in a certain skill. there was just few studies that try to examine or analyse how team pair solo or picture are used by the teacher in the teaching and learning process. the previous studies have not investigated yet how an english teacher teach in a class using a certain teaching technique in this case team pair solo and also the picture used as media. therefore, based on the reviewed, to fill the gap in the literature, i conducted a research dealing with analyzing an english teacher in implementing team pair solo combined with pictures in teaching writing descriptive text. i analyzed how the technique and media were applied by the teacher in a certain school. the reason why i chose this topic was because there was only few studies related to it and by doing this research we could find out how team pair solo and pictures were implemented in that school. the research emphasized on the process of the implementation of team pair solo and the used of pictures in teaching writing descriptive text by english teacher. the process studied were how an english teacher implemented team pair solo technique and pictures as media in the classroom, what difficulties that faced and how she solved those difficulties. methods this study used qualitative research design. this was a case study because the aim of this study was to describe the implementation of team pair solo technique which was combined with pictures to teach writing of descriptive text by an english teacher. marshall and rossman (2006) defined qualitative research that it is pragmatic, interpretive, and grounded in the lived experiences of people. in addition, rossman and rallis (2003) said that there are five characteristics of qualitative research namely it is naturalistic, draws on multiple methods that respect the humanity of participants in the study, focuses on context, is emergent and evolving and it is fundamentally interpretive. this study explored and investigated how an english teacher implemented team pair solo which was combined with pictures in her teaching and learning process, in this case when teaching writing of descriptive text. in this study, i took an english teacher in one of the schools in tegal as the research participant. the reasons was that she was the practitioner of cooperative learning in which it was in line with my research topic. other than that, i was the alumnus so that it was easier for me to get the permission procedural. as the instrument in this research, i used questionnaire, interviews, observations, and document analysis for collecting the data. the procedures of collecting data were as follows: the first that i did was gave the questionnaire as soon as i met the english teacher. after it done, the next step was conducting classroom observation. in this step, i observed the teaching and learning process when the teacher was implementing team pair solo and pictures as media in teaching writing descriptive text. i made siti muamalah/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 174 an agreement with the english teacher on what day and what time i could conduct the classroom observation. after we agreed, i could immediately conduct the classroom observation. the next step was that doing the interview towards english teacher and some students from tkr one to tkr six. the interview with the teacher was conducted after the classroom observations from tkr one to six were done. whereas the interview with the students were done directly after the clasroom observation. the last was document analysis. the document analysed was the lesson plan made by the english teacher. the document analysis was done throughout the study. i informed the english teacher that i needed her lesson plan in the first meeting and asked for conducting the classroom observation. then, there were three steps of analyzing data in this study namely data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing and verification. the first one is data reduction. in this step i collected all data from questionnaire, interviews, classroom observations, and document analysis (lesson plan). after all data were gathered, i started to analyze the data one by one carefully and selected the important findings that i got from the research instruments and then i simplified the data until it transformed into important data that i used for presenting the results in this study. the second one was data display. in this research, i presented the data display in descriptive form. in this step, i organized all the data and described the answer of the research questions, such as describing the implementation of team pair solo and pictures in teaching writing descriptive text in this schooland explaining the difficulties faced by the english teacher and how she solved them. the third was conclusion drawing and verification. the conclusion in this study was made based on the data obtained and was made by using my own words and thoughts reflecting to the findings of this research. findings and discussion team pair solo and pictures for teaching writing descriptive text the purposes of this study were to describe the implementation of team pair solo and pictures in teaching writing descriptive text by an english teacher, the difficulties that faced by english teacher and how she solved them. the data were collected through questionnaire, interviews, classroom observations, and document analysis. the participant in this study was one of the english teachers in one of the schools in tegal named mrs. putri (pseudonym). she was the practitioner of cooperative learning. from the questionnaire, it is known that mrs. putri has been teaching english for about five to ten years and in her teaching and learning process, she implemented k-13. mrs. putri taught x grade of tkr (teknik kendaraan ringan). there were six classes in total and i observed all those classes. since this research was a qualitative case study, i would present the findings in the form of descriptive explanation. based on the data, i presented the findings as follows: the integration of other language skills as well as another teaching technique in teacher's instruction based on the classroom observation, it was found that mrs. putri taught descriptive text materials by implementing one of the cooperative learning techniques namely team pair solo. she combined it with pictures and another teaching technique namely lecturing technique. during the observations, i also found that mrs. putri taught not only writing skill but also other languange skills like speaking, listening, and reading. based on document analysis, mrs. putri did not make a lesson plan for her teaching and learning process. instead, she used the lesson plan from the last year academic. in fact, the lesson plan was also used for more than one meeting. in the lesson plan, cooperative learning method and media pictures were not stated. the learning approach stated in the lesson plan was scientific learning with some models of learning such as discovery learning, demonstration and direct instruction. instead of english, the lesson plan still used indonesian language. broadly, mrs. putri’s way of implementing team pair solo technique and pictures to teach writing of descriptive text was the same in all classes she taught, there was only a little bit difference namely in tkr six where she used a game in this class. she used some aids to support teaching and learning process like lcd, ppt, video learning, and some pictures. the following was the description of how mrs. putri implemented the techniques and the media in tkr one till five (field notes, 18-19/09/19). at the beginning of the lesson, mrs. putri opened the class by greeting the students and then checked the attendant list first as usual. after that, she began the class by reviewing some vocabulary the students learned in the last meeting, showing again pictures of places and asking the students to siti muamalah/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 175 redescribe in brief. then, the teacher did question and answer about the last meeting’s material to make sure that the students had already understood the materials well. next, she began to explain what they were going to learn of that day namely still about descriptive text but at this time they were going to learn how to describe people. starting with describing the phisycal look of someone, then, mrs. putri continued the lesson by teaching them how to describe someone’s personality as well. she taught some vocabulary related to someone’s personality such as kind, honest, arrogant, etc. mrs. putri then asked the students to look at the ppt, there was a video lesson about descriptive text. the video was about how to describe what someone looked like. during the playing of the video, mrs. putri translated the meaning and explained the content of the video to make sure that the students understood the vocabualry and content in the video. the students paid attention to mrs. putri’s explanation. in the ppt, there were also some pictures of artists such as cinta laura, demian, wayne rooney, yuki kato, rina nose, and nisa sabyan. the students together were asked to decribe those artists. in this activity, all of the students were enthusiast and active during the lesson. they actively described those artists even though not always using english. when the students described it in bahasa then mrs. putri would tell them the english of it. after describing the artist orally, then the students were given an example of a good descriptive text. the example showed how to make a good descriptive text in which there were two parts namely identification and description. the teacher explained about it clearly. after explaining the example of good decriptive text, mrs. putri began the next activity namely asked the students to make a group of six as a team. the members of the team were decided by the teacher since if the students chose by themselves it would take a long time. also, it was to make sure that the team was heterogeneous with some students had higher abilities than others so that the students who had higher abilities could teach those who had lower abilities. in this activity, mrs. putri did not explain that she would use team pair solo technique. she just directly asked the students to make a group of six as a team. after the students made the team, then, each team was given worksheet. she, then explained what the students needed to do namely they were required to do team work. the students seemed understood the teacher’s instruction’s well since the teacher made the instruction clear. on the worksheet, there was a picture of an artist with some questions related to the artist such as their physical look, what the artist was wearing, the artists’ main job and etc. that the students needed to discuss together with their team in order to find out the answer. when the students began the team work, mrs. putri went around to each group to check whether the team work worked well or not. from the classroom observations, the team work activity ran smoothly in all classes. the students did the work appropriate with the teacher’s instruction. the students seemed actively discussed with their friends in a team, they worked and discussed together with their team to answer the questions given. the next activity was pair work. in this activity, the students were asked to make a group of two. in pairs, the students had to discuss some questions given by the teacher. the questions in this pair work were different from the questions in group. the questions were in the form of some clues given related to the personality of the artist being described. here, the teacher explained that the students were required to guess the personality of the artist based on the clues given. after they did pair work, the next activity was that the students conducted solo activity. they were asked to practice making a complete form of descriptive text based on the information they got from work and pair activity. in solo activity, the students completed the work individually, they did it on their own yet there were some students that seemed having the difficulty in composing complete descriptive text. some of them cooperate with his partner. when the teacher knew this, she went to those students and helped them solving their problems. that was the end of the team pair solo activity. however, mrs. putri gave some students chance to those who were brave to read their work in front of the class. then after that she also asked the students to give comments to their classmate’s work. in some classes, like tkr one till four, the students were enthusisat to come forward reading their work in front of the class. however, in tkr five, only several of them were brave enough to come forward. nevertheless, when the teacher asked the students to give comments to their friend who came forward, almost in all classes, there was no student who was brave to give comments, the students seemed shy and did not dare to raise their hands in order to get the chance to give comments. hence, the teacher then pointed to some students to give their comments. siti muamalah/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 176 all language skills were included in mrs. putri's classes. for example, listening skill. it happened when the teacher played the video learning and the students listened to it. then, writing skill. it was when the students were writing a draft of descriptive text during the team pair solo activity. the next was reading skill. it was applied when the students were asked to present their work in front of the class by reading their work. then the last was speaking skill, it was applied when the students gave comments to their friend who came forward presenting his work. mrs. putri also used the combination of techniques in her teaching. they were team pair solo and traditional one. at the beginning of the lesson, she used the traditional technique first namely explaining the material in front of the class while the students in their seats listening to the teacher’s explanation. the purpose of explaining the material fisrt was that to give the students input of the materials first so that when they started to learn with their group they already had the knowledge of the materials being taught. in addition, the pictures that were used by mrs. putri also could make the students motivated during the lesson. the pictures were some artists that were wellknown and had various characters such funny beautiful and handsome. in the interview, almost all of them said that they really liked the pictures because the pictures helped them to get the ideas of what they were going to describe. the pictures made the lesson be more fun and more enjoyable. the integration of game in teacher's instruction for building students' enthusiasm the class in which taught by using team pair solo technique combined with pictures and game was tkr six. however, in this class, the descriptive text materials was just about to be taught unlike the other five classes that had one meeting discussing about descriptive text materials. therefore, in this class the descriptive text materials was still about describing places. based on the interviews, at first, the teacher would use the same technique and media to teach descriptive text in this class without any game since the materials for this class was left behind the other five classes. however, in fact, during the teaching and learning process, several students seemed bored and not enthusiast in joining the class. only a few of them were listening to the teacher’s explanation. the teacher said that this maybe because the english subject for this class was in the last hour of class, the students might feel tired. hence, the class was not really conducive. because of that condition, the teacher decided to conduct a game. the following was the description of how mrs. putri implemented the techniques and the media as well as the game in tkr six (field note, 170919). at the beginning of the lesson, the teacher greeted the students and checked the attendance list. after that, the teacher began the class. since the descriptive materials was just about to be discussed in this class, so the first thing that mrs. putri did was exploring the students’ knowledge about descriptive text. mrs. putri then asked the students what descriptive text was. after the students answered the question, the teacher then gave them appreciation by saying good job to them because of their braveness answering the question and she explained about the definition of descriptive text. after that, mrs. putri began to explain the generic structure of descriptive text. however, in this activity, some students seemed start not paying close attention to the teacher’s explanation. some of them start having chat with their seatmate, some seemed they were sleepy, so the teacher then decided to play a game. the game was that the teacher played music and there was a pen given to one of the students. when the students were ready to play the game, the music would be played. during the music was being played, the student gave the pen to the next student continuously until the music stopped by the teacher. when the music stopped, the pen was also had to stop moving and the students who held the pen when the music stopped, he had to come forward and tried to describe a place orally in front of the class. unfortunately, this activity took much time because the students had a little vocabulary to be used in decribing the place. as the consequence, the group work activity in this class was dismissed. the teacher immediately asked the students to make a group in pairs and gave each group worksheet to be discussed together with thier partner before finally they did the solo activity to complete the task given. also, in this class there were no students who got the chance to come forward reading their work beacuse the time was over. from the observation intkr six, mrs. putri implemented team pair solo inappropriate with the steps because she dismissed the team work activity. the reason was because the time was not enough if the team work activity was included since the game activity took much time. based on all of the data i obtained and analyzed, it was found that mrs. putri implemented team pair solo in the same way in all classes that i had observed except in tkr six. each classes received the same instructions. she used the combination of the traditional technique and team pair solo. she could implement team pair solo technique step by step properly. however, in tkr six she used a game. siti muamalah/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 177 the use of the game made the implementation of team pair solo in this class inappropriate because the team work activity was dismissed. difficulties faced by the english teacher and how she solved them based on the observation, it was found that the teacher could teach well. however, there were difficulties faced by the teacher, they were students’ lack of enthusiasm and crowded students. to solve those difficulties, the teacher conducted a game and asked the students to memorize vocabulary as the punishment for the crowded students. there were also difficulties faced by the students namely students’ limited vocabulary, students’ pronunciation problems and students’ sepaking problems. there were some efforts that were done by mrs. putri in order to help the students gain more vocabulary. the first was that mrs. putri always asked the students to bring dictionary whenever there was english class so that when they found the difficult words, they could directly open the dictionnary that they brought. in addition, mrs. putri also did another effort namely she would ask the students to memorize vocabularies as much as possible and then test them. to overcome students’ pronunciation as well as students’ speaking skill problems. the efforts that mrs. putri did were asked the students to speak in english as often as possible and gave additional acitivity by asking the students to come forward to reading their work so that the teacher could correct the students’ pronunciation if they pronounce them wrong so that the students would know the correct pronunciation. discussion this study showed that one of the reasons of difficulties in writing was lack of vocabulary. it was found through the observation in six classes that there were many students who still had difficulty in composing the descriptive text because they knew little vocabulary. in the interviews with the students, many of them admitted that the diffculty that they faced was they did not have a lot vocabularies in mind so that they had to often open the dictionnary to look for vocabularis they had not known yet. the same statement also revealed by the teacher, she said that many students were lack of vocabularies. this was related to the findings of pratiwi (2012). in her study, she revealed that vocabulay became one of the most difficult aspects found in the students’ writing. the use of team pair solo could help the english teacher in teaching writing descriptive text. mrs. putri said that through the implementation of this technique, the students were more active and enthusiat in joining the lesson. moreover, the group and pair work made the students could have the chance to help each other in terms of peer tutoring since the team were heterogeneus consisted of students with high ability and those with low ability so that the students who had higher ability could help their friends who had lower ability. this was related to the thoery i used from klimek (2009) that in cooperative learning, the team of students consists of students with various ability working together on different activities to learn about a subject. furthermore, team pair solo technique has the steps in which those steps are what make the learning successful because helping the students in building their confidents especially when dealing with more difficult content material (spring, as cited in ogunleye, 2011). nevertheless, from the classroom observation, it was also found that students’ enthusiasm and motivation were somehow changeful. it happened in tkr six when the students started to get bored. being in this kind of situation, the english teacher had to be clever finding ways to overcome this problem so that the students keep being involved in the lesson activity. fortunately, here mrs. putri could solve the problem by creating a game to make the students’ enthusism and motivation to learn back. this problem was also proved by widyaningsih (2014) that the english teacher should also be creative in using interesting activities in order to attract the students’ involvement in the teaching and learning process. moreover, through the implementation of team pair solo, students’ activeness leveled up to some degree. it could be seen from the classroom observation such as when the students were in group of six as a team, they became more active and enthusiastic in doing the task. they actively discussed the task with their friends in group. this findings related to the findings of rambe (2014) who revealed that the use of team pair solo could increase students’ activeness and thus improve their achievement. the same finding was explained by yati, syarif and amri (2018) that the implementation of team pair solo technique guides students to be active and more participate during learning activity. they added that each step of this technique invites the students to participate and more active during learning activities. in addition, susilawati (2015) found that siti muamalah/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 178 through the implementation of team pair solo, the students were participate in the teaching learning process happily and each student is active. furthermore, the use of pictures were also an effective way to teach writing especially descriptive text. based on the interview, almost all of the students said that they like the media which were some pictures of some famous artists. the students added that the pictures also help them a lot in terms of catching ideas of what to be described by just looking at the pictures. this was in line with heaton (1990) who claimed that pictures provide students with ideas for tasks like describing people, objects, places, and even processes, enabling them to give their full attention to use written language (p. 107). secrica, jismulatif and afrianto (2017) reavealed in their study that the use of pictures can help the teaching and learning process run well. the students are able to gain the ideas in writing a composition especially writing a descriptive text by looking and understanding the pictures. from the interviews that i had done with the teacher, she revealed that team pair solo and pictures was a suitable combination and was effective to teach decriptive text material. by the combination of team pair solo and pictures, it created a more lively learning atmosphere, creating an active learning environment, communicative, enjoyable and not boring especially the pictures seen were idols. in addition, the students also stated that the combination of team pair solo and pictures was good since it helped them to be active and creative, helped them a lot in composing descriptive text. due to the fact that the students actively involved in the learning process, the class become alive and fun. the teacher displayed the pictures of some artist in ppt, the students actively described those pictures together, there were some students that sometimes did it using funny word that make the whole class laugh that made the atmoshphere in class became more fun and enjoyable. through the implementation of team pair solo, the class activity become more interesting and it created enjoyable circumstance. all of the students participated in these activities and made the class alive and cooperative, and the students were more confident to study writing skill. those kind of situation was also found by hapsari, sudarsono, and bunau (2015), they explained that during the process of teaching and learning, the implememntation of team pair solo made the students were active and enthusiastic. when the group work was in progress, the class was so alive with some students who tried to explain each other about their understanding related to the given task. the students showed their enthusiasm when they discussed in group. then, the group broke in pairs. they helped each other by explaining to their partner who didn’t get deep understanding about the text. by the treatment, the students’ confidence and their courage got improved. team-pair-solo can improve students’ social skills and students’ motivation by giving support and helping each other. conclusion based on the results of the study, it could be concluded that the use of team pair solo and pictures in teaching writing descriptive text was somewhat easy to be implemented in the classroom activity. the findings of this study showed that the technique and the media were appropriate to teach students in writing descriptive text material. team pair solo and pictures were a suitable combination and were effective to teach decriptive text material since it could create a more lively learning atmosphere, an active learning environment, communicative, enjoyable and not boring especially the pictures used were idol pictures. team workpair worksolo activity were the steps in team pair solo. the team and pair work made the students could have the chance to help each other in terms of peer tutoring before the students work on their own. the team were heterogeneus in which consist of students with high ability and those with low ability so that the students who had higher ability could help their friends who had lower ability. those steps could help the students in building their confidents so that it could create successful learning. the pictures used by mrs. putri also made the students more creative. it was related to the pictures that could help them get the idea of what going to be desribed by observing the pictures. in addition, the pictures made the teaching and learning process be more fun and exiciting as well as increased students motivation to learn as seen during the observation that the students gave positive response by showing their interest, enthusiasm and motivation during the lesson. from the explanation above it could be concluded that the use of team pair solo and pictures in teaching writing descriptive text by the english teacher was successfully implemented. however, although team pair solo and pictures were easy to be implemented, still, there were some difficulties that faced by the english teacher. the teacher had to be able to overcome those difficulties in order to siti muamalah/ elt forum 9 (2) (2020) 179 make the teaching and learning process could be successful. otherwise, those difficulties somehow could be serious problems. in the teaching and learning process, mrs. putri found some difficulties when she used team pair solo technique and the lecturing technique in her classroom. from the data gathered, some difficulties were revealed, they were crowded students and students’ lack of enthusiasm. there were also some difficulties faced by the students namely students’ vocabulary mastery, students’ speaking skills, and pronunciation problems. from the observations and the interviews, what mrs. putri did to overcome those two difficulties were that she asked the students who triggered the fuss to write vocabulary as much as possible and memorize them which then the teacher tested that student’s memorization in front of the class. this was used as the punishment for the students and it worked to make the student did not repeat their mistakes anymore. whereas for the second difficulty namely students’ lack of enthusiasm, the teacher conducted a game that was created by the teacher herself. the solutions for the difficulties faced by the students were mrs. putri did some efforts like asking the students to always bring dictionary, having the students memorize vocabulary as much as possible and tested them. other solutions were for students’ speaking skill and pronunciation problems namely the teacher asked the students to speak in english as often as possible and gave additional activity by asking the students to come forward to reading their work so that the teacher could correct the students’ pronunciation if they pronounce them wrong so that the students would know the correct pronunciation. based on the conclusion, i would like to give some suggestions: the first one was that the english teacher could give more variations such as game in which it should be well prepared. english teacher should pay attention more about the game chosen. the chosen game should be a game that can improve students’ vocabulary given that the students' vocabulary was still low. in addition, i suggest that instead of using paper dictionary, the teacher and students can try using electronic dictionary to help the students gain more vocabularies. another suggestion is that, in terms of making lesson plans, in order to help the teacher arrange the teaching and learning activities, it is suggested that the english teacher makes an appropriate lesson plan for each meeting. furthermore, for other researchers, it is expected that the future researchers can explore other areas that have not been explored yet such as conducting a research using team pair solo which was combined with another cooperative learning techniques or combined it with another media. furthur, it is recommended that future researchers can use team pair solo not only in writing descriptive but also in the other genre of text or even in the other other skills other than writing. although this study was well prepared and it has reached the aims, still there were some limitations. the first one was that this study was lack of formal interview since i only used semistructured interview during the study. according to singh (2002) “a formal interview is a systematic procedure to dig up information about the respondent where a set of questions is asked in the order that has been prepared by the interviewer and the answers are recorded in a standardized form”. hakim (2013) stated that “a formal interview is important since it has higher validity compared to the informal one”. the second limitation was for the data triangulation, i didn’t ask the students about their opinions on how the teacher implemented team pair solo and pictures whether she could implement the technique and the media well or not, or whether she seemed to have difficulty or not in implementing team pair solo and pictures. acknowledgement i would like to express my profound gratitude and deep regards to my advisor, puji astuti, s. pd., m.pd., ph.d., who has been willing to constantly give valuable information, guidance, advice, solution as well as encouragement throughout the course of this final project. without her help, i would never be able to complete this journal. references alexander, j. e. 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(2015). intregating roundtable brainstorming into team pair solo technique for improving students’ participation in writing f descriptive texts. smart, journal of english language teaching and applied linguistics, 1(1), pp. 10-16. wibisono, w. (2017). using cooperative learning (team pair solo) to improve students’ reading comprehension. jurnal reforma, 6(2), pp. 27-34. widyanita, b. h. (2017). comparison of two cooperative learning techniques: roundtable and team-pair-solo for teaching writing of narrative texts. (unpublished thesis) universitas negeri semarang, semarang, indonesia. widyaningsih, n. (2014). improving the eight grade students' reading skill through the think-pairshare technique at smp n 3 wonosari gunungkidul (unpublished master’s thesis) universitas negeri yogyakarta, yogyakarta, indonesia. yati, m. a., syarif, h., & amri, z. (2018). the effect of team pair solo technique on students’ reading comprehension of narrative text at grade ix of smpn 14 pekanbaru. english language teaching and research, 2(1), pp. 189-195. https://www.slideshare.net/msklimek/cooperative-learning-powerpoint putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 16 elt forum 12(1) (2023) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt efl female students’ perceptions in doing collaborative writing in an online writing class desma kumalasari1 1universitas kristen satya wacana, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received on 13 january 2023 approved on 30 march 2023 published on 31 march 2023 ________________ keywords: collaborative writing; efl female students, writing class ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ collaborative writing is an approach teachers can apply to support their students’ writing development. however, despite the benefits from collaborative writing, some english as a foreign language (efl) students might not enjoy writing in groups. this qualitative study aims to explore the perceptions of efl female students in doing collaborative writing in a writing for the media class, such as how they think about finishing their writing tasks collaboratively, the benefits and challenges of doing collaborative writing in order to know whether collaborative writing can actually improve students’ writing skills or the opposite. the female students were chosen because studies prove that they contribute more for the group’s success. data were gathered through a semi-structured interview with five efl female students from a private university in central java, indonesia. my analysis results indicated that efl female students had positive perceptions towards collaborative writing, i.e., helping other students complete their writing tasks, providing opportunities to share ideas, and improving writing skills. meanwhile, challenges that most of the research participants faced were dealing with differences in opinion, and lacking equal contribution from group members. practical suggestions for improving online collaborative writing activities in online efl writing classrooms and recommendations for future research are presented, i.e., assist and monitor the progress, giving a specific topic to write about to minimize conflict and differences of opinion, and providing rubrics for peer assessment. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 universitas kristen satya wacana salatiga, indonesia e-mail: desdesma9@gmail.com http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& desma kumalasari | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 17 introduction writing is one of the four language skills that many english as a foreign language (efl) students consider as a difficult skill to master. one of the reasons is that efl students need to use appropriate language in their writing (karyuatry et al., 2018). students should master the grammar-related rules to decrease their writing errors (kusumawardhani, 2019; pratiwi, 2016). according to utami et al. (2012), writing is an activity that needs to be arranged in specific order to make it logical and connected. thus, it requires a considerable amount of time to produce it. it is often challenging because students find difficulties in passive words, new vocabulary, and making phrases (karyuatry et al., 2018). writing is hard to acquire and requires a lot of experiences (richards, 1990). in that case, collaborative writing might be one of the approaches that language teachers can adopt to assist their efl learners' writing development. collaborative writing provides an opportunity for students to improve their language use and writing quality by working together with their peers (mcdonough et al., 2018). in addition, students could discuss, share ideas, and even debate to get a joint agreement when they write collaboratively (rezeki & surmiyati, 2021). moreover, collaborative writing allows the students to improve their understanding, willingness to listen, social skills, and respect others' ideas (hammond et al., 2010; zhang, 2018). despite those benefits, not all students feel comfortable or enjoy writing collaboratively with others due to several obstacles that they encounter in their collaborative writing activities. for example, they do not know how to collaborate when they start to work in groups (le et al., 2018). as a result, students often criticize each other, interrupt, reject suggestions, and ignore others' ideas (barron, 2003). eventually, some members work on most of the writing, while others work less, and some do not do their parts (le et al., 2018). moreover, there are arguments regarding gender differences affecting collaboration performance and effectiveness. female students tend to have more interpersonal interaction through group discussions and debates, and influence the quality of group work results than what male students do (curseu et al., 2018). efl students often do collaborative writing, as discussed in the previous paragraphs, in writing for the media classes in the english language education program at a private university in central java, indonesia. in this study, the researcher is interested in finding out if writing collaboratively can genuinely help female students in improving their writing skills. the gender role is also the background of this research since according to takeda and homberg (2014), female students tend to put more effort and contribution for the success of the group and they take the tasks more seriously than male students. this research intends to know how efl female students perceive doing collaborative writing activities in their classes. more specifically, this research aims to answer this question: what are the perceptions (i.e., advantages and challenges) that efl female students experience when doing collaborative writing in writing for the media classes? this research expects to provide inputs for efl teachers in improving the practices of students' online collaborative writing in their classes. the study can also inform efl students about what they should/should not do when doing similar online collaborative writing activities in their efl writing class. in this study, the efl students might also learn practical ideas on how to improve their writing skills through their online collaborative writing activities. it is essential to know the definition of perception because perception is the basis of this research. according to qiong (2017), perception is the process that enables people to notice and observe the existence of various impulses, then gives them intentions. along the same line, crane (2005) stated that perception is "the consciousness of surroundings through our five senses which are seeing, feeling, hearing, smelling, tasting" (p. 237). it actively demonstrates that, through perceptions, people can manage their senses to give meaning to a particular concept or situation, and each person can have a perception of something in positive or negative ways. to sum up, perception is people's response or opinion from their senses about something that happens around them. in the context of learning, perception defines students' views of the learning method or model used by their teacher. in this research, collaborative writing includes the following activities. first, it requires students to participate and be responsible for the text that has been written together from the first stage to the final stage of writing, which are brainstorming, gathering information, organizing outlines, drafting, revising, and editing the writing (storch, 2019). second, it includes decisionmaking, problem-solving, and knowledge sharing of each student. it is because collaborative writing is a writing process that requires students' contribution, which is effort and ideas at each stage of its writing (shah & veramuthu, 2020). furthermore, it requires each student to take responsibility desma kumalasari | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 18 while doing the writing task with others, which can be participation and interaction. it is because collaborative writing allows students to train their english ability and develop their writing with their peers or group clearly (nguyen & trinh, 2021). fourth, in this study, all the activities described above were done in an online environment through the use of technology, such as google docs. in conclusion, collaborative writing in this study refers to a method that allows students to work together in an online environment to complete a writing task and produce good writing results. many researchers have indicated positive perceptions of the students and various effects of collaborative writing in the learning process. these positive perceptions and outcomes were informed by studies conducted in saudi arabia (alkhalaf, 2020; abahussain, 2020), vietnam (nguyen & trinh, 2021; pham, 2021), indonesia (anggraini et al., 2020; aulia & zulfikar, 2020; cahyono & winarti, 2020; emzir et al., 2020; murtiningsih, 2016), united arab emirates (deveci, 2018), iran (khodabakhshzadeh & samadi, 2018), thailand (coffin, 2020; kitjaroonchai & suppasetseree, 2021), china (du, 2018), and palestine (farrah, 2015). in the study conducted with 50 female students in saudi arabia, alkhalaf (2020) informed that the collaborative writing improved the students’writing and language skills. they also had positive attitudes towards it, even though some problems, such as students' behavior, proficiency, lack of contribution, and time management occurred. along the lines, abahussain (2020) also showed that students preferred the collaborative writing method because they had positive perceptions of its use. a more recent study in vietnam by nguyen and trinh (2021) on students' perceptions of collaborative writing showed that students found collaborative writing helpful to complete their writing task. similarly, pham's (2021) study reported that collaborative writing was beneficial to increase students’ writing fluency. several studies in indonesia also revealed that students had a positive perception towards collaborative writing. cahyono and winarti (2020) found out that efl students in their research gained many advantages from collaborative writing, such as shared information, give comments, and improved their writing ability. anggraini and her colleagues (2020) revealed that students acquired a significant positive impact on their writing skills after doing their collaborative writing. aulia and zulfikar’s study (2020) on efl students' perceptions of collaborative writing in aceh, indonesia informed that collaborative writing was not always successful due to different writing styles; however, they were pleased with their collaboration results. emzir et al. 's (2020) study on efl students' perceptions of collaborative writing also showed that students had positive perceptions in many aspects of collaborative writing, such as cooperation, understanding concepts, and their writing skills in the classroom. in a study conducted with 60 efl learners from a language institute in kashmar, iran, khodabakhshzadeh and samadi (2018) indicated that iranian efl students had positive collaborative writing perceptions. it provided a positive effect on writing tasks, such as changing unproductive writing style, motivation to write, and understanding a topic. in a study by coffin (2020) on teachers' and students' perspectives on implementing collaborative writing in efl classrooms in thailand, collaborative writing practice had positively affected communication, problem-solving skills, and teamwork. besides, a survey by kitjaroonchai and suppasetseree (2021) showed that online collaborations had helped students in an international university in thailand shape their interaction patterns, language proficiency, behavior, and cooperativeness. in a case study of students' perceptions about language improvement and collaborative writing products conducted with 69 students in china, du (2018) reported that collaborative writing had helped the students improved their writing. in a study by devici (2018) on students' perceptions of collaborative writing in a project-based class in the united arab emirates, the female students were found to be more satisfied with their experience in doing collaborative writing compared to what male students experienced. in a study conducted at hebron university in palestine about students' perception of online collaborative writing, farrah (2015) revealed that online collaborative writing improved writing performance, developed personal communication, and increased critical thinking. it actively demonstrates that students showed positive attitudes towards collaborative writing. to conclude the above previous studies in this section: • most of those studies confirmed that collaborative writing had many advantages, and students also found it beneficial to help them with their writing abilities. • despite the challenges students faced, as revealed by alkhalaf (2020) and aulia and zulfikar (2020), students still had positive perceptions of collaborative writing to help them with writing assignments. desma kumalasari | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 19 however, collaborative writing-related studies conducted in an online environment from the eyes of indonesian efl undergraduate students and focusing on the efl female students’ perceptions towards online collaborative writing activities are still limited in number. this study hopes to fill those empirical gaps and contribute to the discussions of online collaborative writing in an efl writing classroom. with this background in mind, previous researchers help me to undertake this research, explore the efl female students’ perceptions towards writing collaboratively since they considered to be more satisfied with their experience in doing collaborative writing (deveci, 2018). methods this research aimed to explore efl female students' perceptions of online collaborative writing in writing for the media classes at a private university in central java. a qualitative approach was applied to achieve the aim of this research. the qualitative approach gives depth and detailed data through an attentive explanation of attitudes, conditions, and interactions with smaller groups of people or cases observed (labuschagne, 2003). in addition, it analyzes things in natural settings (denzin & lincoln, 2005), which means that the data of this research was collected in the field where participants are experiencing collaborative writing in a writing class. there was no attempt to manipulate the students' collaborative writing experiences. a qualitative approach is better when research focuses on one specific case (gerring, 2017). this research was conducted in writing for the media classes at a private university in central java. those classes were chosen because collaborative writing was often used in teaching and learning activities. the teaching and learning activities were conducted in the zoom meeting application. meanwhile, for online writing, the students usually use google docs to complete the writing tasks and collaborate with their peers or groups. the collaborations in those classes aimed at supporting students’ writing so that they could produce good essays (hastuti, 2020). participants the participants for this research were five female students from writing for the media classes a private university in central java. in a qualitative research, the sample size used tends to be smaller to ease the collection of accurate and depth information (dworkin, 2012). the researcher employed the criterion sampling method in which the researcher determines the criterion first and then selects participants who meet that predetermined criteria (ary et al., 2010). in this study, the researcher looked for participants who have experience in doing collaborative writing. the female students in writing for the media classes were selected as the sampling because they got some experiences collaboratively doing the writing activities. the selection of the participants was also to address gaps in the literature where there is still a limited number of previous studies that explore the perspectives of female efl students in doing their online collaborative writing. data collection instrument the data for this qualitative research was collected through a semi-structured interview. the researcher used the interview because it offers the researcher a list of organized questions, with the intention that all participants can answer the questions in the same sequence. semi-structured interviews are usually followed by further why or how questions (adams, 2015). by implementing semi-structured interviews, the researcher will be able to engage in an in-depth conversation with the participants to gather detailed information from participants (dejonckheere & vaughn, 2019). the interview questions were adapted from two previous studies in the literature review. all participants were asked the same questions with some follow-up questions. this section describes the research approach used, respondents involved in the study, if any, which should be kept confidential, instruments, procedures of collecting the data, and ways of analyzing the data. the blueprint of the instrument may be provided if necessary. commonly used statistical formula should not be putin this section. this section can also be divided into several subheadings as shown below. however, to write it in paragraphs (without subheadings) is preferred. this section should not exceed 10% (500-700 words for qualitative research) or 15% (500-1000 words for quantitative research) of the manuscript. desma kumalasari | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 20 table 1. the interview questions no. interview questions adapted/ generated from 1. have you taken the writing for the media class? 2. what do you think about collaborative writing to complete a writing task? anggraini et al. (2020) 2.1 what challenges do you face when doing collaborative writing? why? 2.2 what benefits do you get from doing collaborative writing? how? 3. how do you perceive your writing skills after doing a writing task collaboratively? trinh and nguyen (2021) data collection procedures the procedure of collecting the data was done in several steps. first, the researcher contacted and informed each participant about the purpose of the research via whatsapp messenger. afterwards, the researcher made an appointment by scheduling an online meeting with each participant to conduct the interview. the interview was conducted through the zoom meetings application to facilitate the continuity of the interview with the research participants. during the interview, the researcher recorded the interview to ease the data transcription process. then, the results were clustered into several points or themes. data analysis procedures the researcher analyzed the research data through a thematic analysis. the thematic analysis was used since the researcher analyzed the data by themes. using thematic analysis, the researcher can link the frequency analysis of one theme to another, increasing the meaning of the study and providing accuracy (alhojailan, 2012). it also allows the researcher to recap, highlight main features, and interpret or make sense of all the data (kiger & varpio, 2020). the researcher first recorded the interview process and transcribed the interview data. then, the researcher reread the transcription to verify the accuracy of the data. and finally, similar to mali and salsbury (2021), the researcher grouped the similar ideas of each theme and developed them to answer the research question. research trustworthiness to ensure the research's trustworthiness, the researcher did member checks. it is also known as participant feedback. after collecting and interpreting the data, the researcher asked the participants to comment or review the interpreted data to verify the accuracy and meaning and avoid confusion (ary et al., 2010; mali, 2017). according to hagens et al. (2009), member check also allows for correcting misconceptions or errors, clarifying content and deleting or adding transcription statements. moreover, the interview questions were pilot tested with five participants in the research setting. based on the participants' comments and the result of the evaluation of the pilot data, the researcher used the appropriate points to arrange the final draft of the interview questions. previous researchers (e.g., le et al., 2018; trinh & nguyen, 2021) also piloted their research instruments to ensure their research's trustworthiness. findings and discussion this section presents the findings of this research to answer the following research question: what are the perceptions (i.e., advantages and challenges) that efl female students experience when doing collaborative writing in writing for the media classes?. five themes emerged as the answer to the research question. the themes will be discussed in detail in the next subsections. the online collaborative writing helps to complete writing tasks in the interview, the participants were asked how they think of writing collaboratively in completing a writing assignment in their writing for the media class. most of them stated that collaboration is helpful for them in finishing the writing tasks assigned. desma kumalasari | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 21 excerpt 1 i think it’s helpful, like when we’re doing the task, it becomes easier because there is someone who helps us when we do that (writing task). (student 1) excerpt 2 i think it’s easier to write in groups, it helps us to decide ideas like that … it’s easier to find new ideas from our friends … it helps us complete writing tasks like essay easily with the help of the group members. (student 3) excerpt 3 since we work in groups, the task is quite a lot, but we can do it together, so i didn’t feel like working alone and thank god my friends in the group are working too so the task completed properly as the lecturer wanted… (student 5) these three findings are similar to one of the previous studies in the literature review (nguyen & trinh, 2021), which indicated that students perceived collaborative writing as helpful for generating ideas and values to complete writing assignments. based on the findings in excerpt 1, student 1 stated that collaborative writing is beneficial for completing a writing task. she felt that doing a writing task in pairs made it easier because she had someone to work with and help her complete the job. along the same line, student 3 also indicated that writing collaboratively helped her decide on specific topics to write and generate new ideas from her friends in the group. moreover, she also believed that with collaborative writing, finishing tasks such as essays are more manageable because they could work together in their group. meanwhile, in excerpt 3, student 5 also stated quite the same perception. writing in groups also helped her to complete a writing task correctly. she said that she worked with support group members so that they could finish many writing tasks together, and she did not feel like she did the functions by herself. these statements indicate collaborative writing helped the participants to finish many assigned writing tasks, makes the writing tasks easier to complete and gain new ideas from others. the online collaborative writing provides opportunities to share ideas based on the interview results, some participants shared that when they did collaborative writing in the writing for the media class, they also shared ideas, information, and knowledge with their group members or pairs. excerpt 4 we can exchange ideas to discuss a certain topic, or we can develop a topic together…, and we can develop our thoughts with each other. (student 1) excerpt 5 it really helps me to share ideas and exchange information with friends like when we are doing group writing assignments. (student 4) these findings are also consistent with farah's (2015) findings that students had a chance to express their ideas in the group, which makes them perceive collaborative writing as a worthy experience. excerpts 4 and 5 showed how some of the research participants got the opportunity to share their ideas and information with other group members. student 1 stated that collaborative writing allowed her to express her thoughts when discussing a writing topic. similar to student 1, student 4 also mentioned that collaborative writing helps her share her thoughts in the group, and they could also share helpful information related to the writing tasks they are working on. this might indicate they could build up their thoughts to complement each other's ideas and collaborative writing allows to share ideas and information regarding the writing tasks. the online collaborative writing improves writing skills in a writing course, it was evident that students get a lot of writing assignments they must complete, whether they have to do it alone or in groups. there are also many kinds of writing texts that they are expected to be able to make and understand well. from the interview result, the researcher found out that the participants agreed that collaborative writing could improve their writing skills. desma kumalasari | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 22 excerpt 6 my writing skills are improving; i've understood about paraphrasing, summarizing, then making an editorial opinion. some writing tasks are quite good for my writing skills ... my skill has improved since i took this course, that's why i became more excited. it seems like my writing is getting better. (student 1) excerpt 7 i feel like my writing skills have improved because my friends also gave me advice if you want to write something like this, then i can apply it when i write. (student 2) excerpt 8 i think my writing skills have started to improve... it's because i've taken wftm twice. i didn't understand wftm at first, so it was like a lot of failed tasks last semester, so this time has improved because there are more cw than the individual. (student 3) excerpt 6 shows that student 1's writing skills got better by doing collaborative writing. she also stated that improving her skills made her more enthusiastic about writing, and she understands the given materials. it means that by doing collaborative writing, student 1 felt that she improved her writing skills, her understanding of some topic materials, and her writing enthusiasm. nearly the same as in the previous excerpt, student 2 also agreed that her writing skills improved by doing collaborative writing with her group. she stated that she could apply the suggestions from her friends in the group when doing collaborative writing. these findings confirm those reported by the previous studies (e.g., alkhalaf, 2020; anggraini et al., 2020; emzir et al., 2020) that collaborative writing allows students to improve their writing skills or writing abilities in english. alkhalaf (2020) found that collaborative writing as an applicable method does particularly help students improve their writing skills. significantly, collaborative writing offers positive outcomes for students' writing skills (anggraini et al., 2020). in other words, collaborative writing allows students to help each other improve their skills in writing (emzir et al., 2020). the participants of the present research seem to confirm that they experienced some improvements in their writing skills after they wrote collaboratively with their group members in the writing for the media class they had taken. this might also indicate that writing skills could be improved by the help (e.g., advice or recommendations) of other members in the group when writing collaboratively. students often deals with different opinions in group work, it is believed that each member has a different view or thoughts on certain things. it is undeniable that debates or differences of opinion can occur in group discussions. from the results of interviews with the participants, the researcher found out that some participants were often in an uncomfortable situation where every group member had a different opinion in the discussion, which slowed the progress of writing a task. excerpt 9 when we work in a group, of course, we have lots of opinions from our friends. well, some friends insist on choosing their idea to be the topic, the rest also the same, they insist on choosing their idea to be written. (student 3) excerpt 10 since everyone has different opinions, combining two different opinions sometimes does not end up with the same view. so, sometimes, i want an education topic, but my friend wants to talk about health, so we need to find a way to solve that different opinion. … so it’s better for us to look for other ideas so that there is no guilt for each other…. (student 1) excerpt 11 for example, there are different topics, we have different opinions on one topic, so the challenge is how we want to mediate to equalize our opinions to decide what we want to discuss on that one topic. (student 5) as shown by the statements above, students encounter disagreement in determining the topic to write. student 3 stated that when she worked in her group, she got many ideas from her friends. still, some of them became selfish, insisting on choosing their thoughts without thinking about other members’ opinions, which slowed down their writing progress. on the other hand, student 1 also desma kumalasari | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 23 encountered the same challenge. differences of view about the topic to be chosen make her and her friends have to find ways to resolve the problem of the opinion difference by selecting another topic. along the same line, student 5 had the same challenge as two other participants. she also encountered differences of opinions with her group members, and she needed to find a way to overcome their different views by stabilizing their opinion and deciding what topic to choose. these findings are almost similar to the results of alkhalaf (2020). in his study, some participants also experienced different opinions from their group members. this might indicate that when writing in groups or pairs, differences of opinion would more likely occur when selecting the subject or idea to write together. students experience lack of equal contribution from group members when working in a group, there must be some common issues or challenges that may arise. one of the issues or challenges is unequal contribution. it is believed that students may find this kind of challenge when working on an assignment in a group. one of the research participants also stated that she deals with the lack of contribution of her group members when doing collaborative writing. excerpt 12 ... then sometimes in the group, there are members who want to work, but some of them are difficult to contact, and some don’t work at all. (student 3) the statement above shows that student 3 has dealt with a lack of contribution when doing collaborative writing in writing for the media class. she found some challenges, such as difficulty contacting other group members to work, then dealt with members who did not want to contribute writing. one of the previous studies in the literature review also confirmed this problem. in alkhalaf’s (2020) study students claimed that some group members did not fairly contribute when writing the texts, so they believed that the same score for all group members is unfair. this finding might indicate that writing in groups is not always easy because some members want to get good grades without contributing and often rely on others’ abilities. conclusion this research explored how efl female students at a private university in central java perceive doing collaborative writing in writing for the media classes. the researcher revealed that helping to complete writing tasks, providing opportunities to share ideas, and improving writing skills are the benefits efl female students get from collaborative writing. however, some challenges they also experienced when doing collaborative writing include differences in opinion and the lack of group members’ contributions. nevertheless, the findings indicate that all research participants positively perceive collaborative writing in their writing for the media classes. regarding the findings, the gender roles of female students seem to provide outstanding performances in writing collaboratively. as results, skill improvement and task completion were achieved. furthermore, the researcher would like to suggest efl teachers in the writing for the media class to assist and monitor the progress in every stage of collaborative writing. giving a specific topic to write about might be needed to minimize conflict and differences of opinion in choosing a topic that can affect students' performance in writing the task given. while monitoring students' contribution to the task, providing rubrics on peer assessment in every writing task may also be needed to ensure every student takes part in writing collaboratively. the researcher also suggests that the students contribute in each writing stage, be less self-absorbed to other group members, and be more active in writing collaboratively. since this research is limited by gathering the participants, only five female students from writing for the media classes participated. these participants may indicate only some efl female students in writing for the media classes. for future research, involving more participants to get expansive perceptions of collaborative writing may be better. funding statement this research is a non-funded study that it does not receive any fundings from any agencies or institutions. desma kumalasari | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 24 references abahussain, m. o. 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(2022)t, the platform has also positively influenced students’ learning experience, particularly through the facilitation of feedback from their teacher in google docs. this tool also accommodates students’ learning engagement and expands their learning strategies (morse, 2021). in terms of students’ capacity for interaction and technological proficiency, google docs has also been shown to benefit underachievers (nguyen, 2023). to that end, google docs might receive good acceptance both from students and teachers. the exploration of students’ acceptance of the technology they use in their classrooms, as a part of learning reflection, might be done by adopting particular frameworks. one of them is technology acceptance model (tam), which is claimed to be one of the most common models to predict technology acceptance in social science (teo et al., 2018). tam was introduced by davis (1986) and has been widely adopted to view users’ perceptions of technology acceptance including in an educational setting, by both teachers (schereekr et al., 2019) and students (peng et al., 2023). furthermore, davis (1986) introduces tam aspects to predict people’s perception of the technology they use: perceived usefulness (pu), perceived ease of use (peu), attitude towards technology (att), and behavioural intention (bi). perceived ease of use is the state in which a user reckons that using the technology would be simple, whereas perceived usefulness is viewed as the extent to which the technology promotes performance (lederer et al., 2000). att is seen as the degree of evaluative effect that an individual associates with using the target system in his or her job (davis, 1986). while bi, to brezavšček et al. (2017) refers to the extent to which a person has made conscious plans to engage in or refrain from engaging in a particular future activity. they primarily believe that users will be more motivated to adopt technology if they believe it will benefit them and be simple to use. in this case study, these 4 aspects will be used to predict the acceptance of google docs using a qualitative approach. google docs itself has been widely known to receive well-established acceptance from students. in the context of efl, students in reading classes shared their positive perceptions of using google docs, as reported by rukmi et al. (2021). the study conducted by sudrajat & purnawarman (2019) has shown that students in a translation class also show positive acceptance of google docs use. students also agree that google docs assists them with supporting features for collaborative writing (wahyuningsih, 2021). a study conducted by aldossary (2022) underlined that google docs is perceived by students as an interesting learning platform and a tool to foster their writing skills. google docs is also accepted as a learning technology that accommodates group tasks, discussion abilities, communication, and interaction with lecturers (hidayat, 2020). additionally, users’ positive opinions on the use of google docs are consistently proven by their writing performance (alsubaie & ashuraidah, 2017). the research of rukmi et al. (2021) focused on measuring the students’ acceptance based on the percentage for each element of tam in their efl course, therefore, they urged administering qualitative research to have more revelations about students’ acceptance. similarly, research by aldossary (2022) suggested the administration of interviews to gain deeper information about google susilawati, yustika nur fajriah, sri yunita| elt forum 12(2) (2023) 100 docs’ use. in a translation class, sudrajat & purnawarman (2019) investigated students' perceptions of using google docs based on its simplicity, user experience, and attitude toward using google docs. they also probed further into whether google docs use is accepted in traditional classrooms. with a focus on interaction and google docs' use in writing (hidayat, 2020; wahyuningsih, 2021), as well as its features, performance when using google docs, easy communication, and accessibility (wahyuningsih, 2021), the two scholars both qualitatively portrayed students' perceptions in efl classes. however, they applied a slightly different model from tam. while alsubaie & ashuraidah (2017) claimed positive acceptance of google docs by efl students based solely on female participants' perspectives. based on the above highlights, there are some urgent issues to address. first, since all the above studies were conducted in an efl setting, it is worth investigating the technology’s acceptance in a more specific setting, like english for business as part of esp classes. second, not all research applies specific frameworks when investigating students’ acceptance; therefore, applying tam to explore students’ acceptance on google docs is promising to explore much wider aspects of technology acceptance. third, a distinct research approach that is qualitative and uses a range of instruments, including interviews, different subjects (male and female students), and a traditional course setting necessitates attention. on this basis, the recent study concentrates on exploring students' approval of the use of google docs in the context of an ebp traditional writing class by using the tam framework, which is conducted using a qualitative approach. this study is expected to provide extensive and in-depth references regarding the students' acceptance. it is envisaged that ebp or esp students will be more familiar with the use of technology to aid their learning. other associated parties, such as english teachers or lecturers, might use this useful information to best prepare their ebp or esp classrooms for the digital age by infusing useful platforms into their classrooms. in a broader sense, schools and stakeholders may explore incorporating user-friendly learning platforms such as google docs into curriculum development as a means of providing their students with a more current and paperless platform for learning writing for their technological proficiency. methods the recent study adopted a qualitative approach. the method employed was a case study. the design was selected in reference to yin (2018), due to its characteristics to generalize and expand theory in non-statistical analyses. it is also chosen to gain a more in-depth understanding and exploration of the phenomenon being studied (crowe et al., 2011). in this study, the researchers intend to explore students’ acceptance of using google docs with more detailed information on each acceptance aspect. the participants involved in the recent study comprised 18 students from a non-english department at one private university in depok, west java, indonesia. they were selected as they had used google docs intensively during their whole semester for the subject of english correspondence in the context of ebp. there are two instruments used to collect data. the first instrument is a questionnaire. as the study employed a qualitative approach, an open-ended questionnaire was utilized as a tool to collect information on the students’ views. the open-ended format is chosen to explore more specific and deep answers from participants (albudaiwi, 2017). the questionnaire was constructed using 4 aspects of tam consisting of 8 questions on pu, 5 questions on peu, 6 questions on att, and 3 questions on bi. the questionnaire is adopted from jiang et al. (2021). the second technique to collect the data is an interview. the type of interviews chosen was a structured interview which was administered in a focus group interview. 3 groups of students (each group consisting of 2 students) were interviewed in groups; they were chosen based on their level of writing performance. the group interview was adopted due to time efficiency and the researcher’s intention to discover more aspects (dilshad & ijaz latif, 2013) of the participant’s perception of the use of google docs. as this instrument was used to confirm or triangulate the students’ perceptions stated in the questionnaire, they were only given a few relevant questions. the interview questions focused on their experience, feeling of assistance, features to help them write, and overall views of the learning. the data were all collected after the students finished their ebp course which was conducted offline in the odd semester of the academic year 2022/2023. the open-ended questionnaires were first administered to all students using google forms. after all students completed the questionnaire, a face-to-face group interview was scheduled. susilawati, yustika nur fajriah, sri yunita| elt forum 12(2) (2023) 101 the collected data were analyzed using thematic analysis steps, which were adapted from lester et al. (2020). data completeness was initially convinced for both questionnaires and interviews. in the next step, data interviews were transcribed using an intelligent verbatim technique (mcmullin, 2021). after reading the general sense of the data, data coding was administered, which then led to a categorization based on aspects of tam. the last step was interpreting the data and justifying them in light of the current existent literature. findings and discussion the current study attempts to explore the students’ acceptance of using google docs in the context of an ebp writing class. the findings and discussion are presented based on each aspect of tam and supported by the interview results. perceived usefulness (pu) in the view of pu, there are four key points highlighted: google docs’ assistance in improving the students’ writing skills, enjoyable learning, effective features, and a general opinion about the use of google docs. the results of the questionnaire are presented in table 1. table 1. the results of questionnaires in pu statements responses google docs’ gives assistance in enhancing writing skills of business correspondence 18 students agreed aspects of writing improved by google docs grammar, spelling, vocabulary, writing/language style, letter generic structures google docs accommodates comfortable learning accommodated 18 students agreed the most accommodating features of google docs suggestion mode, auto translating feature, auto saving mode, the feature of giving comments in collaborative writing google docs’ is effective to use when writing business letters in english 17 students agreed, 1 did not most effective features of google docs for learning to write suggestion mode, auto translating feature, auto saving mode, the feature of giving comments in collaborative writing in general, google docs helps students learn to write business letters in english. 18 students agreed from table 1, it is clear that the students all agreed that google docs helps them improve their business correspondence skills in english. they mentioned that grammar, spelling, vocabulary mastery, writing styles, and generic structure of their letter are getting better when using google docs. google docs has been facilitating students with auto-correction for grammar, diction, including sentence styles as a part of writing. when they write their letter in google docs, they have been facilitated with a sample of letters for modeling from their lecturer. therefore, when they write in google docs, they write their letters by adopting a similar generic structure. from the interview conducted in groups, relevant reasons are admitted by the interviewed students. they said: “better writing and correct format of business letters.” (st. 1) “i got a better understanding of the goo letter structure.” (st. 2) “motivation to write better.” (st. 3) “better understanding of writing letters in english.” (st. 4) “simple, understandable.” (st 5) “correct arrangement of letters in english.” (st 6) the result corresponds to a study reported by alwahoub et al. (2022) that content, language use, and organization of writing are fostered by the use of google docs. hoang & hoang (2022) either proved that google docs has been accepted as a useful platform by students due to its assistance in the enhancement of academic writing skills. they reported vocabulary enrichment after the use of google docs in their writing class. the study conducted by ebadi & rahimi (2019) discovered students’ positive acceptance of google docs. they underlined that writing ability in the aspects of task susilawati, yustika nur fajriah, sri yunita| elt forum 12(2) (2023) 102 performance, coherent and cohesive writing, vocabulary, structure, and accuracy have been fostered by the use of google docs. in this recent study context, the students’ genre awareness (akoto, 2021) is successfully built and comprehended. the second point is the agreeable learning provided by google docs. from table 1, it is found that all students admitted that they feel comfortable when using the platform to write business letters. suggestion mode for grammatical correction and diction, translation mode, auto saving mode, and giving comments when writing collaboratively are listed as the features providing comfort in writing. from the interview, the students agreed that suggestion mode is the most accommodating feature in google docs. all of them mentioned: “suggestion mode is the most helpful for me.” (st. 1) “for me, the correction mode.” (st. 2) “the one that corrects sentences.” (st. 3) “feature to correct the writing.” (st. 4) “suggestion feature.” (st. 5) “when i write with a wrong spelling, google docs suggests me the correction.” (st. 6) the learning enjoyment they experience with google docs might have directed the students to be motivated and enthusiastic in the class. during the interview, they mentioned that: “honestly, yes.” (st. 1) “yes, i feel so motivated.” (st. 2) “very motivational.” (st. 3) “very motivational. i become a diligent student in this class.” (st. 4) “i feel motivated.” (st. 5) “i feel very motivated.” (st. 6) this second point represents the students’ feel being of excitement to learn using google docs. the fact supports what has been highlighted by shahidan, ali, & bakar (2022), that the use of google docs helps educators present an encouraging learning atmosphere, in an effort to equip them with technological competence in the digital period (shahidan, ali, & tilwani, 2022). another study has portrayed that students share a variety of opinions on the delight of using google docs (hoang & hoang, 2022). besides its assistance and enjoyment, in the third point, the students also all approve that google docs is effective learning media for their ebp writing class. they highlighted the features of suggestion mode, auto-translation, auto-saving mode, and giving comments when they have collaborative writing as the most effective features to help them write. the results are also supported by the interview. when being interviewed, the students all said the same thing about the use of google docs in their business correspondence class, “it’s very helpful.” (st. 1) “yes, it helps me a lot.” (st. 2) “google docs helps me so much.” (st. 3) “very helpful.” (st. 4) “yes, very helpful.” (st. 5) “i feel assisted.” (st. 6) this finding corresponds to the study of ebener (2017), which concluded that the features of giving comments and suggestion mode are helpful for promoting students’ writing. in the context of collaborative writing, google docs is also well accepted by students for its accommodating features for peer work (hidayat, 2020). all in all, at the pu, the students feel that the use of google docs generally gives them assistance in writing business correspondence. the students’ general views are also in consonance with the study conducted by wahyuningsih (2021), which supports the students' overall perception that google docs is a useful tool for carrying out writing activities, including materials accessibility and teacher-learner interaction during learning (khalil, 2018). susilawati, yustika nur fajriah, sri yunita| elt forum 12(2) (2023) 103 perceived ease of use (peu) regarding the aspect of peu, some points to be concerned about consist of google docs’ easy use in general, its effortless use in writing, and the easy-to-understand instruction in its features. the results of the peu questionnaire are displayed in table 2. table 2. the results of questionnaires in peu statements responses google docs is easy to use 18 students agreed google docs’ easy use similar features with ms. word, easy access at anywhere and anytime, auto saving mode using google docs to learn to write english business letters is effortless 17 students agreed, 1 did not effortless use of google docs agreement: auto correction for spelling or suggestion mode, energy saving, similar to ms. word, easy to use, easy correction, auto saving mode disagreement: not being able to format paragraphs it is easy to understand instruction in the google docs features 17 students agreed, 1 did not the easiest features to use in google docs 18 students agreed the easiest feature: suggestion modes based on table 2, all students (18) approved that generally google docs is easy to use. similar features to microsoft word, flexible access, and auto-saving modes, are the students’ agreement. specifically, when it comes to writing business correspondence, it is evident that the majority of students (17) admitted that google docs is effortless to use; only 1 student did not agree with that. most of the students (17) listed that that google docs helps them with automatic helpful features like suggestion modes, especially for spelling, energy saving, similar features to microsoft word, easy use, easy correction, and auto-saving modes. while one student that showed her disagreement said that it is not easy for her to her to build and format paragraphs in google docs. this student might have less exposure to technology regarding her age and limited resources; therefore, she is categorized into a digital immigrant, as concluded by li et al. (2019). during the interview, they confirmed the preferences and reasons. “google docs is very easy to use for me. we can soon identify our mistakes in our writing.” (st. 1) “easy for me. auto correction mode and auto-saving help me the most.” (st. 2) “easy to use. it helps me write letters in english. it suggests me correstions.” (st.3) “very easy. it is effective and efficient to use. it can be linked to many people.” (st. 4) “easy to use, because of auto-correction, easy to revise letters after getting feedback from the lecturer.” (st. 5) “very easy to use. similar to ms. word, but it helps to fix incorrect writing.” (st. 6) google docs’ easy of use has also been a concern in previous studies. features of google docs itself are significant predictors in facilitating students’ learning (moonma, 2021). the study of khalil (2018) has proven that google docs' features have been notable for their simplicity. its flexible access, which means that google docs is always accessible without distance and time restrictions, is also reported by moonma (2021). as this platform is mostly used in a synchronous mode, immediate edits are possible (mohammed & al-jaberi, 2021); therefore, energy saving in the effortless use of google docs are approved by the students in this study. moreover, similar features of google docs and microsoft word enable students to cope with google docs conveniently, and then they can finish tasks effortlessly. the ease with which tasks can be completed and the accessibility of google docs' capabilities are both viewed favorably (mohamad et al., 2021). in relation to the easy comprehended instruction, the majority of students (17) also agreed that the instructions in the features are easy to comprehend. in this case, the interviewed students also confirmed that the lecturer’s instruction is also useful so that they comprehend the materials and instruction better. they mentioned: susilawati, yustika nur fajriah, sri yunita| elt forum 12(2) (2023) 104 “she gives very good explanations, … better comprehension.” (st.1) “the instruction is very easy to understand.” (st. 2) “simple, not wordy.” (st. 3) “the lecturer explains everything well and clearly. it is very helpful for me.” (st. 4) “yes, understandable.” (st. 5) “easy to comprehend.” (st. 6) this answer corresponds to what was suggested by kurniawati (2022) that teachers are advised to provide clear instruction to students when learning with the assistance of a platform. although google docs has provided an auto correction mode for students to revise their writing, the lecturer’s presence in delivering instruction cannot be substituted, specifically for directing the students on how to write accurately based on business letters’ generic structure, then correcting the cohesiveness and coherence of the students’ letters. referring to the study carried out by li & mak (2022), with the help of a well-structured online intervention designed by teachers, fostering students’ writing skills will take place; even those with low written proficiency will be able to follow along and benefit from the learning. the 18 students also highlighted that the easiest feature they find in google docs is suggestion mode. during the interview, the 3 groups all agreed that suggestion mode is their most preferred feature in google docs. they mentioned: “auto correction mode”. (st. 1) “when i write and it is not correct, google docs gives me signs and suggests correction.” (st. 2) “features for correcting sentences.” (st. 3) “correction mode.” (st. 4) “suggestion feature.” (st. 5) “same answer.” (st. 6) pursuant to the research findings, it was reported that the correction mode in google docs is favorable (ebener, 2017) since the editing process becomes much simpler and time saving (colaco & antao, 2023). a study reported that google docs is preferred due to its features for immediate text revision (mohammed & al-jaberi, 2021), which will actually reduce the amount of time needed for writing. on this account, google docs is considered an efficient writing tool. attitude towards technology (att) in the context of att, the students’ answers are mainly grouped into these categories: google docs as a great option, benefits of writing with google docs, and students’ positive perceptions. the results are presented in table 3. table 3. the results of questionnaires in att statements responses google is a great option to learn writing english business letters 18 students agreed why is google docs’ a great option? improving vocabulary mastery and grammar, auto correction after getting feedback writing with google docs is beneficial 18 students agreed benefits of writing with google docs improving understanding of structure when writing a letter, easy for beginners students have positive perception of using google docs in english letter writing class 18 students agreed students’ positive perception helpful in completing tasks, easy to use, effective for learning, compatible in many devices, direct feedback from the lecturer based on the att, all students (18) approved that google docs is a good choice to use. they underlined that it helps them with vocabulary enrichment, grammar construction, and writing revision when they get feedback from their lecturer. as mentioned earlier, when being interviewed, the students agreed that their writing structure in english is getting better. they also preferred their lecturer’s feedback as it challenged them to revise their work. they said: susilawati, yustika nur fajriah, sri yunita| elt forum 12(2) (2023) 105 “i get an okay. i love it.” (st. 1) “the feedback is like word arrangement. i prefer getting feedback.” (st. 2) “i receive a lot of feedback, like revising salutation in opening letters, commas, dates. it makes me understand the mistake.” (st.3) “the feedback that i receive very frequently is word arrangement. honestly, i like when i get feedback.” (st. 4) “word arrangement, and capitalization. i like it honestly.” (st. 5) “spelling, salutation, and word arrangement. i like getting feedback.” (st. 6) this finding is in conformity with the study of wibowo (2021) that has focused on how feedback provided in google docs helps students construct their writing. in this study, the synchronous feedback provided in google docs also helps the students to interact virtually with their lecturer. as underlined by saeed & al qunayeer (2022), delivering feedback using a platform could be more practical in terms of its interactivity. withal, to prasetya & syarif (2022), feedback represents lecturers’ reactions to their students’ writing. the 18 students also approved that google docs gives tem more benefits. they confirmed that they gain better understanding of a good letter structure, and this tool is suitable for use by students at beginner levels. the research of nasri et al. (2022) noticed that google docs positively affected students’ learning experiences and assisted their learning processes. specifically, google docs also provides a unique learning experience (hidayat, 2020). it has also been researched that this tool is advantageous for students in the category of low achievement (nguyen, 2023). the interviewed students confirmed the answers by saying: “learning becomes unique and interesting.” (st. 1) “it’s my first time using google docs, very beneficial.” (st. 2) “it’s unique learning.” (st. 3) “my experience when using google docs … it is very beneficial. and plus, it’s a great help for my daily activities at the workplace.” (st. 4) “it’s unique, beneficial and i enjoy it. it’s a new experience for me.” (st. 5) “for me, learning with google docs is pleasing. it helps me when typing documents.” (st. 6) finally, the 18 students showed a positive perception of google docs use in their ebp writing class. google docs’ assistance, ease of use, effectiveness for learning, device compatibility and asynchronous feedback are the reasons behind its positive acceptance. on that account, the study of alharbi (2020) approved that google docs supports writing instruction. therefore, it is understandable that language learners in writing class show positive attitudes towards google docs (nguyen, 2023). behavioral intention (bi) considering the aspect of bi, google docs is seen based on the students’ preference for its potential use in the future, both in academic and professional settings. the students’ responses are presented in table 4. table 4. the results of questionnaires in bi statements responses google docs will be used in the next english letterwriting class. 18 students agreed courses that will need help from google docs advanced business correspondence courses, courses related to administration google docs can also be used at work to write documents in english. 17 students agreed, 1 did not based on bi, each of the students agreed that they will probably use google docs in their future courses. they mentioned that they might use it again in other business correspondence courses or courses that are related to administration, as they will have more english business correspondence courses in the next coming semesters. during the interview, the students stated: susilawati, yustika nur fajriah, sri yunita| elt forum 12(2) (2023) 106 “yes, for sure. this application helps me so much.” (st. 1) “of course. (st. 2) “i will.” (st. 3) “yes, google docs really helps me when editing documents. its simplicity really helps me. it is also good for collaborative writing.” (st. 4) “i will use it in the future.” (st. 5) “surely i will.” (st. 6) the students’ intention to use google docs in their future course, i.e., in an academic purpose, has shown that they have been enlightened by the facility offered by google docs. it is understandable as using google docs is believed to provide students with an encouraging learning atmosphere (shahidan, ali, & bakar, 2022), or learning motivation (pratiwi et al., 2021) and it is enjoyable to use (woodrich & fan, 2017). more specifically, it is projected that motivational learning environment will significantly give an impact to social and psychological sides or learners (shahidan, ali, & tilwani, 2022). considering the findings, the possibility of google docs practical use in the future might be increasing. by the same token, with the current trends in schooling online, the use of google docs in the context of ebp will be very promising. further, when asked about using google docs in a professional context, most of them (17 students) also concurred with the idea of using google docs at work when they had to write documents in english. the arguments mentioned in the views of pu, peu, and att, i.e., its useful assistance, effortless use, and benefits are the determining factors that might have affected their choice. more specifically, for those working students —some of the interviewees are also working students— they said: “yes, of course. it is so helpful.” (st. 1) “i currently use it very often at my office.” (st. 2) “yes, maybe i will.” (st. 3) “yes, even now, i am using it at campus and in my office. google docs helps me simplify and optimize jobs with my team.” (st. 4) “i have such an intention. google docs helps simplify things. it makes my job easier.” (st. 5) “of course, i will use google docs because i have known that it is helpful.” (st. 6) this kind of student preference will emerge as google docs is proven to get things done more efficiently in document management. when working in a team, google docs will be a good choice as it enables multiple people to work together (aldossary, 2022; metilia & fitrawati, 2018; wahyuningsih, 2021). another study has proven that it will be a great help for people who work at a distance due to the google docs facility for unlimited and flexible access (mohamad et al., 2021; moonma, 2021). creating and editing documents in real-time will also be effortless due to immediate editing (mohammed & al-jaberi, 2021), which makes work more efficient. even google docs, based on the study reported by opara et al. (2021), has a wider possibility of being used as an online written interview; in their research context, this tool is used to collect data from participants. then, it is also possible for workers or management teams to conduct synchronously written interviews or meetings with their co-workers, or even interview worker candidates. to summarize, google docs will be an excellent resource for document processing, whether for academic or professional purposes in the workplace. thus, google docs has been listed as one of the trusted instructional synchronous media in writing (vutha, 2021). conclusion the importance of giving students valuable and successful writing experiences cannot be overstated. on that basis, making use of user-friendly platforms is crucial. the results of the current study have demonstrated how beneficial google docs is as an instructional platform, regarding the students’ positive acceptance. based on its utility and user-friendliness, google docs is generally well-received by students. additionally, they exhibit a favorable attitude toward google docs and have good intentions to use it more in the future, whether for professional or academic endeavors. the results of this study might provide exposure to english lecturers when instructing their students in writing class, both for academic or specific purposes, with the expectation that their students will be equipped with good writing ability, content understanding, and technological competence. when remote or hybrid teaching is applied, schools or stakeholders may also consider this platform to be used in designing and developing curricula. susilawati, yustika nur fajriah, sri yunita| elt forum 12(2) (2023) 107 the generalizations made in this study, however, are based on a qualitative approach. due to the potential use of google docs in equipping esp students with content, language, and technological competence, the investigation of the quantitative effectiveness of google docs uses in ebp or more esp courses with sizable samples is strongly advised. funding statement the present study does not receive any funding from any agencies or institutions. references akoto, m. 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(2018). case study research and applications: design and methods (6th ed.). thousand oaks, ca sage. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 32 elt forum 13(1) (2024) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt literature-based instruction and language learner autonomy: a case study of a tertiary efl reading course xiaomei sun1, wuwei ye2, xinyi li1 1china foreign affairs university, china 2university of exeter, england 3ankang university, china article info ________________ article history: received 1 january 2024 approved on 11 march 2024 published on 31 march 2024 ________________ keywords: literaturebased instruction; language learner autonomy; intensive reading; extensive reading; efl teaching ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this qualitative case study aims to investigate pedagogical strategies for developing language learner autonomy through scrutinising a literature-based efl reading course carried out in a tertiary institution in china. to achieve triangulation, data were collected from multiple sources, including two diagnostic surveys, post-course feedback interviews, student artefacts, teacher’s reflective journal, and related teaching materials. in data analysis, triangulation was accomplished by involving and integrating multiple investigators’ perspectives – three researchers collaborated in analysing data collected from student feedback interviews. findings of this study could be classified into three categories. regarding second language acquisition (sla), results from the surveys and interviews indicate a comprehensive improvement in learners’ l2 competence, in addition to their cognitive and motivational enhancement. with regard to literature-based instruction, evidence from this study contributes to a deepened and enriched understanding of the comprehensive approach to l2 literature and scaffolded extensive reading. for developing language learner autonomy, this study provides a three-dimensional modal with pedagogical implications for literature-based instruction, from the perspectives of teaching content, methodological approaches, and ideological orientation. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 24 zhanlanguan rd, xicheng district beijing, china, 100044 e-mail: sunxiaomei@cfau.edu.cn http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& mailto:sunxiaomei@cfau.edu.cn xiaomei sun, wuwei ye, & xinyi li | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 33 introduction in l2 instruction, either with intensive reading or extensive reading approach. as bland (2020) put it, “deep reading of literature can promote all aspects of cognition and engagement with text, including emotion, empathy, ethics, knowledge of the world, ideology and social justice issues” (p. 73). while the benefits of integrating literature into l2 pedagogy have been well investigated and widely discussed, challenges involved in its implementation still remain a focused research topic that deserves close scrutiny and in-depth discussion. specifically, the complexity of this pedagogy (zengin et al., 2019) and teachers’ lack of relevant training (saka, 2018) highlight the challenges, therefore calling for intensive investigation and research in this field. based on previous scholarship, the comprehensive approach to l2 literature (bloemert et al., 2016; bloemert et al., 2019) and scaffolded extensive reading strategies (sun, 2022a, 2022b) provide pedagogical guidance for l2 literature-based instruction, respectively offering content-focused approaches and methodological strategies. language learner autonomy, or ‘a teaching/learning dynamic in which learners plan, implement, monitor and evaluate their own learning’ (little, 2022, p. 64), merits l2 teachers’ attention for the purpose of achieving language learners’ sustainable development. the existing body of literature foregrounds teachers’ roles in strategy training (aryanjam et al., 2021), learner empowerment (west, 2018), and peer collaboration (tseng et al., 2020) in the development of language learner autonomy. drawing on the accumulated evidence from previous studies and discussion, along with the findings from the english as a foreign language (efl) reading course under focus, the current study aims to delve into pedagogical details and formulate some principles for l2 practitioners to implement literature-based instruction with the vision of enhancing language learner autonomy. literature review l2 literature‐based instruction the legitimacy of using literature in l2 pedagogical practice has long been discussed and widely accepted. in a broad sense, scholarship in this respect could be classified into two groups: what to teach (content-focused) and how to teach it (methodology-focused), as outlined and detailed in the following two parts. with regard to teaching content and objectives, literature-based instruction has gone through three major stages (not linearly developed, though): language-based approach, literature as content, and literature for personal enrichment and development (lazar, 1993). respectively, each stage focuses on language learning, literary elements (e.g., literary genres and devices), and learners’ cognitive, affective, and psychological development (hall, 2005/2015). when communicative approach gained popularity in l2 pedagogy in the 1980s and 1990s, literature was given extra attention as authentic reading materials. in the past two decades, new dimensions have been added to the focus of literature-based instruction, including critical thinking and culture-related competence (e.g., cultural competence, critical cultural literacy, and intercultural communicative competence) (bland, 2013; bobkina & stefanova, 2016; serafini, 2005; xia, 2019). from reader’s perspective, freebody and luke (2003) identified four roles that might provide reference for l2 teachers to design literature-based activities: code-breaker – using bottom-up strategies to decode the text; text participant – using top-down approaches to interpret the text; text user – using the text with awareness of its social and cultural functions; text analyst – critiquing the text with awareness of its discoursal and ideological implications and novel interpretation of the reader (burns & siegel, 2018). careful reading of these four roles, however, reveals overlapping between the categories, for example, the difficulty in differentiating reader as text participant and text analyst. in a more practical and easy-to-follow way, bloemert and colleagues (2016, 2019) put forward a comprehensive approach to l2 literature, based on lazar’s (1993) three basic approaches and paran’s (2008) four-quadrant model for l2 literature teaching. this comprehensive approach includes: text approach – focusing on literary discourse, genres and related terminologies; context approach – locating literature in particular sociocultural and historical contexts; reader approach – encouraging readers’ unique interpretations of the text and critical thinking; language approach – using literature as a repertoire of authentic texts for language acquisition. these four approaches, according to evidence from some recent studies, were not given equal attention in l2 classrooms. for instance, language-based approach, compared with the other parallel approaches, was extensively and predominantly used in various l2 teaching contexts (bloemert, et al., 2016; cheung xiaomei sun, wuwei ye, & xinyi li | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 34 & hennebry-leung, 2020; luukka, 2019; tsang et al., 2020). this phenomenon poses a question: by what means could practitioners help l2 learners approach literature in a more comprehensive and balanced way? the question raised above leads the discussion to the methodological dimension. to begin with, intensive reading (ir) and extensive reading (er) are two basic approaches that teachers adopt when dealing with l2 reading materials, including literary works. ir aims at detailed comprehension of short texts, with special focus on the linguistic and content study, while er involves reading a substantial body of texts for the main purpose of reading for pleasure (broughton, 1978; krashen, 1993). in a succinct way, widdowson (1978) applied two terms – language usage and language use – to differentiate ir and er. in ir, texts are used to study the system or components of a language, while in er texts are explored for real-world communicative purposes in forms of intrapersonal and interpersonal activities. regarding sla, while ir is oriented towards the improvement of language accuracy and reading skills, er is conducive to language fluency and provides opportunities to practise the skills (anderson, 2008; grabe, 2009; hedge, 2000). therefore, it is preferable to integrate ir and er into l2 literature-based instruction to enhance learners’ allaround language capabilities. advocacy of such integration takes different terminological forms, such as, blended extensive and intensive reading (day, 2015) and er as literature (waring & mclean, 2015). under such general guidance and drawing on empirical evidence from multiple case studies, sun (2022b) put forward the notion of scaffolded extensive reading (ser) which emphasises teachers’ scaffolding and facilitation when promoting students’ extensive reading of engaging materials for the main purpose of l2 acquisition. teacher scaffolding could take the form of giving guidance on selecting reading materials and reading strategies, initiating or organising collective activities, or monitoring and supervising students’ reading activities (sun, 2022a). ser bears features of three pedagogical approaches in a non-linear but systematic manner: ir instruction, shared-reading, and er instruction (see details in the three-stage model for scaffolded extensive reading, sun, 2022b, p. 19). it is legitimate to say that if ser is effectively implemented, the actual integration of ir and er has high chances of benefitting l2 learners in a more comprehensive manner. in view of the values of the comprehensive approach (content reference) and ser approach (methodological reference), the investigated first-year english major reading course was designed on the two pedagogical bases. results of this study may provide further empirical evidence of effective strategies for literature-based instruction in l2 classrooms. language learner autonomy l2 literature reading is related to language learner autonomy in that classroom instructions are important for students to engage with literary works, but far from sufficient. it is more likely that through igniting learners’ enthusiasm for reading, or the development of learner autonomy, l2 learners benefit from reading literature in a more profound and far-reaching sense. in other words, if teachers have the awareness of improving language learner autonomy, their implementation of literature-based instruction has higher chances of effecting changes in l2 learners. in a seminal report, holec (1981) defined autonomy as ‘the ability to take charge of one’s own learning’ (p. 3). in more detail, dickinson (1987) theorised autonomy as learners’ taking responsibility for making decisions about their study and abiding by those decisions in actual learning. according to dickinson (1993), autonomous learners often possess the following capabilities: understanding what is being taught; formulating learning objectives; employing appropriate learning strategies; identifying strategies unsuitable for them; monitoring and assessing their learning. corroborating the emphasis on appropriately adopting strategies, cotterall (1995) construed learner autonomy as ‘the ability to use a set of tactics for taking control of their learning’ (p. 195). based on such propositions, it is assumed that l2 practitioners need to equip students with essential strategies for processing/interpreting literary works when delivering literature-based instruction. however, what are the essential strategies and how to teach the strategies in a systematic way still remain unresolved questions. another element of learner autonomy that merits practitioners’ attention is the social dimension (little, 1999). in an educational context, the exercise and development of individual learners’ autonomy depend on and contribute to other learners’ autonomy (little et al., 2017). to put it another way, language learner autonomy is not an individual construct; it is a product of a ‘social-interactive learning environment’ (little, 2022, p. 70). this presupposition mirrors the xiaomei sun, wuwei ye, & xinyi li | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 35 understanding that ‘a greater capacity for autonomous self-regulation’ is correlated to ‘deeper relatedness to others’ (deci & flaste, 1996, p. 6). from teacher’s perspective, it is almost equated to stating that learner autonomy is a socially-situated construct in which learners and teachers cooperate to achieve shared goals (zhong, 2021). this ‘collaborative and mutually supportive nature of the autonomous learning environment’ (little, 2022, p. 70) calls for teachers’ full awareness of the interdependence in the cultivation of learner autonomy, and they need to involve learners as agentive partners who are engaged with the planning, implementing, and evaluating learning activities (little, 1995). the topic under discussion went even further when little (1995) built the link between learner autonomy and teacher autonomy, and benson (2008) came up with classroom autonomy which encouraged teachers to deploy the ‘usable’ construct to help learners develop autonomy without challenging institutional conventions. to investigate effective and comprehensive methodological approaches to l2 literature-based instruction, with the view of developing language learner autonomy, this study aims to answer the following two research questions: 1. what are the strategies for implementing literature-based instruction with the intention of fostering autonomous language learners in a tertiary efl teaching context? 2. how do students respond to and evaluate the literature-based instruction? methods research context the reading course under focus was intended for first-year english majors in a public university in china. different from other parallel classes that used textbooks for the intensive reading course, the participating class (an experimental class) took this compulsory course aimed at enhancing l2 capabilities through reading classic works (mainly comprised of but not confined to literary works). the teacher – the principal investigator of the study – taught this year-long course and designed the second-semester syllabus (the first-semester syllabus was co-designed by her and another teacher). the current study examined this year-long course, with intense focus on the second semester. to understand student needs and expectations of the course, a diagnostic survey was conducted one week before the first semester started. the teacher drew on the results of the survey to design the formative assessment, which took up 40% of the final mark of this course. similarly, at the end of the first semester, another diagnostic survey was carried out, and results were used to make amendments to the formative assessment and syllabus design in the second semester. at the end of the school year, individual interviews with each student were conducted to obtain students’ detailed feedback and suggestions for this course (see details in table 1). table 1. pedagogical process and formative assessment of the course time task function pre-course survey 1 diagnostic semester 1 (14 weeks) participation in class (10%); presentation (10%); drama performance (10%); reading journal (10%) formative mid-course survey 2 diagnostic semester 2 (15 weeks) reading marathon (10%); play adaptation and performance (20%); reading journal (10%) formative end-course feedback interview evaluative in the second semester, the teacher incorporated four reading themes in the syllabus, respectively the american dream, education & society, family & marriage, and science & future. under each theme, materials were selected on twofold principles: textbook articles took up approximately 50% of the reading materials to ensure average learners’ confidence in the reading; supplementary materials were ‘classic’ to satisfy advanced learners’ need of reading something challenging and profound (results from the diagnostic surveys). it is important to add that when reading articles from the textbook, students were instructed to selectively do the vocabulary and grammar exercises of the unit. the teacher provided answers to the exercises and offered help to any unsolved questions (in class for common questions, otherwise after class). xiaomei sun, wuwei ye, & xinyi li | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 36 respondents student participants were 20 english major freshmen, including 14 females (70%) and 6 males (30%). with reference to cefr, their english competence was generally between b2 to c1 (council of europe, 2001). they came from different parts of china, with a range of secondary educational backgrounds (students from major cities or english experimental schools generally had a higher level of efl proficiency). for example, in the mid-course survey, a few students expressed difficulties they encountered in understanding supplementary materials, while some reported that they did not find the materials challenging. students’ different educational backgrounds also led to varied perceptions and expectations of the course. those from exam-oriented teaching environments had high expectations of language-focus approach whereas those who had been accustomed to communicative language teaching were open to a wider range of pedagogical approaches (results from the diagnostic surveys). data collection procedures to construct a holistic picture of the bounded system under discussion, data were collected from multiple sources (creswell, 2013), including two diagnostic surveys (see appendix a & b), semistructured one-on-one interviews (see appendix c), students’ artefacts (reading journals, presentations, and classroom learning outcomes), teachers’ reflective journal, and various types of teaching materials (see table 2). the two surveys were conducted online, respectively to identify students’ needs regarding the course and to collect students’ mid-course feedback for the improvement of the syllabus design. the post-course interviews were carried out for the main purpose of gaining detailed feedback for further enhancement of the course. table 2. data collection instruments instrument time participants relation to research questions (rq) survey 1 pre-course 17 students rq 2 survey 2 mid-course 20 students rq 2 interview post-course 20 students rq 2 ss’ artefacts semester 2 20 students rq 1 & 2 t’s reflective journal a school year the teacher rq 1 teaching materials a school year the teacher rq 1 since the surveys were carried out on a voluntary basis, 17 out of 20 students in the class participated in the first survey; all the 20 students participated in the second one. questions in the two surveys were open-ended questions to enrich the data (do ̈rnyei & taguchi, 2010). the semistructured one-on-one interviews were conducted by two assistant researchers both of whom obtained a degree of masters of science (msc) in education from a uk university. each assistant researcher interviewed ten students in chinese, and each interview lasted around 20 minutes. to achieve anonymity and enable students to express their feedback and evaluation of the course freely, two assistant researchers did not know students’ names. participants were coded as s1 -s20 for data storage and analysis. from the second week of the course, students wrote and submitted a reading journal entry at the end of each week. in semester 1, they could write anything (without word limit) about what they read in class or outside class. in semester 2, they were encouraged to write about the great gatsby – the novel selected for the reading marathon programme (see details in the first section of findings). teaching materials included the syllabus, teaching plans, slides used in class, and selected reading materials. data analysis while the principal researcher took charge of analysing other sources of data, the three researchers collaborated and shouldered different responsibilities in analysing the interview data. first, two assistant researchers transcribed the ten interviews they conducted with individual students. in this process, they familiarised themselves with the data (braun & clarke, 2006). following that, they coded the transcripts by identifying initial codes and emergent themes. in the meantime, the principal researcher coded all the 20 interview transcripts following the same procedures. they xiaomei sun, wuwei ye, & xinyi li | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 37 created initial codes (i.e., key words that represent or summarise important information from the data) by doing “line-by-line coding” to avoid preoccupations with the interpretation (gibbs, 2007, p. 52). then, the three researchers shared their coding results: they compared the emergent themes they had identified, discussed the discrepancies, and sought solutions to integrate related ones and reexamined inconsistent ones (brantlinger et al., 2005). the final themes they conflated include: perceived benefits of this course; difficulties students encountered; suggestions for further improvement; teacher scaffolding and its effects; strategies for learner autonomy development. findings and discussion two surveys to identify student needs and feedback on the course the first survey was conducted one week before the school year started. to learn about student needs and expectations regarding this course, a link to an electronic survey with six open-ended questions (see appendix a) was sent to the wechat group – a virtual space for posting notice and sharing learning materials within the class. seventeen students responded to the survey, and the results were summarised as follows. regarding reading materials, respectively ten and eight students showed interest in reading novels and short stories, two in drama/theatre scripts, one in comics. with regard to ways of communication about the reading, 12 students demonstrated preference for group discussion, four for presentation, and four for keeping reading journals. one student gave specific reasons for keeping a reading journal: ‘i think it can help improve our writing ability’. another explained the reason for favouring group discussion: ‘it may improve our spoken english’. interestingly, one student expressed ‘no presentation’ without giving any explanation. regarding potential difficulties in reading, more than half of the respondents considered a limited vocabulary as the biggest obstacle to efl reading, followed by difficulties in understanding long and complicated sentences, and a slow reading speed (see details in figure 1). figure 1. difficulties in efl reading students envisioned in survey 1 based on the results of survey 1, the teacher made several adjustments to the course design. catering to most students’ favoured ways of communication about the reading, four categories of formative assessment were set up – participation in class; presentation about classic literary works; drama performance; keeping a reading journal. concerning the selection of reading materials, semester 1 syllabus included excerpts from novels (e.g., the call of the wild by jack london), short stories (mainly from the textbook), and a play – pygmalion by george bernard shaw. to tackle the vocabulary challenge perceived by some students, vocabulary and grammar exercises from seven units of the textbook were periodically assigned as optional homework after reading the article of that unit. in doing so, the teacher intended to give students the autonomy to make decisions on what exercises to do, judging by their english capacity and varied weaknesses and strengths. the teacher provided answers to the exercises after learning the unit. students could send unsolved questions to the course representative who collected and forwarded the questions to the teacher. in class, the teacher would explain some common questions. however, in effect, only one or two students raised xiaomei sun, wuwei ye, & xinyi li | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 38 questions concerning the exercises. in the reflective journal, the teacher noted down her uncertainty about the way of addressing vocabulary and the action she took to seek student feedback: i asked the course representative today about how students perceived the way of dealing with vocabulary and grammar in the textbook, and why few students asked questions. the representative replied: ‘with the keys you provide for us, we can solve the problems by ourselves.’ this response erased my worries, so i decide to continue doing so. (october-6th journal entry) the second dialogic survey was conducted at the end of semester 1 with the main purpose of improving the syllabus and pedagogical approaches in semester 2 (see survey questions in appendix b). in general, students gave quite positive comments on the course and expressed satisfaction with the overall design. thirteen out of 20 respondents used terms such as ‘interesting’ and ‘a rich variety of’ to describe reading materials selected by the teacher. six students explicitly expressed their fondness for the activities the teacher organised in and out of class. one said: ‘teacher helped us understand the text by adopting many different types of novel activities’; another said: ‘i like the freedom we are granted – the opportunities to freely express our opinions’. again, students showed varied attitudes towards presentation: one expressed liking; one dislike; another one said ‘no more presentations’. in comparison, drama appreciation and performance were better received by students. one suggested: ‘i expect more chances of drama performance. if possible, give more credits to it in formative assessment.’ when it comes to difficulties in reading, 12 students revealed that weakness in vocabulary and reading strategies hindered their reading comprehension and speed. responding to student needs and suggestions expressed in survey 2, the teacher drew up the syllabus for semester 2. compared with the previous one, this syllabus retained the diversity of reading materials and collective activities. presentation was removed from formative assessment, giving more credits to drama adaptation and performance (as a student suggested), which took up 20%, along with keeping a reading journal (10%), and the reading marathon programme (10%). also at students’ suggestions, pre-reading questions were incorporated into reading activities. likewise, the teacher attached more emphasis to giving guidance on word-attack strategies and sentence-analysis skills. for example, in the first session of semester 2, the teacher firstly introduced ir and er as two approaches to processing texts for different reading purposes . two teaching designs reflective of the comprehensive approach and ser as aforementioned, design of the course was influenced by the comprehensive approach to l2 literature and scaffolded extensive reading (ser), as elucidated in literature review. to demonstrate and interrogate the influence of theory on practice, and provide some insight into a more profound interpretation of the theory, two teaching designs implemented in semester 2 are to be introduced and analysed. the reading marathon programme this programme started from the outset of semester 2, lasting 14 weeks. the novel selected for the reading programme was the great gatsby by f. scott fitzgerald. drawing on the three stages of ser, this programme comprised three major procedures (see figure 2). at the beginning of each lesson, five students took turns to read aloud one page to the peer audience. before the reading, they created and shared three pre-reading tasks based on the content of the page they were to read. by each sunday, students completed and shared their reading journal entries about this novel. in the journal entry, students could respond to three pre-reading tasks created by peers or write anything concerning the sections of the novel they read that week. in a general sense, teacher scaffolding took the form of designing the mechanism of this reading programme. under each procedure, students took responsibility for creating specific tasks and making decisions on what to read closely and write about in the journal entry. applying the comprehensive approach to gauge this programme, we may find that the first and second pre reading tasks, respectively selecting 3-5 words for further study and extracting one difficult sentence for deeper understanding, were reflective of language approach; the third task – raising one authentic question for in-depth discussion – mirrored reader approach. when the reading programme drew to a close (students had completed reading aloud the novel in class), the teacher xiaomei sun, wuwei ye, & xinyi li | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 39 used two sessions to have an overall discussion of the novel and main characters. discussion topics included the historical background (e.g., the jazz age, prohibition on alcoholic beverages, new woman/flapper etc.), the american dream in relation to the novel, ‘new money’ and ‘old money’. in the second session, students presented character analysis in groups, followed by the teacher’s summarisation of features of each main character. figure 2. reading marathon procedures a comparative reading design inspired by one student’s suggestion proposed in survey 2 – ‘i hope this course could incorporate more elements about domestic and foreign countries’, under the theme of family & marriage, the teacher selected excerpts from two books – tuesdays with morrie by mitch albom and the importance of living by yutang lin – for comparative reading. ‘comparative’ could be interpreted in two ways: comparison between two influential (chinese & american) authors’ views on marriage and family; comparison between two reading partners (see detailed instructions for this activity in figure 3). figure 3. a slide of instructions for the comparative reading this reading activity commenced with teacher’s introduction to the two authors, some social backgrounds and literary features of the two books, the main character of tuesdays with morrie (particularly the disease he suffered from – als). then, students started in-class reading, following the procedures presented in figure 3. after the first session, students created mind maps with their reading partners (see one example in figure 4). in the second session, each pair demonstrated their viewpoints with the assistance of their mind maps. the final step was teacher’s xiaomei sun, wuwei ye, & xinyi li | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 40 summarisation – giving comments on students’ mind maps and presentations, followed by several points that the teacher regarded as important from her perspective as a reader. for example, she reminded the students that the importance of living was created in 1937, thus the traditional lifestyle and ideological patterns portrayed in the book could be dramatically different from the current situation in china. figure 4. a mind map created by a pair of reading partners a closer examination of this comparative reading design could lead to the conclusion that the comprehensive approach to l2 literature was embodied in different procedures of the activity (see details in figure 5). however, due to the limited class time left for the teacher, the language approach – some vivid expressions from tuesdays with morrie – were not fully explained. the slide created for that purpose was displayed to students without fulfilling teacher’s intention: to draw students’ attention to the linguistic features of the text in addition to understanding the content. this unintended omission of language approach resonated with one of the teacher’s reflective journal entries: after observing one teacher’s ir lesson today, i thought quite a lot: this teacher attached great importance to the basics, particularly vocabulary learning strategies and acquisition. in comparison, the course i’m teaching is more like literature appreciation – to get students immersed in it, to feel it, but not very helpful for their vocabulary acquisition. (april-10th journal entry) this inward reflection revealed the teacher’s realisation that the comprehensive approach was adopted in an imbalanced manner in her teaching practice, which assumably could help her make adjustments to future designs. xiaomei sun, wuwei ye, & xinyi li | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 41 figure 5. application of the comprehensive approach to the comparative reading design students’ feedback regarding this course upon the completion of this course, each student anonymously made their comments with constructive suggestions in the feedback interviews (see questions in appendix c). the majority of students claimed that taking this course enabled them to improve not only their reading abilities, including reading efficiency and text analysis ability, but also their overall english competence, including speaking and writing (see details in table 3). seventeen out of 20 students expressed that their reading strategies had been enhanced to different degrees due to teacher’s instructions and guidance, such as their ability to analyse characters, appreciate important details, and sort out inner logic of the text. critical thinking ability was regarded by 80% of the students as improved owing to various analytical activities. sixty percent of the students perceived enhancement in their peer collaboration ability, and the same percentage of students perceived improvement in their cultural awareness. table 3. improvements students perceived as a result of taking this course perceived improvement total instances (n=20) percentage (%) reading strategies 17 85 critical thinking ability 16 80 peer collaboration ability 12 60 cultural awareness 12 60 oral english capacity 10 50 reading efficiency 8 40 xiaomei sun, wuwei ye, & xinyi li | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 42 some students explicitly gave credit to teacher scaffolding in respects such as providing guidance on reading strategies and organising various collective activities. s6 detailed as follows: ‘the reading course was outlined based on different themes, and the selected literature was located in particular sociocultural and historical contexts, which is better than studying the literature in isolation’. regarding the benefits of participating in collective activities, s5 said: ‘discussions with classmates enriched and deepened my thoughts.’ among al l the activities held in class, reading marathon was regarded as the most rewarding. s19 commented: ‘reading marathon literally helped me a lot with my expression and pronunciation problems.’ another popular activity was drama performance to which students attributed various improvements in l2 acquisition. for instance, one shared in excitement: through adapting and rehearsing the play, we gained a deeper understanding of the text. it improved not only our english ability, but also our creativity, particularly when we worked on the adaptation of the play. we couldn’t help but feel the charm of drama when we put on the performance. (s4, feedback interview) regarding reading materials, most of the students expressed interest in the teacher-selected literary works. in effect, results indicate that student satisfaction with the selected reading materials was the main reason for most of them to do extensive reading after class. quite a few students mentioned that this course provided them with precious opportunities to read classic literature and have a deeper understanding of foreign cultures. this course also helped some learners form a good reading habit. for example, s9 conveyed that through keeping the reading journal, he had developed a habit of doing extracurricular reading on a regular basis. interestingly, a few students claimed that they were motivated to finish the reading assignments because they liked the teacher, as s12 said: ‘i’m really lucky and happy to meet our teacher, which is one of my achievements in this course’. discussion benefits and challenges of implementing the comprehensive approach results of the current study, particularly students’ feedback from the post-course interviews, manifested multi-faceted benefits of the comprehensive approach to l2 literature that bloemert and colleagues (2016, 2019) synthesised and promoted. these benefits were of three general levels featuring different dimensions: social, cultural, and historical dimensions (bland, 2020); cognitive, affective, motivational, and aesthetic dimensions (european commission, 2012); language acquisition dimensions (hall, 2005/2015). at the socio-cultural level, in survey 2 and post-course interviews, more than half of the students expressed their improvement in cultural awareness. regarding cognitive development, 80% of the students believed their critical thinking was honed through participating in various activities. the results corroborate naji et al.’s (2019) findings concerning the benefits of literature-based instruction on learners’ multiliteracy skills and higherlevel thinking skills. some students in the present study claimed positive changes in their attitudes towards efl reading; this affective factor in turn boosted their language learning motivation. furthermore, many a few students mentioned that their aesthetic appreciation of classic literary works had been enhanced. finally yet importantly, almost all the students gave positive feedback on the effects of this course on their efl competence, especially the enhancement of reading strategies and reading efficiency. one major challenge to the implementation of the comprehensive approach is teachers’ holistic view and relatively equal weight given to each sub-approach: text, context, reader, and language approaches (bloemert, et al., 2016. bloemert, et al., 2019). a number of studies have gleaned evidence showing that in many l2 teaching contexts, language approach, compared with the other three approaches, was given disproportionately predominant emphasis (cheung & hennebry-leung, 2020; luukka, 2019; tsang et al., 2020). in the current study, the situation seemed to develop in a reverse direction: the teacher allocated vocabulary and grammar exercises as optional assignments with the view of giving students autonomy to make decisions based on their language competence. however, student feedback indicated that teacher’s intention of fostering learner autonomy was not well fulfilled – some students explicitly expressed the expectation of gaining more instruction and supervision on vocabulary and grammar learning. student needs in this aspect could be spelled out in two ways. first, most of the students had been xiaomei sun, wuwei ye, & xinyi li | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 43 receiving exam-oriented education, particularly in their secondary schooling. thus, they expected continuity of this teaching mode in their tertiary education. second, before designing this course, the teacher had learned about the predominance of language approach in various teaching contexts, therefore purposefully avoiding it in her teaching. at a later stage, she realised and reflected upon this imbalance in her literature-based instruction (see the april-10th journal entry in findings section). presumably, such reflections could help the teacher make some adjustments to the composition of the course in future design and implementation. this finding confirms the existing literature with evidence that a balanced way of implementing the comprehensive approach is considerably difficult in teaching practice. nevertheless, reflective teaching and periodic student need analysis, as adopted in the current study, may contribute to a sensibly proportioned l2 literature instruction. literature-based instruction and language learner autonomy in the present study, the l2 practitioner demonstrated awareness of fostering language learner autonomy in the pedagogical design and practice. as noted in the previous section, the self-study mode of processing vocabulary and grammar exercises revealed teacher’s intention of developing learner autonomy, although not fully effective. with closer observation and analysis, we are able to find other strategies adopted for cultivating language learner autonomy in the course under study. mirroring little’s (2022) notion that autonomy is a product of social-interactive learning environment, various forms of collective activities were carried out in the investigated course. these activities not only boosted learners’ motivation for further and extensive reading after class, but also enhanced peer collaboration capabilities and their enthusiasm for the course and efl learning, as evidenced in the feedback interviews. this adds to tseng et al.’s (2020) finding that well-designed peer collaboration helped enhance learner autonomy and elevate learners’ motivational levels in l2 learning. another element of learner autonomy that little (1995) emphasised is involving learners as agentive partners who shoulder the responsibility of designing, implementing, and assessing learning activities. in this course, two diagnostic surveys and one evaluative interview were conducted with each student to engage them in the design and continuous improvement of the course. such teaching practice corroborates the advocacy of empowering students through offering them chances to make decisions on their learning (west, 2018). also, this study gleaned evidence indicating that providing students with various platforms and chances to voice their opinions from their unique perspectives helped enhance learner autonomy, because the confidence gained in the process served as incentive for students to further and deeper engage with the learning. this finding affirms the effectiveness of hermeneutic pedagogy that allows learners to fully express and share their views, which could improve l2 learners’ self-esteem and effect positive motivational changes (nguyen, 2016). in line with chen’s (2022) finding that in a student-centred environment, teacher played a significant role in learner autonomy building, this study adds to that with evidence indicating that fondness for the teacher improved learner autonomy – students wanted to learn just because they liked the teacher. more importantly, teacher’s role in training reading strategies was highly valued in literature-based instruction, as shown in the present study. this mirrors the finding of another study: systematic instruction of strategies was important for developing language learner autonomy (aryanjam et al., 2021). the course under discussion demonstrated one of its weaknesses in this respect, which explained why some students hoped for more guidance on reading strategies, such as word-attack strategies and long-sentence analysis strategies. drawing on the findings of the current study, and integrating the content, methodological, and ideological dimensions of language learner autonomy building, a three-dimensional model is constructed as reference for l2 practitioners of literature-based instruction (see figure 6). with respect to teaching content, systematic instruction of strategies for l2 literature reading is of supreme importance. regarding teaching methodology, organising various types of collective (in class and out-of-class) activities is beneficial for learners’ motivational and affective development. at the ideological level, teachers should have the awareness of empowering learners by proving opportunities for them to participate in the pedagogical design, voice opinions, and make decisions for their learning. the three dimensions should be interactively integrated to create better chances for the development of language learner autonomy. xiaomei sun, wuwei ye, & xinyi li | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 44 figure 6. a three-dimensional model for language learner autonomy development an expanded interpretation of scaffolded extensive reading in tandem with the proposition of the three-dimensional model for developing language learner autonomy, the concept of ser can be expanded to afford more pedagogical functionalities. first, at the macro level, scaffolding in literature-based instruction necessitates teachers’ awareness of the reciprocal relationships between language, culture, and literature. accordingly in ir instruction, teachers will employ varied approaches that feed on the links and better the instruction. in the current study, students perceived significant changes in their cultural awareness due to teacher’s culturally-enriching instruction. this finding confirms the result of another case study carried out in a similar teaching context (nguyen, 2016). the expansion of the concept takes another two directions – sequential flexibility and interpretation possibility. reading marathon serves as a good example to elucidate sequential flexibility of the concept. inspired by the three stages of ser – ir instruction; shared reading; er instruction (sun, 2022b) – this reading programme followed a similar pattern, with some adjustments to the order of procedures (see figure 2). to be precise, rather than rigidly taking the three steps, this programme placed ir instruction (i.e., analysis of themes and ch aracters of the novel) at the end of the programme, which was valued as helpful by students in the feedback interview. the sequential flexibility in teaching procedures broadens the understanding of ser. moreover, interpretation possibility in ser empowers practitioners to interpret key elements of the concept with a certain degree of autonomy. two examples from the course are presented as follows. different from the conventional understanding that teacher delivers ir instruction, in the course under study, it was the teacher and students who collaboratively fulfilled this task. that is, the teacher outlined the structure of pre-reading tasks and students took turns (one person one page) to create specific tasks which their peers might respond to in the postreading activity. another example was the wider interpretation of shared reading, originally interpreted as reading activities that allow for communication and collaboration between learners, or between teacher and learners (sun, 2022b). in the reading marathon programme, shared reading took the main form of students’ taking turns to read aloud to the peer audience in class, which was perceived by students as an effective way to enhance their english pronunciation and confidence as english majors. conclusion this study scrutinises a first-year english major reading course to seek for strategies for improving language learner autonomy in literature-based instruction. influenced by the comprehensive approach to l2 literature and scaffolded extensive reading strategies, the course under study was perceived as helpful for efl learners to gain a wide range of achievements, including deepened and widened understanding of socio-cultural background knowledge concerning the literary works, and correspondingly improved cultural competence. students also revealed progress in cognitive, motivational, and aesthetic dimensions, in addition to enhancement in l2 acquisition. while giving xiaomei sun, wuwei ye, & xinyi li | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 45 credit to the two sets of guidance (the comprehensive approach and ser), this study provides evidence to better or enrich them. regarding the comprehensive approach to l2 literature, results of this study indicate that reflective teaching and regular student need collection and analysis contribute to a balanced implementation of the four sub-approaches. concerning ser, this study highlights its two features – sequential flexibility and interpretation possibility – respectively adding variation to the chronical order of activities and nuances in the interpretation of key elements. the most important pedagogical implication of the study lies in the practical guidance it offers for developing language learner autonomy, particularly when implementing literature -based instruction. the three-dimensional model 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(2021). fostering group autonomy through collaborative learning in an online environment. sisal journal, 12(1), 79–91. https://doi.org/10.37237/120106 putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 88 elt forum 11(2) (2022) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt written correspondence: challenges and adjustments of bacom students in online learning marifel c. lopez1, jaypeh ju d. punay1, joseph b. quinto1 1benguet state university, benguet, philippines article info ________________ article history: received on 22 january 2022 approved on 27 july 2022 published on 31 july 2022 ________________ keywords: covid-19 pandemic; online learning; bacom students; challenges; adjustments ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ the sudden shift from traditional to online learning because of the covid-19 pandemic has made written communication the primary method for students and instructors to send and receive information. however, most students still experience challenges when communicating with their instructors in written form, especially first-year university students. henceforth, this study aimed to understand the written communication challenges of freshman bachelor of arts in communication (bacom) students of s.y. 2020-2021. specifically, the study intended to determine the challenges encountered by the participants in written correspondence with their instructors in terms of online learning, the consequences of the challenges identified, and the ways to improve written communication between the participants and their instructors. this qualitative study used hermeneutic phenomenology in one state university in cordillera administrative region, philippines. data was gathered through an online focus group interview which was analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. findings of the study show that the major challenges endured by the students are uncertainty, sensitivity, comprehension deficit, poor internet connection, and grammar inaccuracies. as a result of these difficulties, the outcomes identified by the students are delayed inquiries, poor performance, low self-esteem, and a communication gap. based on the students' suggestions, effective written communication can be improved between instructors and students by employing empathy, online etiquette, systematized platform, initiative, feedback, cooperation, clarity of instructions, clarity of concerns, and open communication. chiefly, this study demonstrates that both students and instructors should be aware of their respective roles and duties to establish healthy, productive, and effective learning and communication now that the learning system has shifted online. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 21b cala lily compound salud mitra, baguio city, benguet, philippines, 2600 e-mail: j.quinto@bsu.edu.ph http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& mailto:j.quinto@bsu.edu.ph marifel c. lopez, jaypeh ju d. punay, joseph b. quinto | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 89 introduction communication and education are inextricably linked (diloyan, 2017). as stated by andrade (2015), petrie, (2011), and ajmal and ahmad (2019), communication is central to education and a critical component in pedagogical practices and institutions to ensure student success. also, in any academic setting, verbal, nonverbal, and written communication are all evident, with writing being the most commonly used method, particularly in higher education (barrett et al., 2020). however, the covid-19 pandemic pushed billions of people and institutions to close down, severely affecting most of the world's economy and education, forcing academic societies worldwide to adapt and shift from the traditional mode of learning to online learning (sahu, 2020). even though a research study by enriquez (2014) explains that virtual learning has been around for the past years in classroom activities and instructions in the philippines, the abrupt pedagogical shift to online learning brought huge adjustments to educational institutions, instructors, and students who are new to entering higher education institutions. aside from that, a recent study by amponsah et al. (2020) reveals that students who gain admission to tertiary education face new challenges because the transition period from high school to college frequently brings new stressors and necessitate coping strategies. although there are ways to cope with the stress and unexpected situation, kwaah and essilfie (2017) suggests that students use a variety of strategies. because of the diverse backgrounds that each student has, it will be impossible to cope and adjust instantly amidst the pandemic. since communication and mode of learning became online, the importance of effective communication plays a massive role in building students’ character and relationship with their instructors (alawamleh et al., 2020). with the current mode of instruction, written communication became the prominently used method for delivering and submitting instructional materials and activities. as betts (2009) stated, "in online education, written communication is a primary form of communication between the institution and students as well as faculty and the students," whereby teachers and students used smartphones and other learning gadgets to exchange messages through text messaging, e-mail, and facebook messenger (simbulan, 2020). according to sparks et al. (2014), written communication is the process of effectively delivering multiple types of messages to different audiences in written form. conversely, online learning is a type of distance education that takes place over the internet in which a course is thoroughly planned ahead of time to be delivered online (bates, 2016). however, one of the major problems with this method of learning is that it may affect the students' involvement and communication in their course and instead become unproductive learners making them unfit for online learning (delas peñas, 2020),. similarly, a recent article by milosievski et al. (2020) observes that several of students’ instructors barely teach and discuss the given instructional materials with them. as a result, students are forced to learn courses on their own, without the correct assistance of their instructors, making it difficult to connect with instructors about their subjects. alternatively, students can use learning technologies such as email and other correspondence tools to convey private messages to their professors (dabbagh & bannan-ritland, 2005, as cited in colorado & eberle, 2010; horton, 2006; repman, zinskie, & carlson, 2005, p. 59). other tools for correspondence include google classroom private inbox, which allows students and teachers to easily communicate and provide feedback (shaharanee et al., 2016; sudarsana, 2019), and facebook messenger, which students use to contact their instructors about subject content, permissions, and class schedules or exams (abu-alruz, 2014; draskovic et al., 2013; gunnulfsen, 2016). with all these being said, miscommunication may arise. lawrence et al. (2019, as cited in brown et al., 2020) assert that miscommunication can create barriers that may alter the meaning of a message which includes semantic, intrapersonal, interpersonal, physical, and context issues that may be specifically worsened in an online environment. moreover, few researchers have been able to draw on structured remedies to improve written communication between students and instructors. arrieta et al. (2020) and wilson (2017) suggested that there are available ways and practices that instructors may apply when communicating with their students, one of which is providing accurate contact information and online availability time. arrieta et al. (2020) further explained that listening and attending to students’ concerns and giving meaningful feedback is essential to creating great rapport with them. additional findings (section 6.2: student assessment, n.d., as cited in palloff & pratt, 2006) state that through instructors asking for more information or asking the students to share some aspect of their professional expertise helps facilitate the discussion and engage them in this instance. marifel c. lopez, jaypeh ju d. punay, joseph b. quinto | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 90 a similar emphasis should be placed on written communication as in traditional classrooms. according to alawamleh et al. (2020), whether in a face-to-face or online class, educators communicate to gain understanding and establish relationships to decide on how to establish timely and appropriate messages, as well as how to communicate effectively with one another. this is one reason why this study was created. it endeavors to place written communication in the forefront in this time of crisis. although research studies on the challenges of online learning have been studied, few types of research have explored the challenges of written correspondence among students. consequently, this study aimed to understand the written communication challenges of freshman bachelor of arts in communication (bacom) students of s.y. 2020-2021 in a state university in the cordillera administrative region, philippines. specifically, this study put forward answers to the following questions: 1. what are the challenges encountered by bacom students in written correspondence with their instructors? 2. what are the consequences of the challenges identified by bacom students in written correspondence with their instructors? 3. how can written correspondence between bacom students and instructors be improved? methods research design the study used qualitative approach in interpreting and analyzing the data to have an in-depth understanding and corroboration. the researchers aligned it to phenomenological study, incorporating hermeneutic phenomenology (creswell, 2007; manen, 1990) which focuses on personal perceptions and a full understanding of the structure of individual experiences. this structure directs experiences as to how an individual comes to understand the world (littlejohn & foss, 2005). this approach is applicable for the study as the phenomenological method focuses on experienced meaning of first-year bachelor of arts in communication students (polkinghorne, 1989). population and locale the participants of the study were freashman bachelor of arts in communication (bacom) students of the academic year, 2020-2021 in a state university in cordillera administrative region (car), philippines. the researchers only focused on first-year students for the reason that they were new to the sudden shift of learning from face-to-face to an online learning environment and were encountering the situation as novice students. according to krueger (2002), the preferred number of participants when executing focus group interviews must be between 8 and 10 people. with that, the researchers interviewed ten (10) first-year students from the two sections of bachelor of arts in communication (bacom). from a total population of forty-three, five from bacom 1a were selected, and from a total population of forty-four, five from bacom 1b were selected. the participants of the study were chosen through purposive sampling with the criteria that he/she is: an enrolled first-year bacom student of a.y. 2020-2021; using google classroom private inbox, facebook messenger, and email when communicating with his or her instructors; and, actively participating in online learning. to ensure that the participants satisfied the aforementioned criteria, the researchers created a group chat through facebook messenger for initial interviews. instrument a semi-structured type of in-depth interview was used in which respondents must answer openended questions that were predetermined, allowing the interviewers to be equipped and prepared during the interview and allowing the interviewees to freely think of their answers which generated a successful reciprocal information exchange between the participants and interviewers (jamshed, 2014; kallio et al., 2016). after the construction of the initial interview guide, it underwent content validation by a language expert. then, ten bacom volunteers were interviewed for the pilot testing incorporating the framework of kallio et al. (2016). the researchers used an online focus group interview via google meet during the pilot testing to record the whole interview. after that, revisions were made to improve the instrument which comprised of 7 questions. marifel c. lopez, jaypeh ju d. punay, joseph b. quinto | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 91 data collection procedures all of the participants were openly notified with consent letters and briefed on the purpose and procedures of the study. during the data gathering, the researchers utilized google meet to conduct the online focus group interview, which was recorded and transcribed. the researchers employed a dual moderator focus group type as part of the scheduled online interview. in this kind of focus group interview, two moderators work together. one moderator is in charge of asking the questions, and the other is in charge of making sure the questions are answered by the participants. a single moderator is more likely to get distracted, hence having two moderators ensured that all the queries were discussed and the participants remained focused on the dialogue (krueger & casey, 2000). the interview lasted approximately one hour and forty-five minutes. after transcribing the data, the researchers returned the transcriptions to the participants for them to check, reflect, and validate the transcripts' veracity (birt et. al, 2016). following that, the comments of the participants were then taken into account. data analysis the data from the recorded interview were thoroughly synthesized and subjected to reflexive type of thematic analysis. braun et al. (2019) defined reflexive thematic analysis as a process of analyzing contextual evidence in order to address general or specific research questions regarding people's experiences, perspectives, and representations of a phenomenon. it consisted of six processes in performing the analysis namely familiarization with the data, coding, generating themes, reviewing themes, defining and naming themes, and writing up. the researchers first familiarized themselves with the content of the data gathered. thereupon, each view and opinion linked with the research questions were individually identified, coded, and then categorized accordingly by the researchers to generate appropriate concepts. after that, each categorized and re-categorized ideas were collectively reviewed, compared and contrasted by the researchers to arrive at the final themes that were defined and interpreted in accordance with the research questions. with deductive approach, the researchers had used their research questions as a starting point to develop broad thematic categories of interest and then classify the data into those categories during their initial read-through. while with the inductive approach, after the researchers have come up with a set of codes, they then let themselves generate new codes inductively and continuously as they sort through their data. meanwhile, to further help the researchers with their coding and generating themes, the researchers also used a semantic approach. the semantic approach helps researchers with coding and theme development by analyzing a given data's acquired statements or content (caulfield, 2020). findings and discussion challenges encountered by bacom students in written correspondence with their instructors according to the findings of the study, there were four challenges encountered by the students in terms of their written communication with their instructors (see figure 1). it is divided into two factors, namely reasons and struggles. reasons include comprehension deficit, poor internet connection, and grammatical inaccuracies, while struggles include uncertainty and sensitivity. reasons in this study, the term "reasons" refers to the perception or concept that makes it difficult for participants to interact with their instructors in writing. comprehension deficit the participants often experience lack of understanding, lack of guidance or specificity to the delivered instructions, announcements, or private messages. they feel confused and get the wrong idea because they rely only on what they understand. p5 shared: "what makes it hard for us to communicate with our instructors is that the instructions or the messages are quite unclear, undetailed or generalized, and the use of incomprehensible words is evident." the results indicate that the participants have a different level of understanding regarding a given instruction or a message, which makes it hard for them to communicate with their instructors. this is supported by the study of milosievski et al. (2020) which remarks that many of their instructors marifel c. lopez, jaypeh ju d. punay, joseph b. quinto | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 92 barely educate and discuss the assigned instructional materials to the majority of the students. as a result, students are compelled to acquire knowledge from their subjects independently without the direction of their instructors, making it difficult for the students to communicate with their teachers when they have issues or queries about their subjects. conversely, a study by hung et al. (2010) states that students should cooperate with other online students to avoid misinterpretation of given instructional materials and responses to concerns. this study found that asking questions helps clarify and understand a given subject and message. figure 1. the framework for the written correspondence challenges and adjustments in online learning poor internet connection the participants experience that they cannot send or ask their queries instantly via email or facebook messenger to their instructors due to their geographical locations causing signal interruption of their data and internet connection. p5 shared: "sometimes, it makes it hard for us to communicate with our instructors because of the poor internet connection. so, the only thing that we can do first is to stare at their feedback and do not respond to them." based on the participants, they stipulate that having intermittent data or internet access in online learning is a problem that they have encountered, especially when messaging their instructors. this is supported by aboagye et al. (2020) stating that poor networks are often a big issue for underdeveloped countries with insufficient telecommunications and information and communication technology. amadora (2020) added that bundles in the country fluctuate and are not built similarly despite the fact that there are several internet services available in terms of speed and stability. marifel c. lopez, jaypeh ju d. punay, joseph b. quinto | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 93 grammatical inaccuracies the participants can apply the guidelines in sending private messages, asking for clarifications, or responding to the messages of their instructors. on the other hand, the problem is that they lack terminology, enough vocabulary, and proper knowledge of grammar editing when constructing the content of the messages they want to send to their instructors via email or facebook messenger. p9 shared: "one of the reasons that makes it hard for me to communicate in written communication was the lack of terminology or the vocabularies i use to organize my thoughts." the findings reveal that participants struggle to formulate and communicate their messages, questions, explanations, or concerns due to their insufficient comprehension of good grammar, terminology, and vocabularies. these findings are supported by ismail (2010, as cited in apsari, 2018), indicating that grammar is vital in any communication since it demonstrates how vocabularies are utilized. royani and sadia (2019) added that when students understand and apply appropriate grammar, they can communicate their ideas accurately and efficiently to others. in contrast, a study by harmer (2004) explains that considering punctuation not only the grammar is a critical aspect of composing messages, and accurately employing punctuation is necessary. a study by christal (2003) opined that if the text's punctuation marks were not utilized correctly, the reader or receiver might have difficulty understanding what was being written and conveyed. struggles struggles are obstacles, adversities, or problems that the participants have encountered when attempting to interact with their instructors in written form. uncertainty the participants feel worried about how they will express their queries through written communication. they are confused on what platform (fb messenger, google classroom, or fb group pages) the instructions of their instructors will be posted or announced. furthermore, the time that their instructors are available for messaging or consultations is observed to be uncertain because some of their instructors forget to indicate their consultation periods. they feel uneasy when asking clarifications and sending private messages, thinking that their messages might be misinterpreted by their instructors. p3 shared: “when i receive a private message, to be honest, i don’t know why there are uncertainties in clarifying instructions from my instructors. i often have selfdoubts whenever i send a message to my instructors and when i receive one, i am usually hesitant to respond.” these findings from their experiences suggest that the participants struggle to communicate with their instructors. they are undecided about the messages they have sent, fearful of being misinterpreted, and unsure whether they have responded to the appropriate platform in a way that it would be understandable to the instructor as well. these experiences of the participants are supported by jordan and mcdaniel (2014), stating that when people are uncertain, it gives them a sense of being confused, fearful, lacking understanding or cognitive guessing about potential events, or verification of a phenomenon's interpretation. sensitivity another struggle for the participants is that their instructors get easily angry at them without knowing the underlying reasons. they receive responses, but they often feel from their intuctors’ messages that they were not considered and have to wait for their instructions or private messages again. p5 shared: "students struggle in sending and receiving messages when the instructor shows moody atmosphere or being snobbish. some instructors are sensitive, and sometimes they will easily get mad without knowing the reason." marifel c. lopez, jaypeh ju d. punay, joseph b. quinto | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 94 these experiences of the participants demonstrate that the attitude of instructors towards their students has a huge impact on their interaction. this becomes a struggle to students especially when verbalizing their queries and concerns. the previously mentioned experiences of the participants support the statement of villamor (2017), stating that the negative attitude of instructors towards their students has a significant influence on the ability, understanding, emotional well-being, communication, and behavior of students. as a result of this negativity, the students cannot cope with their concerns, lose interest in school, and would rather not interact with their instructors. on the contrary, a study by lavri (2007) claimed that instructors evaluating their communication style and attitude towards their students’ results in regaining control of their communication and helps themselves learn to adapt and respond to their students appropriately. consequences of the challenges identified by bacom students in written correspondence with their instructors the following are the aftermaths of the challenges identified by the participants, and were divided into two parts as shown in figure 1. one is the effects, which include delayed inquires and poor performance; and the outcomes, which include low self-esteem and a communication gap. effects effects relate to the situations or conditions that arise as a result of a problem or issue being addressed. delayed inquiries according to the participants, most of them often suspend their queries and rely on others to ask the questions for them. in consequence, they would usually end up having delayed answers from their instructors. p1 shared: “because i am shy, i do not know if my answer is correct, so i would rather wait for my other classmates to approach the instructor.” these statements only elicit that the participants do feel and intend to delay messaging their instructors via email or facebook messenger about their queries and clarifications and mostly depend on someone to raise them. these descriptions are supported by howland and moore (2002), noting that communication between students and instructors is a significant issue since students are hesitant to give their response or clarification and wait for the other students to lessen the difficulty of asking. on the other hand, garrison et al. (2019) asserted that the students should take greater responsibility to adapt and adjust to the new mode of learning, to synthesize ideas, and to learn how to participate, stimulate curiosity, and communicate with their instructors to be an effective student in online learning. poor performance the participants experience misunderstanding when reading given instructions and responses from their instructors. this reduces the good performance of the participants. they think that they are doing the correct instructions based on their understanding, but it is different from the expectations of the instructors. p3 shared: "the instructions and reading materials prepared or given by some of the instructors are hard to understand, and so it leads to poor performance. if we do not understand the lessons and the instructions, our performance can be affected." these experiences of the participants imply that they sometimes misunderstand the written instructions of their instructors. this insufficient guidance from the course materials can lead to poor performance. this is supported by delas peñas (2020), stating that one of the most significant issues with online learning is that it might reduce students' interest and communication in their courses, causing them to become unproductive learners unsuitable for online learning. marifel c. lopez, jaypeh ju d. punay, joseph b. quinto | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 95 outcomes in this context, outcomes refer to the end or final result of the reasons, problems, and impacts that the bacom students have encountered. low self-esteem as mentioned by the participants, they have fear of the possible reaction of the instructors from the messages they have sent. moreover, they feel shy to ask help and support to resolve their queries. p2 shared: “we generally feel anxious or scared so instead of addressing our concerns, we dismiss them.” these findings from the experiences of the participants indicate that low self-esteem makes it difficult for a student to ask for what they want specifically when asking for clarifications. their need for help and support makes them feel embarrassed or incompetent in some instances. these experiences are supported by greeves (2020), stating that communication and self-esteem play a significant part in balancing these two aspects of themselves, and this feeds into how an individual presents themselves in the world. as a result, low self-esteem makes communication difficult, creating a vicious feedback cycle that erodes self-esteem further. on the flip side, hung et al. (2010) reveals that shy students are more actively taking part in online environments than they are in traditional settings. communication gap for the participants, they feel that their written communication with their instructors is unsustainable due to misinterpretation or incomprehensible responses or clarifications. due to this instance, students would often choose not to message their instructors any longer and choose to be apprehensive knowing what their instructors will respond or convey. p8 shared: “i think one of the outcomes is the lack of confidence and the development of hate or fear to the instructors. we have this experience that one of our instructors has an attitude problem. when she gives us instructions, she expects us to understand them already. when we ask her for clarifications, she immediately assumes that her given instructions are not clear. this is true on our end and is the principal reason why we are asking for clarifications. as a result, we think this can be a striking factor in developing a gap between students and instructors in terms of their communication.” results show that students and instructors are unable to communicate effectively because of misunderstanding or a lack of understanding the concern of the student and the response of the instructors. these experiences are supported by the study of lawrence et al. (2019, as cited in brown et al., 2020), in which the study asserted that miscommunication could create barriers that may alter the meaning of a message. these barriers include semantics, intrapersonal, interpersonal, physical, and context issues that may be specifically worsened in an online environment. how written correspondence between students and instructors can improve the participants also proposed different adjustments to improve written communication between the students and instructors. the suggestions of the participants include empathy, online etiquette, initiative, cooperation, and clarity of concerns for the students. for the instructors, the propositions of the participants include empathy, systematized platform, feedback, clarity of instructions, and open communication. for students the themes presented below were specified based on the standpoints of the participants. marifel c. lopez, jaypeh ju d. punay, joseph b. quinto | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 96 empathy as students, the participants suggest that they should always be courteous when messaging their instructors, even if there are disagreements. they should understand that their instructor also have a workload and other students to deal with. p2 shared: “we should also learn and understand our teachers because they handle many students. furthermore, just like us (students), our teachers also have varying levels of coping mechanisms, so let us learn to understand them as well.” these findings imply that each individual has their limit, and not all will always be available to respond to the clarifications or messages of a student, so understanding and consideration are always essential to maintain progressive communication. this is supported by cramer (2019), stating that by replying politely to others, even if there is a disagreement, they should engage in polite communication. this allows them to share their views and opinions, understand the perspectives of others, form strong bonds, and work together to solve issues. mahoney (2017) added that students must wait for their instructor's response when they ask or request assistance. online etiquette according to the participants, they should always double-check their message and, check proper grammar and punctuation when constructing messages. moreover, a clear subject line, greeting, closure, well-organized body, and correct language are imperative before sending messages to their instructors. p7 shared: "observing proper online etiquette such as using proper punctuation, spelling, and grammar. for me, spelling must not be taken for granted because it can lead to misunderstanding. in sending a message or any written materials, check the spelling and punctuations first." based on the findings, it can be decided that the participants would be able to learn and improve their messages by ensuring that the content of their message is explicit and have correct grammar and spelling, both before and after creating their message. according to university writing and speaking center (2021), the context of online etiquette refers to how students maintain a courteous, suitable, and professional message. nevertheless, it is not limited to precise spelling and language, utilizing proper titles when addressing the recipient, and adequately identifying concerns. for students dealing with instructors, online etiquette is crucial. initiative based on the participants’ suggestions, taking the lead to do what a student should do is essential since it is their prime duty. taking the initiative to grasp the given information and monitor any posts from their instructors regularly is a great way to stay updated of any announcements or instructions. p2 shared: “for us students, we must take the initiative to understand the given materials and then monitor the posted announcements and the other posts of our instructors.” these findings indicate that students must take the responsibility to do their part and learn to interact with their instructors, but not exceeding beyond their online class time. moreover, if the participants have queries, they should have the courage to ask about the instructors' posts or instructions. these results are supported by postolati (2017), stating that being confident or taking the initiative demonstrates that they value themselves since they are prepared to defend their interests, voice out their opinions and emotions. it is a courteous approach displaying that they are conscious of the rights of others and also ready to work on dispute resolution. marifel c. lopez, jaypeh ju d. punay, joseph b. quinto | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 97 cooperation for the participants, it is essential to discuss their concerns with other students to ensure that they have not misunderstood any announcements or instructions. p6 shared: “if students have concerns or clarifications, it is better to discuss them with classmates first. other students might have good suggestions. if the concern is not solved, the option of sending a private message to the instructor should be done.” according to the shared responses of the participants, they indicate that when students in online learning encounter concerns, it is preferable to discuss them first with their classmates in order to develop better procedures for dealing with them. this is supported by poth (2018), asserting that students benefit from meaningful cooperation because it encourages them to create connections with their peers, stimulates peer interactions, and allows them to learn from each other and offer feedback to one another before presenting such concerns or problems to their instructors. clarity of concerns for the participants, it is imperative to make sure that when raising issues or questions to instructors by email, facebook messenger, or text message, the messages should be clear, thorough, and adhere to guidelines. p5 shared: "as a student, we should communicate with our instructors in a specific and understandable way. you should inform the instructor what you want to clarify and explain sides or views with pieces of evidence to show discernment. we should communicate or formally message instructors by following their guidelines." the result indicates that it is vital to ensure that students’ message is clear and concise, and the message is reviewed following the guidelines before delivering it via facebook messenger, email, or text message to their instructors. this statement is supported by windle and warren (2016), stating that student must convey their message or point of view as directly and concisely as possible. for instructors the themes discussed in this section are solely from the perspectives and suggestions of students for their instructors. empathy from the participants, students suggest that their instructors understand their students to boost their confidence. p1 shared: “for me, instructors should also consider and understand how we adjust because, as students, we have other problems that burden us, and sometimes we are trying to cope. i suggest that both sides should adjust so that both will benefit and not create conflict.” these findings from the participants indicate that students and instructors face different situations, so instructors should try to recognize that their students are enduring something they do not know. these were supported by firdaus (2017), stating that recognizing and contemplating one's circumstances assists both the teacher and the student in preventing arguments while building strong interpersonal ties and motivating learners to interact and engage more actively. systematized platform according to the participants, in order to find out which online educational platform their students prefer, instructors should ask which is much more accessible and better for connecting with students in written form, particularly when giving instructions, modules, announcements, or private messages. marifel c. lopez, jaypeh ju d. punay, joseph b. quinto | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 98 p8 shared: “in my perspective, instructors should also learn to ask their students which platform is more convenient for private messages. they should also be more specific with their instructions and more consistent in giving information.” these findings from the participants indicate that instructors should reach out to their students through the given educational online platforms like google classroom. other platforms can be used like facebook messenger, email, and text message when the students do not have internet access or mobile data to stay in contact with them. this is supported by arrieta (2020), stating that it will be possible for all instructors and students to engage with the new form of teaching and learning if there is a well-established communication system in place. in contrast, dabbagh and bannanritland (2005, as cited in colorado & eberle, 2010) argued that there are other learning technologies such as email and other tools for correspondence that students can use to send private messages to their instructors, which is a commonly used method for communication in online learning. feedback to show appreciation and help their students, instructors should try to give feedback that would assist their students in discovering and enhancing their areas of weaknesses, lift the student's feelings, and let them know that they are appreciated. with that, students will not feel like they are being judged for their shortcomings, and they will feel that their concerns are handled and responded to with care and intentions. p2 shared: ”for instructors, i think they should frequent giving us feedback, monitoring our condition, and if we have read the instructional materials posted. in my perspective, everything is great if we have an accommodating, considerate, and kind instructor.” the result explains that an instructor's response enables students to evaluate their progress and identify areas for improvement that stimulate their self-reflection. according to arrietta et al. (2020), listening and attending to students' concerns and giving meaningful feedback is essential to creating great rapport with students. on the contrary, vesely et al. (2007) found that the presence of an instructor giving feedback is not enough, as instructors should also consider timely responses to help the students on their given instructional materials to improve their areas of weaknesses. clarity of instructions although the participants are communication students, others are still adapting to their present educational situation, making it difficult to manage and comprehend information quickly. for that reason, the participants suggest that the instructors provide specific instructions, explanations, and messages in simple words. p8 shared: “instructors should be careful in written communication because we have differences in our level of understanding. it is better to use simple words or terms in written communication for students to have better understanding.” the findings show that instructors must provide precise and comprehensive instructions that are understood by students. according to rogers (2019), it is comprehensible enough to students when instructors give essential background information or content on their instructions before sending it to their students. instructors should try to explain concepts or ideas several times, using simple vocabulary and examples in posting their announcements, instructions, or private messages to help students understand them better. open communication the participants suggest that instructors establish and emphasize effortless communication with their students. also, instructors should be attentive toward their students, particularly if some students want help on anything they may have missed or misinterpreted in their announcements, marifel c. lopez, jaypeh ju d. punay, joseph b. quinto | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 99 explanations, or private communications. apart from that, instructors should allow students to express, discuss, and comment on their views, opinions, or explanations, allowing students to raise whatever questions they have without hesitation, uncertainty, fear, or worry. p6 shared: “some instructors should lower their pride and know their limitations in teaching and giving instructions. furthermore, when students ask questions, the instructor should always be open. as a student, we respect them, especially their time, and we know our boundaries and limitations when sending messages.” the findings from the participants indicate that instructors' being approachable can lessen the fear of students of expressing themselves. it has been shown that supportive teacher-student open interactions positively influence students' involvement and engagement. nevertheless, a study by mandernach et al. (2016) states that aside from accessible communication, evaluating students’ involvement in online learning allows instructors to adjust their instructional techniques to change student motivation, interaction, participation, and attitudes. conclusion this research has shed light on a variety of issues concerning the challenges of written correspondence among bacom students in online learning. findings from the study reveal that the common reason students are having trouble interacting with their instructors is that they lack enough understanding of the course materials because most of them are in different locations and do not have enough knowledge of terminologies and grammatical accuracy. as a result, students delay their questions and let their classmates do the asking and end up performing their tasks incorrectly. these effects have made the students think of themselves as incompetent for what they have accomplished. furthermore, these created a gap between the relationship and communication of the students and instructors, which is unusual and may cause more miscommunication especially since it is happening online. on another note, the students have suggested ways to enhance and achieve effective communication between them and their instructors, one of which is that both students and instructors should understand one another since not everyone has a friendly environment and can quickly respond to messages or queries. for the students, they realized that they should have more courage to learn and ask questions and be attentive and responsible for their duties as students. as for the instructors, the students proposed that they should learn to adjust alongside the students. thus, asking the students what they prefer would make the written communication of both students and instructors better if they arrive at a mutual platform to use. also, giving out comments and reactions to the queries of students helps build that connection, making the students more comfortable communicating with their instructors in written communication. moreover, allowing students to share and express their perspectives, concerns, and instructors showing that they are free to communicate, enables students to openly voice out their inquiries smoothly. all in all, this study has unveiled that both students and instructors should mutually know and do their best to adjust and fulfill their roles and responsibilities now that the learning system is online to promote healthy, productive, and effective communication. ultimately, in order to improve their vocabulary and sentence structure, the researchers advise students to read books and utilize an internet writing service like “grammarly” to check and improve their grammar. similarly, instructors should try to communicate with their students in a scheduled time, as well as to approach each student in their class when there is a sudden decline in the student's performance and the student is no longer responding to their messages, instructions, and announcements posted via facebook messenger, email, or private text message. instructors should recognize the strengths and weaknesses of their students by giving feedback on what their message lacks and needs to improve. with this feedback or comment, students can distinguish what needs to be improved. despite the aforementioned results, this research contains limitations. in particular, this study is only limited to the perception of students, given that the sample for this study consists entirely of students. to investigate further, future researchers might study the perspectives of instructors on the challenges and adjustments in written correspondence. as previously mentioned, the participants were only first-year students of bachelor of arts in communication. hence, future researchers might expand to other degree programs to highlight if there would be a change in the challenges students marifel c. lopez, jaypeh ju d. punay, joseph b. quinto | elt forum 11(2) (2022) 100 experience. since the study is qualitative in its approach, researchers might do it quantitatively to make the results generalizable with more sample size. funding statement this research received no specific grant from any funding agency. references aboagye, e., yawson, j. a., & appiah, k. n. 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(2019). the use of google classroom in the learning process. journal of physics: conference series. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/1175/1/012165/pdf swaen, b. (2005, december 7). developing a conceptual framework for research | example. scribbr. https://www.scribbr.com/methodology/conceptual-framework/ vesely, p., bloom, l., & sherlock, j. (2007). key elements of building online community: comparing faculty and student perceptions. merlot journal of online learning and teaching, 3(3), 234–246. https://jolt.merlot.org/vol3no3/vesely.pdf wilson, k. (2017, march 30). best practices for communicating with students in online classes. northwestern. https://dl.sps.northwestern.edu/blog/2017/05/best-practices-communicatingstudents-online-classes/?fbclid=iwar0reg0tqdvodn885ef8bnovifa9d9_lfnnbgnsu2pgclqsnjsvwamgv28 windle, r., & warren, s. (2016, october 31). communication skills. communication skills | cadre. https://www.cadreworks.org/resources/communicationskills#sending%20messages https://dl.sps.northwestern.edu/blog/2017/05/best-practices-communicating-students-online-classes/?fbclid=iwar0reg0tqdvodn885ef8bnovif-a9d9_lfnnbgnsu2pgclqsnjsvwamgv28 https://dl.sps.northwestern.edu/blog/2017/05/best-practices-communicating-students-online-classes/?fbclid=iwar0reg0tqdvodn885ef8bnovif-a9d9_lfnnbgnsu2pgclqsnjsvwamgv28 https://dl.sps.northwestern.edu/blog/2017/05/best-practices-communicating-students-online-classes/?fbclid=iwar0reg0tqdvodn885ef8bnovif-a9d9_lfnnbgnsu2pgclqsnjsvwamgv28 https://www.cadreworks.org/resources/communication-skills#sending%20messages https://www.cadreworks.org/resources/communication-skills#sending%20messages putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 166 elt forum 12 (3) (2023) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt web-based elaborative feedback provision and the development of reading skills atalay biresaw lulie1, berhanu bogale haile1 1college of social science humanities journalism and communication, addis ababa university, ethiopia article info ________________ article history: received on 3 april 2023 approved on 23 july 2023 published on 30 november 2023 ________________ keywords: web-based feedback; reading comprehension; common european framework reference (cefr) ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ the purpose of this study was to find out whether web-based feedback can improve students’ reading comprehension. fifty first-year students participated in the study: 25 in the experimental group and 25 in the control group. the study used a quasiexperimental design. data was collected via a web-based reading comprehension test and a paper-based test. moodle cloud server was used to organize the training tasks and to administer the post-test for the experimental group. data were analysed using mean, frequency, independent samples t-test, and paired samples t-test. the pre-test score indicated that students were at elementary comprehension level with a percentage of 34%, and 37% for the treatment and the comparison group, respectively. there was also a statistically significant mean difference in the post-test scores between the experimental and the control groups (t= 6.174, df= 48, and p= 0.000) with mean scores of 17.84 and 13.16, respectively. this shows that web-based feedback has significantly improved students’ reading comprehension. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 college of social science humanities journalism and communication, addis ababa university, ethiopia postal code: 1000 e-mail: atalay.bi12@gmail.com http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& atalay biresaw lulie & berhanu bogale haile | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 167 introduction the term "assessment" refers to the variety of instruments used by specialists to assess, gauge, and record a learner's academic preparedness, knowledge growth, skill mastery, or learning needs. in order to gauge their performance and gather data for use as feedback to familiarise themselves with the teaching and learning activities they are engaged in, teachers and students engage in assessment (black & wiliam, 1998). the type of assessment we utilise can be used as a tool to identify the positive and negative aspects of our teaching-learning achievements. in light of this, it was pointed out by (huba & freed, 2000) that assessment in the learner-centered technique is used to diagnose learning challenges and to promote further learning in addition to evaluating learning outcomes. to identify communication gaps among pupils, assessment is important. moreover, it is essential to familiarise yourself it is feasible to evaluate both macroand micro-skills in language teaching and learning. reading comprehension will be covered in this study. for members of contemporary communities to obtain information and interact with others, reading is viewed as a necessary ability (grabe, 2009; grabe & stoller, 2002). although information is disseminated through a variety of media, including electronic and written mass media, according to teshale and yemanebirhan, there is no substitute for reading to access any information, despite the fact that technological advancement has reached its pinnacle in the twenty-first century (teshale & yemanebirhan, 2015). effective reading skills are thus unquestionably beneficial and have a broad impact on how assessments can tell researchers, teachers, administrators, and policymakers about a learner's communication abilities. knowing the functions as well as the ideologies in contrast to the traditional paper and pen test, which discourages independent study on the part of the students, the web-based assessment, which might be conducted via computer, can place the learners at the centre of the assessment process. when face-to-face contacts are not possible, it is becoming more and more common to deliver exams online. online tests are used to assess pupils' proficiency in particular abilities. in order to make and administer the testing process more efficient, technology was introduced to language testing in the 1960s, just like it was to language teaching. international evaluation promotes youth and adult competitiveness on a global scale. additionally, it will expand the chances for knowledge exchange and the adoption of best practises from nations that continuously outperform average or those who make quick progress over a short period of time (ministry of education, 2015). exams administered on paper prevent pupils from receiving fast feedback. the feedback provided during a paper-based assessment (pba) may not be timely or informative, and it is more frequently supplied during writing skills exams than during reading comprehension tests. pba uses pre-set criteria to tell students if they will receive an a, b, c, d, or f; nevertheless, this type of scoring may not be as reliable as one might want in assessing a student's work. additionally, the grading format doesn't properly demonstrate the performance distinctions between an a student and a b student. in pba, it is less likely to be known who performed well and who didn't and who received a particular grade. bachman contends that interpreting scores presents challenges in this regard. students' level of comprehension in the common european framework reference (cefr) is clearly indicated in the web-based test, indicating what they can and cannot achieve in any skill. according to goldhammer et al. (2014), computer-based assessment (cba) allows for novel item designs as well as the incorporation of multimedia elements such as video or audio sequences or interactive tools. these possibilities imply that complicated jobs can be more authentically portrayed with cba (huff & sireci, 2005; katz, 2007; quellmalz & kozma, 2003). cba also provides several chances and benefits for measuring skill. cba provides learners with feedback that is not available in other types of examinations. according to the council of europe, the dialang online system assists individuals in determining their language competency levels and receiving feedback on their strengths and deficiencies (council of europe, 2001). quellmalz and kozma (2003) said that quick feedback enhances the retention of taught knowledge; while, delayed input, which is retained for a certain period of time, is less beneficial to learning. learners may not gain the expected self-confidence and may be unable to enhance their learning and performance if they are not encouraged to recognise their faults and strengths right once. atalay biresaw lulie & berhanu bogale haile | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 168 communicative english language skills i and ii are two frequent courses provided to firstyear undergraduate students at addis abeba university. freshman students are required to take the two-semester courses at all ethiopian higher learning institutions. reading skills are emphasised in both communicative english language skills i and ii, and students are expected to have the required abilities to read, understand, and interpret texts in a variety of contexts. this is especially true because the country need educators, health professionals, politicians, diplomats, military officers, policymakers, business leaders, entrepreneurs, and other professions who must frequently obtain a wide range of information and abilities by reading a wide range of english-language texts. higher learning institutions bear the lion's part of the obligation for becoming and so attaining this type of employees. according to cheng and fox (2017), institutions are becoming increasingly concerned with enhancing their students' performance by providing the appropriate support. the most important thing that higher education institutions can do to provide students with the necessary reading abilities is to assess them effectively. tests should be prepared in a standardized format to make reading evaluations appropriate. the researchers are convinced that the current students' reading skills challenge is caused by inappropriate reading assessments, such as administering tests below or above the students' competence or failing to consider the learners' capability when tests are prepared by teachers, endangering the validity and reliability of the tests. bown used 113 samples in an experiment on the role of "elaborative feedback to enhance online second language reading comprehension" (bown, 2017). the results of a quasi-experiment with low-proficiency readers who received elaborative feedback revealed that those who received elaborative feedback outperformed those who did not. similarly, murphy investigated the effects of feedback, proficiency, and interaction on reading comprehension activities. the findings revealed a statistically significant relationship between the type of feedback and the method of the study (murphy, 2017). adams and strickland, on the other hand, took 70 students and investigated the use of knowledge of response feedback, knowledge of correct answer feedback, and no feedback at all. they were unable, however, to demonstrate any substantial difference in effectiveness. as a result, the purpose of this study was to a) determine the students' reading comprehension levels based on the common european framework of reference (cefr), and b) determine whether providing elaborative feedback in an online reading test improves l2 reading comprehension more effectively than students who did not receive elaborative feedback. methods this study used a quasi-experimental design. the data was collected via a reading comprehension test and analyzed using mean and independent samples test quantitatively. the study's participants were first-year students. if students could identify their deficiencies at the outset, their university experience would be tremendously motivating and successful. the research is being conducted at the university level because technical resources are more readily available there than in primary and secondary schools. initially, pupils were divided into two parts and randomly allocated to the experimental and control groups. both groups were required to take the dialang reading comprehension test on paper. the experimental and comparison groups' pre-test outcomes were 7.16 (34% accurate response) and 7.84 (37% right response), respectively. the t-test result for independent samples revealed no significant difference between the two groups (t-test =.945, sig. 2-tailed = 0.349). that is because the difference between the comparison and experimental groups was insignificant, which was more than the cut score of 0.05. the number of students assigned to each section determines the sample size of the participants. for the course communicative english language skills, data gathering tools the instruments that were used in this study include web-based reading skills exercises adapted from celsi; the dialang web-based reading skills diagnostic test adapted from (https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/researchenterprise/dialang/) and a paper-based test. the instruments were piloted to get a first-hand impression of the difficulty level of the tasks and items, to estimate the time load involved, to see the content and face validity of items, and to determine the expected challenges during the administration of the tasks and to set solutions for the challenges. https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/researchenterprise/dialang/ atalay biresaw lulie & berhanu bogale haile | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 169 web-based reading skills diagnostic test the dialang online diagnostic test, which can be found at https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/researchenterprise/dialang/, was used to create the online reading skills diagnostic test. and the toefl reading skills test because the items are standardized and are thought to better diagnose the students' performance in relation to the objectives. the treatment group received a reading comprehension test with online elaborative feedback, while the control group received no additional treatment other than the typical method of instruction, which is faceto-face interaction with the teacher. learners used skimming reading strategies to practise reading tasks and answer questions that required them to grasp the central idea of texts at the paragraph level. meanwhile, students were supposed to compute items, which likely required them to read the text in full or inferentially, depending on the task. paper-based assessment both the experimental and control groups were given a paper-based evaluation, adapted from the dialang online test, prior to the commencement of the training to determine their reading comprehension level. following the intervention, the comparison group was given the paper-based test, whereas the experimental group took the test online with no feedback; nonetheless, the test questions taken by the two groups were the same. data analysis method the experimental and comparison groups' pre-test scores were computed to determine the students' reading comprehension level at the start of the study and to see if there was any difference in performance between the two groups. an independent samples t-test was used to determine whether there was a statistically significant difference between the experimental and comparison groups. the two groups' post-test scores were also compared using an independent samples t-test to check if there was a significant mean difference in their performance. validity and reliability validity is all about ensuring what we are measuring is what we exactly want to measure. in this study, the primary focus of the reading comprehension questions was on three types of reading skills: reading for the main idea, detail reading, and inference. in the pre-test, 21 standardized items from dialang were used. for the post-test, the same number of test items were prepared based on the communicative english skills i course material. the validation process was started by formulating a detailed definition of the types of reading skills we wanted to focus on. we made sure that there are an equal number of questions under each session and category of reading skills. after we prepared the questions based on the content covered in the training material and wrote simple and clear instructions, we asked three instructors with phd in tefl to independently review the items. comments given by the instructors were used to further improve the items. the pre-test and post-test items were taken from dialang which is a pool of standardized online reading comprehension tests. we did not go into establishing the reliability of the test items. all we did was select 21 questions (7 items from each skill area: reading for the main idea, detail reading, and inference). in experimental design, researchers should always try to minimize the influence of any confounding or extraneous variables. this means that the control and experimental groups should have as little difference as possible at the start of the study. in order to minimize the effect of confounding factors, we tried to make the control and experimental groups as similar as possible. the only difference is the treatment. because the students in the two groups (control and experimental) were on the same campus, we thought there could be chances that they share learning materials. students in the experimental group, who were expected to do online reading comprehension exercises and were given elaborative feedback on their answers, were provided with passwords that they could use only for about two hours during class time. there was no way they could share materials with friends, as they were working in a computer lab for a set time during class time. the post-test was also administered in a parallel session. atalay biresaw lulie & berhanu bogale haile | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 170 findings and discussion descriptive statistics of the pre-test score both the comparison and the experimental group (n=50) took a reading comprehension test. the number of reading comprehension test items was 21, with three sub-skills categories: main idea, detail reading, and inference questions. the test aimed to check the participants’ current reading skills performance. the findings are presented in the next table. table 1: comparison and experimental group mean score before intervention group n mean std. deviation std. error mean pre-test reading score experimental 25 7.16 3.171 .634 control 25 7.84 1.700 .340 to identify the students' reading comprehension levels, the pre-test scores of both the experimental and comparison groups were computed. the pre-test mean score of the experimental and the comparison group was 7.16 and 7.84 out of 21 items, with a percentage of 34% and 37% of correctly answered items for both groups, respectively. as the percentages implied, the students’ reading comprehension level was below the standard required for a “pass” on the cefr scale. the percentages show that the two groups would be categorized under the a2 level. on the cefr scale of performance measurement, a2 means the students are elementary-level language users. independent samples t-test of the experimental and the comparison groups an independent samples t-test was computed to find out whether the mean score difference was significant or not. a summary of the independent samples t-test result is presented in table 2 below. table 2: independent samples t-test of the experimental and the comparison group group t-test sig. (2-tailed) pre-test reading score experimental -.945 .349 control as shown in the above table, the experimental and the comparison group had some slight differences in the pre-test mean score. however, the mean score by itself does not tell us whether the difference was significant or not. in order to know whether that difference was significant or not, an independent samples t-test was run. accordingly, the result of the t-test (t=.945, df=48, and sig. = 0.349 showed that there was no statistically significant difference between the mean scores of the experimental and the comparison groups before the intervention was made. that means equal variance was assumed as the difference between the experimental and comparison group was insignificant. this implied the comparison and the experimental group had almost equal reading comprehension levels, and their level of reading comprehension was low, as it was categorized under a2 on the cefr scale. comparison of the post-test scores of comparison and experimental groups it was assumed that there could be a change, after the intervention, in the reading comprehension score between the treatment and the comparison groups. to ensure this, a post-test was administered to both groups, and the summary of the post-test mean score is presented in table 3. table 3: comparison of the post-test results of the comparison and experimental groups group n mean std. deviation post-test reading score experimental 25 17.84 3.158 control 25 13.16 2.095 atalay biresaw lulie & berhanu bogale haile | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 171 table 3 shows the descriptive statistics of the comparison between the experimental and comparison groups. as the mean scores confirm, there was a difference between the post-test scores of the control group and the experimental group, which had mean scores of 13.16 and 17.84, respectively. however, the statistics do not indicate whether the difference between the experimental and the comparison groups is statistically significant or not. independent samples test of the experimental and control groups to check if the difference between the mean scores of the two groups is statistically significant or not an independent sample test was held. the results are presented in table 4. table 4: independent samples t-test of the experimental and control groups group t-test sig. (2-tailed) post-test reading score experimental and control 6.174 0.000 after the mean scores of the experimental and control groups were computed, it was necessary to check whether the differences in the mean scores between the two groups were noteworthy or not. to confirm whether the statistical mean score difference was significant or not, inferential statistics of an independent samples t-test were calculated. the result of the t-test (t= 6.174, df= 48, and p= 0.001) indicated that the difference between the control and experimental groups was statistically significant. to put it another way, the mean score was higher in the experimental group compared to the comparison group because the elaborative feedback intervention had brought a change to the experimental group's performance. discussion students’ level of reading comprehension this section aims to show the levels of online reading comprehension of freshman students. the research question was attempted to be answered by using a mean score and independent samples ttest. the mean score informed us what the students’ level of reading comprehension was and the independent samples t-test has the objective to compare and contrast the comparison and experimental group students’ reading comprehension levels. the level of students categorized based on the cefr scale was also investigated. a descriptive statistic of the experimental and control groups was computed with the mean score values of 7.16 (34%) and 7.84 (37%) of the total 21 items, respectively. in the common european framework reference scale, there are three general levels of measurement that are again divided into two sublevels: basic users (a1, a2), independent users (b1, b2), and proficient users (c1, c2). in this perspective, students who scored between 20% and 39% were assigned under level a2, indicating that they are elementary users (council of europe, 2001, 2020). thus, from the above descriptions of the cefr level, the mean scores on the pre-test of participants of both the experimental and the comparison groups indicated that they were at a2, which means they were at an elementary level. at this level, learners are able to do the following activities. they can understand phrases and the highest frequency of vocabulary related to areas of immediate personal relevance, such as basic personal and family information, shopping, local area, and employment. the learners can catch the main point in short, clear, simple messages and announcements. they were also able to read and understand very short, simple texts such as personal letters. the respondents were able to find specific, predictable information in simple everyday material such as advertisements, prospectuses, menus, and timetables (council of europe, 2001). an independent samples t-test was used to examine whether the experimental and comparison groups had similar reading comprehension skills. even if the mean score differed slightly, the difference was insignificant. the independent samples t-test revealed no significant differences between the experimental and comparison groups. the independent samples t-test assumed that variables were homogeneous enough to carry out a specific type of treatment. as the sig. value was more than 0.05, the significant level value indicated that there were no significant differences in reading comprehension between the experimental and comparison groups at the first level. as a result, we may say that the two groups had nearly identical reading comprehension. atalay biresaw lulie & berhanu bogale haile | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 172 the post-test scores of the experimental and comparison groups this section discusses whether there was a statistically significant difference between the experimental and comparison groups' post-test scores. the mean scores of the two groups were computed to examine if there was a significant difference between the experimental and comparison groups. the descriptive statistics of the mean scores revealed that there was a difference in the experimental and comparison groups' reading comprehension scores. an independent samples t-test was used to determine whether or not the difference was statistically significant. the t-test result showed that there was a statistically significant difference in the mean scores of the two groups. because the difference between the comparison and experimental groups was large, equal variance was not assumed. bown (2017) investigated "elaborative feedback to enhance online second language reading comprehension" in this regard. a quasi-experimental study was undertaken on 113 male emirati l2 english students aged 20 to 26. according to the findings, elaborative feedback improves online l2 reading comprehension, but it must be customized specifically to the needs of the l2 readers it is intended to help. abanomey also looked into whether efl saudi students performed differently in online reading. an exploratory study was carried out on 348 efl students from riyadh college of technology who took part in this study. students that were required to take the inherent-based reading test did better than the other group (abanomey, 2013). to summarise, the experimental and control groups' post-test scores differed, and the difference was statistically significant. furthermore, the students' reading skills have improved as a result of this online elaborative feedback. the students' reading skills improve as a result of the elaborative comments. because of the intervention of elaborative feedback supplied to the experimental group, the post-test scores of the comparison and experimental groups differ significantly. conclusion the reading comprehension of freshmen students is found to be below the predicted level. the provision of online elaborative feedback has been proven to be quite beneficial in improving student performance. the web-based elaborative feedback has greatly improved the students' performance by providing advice on how to approach upcoming issues. students were also taught why a particular alternative may not be the correct response for that item. as a result, we must capitalize on the significance that online elaborative feedback plays in improving students' reading ability. whether we like it or not, this is the era when technology is best employed and required to exchange global knowledge. it is recommended that students be exposed to online assessments with elaborative feedback in order to improve their knowledge and skills. higher learning institutions should give their students diagnostic online assessments to clearly identify students' deficiencies for further assistance in order to make the required improvement. furthermore, educators, politicians, and the ministry of education should think about how to implement this technology. acknowledgment this endeavour would not have been accomplished without the help of many people in our community. we are especially grateful to the digital library personnel who provided us with unwavering assistance during the project. our heartfelt gratitude also goes to the study's participants, who were highly motivated and actively involved during the data gathering stage. we are grateful to everyone we have had the pleasure of working with during this programme, particularly the department of foreign languages and literature. funding statement this research received no specific funding from any agency. references abanomey, a. a. (2013). do efl saudi learners perform differently with online reading? an exploratory study. journal of king saud university languages and translation, 25(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jksult.2012.12.001 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jksult.2012.12.001 atalay biresaw lulie & berhanu bogale haile | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 173 adams, r. h., & strickland, j. (2011). the effects of computer-assisted feedback strategies in technology education: a comparison of learning outcomes. journal of educational technology systems, 40(2), 211–223. https://doi.org/10.2190/et.40.2.i bachman, l. f. (1990). fundamental considerations in language testing. oxford university press. bachman, l. f. (2015). modern language testing at the turn of the century: assuring that what we count counts. the university of california. black, p., & wiliam, d. (1998). inside the black box: raising standards through classroom assessment. phi delta kappan, 80(2), 139–148. bown, a. (2017). elaborative feedback to enhance online second language reading comprehension. english language teaching, 10(12). cheng, l., & fox, j. (2017). assessment in the language classroom. queen’s university. council of europe. (2001). common european framework of reference for languages: learning, teaching, assessment. cambridge university press. council of europe. (2020). common european framework of reference for languages: learning, teaching, assessment – companion volume, council of europe publishing, strasbourg, available at. goldhammer, f., kröhne, u., keßel, y., senkbeil, m., & ihme, j. m. (2014). diagnostik von ictliteracy. diagnostica, 60(1), 10–21. https://doi.org/10.1026/0012-1924/a000113 grabe, w. (2009). reading in a second language: moving from theory to practice. cambridge university press. grabe, w., & stoller, f. (2002). teaching and researching reading. pearson education limited. huba, m. e., & freed, j. e. (2000). learner-centered assessment on college campuses. allyn & bacon. huff, k. l., & sireci, s. g. (2005). validity issues in computer-based testing. educational measurement: issues and practice, 20(3), 16–25. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.17453992.2001.tb00066.x katz, i. r. (2007). testing information literacy in digital environments: ets’s i skills assessment. information technology and libraries, 26(3), 3–12. ministry of education. (2015). education sector development programme v (esdp v). the federal democratic republic of ethiopia. murphy, p. (2017). reading comprehension exercises online: the effects of feedback, proficiency, and interaction. language learning & technology, 11(3), 107–129. quellmalz, e. s., & kozma, r. (2003). designing assessments of learning with technology. assessment in education: principles, policy & practice, 10(3), 389–407. https://doi.org/10.1080/0969594032000148208 teshale, a., & yemanebirhan, k. (2015). assessment of the reading practices of students: the case of first year natural science students of bonga college of teachers education. international journal of educational research and technology, 6(2), 19–32. https://doi.org/10.2190/et.40.2.i https://doi.org/10.1026/0012-1924/a000113 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-3992.2001.tb00066.x https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-3992.2001.tb00066.x https://doi.org/10.1080/0969594032000148208 putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 1 elt forum 12(1) (2023) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt impact of eclecticism on nigerian esl learners’ communicative competence: a comparative study chinomso p. dozie1, adaeze regis-onuoha1, lovina i. madu1, favour o. egwim1, mary c. okere1, richard c. ihejirika1 1federal university of technology, owerri, nigeria article info ________________ article history: received on 17 january 2023 approved on 29 july 2023 published on 31 march 20023 ________________ keywords: eclectic approach; esl learners; nigerian; second language teaching/learning; writing fluency ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this study adopted three practical teaching strategies intended to positively affect learners’ writing skill while neutralising negative factors affecting their writing competence.to achieve the study objective which aimed at the assessment of the best teaching strategy to enhance learners’ writing proficiency, a comparative study of three teaching methods(namely communicative, eclectic and task-based methods) was used over a-6-week period as treatment on three experimental groups a, b, c respectively and a control group (d) was taught using conventional method. a pretest was administered on two hundred (200) freshmen/subjects purposively selected from different departments at the federal university of technology, owerri (futo). a post-test was used to ascertain the outcome of the six weeks period of treatment on their essay writing. results varied according to groups but, most importantly, group b showed very significant improvement and control group d showed no significant improvement at all in the post-test assessment while groups a and c’s writing ability improved just marginally at best post-test. our findings suggest the need to pay attention to eclectic teaching technique as a crucial element in enhancing writing proficiency among learners. the implications and limitations of this research in addition to guidelines for future research are discussed. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706| e-issn 2721-4532 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: chinomso.dozie@futo.edu.ng http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& c. p. dozie, a. regis-onuoha, l. i. madu, f. o. egwim, m. c. okere, r. c. ihejirika | elt forum 12 (1) (2023) 2 introduction eclectic approach is known to be a selection of a mixture of what appears to be best of variousdoctrines, methods or styles and draws upon multiple theories and processes to gain complementary insights into result-oriented phenomena. this teaching strategy has over time through theoretical and experimental deliberations been measured a constant effective means of content delivery as well as fostering learner’s ability to comprehend foundational skills in writing. these notions and experiences, as well as occasional technical and empirical updates helps researchers work through the web of errors which may be arising from teaching practice or learners’ non-performance in each evaluation and assessment task which seeks to capture learner’s achievement level in the area of writing. it is often difficult to describe in print or by rote the extent of failure encountered during second language teaching and learning, and this continues to create a lingering gap if the causes of failure are not ascertained .scholars (boscolo &carotti, 2003; maduekwe 2007; applebee & langer, 2011; crosson et al., 2012) have argued that there is an inverse correlation between second language competence and performance because it has been observed that only a few students meet standards for proficient writing which is linked not only to learners’ presumed threshold but also to teachers’ preferred teaching strategy. hence this study would highlight the facts and failings of the teaching approaches used in this study and help identify as well as emphasize the impact of eclectic approach on nigerian esl learners’ writing competence. nigeria as a nation, is dotted with approximately 500 spoken languages (classified as major and minor), ethnic groups and cultures with english as the official language but spoken less in the rural areas and among people with lower education level (kari, 2002).the implication is that the nation is at variance on matters of language, ethnic and cultural concerns with english as a second/official language bridging the gap of this diversity. lado (1957) argues that if certain elements of a second language differ greatly from the student’s native language, that student is likely to encounter difficulties. lado further attributes these difficulties to the dissimilarities in the syntax, pronunciation and structure existing between the learner’s first language(l1) and second language(l2). again, according to kuo and lai (2006), there is need to acknowledge the inseparable tie between culture, language and which extends to the implementation of instructional strategies for teaching second language to enhance students’ linguistic comprehension and proficiency. considering that the second language learners of english in nigeria come from diverse ethnolinguistic backgrounds (which presupposes that their first or native languages are not the english language), the question of how to balance the teaching and learning process to get optimal result comes to the fore. in the ever-changing world of today, communicative competence of language learners is becoming worrisome as there is no singular language teaching method known to accommodate learners’ peculiarities. teachers therefore experiment with various methodologies believed to enhance learning by adopting techniques that significantly motivate as well as influence their grasp of the language. however, there has been a tremendous awareness of the need to help language learners communicate appropriately as communicative competence forms the core of the language learning process, particularly in the written forms. writing, (as a productive language skill which is critical to evaluating writing fluency and quality) has a deep connection with conveying one’s message to others. therefore, individuals who are deficient in writing or cannot write well are particularly grossly disadvantaged. again, second language learners of english in nigeria have been known to deal with their listening, speaking, reading and writing skills in a manner that portrays their lack of commitment to the rigors of language learning hence their readiness to refer to the language as nonnative and their acceptance of their incompetence in the use of the language as a natural outcome. nevertheless, esl learners at the tertiary level are expected to have perfected or nearly perfected the skill of writing and are supposed to be able to develop, construct, deconstruct as well as write extended essays on topics across disciplines; but that aspiration is almost not attainable among most nigerian esl learners. research and experience have also shown that there are two sides to the equation of second language acquisition which loosely translates to mastery of the four language skills (krashen, 1987). on the one hand lies the learner’s overall interest in the target language and his/her capacity to grasp and navigate the fine details involved in the process of second language learning. on the other hand rests the teacher’s ability to gauge, assess, appraise and reappraise learners’ progress vis a vis his/her teaching technique, with a view to finding the optimal balance in the teaching and learning process (maduekwe 2007 and taylor 2019) . assessment of communicative competence in nigerian esl learners on a grand scale is a logistically challenging c. p. dozie, a. regis-onuoha, l. i. madu, f. o. egwim, m. c. okere, r. c. ihejirika | elt forum 12 (1) (2023) 3 activity but trying to assess this competence within the framework of writing, which appears to be an extremely difficult trajectory for many nigerian esl learners, remains the thrust of this study. the study objective therefore is to assess which is the most effective of the three teaching strategies employed in this study in enhancing nigerian esl learners’ writing proficiency. language teaching approaches language teaching methods vary in principle and in practice largely as a result of the differences in tactics utilized and the focus of each technique as well as its attendant benefits. therefore, this review will dwell on an overview of language teaching methods with emphasis on appropriateness, objectives, environment as well as learning needs of language learners. according to taylor (2019), there is no single best method for everyone in all contexts and no teaching approach is inherently superior to the others as each is anchored on understanding the language/learning process using specific techniques and materials used in a set sequence. fundamentally, too, each method has its own sufficiency and deficiencies alike which ultimately drive the shift from good to better or even best in an effective way. we hereby try to examine three teaching approaches namely, communicative language teaching approach, task-based learning approach and eclectic approach to teaching english as a second language one after another in a chronological order. communicative language teaching approach: this is typically a learner-centred/languagein-practice technique as learners successfully communicate actual meaning by adopting their individual natural strategies for acquiring a language which facilitates their use of the target language. according to harmer (2005), clt approach is primarily built on enhancing skills that facilitate effective message and content delivery with emphasis on communicative competence hence its focus on contextualising learners’ real and concrete experiences through the target language. basically, communicative approach which encourages learner’s use of different strategies to actualise language in context does not appear to be an all-round package as it does not address various key aspects of language teaching and learning such as phonetics/phonology, morphology, grammatical accuracy, sociolinguistic function of language etc. task-based learning approach: in this approach as developed by prabhu (1987), the teacher encourages the learners to do meaningful tasks such as engaging in a doctor-patient conversation scenario, being a part of an interview process, seeking the assistance of a customer service personnel etc using the target language. this appears more like a predictable hands-on activity classroom where learners are expected to act out an imagined role-play as directed by the teacher using the target language at the end of which the teacher evaluates learners’ performances making corrections and adjustments where necessary. since task-based learning approach is experimental and formfocused and thrives on corrective feedback to classroom second language acquisition, it may not successfully fulfil the language needs of learners in different circumstances. eclectic approach: also known as mixed methods and advocated by rivers (1981), it refers to a diversified teaching approach which combines all the other approaches in second language teaching. in other words, it is not based on a single approach but experiments with other approaches depending on the goal of the lesson and individual learner’s ability. it is the teacher’s prerogative to decide what approach would be suitable for the lesson as well as the learners. the teacher tries to factor a lot into the stream of the lesson plan and does well to execute same bearing in mind the different learners’ capacity while ensuring that no aspect of the language skills is ignored. according to al-khuli (1996), eclectic method breaks monotony, ensures better understanding, enhances participation by learners and saves time in presenting language activities to learners. the teacher’s flexibility is known to drive this process to the benefit of all learners as the approach works with a triangulation of techniques believed to yield positive results. within the framework of language teaching approaches as developed and ratified, every technique has its unique way of attaining the language teaching goals although not entirely without peculiar challenges. however, the flow of these methods only shows that the shortcomings of an earlier approach are nearly addressed by the latter to achieve global best practices which include – ability to integrate information, ability to recognize various aspects of text structure, ability to put to great use general knowledge, personal experiences and associations, and ability to show mastery and bringing to bear the fine details of the teaching pattern and its impact on second language learning. although the importance of teaching english as a second language to nigerians is a known fact, there is not a guaranteed specific approach to teaching english to nigerian esl learners. therefore, c. p. dozie, a. regis-onuoha, l. i. madu, f. o. egwim, m. c. okere, r. c. ihejirika | elt forum 12 (1) (2023) 4 teaching approach plays a vital role in language learning and impacts on nigerian esl learners’ communicative competence. methods participants in this study, the two hundred participants who were freshmen in the university were purposively selected and randomly separated into four groups a,b,c as experimental and d as control groups, respectively. the participants were 83 males and 117 females aged between 16 and 20. they were of different ethnolinguistic backgrounds bound together by a common second language (l2)/official language and medium of instructionthe english language. by the singular virtue of being born, raised and schooled so far in nigeria, they (study participants) are believed to have been thoroughly exposed to the english language by acculturation, association, education and or choice as it remains the nation’s official/second language and medium of instruction across educational levels. for this reason, there was need to ascertain participants’ english proficiency levels regardless of prior exposure to the language before tertiary education in order to rate their writing competence, and to put a benchmark on the performance of the participants and only those who scored d and e in the pre-test (which evaluated their knowledge of and proficiency in english essay writing) formed the entire study group. the choice of participants who scored d and e was so because in the standardised university grading system for esl learners in nigeria, scores are graded thus70 and above = a (excellent), 60-69 = b (very good), 50-59 = c (good), 45-49 = d (fair), 40-44 = e (pass) and below 40 = f (fail). only two hundred (200) freshmen (≥ 20years) in the school of physical sciences who scored d and e in the pre-test and who willingly gave verbal consent were enrolled in the study. the criteria for the inclusion were: level of studentship (all participants must be only first year students at the university), course of study (all participants must be enlisted from the five (5) departments namely, mathematics, chemistry, physics, computer science and geology, school of study (all participants must be in the school of physical sciences) and attainment of the eligibility benchmark score all participants must have scored either d or e in the pre-test to qualify for the study). participants were excluded if they declined to participate. also, subjects who did not attain the eligibility benchmark score from the pre-test or exceeded the benchmark were not recruited for the study and other willing participants who were sophomores, juniors or seniors, were naturally excluded from the study. study design theoretical framework this study is anchored on krashen and the monitor model (1987) elaborately taken into consideration and presented in terms of its highlights: • language acquisition is principally below the threshold of conscious perception as it takes its origin from natural and informal interactions • language learning subsists through conscious efforts and is largely dependent on constant correction and feedback in a formal setting • grammar is learned in a conventional sequence and progression • language acquisition is believed to occur when talking and/or reading become a conduit for comprehensible input • a monitor can be a person or device that provides necessary error corrections and urges one to improve during language learning. the monitor model therefore shows that there are identifiably similar elements in the language acquisition/learning processes which if maximally harnessed will promote writing fluency among esl learners the research was conceptualised as an experimental study design. to achieve the study objective which aimed at the assessment of the best teaching strategy to enhance learners’ writing proficiency, a randomized pre-test, post-test and control group design was adopted. in a comparative study, three teaching methods, namely communicative, eclectic and task-based methods, were used over a-6-week period as treatment on three experimental groups a, b, c respectively and a control c. p. dozie, a. regis-onuoha, l. i. madu, f. o. egwim, m. c. okere, r. c. ihejirika | elt forum 12 (1) (2023) 5 group, d, which was taught using conventional method. the study focused on the experimental group while the control group was observed based on routine application. students’ scores in the weekly assessment during treatment/post-tests were recorded, analysed and interpreted for the experimental and control groups. instrument to collect quantitative data for the study, three instruments were used namely: (a)oxford placement test (opt) a homogeneity test which was used to certify that all participants have been very reasonably exposed to the use of english as a second language, (b) a pre-test which served as a measure for determining that the participants had a certain degree of proficiency in the language and provided a benchmark for selection based on participants’ current performance, (c) a post-test result which was used to compare with that of the pre-test as well as the weekly assessment during intervention in order to make deductions on the effectiveness and impact of treatment on the experimental groups a, b and c. also, the weekly performance assessment was used to record each group’s progress based on treatment for the entire period spanning six weeks. oxford placement test to standardise the study sample, an oxford placement test (opt) was used before the research intervention to ascertain that these second language (l2) learners have attained a certain level of proficiency having been exposed to the english language at the primary and post primary education levels. the sample test was designed by modifying the methods used in previous studies on english as a foreign language (efl) by nazri and mansouri (2014) and from this opt, their achievement levels in writing were established. pre-test and post-test in accordance with the procedural rules governing the pre-test process and to identify the study samples’ writing proficiency, a detailed writing composition about self was administered as one of the primary sources of data prior to treatment. the choice of the composition on self was for its simplified form and a good start for further albeit complex forms of essay writing. the pre-test was primarily carried out to rate their writing competence as well as to put a benchmark on the performance of the study sample. as a result, only two hundred (200) freshmen from the larger pool with low level writing skill having scored 45-49 d grade and 40-44 e grade were eligible and formed the entire study group. the choice of participants on d and e grades was so because the standardised university grading system for esl learners in nigeria considers d and e as (fair) and (pass) respectively hence their suitability for the study. time allocation for the pre-test was 50 minutes. results of the post treatment test were compared with results recorded weekly within the sixweek period of treatment in order to make inferences on the effectiveness of the teaching approaches utilised on the experimental (a b c) and control (d) groups respectively. by adopting and further modification of nazri and mansouri’s (2014) methodological design which compared pre-test and post-test results because the intervention period was not evaluated, the present study however compared the post-test result with the weekly assessment results recorded over the six-week period of treatment. data collection procedures the study took place at the federal university of technology owerri, nigeria in october and november 2018 during the first or harmattan semester of the 2018/2019 academic year enlisting participants from the five (5) departments namely, mathematics, chemistry, physics, computer science and geology which make up the school of physical sciences where the researchers taught. since the study objective aimed at identifying the most effective of the teaching methods to enhance nigerian esl learners’ writing proficiency, a comparative study of three teaching methods, namely communicative, eclectic and task-based methods, which served as treatment on the three experimental groups (a b and c respectively) was carried out over a-6-week period. the control group d was taught using conventional method. prior to commencement of the study, the research aim was properly highlighted to all the students in the school of physical sciences, and they were all excited about the study and got c. p. dozie, a. regis-onuoha, l. i. madu, f. o. egwim, m. c. okere, r. c. ihejirika | elt forum 12 (1) (2023) 6 enrolled for the preliminary stages of the research. the researchers were aware of the intricacies of such study and knew that close monitoring was only possible if they worked with a number that can be easily managed and assessed without bias. as a result, a pre-test was used to obtain an eligibility benchmark hence the selection of study participants who scored d and e in the pre-test for the study. two hundred (200) willing participants (freshmen) were therefore enlisted for the study. they were further randomly separated and grouped into four (4)three (3) experimental groups a, b, c and one (1) control group, d. the study groups were taught the same topics using the specific approaches designed for each, in the same setting, for the same length of time and same environment simultaneously for six (6) weeks. the weekly performance assessment checklist designed for the study was used to monitor, collate and record all observed progress made in terms of writing ability. all six (6) researchers worked with the checklist and recorded religiously the groups’ performances, paying particular attention to content (c), organisation (o), expression (e) and mechanical accuracy (ma) which are an integral part of essay writing. considering the peculiar nature of the subjects’ proficiency level as evaluated in the pre-test, which could be described as near abysmal for individuals who have been exposed to the english language for twelve years (6 years of primary and 6 years of secondary schooling), the key indices of essay writing were given equal importance. thus, each index was allotted an even 25-mark score which totalled a 100%.ultimately, the procedure took a three-step process: pre-test-treatment-post-test. data analysis as with the study objective which aims to assess the most effective of the three teaching strategies employed in this study in enhancing nigerian esl learners’ writing proficiency, data gathered over the six weeks of treatment for the experimental group and for the control group who did not receive any treatment and post-test scores were aggregated and further analysed to estimate the significance of the gaps if any existed and ascertain the most effective of the teaching strategies applied in the study. simple percentage and frequency tables as well as bar charts, line graphs and pie charts were used to diagrammatically illustrate and represent the findings. the scores were initially compared to test for the hypothesis of significant differences in means using the analysis of variance (anova) technique. however, the assumptions of the test were not fulfilled in levene’s test for homogeneity of variance; hence an alternative kruskal-wallis non-parametric test was conducted. post hoc test was computed to establish the group that differs significantly. study hypothesis the following were the hypotheses of the study. null hypothesis (ho): the mean ranks are equal (do not differ significantly) across the groups. alternative hypothesis (ha): the mean ranks are not equal (at least one group differ significantly) across the groups. ethical consideration and informed consent ethical approval was obtained from the ethics committee of the federal university of technology owerri, nigeria. in addition, as research which focus on human subjects thrive better on voluntary participation, informed verbal consent was obtained from all the study participants after the objective of the study was explained to them. findings and discussion socio-demographic characteristics of study participants all the participants (200, 100%) in the study were aged 16-20 years. a greater number (117, 58.5%) of the subjects were females while the remaining (83, 41.5%) were males and all (200, 100%) were freshmen in the various five (5) departments that constitute the school of physical sciences. fortysix (46, 23.0%) of the total participants studied mathematics, forty-two (42, 21.0%) studied computer science, thirty-nine (39, 19.5%) studied geology, thirty-eight (38, 19.0%) studied physics while the remaining thirty-five (35, 17.5%) studied chemistry. also, judging by our respondents’ mother tongue or native language (l1), the majority (113, 56.5%) were igbo, twenty-four (24, 12.0%) were yoruba, nineteen (19, 9.5%) were hausa and fortyfour (44, 22.0%) were from other language groups in nigeria. c. p. dozie, a. regis-onuoha, l. i. madu, f. o. egwim, m. c. okere, r. c. ihejirika | elt forum 12 (1) (2023) 7 lastly, all (200, 100%) respondents agreed to english as their second language (l2) which is a strong confirmation that english is the nation’s official language and medium of instruction at various educational levels. table 1.socio-demographic characteristics of the study participants students characteristics (n=200) frequency percentage (%) age 16 -20 200 100 21 -25 0 0 26 -30 0 0 gender male 85 41.5 female 119 58.5 level of study freshmen (100 level) 200 100 course of study mathematics 46 23 physics 38 19 chemistry 35 17.5 geology 39 19.5 computer science 42 21 native language/ mother tongue igbo 118 59 yoruba 24 12 hausa 19 9.5 others 44 22 second language english 200 100 french 0 0 other 0 0 six weeks of treatment based on the key indices of essay writing in the observation checklist table 2 contained the output for six weeks of treatment based on the key indices of essay writing for three experimental groups and the control group. marks allotted on each index are 25 points, leading to a total score of 100 points, at a mean score of 25 points for each week. for week 1 to week 6, the average (mean) score performance among the students was not quite high as it ranged between 11.3 to 13 points (total score: 45 53%), for the experimental group a and 10 points (total score: 40 44%), for the control group. similar mean score results were obtained by the other groups. the largest mean score of 17.6 points (total score = 71, standard deviation = 4.6) was obtained at week 6 for experimental group b while the lowest mean score of 10 points (total score = 40, standard deviation = 3.3) was at week 1 for the control group. a remarkable observation from the table is that experimental group b maintained a higher mean score in all the weeks of study. the mean performance for group a and group c were slightly reduced at weeks 2 and 3 but started going up at weeks 4, 5 and 6. the mean score for the control group was rising steadily at a slower pace from 10 point at week 1(standard deviation = 3.1) to 11 points at week 6 (standard deviation = 2.9). the percentage score at each week for the groups are clearly represented on a compound bar chart (figure 1) and a progressive line graph (figure2). the kruskal-wallis h test shows that there was a statistically significant difference in performance due to the learning outcomes (h(3)=17.621, p=0.001), with a mean rank of 11.92 for group a, 20.75 for group b, 13.58 for group c and 3.75 for group d. the post hoc test (bonferroni-correction) comparing pairs of groups shows significant difference between group b and the control (p < 0.0001). c. p. dozie, a. regis-onuoha, l. i. madu, f. o. egwim, m. c. okere, r. c. ihejirika | elt forum 12 (1) (2023) 8 table 2. treatment based on the key indices of essay writing in the observation checklist indices marks allotted experimental group control group a b c d week 1 content 25 12 13 12 10 organization 25 12 13 12 10 expression 25 14 17 14 14 mechanical accuracy 25 07 09 07 06 total 100 45 52 45 40 mean (s.d) 25 (0) 11.3 (3.0) 13 (3.3) 11.3 (3.0) 10 (3.3) week 2 content 25 10 13.5 12 10 organization 25 11.5 14 12 10.5 expression 25 14 17 13 14 mechanical accuracy 25 7.5 9.5 7.5 6.5 total 100 43 54 44.5 41 mean (s.d) 25 (0) 10.8 (2.70) 13.5 (3.1) 11.1 (2.5) 10.2 (3.1) week 3 content 25 11 16 12.5 10 organisation 25 13 15 12 11 expression 25 13 17 13.5 14 mechanical accuracy 25 07.5 9.5 6.5 06 total 100 44.5 57.5 44.5 41 mean (s.d) 25 (0) 11.1 (2.6) 14.3 (3.4) 11.1 (3.1) 10.3 (3.3) week 4 content 25 11 17 13 10 organisation 25 14 15 13.5 12 expression 25 15 18 16 13 mechanical accuracy 25 7.5 10 7 6.5 total 100 47.5 60 49.5 41.5 mean (s.d) 25 (0) 11.9 (3.4) 15 (3.6) 12.4 (3.8) 10.4 (2.9) week 5 content 25 13 18 14 11 organisation 25 15 18 16 12 expression 25 17 20 16 13 mechanical accuracy 25 07 11 08 07 total 100 52 67 54 43 mean (s.d) 25 (0) 13 (4.3) 16.8 (3.9) 13.5 (3.8) 10.8 (2.6) week 6 content 25 13.5 20 14 11 organisation 25 14 19 16 12 expression 25 17 21 16 14 mechanical accuracy 25 8.5 11 08 07 total 100 53 71 54 44 mean (s.d) 25 (0) 13.3 (3.5) 17.8 (4.6) 13.5 (3.8) 11 (2.9) kruskal-wallis test; mean rank 11.92 20.75 13.58 3.75 h=17.621, df= 3, asymp sig (p)= 0.001 kruskal-wallis post-hoc test control – group b control – group b control – group c group a – group b group a – group c group c – group b test statistic 8.167 17.000 9.833 -8.833 -1.667 7.167 std error 4.073 4.073 4.073 4.073 4.073 4.073 std test statisrtic 2.005 4.174 2.414 -2.169 -0.409 1.760 p (asymp sig.) 0.045 0.000 0.016 0.030 0.682 0.076 p (adj. sig) 0.270 0.000* 0.095 0.181 1.000 0.471 s.d: standard deviations; df: degrees of freedom; asymp sig: asymptotic significance; p: probability value; h: kruskal-wallis test statistic value which approximately follows chi-square distribution with g-1 (g = number of groups) degrees of freedom. adj. sig: adjusted significance based on bonferroni correction. c. p. dozie, a. regis-onuoha, l. i. madu, f. o. egwim, m. c. okere, r. c. ihejirika | elt forum 12 (1) (2023) 9 in figure 1, the total scores were highest at group b for each week. the scores were same for groups a and c at weeks 1 and 3 while group c scores were slightly higher than group a scores at the rest of weeks 2, 4, 5 and 6. figure 1. scores obtained and recorded at different groups of tests over the weeks the line gragh (figure 2) shows that the overall weekly scores recorded greater progress across the weeks in group b with rising trend than in any other group. the trend lowered slightly in group a curve at week 2, and starts to rise gradually as from week 3. group c performances were close to static at weeks 1 to 3. group d (control) shows relatively no trend. figure 2. line graph of progress recorded at different groups of tests over the weeks the overall performance of the students across the weeks is represented in a line graph on figure 3, which clearly shows that on average, 60.3% highest overall was obtained by experimental group b, while the lowest overall; score of 41.8% was obtained in the control group. post-test for experimental and control groups at post-test performance, the results obtained were in line with the weekly treatment results with group b maintaining the highest point (72.5%) while the lowest score was at the control group (45%). this performance is depicted in a bar chart (fig. 4) and a line graph (fig. 5). figure 5 shows that, while the performance score was 72.5% in group b, it was 53.5% in group a, 54% in group c and 45% in group d. it therefore suggests that eclectic teaching approach comprising extensive and mixed components is more likely to lead to greater performance towards achieving nigerian esl learners’ writing proficiency rather than the conventional method currently in use. 4 5 4 3 4 4 .5 4 7 .5 5 2 5 3 5 2 5 4 5 7 .5 6 0 6 7 7 1 4 5 4 4 .5 4 4 .5 4 9 .5 5 4 5 4 4 0 4 1 4 1 4 1 .5 4 3 4 4 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 week 1 week 2 week 3 week 4 week 5 week 6 t o ta l m a rk ( % ) a b c d (control group) 45 43 44.5 47.5 52 53 52 54 57.5 60 67 71 45 44.5 44.5 49.5 54 54 40 41 41 41.5 43 44 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 week 1 week 2 week 3 week 4 week 5 week 6 t o ta l m a rk ( % ) a b c d (control) c. p. dozie, a. regis-onuoha, l. i. madu, f. o. egwim, m. c. okere, r. c. ihejirika | elt forum 12 (1) (2023) 10 figure 3. line graph of average total mark obtained at each group figure 4. post-test bar chart for experimental and control groups figure 5. post-test line graph for experimental and control groups average performance on key indices of essay writing the underlying total performance on key indices of essay writing at each study group was such that the highest overall average performance was obtained in expression at each group (fig.6). organisation was second to expression at groups a, c and d while content with average score of 16.3, was second in group b. mechanical accuracy recorded the lowest average score in all the groups.the performances improved weekly on each indicator for all the groups. there exists observable difference on the indices between the control group and the three other experimental groups, especially group b where the weekly differences appared wider. at individual indices, the widest difference across the groups was in content index, where the difference in average total performance was 11.8 for communicative method (group a) but changed to 16.3 for eclectic teaching method (group b). 47.5 60.3 48.6 41.8 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 group a group b group c group d (control) a v e ra g e t o ta l m a rk o b ta in e d ( % ) 53.5 72.5 54 45 0 20 40 60 80 group a group b group c group d (control) m a rk o b ta in e d ( % ) 53.5 72.5 54 45 0 20 40 60 80 group a group b group c group d (control) s co re ( % ) group c. p. dozie, a. regis-onuoha, l. i. madu, f. o. egwim, m. c. okere, r. c. ihejirika | elt forum 12 (1) (2023) 11 figure 6. underlying average total performance on key indices of essay writing on experimental group (a, b, c) and control group (d). overall assessment of performance on key indices of essay writing in terms of overall proportion on the performance on key indices of essay writing among the students studied, figure 7 showed that the overall average score of 15.4 was obtained in expression, representing 31%, which is the highest obtained. following expression is organization at overall average score of 13.4 (27%), while mechanical accuracy has the lowest overall average score at 7.8 point (16% of the scores). figure 7. overall assessment of performance on key indices of essay writing by the study groups. discussion the primary aim of the present study was to assess which is the most effective of the three teaching strategies employed in this study in enhancing nigerian esl learners’ writing proficiency. our results demonstrated appreciable difference between the experimental and the control groups in terms of writing fluency. the null hypothesis of equality of mean ranks among the groups was clearly rejected in the index study, indicating evidence of significant differences between the groups. at post hoc analysis, the study shows that participants in the experimental group b (who got intervention by means of eclectic approach) improved very significantly in their writing performance (p =0.001). also, experimental groups a and c (who received treatment by means of communicative and task-based methods respectively) showed marginal improvement while the control group d (who were taught using the conventional method) did not show any significant improvement. the present study indicates that the study participants who were judged based on the four cardinal points of content(c), organisation(o), expression(e) and mechanical accuracy (ma) in essay writing were found to have performed accordingly as the teaching approach utilised for each group provided likely outcome. it is important to note that however significant, marginal or 11.8 16.3 12.9 10.3 13.3 15.7 13.6 11.3 15.0 18.3 14.8 13.7 7.5 10.0 7.3 6.5 0.0 2.0 4.0 6.0 8.0 10.0 12.0 14.0 16.0 18.0 20.0 group a group b group c group d a v e ra g e m a rk s o b ta in e d content organisation expression mechanical acccuracy content, 12.8 (26%) organisatio n, 13.4 (27%) expression, 15.4 (31%) mechanical acccuracy, 7.8 (16%) content organisation expression mechanical acccuracy c. p. dozie, a. regis-onuoha, l. i. madu, f. o. egwim, m. c. okere, r. c. ihejirika | elt forum 12 (1) (2023) 12 insignificant the improvements were, the experimental groups moved from a weak point (pre-test) to a considerably strong point (post-test) by virtue of teaching techniques adopted as well as constant writing practice over intervention time. this validates the theory that “one learns to write by writing” (lee and schallert, 2016). according to the results of the study on the summary of overall assessment of our respondents’ performance on the key indices of essay writing, content (c) which represents the information the writer intends to communicate as well as the style adopted for its transfer scored an overall average of 12.8 (26%) out of the 25-mark score allotted each index (fig. 7). it is also noteworthy that the experimental and control groups were duly assessed and graded weekly for six weeks and that accounted for the record of progress achieved within the time of intervention (table 2).the weekly assessment culminated in the underlying average performance on the key indices of essay writing with experimental group b (who got intervention by eclectic approach) scoring the highest average total of 16.3, followed by group c (who received treatment by task-based method)scoring an average total of 12.9 and group a (who got treatment by communicative approach) recorded a total of 11.8 while control group d (who was taught by the conventional method) recorded the lowest average score of 10.3 (fig. 6).as earlier stated by onukwugha (2007), content is the substance, the embodiment and the heartbeat of any composition which means that content is the research base and core of any writing and from content, other prime factors in essay writing take their ascent. the result summative on content (12.8/26%) is clear evidence that nigerian esl learners have not quite hit that point of mastery required of second language learners to be adjudged as native-like competence. also, findings of the study show that organisation (o)which captures sentence formation/structure, thesis statement, topic sentence, presentation/logical sequence of ideas, unity and coherence, effective paragraphing etc recorded an overall average of13.4 (27%) of the 25mark score allotted the organisation index arising from the weekly assessment of the experimental and control groups (fig. 7). a breakdown of individual group performance indicates that group a recorded an average of 13.3, group b recorded an average of 15.7 and group c scored an average of 13.6 while group d scored an average of 11.3 (fig. 6). as reid (2012) typically points out organisation is the arrangement of the larger units of meaning in a paper, taking into consideration patterns of organisation acceptable in specific disciplines. in other words, organisation is the coordinating arm of essay writing as ideas are sufficiently ordered, controlled, unified and presented in a manner that portrays communicating ideas visually albeit in writing to readers. the result aggregate on organisation (13.4/27%) is an indication that there is still so much to be done to enhance learners’ writing competence in the target language. in addition, results of the study show that expression (e) which embodies the writer’s ease/manner of articulation, choice of words, clarity of tone, in fact, the artistic thisness of writing recorded the highest percentage (15.4/31%) of the 25-mark score allotted the expression index based on overall assessment of the study groups (fig. 7). further analysis of data which produced the 15.4 average explains that group a recorded an average of 15.0, group b recorded an average of 18.3whereas group c scored 14.8 and group d scored 13.7 average (fig. 6). quite like other studies, xin (2017) believes that how we construct our sentences and express these ideas may be what distinguishes a good essay from a great essay. for this reason, expression works well with rich, active and compelling vocabulary strength, mastery of word spelling rules and conventions, extensive reading and understanding the oddities of the language, constant grammar practice and fine-tuning to perfection. ultimately, expression is that singular factor that connects the writer/s to the reader/s and writer’s failure to achieve profound expression of thoughts on paper amounts to gross incompetence hence the need to draw the attention of nigerian esl learners to an all-round correctness which is customary in writing. furthermore, the outcome of the study indicates that mechanical accuracy (ma)(which is the framework that checks grammar, punctuation and spelling rules, is in conformity with standard practice in the writing process) recorded the lowest average 7.8 (16%) of the 25-mark score allotted the index as a cumulative effect of the six weeks intervention period on the study groups. interestingly, group b maintained the lead with an average score of 10.0, followed by group a with an average score of 7.5 and group c recorded 7.3 while group d scored 6.5 averages (fig. 7). as onukwugha (2007) succinctly puts it mechanical accuracy has to do with typographical errors, spelling, punctuation and syntax. the extremely poor performance of the study group in mechanical accuracy is an indication that learners have not totally imbibed the culture of correctness in essay c. p. dozie, a. regis-onuoha, l. i. madu, f. o. egwim, m. c. okere, r. c. ihejirika | elt forum 12 (1) (2023) 13 writing which prohibits slang, clipping, abbreviations, heterography, concord error, lexical discordances, punctuation failure etc. the decline in ma despite intervention is not unconnected with the above-mentioned errors which were rife and bristled in their writing and which earlier studies (harris and dilts 2015; abati 2016; dozie and ojilere 2019) have attributed to learners’ tendency to yield to social media inventions which are unhealthy, counter-productive and systematically displacing the original and correct versions of the target language. in other words, writing requires a lot of work, nay detail, and it is expected that essays be error-free and accurate. one may argue that although perfect accuracy is seemingly unattainable, near-perfect accuracy is achievable by esl learners. most importantly, based on the overall performance of each group on all indices, our study draws attention to the fact that group b (representing the eclectic approach set) made steady and remarkable progress while groups a and c (representing the communicative and task-based methods respectively) showed minor improvement and control group d made no significant improvement all through the intervention period. this significant finding corroborates earlier reports by rivers (1981) and al-khuli (1996) that eclectic approach experiments with several other teaching techniques aimed at imparting the desired goal and empowering learners to deal with problems associated with second language learning while engendering greater participation and enhanced result bearing in mind individual learner’s ability. therefore, this goes to show that the benefits of adopting the eclectic approach in teaching nigerian esl learners are valid as the method is proven to make a world of difference in learners’ ability to navigate the usual complex problem of target language proficiency as well as give exceedingly appreciable positive feedbacks in the long run. conclusion writing as an integral part of the language acquisition/learning process is a skill with many ramifications and potency which can duly be assessed based on learners’ performance on various written tasks hence applebee’s (1984) definition of writing as the externalization and remaking of thinking. quite like other language skills, writing which vehiculates thoughts on paper tends to highlight context, personal experience, sociocultural leanings, learning, individual expressive ability etc which individuals naturally bring to focus on the course of writing. in other words, writing not only mirrors learners’ motivational factors and the need to show mastery or competence in the skill but also tries to measure by way of assessment the learners’ aim of just completing the task as learners are driven differently on approach to achieving results. realistically, academic writing is tough, complicated and delicately nuanced, requiring much more than the inclination for and ease with which informal e-mails, short stories, poems etc are put together. nevertheless, there is always a sense of adventure that comes with habituating the writing exercise which transcends a strengthened vocabulary and language skills. the totalities of language teaching/learning with writing at its core helps learners gain understanding and mastery of its basic structure. consequently, our study has found evidence to prove that teaching technique is crucial to language learning. secondly, learners have been found to make progress by dint of constant and consistent writing practice aimed at achieving fluency in the target language. finally, the study establishes that eclectic approach is the best teaching method to ensure that nigerian esl learners attain native-like competence in the english language. the implication is that the findings from this study suggest that teachers of english as a second language should endeavour to include eclectic approach as evidence-based component in teaching esl learners in nigeria. the present study described the impact of eclecticism as instructional approach to teaching and learning english as a second language in nigeria. however, a few factors may limit the generalisation of its outcome. one, the sample size as well as restricted geography of participants forbids extensive generalisation. two, the choice of freshmen as participants limits our findings as it is possible that inclusion of sophomores, juniors and seniors alike may have produced a different result. three, using the study samples’ writing skills to judge their overall communicative competence may have been a sweeping statement as listening, speaking and reading skills are equally integral to second language learning. four, the six weeks period of treatment leading up to post-test limits our current findings as observation over a longer time is likely to generate diverse results. all these limitations suggest the need for more research in the field of second language learning in nigeria. c. p. dozie, a. regis-onuoha, l. i. madu, f. o. egwim, m. c. okere, r. c. ihejirika | elt forum 12 (1) (2023) 14 specifically, as the present research is significantly replicable, future holistic studies addressing all limitations are needed to further finetune the impact of eclectic approach on esl learners’ communicative competence. acknowledgement we are thankful to the dean and students at the school of physical sciences, federal university of technology owerri for their partnership in this research. we thank mr. greg iwuoha for validation of instrument as well as statistical analysis of the study. funding statement the authors received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article. references abati, r. 2016. “social media and the english language”. the guardian, p. 23.retrieved from https//guardian.ng/opinion/social-media-and-the english-language> al-khuli, m.a. (1996).teaching english to arab students. jordan: al-falah house. applebee, a.n. (1984). contexts for learning to write: studies of secondary school instruction. norwood, nj: ablex. applebee, a.n. & langer, j.a. (2011). “ej” extra: a snapshotof writing instruction in middle schools and high schools.the english journal. 100 (6) 14-27 boscolo, p &carotti, l. (2003). does writing contribute to improving high school student’s approach to literature? l1-educational studies in language and literature. 3 (3) 197-224 crosson, a., matsumura, l., correnti, r &arlotta-guerrero, a. (2012). the quality of writing tasks and students’ use of academic language in spanish. the elementary school journal. 112 (3) 469-496 dozie, c.p. & ojilere, i.c. (2019). emerging trends in english among youths in nigeria – an exploratory study. international journal of applied linguistics and english literature. 8 (4) 70-80 harmer, j. (2005). the practice of english language teaching. england: pearson education limited. harris, m and dilts, n.m 2015. “social media and its changes on student’s formal writing” crius: angelo state undergraduate research journal. 3, 191-198. retrieved from docplayer.net/46353898 kari, e. e. (2002). multilingualism in nigeria: the example of rivers state. a paper presented at the seminar on multilingual situation and related cultures in asia and africa. tokyo university of foreign studies. tokyo 25 march 2002. krashen, s.d. (1987). principles and practice in second language acquisition. united states: prenticehall international. kuo, m & lai, c. (2006). linguistics across cultures: the impact of culture on second language learning.journal of foreign language instruction. 1 (1) 1-10. retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id= ed496079 language teaching. international review of applied linguistics in language teaching. lado, r. (1957). linguistics across cultures. ann arbor: university of michigan press. lee, j and schallert, d.l (2016). exploring the reading-writing connection: a yearlong classroom-based experimental study of middle school students developing literacy in a new language. reading research quarterly.52 (2) 143-164 maduekwe, a.n. (2007). principles and practice of teaching english as a second language. lagos: vitaman educational books. nazari, b. & mansouri, s. (2014). dynamic assessment versus static assessment: a study of reading comprehension ability in iranian efl learners. journal of language and linguistic studies. 10 (2) 134-156 onukwugha, u. (2007). the four cardinal points of any good writing: expression, content, organization &technical accuracy. available at https://www.ezinearticles.com prabhu, (1987). second language pedagogy: a perspective. oxford: oxford university press. reid, s and kowalski, d. (2012). organizing documents. writing@csu.colorado state university. available at https://writing.colostate.edu/guides/guide.cfm rivers, w.m. (1981). teaching foreignlanguage skills. chicago: university of chicago press. https://eric.ed.gov/?id= https://www.ezinearticles.com/ mailto:writing@csu.colorado https://writing.colostate.edu/guides/guide.cfm c. p. dozie, a. regis-onuoha, l. i. madu, f. o. egwim, m. c. okere, r. c. ihejirika | elt forum 12 (1) (2023) 15 taylor, b. (1987). teaching esl: incorporating a communicative, student-centred component. in m.h. long & j.c. richards (eds.), methodology in tesol: a book of readings. boston: heinle&heinle publishers. xin, m. (2017). improving expression and flow in essays. available at https://www.vcestudyguides.com https://www.vcestudyguides.com/ putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 174 elt forum 12 (3) (2023) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt using reflective journal writing to develop undergraduates’ metacognitive awareness and writing performance muhammad mukhtar aliyu1, mohammed sani ya’u1, halima sadiya yakubu1, yusuf muhhad jika1, ahmed tanimu jibril1 1department of english and literary study, bauchi state university gadau, nigeria article info ________________ article history: received on 27 april 2023 approved on 15 november 2023 published on 30 november 2023 ________________ keywords: esl writing; metacognitive awareness; nigeria; reflective journal writing; undergraduates ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ many undergraduates face various challenges in esl writing, especially academic writing. most of the students lack the basic knowledge and skills required to accomplish their writing tasks. this is known as metacognition. therefore, this study employed a reflective journal writing strategy to develop undergraduates’ metacognitive awareness and writing performance. the study adopted a pre-andpost quasi-experimental research design with an intact class of (87) third-year undergraduates in a creative writing class. the study employed two instruments for the data collection: a writing task and a metacognitive questionnaire. both instruments were used before and after the reflective journaling for 12 weeks. the pre-and post-test mean scores of the two instruments were compared using a pairedsample t-test. the results of the study show a significant improvement in the participants’ metacognitive awareness level and writing skills after writing the reflective journals. the study makes some recommendations for further studies and practices. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 department of english & literary studies bauchi state university, gadau, nigeria e-mail: amamukhtar@basug.edu.ng http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& m. m. aliyu, m. s. ya’u, h. s. yakubu, y. m. jika, & a. t. jibril| elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 175 introduction academic writing has been a difficult and daunting task for many undergraduates, especially english as a second language (esl) students (dobakhti, 2011; kanoksilapatham, 2003). in nigeria, for instance, english is used as a second language and a medium of instruction in all three levels of education, namely, the primary, the secondary, and the tertiary (omotoyinbo, & olaniyi, 2019; omowumi, 2019; tom-lawyer et al., 2021). however, researchers and lecturers in tertiary institutions have been complaining about the poor quality of undergraduates’ academic writing. studies have revealed various problems in the students’ writing and suggested various solutions (see boscolo et al., 2007; pineteh, 2014; al-khairy, 2013; bian, & wang, 2016). nevertheless, the problems persist due to numerous factors. one such factor is the students’ lack of metacognitive awareness in writing. metacognitive awareness according to wenden (1998), is the understanding that learners have of themselves, the learning task, and the learning process. she categorized metacognitive awareness into three categories: person knowledge, task knowledge, and strategy knowledge. person knowledge refers to the learners' general knowledge of themselves as learners, including things like age, linguistic ability, and motivation, which may help or impede their learning. task knowledge is the understanding of the task's purpose by the learners. it also comprises information about the requirements of a task, such as the knowledge and skills required to do it, as well as knowledge about the nature of the activity in question. the last component of strategy knowledge is the learners' understanding of the methods that should be applied to manage, direct, and regulate learning. thus, in writing, metacognitive awareness refers to students' understanding of their writing abilities, the writing assignment, and the writing process (kim, 2013). she also divides metacognitive knowledge into six categories: metacognitive task knowledge, personal learning process information, strategy knowledge, text and accuracy knowledge, problem-solving knowledge, and discourse features knowledge. the understanding of numerous variables pertinent to a writing assignment, such as the task's goal and the traits of the writing genre, is known as metacognitive knowledge of the task. the understanding of numerous aspects of learning to write in english, such as unique approaches to enhance l2 writing skills by oneself or through teaching, is what she refers to as metacognitive knowledge of the personal learning process. she defines metacognitive knowledge of strategy as the general understanding of successful writing tactics in l2. a plan to make up for a lack of language knowledge, for instance. the use of discourse markers and accurate textual elements in writing is part of metacognitive knowledge of text and accuracy. the understanding of methods for problem-solving when faced with writing challenges, such as sentence construction and time management, is known as metacognitive knowledge of problem-solving. the awareness of the features of conversation in english and l1 in writing and speaking pertains to the final subcomponent, metacognitive knowledge of discourse features. this necessitates the need to come up with alternative strategies such as reflective journal writing that would help to develop the student’s metacognitive awareness and eventually writing skills. reflective journal writing has been an effective strategy for developing students’ writing skills (cisero, 2006; lindroth, 2015). it is a kind of writing that allows students to think, explore, and give their opinions concerning their learning experiences, events, or new information (farrah, 2012). it encourages students to develop their critical thinking skills and intellectual abilities. reflective journal writing, also known as journal keeping, which provides students with a valuable opportunity for extensive reading practices, as stated by peñaflorida (2002). many students find it enjoyable since it allows them the freedom to write about a topic of their choice at their convenience. moreover, engaging in reflective journal writing offers students privacy, freedom, and a safe space to experiment with and develop their ideas as writers. purposeful reflection is found to minimize irrational decision-making and allow someone to make decisions by carefully reviewing data obtained from diverse experiences, leading to purposeful thinking (lindroth, 2015). engaging in communication of their ideas and messages through reflective journal writing enables students to foster self-reflection and make both macroand micro-linguistic improvements, as emphasized by sudirman et al. (2021). theoretically, reflective writing is established on dewey’s idea of reflection. according to him, reflection involves pupils associating material with in-depth experiences and connecting it to other concepts (rodgers, 2002). in contrast, grimmett and erickson (1988) define reflection as a mental state that allows an individual to contemplate past behaviors or experiences, with the aim of avoiding failure in the future. this concept addresses the paradoxical statement that "one cannot m. m. aliyu, m. s. ya’u, h. s. yakubu, y. m. jika, & a. t. jibril| elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 176 know without acting, yet one cannot act without knowing." building on dewey's definition, rodgers (2002) proposes a classification of reflection that comprises four stages: presence in the experience, learning to see, description of the experience, learning to describe and differentiate, analysis, learning to think critically and develop theory, and experimentation, learning to act wisely. it is common for most people to perceive reflection as a process connected to their experiences. several research works have looked into reflective journal writing and discovered that it helps students to improve their writing skills. for instance, reflective journal writing among students is a predictor of academic achievement by tsingos-lucas et al. (2017). moreover, amirkhanova et al. (2016) found that writing reflective journals while studying english as a foreign language in russia has a significant positive effect on students' motivation and self-confidence. students can pose questions and provide their solutions in journals because they are open-ended (lindroth, 2015). in the classroom, journals can be utilised as a tool for self-evaluation to evaluate the educational strategy and philosophical foundations (lee, 2008). in lee's (2008) work, four distinct categories of journals were identified. dialogue journals involved interactions between the teacher and student, where both parties responded to each other's entries. in response journals, students used these journals to share their personal responses and reflections on their educational activities and experiences. teaching journals documented students' thoughts and reactions while they were being taught by their teachers. interactive journals recorded the interactions and exchanges between groups of students, fostering collaborative learning experiences. numerous studies have highlighted the positive influence of reflective journal writing on students' writing skills. knapp (2012) utilized reflective journal writing to gain insights into her students' educational experiences, and she found that it helped them reflect on their "apprenticeships of experience" while providing teachers with valuable resources for facilitating student teaching experiences. ni’ma et al. (2020) conducted research that revealed reflective journal writing to be more effective than traditional writing methods in enhancing students' motivation and promoting their writing skills. this finding was further supported by jannah et al. (2020), who observed a significant positive impact of reflective journal writing on the writing performance of indonesian high school students. similarly, sudirman et al. (2021) discovered that reflective journal writing improved students' ability to effectively communicate ideas through writing. by keeping a reflective journal, students were able to engage in critical reflections and self-discoveries in their writing, allowing them to focus on aspects such as order, unity, coherence, cohesiveness, content, and organization of ideas. in mexico, may-melendez et al. (2019) conducted research that revealed students' positive perceptions of reflective journal writing in their learning process, further highlighting its benefits in educational settings. from the existing literature on reflective journaling, previous studies have primarily concentrated on investigating the effectiveness of reflective journal writing in fostering students' curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking, as well as exploring teachers' perceptions (e.g., towndrow et al., 2008; hume, 2009; farrah, 2012; abednia et al., 2013). some studies have also explored its impact on course performance (e.g., farrah, 2012). however, a noticeable gap in the research is the limited attention given to assessing the effectiveness of reflective journal writing in enhancing undergraduates' metacognitive awareness. understanding how reflective journaling influences metacognition in this context is an area that warrants further investigation and exploration in the field of education and learning. therefore, this study aims to examine the effectiveness of reflective journal writing on students’ writing skills and metacognitive awareness. to guide the study, the following research questions have been formulated: (1) what is the effect of reflective journal writing on undergraduates writing performanca?; and (2) what is the effect of reflective journal writing on undergraduates’ metacognitive awareness? methods a pre-and-post-quasi experimental research design was adopted in the study to examine the effectiveness of reflective journal writing to develop undergraduates’ metacognitive awareness in esl writing and writing performance. specifically, a time series design was adopted where participants were given an essay writing task, a metacognitive questionnaire (pre-test) for one week, treatment (reflective journaling) for 12 weeks, and a post-test for one week to see the effect of manipulating the independent variable (reflective journaling) on the dependent variable (metacognitive awareness and writing performance). the mean scores of the two instruments were compared using a paired-sample t-test. m. m. aliyu, m. s. ya’u, h. s. yakubu, y. m. jika, & a. t. jibril| elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 177 respondents a complete class of eighty-seven (87) third-year undergraduates in nigeria was selected for the study. all the participants were taking english majors and were enrolled in a creative writing course for 14 weeks. instruments the study employed two instruments for the data collection: a writing task and a questionnaire. both instruments were used before and after the reflective journal writing. in the writing task, the participants were asked to write a descriptive essay of 350 to 500 words on any of the following topics: my home town, my best food, my life, my best friend. these topics are selected because they are closely related to the participants’ real-life. the questionnaire used in the study was adapted from kim (2013) and focused on measuring participants' metacognitive awareness. it consisted of 29 closed-ended items presented on a 5-point likert scale. the questionnaire aimed to collect data related to the participants' metacognitive awareness in writing in various areas, including task requirements, personal learning process, strategy utilization, text and accuracy, problem-solving, and discourse features. by employing this questionnaire, the researchers sought to gain valuable insights into the participants' metacognitive awareness in these specific domains. specifically, the metacognitive questionnaire items numbered 1, 2, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, and 24 were designed to gather information about the participants' metacognition regarding task requirements. these items aimed to assess the participants' awareness of various aspects relevant to a writing task, including the purpose of the task and the characteristics of the writing genre. on the other hand, items 4, 6, 12, 17, and 20 were focused on gathering information about the participants' metacognition of their personal learning process. these items aimed to explore various aspects of learning to write in english, such as individual variations in improving l2 writing proficiency, either through instruction or self-directed efforts. additionally, information on the participants' awareness of writing strategies was elicited through items 3, 15, and 28. these items aimed to assess the participants' awareness of effective strategies used to achieve their writing objectives. it also included the strategies participants employed to compensate for a lack of vocabulary knowledge and the approaches they used when faced with difficulties in their writing. the questionnaire also assessed the participants' metacognitive knowledge of text and accuracy through items 5, 9, 19, and 23. these items aimed to gather information about the participants' awareness of using discourse markers and maintaining accurate textual features in their writing. regarding metacognitive knowledge of problem-solving, items 16, 25, 27, and 29 were included in the questionnaire. these items sought to elicit information about the participants' awareness of effective problem-solving strategies when faced with difficulties in writing, such as handling sentence formation challenges or managing time constraints. lastly, items 18, 21, 22, and 26 were designed to gather information about the participants' metacognitive knowledge of discourse features. this included their awareness of the distinct characteristics of english and their native language (l1) discourse in both writing and speaking contexts. reflective journal writing the concept of reflective journaling was explained to the participants so they would know exactly what it comprises. students received instruction on how to keep a reflective journal as well as information on its benefits and main uses. after that, they were given precise instructions on how to keep a reflective notebook. the instructions detail the format to use, the vocabulary to use, examples, and the structure of a reflective journal. finally, the participants were required to keep a weekly reflective notebook for 10 weeks straight on any subject connected to their experiences in the class and at school in general. data collection procedures during week 1 of the data collection, the participants were required to complete two tasks. first, they were asked to write an essay on a given topic. second, they were asked to fill out the metacognitive awareness questionnaire to assess their initial metacognitive awareness levels. throughout the treatment period, which spanned 10 consecutive weeks, the participants were instructed to maintain a weekly reflective journal. in these journals, they could write about any topic m. m. aliyu, m. s. ya’u, h. s. yakubu, y. m. jika, & a. t. jibril| elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 178 related to their experiences in the class and the school in general. the purpose of the reflective journal was to encourage them to reflect on their learning experiences and develop their metacognitive skills. after the 10-week treatment period, the participants were again asked to complete two tasks. they were required to write another essay, similar to the one they wrote in week 1, and also fill out the metacognitive awareness questionnaire once more. this allowed the researchers to assess any potential changes or improvements in the participants' writing and metacognitive awareness after engaging in the reflective journaling process. data analysis to address research question 1, which is on the effectiveness of reflective journaling on undergraduates writing performance, the pre-and-post-treatment essays written by the participants were graded and the mean scores were compared using a paired-sample t-test. jacobs et al.’s (1981) scale. was used to score the writing scripts. the scale has five components: content, organization, language use, vocabulary, and mechanics. the components are described on a scale of 0-100. each component of the scale comprises the following four categories: excellent to very good, good to average, fair to poor, and very poor. the following is the description of the components. • content: knowledge of the topic, viability and development of a thesis relevant to the topic • organisation: fluency of expression, organisation, logical sequencing, and cohesive topic • vocabulary: the range of vocabulary, word choice, forms and usage, registers related to topic • language use: sentence structures; errors of agreement, tense, number, word order, articles, pronouns, and prepositions • mechanics: spelling, punctuation, capitalisation, paragraphing, etc. to answer research question 2 on the effectiveness of reflective journal writing on the respondents’ awareness of metacognition in writing, a paired-sample t-test was conducted to compare the mean scores of the questionnaire for the pre-and post-treatment. before conducting the analysis, reliability and normality test were run to ensure that the assumptions of the a paired-sample t-test are fulfilled. the findings from the reliability test of the metacognitive questionnaire demonstrate a high level of consistency among the items. the overall cronbach's alpha for the six questionnaire components was calculated to be 0.95, indicating a strong internal consistency. moreover, each individual component also displayed cronbach's alpha values ranging from 0.80 to 0.94, which are considered to indicate very good internal consistency (george & mallery, 2003). table 1: reliability of the metacognitive questionnaire components cronbach's alpha task requirements 0.92 personal learning process 0.86 strategy use 0.93 text and accuracy 0.80 problem solving 0.92 discourse features 0.87 overall 0.95 the outcomes of the normality test indicate that the data exhibited a normal distribution. the skewness values ranged from -.108 to -.902, while the kurtosis values ranged from -.011 to -1.049. these results were considered acceptable according to george and mallery (2003), signifying that the data was normally distributed and suitable for parametric analysis, to compare the preand posttreatment scores on the questionnaires, a paired-sample t-test was utilized. table 2: skewness and kurtosis for the metacognitive questionnaire components skewness kurtosis m. m. aliyu, m. s. ya’u, h. s. yakubu, y. m. jika, & a. t. jibril| elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 179 task requirements -.902 .608 personal learning process -.288 -.421 strategy use .720 -.526 text and accuracy .108 -.844 problem solving -.856 -.011 discourse features -.393 -1.049 findings and discussion effectiveness of reflective writing journal on undergraduates' writing performance table 3 displays a comparison of preand post-writing scores based on a scale comprising five (5) components as described above. the aim is to investigate the effectiveness of reflective writing journals on undergraduates' writing performance, as addressed in research question 1. the results of the paired-sample t-test, which compares the preand post-mean scores of the writing task, indicate a significant difference in the overall mean scores of the participants' writing (t = 9.09, p = .000). this suggests that reflective journal writing had a positive effect on the participants' writing performance. moreover, significant improvements were observed in all components of the participants' writing after the treatment: content (t = 13.78, p = .000), organization (t = 8.93, p = .000), vocabulary (t = 3.31, p = .004), language use (t = 3.38, p = .004), and mechanics (t = 6.01, p = .000). this indicates that reflective journal writing positively influenced each aspect of the participants' writing. a summary of the results of the paired-sample t-test is provided in table 3. the findings support the effectiveness of reflective journal writing in enhancing undergraduates' writing performance across various components. table 3: comparison of pre-and post-writing scores (n= 87) components mean sd std. er mean 95% confidence interval of the difference t-value df sig. (2tailed) lower upper content 3.000 0.92 0.217 2.540 3.459 13.78 17 .000 organisation 2.083 0.98 0.233 1.591 2.575 8.93 17 .000 vocabulary 1.305 1.67 0.394 0.473 2.137 3.31 17 .004 language use 1.527 1.91 0.450 0.576 2.479 3.38 17 .004 mechanics 0.777 0.54 0.129 0.505 1.050 6.01 17 .000 overall 8.694 4.05 0.955 6.677 10.711 9.09 17 .000 effectiveness of reflective writing journal on undergraduates’ metacognitive awareness to address research question 2 of the study, which focuses on the effect of reflective journal writing on undergraduates' metacognitive awareness, a paired-sample t-test was also conducted. this test aimed to compare the mean scores of the metacognitive questionnaires before and after the reflective journal writing intervention. the results of the paired-sample t-test indicate that there are significant differences in the overall mean scores of the metacognitive questionnaire before and after the reflective journal writing (t = -3.725, p = .000). this suggests that engaging in reflective journal writing had a positive impact on the participants' metacognitive awareness. furthermore, the results reveal significant differences in all components of metacognition for preand post-treatment reflective journal writing. these components include personal knowledge (t = -3.531, p = .000), task knowledge (t = -3.334, p = .001), strategy knowledge (t = -3.524, p = .000), planning (t = -3.727, p = .000), monitoring (t = -2.740, p = .006), and evaluation (t = -3.746, p = .000). this indicates that the reflective journal writing intervention positively influenced various aspects of the participants' metacognitive awareness. the detailed results of the statistical analysis are presented in table 4, providing a comprehensive overview of the positive effects of reflective journal writing on undergraduates' metacognitive awareness. table 4: paired-sample t-test for pre-and post-treatment metacognitive scores (n=87) m. m. aliyu, m. s. ya’u, h. s. yakubu, y. m. jika, & a. t. jibril| elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 180 components pre mean post. mean mean diff. t value sig.(2 tailed) personal knowledge 36.15 43.72 -7.76 -3.53 .000 task knowledge 14.33 16.15 -1.72 -3.33 .001 strategy knowledge 28.26 34.37 -6.11 -3.52 .000 planning 23.98 36.26 -12.37 -3.72 .000 monitoring 14.37 15.50 -1.22 -2.74 .006 evaluation 15.98 21.98 -6.00 -3.75 .000 overall score 132.61 167.61 -35.00 -3.73 .000 p value = .05 interestingly, both the participants’ writing performance and metacognitive awareness levels increased beyond expectations, as shown by tables 1 and 2 above. based on these findings, it can be concluded that reflective journaling has positive effects on nigerian undergraduates’ metacognitive awareness which eventually improve their writing performance. students are encouraged to critically reflect on their writing processes and pinpoint opportunities for development by using reflective journals. in addition, metacognitive awareness supports students' increased self-awareness of their learning and thought processes, enabling them to plan, monitor, and evaluate their writing more effectively. discussion the present study focused on examining the effectiveness of reflective journal writing in improving undergraduates' metacognitive awareness in english as a second language (esl) writing. the findings demonstrated a significant positive impact of reflective journal writing on the students' metacognitive awareness in esl writing. these results are consistent with previous research, such as the studies conducted by klassen & willoughby (2003) and tsai (2009), which have also suggested that reflective writing can be a beneficial tool for enhancing students' metacognitive skills. the present study's findings align with those of various other research works, including tsingos-lucas, bosnic-anticevich, schneider, and smith (2017), who observed that reflective journal writing and metacognitive awareness play a crucial role in improving students' writing abilities. similarly, research conducted by ni'ma, sumardi, and tarjana (2020) supported the notion that reflective journal writing is more effective than traditional writing methods in enhancing students' writing skills. additionally, may-melendez, balderas-garza, alcocer-vazquez, and quijano-zavala (2019) found that students in mexico had a positive perception of using reflective journals as part of their educational process. overall, the findings of the present study contribute to the growing body of evidence highlighting the benefits of reflective journal writing for enhancing students' metacognitive awareness and writing skills in esl contexts. several explanations can be offered to explain the positive impact of reflective journal writing on students’ metacognitive awareness in esl writing. firstly, the process of reflection can encourage nigerian undergraduates to monitor and evaluate their learning strategies and identify areas for improvement. this is because most of the methods adopted by nigerian teachers do not engage the students in reflective writing. by reflecting on their writing processes and experiences, students can gain insights into their strengths and weaknesses, and develop strategies to enhance their writing skills (ward & lee, 2003; yancey, 1998). secondly, most nigerian undergraduates do not keep records of their learning experiences for improvement because the traditional teacher-centered approach adopted in most schools does not encourage that. also, many students are after the certificate, thus, their focus is just “read to pass”. thus, reflective journal writing can provide students with a safe space to express their thoughts and feelings about their writing experiences. this is particularly relevant for esl students who may feel anxious or self-conscious about their writing abilities. through reflective writing, students can explore their feelings and attitudes towards writing, and develop a more positive and confident mindset towards the writing process (nakamaru, 2014; tsui, 1996). finally, reflective journal writing can help to bridge the gap between students' current and desired levels of proficiency in esl writing. by engaging in a process of self-reflection, students can identify their strengths and weaknesses, and develop strategies to bridge the gap between their current and desired levels of proficiency (bray & tang, 2009; flower & hayes, 1981). m. m. aliyu, m. s. ya’u, h. s. yakubu, y. m. jika, & a. t. jibril| elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 181 conclusion this study examines the impact of reflective journal writing strategy to develop undergraduates’ awareness of metacognition and writing performance. the results show a significant improvement in the participants’ post-treatment writing and metacognitive awareness level. this suggests the positive effect of reflective journal writing on writing performance and metacognitive awareness level. although the present study suggests that reflective journal writing can be a valuable tool for enhancing undergraduates’ metacognitive awareness in esl writing, the study has some limitations. firstly, the sample size is relatively small, which limits the generalizability of the findings. also, there is a lack of control and experimental groups. the study was also conducted for only one semester and the participants were not interviewed to get their experiences and perceptions regarding reflective journal writing. future studies should address the limitations of the study by using a larger sample size, both control and experimental groups. further studies should also investigate the participants’ experiences and perceptions of reflective journal writing. despite the limitations, the study is useful as it provides insight to researchers, teachers and policymakers on how to design and implement curricula on writing to include reflective writing journals based on students’ educational level, interests and field of study. overall, the study suggests that reflective journaling can be an effective tool for promoting metacognitive awareness in writing among nigerian undergraduates. through reflective journaling, students can develop a deeper understanding of their writing processes and strategies to monitor and regulate their writing. this, in turn, can help them to become more effective writers. funding statement the authors did not receive any funding for this study. references abednia, a., hovassapian, a., teimournezhad, s., & ghanbari, n. 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(1998). metacognitive knowledge and language. applied linguistics, 19 (4), 515–537. et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 207 elt forum 12 (3) (2023) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt implementing ai replika in higher education speaking classes: benefits and challenges girindra putri dewi saraswati1, alief noor farida1, yuliati1 1-3universitas negeri semarang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received on 22 october 2023 approved on 30 november 2023 published on 30 november 2023 ________________ keywords: artificial intelligence; native speaker; speaking classes ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ the demand from students for native english speakers as interlocutors justifies the importance of this research. because of the nation's location and financial constraints, speaking course participants are said to lack experience speaking with native speakers. gaining a tangible understanding of how ai replika can be used to replace native speakers’ role in becoming students’ source of native speaker is the anticipated outcome of this project. this study investigates the benefits and difficulties of using ai replika in speaking classes. with the help of ai replika, students may practice speaking english in real time or directly with the use of artificial intelligence. the features used by students can be either chatbot or speaking robot. this study used a descriptive qualitative methodology. a case study methodology is applied. interviewing and participant observation were employed as data collection methods. three basic types of triangulations are used in data validity techniques: theoretical, methodological, and source data triangulation. based on the results, it shows that ai replica can be used as the alternative on the absence of native speaker in practicing speaking. however, the role of teachers in the classroom still cannot be replaced by the ai. students feel that although ai replika brings benefit for them to practice speaking before class, however, they still need teachers to explain the context of the speaking content. students also feel that the ai replika brings more literal meaning of an idea rather than able to understand the cultural meaning behind the talk. in the end, ai technology can improve language acquisition with a well-balanced approach, but real native speaker presence for more humanist approach is still needed. © 2023 universitas negeri semarang  correspondent address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: girindraputrids@mail.unnes.ac.id mailto:girindraputrids@mail.unnes.ac.id girindra putri dewi saraswati, alief noor farida, & yuliati |elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 208 introduction currently popular in education is the technical area of artificial intelligence (ai). ai may be used as a tool in the teaching and learning process to help students to practice (jaiswal & arun 2021). furthermore, because ai allows for unfettered access, it was created to provide inclusive access to the area of education. globally, peer learning experts and instructors have benefited from the deployment of ai apps as tools (edwards & cheok, 2018). ai can also facilitate sophisticated collaborative learning and personalize learning in a variety of ways. unbeknownst to us, artificial intelligence has crept into everyday life through things like smartphone apps (sánchez-prieto, et. al., 2020). ai is a major factor in the autonomous acquisition of language skills in the field of english education, including online speaking, writing, and listening practice. ai generally serves as a buddy or partner when learning a foreign language (ji, han, & ko, 2023). one such example is chatbots, which are now extensively utilized by language learners. looking at the current situation, studying the linguistic features of a language is no longer the only way to study languages. acquiring language skills primarily involves comprehending and expressing both implicit and explicit meanings in communication. in a communication exercise, this message is communicated both orally and in writing (sifakis, 2019). accordingly, being proficient in english as an international language entail being able to utilize it as a tool for international communication in addition to having a strong vocabulary (watterson, 2008). therefore, speaking classes are now offered every semester by the english education study program at the faculty of languages and arts (fbs) unnes in response to this demand. these courses are having a fixed structured so that students must go through them in phases. new students begin with intensive speaking classes, then transactional conversation, casual conversation, factual speech, and critical speech. those speaking courses will enhance the students’ skills that are essential for anybody hoping to become a teacher. although status quo show that lectures and the lecturers can currently serve as a means for students to learn how to speak, it is also believed that students also need some native exposure to build an english academic atmosphere as most students are in monocultural class or have similar cultural and linguistic backgrounds with their other friends. on the other words, mostly in indonesian higher education, the classroom environment does not yet offer a context for natural cross-cultural communication. this is one of the challenges associated with learning spoken english in many literary works (kapur, 2018). many applications are now being promoted by the ai community for learning spoken english. the replika application is among them. since its release in 2018, replika, the most well-liked and highly rated social chatbot in the apple and google play stores, has drawn millions of users. replika describes its app as a "friend who is always listening" or "an ai version of yourself," and it is frequently used as a guide for selfdirected english language learning (weber-guskar, 2022). replika is not like other companion chatbots that respond to user vocal cues; instead, its responses are predicated on generative pretrained transformer 3 (gpt3). gpt3 is a network language model created using a distinct dataset of user chats. this enables the program to choose a language response from the datasets over a million replies. as a result, replika is more adaptable and has a larger word recognition range (pentina, hancock, & xie, 2023). in short, replika is an advanced ai that is well-developed to assist students to practice speaking and writing autonomously. it is considered suitable for students studying in higher education as their nature are mature, adaptable, independent, and organized (knox, 1992). in addition, the rapid advancement of ai technology has important implications for learning and teaching. large investments have been made to integrate ai into teaching and learning (cope, 2021). this investment is not only about profit orientation but also educational betting. ai developers know little about the science being studied and lack pedagogical knowledge for effective implementation of ai in teaching (luckin & cukurova, 2019). in addition, ai developers often fail to meet the expectations of their users, namely teachers (cukurova, kent, & luckin, 2023). making ai pedagogically relevant requires teachers to determine when and how ai plays a role in the teaching and learning process. even though ai plays a very important role in autonomous learning outside the classroom, there is still a need for teachers to play a role in directing students' learning direction (barnes, et. al., 2005). the use of replika in english language learning, both structured in the classroom and autonomously outside the classroom, has been widely used (sánchez-prieto, 2020; kim, 2019; lin & mubarok, 2021). however, previous researchers still focused on the use of chatbot features in replika. the chatbot feature is then discussed in relation to its implementation in learning to write and speak. in relation to this, replika also has a real-time talking robot feature which allows students to practice speaking directly with pronunciation and language choices that are considered at a native-like level. the use of this feature in speaking classes has not been discussed in existing literature. therefore, responding to the urgency of this research, namely the need for learners or students to practice spoken language with native speakers, the features of the ai replika which is talking robot in speaking lectures is researched in this study. girindra putri dewi saraswati, alief noor farida, & yuliati |elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 209 the ai replika feature talking here are the chatbot or written conversation and ai speaking robot that allows users to have a real-time spoken conversation partner with a wide choice of themes and the robot's spoken language capabilities which are native-like or equivalent to native speakers. ai replika can be used as a solution to students' lack of access to english native speaker exposure in learning. here now, speaking english is no longer just theory and practice in the form of role playing, but is more about implementing the language in the context of native speakers orally. research questions underlying this study are: (1) how is artificial intelligence (ai) replika implemented as a replacement for the role of native speakers in speaking lectures? (2) what are the advantages of implementing replika ai as a substitute for the role of native speakers in speaking lectures? (3) what are the challenges in implementing replika ai as a replacement for the role of native speakers in speaking lectures? this research will examine the results of implementing ai replika in speaking lectures. using descriptive qualitative methods, this research will identify the implementation of artificial intelligence (ai) replika as a substitute for the role of native speakers in speaking lectures, explaining the advantages and challenges in implementation practice in the field. this is done by studying good practices and comparing the results with previous theories about english speaking skills and theories about communication in the language, as well as the role of culture in conveying oral messages. methods the design of this research is case study. the case study is research that aims to produce detailed findings about a case by connecting the case with a theory that already exists and that the results of the findings cannot be generalized (bryman, 2016). case study research is focused on one selected phenomenon that wants to be understood in depth, by ignoring other phenomena. in other words, case study describes certain characteristics or problems (denzin & lincoln, 2011). one phenomenon discussed can be a school leader or educational leader, a group of students, a program, a process, a policy implementation, or a concept. apart from that, this research is implementation research, namely research carried out with the aim of applying, testing and evaluating the ability of a theory/method applied in solving practical problems, so that it can be used for the benefit of humans, both individuals and groups (desimone, et al., 2004). implementation research in education is concerned with improving the quality of technical strategies and learning models to increase student interest and motivation in learning, the quality of learning media, or curriculum implementation. in relation to this research, what is being studied is the implementation of ai replika in english speaking lectures. this research is in the english education study program, faculty of language and arts, universitas negeri semarang, with the research subjects are students of the english education study program who are taking the casual conversation course in the even 2022/2023 academic year. the students involved in the research were 39 students from class b who in the previous semester also attended speaking lectures with researchers, so it was hoped that the development of their speaking skills could be seen. in other words, the period of data collection was 1 semester or 4 months during the casual conversation class was conducted. the study target is related to the implementation of ai replika. while the study objectives are related to the advantages and challenges of implementing ai replika. this specifically examines the learning resources studied by students in relation to speaking courses, especially about how students learn to speak spoken english using ai replika. the data collection techniques applied in this research used participant observation and interview techniques. the participant observation technique was chosen because the researcher was involved as a research subject. the involvement of the teacher is because researchers were teachers of the transactional conversation course in the class studied. it is stated that participant observation allows researchers to participate as subjects and at the same time observe the object being studied (reilly, 2010). this is used to gain a deeper understanding of the research object being studied. after collecting data through participant observation techniques, interviews were conducted to complete the data. interviews were conducted outside learning hours. the subjects interviewed were students who were students of the casual conversation course. the data validity technique applied in this research is the data triangulation technique as described by denzin and lincoln (2011) as a heuristic device for researchers. this data triangulation includes source data triangulation which uses numbers of data in research, theoretical triangulation which uses various perspectives to interpret a single group of data, and methodological triangulation which uses various methods to study a single problem. the data analysis technique in this research applies data analysis techniques as used by nasution in analyzing natural learning phenomena (nasution, 1988). likewise, such data analysis is in the writings of miles and huberman related to learning in the scientific context of educational psychology (huberman & girindra putri dewi saraswati, alief noor farida, & yuliati |elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 210 miles, 2002). this data analysis is known as interactive model analysis which includes data reduction, data presentation, and drawing conclusions/verification. the data analyzed is mainly about the implementation of replika ai in english speaking lectures. . findings and discussion this study is trying to find out the answers of three main questions, i.e. how is the implementation of ai replika? what are the benefits of implementing the ai replika in speaking classes? what are the challenges of of implementing ai replika in the speaking classes? though those questions can be answered based on two perspectives, the lecturers and students’ perspectives, this study explores more from the students’ perspectives. implementation of artificial intelligence (ai) replika as a substitution for the role of native speakers in speaking lectures ai replika in this study is not used to change the role of lecturers in teaching the students, it is more to help students in practicing their speaking after classes. however, the instructions are all made by lecturers on what kind of speaking topic should be performed by the students the following week. in the casual conversation class, lecturers were explaining about some theories related of conversation, degree of formalities, and howto maintaining communication, as well as some cultural content attached in a spoken conversation. students were then given an opportunity to explore some videos of casual conversation as the background knowledge. after the theory, students were all given the opportunities to practice speaking with pairs by exploring some role plays with either the given contexts by lecturers or with the contexts they created themselves while referring to the topic set by the lecturers. after finishing the activities, students were then being introduced to ai replika. students were first introduced to the chatbot features where they can explore some vocabularies used by the robot with the topic students previously chose. after finishing the chatbot exploration, students were introduced with the features of speaking robot where they can have the opportunities for a direct conversation discussing the topic, they chose themselves. the following week after students were given the opportunities to explore the ai, lecturers divided them into pairs and gave them a certain topic for them to explore the following week. this time, they will have to practice their speaking with the ai for a week before they practiced doing conversation with their peers. the practice of students with the robot to talk directly as their speaking practice was done for 4 weeks. after finishing the activities and the whole classes for 16 meetings including 2 meetings for exam days, students were interviewed for their perceptions of the benefits and challenges of using ai replika, especially for their exposure of native-like accent, pronunciation, vocabulary choices, and the cultural talk. in general, students feel happy and delightful to have a speaking partner which can suit their time and make them feel freedom. most of the students feel they can talk freely with the robot, though the internet connection sometimes limits them from having a fluent conversation with the robot. the robot also can not naturally engage into a conversation which context is not programmed for them. as students are all coming from indonesia with the culture based on indonesian context, sometimes conversation is not smooth between them and the robot. therefore, based on the interview conducted with the students, it is summarized that the implementation of ai replika in the speaking classes will be helpful for the students if the lecturers or facilitators can modify with several activities in the classroom as follows: lecturers to set clear instruction students feel that without a clear instruction from the lecturers, ai replika will not play a significant role for them. some students also feel confused on how to start a conversation with the replika. an instruction from the lecturers can help them to start talking with their ai replika. instruction here means a clear context and goals delivered by the lecturers on each topic so students have a direction on what should be asked and what should be discussed with the ai replika. lecturers to integrate speaking practice with the students’ peers though all the students mentioned how grateful they are with the presence of ai replika to help them practice speaking, speaking with robot is not always pleasant. some students mentioned that when they are not in campus and the wi-fi provider is not considerably strong, the ai replika robot they are having conversation with will not able to provide response. therefore, some students do not enjoy talking with robots but prefer to have a chat with the chatbot features. in the classroom, the vocabularies they obtain from girindra putri dewi saraswati, alief noor farida, & yuliati |elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 211 the chatting session with the replika can be implemented in the conversation that students have with their peers. lecturers to provide cultural knowledge while replika may not completely mimic the nuances of human conversation, it can still expose students to different language styles. however, students’ cultural context and idiomatic expressions may not always be accurately reflected. students also experience absence of the cross-cultural understanding course. this cultural knowledge also includes degree of formality in english so students can practice different contexts with the ai. one student said that the conversation she had with the robot is not pleasant as robot talk about improper content during the conversation. it happens that the language choice chosen by students also bring different meaning to the ai. lecturers to provide feedback to the student’s activity with the ai replika ai replika is a machine, lecturers need to allow their time to check the progress that the students make and provide feedback to the process. lecturers can also give students suggestion on how frequent they should practice with the ai replika what kind of further activity students can do to follow up their activity with the ai replika. students also need to be motivated by their mentor or lecturers that what they are doing is good that they will feel confident to have use ai replika for their independent practice. some students mentioned that they still need their lecturer’s affirmation to make sure that what they are doing is correct. lecturers to tell students about privacy considerations one student mentioned an unpredicted comment by telling us on how important is to keep privacy and data security issues in mind. he mentioned on how using both chatbot and the talking robot are very interesting for him till he wants to do it endlessly and start to ask questions outside the topic given by lecturers. he wondered on what happened if the chatbot asked him private questions and he answered in detail to response along with some honest information that he has about the specific questions. it triggers us to remind students to keep their privacy in secret especially if replika or similar tools collect user data. we suggest students to ensure compliance with relevant privacy regulations and obtain appropriate permissions if necessary. lecturers and students to stay informed and keep updated lastly, students also need to be informed that ai that can help them to practice speaking independently is ai replika. they will always need to broaden their knowledge by watching videos or by regularly checking for updates or improvements to replika or similar ai tools. the field of conversational ai is growing rapidly, and new features may improve the suitability of these tools for language learning. the idea of integrating replika as a substitute for native speakers in speaking classes can be an innovative and effective language learning approach. as mentioned by cope, kalantzis, & searsmith (2021), education world is now getting familiar with the use of ai in the teaching and learning process. however, this integration must be done thoughtfully, considering the strengths and limitations of ai tools. ai replika can provide valuable opportunities for pronunciation practice, vocabulary expansion, and conversation simulation, creating a dynamic and engaging learning environment (weber-guskar, 2022). while replika adds a technological dimension to language learning, it should not completely replace human interaction. the personal and cultural nuances in human conversation, as well as the ability to navigate real-world scenarios, are important aspects that may not be fully captured by ai. therefore, it is recommended to complement replika interactions with opportunities for students to engage with native speakers and participate in group activities. regular feedback and evaluation by the lecturers also are key components of this integration. providing constructive feedback regarding language accuracy, fluency, and communication skills allows students to perfect their oral language abilities (luckin & cukurova, 2019). in short, successful implementation of replika in the speaking classroom requires a balanced approach, combining the benefits of ai technology with the irreplaceable value of human interaction. by carefully designing exercises, setting clear goals, and maintaining focus on student progress, educators can harness replika's potential as a support for students’ independent practice. advantages in implementing replika ai as a substitute for the role of native speakers in speaking lectures from the interview conducted with the students, we then identified the students’ perception about the benefits and challenges in implementing ai replika as their ‘native-like speaking buddy’. some benefits include how ai replika is effective and practical for students to independently learning speaking. most students mentioned that by using ai replika, they can learn how to think and speak like native speaker. though they realize that the native-like model is a robot that can only answers based on the program inputted girindra putri dewi saraswati, alief noor farida, & yuliati |elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 212 to them, but at least they can have an interactive practice instead of one way learning using youtube videos, for example. some misinterpretation by robots also makes them realize that their content of spoken conversation or their language choice might not be familiar to the robot as the program cannot read it. it makes them have the capabilities to paraphrase their sentences to obtain a suitable meaning and objectives of the conversation. some other answers related to advantages of replika for the students are: accessible practice all of students mentioned how replika provides them with an easily accessible platform for language practice. students can be flexible to do the conversation at their own place and their most convenient time. they can also do the speaking practice while resting, lying on their bed, and it can be paused and continued whenever the students need. ai replika provides more frequent and flexible language practice. replika's anytime accessibility allows learners to practice speaking whenever they have the motivation or free time. this continued availability supports a more consistent and immersive language learning experience. personalized learning replika's ai capabilities enable personalized interactions. the tool can adapt to individual learning styles, providing customized practice and feedback tailored to each student's needs, which may be challenging in a traditional classroom environment. some students mentioned that they feel reluctant to raise their hand in the classroom to practice while given chances by their lecturers. some students also mentioned that some context provided by the lecturers sometimes is out of their knowledge or understanding. it makes them feel shy to raise their hand and practice. using ai repplika allows them to personalize their learning based on the topic that they like and familiar. pronunciation improvement talking with robot of ai replika brings students to improve their pronunciation through repetition and feedback. based on most students ai replika can assist students in improving their pronunciation. ai can provide instant feedback on pronunciation accuracy, helping learners perfect their spoken language skills. several students also mention that ai replika make them aware that some of their pronunciations are incorrect which makes robot cannot understand them. by constantly trying to get an accurate answer from the robot, students learn how to pronounce well and correctly at the same time. vocabulary expansion ai replika also broadens students’ horizon on new vocabularies. students argue that ai replika can introduce and reinforce new vocabulary in context. this ai can provide explanations, synonyms, and usage examples, thereby contributing to a richer and more varied vocabulary for language learners. increased confidence having a conversation with replika can increase students' confidence in speaking. the non-judgmental nature of ai can create a low-pressure environment, allowing students to practice without fear of making mistakes. more importantly, ai replika which allows students to access anytime and anywhere make students’ independent learning become private. some students who claim to have high anxiety level think that this private and personalized practice with ai can boost their confidence in doing speaking practice. cultural exposure while not a perfect substitute for human cultural context, replika can expose learners to different language styles and expressions. this exposure broadens their understanding of language use in a variety of contexts. the confused ai replika or the disconnect answers from replika make most of students aware that their way of producing english is not quite understandable based on the context of native country which makes them voluntarily change the context to suit their speaking needs. replika's interactive nature can make language learning more engaging and fun. students may find the conversational aspect of interacting with ai interesting and motivating. ai replika knows almost every topic and context in speaking which make replika is entertaining. some students also mentioned that replika offers consistent and immediate feedback on language usage. this real-time feedback loop can speed up the learning process by immediately addressing errors and reinforcing correct language patterns. in the field of language education, replika is present as a versatile tool that offers a multitude of benefits for learners. it is easy-to-access platform transforms language practice, allowing students to engage in conversations at their own pace and convenience, encouraging more frequent and flexible language practice (pentina, hancock, & xie, 2023). what sets replika apart is its ai capabilities, which enable girindra putri dewi saraswati, alief noor farida, & yuliati |elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 213 personalized interactions tailored to individual learning styles. this adaptability ensures that students receive tailored practice and feedback, a feature that is often difficult to replicate in a traditional classroom environment. beyond the constraints of the physical environment, replika excels at honing pronunciation skills through repetition and instant feedback, contributing to the refinement of spoken language skills. it also serves as a guide to vocabulary expansion by introducing and reinforcing new words in context, increasing the richness and diversity of the learner's linguistic repertoire. additionally, replika's non-judgmental nature creates a low-pressure environment that increases students' confidence in speaking, which is an invaluable asset in language acquisition. its flexibility and effectivity ensure that students can practice speaking whenever the motivation strikes, fostering a consistent and immersive language learning experience. providing consistent and immediate feedback on language use becomes a catalyst for accelerated learning, addressing errors promptly and reinforcing correct language patterns. although replika introduces students to different language styles and expressions, it is important to realize that replika does not replace the irreplaceable human element. cultural exposure, increased engagement through interactive learning, and the ability to track progress over time are significant benefits, but for a comprehensive language learning environment, ai replika implementation must be complemented by human interaction and real-world cultural experiences. in addition, culture is beyond machine algorithm. it is complex and very person related (watterson, 2008). it is however, it is considered suitable enough for one of individual practice tool for students in higher education as it suits the character of students at higher education who are independent, innovative, and adaptive (cope, kalantzis, & searsmith, 2021). challenges in implementing ai replika as a substitute for the role of native speakers in speaking lectures along with the benefits, students also mentioned some challenges they found while using ai replika. all students mentioned that ai replika needs speedy internet connection especially for talking interactively with robot. however, the chatbot features is friendlier for students’ finance. others feel that the fee for regular subscription for enjoying all features in the ai replike also cost them a fortune, so some prefers to use the basic mode which is the ai replika chatbot. some other challenges faced by students are as follows: lack of emotional intelligence students complained that replika, like many other ai tools, lacks true emotional intelligence. it can be difficult to understand and respond appropriately to the emotional nuances inherent in human communication, limiting its effectiveness in certain aspects of language learning, such as empathetic or nuanced conversation. however, they are all aware that the lack ness is the limitation of robot that they can only see in human. limited understanding of cultural context some students see the limited understanding of cultural context is the disadvantage of using ai replika. ai replika which cannot fully understand the intricacies of cultural context can result in misinterpretation of cultural nuances and idiomatic expressions. this will be considerably dangerous if the students feel demotivated only after having miscommunication with the ai replika. overemphasis on fakeness some numbers of students also think that ai replika feel is unnatural for speaking practice. it leads to a robotic and unnatural speaking style for them, as they may unintentionally imitate patterns and phrases used by the ai, which may not always align with actual spoken language. students than feel like they are not producing a natural spoken english. dependence on technology several numbers of students feel that they are afraid that they will be too comfortable with technology as they can explore emojis and all features like dressing up the replika which is addictive. they started to do regular updates and maintenance since it is critical to the effectiveness of ai tools. outdated algorithms or lack of updates can lead to reduced performance and effectiveness in language learning. replika's adaptability is based on predetermined algorithms, and replika may have difficulty dynamically adapting to unexpected changes in conversation or responding effectively to non-standard language use, thereby limiting its ability to adapt to a variety of learning scenarios. over-reliance on replika can create a dependency on technology, potentially hindering a learner's ability to communicate effectively in real-world and offline scenarios where technology is not available. limited speech recognition accuracy girindra putri dewi saraswati, alief noor farida, & yuliati |elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 214 several students commented that they may still face challenges in accurately capturing varying accents, speech rates, and subtle variations in pronunciation. some students cannot understand ai replika robot because they think the robot is too fast in talking to them. inability to provide contextualized real-world scenarios while replika can simulate conversations, it may struggle to provide authentic and contextually relevant scenarios that learners might encounter in real-life situations, thereby limiting the practical application of the students’ language skills. it is understandable that along with the positive side of certain technology, there are also some negative sides of it. replika, after all cannot replace the depth of understanding and cultural nuance that emerges from human interaction (edwards & cheok, 2018). while this can be a valuable complementary tool, learners still need exposure to authentic conversations with native speakers to develop truly comprehensive language proficiency. although the integration of replika ai into language learning environments provides a series of promising benefits, it is important to be aware of and address the challenges that arise with its use, particularly in the context of speaking practice. despite its technological sophistication, replika faces limitations such as a lack of emotional intelligence and an inability to fully understand the nuances of cultural context (lin & mubarok, 2021). the risk of students adopting artificial and unnatural speech styles, potential privacy issues regarding data handling, and reliance on technology for language proficiency are some of the challenges educators and students may face. additionally, the static adaptability and speech recognition accuracy of these tools pose potential obstacles in providing dynamic, context-rich speaking practice. balancing replika's strengths with a differentiated understanding of these challenges is critical to creating a comprehensive language learning experience that combines the strengths and limitations of this innovative ai tool. after all, students need an image that they can follow, that can only be obtained from the presence of actual lecturers and native-like model (barnes, et al., 2005). conclusion this study is conducted to find out how is the implementation of ai replika in the classroom, what the benefits are, and what the challenges are. as many as 39 students from english education study program at universitas negeri semarang studying in 2nd semester participated in the study. this paper explores about the student’s perspectives on the use of ai replika as their individual practice tool for 4 months application. in conclusion, the implementation of replika as a substitute for native speakers in speaking lectures is promising, but it requires careful attention to the advantages and challenges involved. with a balanced approach, the use of ai technology can enhance the language learning experience, but it still needs to be complemented by irreplaceable human interaction to achieve deeper language understanding and proficiency. funding statement we deliver our gratitude to the faculty of languages and arts, universitas 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(2022). reflecting replika. social robotics and the good life: the normative side of forming emotional bonds with robots, 103. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 16 elt forum 13(1) (2024) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt “teaching unplugged”: an approach for designing an efl teacher education at disadvantaged schools in indonesia aziza restu febrianto1, maria dimitrij angie pavita1, afi normawati2 1universitas nasional karangturi, indonesia 2universitas tidar, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received on 12 october 2023 approved on 8 march 2024 published on 31 march 2024 ________________ keywords: most disadvantaged schools; novice efl teachers; teacher training; teaching unplugged ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ a range of language teaching methods and approaches including communicative language teaching (clt) and task-based language teaching (tblt) have been widely researched and used in english education. in the early 2000s, scott thornbury and luke meddings introduced “teaching unplugged: dogme in english language teaching,” challenging the effectiveness of the other language teaching methods that are heavily reliant on textbooks and technology. they argued that the overreliance on such facilities hinders the creation of a truly communicative learning environment. this approach offers an innovative perspective on language education to ensure more student-centered learning and communicative language learning experiences, particularly in schools lacking adequate infrastructure and technology. inspired by the approach, the theoretical research introduces and provides a conceptual design of teacher training relevant to novice indonesian efl teachers, especially those working at schools in indonesia's most remote and disadvantaged areas. the training is designed based on the theoretical framework of the approach and critical reviews of 10 (ten) related empirical studies by investigating the relevance of the approach to the context of english education at the most disadvantaged schools in indonesia. upon the program completion, the prospective participants especially novice efl teachers are expected to be able to improve their language and pedagogical skills needed in their school contexts despite the insufficient facilities they have in a class by implementing the principles of the teaching unplugged approach for a more student-centered, engaging, and communicative language class, which is also in line with the goals of the recent curriculum, the merdeka curriculum. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 universitas nasional karangturi jl. raden patah no. 182 semarang, central java email: aziza.restu@unkartur.ac.id http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& mailto:aziza.restu@unkartur.ac.id aziza restu febrianto & maria dimitrij angie pavita | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 17 introduction this article is intended to describe a short teacher education program designed as an alternative course to help novice indonesian efl teachers particularly those working at disadvantaged schools located in the most remote areas of indonesia so that they can reconstruct their professional identity and develop their teaching competence that fits their context. one of the main concerns of this research is the challenges that these teachers deal with in their workplace and environment. while other teachers living in urban areas of the country are provided with more than enough facilities for their work, these teachers have to experience a range of complex problems such as the lack of access to adequate teaching resources, standard infrastructures, and facilities, and unequal distribution of qualified teachers as investigated by many different studies (anwar, et al., 2020; endriyati, et al., 2019; febriana, et al., 2018; heyward, et al., 2017; pramesty, et al., 2022; rahmadi & istiqamah, 2016). many schools in such areas are therefore not ready for both online and blended learning (bahri, et al., 2021; tatang, et al., 2022). in fact, most students in such areas also do not have a strong motivation to learn, and only a few parents support the quality of education for their children (febriana, et al., 2018; pramesty, 2022). before initiating and planning this program, the researchers interviewed some of their teaching colleagues working in several remote places about this teaching approach, and all of them said that they had never heard about it before. the researchers believe that the teaching unplugged or dogme in english language teaching approach might be appropriate to be introduced and practiced in a teacher training program for novice teachers as it would also probably fit their needs and their future career endeavors. the approach was introduced by luke meddings and scott thornbury, and its main aim is to reduce reliance on published materials and any supporting technology in english language teaching, paying more attention to the students’ learning needs, and providing relevant content (meddings & thornbury, 2009). several recent studies indicate that dogme has contributed significantly to elt practices in different countries including helping students improve their skills in both academic and nonacademic writing (amjad, et, al., 2019; amjad, et al., 2020), their oral communication skills and enhancing their motivation in learning (nguyen & bui phu, 2020). some other studies also prove how the dogme approach can develop students’ oral performance as it allows the opportunity for them to practice speaking in authentic settings and a natural way (abdalgane, 2022; solimani, et al., 2019; yanti, 2018; jeyaraj, 2017; coskun, 2016), although, to some extent, it only applies particularly to those who are medium and high-level english learners (zhang, 2023). a number of related studies on this approach can be traced and found in journals and books, but based on the researchers’ searches and observations across different sources, research on teaching unplugged, especially in the field of elt in indonesia, remains scarce. a study by yanti (2018) is the only one found, although it only discusses the possibility of implementing the approach in indonesian higher education. this approach seems to be uncommon in indonesian education in spite of some benefits it can offer as stated by yanti (2018). many other prominent researchers including luke meddings and scott thornbury believe that the approach can be used to promote and facilitate student-centered learning, which is actually emphasized and mandated by the indonesian new merdeka curriculum recently released by the ministry of education, culture, research, and technology (moecrt) (moecrt, 2022). for the rationales discussed, this program is expected to fill the gap and offer valuable new perspectives on an alternative teaching approach that can be relevantly applied in indonesia. upon the program completion, it is hoped that the participants can apply the teaching unplugged approach with its concept and all principles in the classroom they teach in. through this program, novice teachers especially those working in remote and underserved areas of the country can also develop their pedagogical knowledge and skills. it is also desired that this project can provoke further discussions among elt scholars in indonesia so that more investigations and examinations on the approach can be carried out to improve the quality of indonesian education. to reach all these goals, it is therefore essential to address two research questions: 1) how is the teaching unplugged approach relevant and feasible to be implemented in indonesia today? 2) how can the teaching unplugged approach be relevant and feasible to be taught in a teacher training program, particularly for teachers working at disadvantaged schools in indonesia? methods in reviewing literature regarding the concept of teaching unplugged, the study employed the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analysis (prisma) approach, ensuring rigor and systematization in the review process. this involved defining specific research questions, establishing guidelines for article search and selection, employing methods to minimize biases, ensuring methodological transparency, and conducting a thorough and systematic examination of the research aziza restu febrianto & maria dimitrij angie pavita | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 18 (evans & benefield, 2001). the review process focuses on the most recent empirical works that researched and discussed the teaching unplugged approach. the published works were selected based on their date of publication (in 6 recent years) and were searched using the key phrase ‘teaching unplugged in elt on google scholar, google search engine, and some important journals that published articles about the approach. given that the current research on the topic remains relatively scarce, particularly in efl contexts, the initial search yielded 30 empirical studies focusing on the implementation of the teaching unplugged approach. having screened for their relevance and significance, only 10 out of all 30 downloaded articles were chosen for further investigation. selecting only a subset of articles for further investigation also allowed the researchers to deeply focus on the most relevant and informative sources for the study. table 1. selected empirical research on the teaching unplugged approach in different countries no author(s) & year title context 1 lal, ca (2018) emergent language and the exigency of teaching english unplugged india 2 nguyen & hung (2020) the dogme approach: a radical perspective in second language teaching in the post-methods era vietnam 3 nureldeen (2020) efl teachers' beliefs about language teaching and learning: implications for teaching unplugged egypt 4 amjad, et al (2019) practicing dogme elt to enhance l2 academic essay writing skills pakistan 5 amjad, et al (2020) practicing dogme elt techniques to improve academic essay writing: an evaluative study of learners’ perception pakistan 6 mohamed (2019) using dogme in elt to develop student teachers' speaking skills and their self-efficacy egypt 7 abdalgane, et al (2023) utilizing dogme approach to promote efl learners’ oral skills at the tertiary level saudi arabia 8 daguiani & chelli (2020) dogme elt: oral expression teachers’ perceptions algeria 9 marashi & rahimpanah (2019) using dogme elt in reading classes iran 10 yanti (2018) dogme elt: the possibility to use the approach to students in higher education indonesia first of all, the theoretical framework of teaching unplugged is presented in reference to the books and articles published by luke meddings and scott thornbury followed by the analysis report of 8 selected journal articles of empirical studies. these findings are then discussed for the purpose of designing a teacher training program for teachers at disadvantaged schools in indonesia a long with its detailed materials and activities. findings and discussion the conceptual framework of teaching unplugged: dogme in english language teaching (elt) teaching unplugged is an elt methodology and movement introduced and developed by luke meddings and scott thornbury, and this idea lies in teaching english with less reliance upon published materials, resources, and technology by stimulating conversational and interactional activities between students and teachers in class, and concentrates more on the students’ learning needs (meddings & thornbury, 2009). the major aim of dogme in elt is to bring students to the center of their learning process in the classroom in which they are actively engaged and have the autonomy to produce language without grammar teaching (meddings & thornbury, 2003; meddings, 2015). in this regard, meddings and thornbury highlight ten principles and three major rules of teaching unplugged in their book entitled teaching unplugged: dogme in english language teaching: 1. effective language learning occurs through conversations between a teacher and students and among the students themselves. 2. the learning content is created by the students who are also engaged in it. 3. learning is dialogic and social so that knowledge is co-constructed. 4. learning occurs through talk that is co-constructed and is supported or scaffolded by the teacher. 5. language including grammar emerge in the classroom. 6. teachers are in charge of attracting the learners’ attention to the language emergence. 7. learners need to be given respect for what they bring in class as learning content. 8. learners focus on what they bring to class and keep away any published materials. 9. texts should be relevant to the learners. aziza restu febrianto & maria dimitrij angie pavita | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 19 10. teachers and students need to use materials critically. from the ten principles above, drawn three underpinning precepts as follows: dogme is about teaching that is conversation-driven, materials-light, and focuses on emergent language (meddings & thornbury, 2009, p. 7 – 8; meddings, 2015). precept 1: conversation-driven the main feature that characterizes teaching unplugged is that conversation becomes the core of learning a language. conversation plays a very important role in constructing the learning content since it is ”language at work, discourse, interactive, dialogic, communicative, and it scaffolds learning and promotes socialization” (meddings and thornbury, 2009. p. 8). in this method, learners learn the language through interactions that lead to their fluency. fluency is the first goal of the interaction whether they are learning english as the first, second, or foreign language. precept 2: materials-light teaching unplugged does not need to include “any more than a few chairs, blackboard, a teacher and some learners (thornbury, 2005, p. 2; meddings & thornbury, 2009, p. 12). however, this approach is “not anti-materials nor anti-technology” and support the use of some materials that indulge the learners’ personal interests. in fact, it also encourages the materials created or provided by the learners themselves (ibid, 2009, p. 12). in fact, teaching unplugged criticizes the dependency on using elt materials and textbooks, particularly those that do not support its ten principles (ibid, 2009). precept 3: focus on emergent language since the lesson focuses on conversations, the language or dialogues that learners produce can be used as material content. the teacher’s role is to draw the learners’ attention to the content of the language that they have produced, refine it, and develop it to reach nearly like the native model (meddings, 2015). with support from the teacher through scaffolding, the learners are trying to improve their language skills, repeat and drill what they have learned until they are able to do it by themselves (meddings & thornbury, 2009, p. 16-20). empirical studies on teaching unplugged approach in different countries the first journal article reviewed in the research is authored by lal (2018) who conducted the research in the context of india. the study suggests that while technology is beneficial where available, the absence of technological support systems should not overly concern language teaching. effective language instruction can occur with a well-prepared teacher, a classroom, and willing students. the focus, particularly in dogme elt terms, should be on ensuring emergent language even in materials-light environments. this resonates with a study by nguyen and hung (2020) revealing that the approach is relevant in english language teaching in the post-methods era. however, the research conclusion highlights some gaps and provides pedagogical recommendations for english language teachers and learners when implementing the approach in class. in terms of teacher attitudes toward the approach, nuraldeen’s research (2020) shows that there is no significant relationship between teachers' beliefs about dogme (an approach advocating material-free english language teaching) and variables such as gender, years of experience, and age group they teach. this implies that, in the context of the study, these demographic factors do not appear to strongly influence teachers' attitudes towards dogme in elt. in relation to the efficacy of teaching unplugged, amjad, et al (2019), in their study, investigate that the dogme elt approach is effective in enhancing english academic writing skills through classroom action research in the pakistani context. the results indicate that dogme elt is successful in improving language competence in this area. in a similar area of writing, amjad, et al (2020) also did action research exploring intermediate-level learners' feedback on dogme elt for enhancing essay writing skills. by employing mixed-methods analysis, the study reveals that dogme techniques are highly effective in improving motivation, participation, and performance in class. participants express a preference for this approach, indicating improved learning outcomes in academic essay writ ing. the approach is also evidenced to help teachers improve their students’ speaking skills and self -efficacy as found in mohamed’s study (2019) at an egyptian university. the findings indicate a positive impact of dogme elt on the enhancement of students' speaking abilities and their confidence in speaking. this study is in line with recent research conducted by abdalgane, et al (2023) revealing that the dogme approach in efl classes is highly significant for improving communication in various ways, inclu ding enhancing rapport between instructors and students, promoting interaction, improving communication skills, and encouraging open-ended questions. nevertheless, despite its efficacy in enhancing students’s aziza restu febrianto & maria dimitrij angie pavita | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 20 oral communication skills, many teachers reject the idea of reducing reliance on materials like textbooks and technology, viewing them as essential in language teaching (daguiani & chelli, 2020). in another different context, the dogme elt can also significantly help efl learners improve their reading comprehension compared to traditional teaching methods as presented in a study by marashi and rahimpanah (2019). the study findings also support the promotion and application of dogme elt in reading classes in the iranian context. in this sense, yanti (2018) tries to bring the dogma elt approach to the indonesian context by investigating the characteristics of the approach and education policies in indonesia. the study suggests that dogme elt enhances motivation and engagement, fostering active learner participation, especially in higher education. however, challenges include potential conflicts with grammar-based exams and students' low english proficiency. despite challenges, dogme elt creators offer varied activities for teachers. the approach's feasibil ity in the indonesian context is indicated, with the need for further research to confirm this initial conclusion. however, as the study recommends the approach be applied at the higher education level, it appears that any related studies at the indonesian school level remain absent. discussions in this article, the discussion begins with a theoretical framework underpinning the program by describing several empirical issues on novice teachers and in-service teacher training (inset), particularly in disadvantaged schools as well as the concept of teaching unplugged: dogme in elt itself. this discussion then continues on the rationales of the program, gives a brief overview of english education in indonesia, and explores the identity of the prospective participants along with the conditions of their school environments. next, this paper describes the aims of the program before turning to the program details and finally discusses how the program meets the aims in relation to its process and content. in-service teacher training (inset) for novice efl teachers many important studies reveal that the first years of teaching are generally the most difficult phase for teachers in their career paths (marshall, et al., 1990; colbert and wolfe, 1992; fantilli & mcdougall, 2009). colbert and wolfe (1992) for example, found that beginning teachers tend to feel like failures when experiencing difficult situations, and only those who are determined and strong can succeed. some common issues considered to be the most challenging for novice teachers have to do with dealing with their task areas regarding classroom management, time constraints and heavy workloads, diverse individual students, discipline, students with special needs, lack of resources, assessment process, and relations with parents (brighton, 1999; jokhio, et al., 2020; veenman, 1984, 1987). recently, one of the common challenges encountered by novice teachers is adapting to the use of the latest technology in teaching, which requires them to keep learning and exploring something new (alhamad, 2018). for those issues, many teachers especially novice teachers can feel anxious and depressed, which can negatively impact their quality of teaching (limeranto & kusmandono, 2023; liu & yan, 2020; yazıcı & altun, 2013). unfortunately, given their status and position, many of them lack support from both the schools they work in and the government when dealing with such problems (salehi & farajnezhad, 2020). other common areas of teaching considered to be very difficult for novice teachers include lesson planning, curriculum expectation, amount of salary, and sustaining a healthy mind (veenman, 1984; britt, 1997; ganser, 1999; mandel, 2006). these issues can potentially affect the teachers’ decision whether to retain or leave their profession (walker, 2022). the working atmosphere and environment in regard to their relationship with school leaders, other colleagues, and students in school also influence their decision (department for education, 2018). fantilli and mcdougalls (2009), in their study of novice teachers, discover that improved training and mentorship, as well as support from the district and school leaders, are the two necessary components to help novice teachers cope with their difficulties and challenges in schools and grow in their teaching profession. from this rationale, in -service teacher training (inset) becomes a major part of professional development that teachers should take into account throughout their teaching careers. according to lamb (1995, p. 72-73), follow-up courses in in-service teacher training (inset) play a very important role in sustaining the motivation and competence of teachers, because the inputs given in the initial training could not probably have any impact on their teaching practices due to the problems they find when trying to apply what they have learned within “the existing parameters, syllabus, examinations, materials, official curriculum expectations, class size, and other practical constraints”. lamb (1995), in his study which took place in indonesia, revealed that some of the inputs provided to the student teachers during inset might be lost or reinterpreted to fit their beliefs and concerns about which parts of the inputs are feasible and relevant to their class. he concluded that aziza restu febrianto & maria dimitrij angie pavita | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 21 giving top-down input to the participants of inset is not enough, and the instructors need to facilitate the student teachers to share their ideas and knowledge gained from their teaching practices and experience in class. therefore, in conducting in-service training for teachers, the “received knowledge” of the student teachers needs to be taken into account (freeman, 1991, p. 1-4), and the program should also focus more on encouraging them to construct their own teaching versions as addressed by many other recently related studies (orland-barack & wang, 2022; resch & schrittesser, 2021; kim, et al., 2019). all the literature discussed relates to the concept of teaching unplugged, which is also relevant to be employed in a teacher training as evidenced by both empirical studies and theoretical research . the relevance of teaching unplugged for inset in indonesia drawing on the framework of teaching unplugged or dogme in elt and research findings, it can be implied that the approach concept seems to be in line with today’s elt. the implementation of the approach also resonates with task-based language teaching (tblt) where any tasks in class should be seen to be relevant to the learners’ needs, not only for those who need functional language skills for academics, jobs, or social purposes (long, 1985), so that the class activities become more learner-centered than strongly driven by the teacher as the main language resource (swan, 2005, 2005). this notion also aligns with other recent and prominent studies on contemporary elt, highlighting the significance of meaningful tasks to facilitate student-centered learning and learning engagement for the success of students learning in today’s era and the future (mercer & dörnyei, 2020; renandya & jacobs, 2021). meaningful tasks are tasks that are authentic and relate to the students’ needs and contexts so that they can actively be engaged in the learning process (ellis, 2003; 2021). in this sense, teaching unplugged is therefore relevant to the context of elt today and even in the future as it supports the concept of tblt developed by some significant scholars in elt. from their fluency in speaking, learners learn speech patterns from simple to complex forms. all the reviewed articles in this research also conclude that the approach is effective in helping learners improve their speaking or oral communication skills (abdalgane, et al.,2023; daguiani & chelli, 2020; mohamed, 2019). besides being supported by researchers, the approach is again in line with the concept of tblt, especially for learners who have many opportunities in interactional practice that fit their natural language learning process (ellis, 2003; 2021). conversations also promote discourse in the sense that learners construct sentence patterns with coherence and cohesion to make meaning that is relevant to the topic (meddings & thornbury, 2009, p. 9). drawing on the concept of scaffolding by bruner, conversations also scaffold learning in a way that through interaction between learner and teacher, the learner feels safe to take any risks so that he/ she can develop and co-construct his/ her communicative competence (ibid, p. 10). hence, the learners eventually attain and improve interpersonal skills which is also one of the most recent indonesian national curriculum goals, the merdeka curriculum (moecrt, 2022). the approach is not anti-materials nor anti-technology and supports the use of some materials that indulge the learners’ personal interests. in fact, it also encourages the materials created or provided by the learners themselves as indicated by the the reviewed studies in this article (daguiani & chelli, 2020; lal, 2018). this resonates with hall’s view (2011) that over-reliance on textbooks will hinder teachers from being more creative, and they also find it difficult to better understand what learners need in language learning. according to richards (2000), textbooks also lack the foundation for a comprehensive language course, and educators ought to guide their students in acquiring language instead of merely following the textbook's prescribed exercises. in fact, practical knowledge related to language use in real-life situations is also not adequately covered in the majority of textbooks (ren & han, 2016). with the availability of a broad range of online materials, students today and in the future can even get exposed to various authentic content about real-life conversations and discourses in the target language through different multimodal channels. in this sense, textbooks need to be modified and designed to be more personally interactive and attractive following the current situation in elt (torkar, et al., 2022). this literature relates to a study by daguiani and chelli (2020) as discussed in the findings in which teachers should not reduce their use of textbooks when applying the dogme elt, but the books are required to be adjusted to their students’ learning needs in class. two empirical studies reviewed in this article also show how the teaching unplugged approach has been evidenced to significantly help learners improve their both casual and academic writing skills and reading competence as long as the class is well-planned and organized (amjad, et al., 2019; 2020; marashi & rahimpanah, 2019)). this finding echoes other studies and theories about scaffolding in elt to effectively achieve students’ learning goals and outcomes. in sociolinguistics and sociocultural theory, wood, et al. (1976) define scaffolding as the process that helps a child or a novice learner to aziza restu febrianto & maria dimitrij angie pavita | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 22 solve his/ her problems, carry out tasks, and finally reach a goal without any more assistance. in terms of second language acquisition, it is defined as the process by which learners learn to construct structures that lie outside their ability (ellis, 1997). scaffolding through social interactions, both between teachers and students and among students, also enhances students' communication skills (kayi-aydar, 2013; storch, 2002; febrianto (2019). it can help improve learners’ writing skills as well (nguyen, 2013). hence, gibbons (2015) posits that scaffolding is a purposeful and strategic learning framework tailored to fulfill students' educational needs. nevertheless, teaching unplugged, despite its popularity, has also received many criticisms and negative reactions among teachers and researchers for various reasons as thornbury describes in his paper, especially in terms of the effectiveness of the approach implementation (thornbury, 1997). a prominent scholar in elt, penny ur, for example, has criticized teaching unplugged for potentially neglecting the use of coursebooks and materials, and this can lead to an inconsistent and incomplete curriculum. she emphasizes the value of systematic language teaching, especially for learners who need structure and guidance. she believes that a combination of teacher-led instruction and learner-centered activities is more effective in addressing the diverse needs of language learners (ur, 2015). another influential figure, jeremy harmer also criticizes the approach that while it is important to focus on communication and interaction, structured learning and systematic grammar instruction remain necessary. he suggests that a balance between unplugged teaching and more traditional methods can provide a more well-rounded language learning experience for students (harmer, 2012). it is obvious that this method requires many more recent empirical studies f rom different perspectives to show how it really works in real practice, particularly in local efl contexts like indonesia. 10 empirical studies investigated in the article have examined the approach and revealed how it can benefit both teachers and students especially when it comes to improving students’ skills of speaking, writing, and reading at high levels of english. considering the purpose of this project, it is expected that there should be further research to explore and investigate the efficacy of the approach at the school level, which eventually offers new directions for its effective use. program rationale english education in indonesia according to the most recent national constitution on language and nationality (undang-undang [uu] no. 24, 2009), english has a special status as the first foreign language among other foreign languages to be learned in indonesia (moecri, 2016). in regard to this special status, english according to peraturan pemerintah [pp] no. 32, 2013, is then made a compulsory subject taught in all secondary and tertiary educations (ministry of law and human rights (molhr), 2013). nevertheless, in terms of language learning, indonesia still faces a broad range of challenges. the first challenge is the fact that the majority of people lack competence in english (lauder, 2008). this research is validated by the latest report of the ef english proficiency index revealing that the overall competence of indonesian people in english is low ranking 74th out of 100 countries in 2020 (ef english proficiency index [ef epi], 2020). the unequal distribution of teachers has also become another big issue. indonesia is a large archipelagic country consisting of more than 16,000 islands populated by 270, 20 people in 2020 with 56.10% of them living in places close to urban areas (java island) and 50.21% of them living in rural areas (badan pusat statistik [bps], 2021). from this statistic, it can be inferred that the majority of teachers in the country work at schools located in the urban places where most students live and most learning activities with adequate facilities take place. this situation then results in a teacher shortage in rural areas and a surplus in urban places, which has actually been investigated by the government and many other researchers (moecri, 2016; heyward, et al., 2017, werang, et al., 2017; mckenzie, et al., 2014, chang, et al., 2014). the other education issue that indonesia faces is the lack of competent teachers, especially in terms of both the teaching subject and pedagogy as reported by a number of studies (anwar, et al., 2020, mckenzie, et al., 2014, chang, et al., 2014). the government has actually been working very hard to try to solve this problem by implementing several strategic approaches. for instance, to arrange the standard qualifications for all teachers, the indonesian government established a board of national standards for education known as badan standar nasional pendidikan (bsnp) and other related regulations. despite the standard qualifications that teachers must fulfill, the education law (uu guru dan dosen no. 14, 2005) also strongly mandates them to improve their pedagogical skills to sustain their professional development through any kind of training and education relevant to their teaching context and needs (moecri, 2020). these efforts reflect richards’ definition of teachers’ qualifications aziza restu febrianto & maria dimitrij angie pavita | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 23 in a way that they should be recognized by local authorities or international organizations, and the mandate is also given by such bodies (richards, 2000). in 2022, the ministry of education, culture, research, and technology (moecrt), launched the most recent curriculum named the merdeka curriculum as the revised form of the previous national curriculum, the kurikulum 2013. this merdeka curriculum has been designed based on the notion that every individual has their own way and pace of developing themselves, and it is important that national education acknowledges and pays attention to their different learning needs and interests (moecrt, 2022). according to the moecrt official website, elt in the merdeka curriculum should be carried out by focusing on student-centered learning, which means that the learning process must be based on efforts to change students' behavior (from unable to capable), in using english by mastering six language skills (listening, speaking, reading, writing, grammar, and vocabulary) in various types of texts (moecrt, 2022). this means that the process of teaching and learning english should be designed to help students transform their language skills and abilities. in other words, students should progress from a state of not being able to use english effectively to becoming capable and proficient in using english across six language skills and in various types of texts (such as written, spoken, or multimedia materials). the focus of the learning then lies on empowering students to actively engage with the english language and become competent users of it. drawing upon the literature, related studies, and regulations discussed above, it goes without saying that all teachers in indonesia, have to consider the needs and contextual backgrounds of their students as their fundamental principle when preparing the materials and methods for teaching their students in class. this resonates with the idea of implementing a critical pedagogy approach, which is believed to be relevant in the indonesian elt context (larson, 2014). in his paper, he insists on the need to ensure that the curriculum and the teaching method used can be meaningful and locally relevant to indonesian learners with diverse life and cultural backgrounds. larson (2014) also argues that education in indonesia should be based on a “transformative approach” in which students are the main sources of material development instead of merely adopting material from the government or even other international bodies, which is actually the fundamental idea of the teaching unplugged as well (p. 135). this notion clearly supports yanti’s work (2018) indicating that teaching unplugged would be relevant and work well in the indonesian education context since teachers can use it to simulate their students’ active participation and engagement in class. this also echoes other current research relating to the use of textbooks and online resources that the learners need in today’s era as discussed earlier in this article (ren & han, 2016; torkar, et al., 2022). the common profile of novice english teachers in the indonesian most disadvantaged areas as described earlier in this paper, the most common challenges faced by teachers working in the most remote and disadvantaged areas of indonesia have to do with inadequate provision of the requisite infrastructure, teaching resources, and qualified teachers. however, these are not the only issues when it comes to teaching at schools located in different geographical and cultural settings as found in indonesia. febriana, et al. (2018) for example, found that teachers in this context also deal with problems related to student competence and both different student and parent mindsets in life. particularly in english language teaching, these kinds of teachers have to realize the fact that their students mostly lack motivation and proficiency in learning the target language (saiful & triyono, 2018). another study also reveals that the teachers, in fact, experience dilemmas in implementing the new national curriculum due to their lack of knowledge of the curriculum and the different contexts that they need to adjust to (anwar, et al., 2020). all these study reports show how the teachers in such particular contexts really need support, and teacher training fitting their context and needs is one of the appropriate supports to offer for their survival in their professions and identity development. the 3t areas have constantly been discussed in many programs and agendas of the indonesian government, but the definitions and characteristics of the areas vary depending on the contexts where they are used (purwanda, et al., 2023). according to the national development planning agency (ndpa) known as bappenas, the locations that all the teachers work in as discussed earlier are categorized into the areas of terdepan, terluar, tertinggal (3t). in indonesia, 3t areas are generally characterized by their weak public economy, low human resources, lack of standard infrastructure, people’s low financial income, lack of access to information and technology, disaster -prone, and potential conflict (ndpa, 2016). in the sector of education, inequalities and disparities in the 3t areas are clearly evident, as seen through the unequal access to quality education. for instance, many schools in such areas lack qualified teachers and adequate infrastructure, such as updated textbooks, electricity, computer equipment, and stable internet connection (riyadi & guzhini, 2022). furthermore, teachers aziza restu febrianto & maria dimitrij angie pavita | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 24 in these places have to face the fact that many of their students have very little motivation to learn, and their parents are also not aware of their important role in encouraging their children in education (febriana, et al., 2018). of the overall number of english teachers teaching in the 3t areas, many of them are civil servants who teach at secondary schools located in schools with relatively low student participation (ndpa, 2016; heyward, 2017). due to the civil servant status that the teachers have, it is certain that they have “sponsored professionalism,” (leung, 2009: 49). course program the teacher training offered in this article can have certain purposes: 1) to introduce teaching unplugged as an alternative teaching method; 2) to encourage the teachers to reflect on their own teaching and evaluate their own beliefs regarding any decisions relevant to their teaching contexts; 3) to apply ten principles and three core precepts of teaching unplugged in class aligned with the curriculum goals; 4) to encourage the teachers to better understand their learners' needs and promote student-centered learning. to reach these goals, it is important to make sure that the program can run well by setting up the schedule, the process, and the content. the schedule the targeted participants will be novice english teachers working at public schools. considering their busy time and their regular schedule of work at school, conducting any extra program for them might not be possible. this program is expected to be conducted during their term break from teaching. as the students have holidays for a week, these teachers stay at school. this program consists of four sessions, and each of them will be held in a day. therefore, this program will need four days to cover all sufficient materials and activities. the process considering the importance of received knowledge of the student teachers and their interactions for their professional development as described in the study of in-service training (inset) (freeman, 1991; lamb, 1995), this program focuses on learning through structured discussions among the participants guided by the instructor since the participants would be more encouraged to personally reflect, examine and evaluate what they have done in teaching (guskey, 2000). in this program, the participants are given opportunities to discuss the new ideas of teaching unplugged and to reflect on and evaluate their own beliefs in teaching. drawing upon sociocultural theory and the concept of community of practice , through sharing problems and challenges in guided activities, the participants would get an opportunity to gain input that helps them understand their roles better (vygotsky, 1980; lave & wenger, 1991). besides, their identity as efl teachers can be socially constructed through interactions during the program (johnson, 2001; danielewicz, 2001). according to singh and richards (2006), in adopting sociocultural perspectives, teacher learning and education program as “situated social practice” includes socia l interactions, the course room, and the constructions of identity (p. 154). due to the special settings and context of teaching that the prospective participants live in, they are then considered to have special characteristics that represent a specific identity. singh and richards (2006) posit that teacher education programs should play a role in facilitating them to be able to appropriate and resist skills and knowledge that reshape and reconstruct their identity. this can be effectively done through dia logic interactions and discussions as the core of teachers’ main work (alexander, 2018). in this program, the participants are also assigned to read empirical studies and analyze the english curriculum followed by a focus group discussion (fgd) to examine the feasibility of teaching unplugged in indonesian mainstream classes. the purpose of the fgd is to get a wide range of thoughts and views about particular issues and to provide an atmosphere so that the participants feel more comfortable sharing their ideas and experiences (hennink, 2014). all individual interactions in the fgd would finally lead to personal reflection (guskey, 2000). reflection has become one of the most important components in teacher learning processes (burton, 2009). reflection has a lso been evidenced to encourage teachers to evaluate their approaches, identify areas for improvement, and adapt their practices to better align with their students’ needs for adapting to future challenges (kim, et al., 2019). after learning new teaching concepts and ideas about teaching unplugged and having discussions about any relevant issues along with reflections, the participants are then led to join the workshop and create a lesson plan followed by a presentation and feedback for evaluation. some research findings show that lesson planning is an integral part of teacher education and become a commonly used tool to assess a teacher’s ability in planning meaningful english classroom learning aziza restu febrianto & maria dimitrij angie pavita | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 25 (newman & hanauer, 2005; thibeault, et al., 2010). in addition, according to wilson, et al. (1987), novice teachers’ knowledge about their subject matter is enriched and developed during teaching preparation. a lesson plan as the outcome of the teaching preparation is then used to show the teachers’ readiness in teaching, and it also reflects their competence in integrating theory and practice (pang, 2016). to examine how the theory and concept of teaching unplugged work in class, the participants apply the lesson plan in peer teaching followed by supportive feedback from both peers and instructors. as amobi (2005) points out, microteaching or peer teaching along with constructive feedback gives the student teachers experience to practice effective teaching skills and experiment with a new teaching technique. the content the materials used in the program cover theories and concepts of teaching unplugged, three empirical studies on its implementation as well as techniques for applying it in real teaching practice. the materials selected are taken from relevant topics in the core book “teaching unplugged: dogme in elt”, related papers by the book authors and other researchers, videos of presentations, and other supporting excerpts from online resources. as seen from the content of the resources, these materials present interactive activities, and they are easy to access as well. another consideration in relation to the teachers’ status is also addressed. the prospective participants are teachers at public schools who teach content designated in the national curriculum. hence, the program materials are therefore selectively chosen by considering the position of the participants. the first meeting consists of activities on exploring teaching unplugged. these activities aim to introduce and explore the theories, concepts, principles, and rules of teaching unplugged. in the first session, the participants are given a chance to read some relevant topics in the core book, “teaching unplugged: dogme in elt” and the author’s papers about it. the core book (meddings & thornbury, 2009) consists of detailed descriptions of teaching unplugged and various examples of teaching techniques. first of all, the participants read the history of the method, the main concepts, the ten principles, and the three basic rules underpinning it (meddings & thornbury, 2009, p. 7 -22). then, they read the next topic about the roles of non-native speakers when applying the method to rebuild their beliefs as efl teachers (meddings & thornbury, 2009, p. 84). this kind of belief is very important, especially for non-native teachers in response to the recent notion about the native and non-native teacher dichotomy that might impact them (pavlenko, 2003). the participants also read the paper “dogme: dancing in the dark” which provides a more detailed analysis of the dogme principles and the features of the coursebooks that would support the method (thornbury, 2000). to provide more visualized descriptions of the reading materials, a video of “dogme” teaching is presented in the second session (ihwo, 2012) followed by a discussion about it. the second meeting focuses on curriculum development and professional identity. in the first session, the participants read three empirical studies to see to what extent teaching unplugged works in different settings. the first study is sketchley’s research (2011) on the attitudes of 15 teachers and 15 students toward dogme in elt. this research shows the participants’ skeptical view on the three major rules of the approach, although some of them thought they were very useful. after that, the participants are asked to read and review another similar empirical article about teachers’ atti tudes toward the approach in india by nuraldeen (2020). in another study, worth (2012) reports on how the coursebook created during the dogme lesson helps the students prepare for their exams. they said that dogme teaching should also be incorporated with the coursebook-based lesson. finally, bryndal (2014) found that all of her students felt satisfied with the dogme approach although she suggested that it might not be appropriate for lower-level students. in this second meeting, the participants are also asked to read more recent research on the implementation of teaching unplugged. the first one is a study conducted by amjad, et al., (2019; 2020) which demonstrates that the approach was successful in facilitating pakistani students’ improvement in academic writing. the next reading is research by nguyen and bui phu (2020) revealing that despite some imperfect impact that the approach can bring about, teachers can use it to fill the gaps between theories in elt and teaching practices in class enabling them to focus on students’ needs and interests. in addition, the participants also read the most recent study by abdalgane, et al. (2023), which indicates that the approach has been evidenced to promote an interactive and communicative learning environment in class. to make the participants relate to the context of indonesia, a research article authored by yanti (2018) is included in the reading list of the training. this article shows how the approach can only be conducted effectively in certain circumstances and contexts by considering the levels of students’ language proficiency, motivation, and curriculum goals. the aziza restu febrianto & maria dimitrij angie pavita | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 26 participants are expected to see the possibility of implementing the approach in indonesia through this research. according to the study results above, it is obvious that the teaching unplugged method or dogme approach does not always successfully work effectively as littlewood (2007) found in his study of clt and tblt that “there is no any single method that fits all teachers and learners in all contexts” (p. 248). thus, in this program, the participants anticipate any similar failures by investigating their class and analyzing the national english curriculum followed by fgd to examine the feasibility of the approach. for example, interpersonal communication skill is also one of the curriculum goals (moecrt, 2022), but it requires certain investigation prior to the lesson. the third and fourth meetings offer a different structure of activities which puts its emphasis on practical planning and teaching. in the beginning, the participants learn the first techniques introduced in the core book and practice to create “the right conditions” for learning without using resources prepared in advance as they are already present during the lesson (meddings & thornbury, 2009, p. 24). to succeed in this, meddings (2015) mentions 20 steps of applying teaching unplugged, and thornbury (1999) also provides a sample of lesson planning the participants can try through videos and social networking sites. therefore, they eventually get an idea of how to plan their lesson and use it in their teaching practice for the following meeting. each meeting ends with a conclusion, evaluation, and reflection as parts of the participants’ ongoing professional development. conclusion the theoretical framework and principles of teaching unplugged or dogme in elt presented in this article are likely to be in accordance with how efl students are to learn today as they relate to the teaching methods and techniques discussed by many prominent scholars and recent studies in elt such as task-based language teaching (tblt), student-centered learning, and autonomous learning. this finding is also supported by some evidence-based research including the 10 empirical studies investigated and discussed in the article, and all of them indicate a positive correlation to the approach. in this regard, the approach can also be relevant to the education context of indonesia and should be included in the content of teacher training for indonesian teachers, especially those working in disadvantaged areas. given the status and characteristics of the prospective participants with their disadvantaged work environment as well as inadequate teaching resources and facilities, the teacher training program offered in this paper seems to logically provide an alternative relevant method for the participants’ contextual needs apart from its weaknesses and the criticisms that it receives. to address the gaps found in the approach application, activities such as discussions, curriculum alignment, lesson planning, teaching practicum, and reflections are provided in the design of teacher training to negate any related issues. teaching unplugged may be considered to be useful in the sense that it tries to bridge the gap between the latest national curriculum goals (the merdeka curriculum) which emphasizes the significance of student-centered learning and students’ real learning needs, particularly in the most remote and disadvantaged contexts and settings. to examine whether or not this offered program can be feasible and effective in the contexts of the prospective participants, explorations and evaluations on the most recent and relevant empirical studies are carried out in this research. however, it does not mean that successful applications of the approach in some contexts can be generalized in other different places for various factors. therefore, further experiments and empirical research on the program implementation, particularly in the indonesian context, have to be done as a follow-up to this paper. finally, this program cannot solve all the teachers’ problems, but at least initially show them where to find solutions. funding statement the authors received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article. references abdalgane, m., musabal, a., & ali, r. 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https://doi.org/10.32996/ijllt.2023.6.7.6 putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 1 elt forum 11(1) (2022) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt investigating the use of youtube as virtual teaching medium in elt among nonenglish students aprilian ria adisti1 1iain salatiga, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received on 29 july 2021 approved on 28 january 2022 published on 30 march 2022 ________________ keywords: youtube; medium; elt; non-english students ____________________ abstract ________________________________________________________________ since the covid-19 pandemic came up suddenly to this world, everything takes a drastic turn. the ministry of education and culture republic of indonesia reacted to this issue by making an online learning policy number 3 of 2020 on prevention of covid-19 in the education unit. many education institutions adopted this policy by creating online tools such as youtube as a resource of transition from face-toface learning to virtual learning since it is seen as a popular medium used in online classes. this research investigates the use of youtube as a medium in the english 1 course for non-english students at one of state islamic university in salatiga. youtube is an online learning platform that enables lecturers and students to upload, view, share, and even interact through the comments column in the learning videos. a descriptive qualitative method is used to achieve the objective of the research, which involved three classes from the early childhood islamic education study program, the islamic elementary school study program, and the islamic religious education study program as the objects in this research. the researcher limits the content of youtube from the channel "ar," while the materials are about degree of comparison and collocation. students' responses from those three classes in the youtube column have been analyzed to investigate the findings. the finding shows that youtube brings a good impact on non-english students in elt. this finding is supported by the result of the analysis answer sheet of the quiz from students, the survey on students’ perception, and other comments about the materials on the youtube comment column. finally, it can be concluded that youtube can be an effective virtual teaching medium in elt among non-english students at iain salatiga based on the result of survey by respondents. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 kampus 3 iain salatiga, ftik jalan lingkar selatan salatiga km 02, salatiga e-mail: aprilian@iainsalatiga.ac.id http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& aprilian ria adisti | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 2 introduction since the covid-19 pandemic came up suddenly to this world, everything takes a drastic turn. the impact of this pandemic is drastically changing the lives of people around the world. schools and universities must be closed. this situation, of course, made many universities have turned to remoteness learning as a means of continuing the teaching and learning process (amiruddin et al., 2021). the ministry of education and culture republic of indonesia reacted to this issue by making an online learning policy in the education sector. many education institutions adopted this policy. one adaptation is creating online tools as a resource of transition from face-to-face learning to virtual learning. online learning means distance education, where the learning is intentionally designed to be delivered fully online through the internet. unlike face-to-face learning, online learning builds a new perspective that teachers face the challenge of being a creator, a presenter, and a guide in the classroom (gjelaj et al., 2020). the school will use strategies to give instruction, deliver the material, create learning media, engage students, and create assessments specific to learning in a virtual environment. furthermore, online learning in this pandemic era influences the english students' proficiency level since it limits the interaction between teachers and students (astia & yunianti, 2020). then, of course, it will also bring effect to their motivation in learning english. meanwhile, one of the challenges in this pandemic is a readiness to change. the students have problems with wifi, hotspot, and distancing learning (armstrong-mensah et al., 2020). unicef has surveyed on may 18-29, 2020, and 5-8 june 2020 in 34 provinces in indonesia showed that as many as 66% of 60 million students at different levels of education in 34 provinces said they were unhappy studying at home during the covid-19 pandemic due to lack of guidance from teachers. hence, in this pandemic, teachers should face and adapt effectively to the new situation in which some problems commonly happen. on the contrary, one of the positive impacts of this situation is an opportunity to rethink how digital technologies can be used as valuable media to support the teaching and learning process (dennis, 2021). teachers should be familiar with digital technologies as the media in delivering the lessons so that online learning goals can be achieved well. english learning teaching at one f state islamic university in salatiga during the pandemic era also transitioned from offline learning to online learning. this fact also has an impact on all lecture activities that cannot be done face-to-face. consequently, lecturers must use digital media to support online learning success for students (alchamdani et al., 2020). for example, in the degree of comparison and collocation material, learning is carried out using youtube medium. those materials are part of the english 1 course. this course is taken by all teacher training and education faculty students in the first semester, both english and non-english majors. there are three non-english classes students in the academic year 2020/2021 taking this course: the early childhood islamic education study program, the islamic elementary school study program study program, and the islamic religious education study program. therefore, this research investigates how effective is youtube as a virtual medium in english 1 course according to non-english students at one of state islamic university in salatiga? some research revealed the use of youtube in the teaching and learning process. the study from shafwati et al. (2021), watkins and wilkins (2011), puspa (2016), and medoukali (2015) claimed that the use of youtube videos can give improvement towards students’ listening skills. these previous studies exposed that youtube provides both audio and visual to the students and allows them to figure out the speech or words they have heard from the youtube videos. then, the study from prastiyo et al. (2018) entitled “development of youtube integrated google classroombased e-learning media” showed that students who use the youtube integrated google classroom based e-learning media get significantly better achievement than students who use the internet to access the website without control. another research entitled “investigating the effectiveness of youtube as a learning tool among efl students at baghdad university” from abbas & qassim (2020) exposed that youtube has a significant impact on the learning process as the students will find the educational environment more encouraging and exciting. furthermore, the study from nasution (2019) entitled “youtube as a media in english language teaching (elt) context: teaching procedure text” showed that youttube helps reduce cognitive load on learners and appeals to multiple learning styles. in addition, the study entitled “the use of youtube video in teaching english for foreign language at vocational high school” from cahyana (2020) revealed that the students have a favorable opinion about the improvement aprilian ria adisti | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 3 obtained in learning english. they argue that the implementation of youtube can decrease monotonous teaching and increase motivation in learning english. this study has a novelty compared to previous studies because this study analyzes youtube as a virtual medium for delivering english 1 course for three classes of non-english students at iain salatiga. actually, social media is also part of the new technology in digital media that becomes our daily lives. they can be integrated into english language teaching more naturally than ever, given how many students fit and are attuned. each social media platform offers many different ways to use it in the classroom. some of the most popular platforms in social media are youtube, facebook (and its associated facebook messenger), tiktok, wechat, instagram, twitter, telegram, whatsapp, line, snapchat, and more (voorveld et al., 2018; alhabash & ma, 2017). those social media platforms can be taken advantage of as learning tools in the classroom from the primary until university level. however, youtube is the most popular social media in indonesia today. youtube is mainly an online learning platform that offers dynamic opportunities because it allows the lecturer and students to upload, view, share, and even interact through the comments column in the learning videos (prastiyo et al., 2018). youtube allows the flexibility to learn procedurally, so the students can enjoy learning wherever they are. youtube is an effective medium because we can find many videos that can support us while teaching in a class (heriyanto, 2015; albantani & madkur, 2017; almurashi, 2016). this media can also increase students’ understanding of the material by watching the educational video uploaded on the youtube channel. furthermore, burke and snyder (2008) strengthen that students who watch learning videos on youtube will get a better understanding of the subject matter. in addition, youtube has the potential as a learning medium in digital era. there are some benefits of using youtube for english language teaching. kim and kim (2021) claimed that youtube could help expand students' perspectives on cross-cultural understanding. the use of youtube as a learning medium also encourages students to academic pursuits and engagement while studying abroad since youtube offers content that provides knowledge and skills materials in learning english. moreover, it enhances the students’ knowledge of english as a global language in the world by taking ownership. furthermore, youtube plays an essential role in supporting international students’ who study abroad for their academic and social progress in the transitional phase from their home to host countries. hence, youtube as one social media could be an alternative learning medium during the pandemic covid-19 era for effective multilingual and multicultural education. meanwhile, nofrika (2019) argued that youtube brings six advantages in enhancing learners’ english competencies, such as; giving flexibility and practicality for learners in the aspect of accessibility, helping the learners to learn and understand the topics, providing fun videos of learning, facilitating the learners especially for macro practice, encouraging the learners to improve their vocabulary, and providing the interaction in a real-life context. on the contrary, youtube also has the negative side as a learning medium. in accessing youtube, it is needed stable internet connection, so many students will look for wifi or mobile data to access it (gracella & rahman nur, 2020). the user of youtube should also consider which channel can be used as the reference in learning since the validity of video sources is not always guaranteed. some of the youtubers do not give the sources of the information on their videos. moreover, students have become addicted and engrossed in using youtube lately. therefore, it is crucial to investigate youtube, especially in learning english, to find out the impact on students. methods this research applied a descriptive qualitative research design. this research design has the goal of describing a phenomenon and its characteristics of something. furthermore, the descriptive qualitative research design is concerned with what happened rather than investigate how or why something happened (nassaji, 2015). in this study, observation and survey tools were used to gather data. in addition, qualitative research is more holistic. this research design often involves a rich collection of data from numerous sources to gain a deeper understanding of individual participants, including their beliefs, perspectives, attitudes, and opinions (ryan et al., 2009). this study involved three classes from the early childhood islamic education study program, the islamic elementary school study program, and the islamic religious education study program as the objects in this aprilian ria adisti | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 4 research to get their deeper perspectives and opinions on the use of youtube as a medium in the english 1 course. additionally, this study limited the content of youtube from the channel "ar," while the materials were about degree of comparison and collocation. then, students' responses from those three classes in the youtube column and the perception of using youtube as their learning media had been analyzed to investigate the findings. systematically, the steps of the research also stated in figure 1 as follows: figure 1. the steps in conducting the research doing observation was the first step in conducting this study. this step did to get the information about using the medium in teaching the english 1 course for non-english students at teaching training and education faculty of state islamic university in salatiga. not only the medium of english language teaching but the materials also were investigated. the result showed that one of the media used in english language teaching for non-english students at teaching training and education faculty of one of state islamic university in salatiga is using youtube. then, it was also known that the materials for the english 1 course in the 2020/2021 academic year at the first semester were the degree of comparison and collocation. the second step in this study is doing field research. at this stage, an investigation was conducted to highlight the impact of using youtube on non-english students in english language teaching by analyzing the answer sheet of the quiz from students, students’ perception and others comment about the materials on the youtube comment column. the researcher limited analyzing comments on the youtube channel to only 3 classes who were respondents in this study. the observation process was carried out for 2 weeks with 2 different materials to obtain data that would be analyzed in the next process. after doing field research to get the findings, then the data have been collected and interpreted. the analysis was carried out by looking at the comments in the youtube column from the three classes who were respondents in this study. the analysis focused on the answers of the respondents and their comments on youtube. furthermore, to increase the credibility and validity of research findings, the researcher did theoretical triangulation by combining theories, methods, or observers in a research study. finally, creating a research report is the last step after the findings have been analyzed. findings and discussion the implementation of youtube as a medium in english language teaching the english language teaching for non-english students requires more effort than teaching for english students. in the english 1 course, two materials are delivered through youtube as a medium for lecturers to explain the material. three sub-topics are taught in the degrees of comparison material, namely positive, comparative, and superlative. based on the observations in the youtube video, the lecturer explained the theory first about degrees of comparison. then, to strengthen the explanation, the lecturer gave related examples of sentences about degrees of comparison through pictures. the lecturer also explained five different types of conditions that could explain the degrees of comparison, including consisting of 1 syllable, ends with -y, a vocal between consonants, consisting of 2 or more syllables, and irregular patterns. moreover, after explaining the theory and examples of degrees of comparison, the lecturer continued by giving examples of practice questions related to the material. not only giving examples, but the lecturer also provides a discussion on the examples of quiz that has been given. at the end of the video, the lecturer instructed students to create five sample sentences on degrees of comparison, posted in the youtube comments column at the appointed time. the total duration of the video is 14 minutes 45 seconds. creating research report doing observation doing field research interpreting the fact (field data) aprilian ria adisti | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 5 after observing the elt video, this research analyzed students' answers in the youtube comments column. the investigation found that students from the three non-english study programs could distinguish degrees of comparison in a sentence. furthermore, students could also construct five sentences correctly according to the instructions given by the lecturer through youtube videos. however, some students still have difficulty distinguishing the degrees of comparison, and only a few from each class. below is an example of a video that has been uploaded and responded to by students in figure 2. figure 2. the screenshot of the youtube video on the other hand, the following video analyzed contains material about collocation. this video explains the meaning, pronounce, and use of collocation in the sentences. in this video, the lecturer explained some collocations and idioms such as; cope with, succeed in, look for, supposed to, leave something up to someone, rely on, hang out, in touch, and many others. in the end, the lecturer instructed the students to write five sentences containing collocations and idioms and their meanings. furthermore, after observing the video, this research analyzed students' answers in the youtube comments column. the investigation found that students from the three non-english study programs did the instruction very well. they could write five sentences of collocation and idiom with the meaning correctly. however, there are some errors in writing the sentences for some students related to the grammatical. figure 3 is an example of a video that has been uploaded and responded to by students in figure 3. the result of students’ perception on youtube in order to find out the perception of non-english students about english language teaching using youtube, a survey was conducted at the end of the semester. eight questions are given to students that consist of three options, agree, neutral and disagree. the survey results revealed that the students have a positive perception of the use of youtube as an elt medium. the survey on students’ perception of using youtube as a virtual medium in english 1 course is showed in figure 4. aprilian ria adisti | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 6 figure 3. the screenshot of the youtube video 80% 7% 13% agree neutral disagree figure 4. percentage of students’ perception the diagram showed that 80% students agree that youtube videos significantly improve their understanding of the material degrees of comparison and collocation. only 13% students disagree, and 7% students are neutral to this. this finding also was in line with the study from (watkins & wilkins, 2011; gracella & rahman nur, 2020; abbas & qassim (2020) who exposed the significant impact of youtube towards encouraging students’ motivation in learning english. the result of virtual observation showed that videos of degres of comparison and collocation materials via youtube were very useful in building a learning atmosphere in elt online classes. this learning video was also more significant in increasing student participation when compared to using other types of media such as text-based learning media. the use of english videos through youtube could improve students' critical thinking skills. this video also allowed students to see real and more realistic learning objects. learning english through youtube could support learning effectiveness because it almost had the same instructions as face-to-face learning. furthermore, the availability of this learning video could be watched everytime by students. this is certainly more effective than traditional learning where all the information center and control of information delivery were only on the teacher. moreover, the result of the perception survey of 105 students were also triangulated through the youtube comments column to strengthen the survey results. based on the oservations, it showed that the students' comments have a positive tendency towards the videos posted about the theme of the related material. students are engaged in this learning material. this fact can be aprilian ria adisti | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 7 analyzed from their participation during learning. they participated and wrote some questions; of course, it described the virtual interactions in this situation. youtube is one of the many social networking sites that are being widely used today. the use of youtube as an online medium in teaching english is an attempt to integrate technology into teaching activities. the results showed that the use of youtube in the elt class received a positive perception from the respondents. content on youtube allows students to view learning videos, download videos that can be shared with others and provide space to interact virtually through the comments column. in addition, based on the perception, respondents claim that youtube is a video-sharing service that makes it easier for them to understand the material in audio-visual form. therefore, this study highlighted that youtube as a virtual media has a good impact on non-english students learning the english 1 course at iain salatiga. conclusion in this pandemic era, mastery of technology is the most crucial foundation in the education sector. this fact strengthens that by mastering technology, the goal of online learning can be successfully realized. students can still learn through digital media wherever and whenever they want without interacting face-to-face with the lecturers in the classroom. youtube is considered one of the media with great potential to improve the quality of online learning, especially in english language learning for non-english students. this medium can create freedom of expression and add experience in improving students' ability to understand learning materials through video content uploaded on the youtube channel. the investigation revealed that youtube could motivate non-english students in english language teaching. this fact was obtained from the analysis results of the answer sheets and comments in the youtube comment column. these results indicate a positive attitude of students towards the use of this media. from the three classes, non-english students seemed to understand the explanations, instructions, and exercises given through an explanation video uploaded on youtube on the degrees of comparison and collocation material. however, some students are late in posting their assignments due to signal problems. furthermore, most of the students from those three classes also posted the answer sheets on the youtube comment column. they also got excellent results from doing assignments based on the explanation from the youtube video. some comments also showed students’ positive feelings during focusing on lecturer’s explanation on the video. the survey on students’ perception of using youtube as a virtual medium in elt showed that 80% students agree that youtube videos significantly improve their understanding of the material degrees of comparison and collocation. only 13% students disagree, and 7% students are neutral to this. this investigation concludes that youtube could be an effective virtual teaching medium in elt among non-english students at iain salatiga. as a recommendation for further researchers, it is better to add a variable that not only focuses on reviewing youtube use in elt classes and respondents' perceptions, but also changes the research methodology to measure the effectiveness of youtube use on learning achievement in efl classes for non-english students. references abbas, n. f., & qassim tabarek ali. 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(2011). using youtube in the efl classroom. language education in asia, 2(1), 113–119. https://doi.org/10.5746/leia/11/v2/i1/a09/watkins_wilkins putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 63 elt forum 11(1) (2022) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt enacting hot potatoes to engage and motivate the undergraduate learners in the business correspondence course ruth dewi indrian1 1english language studies, universitas sanata dharma, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received on 21 september 2021 approved on 25 march 2022 published on 30 march 2022 ________________ keywords: business correspondence course; call, hot potatoes; web-based learning ____________________ abstract ____________________________________________________________________ technology has become the answer to students’ interests to be engaged in the learning process. in this case, the use of the hot potatoes application was employed to facilitate students’ needs in learning the business correspondence course. this study was a content analysis that employed the call approach as the assistance of students’ learning process (egbert & shahrokni, 2018). this study aimed to investigate the implementation of the hot potatoes application to assist students to learn the materials of three topics of business correspondence, namely replying to a job applicant, requesting a service, and confirming a service (lougheed, 2003). the results showed that the use of hot potatoes web-based learning brought beneficial impacts to students’ learning process of business correspondence course of the fourth-semester students. the researcher discovered that the implementation of this application engaged students’ attention and motivated them to be involved mindful for the learning activity. moreover, hot potatoes exercises helped the students comprehend the elements of a letter and vocabulary and expressions used based on the context of the letter. the researcher suggests that future researchers can fill in the gap on how the hot potatoes application can be applied in various courses in english language departments.  correspondent address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 jl. tlogo putri, kaliurang barat hargobinangun, pakem, sleman, yogyakarta, 55582 e-mail: ruthdewiindrian@yahoo.com http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& mailto:ruthdewiindrian@yahoo.com ruth dewi indrian | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 64 introduction in this fast-growing era of technology, there are ways to encourage students’ interest to learn. according to egbert (2005), call helps the teacher to encourage students to be involved mindfully in the learning process since the visual features capture students’ interest to learn. the teacher can also employ different media to engage the students to learn meaningful language use instead of the study of language. furthermore, call encourages the students to play roles for an effective and attractive learning environment. here, it also provides adequate information to assist the students to create critical choices for the learning process (egbert, 2005). in this case, a teacher has the opportunity to design web-based learning through the hot potatoes application. the web-based learning is expected to integrate the technology itself with the high quality of materials (o'neil & perez, 2006). therefore, hot potatoes itself is a tool for the teacher’s instructional design to create online exercises with various types of exercises, namely jcloze, jquiz, jcross, jmatch, jmix, and the masher. hot potatoes was invented by the research and development team at the university of victoria humanities computing and media centre which functions for creating web-based learning exercises (erben et al., 2009). furthermore, hot potatoes also gives a great influence in pedagogical settings, especially in facilitating the learning process (sadeghi & soleimani, 2015). in relation to students’ motivation, hot potatoes exercises are applicable to learn business correspondence which may be considered hard to design. therefore, it is essential to discover how the implementation of hot potatoes web-based learning can engage students’ motivation to learn business correspondence. previous research conducted by setiawan (2016) investigated a study on the use of hot potatoes application to teach vocabulary at the eleventh grade in sma bodhisattva. the researcher designed hot potatoes exercises for the students to discover students’ motivation and their vocabulary improvement. the results showed that the students were engaged in the learning activity and their enrichment of vocabulary improved (setiawan, 2016). secondly, hot potatoes exercises were employed in the descriptive text of seventh-grade students in one of the private schools in surabaya (anggoro & arif, 2018). the researcher designed six kinds of exercises by using jcloze, jquiz, jcross, jmatch, jmix, and the masher. the results showed that the web-based learning exercises were applicable to be used in teaching descriptive text (anggoro & arif, 2018). to date, there has not been adequate research that examines the use of hot potatoes exercises to learn the topics in business correspondence. hence, it is beneficial to bridge the gap of how hot potatoes exercises help students to learn business correspondence. this research aims to discover the students’ experience of using hot potatoes exercises in business correspondence class in mahasaraswati university. the research questions addressed to this study cover two questions, namely 1) how does the use of hot potatoes web-based learning engage students’ interests to learn business correspondence?, and 2) how does hot potatoes web-based learning help students learn the business correspondence course? thus, the purpose of the study is to unfold the implementation of hot potatoes in the business correspondence course. literature review in this chapter, two sections are addressed accordingly, namely theoretical backgrounds of call (computer assisted language learning), hot potatoes, business correspondence, and previous studies of the use of hot potatoes in language learning. call (computer assisted language learning) throughout the practice in pedagogical settings, call has been significantly integrated into language learning and technology (farr & murray, 2016). according to egbert (2005), as cited in his book, call (computer assisted language learning) is a field that copes ‘the search for and study of applications of the computer in language teaching and learning’ (levy, 1997, p. 1, as cited in egbert, 2005). in this sense, call is compatible to be applied in class since it meets the educational goals. call gives beneficial inputs to both teachers and students (egbert, 2005; egbert & shahrokni, 2018). the teacher should highlight the several elements while using technology for designing materials for the students. firstly, a teacher should employ technology to meet the pedagogical goals of the learning and curriculum. secondly, the teacher needs to maintain that the use of technology is user-friendly for the learners so that they can access it effectively. thirdly, when the teacher uses the technology, she or he needs to use it as a medium that helps the learners practice and improve their proficiency. fourthly, a teacher also should use the technology effectively and efficiently to make the students learn faster and reach the learning goals (egbert, 2005; egbert & shahrokni, 2018). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/university_of_victoria ruth dewi indrian | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 65 according to egbert & shahrokni (2018), the principles of task engagement carry several points. firstly, the task has to be authentic which introduces the learners through real-world tasks. secondly, the given exercises need to be interesting that meet learners’ interests. thirdly, the teacher has to maintain that the task can build social interactions between the learners. fourthly, the teacher needs to consider the support challenge to the learners so that they can get an adequate level of difficulty. fifthly, the teacher needs to scaffold the learning autonomy so that the learners can explore their learning process. lastly, the teacher assists the learner with effective scaffolding that includes learning resources and feedback (egbert & shahrokni, 2018). in this case, call assists the teacher makes the course design easier, and for the students, it attracts them in the learning process so that it apprehends students’ interest and motivation to be involved in the new concepts and ways of thinking (egbert, 2005). therefore, several elements that call occupies are proposed. firstly, students have opportunities to socialize and negotiate in their community. secondly, learners have interaction in the target language with a real audience. thirdly, learners are engaged in real-world tasks. fourthly, learners are encouraged to produce good language. fifthly, learners have enough time and washback. sixthly, learners are directed to be involved mindfully in the learning activity. seventhly, learners work with an ideal anxiety level. lastly, learner autonomy is reinforced. therefore, with the assistance of computer-based learning, the educational goals and effective learning process in class can be achieved (egbert, 2005). therefore, for the learners, call assists them to accomplish the learning goals in learning the language. firstly, learners can communicate the language socially and negotiate the meaning. secondly, the learners can interact with the target language with the target audience so that they can practice listening and replying. thirdly, they can have opportunities to explore the authentic tasks that can help them be engaged in the learning process. fourthly, the learners can explore producing creative and various outcomes while learning the language. fifthly, they can have sufficient time and feedback to meet the learning goals. sixthly, the learners learn in an adequate learning atmosphere with an ideal anxiety level. lastly, call helps them to learn autonomously so that they can explore the experience in learning the language (egbert, 2005). hot potatoes hot potatoes is an application used for designing online exercises for the world wide web (rottmeier, 2019). hot potatoes was invented by the research and development team at the university of victoria humanities computing and media centre which functions for creating web-based learning exercises (erben et al., 2009). hence, hot potatoes is implemented in english language learning so that the teacher can engage the students’ interest and motivation to learn. teachers can create interactive multiple-choice, short-answer, jumbled-sentence, crossword, matching/ordering, and gap-fill exercises by using jcloze, jquiz, jcross, jmatch, jmix, and the masher features (arneil & holmes, 2012). firstly, the jcloze feature creates gap-filling exercises but only one correct answer for each blank is acquired. secondly, the jquiz functions to create short answer practices that require the learner to fill in the blanks. thirdly, the jcross feature is used to create small-sized crossword puzzles in which the clues can be provided either in word form or in the form of pictures. fourthly, the jmatch feature functions to create matching exercises through two listing exercises. fifthly, the jmix feature can produce jumbled sentence exercises and allow the teacher to enter various combinations of answers. lastly, the masher feature is a useful tool that automatically organizes clusters of hot potatoes exercises into parts (arneil & holmes, 2012). in the practice of educational settings, hot potatoes is the teacher’s instructional design to create web-based learning with various features of exercises. business correspondence according to lougheed (2003), business correspondence is the exchange of information in the area of business activities in a written form. many kinds of letters help us to correspond to our colleagues, such as cover letters, ordering supplies, and providing information. in this study, the researcher focused on designing three topics of business correspondence, namely replying to a job applicant, requesting a service, and confirming a service. firstly, applying to a job applicant is when an individual sends a letter to our company and we need to decide whether or not we will proceed with the application. in this case, an hrd needs to screen the data of the applicant to see whether or not she/he occupies the requirements. therefore, it is time for the company to reply to the applicant’s job application. secondly, requesting a service is used for asking for detailed information about the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/university_of_victoria ruth dewi indrian | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 66 service that a company offers. in this case, we need to specify what kind of service we would like to have and any other information that we want to ask. therefore, it will be easier for the recipient to give a clear and accurate response. thirdly, confirming a service is used for clarifying the service that we would like to have by restating all the details of the service. in this case, the recipient will understand easily and provide the service based on our needs (lougheed, 2003). hence, these three topics are beneficial for the students to learn, especially if they need to apply the knowledge in realworld life. previous studies of the use of hot potatoes in language learning in this section, two previous studies give contributions to the current study. firstly, gohil & parmar (2018) conducted a study on the use of hot potatoes software for language teaching and learning. the researchers focused on the use of hot potatoes features, such as jcloze, jquiz, jcross, jmatch, jmix, and the masher. the study gave insights into how these features were applicable and beneficial to create exercises in educational settings. furthermore, the researchers suggested that it is effective for english teachers to design web-based learning exercises through the hot potatoes application. therefore, the implementation of this application will serve individuals’ learning pace and improve their cognitive aspects (gohil & parmar, 2018). second, fansury et al. (2018) researched the use of the hot potatoes application to increase language students’ achievement at the second-grade students of junior high school 8 makassar. the researcher employed a quasi-experimental method to obtain the data of the study. the findings showed that the use of hot potatoes web-based learning was effective to increase students’ interest in learning and it also decreased the anxiety of learning english. therefore, the results of this study showed that hot potatoes exercises were applicable for teaching english in junior high schools (fansury et al., 2018). thirdly, susiati et al. (2019) conducted research on hot potatoes multimedia applications in the evaluation of indonesian learning in junior high school students in the buru district. the study aimed to discover the influence of the hot potatoes application in evaluating students’ learning outcomes in indonesian language learning. they employed a quantitative and qualitative description to uncover the students’ learning outcomes by using a multiple-choice test. the findings showed that the use of hot potatoes multimedia application raises a significant positive influence on students’ learning process. they conclude that the use of this application has brought positive outcomes as the type of activities were given in an interesting method. moreover, the quality of the learning process also improves students’ motivation to learn the language (susiati et al., 2019). methods in this chapter, the researcher provides the methodology employed in this study. four sections are addressed accordingly, namely research method, the object of the study, data collection, techniques of data analysis, and research procedures. the description of each section is presented as follows. this study was qualitative research that employed a content analysis. according to krippendorff (2004), content analysis is “a research technique for making replicable and valid inferences from texts (or other meaningful matter) to the contexts of their use” (p. 18). the researcher employed this method to answer the two research questions. there were two research problems, namely 1) how does the use of hot potatoes web-based learning engage students’ interest to learn business correspondence?, and 2) how does hot potatoes web-based learning help students learn the business correspondence course? hence, content analysis is applied to examine the implementation of hot potatoes web-based learning in the business correspondence course. respondents the object of the study was the students’ perception of the implementation of hot potatoes web-based learning in the business correspondence course in mahasaraswati university. the researcher distributed questionaries by using the google form link group. therefore, the participants were 70 fourth-semester students of english letters of mahasaraswati university. the instrument of the study was a list of fifteen statements consisting of students’ perceptions on the use of hot potatoes webbased learning in the business correspondence course. in this study, the researcher made closedended question questionaries with five-point likert scale (strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, strongly disagree) to obtain students’ responses to the implementation of hot potatoes exercises (roy, 2020). ruth dewi indrian | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 67 data collection procedures to gather the data, the researcher designed exercises of business correspondence. the lecturer of this course provided the book to the researcher so that it could be used for creating the exercises. the researcher created three topics of this course, namely replying to a job applicant, requesting a service, and confirming a service (lougheed, 2003). firstly, in the practice of applying to a job applicant, the researcher employed vocabulary matching exercises by using the jmatch feature. secondly, for the requesting a service, the researcher used the jquiz feature to design the exercises by filling proper vocabulary or expressions in a letter. thirdly, in the practice of confirming a service, the researcher created a multiple-choice exercise by using the jcloze feature. fourthly, after designing the exercises, the researcher handed the three exercises to the lecturer of this course. lastly, the lecturer assigned the exercises to the students in an online class. data analysis to conduct this study, the researcher employed content analysis that contains four stages to analyze the data (creswell, 2009). firstly, the researcher organized and prepared the data for analysis. secondly, the researcher read through all data. thirdly, the data were calculated based on each statement in the questionnaire. table 3 shows the criteria of the scoring criteria of the results of the questionaries calculation. table 1. scoring criteria frequency percentage meaning rating 1 – 70 71 – 140 141 – 210 211 – 280 281 350 20 40 60 80 100 very bad bad neutral good very good 1 2 3 4 5 the fourth stage is interrelating the data based on their classification. lastly, the researcher interpreted and presented the results of the analysis. to validate the data, the researchers repeatedly checked the data of the questionaries and how the data could be elaborated with the theories. during the validation process, the researcher encountered some mistakes and revised the discussion of the findings. findings and discussion in this research, the researcher discovered that most of the students were engaged in the learning activity by using hot potatoes web-based learning exercises. the findings of the implementation of hot potatoes in the business correspondence course are manifested through two sections in this chapter. firstly, the discussion of the use of hot potatoes web-based learning to engage students’ interests to learn the business correspondence course. secondly, the exploration of the use of hot potatoes web-based learning to help them learn the business correspondence course. the findings of the study were obtained from the closed-ended question questionaries with five-point likert scale. to evaluate this instrument, the researcher applied the pilot test to measure the validity and performed the test-retest to evaluate the reliability of the questionaries (jenn, 2006). the statements in the questionaries were adopted from setiawan (2016). to see the detailed findings, a table presenting the findings is provided in table 4. table 2. number of occurrences of questionnaire items statement rating r total % c 5 4 3 2 1 1. it is the first time i use hot potatoes to learn business correspondence. 19 45 2 4 70 289 82.6 5 2. the use of hot potatoes is user-friendly. 25 40 3 2 70 298 85.1 5 3. the use of hot potatoes is fun and exciting. 39 28 3 70 316 90.3 5 ruth dewi indrian | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 68 4. the use of hot potatoes motivates me in learning business correspondence. 19 43 7 1 70 290 82.8 5 5. the use of hot potatoes reduces anxiety in learning business correspondence. 10 44 15 1 70 273 78 4 6. the use of hot potatoes creates a meaningful context for language use. 22 43 5 70 297 84.8 5 7. the practice of replying to a job applicant helps me enrich my vocabulary in business correspondence. 25 45 2 70 311 88.8 5 8. the vocabulary practice of replying to a job applicant helps me recognize the meaning and relation of the vocabulary and its use. 24 43 3 70 310 88.6 5 9. the practice of replying to a job applicant is difficult to do. 5 10 19 32 4 70 290 82.8 5 10. the practice of confirming a service helps me comprehend the proper vocabulary used in the letter. 19 48 3 70 296 84.6 5 11. the practice of confirming a service helps me comprehend the proper expressions used in the letter. 19 47 3 1 70 294 84 5 12. the practice of confirming a service is difficult to do. 3 9 22 33 3 70 186 53.1 3 13. the practice of requesting a service helps me recognize the structure and elements in the letter. 17 50 3 70 294 84 5 14. the practice of requesting a service helps me comprehend the use of each element in the letter. 16 53 1 70 295 84.3 5 15 the practice of requesting a service is difficult to do. 3 12 17 31 7 70 183 52.3 3 code description of table 4 r : respondents c : criteria the use of hot potatoes web-based learning to engage students’ interests to learn the business correspondence course the use of the hot potatoes web-based learning in the business correspondence course was something new for the students. the findings showed that 82.6% of the students firstly experienced learning business correspondence through hot potatoes exercises. in this case, technology needs to be introduced to the students as the media of their learning activity. especially, it was something new for them to use hot potatoes exercises in learning business correspondence course. here, the researcher discovered that the implementation of this web-based learning needs introducing since the students ruth dewi indrian | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 69 were also eager to use technology as it allows them to explore the experience of learning. in relation to this, the use of technology allows the students to learn autonomously as it breaks the bridge of power structure between the teacher and the student (ardi, 2017). in addition, the implementation of hot potatoes was also considered user-friendly for the students. the findings showed that 85.1% of the students were able to operate the website practice. since the learning activity was conducted online due to the covid-19 situation, the students could access it easily. in this case, web based-learning was helpful for them as they could do the exercises anywhere and anytime (astuti, wihardi, & rochintaniawati, 2020). here, the accessibility of web-based learning has to be user-friendly since the function itself is to make it easier for the students to do the tasks (egbert & shahrokni, 2018; dinc, 2017). thus, the use of hot potatoes exercises in this course was successful enabling the students to access the tasks much more easily. therefore, the findings showed that 90.3% of the use of hot potatoes exercises was also fun and exciting for the students. in relation to this, web-based learning offers a number of features that give an attractive look to the practice itself, such as the use of solid colors, pictures, and backgrounds. furthermore, the use of web-based learning also engaged students’ attention and interest to do the task (egbert & shahrokni, 2018). to boost students’ motivation to learn, a teacher needs to create a student-centered instructional design that serves beneficial attention for the students (barger & byrd, 2011). in this case, a teacher needs to give interesting activities to increase students’ interest. therefore, the use of web-based learning exercises is one of the ways to boost students’ motivation to learn. in relation to this, 82.8% of the students felt motivated through the learning activity of this course. setiawan (2016) also concluded in his study that the use of the hot potatoes program influenced students’ motivation to understand the material easier. moreover, the features of this application also have become a factor in the successful learning process as engagement plays an essential role in learning (collie & martin, 2019). thus, the implementation of hot potatoes web-based learning successfully helped them be willing to learn the business correspondence course and be engaged in the learning process. in summary, the implementation of hot potatoes web-based learning successfully engaged students to learn the materials of the business correspondence course. the learning activity also met the psychological needs, such as motivation to learn and autonomous learning (gagné, 2014). there were two major positive effects that the students experienced. firstly, the students firstly knew and used hot potatoes web-based learning for this course. since the hot potatoes application is userfriendly, the students were able to access the task easier. secondly, the attractive features of the hot potatoes application also engaged students’ motivation to learn and the exercises helped them to understand the material of the business correspondence course better. thus, the hot potatoes application is suitable to be used in the business correspondence course as it facilitates students’ needs in their learning process. the use of hot potatoes web-based learning to help students learn the business correspondence course through the learning process of the business correspondence course, the students were assigned to do the hot potatoes exercises. three topics applied to hot potatoes application namely, replying to a job applicant, requesting a service, and confirming a service (lougheed, 2003). referring to the findings, the implementation of hot potatoes helped students’ a lot in understanding the materials of these topics. in this case, the hot potatoes application successfully facilitated students’ learning process of this course. first of all, in the topic replying to a job applicant, the vocabulary exercises helped students enrich their vocabulary of the business correspondence field. based on the findings, 88.8% of the students discovered that the vocabulary exercises enhance their bank of vocabulary. the matching vocabulary exercises also helped students understand the relation between the meaning and the vocabulary and how it suited to the context used in business correspondence. furthermore, the students also considered that the exercises were quite difficult since the researcher needed to maintain the level of difficulty of university students. therefore, the vocabulary practice given matches with an ideal anxiety level (egbert, 2005). mccarten (2007) asserts that learning of vocabulary needs to be given to the students with teaching principles. in this case, it is important to provide the vocabulary with its meaning so that the students will be able to acknowledge the use of the vocabulary based on the context. furthermore, setiawan (2016) also concluded in his study that the implementation of hot potatoes vocabulary exercises also helped students improve their vocabulary enrichment. thus, the ruth dewi indrian | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 70 vocabulary practice of this topic enabled students to enrich their vocabulary and the relation of the vocabulary and meaning based on the context of business correspondence. second of all, in requesting a service practice, the students were assigned to do the multiplechoice exercises of the elements of the structure of this type of letter. based on the findings, the researcher discovered that 84% of the students experienced that the use of hot potatoes exercises helped them recognize the structure of this letter easily. moreover, the task also helped the students a lot in understanding the use of each element in the letter. furthermore, 52.3% of the students considered that the task was not too difficult to do since the researcher consider difficulty level for fourth-semester students. therefore, the task assigned was compatible with an ideal anxiety level which balances the students’ competence in this course (egbert, 2005). therefore, the activity of this web-based learning, helped students comprehend the pattern of requesting a service letter and how the element works in the letter of requesting a service. third of all, in confirming a service practice, the researcher discovered that the implementation of the hot potatoes task successfully facilitated students’ learning process. referring to the findings, 84.6% of the students experienced that the practice assigned helped them enrich their vocabulary and particular expressions used in this letter. mccarten (2007) asserts that learning vocabulary can be presented in various ways, such as frequency, collocation, and grammatical patterns. therefore, in this practice, the researcher designed the practice by using grammatical patterns in which the students were asked to fill in the blank spaces of a confirming a service letter. the students needed to choose the appropriate vocabulary and expressions based on the context. in this case, the students learned a new level of vocabulary comprehension through placing them in the right phrases or sentences. therefore, the researcher also considered the level of difficulty of this practice, and it turned out that students’ response about the task was on the middle level 53.1%, which means it did not hugely absorb students’ energy. therefore, the use of this web-based learning also reduced students’ anxiety in learning this course since the application contained attractive features and a propositional number of questions. hence, the vocabulary practice of this topic helped students comprehend the use of certain expressions used in the context of business correspondence, especially in confirming a service letter. in short, the implementation of hot potatoes web-based learning helped students understand the materials of the business correspondence course. there were three topics of this course, namely replying to a job applicant, requesting a service, and confirming a service that the researcher used as the reference to make the exercises. firstly, the results showed that the practice of replying to a job applicant helped students learn new vocabulary and the relation between the vocabulary and their meaning. secondly, the practice of requesting a service helped the students to understand the rhetorical patterns and the use of the elements in this letter. thirdly, the practice of confirming a service also helped students to learn proper words, phrases, and expressions based on the context used in the letter. from all these three topics, the researcher also concluded that the level of difficulty matched students’ level as university students. the findings also highlighted that the use of this application reduced students’ anxiety in the learning process. in this case, the hot potatoes web-based learning brought significant influence on the efficacy of the exercises (soleimani & raeesi, 2015). hence, the implementation of hot potatoes exercises successfully facilitated students’ needs of learning the business correspondence course. conclusion in closing, the use of hot potatoes web-based learning in the business correspondence course successfully brought beneficial impacts to the students’ learning process. first of all, the hot potatoes application was user-friendly for the students, especially it was the first time they used this application to learn the business correspondence course. second of all, the students were engaged and motivated to learn this course since hot potatoes offers attractive features that capture students’ interest. third of all, the implementation of the exercises given through three topics of this course helped students understand the materials better and easier. in this case, the practices helped them a lot in vocabulary enrichment, the rhetorical structure of the letter, the use of the elements, and the use of phrases and expressions based on the context used in the letter. in relation to this, the level of difficulty of each exercise was also set up to be adjusted for university students. fourth of all, the findings also showed that the use of hot potatoes exercises decreased the students’ anxiety of learning this course since it offers an interesting and effective way to learn business correspondence. in conclusion, the implementation of hot potatoes web-based learning successfully assisted students’ needs of learning the business correspondence course. in addition, the present study still needs improvements as the ruth dewi indrian | elt forum 11(1) (2022) 71 discussion of the challenges of the technical problems and the challenges of students’ engagements in implementing the hot potatoes exercises still need addressing. therefore, for further study, the researcher suggests that future researchers can fill in the gap on how the hot potatoes application can be applied in various courses in english language departments. acknowledgement my sincerest gratitude goes to ibu ni made verayanti utami, s.s., m.hum. of mahasaraswati university, bali, for allowing me to conduct this research in her class. i would also like to express my gratitude to my advisor, bapak dr. benedictus bherman dwijatmoko, m.a. for his guidance patience, support, suggestions, and time in helping me finish this research. i am sure that this research will not exist without their guidance. hopefully, this 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(2016). the use of hot potatoes for teaching vocabulary at the eleventh grade of sma bodhisattva. the 4th international conference on education and language (pp. 232 -241). bandar lampung: universitas bandar lampung. soleimani, h., & raeesi, a. (2015). hot potatoes: the merits and demerits. theory and practice in language studies, 5(6), 1291-1295. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17507/tpls.0506.24 susiati, rismaniye, & suherman, l. o. (2019). hot potatoes multimedia applications in evaluation of indonesian learning in junior high school students in buru district. els journal on interdisciplinary studies on humanities, 2(4), 556-570. doi:https://doi.org/10.34050/elsjish.v2i4.8455 putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 191 elt forum 11 (3) (2022) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt how does an online writing for publication group promote reflective practice? voices from two efl lecturers achmad kholili1, arif husein lubis2 1 universitas islam zainul hasan genggong, probolinggo, indonesia 2 universitas pendidikan indonesia, bandung, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received on june 15, 2022 approved on november 26, 2022 published on november 30, 2022 ________________ keywords; academic writing; reflective practice; efl teachers; group discussion ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ reflective practice has been a prominent issue on english language teaching since it involves a deliberate action to improve one’s professional knowledge, skills, and awareness. one way to encourage reflective practice for efl teachers is to form an online academic group. the current study examines how the discussion in an online academic writing for publication group promotes reflective thinking. this study involved two efl teachers who participated and learned academic writing in a weekly online meeting on whatsapp to reflect on their study. the online group discussion was recorded and coded according to the topics they talked about in the group. the topics served as a measure of critical reflectivity. findings indicated that the efl teachers talked over and studied academic writing in terms of how to prepare an eligible manuscript for international publication. they also discussed the problems or issues they encountered during writing a research article for publication. the issues were concerned with the research topics, writing an introduction section, difficulties in reporting the research method and procedure, and the use of academic words in their writing, to mention a few. those issues have an implication to the difficulty in preparing an eligible manuscript and in publishing their articles this study calls for further initiations to develop reflective practice of indonesian efl lecturers through a series of intensive academic writing for publication purposes workshops. the foci of the workshops can address the issues on developing each section of the research article or selecting academic words suitable for writing the paper so that the process of undergoing the international publication can be less demanding. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 universitas islam zainul hasan genggong jl. raya panglima sudirman no.360, semampir, kec. kraksaan, kabupaten probolinggo, jawa timur 67282 e-mail: achmadkholili93@gmail.com http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& achmad kholili, arif husein lubis | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 192 introduction reflective practice has gained prominence in teaching and learning around the world these days (farrell, 2008, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2018a, 2021; gadbury-amyot et al., 2019; gün, 2011; kurosh, et al., 2020). it has been claimed that teachers in higher education should promote reflection since experience does not guarantee reflection (kagan, 1992). the authors recognize that it begins with a reflection by looking at the terms. reflection, in this case, is defined as an essential and formidable concept that can foster teachers' self-reflection, critical thinking, and the development of professional values and skills (loka et al., 2022). the ability to reflect is increasingly being identified as the main component in teaching. some studies have evaluated the reflective practice in teaching to date, such as teachers' professional role identities and their reflective practice (farrell, 2011), reflective teaching constraints, challenges, and experiences (wolfensberger et al., 2010), development of an english language teaching reflection inventory (akbari et al., 2010), case studies in reflective practice in an educational program (liou, 2001), development of different instruments in reflective practice such as journal writing, peervideoing, research journal, and action research protocols (abednia et al., 2013; harford & macruairc, 2008), and awareness-raising activities to be reflective teachers (kabilan, 2007). thus, promoting reflection as part of reflective practice is of importance, in which individuals can relook their experience, think about it, mull it over, and evaluate it (loka et al., 2022). by definition, reflective practice is initiated by the word "reflection," which means the act of reflecting, the act of thinking, and the state of being remembered. therefore, when the ones perform reflection or reflective practice, they learn about experiences from themselves, their works, and the way they link to home and work (bolton, 2010). the reflective practice offers strategies to bring out into the open, and set appropriate questions which are never asked earlier (bolton, 2010). reflective practice is also part of learning and teaching. by doing the reflective practice, it means that the ones lead to change and development in their learning organization (gould, 2004), with responsive mechanism of coach, mentor, or facilitator (gray, 2007). as a language teacher, it is of value to do the reflective practice over time, especially for their professional development. there are many ways teachers can reflect on their work for their professional development. farrell (2018a) has already outlined a number of activities that the teachers can choose to reflect on; they are teaching journals, critical friends, teacher development group, classroom observations, action research, teacher role identity, teacher metaphors, and teacher beliefs. these activities are indeed different from one another. teaching journals offer the teachers a written record of varied aspects of their practice, such as classroom events (farrell, 2018a). critical friends are closely related to collaboration among teachers in a two-way mode that encourages discussion and reflection to improve the quality of teaching and learning. critical friendship, as the name suggests, is a situation where another person reflects with a teacher and provides advice as a trusted “friend” in order to develop awareness of classroom events (farrell, 2018b). the purpose of this is to offer critique of a person work as a friend. among various ways to promote reflective practice, this study focuses on the context of a teacher development group. it is a kind of reflective practice in which the teachers come together in a teacher development group to reflect on complementing each other's strengths and compensating for each other's limitations (farrell, 2014). classroom observation can be carried out in pairs or small groups. the teachers, in this case, can develop more of an awareness of what is happening, what decisions the teachers make, and why they make them (farrell, 2018a). in the action research, the teachers investigate the problems the teachers may be experiencing with a specific class, student, curriculum, or teaching method (farrell, 2018a). in the teacher role identity, the teachers construct and reconstruct their identities regarding who they are (their self-image) and this is manifested through what they do (their professional role identity). teacher role identity incorporates teachers' beliefs, values, and emotions about many aspects of teaching and being a teacher (farrell, 2018a). teachers' metaphors are about the way the teachers think about their teaching, and guide the way they act in the classroom (farrell, 2018a). last but not least, teachers' beliefs are about the beliefs the teacher hold about their teaching and learning because these are usually held tacitly and develop over a teacher career (farrell, 2018a). the teacher development group in the present study addresses various topics, including writing for publication purposes. hence, this study particularly seeks to investigate the reflective practice in a writing group as part of the concerns in the teacher development group. writing groups have been considered beneficial for the members to enrich their knowledge, develop their skills, and achmad kholili, arif husein lubis | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 193 reflect on their knowledge and skills. hanjani and li (2014) has proved that collaborative writing in the form of collaborative revision, for instance, can be employed as a means of improving students’ writing and revision skills since it involves interactions, negotiation, and scaffolding. writing groups are also found to be a beneficial medium for faculty member to develop scholarship (e.g., houfek et al., 2010 in the nursing context). they argue that writing groups have merits on providing collegial support via reflective discussion of the purposes, goals, barriers, and other various topics about writing so that its members can increase motivation and self-confidence in scholarly writing. with the ever-growing advancement of educational technology, reflective practice can be nurtured through online writing groups such as wikis. li and zhu (2013) not only lend support the merits of collaborative writing, but also extend the literature regarding how computer-mediated learning environment can facilitate students’ interactions, which enable the most learning opportunities. hence, the authors intend to explore the reflective practice of teachers in such a group on their academic writing experiences. simply saying, academic writing can be defined as any forms of writing activities for academic purposes or within academic contexts. hence, academic writing is different from writing for daily purposes or interactions (fang, 2021) where the target audiences of the latter form are friends, relatives, and family members. it is further explained that what differentiates academic writing from other types of writing is its characteristics: formal, logical, structured, rigorous, objective, and tightly coherent between ideas. academic writing has four criteria: the writing process, elements of writing, accuracy in writing, and writing models (bailey, 2011). the process of producing a piece of academic paper is dynamic and complex where the author at least needs to apply some strategies to accomplish the pre-, whilst-, and post-writing. one of the examples of academic writing is writing for scholarly publication, such as writing a research article. teachers or researchers are encouraged to write a scientific article. it is not only for their parts of the job but also for their professional development and careers (singh & mayer, 2014). it is justified by the pivotal role of academic writing as “a means of producing, codifying, transmitting, evaluating, renovating, teaching, and learning knowledge and ideology in academic disciplines” (fang, 2021, p. 3). hence, it is not only for students and scholars but also for teachers since the prime goal of academic writing highlights knowledge building, disciplinary practices, and career advancement, to mention a few. writing a research paper is part of academic writing. most of all, it is regarded as a demanding task for both efl students and efl teachers. in writing a research paper, the writers must know the rules, specificity, originality, novelty, and general relevance to a broad scientific community (perneger & hudelson, 2004). it can be clarified that writing a research article has a paper structure such as introduction, methods, results, and discussion (abbreviated as imrad) (perneger & hudelson, 2004). typically, the abstract in a research paper is expected to state the background of the study, the research objective, the research method, the main results of the study, and the conclusion from the results. regarding the introduction section, the writers must state why the problem they address is important, what is lacking in the current knowledge, and the objective of your study. in the method section, the writers need to describe the context and setting of the study, determine the study design, describe the population, sampling strategy, and intervention. in addition, the writers need to identify the main study variables. aside from it, the writers need to account for the data collection procedures and the data analysis used. regarding the results section, the writers need to mention how the results section is organized, the specific results from data analysis, and interpretation of the specific results. then, to convey the discussion and conclusion, the writers must recap the main findings, explain the significance of the findings, how they contribute to the overall state of knowledge, or how they advance knowledge. lastly, the writers need to state the strength and limitations of the study and offer perspectives for future work. the writers should also mention the implications for future research or practice. last but not least, the writers must list all sources employed as a basis for their works, based on a particular referencing style. achmad kholili, arif husein lubis | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 194 apart from its importance and its main elements, academic writing has remained one of the daunting tasks for some students to date, including writing scientific articles (singh & mayer, 2014). even, many teachers and researchers also encounter difficulties in writing a scientific article, for instance, writing an eligible abstract for international publication among non-native english writers (kurniawan et al., 2019). less experience in attending to a formal training in scientific writing can be one of the contributing factors. as a result, the teachers or researchers often make the mistake of understanding the preparation of scientific articles (singh & mayer, 2014). another contributing factor of such difficulties is lack of repertoire regarding the rhetorical patterns and typical linguistic features to convey the information in the article effectively (fang, 2021). such lack of repertoire might be associated to the absence of experience in a discussion with the discourse community in the field, for instance, a writing group or forum. additionally, although reflective practice has been widely investigated, there is a paucity of the study on reflective practice that focuses on teachers' reflective practice on academic writing for international publication in an online environment. the current study attempts to inspect this lessexplored notion since publication is one of the central to the work of academics in higher education (macleod et al., 2012). as argued previously, the teachers can relook their experience, consider it, mull it over, and evaluate it (loka et al., 2022). they can improve several attributes such as evidence-based decisions in their circumstances and professionalism. hence, this study particularly aims to address the following research questions. 1. how do the efl teachers reflect on the typical structure of a research article for international publication? 2. how do they reflect on the issues in preparing a research article for international publication? methods drawing on the poststructuralist look, the current study focused on two efl teachers to reflect on their studies of academic writing. this study employed a qualitative research, promoting the descriptive and narrative lens. hence, this study focused on exploring the variety of the participants’ perspectives; not attempting to make generalizations of ideas to all teachers in indonesia. the results may lend support the importance of reflective practices, mediated by an online academic group. participants two efl teachers were taken out as the sample of this study. they were selected purposively because they are eligible enough in terms of understanding the research topic being investigated (mills & gay, 2016). while the first participant is teaching english at a public university, the second participant is working at an islamic university; both in west java province. these two efl teachers, coming from a non-anglicized background, come together to participate in a weekly online discussion on academic writing. using whatsapp, these two efl teachers have been actively involved in this online discussion. the purpose of creating an academic writing group is to promote academic writing skills through discussions among the member nationally and internationally regarding a wide range of topics on academic writing such as problems in academic writing, writing a research-based article, and other academic writing problems. therefore, it is of value to reflect on their studies on online academic writing data collection procedures a written reflection and in-depth interview were utilized in the current study to reflect on what they studied in the online academic writing group. a written reflection is used as a tool to reflect upon what they had learned during the online academic writing group. first, the participants were asked to report on several points: what they have learnt from that group, what problems are commonly encountered in writing a research article for publication purposes, and what their perspectives are on the essential elements in a research article. the written reflection guide was written using english. at the same time, the in-depth interview was carried out to receive detailed information regarding what they had learned in the group in which the interview protocol was also formulated in english. a written reflection is labelled as (wr), and an in-depth interview is named (idi). the interview aimed at digging the information about the participants’ feelings in learning academic writing, their views on the importance of each section of the research article, and the typical challenges in writing the research article. the participants were allowed to use indonesian or english so that they had a achmad kholili, arif husein lubis | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 195 flexibility in expressing their ideas without being worried about the language barrier. to this end, the participants returned the reflection sheet in english and used english during the interview session. data analysis a thematic analysis was employed in this existing study, involving familiarizing with the data, generating initial codes, searching for themes, reviewing themes, defining and naming themes, and producing the final reports. first, the researcher conducted iterative reading, which includes reading the transcripts repeatedly to be familiar with the transcripts. after reading the transcripts, the researcher then carried out initial codes. table 1 below exhibits the sample of the coding result. table 1. a sample of coding result utterance code theme "as one of the novice writers in the academic worlds, i need to consider the sections of the paper like introduction section, literature review, research methods used, discussion and conclusion". (farid, in wr) the importance of considering all sections recognizing research article structure for international publication in this case, the researcher codes the transcript. it was followed by searching for themes. the researcher looked for themes that displayed the codes. then, it is subsequently done by reviewing the themes: recognizing research article structure for international publication and issues concerning writing a standard manuscript for international publication. after finding out the themes, the researcher reviewed the themes and checked whether the themes were suitable with the codes provided. afterwards, the researcher had a chance to refine themes. finally, the researcher defined and named themes and continued producing the final report. findings and discussion in this case, the researchers clarify the efl teachers' reflection upon learning online academic writing through whatsapp. the findings showcased that the efl teachers talked about their learning trajectories, especially how to write a research article for international publication. second, they discussed the issues concerning writing a standard manuscript for international publication. these findings are presented in the following themes: recognizing the typical structure of a research article for international publication and issues concerning writing a standard manuscript for international publication. recognizing research article structure for international publication it is essential to know several research structures that are responsible for writing a research article. the participants revealed that the introduction, literature review, research method, discussion and conclusion must be considered since this is the body of the paper. "as one of the novice writers in the academic worlds, i need to consider the sections of the paper like introduction section, literature review, research methods used, discussion and conclusion". (farid, in wr) "i think learning academic writing is rigor and rigid. it indeed requires several things that should be considered, including introduction section, presenting a literature review, stating a methodological approach, showcasing the results, discussing the results, and displaying the conclusion of the study." (sony, in idi). the excerpts showed that the writers had a similar view on the importance of preparing an eligible manuscript by looking at the main sections such as introduction, literature review, method, results, discussion and conclusion. they already had an understanding that academic writing, in this context, requires rigor and rigidity. furthermore, farid demonstrated that academic writing is different from writing an essay or diary. it indeed needs carefulness, extensive reading, and much effort; as informed in the following excerpt: achmad kholili, arif husein lubis | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 196 “when i come to writing a manuscript, i feel that it not the same as writing an essay or diare. choosing appropriate vocabulary, reading other published works extensively, and using advanced english grammar become much consideration. i think it is more complicated than other types of writing”. (farid, in wr). issues concerning writing a standard manuscript for international publication the problems some efl teachers often face in writing research articles for publication are difficulties in deciding the research topic. they perceived that determining the research topic is a long-term process of thinking, resulting in a waste of time. in addition, they need to search for the novelty of the research. "i need to spend much time to find a good research topic. sometimes, i am not sure that it will be accepted in an international journal." (farid, in wr). "i find it difficult to find the research topic. that's what i felt when i started writing a research article for international publication." (sony, in idi). the excerpts showed that the writers still encountered a difficulty in deciding the research topic. however, they were aware of such difficulty from the online academic writing group discussion. it can be a good starting point because the reflection results can trigger them to develop their skills in solving such difficulty. the next problem often grappled by the efl teachers in writing a research article for publication is writing an introduction section. both argued that writing an introduction is an arduous task, requiring knowledge of the topic and a gap. "some efl writers have difficulties writing the introduction sections, especially when regarding how to start writing the stage, and they also often do not indicate the gap." (sony, wr). "most of the time, the efl writers often have a hard time starting to write an introduction section. they write and even no gaps there. "(farid, in idi). the efl writers found that it was challenging to start composing the introduction section for some people. one notable issue in writing an introduction section was that the writers did not indicate or mention any gaps as the basis for claiming the novelty of their research. in addition to the introduction section, the efl teachers suppose that writing a methodological section is extremely hard. the primary concerns are clear explanations of research methods like research design, participants, data gathering, and data analysis. aside from this, they also need to encounter active and passive voices. "what makes research writers often hard is that they often write unclear methodological approach, such as unclear research design, no triangulation or using one data gathering, and unclear data analysis. besides, we also think about the active and passive sentences normally used in the method section" (sony, in wr). "some research writers often run into difficulties writing a standard manuscript for international publication, for example, methodological approach, which should include research design, population/sample, data collection, and data analysis." (farid, in wr). the excerpts of the writers’ reflection results above clearly showed that there were two major issues being concerned in writing an eligible manuscript for publication in international journals: a methodological issue and a language issue. regarding the former issue, the participants admitted that it was challenging to inform the research design and data triangulation in data collection process. regarding the latter issue, the participants viewed that sentence voice, whether active or passive sentence, was still a major concern. finding suitable references is possibly tricky for novice writers as well. let alone; they want it to publish in a reputable international journal. that will be much consideration. the efl teachers think that finding modern references is in trouble for them. achmad kholili, arif husein lubis | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 197 "in addition to methodological approach in writing, looking for suitable and current references is quite important for the researchers. some researchers often report their studies with old references. writing for international publication requires several modern and suitable references to be accepted" (sony, in wr). "another problem related to writing for international publication is concerning the use of modern references. some researchers often use old references, for example, the use of references under the year 2000." (farid, in idi). the excerpts showed that there was an increased understanding of the expectation for the writers from international journals to use current references. they still found some references in the articles that were too old so that it hindered the articles to be accepted for publication. apart from those problems above, the efl teachers discuss using academic vocabulary in writing for international publication is essential. the efl teachers, especially novice writers, often have trouble employing appropriate academic vocabulary. in the meantime, they also have to think about proofreading, like grammar, punctuation, and collocation. "grammar and using academic words are also the main concern in academic writing. some writers regard that these often become problematic when writing for international publication." (sony, in wr). "when writing a manuscript for publication, the researchers often commit errors in terms of grammar and the use of academic words. in fact, for novice writers like me, i still have many difficulties using english grammar and employing academic words." (farid, in wr). the excerpts above exhibited that the writers were already aware of the problems in language errors. those language errors were mostly concerned with grammar, sentence structure, and the use of academic words. although they were still novice writers, they had been able to reflect on their experiences through the online academic writing group discussion. this can become a good modal for them to improve their proofreading skills. discussion the current study has attempted to examine the reflective practice in an online academic writing group. the findings indicated that the efl teachers reflected upon how to write a research article for international publication and the issues in writing it for international publication, such as difficulties in deciding the research topics, issues in using academic words, issues in composing an introduction section, issues in writing a methodological approach, and inability for finding modern and suitable references. the findings generally show that although the participants are already aware of the importance of considering main elements of research article writing for international publication, the process of preparing the manuscript seems still challenging. this reflection is included in the critical reflection within this study. some studies have previously showcased that learning academic writing, including how to write research articles for international publication, is ambitious, for instance, cargill & o'connor (2009) have argued that those who are relatively new to the task of writing or those who have been scientists are faced with pressure and challenges to writing a research article for international publication. a problem found by the researcher above is that the efl writers often have difficulties deciding the research topics. it can be understood that prior to writing the paper, choosing the suitable and relevant research topic has been a particularly challenging task. one of the issues the efl writers confront is having complexities in finding and deciding the research topics (alderman, 2014). apart from this, the introduction section becomes problematic for some efl writers when reporting their research in the form of an article. previous studies have proven that the main concerns when composing research articles can be seen in introduction sections (cheung, 2012; fudhla et al., 2014; samraj, 2002, 2005; shehzad, 2008). another issue that has also become problematic is writing a methodological approach. writing a methodological section indeed becomes one of the main concerns. grogan (2020) argues that writing a manuscript is problematic because, most of the time, no one has ever before been where you are in the realm of knowledge. in fact, the methodological approach requires the statements of research design used, participant's description, data collection, and data analysis (swales, 1990; perneger & hudelson, 2004; ecarnot, et al., 2015). finding suitable and modern references is also essential in writing a research article. bavdekar (2016) has asserted that finding accurate and complete references is achmad kholili, arif husein lubis | elt forum 11 (3) (2022) 198 strongly promoted. if the references are not suitable and not modern enough, it will be problematic later if the authors submit their manuscripts for international publication. the findings of the present study implied that writing a research article requires a lot of practice. as researcher writers, we should be knowledgeable about writing a research article correctly and adequately, resulting in acceptance in a refereed journal. the currents were only conducted within the efl context, focusing on the reflective practice of an online academic writing group. therefore, future studies could be performed with other similar topics, such as reflective practice on choosing the right journal for publication and so forth. conclusion the current study has attempted to investigate the reflective practice by efl teachers in an online academic writing group. using a whatsapp-assisted discussion, the efl teachers revealed that they studied how to write a research article for international publication and issues concerning writing a research article for international publication. in particular, the efl teachers talked about the ways to write a research article for publication, including writing an introduction section, literature review, research method, discussion, and conclusion. in addition, they also stated that the difficulties found in writing for international publication consist of complexities in deciding the research topic, complexities in composing the introduction section, challenges in writing the methodological approach, inability for finding the modern references, as well as issues concerning the use of academic vocabulary. the results of this study can be a reference or a notice for indonesian efl teachers, in particular,who wants to write a research article for international publication by considering reflective practice as a means of contemplating strengths and areas of improvement in writing the article. additionally, the results can be used as a supporting evidence for initiating a collaborative action such as a series of academic writing workshops or coaching in developing university teachers’ capacity in writing research articles for international publication purposes. this calls for future research to examine the extent to which such action is beneficial and helpful for the participants. future research can also investigate the role of the workshops or coaching in developing their reflective thinking and reflection skills. funding statement this research is a non-funded study that it does not receive any fundings from any agencies or institutions. references abednia, a., hovassapian, a., teimournezhad, s., & ghanbari, n. 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(2010). the challenge of involvement in reflective teaching: three case studies from a teacher education project on conducting classroom discussions on socio-scientific issues. teaching and teacher education, 26, 714-721. https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-21064 https://doi.org/10.1093/intqhc/mzh053 https://doi.org/10.1016/s0889-4906(00)00023-5 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2002.10.001 https://doi.org/10.1002/bmb.20815 https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-21064 putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 87 elt forum 10 (1) (2021) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt implementing a mobile application quizlet to help senior high school students learn vocabulary alesandro woisela prayogi1, mega wulandari2 1,2sanata dharma university, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received in 23 november 2020 approved in 21 march 2021 published in 31 march 2021 ________________ keywords: quizlet; mobileassisted language learning; perceived usefulness; perceived ease of use; vocabulary __________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this study analyzed how quizlet, a digital vocabulary learning platform, was implemented in helping students learn vocabulary and how students perceive the application. there were 13 high school students of a private school in yogyakarta who took part in this study. the vocabulary studied were taken from the students' course book which was on the level b2 of cefr. this research employed car (classroom action research) as its methodology. the findings of this research suggested that the students were engaged when using quizlet during the class activity. the mean score of perceived usefulness is very high (m= 4.03, sd= 0.86) and perceived ease of use is also very high (m=4.38, sd= 0.75). this indicated that students had favorable views towards the application. the data acquired from the interview also indicated that quizlet was a practical and easy-to-use learning platform. the application was a one-stop vocabulary learning platform. moreover, it utilized cutting-edge technology in learning and the application was practical and easy to use. based on the results mentioned, the researchers strongly recommend that teachers start using quizlet to help their students learn vocabulary. © 2021 universitas negeri semarang correspondent address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 b3 building fbs unnes sekaran, gunungpati, semarang, 50229 e-mail: mega@usd.ac.id http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& alesandro woisela prayogi, mega wulandari / elt forum 10 (1) (2020) 88 introduction technology has been undergoing rapid advancement these past years. the internet connection can now be accessed from myriads devices. these days, students are able to get an internet connection through their mobile devices anytime and anywhere and also able to access anything they desire. students could easily download any application they want, including learning applications, into their devices. students’ addiction toward mobile devices might be a “blessing in disguise” for themselves and for teachers. while it is dangerous for students to be too absorbed in their own world with their mobile devices, teachers may as well take the advantage of them by implementing different tools or technique in teaching using mobile devices in classroom activities. this research will use quizlet as the learning medium for the students in learning english. quizlet is a popular online learning tool which can be accessed through both computer and mobile device. it can be used to study any subject, but its main feature is language learning (kalecky, 2016). in quizlet, students are able to do self-study to acquire their language mastery. moreover, teachers can also make classes, invite their students, create study sets, and track their progress. most importantly, it can be accessed freely by everyone. in terms of learning foreign language, vocabulary is one of the most significant aspects in mastering a language that is learnt in almost all levels of education, from elementary schools, or even kindergarten, to college. moeller et al. (2009) states that vocabulary is the main key to teaching and learning a second language in order to understand all forms of oral and written communication. this shows that learning vocabulary is essential for students in order to be able to reach the goals of learning a language. however, the way of teaching and learning vocabulary has not been improved much. students are still learning vocabulary through books and dictionaries while technology has provided them with a more authentic, eco-friendly, and interactive method. moreover, barr (2016) states most vocabulary learning in todays’ practices only used as an incidental learning and receives a little attention, which means that vocabulary is learnt by doing other activity such as reading. sometimes vocabulary does not even receive any attention during the learning activity. paribakht & wesche (1997) states that students only gain shallow knowledge toward the words they encounter during a reading activity. thus, a change is required in the way teachers teach and students learn vocabulary. based on the displayed problems, the researchers made some efforts by implementing quizlet in classroom activities and finding out students’ perception towards the application and the practice. literature review this literature review discusses related theories being used in this study and some previous studies with similar focus. the theory of vocabulary is discussed first. the next discussion includes mall (mobile assisted language learning), tam (technology acceptance model), and quizlet. vocabulary vocabulary is very critical in one’s language mastery for without a sufficient amount of vocabulary mastery, one cannot meet the goal of learning a language. wilkins (as cited in thornbury, 2002) states that “without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed”. taylor (1990), explains that vocabulary has a special importance in language learning since it is the part which will not be slowed down by age. hence, it will be beneficial for a language learner to give more attention to vocabulary mastery when learning a language. nation (1990) explains four approaches of vocabulary learning from indirect to direct approaches. direct vocabulary learning pays more attention to the vocabulary itself. some examples of direct vocabulary learning is word guessing, learning from word lists, and vocabulary games. indirect vocabulary learning focuses on other features. for example, when a learner is focused on his/ her reading skill, then the process of learning new vocabularies will automatically happen as he/ she reads a passage. the first approach is the most indirect approach which happens when a teacher uses simplified material. new vocabularies are given gradually to students so as not to confuse students with too many new items in the lesson. the second approach deals with unintentional vocabulary learning. any new vocabularies will be dealt with as they unintentionally appear in the process of learning. teachers will give the attention to the new word and learners will learn the new word moments after they encounter it. teachers also need to explain the underlying concepts of the word such as the regular features of the spelling and the grammar rather than just explain the definition of the word. the third approach is about learning vocabulary in association with another language alesandro woisela prayogi, mega wulandari / elt forum 10 (1) (2020) 89 activity such as reading or speaking. the last approach, and the most direct one, deals only with vocabulary. no another language activity involved in this last approach. learners focus and spend more time on learning vocabulary. the example is when learners learn to guess the meaning or definition of a word or when they study words’ definition from dictionary. mall (mobile assisted language learning) mobile assisted language learning is a subset of m-learning. mobile learning (m-learning) is defined as the use of handheld devices such as mobile phones, pdas, and smartphones as a means for learners to learn through its mobility, flexibility, and interactivity (bukharaev & altaher, 2017). mall is used specifically for language learning activity that is assisted through handheld devices. kukulska-hulme & shield (2008) explain that mall is the use of mobile technology in language learning where the mobile technology offers various advantages. mobile technology has influenced cultural practices and provide new contexts in learning (pachler et al., 2010). it provides many advantages such as flexible, small-sized, and user-friendly, researchers are trying to find techniques on how to use mobile technology to help learning activity (huang et al., 2012). a study conducted by lu (2008) on vocabulary learning via short message service (sms) with high school efl students in taiwan indicated that students had positive views toward the method. they believed that such method was convenient and interesting. parallel with lu’s finding, azabdaftari & mozaheb (2012) conducted an experimental study on university students in iran. they implemented two strategies of vocabulary learning; traditional paper-based flashcards and mobilebased flashcards. the findings revealed that students who used mobile-based flashcards had much higher mean score than those who used traditional paper-based flashcards. furthermore, the students found that using mobile phone in learning activity provided more flexibility and entertainment. dizon (2016) conducted a study on the efficacy of quizlet on 9 japanese university students’ vocabulary mastery. the ten-week study showed an improvement of the pre-test and the post-test score of the students. the results also indicated that they prefer using mobile devices than conventional method. tam (technology acceptance model) the theory of technology acceptance model, henceforth tam, was introduced by davis (1989) and nowadays it is often used by researchers to foresee use and acceptance of information technology by its users (surendran, 2012). in tam, there are two factors that influence users to accept or reject any information technology; perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use (davis, 1989). davis believed that these two factors were important in determining one’s acceptance or rejection toward any information technology. perceived usefulness (pu) can be defined as user’s individual perception toward the prospect that using particular information technology will improve the user’s job or life performance (davis & venkatesh, 2000). perceived ease of use (peou), on the other hand, is “the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would be free of effort” (davis, 1989, p. 214). in other words, people will likely to use a system information if it will improve their performance and if it is practical for them to use. figure 1. technology acceptance model alesandro woisela prayogi, mega wulandari / elt forum 10 (1) (2020) 90 quizlet quizlet provides attractive interface and various features to give learners a new learning experience from using the app. quizlet can be accessed from both computer and mobile devices. students just need to download the application and sign up to the application. they could simply sign up through their google account. once they have signed up, they could start searching for any type of materials that they want to learn. furthermore, the app is free and the users could access millions of sets made in quizlet. quizlet will also automatically rearrange the items within the set to avoid serial learning and there are various features provided for the users to interact with (barr, 2016). quizlet has some feature that is able to help students study vocabulary more easily and fun. those features are flashcards, learn, write, spell, match, and test. flashcard feature allows students to study the term and its definition by simply tapping a set of digital flashcards. learn feature allows students to study vocabulary by answering multiple choices or written questions while write feature requires students to type the answers of the given questions. in match feature, students are required to match all of the terms with their definitions. lastly, the test feature will allow students to evaluate their knowledge about a set of vocabularies that they have learnt by answering true or false, multiple choices, and written questions. an experimental study conducted by baptist (2018) on 38 high school students. among all the students, 10 of them were students with special needs. the students were divided into 2 groups, a group consisted of 20 students and other group which was consisted of 18 students. the first group were instructed to use index cards and the second one was instructed to use quizlet. the students were given 12 words to study each week and will be given a quiz on the following meeting. after roughly 9 weeks, the treatment was switched. the result of baptists’ study showed improvements in terms of their score in their quizzes. 16 out of 28 students (approximately 57%) without special needs increased their score compared to the score of their quiz before quizlet was implemented. moreover, 7 out of 10 students (70%) with special needs increased their score compared to the score of their quiz before quizlet was implemented. the respond of the survey from the students also showed a positive perception toward the app. the result of the survey showed that they enjoyed the app very much and they felt that they gained a benefit from using the app. methods classroom action research was used in this study. reason & bradbury (2008)states that action research aims to combine theory and practice as a method to solve practical issues concerned with people. wallace (2010) added that doing action research will help researchers to make decisions on what their future practice should be as it allows them to collect data from their everyday practice and analyze it. according to kemmis and taggart (as cited in khasinah, 2013), action research involves more than one cycle and consists of four steps in each cycle. those four steps are planning, acting, observing, and reflecting. the first step is planning. in this step, the researchers focus on the problem and formulates a set plan which will be conducted to solve the problems in the research. the second step is doing the action. in the action phase, the researchers implement the activities formulated in the planning phase. the action is then observed. in this study, the aspects that were observed are the students’ behavior when using quizlet and the situation within the class when situation within the class when they are using quizlet. the goal of the observation itself in this study is to be able to get a better understanding of how the action performed is implemented and to know the characteristics of the students. the fourth step involves the reflection that explores which problem has or has not been solved and to find out whether there is a new problem emerges when the first cycle is being conducted. after the first cycle was finished, the researchers then revised the plan based on the gathered data and the reflection. in this research, the researchers employed two cycles to correct any errors or mistakes made on the first cycle. the figure below shows the graph of action research cycle (carr & kemmis, 1986). alesandro woisela prayogi, mega wulandari / elt forum 10 (1) (2020) 91 figure 2. car cycle respondents the participants of the study were 13 indonesian-speaking 11th grade students who enrolled at a private senior high school in yogyakarta. the research was conducted in the second semester of the 2018/2019 academic year in february-june 2019. none of the students had studied abroad in an english-speaking country. based on cefr framework, their english level of proficiency is a2-b1. instruments there were three instruments employed in this research, namely class observation, questionnaire, and interview. the observation was conducted during the implementation of quizlet in the classroom. observation is a technique to collect data by looking carefully at the action being performed (ridwan, 2004). this study also used questionnaire to obtain the data from the participants about their attitudes toward quizlet. the questionnaire was developed based on the theory of technology acceptance model: perceived usefulness & perceived ease of use (davis & venkatesh, 2000), and the principles of mobile learning by herrington et al. (2009). respondents (n=13) responded a 5-point likert scale (from 1= “strongly disagree” to 5= “strongly agree.). aside from the questionnaire, the researchers also conducted interviews with three participants. edwards & holland (2013) states that an interview is done in order to study people’s understandings toward their recent experience. in this study, the interviews were conducted to the english teacher and the students of the school. the interview of the english teacher was conducted to identify the problem existing in vocabulary learning within the class. the results of the interviews with the students were used to gain a deeper information about students’ perception toward the implementation of quizlet in the classroom. data analysis further in this research, the data that had been obtained were analyzed to acquire the answers for the mentioned research questions. the observation was used to analyze students’ behavior and the class situation during the implementation of quizlet. through the observation, the researchers were able to find the aspect which could still be improved and what problems should be dealt with. in other words, it was helpful for the researchers as a guide to reflect to what had gone right and what aspects needed some improvements during the first and the second cycle. the questionnaire provided quantitative data which were analyzed by finding the mean of each item. by finding the mean, the researchers were able to discover the average score for each item in the questionnaire and able to determine the central tendency for each item and, thus, allowed the researchers to identify which answer or scale in each item has the highest central tendency. the formula used to calculate the data from the questionnaire was mean formula. the researchers also provided the score responses for each item. the aim was to determine the level of agreement of each item. the researchers used mean distribution formula to determine the range of each scale. after calculating the score responses of the questionnaire, the result obtained was 0.75. hence, ranging from the low up to the very high, the scale range would be as follows: alesandro woisela prayogi, mega wulandari / elt forum 10 (1) (2020) 92 table 1. the scale range of score responses no score range interpretation 1 1 – 2 low 2 2.01 – 3 moderate 3 3.01 – 4 high 4 4.01 – 5 very high as the researchers has explained in the previous section. the interview was conducted for the teacher in order to identify problems existing within the current practice in english teaching. the result of the interview became the reference for the researchers to make a plan to be implemented in the action phase. as for the interview of the students, the result of the interview was used to gain a deeper information about the students’ perception and to support students’ responds from the questionnaires. the validity and reliability were ensured by having data source triangulation which was examining evidence from different data sources (observation, questionnaire, and interview). the information gathered was used to build a coherent justification. findings and discussion quizlet implementation in the first cycle, the researchers used quizlet as an opening activity. but before the students could access the set, they were required to join the class by typing the class link. after that, they studied the first set of the vocabulary practices. they were given 10 minutes to study the set. they could freely choose between various available features within the application and were not obliged to do repetitions from a particular feature. as vidal (2003) states in his study that intentional or direct vocabulary learning provided solution for greater words retention. there are various quizlet features from which the students could choose to study. they are namely learn, flashcards, write, match, and test. figure 3. quizlet’s flashcard feature after studying with quizlet, the students were given a reading comprehension worksheet. the reading passage contained some of the vocabularies which they had studied from the application. after they read the passage, they answered some questions to test their comprehension. the purpose of this activity was to show the students how the vocabularies they had learned were used in sentences. as nation (2001) states, learners may need to learn vocabularies in the passage first before reading the passage so that they could better understand the message conveyed. in addition, learners who understand complex vocabulary will be more likely to understand more complex passage and, thus, alesandro woisela prayogi, mega wulandari / elt forum 10 (1) (2020) 93 improve their proficiency (baptist, 2018). upon finishing the worksheet, the students were not allowed to consult to any dictionary nor quizlet. in the second cycle, the students were still provided with two sets of vocabulary lists for two meetings. in this phase, the students studied the set-in middle of the learning activity. although they could choose freely which features, they want to study from, the researchers suggested the students to try the flashcards feature before they tried the other features. this was done in order to help the students better understand and comprehend each word before they try to test themselves through other features. in the second cycle, the set made for the students contained not only the terms and the definitions of the words, but also a picture of the term and its part of speech. figure 4. quizlet’s flashcard feature after studying the set, the students were given a worksheet to test their understanding about the vocabularies they had studied. the worksheet contained vocabularies that they needed to answer after listening to a spoken conversation. after finishing the worksheet, the students played a game which required them to make a sentence from a word they had randomly chosen. in this phase, the same treatment was given for the students. the sets in this cycle contained some words that were included in the previous two sets so that the students would not need to understand and memorize too many words in each meeting. moreover, doing repetitions of studying isolated vocabulary is really helpful for learners in order to gain greater retention of the words (de groot, 2006). upon finishing studying the set, the students were then given a worksheet containing listening practice, vocabulary practice, and reading comprehension practice. this worksheet contained not only the vocabularies they had learned prior to these activities, it also contained other vocabularies from previous sets. students’ perception the data acquired to answer the second research question were gathered from questionnaires, interviews, and the researchers’ observation during the implementation. although there were 14 students in xi-intermediate class, the researchers only gave the questionnaire to 13 students who were present at least 75% of the whole implementation process. besides the questionnaire, the researchers also conducted an interview with 3 students. davis’ theory of technology acceptance model (1989) was divided into two – perceived ease of use (peu) and perceived usefulness (pu). the first part of this section would discuss students’ perceived ease of use toward the use of quizlet in vocabulary learning and students’ perceived usefulness on the following subtitle. perceived ease of use there were four statements in the questionnaire which discussed davis’ theory of tam about perceived ease of use. seeing the results of this variable (m= 4.38, sd= 0.75), it could be concluded that quizlet was easy to use and the instructions within the application were clear and easy to be understood. further details will be shown in the table below. table 2. questionnaire result of perceived ease of use alesandro woisela prayogi, mega wulandari / elt forum 10 (1) (2020) 94 question strongly disagree disagree agree strongly agree mean -quizlet is easy to use 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 6 (46.15%) 7 (53.85%) 4.54 -the instructions in quizlet are easy to understand 0 (0%) 1 (7.69%) 8 (61.54%) 4 (30.77%) 4.38 -i could learn vocabulary more easily with quizlet rather than books 0 (0%) 2 (15.38%) 6 (46.15%) 5 (38.46%) 4.08 -i can easily review the vocabularies i have studied before in quizlet 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 6 (46.15%) 7 (53.85%) 4.54 this result showed that almost all of the students agreed to the first and the second statements of the questionnaire. the result was also supported by one of the students’ statement in the interview. the students felt that the application was easy to use and the instructions were simple and easy to understand. “once you have joined the class, we could study the sets comfortably. the sets and the content are clear. we could study independently with the features within the app. we could study from the flashcards, the test, and memorize the correct pronunciation easily.” (s1/i7). it could also be seen from the researchers’ observation when implementing quizlet in the classroom. once the students had been explained of how the features work, they did not ask any more questions nor seemed to be confused in using the application. furthermore, the students mentioned in the interview that it was more practical to study with quizlet rather than books. “using quizlet is preferable for me rather than books because it is more practical and more interesting.” (s2/i4) furthermore, all students agreed that it was easy to review the material they had studied with quizlet. this item was included in ‘very high’ within the level of agreement (m= 4.54, sd= 0.52). as davis (1989) states in his study, an application which is perceived to be easy to use will have a higher chance of getting users’ acceptance. this is parallel with the results of the questionnaires, the students’ statements in the interview, and the researchers’ observation during the implementation of quizlet which showed their positive attitude toward the application and its easiness to use. perceived usefulness the second part of this section would show students’ perception about the implementation of quizlet based on davis’ theory of perceived usefulness. there were seven items in the questionnaire which discussed students’ perception about quizlet regarding to its usefulness. furthermore, interviews with three students were also conducted afterwards. the results of the questionnaire (m= 4.03, sd= 0.86) also indicated that students had favorable views towards quizlet. table 3. questionnaire result of perceived usefulness statement strongly disagree disagree agree strongly agree mean -i found quizlet useful for my learning 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 7 (53.85%) 6 (46.15%) 4.46 -quizlet has improved my vocabulary mastery 0 (0%) 1 (7.69%) 8 (61.54%) 4 (30.77%) 4.15 -i do not mind spending my data plan on quizlet 0 (0%) 3 (23.08%) 6 (46.15%) 4 (30.77%) 3.85 -i can learn vocabulary more effectively with quizlet 0 (0%) 1 (7.69%) 7 (53.85%) 5 (38.46%) 4.23 -quizlet provides various features which make my 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 11 (84.62%) 2 (15.38%) 4.15 alesandro woisela prayogi, mega wulandari / elt forum 10 (1) (2020) 95 vocabulary learning more interesting -i can practice my pronunciation with quizlet 0 (0%) 4 (30.77%) 7 (53.85%) 2 (15.38%) 3.54 -i could understand the meaning of a word and how to use it easier with quizlet 0 (0%) 1 (7.69%) 9 (69.23%) 3 (23.08%) 4.08 -quizlet helps me to prepare for my english test or quiz 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 9 (69.23%) 4 (30.77%) 4.31 -i will use quizlet for my further study to help me improve my vocabulary mastery 0 (0%) 4 (30.77%) 8 (61.54%) 1 (7.69%) 3.46 the item which would be discussed first is the statement about whether quizlet is useful for the students or not. the results showed that all students agreed to these statements, which meant that the students felt that quizlet was useful in helping them to study vocabulary. the students were also willing to spend their data plan for the application because it was worth it, although there were three students who disagreed with this item. this item had a mean of 3.85 and the standard deviation of this item was 1.14. in the following statement, almost all students (92.3%) agreed that studying vocabulary with quizlet was more effective than any other media that they had tried before. “although we need to spend our data plan to use the application, because it is an online application, we could learn so much from the app. it has many features and sometimes it has pictures which could help us. each set also does not contain too many words. we enjoy using the app and it is also a fun app to study with.” (s1/i8). in the next statement, all students agreed that quizlet provided many features which made their study become interesting. this item had a very high level of agreement with all the students responded to either ‘agree’ or ‘strongly agree’ (m= 4.15, sd= 0.38). the next item showed a high level of agreement (m= 4.08, sd= 0.76). it meant that the students agreed that they could understand the meaning of a word and how to use it easier with quizlet rather than any other media that they had tried before. this was because the students could practice not only their vocabulary mastery, but also other skill such as pronunciation. “aside from learning vocabulary, we could also learn the pronunciation of the words. we could understand the pronunciation right away.” (s3/i2) the next statement in this section which discussed about whether quizlet helped them to prepare upcoming tests or quiz indicated a very high level of agreement from the students (m=4.31, sd= 0.48). moreover, the results of the interview also hinted that mobile learning, through quizlet, could open opportunities for the students to do collaborative learning as stated by herrington et al. (2009). “in quizlet, we could try to guess the meaning of the words. it is like playing a game. we could also play (learn) and interact with our friends. once we feel that we have memorized the words, we could try the test feature as a practice and to test ourselves.” (s1/i3). the last item discussed whether they will continue using quizlet for further study in order to improve their vocabulary mastery had a mean of 3.46 with four students stated that they would not use quizlet for further study. the standard deviation of this item was 1.05. regarding this, phua et al. (2012) states in their study that users’ peu and pu do not fully affect users’ behavior toward the actual alesandro woisela prayogi, mega wulandari / elt forum 10 (1) (2020) 96 and continuous use of any technology although it has positive relation. there are some other factors which would influence users into continuous use of a technology. students’ perception on the use of quizlet based on principles of mobile learning the table below shows the students’ responses from the questionnaire which discussed whether the use of quizlet fulfilled the principles of mobile learning as proposed by herrington et al. (2009). this variable also had a mean higher than 4, which showed students’ favorable views upon the apps (m= 4.07, sd= 0.96). table 4. questionnaire result of students’ perception based on principles of mobile learning statement strongly disagree disagree agree strongly agree mean -i can learn vocabulary anytime and anywhere with quizlet 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 6 (46.15%) 7 (53.85%) 4.54 -i enjoy using quizlet to learn vocabulary 0 (0%) 1 (7.69%) 10 (76.92%) 2 (15.38%) 4.00 -after using quizlet, i understand that learning vocabulary can also be done with the help of mobile devices 0 (0%) 1 (7.69%) 4 (30.77%) 8 (61.54%) 4.46 -i prefer using my mobile device in learning vocabulary rather books 0 (0%) 3 (23.08%) 6 (46.15%) 4 (30.77%) 3.85 -i become more autonomous in learning with my mobile device 0 (0%) 2 (15.38%) 7 (53.85%) 4 (30.77%) 4.00 -i gained a new learning experience after using quizlet 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 10 (76.92%) 3 (23.08%) 4.23 -i use quizlet for my study outside the classroom 1 (7.69%) 4 (30.77%) 5 (38.46%) 3 (23.08%) 3.38 from the results above, it could be concluded that the students had favorable opinions toward the use of quizlet since all of those items in the questionnaire were included in either ‘high’ or ‘very high’ within the scale of level of agreements. the first item in this section, “i can learn anytime and anywhere with quizlet”, had the highest mean among the other items (m=4.54, sd= 0.52). the result was also emphasized by the student’s statement in the interview. “i sometimes use quizlet outside the class. sometimes while i am in the toilet and i get bored, i open the application and do a practice with the flashcards feature. it is a good way of memorization.” (s1/i9). this result indicates mobile device’s ubiquity. the students could study with the application anytime and anywhere. in addition, herrington et al. (2009) states that mobile learning should provide the students with mobile contexts where the students have the mobility in learning. mobile learning provides learners with much more flexibility than traditional computing (ballance, 2012). the next item which discussed whether the students enjoyed using quizlet had only one students who responded ‘disagree’ (m= 4.00, sd= 0.71). the result is similar to what baptist (2018) had conducted in her classroom which showed that her students enjoyed using the application for it used various engaging techniques to help the students master vocabulary. moreover, a student in this research also stated similarly. “it is fun because i feel like playing game whenever i use the app. i can also do a quiz (test feature) within the app. i also learn a lot of new vocabularies.” (s3/i1) alesandro woisela prayogi, mega wulandari / elt forum 10 (1) (2020) 97 in the next statement, “after using quizlet, i understand that learning vocabulary can also be done with the help of mobile devices”, it was proven that almost all students had not been using their mobile devices for studying vocabulary. the statement had a mean of 4.46 and a standard deviation of 0.88, which could be included in the ‘very high’ within the level of agreement range. with quizlet, they were able to utilize their own mobile devices for studying. herrington et al. (2009) also stated that mobile learning ought to utilize students’ own mobile technology. additionally, most of the students preferred to use quizlet application to study vocabulary rather than their books (m=3.85, sd= 1.14). there were three students who disagreed with the statement. however, this item still had high level of agreement. the next statement, “i become more autonomous in learning with my mobile device”, had a mean of exactly 4.00 and a standard deviation of 1.00. there were only two students who felt that their mobile devices, and with the help of quizlet, did not help them in becoming more autonomous in learning. “i carry my mobile device every time and and everywhere. i can choose when and where to open the app and start studying. it is way easier and more practical than using books.” (s3/i3). as lu (2008) states, the primary advantage that mobile device possesses over traditional methods of learning is its ubiquity. however, nurhaeni & purnawarman (2018) explain that the most common problems faced by students during autonomous studying with their mobile devices are related to technical factors and their internal initiative. the sixth statement on this section was also included in ‘very high’ within the level of agreement (m= 4.23, sd= 0.44). all of the students agreed that quizlet had given them a new leaning experience with some features that they had never tried before in other learning media. a statement from students also indicated that, before using quizlet, they only learn vocabulary through handouts, digital dictionary, and online translation machine. “before using quizlet, we were only given handouts filled with lots of words and the meaning. we were a bit unwilling to memorize and learn all the words. conversely, quizlet offered us something new that we had never tried before. there are many feature from which we could choose to study.” (s1/i8) the last item on this section discussed whether the students used quizlet outside the classroom. this item had the lowest mean among all the item in the questionnaire although it was still included in ‘high’ within the level of agreements with four students responded to ‘disagree’ and one student responded to “strongly disagree’ (m=3.38, sd= 1.39). some of them did not use quizlet outside the class because they thought that the sets only contain the material about the current unit of the english course and it was irrelevant with the other courses. actually, the users of the application could search millions of other sets who had been made by other creators. “i have not used quizlet outside the class because the sets are just about natural health. so i can just only study vocabulary related to it and cannot study other materials.” (s3/i9). discussion from the data acquired above, it could be concluded that quizlet has fulfilled some of the principles proposed by herrington et al. (2009), although it did not possess all the principle proposed by the researchers such as the principle of ‘real world relevance’ because the content of the sets were isolated words. since vocabulary is one of the most important aspects of a language, it is of vital importance to involve more vocabulary practice in teachinglearning activity. from the data gathered through the questionnaires and interviews, the researchers found three main benefits the students got from the implementation. the first benefit is that students consider quizlet as one-stop vocabulary learning application. quizlet has various features and modes which could really help the students not only to learn the words, but also to test themselves and practice their pronunciation. the flashcard feature introduce them to the words, they could easily see the words and the definitions just by tapping their screen. the learn, write, and match features help them deepen their understanding toward the words. lastly, the test feature could help them to find out how far they have understood what they have learned. alesandro woisela prayogi, mega wulandari / elt forum 10 (1) (2020) 98 moreover, they could also learn the correct utterance of each word. in the interviews, all of the three students mentioned that knowing the correct pronunciation of the words had helped their learning. besides being one-stop learning application, students also consider quizlet as an cutting-edge technology used for learning vocabulary. studying vocabulary through an application such as quizlet was something that the students had never experienced before. from the data acquired through the questionnaires and the interviews, it could be seen that the students showed good responses toward the application. all of the questionnaires results indicated either ‘high’ or ‘very high’ level of agreements toward the implementation of the quizlet, meaning that they experienced the benefits of quizlet for their learning. this finding strengthen previous studies about learners’ perception toward the use of quizlet (baptist, 2018; christanti, 2018; dizon, 2016) students also perceive quizlet as a practical and easy to use tool. quizlet can be accessed through computer and mobile devices. this research focused on the implementation of quizlet through mobile devices. based on the results of the questionnaires and the interviews regarding to the application’s ease of use, the researchers could safely conclude that quizlet is easy to use. moreover, two of the three students who did the interviews mentioned that learning through their mobile devices was more practical than learning from books because they did not need to bring a book and write anything. they just needed to take their devices out, open the application, and study the sets right away. from this implementation, it could be concluded that the problems mentioned in this research has been solved. in the first chapter, the researchers has mentioned that todays’ approach of vocabulary learning has been treated as incidental learning and only receives a little attention. from these two cycles of classroom action research, it has been showed that direct vocabulary learning was helpful for the students in learning english. moreover, the involvement of technology has made the learning become easier and more practical. conclusion after going through two cycles of quizlet implementation in the classroom, it can be concluded that the students were engaged with this practice. the students could learn independently through their own devices and it was more practical than using books or handouts. furthermore, the students could practice through different modes which made their learning even more interesting and fun. the data from the questionnaire showed that studying vocabulary with quizlet was a new experience for all the students. quizlet could help students learn vocabulary through its interactivity and various modes. all the questionnaire results were included in the ‘high’ and ‘very high’ within the level of agreements, showing students’ favorable view toward the implementation of application. the data acquired from the interviews also showed their favorable view toward this practice. they thought that using quizlet for vocabulary learning is fun and helpful. one of the students even said that it was like playing a game whenever he used the application and he became more engaged in studying. the students also said that they could study through the application whenever and wherever they want, emphasizing its practicality. references azabdaftari, b., & mozaheb, m. a. 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(2010). action research for language teachers. cambridge: cambridge university press. microsoft word 2. post-editing machine translation (pemt).docx putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 90 elt forum 12(2) (2023) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt post-editing machine translation (pemt) as the preference method for university students in indonesia haiyudi1, yudistira bagus pratama2, sitthipon art-in3 1english education study program, universitas muhammadiyah bangka belitung, indonesia 2computer science study program, universitas muhammadiyah bangka belitung, indonesia 3curriculum and instruction department, khon kaen university, thailand article info ________________ article history: received on 17 march 2023 approved on 29 july 2023 published on 31 july 2023 ________________ keywords: translation; post-editing machine translation; machine translation; human translation ____________________ abstract language translating process by indonesian students is particularly suffered from many errors. its defined strategy should be carefully watched due to completing its translating perfection. thus, this study identifies the problematic translation ways commonly referred and used by university students in indonesia. the mixed method using embedded design between qualitative and quantitative data with a case study approach was carried out to find the preferences of the translation method used by the students. the respondents are 50 english department students from different levels of studying years. the result shows that post-editing machine translation (pemt) was preferred among other translating methods. the reasons are related to the ease and quality of the translation work. 76.90% of the students responded and chose to have pemt as the preference. however, there were only 53.8% of them implementing pemt as the translating process, and 38.5% were familiar with machine translation (mt) without post-editing instead. it indicates an inconsistency in the use of the translation methods as each of them experienced and chose different type of methods. however, pemt was placed as the most referred translating method used by the students. this suggests that the presence of technology is well utilized while still paying attention to the quality of the translation through the post-editing process. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 universitas muhammadiyah bangka belitung jl. kh ahmad dahlan, rangkui, pangkalanbaru, bangka tengah, bangka belitung, 33134 e-mail: haiyudi@unmuhbabel.ac.id haiyudi, yudistira bagus pratama, sitthipon art-in| elt forum 12(2) (2023) 91 introduction the development of technology is unavoidable in many fields. in the process of education and business, technology has a very significant role (dede, 2010; haleem et al., 2022; shaji george et al., 2023). this significant development can facilitate the process of human work, including in the context of translation (jolley & maimone, 2022). in other words, various aspects have incorporated technological assistance as a tool to make work easier, including in the field of education and translation business. although there are not a few who question the feasibility of technology in such work. the role of translation in the academic world is important. various jobs today require everyone to understand more than one language. one that must be understood is english, which is still recognized as an international language (teng et al., 2019; zainuddin et al., 2019). therefore, the process of language transfer from various source languages is very prominent to do. for academic purposes, students, teachers, lecturers and researchers must have the ability to switch languages (tursunovich, 2022). one of the goals is to have a broad insight into the information provided by various languages. in addition, the world of international publishing both scientific journals and media demands the use of internationally recognized languages. in the context of being an indonesian student, the source language that is not english is certainly a special challenge in the academic journey that requires them to publish their work. therefore, the role of translation in the academic world is unavoidable, especially for those who do not master a foreign language other than their mother tongue or daily language. unfortunately, the translation process carried out by indonesian students in particular still suffers from many errors. these errors can be found in the aspects of vocabulary, prepositions and unfinished sentences (merris & sari, 2019). in addition, for indonesian students, difficulties in translation are also experienced in grammatical aspects. however, from several studies, the most common translation error is the addition and subtraction of meaning that does not match between source language (sl) and target language (tl). this requires critical thinking skills in the process (azin & tabrizi, 2016). therefore, students should at least understand the proper techniques and methods of translation so as to minimize both simple and severe errors. in translation, there are several popular types of translation. based on some theories, there are several techniques in translation, namely 1. adaptation; 2. amplification (addition); 3. borrowing; 4. claim; 5. compensation; 6. description; 7. discursive creation; 8. repetition of defined equivalence; 9. generalization; 10. linguistic amplification; 11. linguistic compression; 12. literal translation; 13. modulation; 14. particularization; 15. reduction; 16. substitution; 17. transposition and 18. variation (borko & chatman, 2018). meanwhile, more generally, there are four translation methods that are technically often used in the process of language transfer. according to pacific international translation (pactrans), in the process of language transfer for a business, it includes machine translation (mt) which has no human linguistics included. the second is postediting machine translation (pemt) with human review added. the third type is human translation (ht), which is usually done by professional translators without any machine touch. the last one is human translation (ht) plus revision. this type is a type of translation that has been recognized and according to standards. but of course it has a long processing time (pactranz, 2023). the comparison of machine and human translation that often arises is about processing time. of the four methods described by pacific international translations, pemt is the most common method used. in addition, by adapting the results of machine translation together with the human works, its adjustment process is alleged to produce a good combination of translation (martínezgómez et al., 2012). the lack of translators' ability to perform the language transfer process, especially at the student level, is the main problem of the need to introduce these methods. therefore, the four methods mentioned above have been introduced to the students which are a combination of machine and human to illustrate and facilitate the students in the process of language transfer for various purposes. these two types of language transfer (machine and human) are different, but when combined with the post editing machine translation approach where humans adapt the machine translation to add a sense of meaning, it will be better. this is important as not all translating machine can have a sense of feeling towards a certain topic. only a few models have been developed that allegedly have good accretion capabilities in providing translation results such as probabilistic latent semantic analysis (plsa) (shen & guo, 2022). therefore, post-editing machine translation (pemt) is allegedly a widely used translation method in the world. besides being easy, the accuracy rate in translation using this method is also known to be very high (tezcan et al., 2019). however, the machine translation is also evaluated haiyudi, yudistira bagus pratama, sitthipon art-in| elt forum 12(2) (2023) 92 regularly by many researchers. at the same time, the features provided by machines in the process of assisting humans in translation are considered to be very good and are constantly improving (tezcan & bulté, 2022). thus, the selection of methods in translation is something that must be done and recognized more deeply. it is not only about the quality and time spent but also about the comfort and ease felt by the translator. so, the tendency of students to choose translation methods is a must. this is an urgency for prospective academics so that they do not totally use machine or other translation services. by knowing this tendency, students also gain insight into the four commonly used translation methods, because before being asked questions, students are first given an understanding of the four translation methods as mentioned above. in addition to the process of measuring one's ability to apply human translation (ht), finding other alternatives is the right step. therefore, this study aims to find out the students' tendency to perform the language transfer process after being given materials and exposure to the translation method. in addition, respondents were also given the opportunity to perform the language transfer process using this method. previously, they were assisted by using a translation machine for further adaptation. therefore, this study also aims to analyze the accuracy of students' translation results using pemt. methods this research is a mixed-method with equal embedded design between quantitative and qualitative data using a case study approach that aims to find out the tendency of a certain phenomenon of the most-used translation method by the students. a total of 50 students were selected as respondents from the english education department consisting of different levels in term of years of study. in this study, the focus is to find out the preference of students of english education study program at universitas muhammadiyah bangka belitung in conducting translation process. the questionnaire of rating scale and open-ended questions were addressed to gain the information on the students' work in the translation process after previously given a task of translation. it was derived from the types of translation according to professional language translation service and previously tested to another group of students. this research was conducted at universitas muhammadiyah bangka belitung, in the english education study program. this study was conducted on january 2023. the technique used was to use selected questions followed by open-ended questions in writing so that students have the flexibility in answering the questions asked. the first stage is collecting the data from respondents by providing open-ended questions. then, data reduction of the raw manuscript was also obtained. after that, the data were presented in diagrams to make it easy to read. furthermore, the conclusion of the data previously analyzed using discourse analysis techniques was done. finding and discussion results data collection through open-ended questions in written form allows students to answer more freely and without feeling pressured. so that the choices they choose will better represent what they feel. the first choice tendency is related to the students' perception of the ease of use and quality assurance of the four methods. from the four methods synthesized, the tendency of students in choosing the translation method is with post editing machine translation (pemt) as can be seen through the figure below. figure 1: students' opinions on easy and quality interpreting methods mt, 0% pemt, 76.90% ht, 15.40% ht+rev, 7.70% students' perception towards 'the easy and qualified method of translation' mt pemt ht ht+rev haiyudi, yudistira bagus pratama, sitthipon art-in| elt forum 12(2) (2023) 93 figure 1 above shows that 76.9% of students think that using the pemt method in doing language transfer in doing assignments is considered easy with good quality. while those who think the language transfer process is easy and good with the human translation (ht) method are 15.4% followed by human translation plus revision by 7.7%, namely by asking peers to revise or recheck the language that has been translated. finally, in the diagram there are no students who choose machine translation (mt) as an easy and quality option. in another point, the tendency that was asked was related to the method that is often used. in contrast to the tendency that students have in mind towards the ease and quality of translation, some students still use machine translation as their choice in doing assignments even though they actually understand that in order to maintain the quality pemt is better than mt. this percentage can be seen through the diagram below. figure 2: interpretation methods often applied by students the reasons why students choose pemt in the process of language transfer both from indonesian and vice versa are very diverse. however, most of them are related to time efficiency. the following is a summary of some students who gave their opinions about the reasons for choosing the pemt method. "sometimes the machine translation has errors from the grammatical side, so you have to read it again, and edit the erroneous parts, and i think it is more efficient." (student 1, 2 & 3) "it is more efficient and accurate because it uses ai memory instead of human memory. editing is done to give a human touch to the language so that there is no misunderstanding in the translation." (student 4 & 5) "because in my opinion using a machine can minimize time and then be reviewed by humans to correct such as words or grammar that are not correct. it is beneficial to save time. however, its meaning is still in accordance to the source language." (student 6) however, judging from figure 2, there are some students who actually use the machine translation (mt) method for several reasons as summarized below. "because it may be more efficient in terms of time and can be done anywhere easily cheap and fast," (student 7 & 8) "because it's simple, we know that indonesian people have a very simple hobby. they just need to understand the meaning. but it is only my generalopinion not as a person who works in the field of foreign languages." (student 9) however, there are some students who tend to use ht+rev, which is using the human touch and getting revisions from others as a form of confirmation of what the translator has done before. the reason is related to translation standardization. "because of the standardized translator, then every word/writing, etc. needs to be revised by fellow people who have equal qualifications because it avoids human errors that occur by every human being whether it is small or large." (student 10 & 11) however, if we look at the graph, pemt occupies the first position as a translation method that is considered efficient and still prioritizes the quality of translation results. in addition, pemt is also mt, 38.5, 38% pemt, 53.8, 54% ht, 7.7, 8% interpretation methods often applied by students mt pemt ht ht+rev haiyudi, yudistira bagus pratama, sitthipon art-in| elt forum 12(2) (2023) 94 the most widely used method by students in the translation process for several reasons as mentioned above. discussion in recent years, the use of machine translation along with the booming use of the internet is easy to find. unlike past years, the translation process was done without any machining process (banks, 2020). in general, the use of mt only achieves feasibility as a translation tool not in the purpose as a tool used for professional purposes (carl et al., 2015). but in reality, the use of machine translation is still popular in various circles. more than half of the jobs are identified as errors caused by the machine translation (rivera-trigueros, 2022). despite the fact that machine translation is not new to some users, but there are still many users are persisting in the use of machine translation itself (lee, 2021). the reason is to find some words that are not known in meaning and write assignments with relatively fast time effectiveness not only in indonesia but also in several other countries (alhaisoni & alhaysony, 2017). looking at the problems above, the use of mt is not something that should be avoided. the development of technology is proof of the progress of civilization. but of course, there are also various shortcomings of technology. when it comes to translation, the human touch in editing after being done by a machine is a must. this is called post-editing machine translation (carl et al., 2015). the use of pemt is popular for the reason of improving the quality of translation results. however, the translator's task in this method is not only to translate the text but also to edit it (herbig et al., 2020). in relation to the urgency of translation methods for students, knowing students' tendency in the translation process is very important in order to make an initial effort to unify perspectives in the translation process to find the best and effective method. some studies advocate students to do post-editing after the machine translation process (wardana et al., 2022). students' opinions on easy and quality translation methods there is a difference between the perception of students' thoughts on effective and quality translation methods and their actual tendency. as seen in figure 1, no students answered gt as an effective and quality method. as many as 77% answered pemt as their preferred method based on their knowledge. but in figure 2, the application in the translation process still shows that 38% are still familiar with and use machine translation (mt) especially in doing assignments. this indicates several things, one of which is related to time effectiveness (katz et al., 2018). to maintain good translation quality, 77% of the students considered the need for a human editing touch to improve some aspects such as grammar, word choice and meaning. this is a good choice considering some of the shortcomings that machine translation has, including not being able to distinguish between standardized and non-standardized meanings (mulyadi & hidayati, 2021; ratniece, 2016). therefore, choosing pemt as a translation method is a good choice as it does not require much time for evaluation. in addition, the proficiency of the second language when using the machine translation method is not a significant problem (chung, 2020). in addition, some of the advantages of the pemt method in the translation process are the right choice considering that the human touch (editing) can increase the strengthening of meaning in an authorship (maciej serda et al., 2019). in summary, the choice of students who consider pemt as an effective translation method and has more quality among the four methods presented is a better choice than using machine translation such as google translation considering the shortcomings in some features that need to be improved. with the post-editing by humans after the machine translation process, it is expected to improve the quality of the writing produced. students' tendency to use pemt in the language transfer process post-editing machine translation (pemt) is the method chosen by many students in the translation process. all respondents said that they chose pemt because it can simplify the language transfer process and use time more efficiently. of course, this is in accordance with what was conveyed by several previous studies (alhaisoni & alhaysony, 2017; lee, 2021). apart from being used by students, pemt is also very applicable for professionals. in other words, almost everyone uses this translation model. besides being translators, they also act as editors (koponen, 2016; wu et al., 2017). the use of this model affects the speed and accuracy of the translation results. as student 6 said, haiyudi, yudistira bagus pratama, sitthipon art-in| elt forum 12(2) (2023) 95 this pemt model can be used quickly and anywhere. in addition, there are many websites and translation machines that can be used for free. what needs to be done is to carry out the editing process so that the translation quality remains at a good quality. this is because the accuracy of words obtained using machine translation is very limited. this often happens because the machine cannot distinguish between formal and informal words and issues related to context, connotation, denotation and does not have correction tools (ducar & schocket, 2018; habeeb, 2020). hence, it is importance to get a re-editing process during translating. even in the same study, one of the translation engines was said to fail in translating idiom sentences. this is because machine translation lacks feeling in the translation process. however, the use of machine translation requires training so that users can use the platform or machine translation properly. some studies prove that the use of machine translation must be accompanied by a certain way of use and age limit so that the translation process can produce the best output (alsalem, 2019; o, 2019). one of the trainings provided is how to edit machine-generated translations. however, one of the skills that must be possessed, especially for foreign learners (l2 learners), is related to proficiency in their second language (chung, 2020). therefore, at least the tendency of post-editing choices by respondents is the right choice because the l2 ability, in this case the english language of indonesians, is still at a level that needs to be improved (chung, 2020; melvina & julia, 2021; renandya et al., 2018). conclusion after the research, there are some interesting trends in the students' translation process. firstly, the students know that a good and effective translation process is to do post-editing machine translation, which means that it is not only limited to machine translation (mt). however, in practice, there are some respondents who use the mt method in their translation process even though they understand that mt has some shortcomings. however, most of the perceptions and choices when conducting the translation process are to use post-editing machine translation (pemt). this is the right choice when referring to some mistakes made by students in the translation process, especially for students in indonesia. so that the results given by the mt can still be edited to correct the meaning between source language (sl) to target language (tl). funding statement the authors received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article. references alhaisoni, e., & alhaysony, m. 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(2019). english language and graduate employability. education and training, 61(1), 79–93. https://doi.org/10.1108/et-06-20170089/full/xml putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 44 elt forum 12(1) (2023) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt artificial intelligence (ai) technology in openai chatgpt application: a review of chatgpt in writing english essay tira nur fitria1 1institut teknologi bisnis aas indonesia, sukoharjo, central java, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received on 27 december 2022 approved on 28 march 2023 published on 31 march 2023 ________________ keywords: artificial intelligence (a.i.), chatbot, chatgpt, openai, technology ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ chatgpt is a product of ai that is currently being widely discussed on twitter. this research reviews how chatgpt writes english essays. this research is descriptive qualitative. the analysis shows that we can access chatgpt on openai.com or chat.openai.com on the browser. if we do not have an account, we register via email, google, or microsoft account. after login, enter a question or statement in the conversation column provided. send it and chatgpt will respond and the answer appear quickly. the researcher tries chatgpt “can you help me in doing my english assignment?", and the chatbot replies "of course! i'd be happy to help you with your english assignment. what do you need help with? do you have a specific question or task that you're working on, or is there a broader topic that you'd like help with? it would be helpful to have some more information so that i can better understand how i can assist you". based on several tries, chatgpt can answer all questions on various topics such as english essays including a descriptive text about solo and my family, recount text about personal experience and unforgettable moments, resolution in 2023, and future career. chatgpt considers the event orders and writing order, including using main, explanatory sentences, and a conclusion. it uses two voices both active and passive voice. besides, it considers tenses use related to the given topic essay. however, from examples of english essays produced by chatgpt, it certainly requires further research to find out that the essay results are grammatically accurate. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 jl. slamet riyadi no.361, windan, makamhaji, kec. kartasura, kabupaten sukoharjo, jawa tengah 57161 e-mail: tiranurfitria@gmail.com http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& tira nur fitria | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 45 introduction artificial intelligence (ai) is one of the technological trends which are relevant to be developed for any purpose (fitria, 2023). artificial intelligence is a technology that is undergoing rapid development (ai). artificial intelligence (a.i.) is a field of computer science devoted to solving cognitive problems that are generally related to human intelligence, such as learning, problem-solving, and pattern recognition (fitria, 2021). a.i. technology is not only used for serious things but also for fun and helps our daily life. job automation, algorithm bias, and technological developments are the first thoughts that come to our minds when we think of artificial intelligence. but at the same time, a.i. can be used in many fun and exciting ways. as the name implies, artificial intelligence is artificial intelligence that is created thanks to technological sophistication. a.i. can help humans do various things, which is why it is often nicknamed 'adopting human intelligence'. fitria (2021b) states that the technology was developed to facilitate human activities and productivity. artificial intelligence or artificial intelligence is a technology that can make computer systems, software, and even robots work and 'think' like humans. apart from having a positive impact, the presence of a.i. can also have a negative impact, especially on the work done by humans. a.i. is a human intelligence simulation based on computers and designed to function as human beings (fitria, 2021). some answer using humans and utilize machines to automatically respond to questions presented by humans (maitri, 2019). the popularity of artificial intelligence continues to increase across numerous industrial platforms, with chatbot technology becoming essential (luo et al., 2019; wei et al., 2018). it is a software application that uses natural language processing (nlp) and deep learning techniques to conduct text-based online chat conversations (dharani et al., 2020). communication between a human and a computer has been of interest to numerous researchers for decades (thorat & jadhav, 2020). the significance of chatbots that can engage with humans using natural language has increased. this is owing to the availability of computational means for natural language interaction between computers and humans that are becoming increasingly similar to human interaction (bozic et al., 2019). consequently, there are an increasing number of chatbots designed to assist people with organizing work or making decisions. there are various methods for performing human-computer communication. in the era of conversational services, chatbots are the next big thing in the modern era of technology. (lalwani et al., 2018) chatbots are intelligent systems being developed using artificial intelligence (a.i.) and natural language processing (nlp) algorithms. chatbots have gained popularity as a means to conduct such conversations. a chatbot is a computer application that facilitates and enhances this conversation. chatterbot (also known as chatbot or bots) is a computer program designed to balance intellectuals with one or more humans, both audio and text (falah & syamsidar, 2021; haristiani, 2019). chatbots, or artificially intelligent conversational tools, are the newest tools meant to facilitate communication between humans and computers (nghi et al., 2019). chatbots are text-based conversational agents in simulating conversations with users (ashfaq et al., 2020). besides, chatbot provides numerous school, university, or college-related and student-specific pieces of information (patel et al., 2019). the rapid development of a.i. technology has increased the accessibility, scalability, and efficacy of text generation tools such as gpt-3 and chatgp (zhou et al., 2022). chatgpt is the idea of the san francisco, california-based ai company openai (stokel-walker, 2022). the business released gpt-3 in 2020, a sort of artificial intelligence known as a big language model that generates text by sifting through billions of words of training data and understanding the relationships between words and phrases. gpt-3 is at the forefront of an a.i. revolution, provoking philosophical debates about its boundaries and a multitude of potential uses, such as summarizing legal texts and assisting computer programmers. chatgpt is derived from an enhanced version of gpt-3 and is optimized for user interaction. chatgpt, the most recent version of a natural-language system was published on 30 november 2022 (castelvecchi, 2022). the platform was released by openai. openai is a non-profit research company engaged in the development and direction of artificial intelligence (a.i.). openai was founded by two techpreneurs, sam altman and elon musk. the two company founders and other investors, started the company in 2015 in san francisco, california, with a $1 billion endowment. openai is a non-profit research company engaged in the development and direction of artificial intelligence (a.i.). thus, artificial intelligence technology can benefit humanity as a whole, launches tech target. openai itself is a company engaged in the development of artificial intelligence. it is well-known products are dall-e and gpt. dall-e is an a.i. that can produce an image or tira nur fitria | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 46 painting from a sentence, while gpt is an a.i. that produces text. gpt allows a.i. to create texts ranging from poetry, articles, and tutorials, to social media captions. apart from that, this a.i. intelligence can also make a general knowledge of a statement or prompt. openai is a non-profit research company engaged in the development and direction of artificial intelligence (a.i.). this institution conducts research in the field of a.i. to promote and develop a.i. that can be useful for humans. the background to the establishment of this company was due to the founder's concern regarding the negative potential due to carelessness and misuse of a.i. the company's long-term goals lie in fundamental advances and capabilities of a.i. itself. the positive intention of establishing openai is reflected in the product as well as the company's work system. openai collaborates freely with other research organizations and individuals. not only working together but research results and patents made by companies are also kept open to the public. thus, it can avoid its use which has a negative impact on safety. chatgpt is software in the form of a generative language that uses technology to predict the next sentence or word in a conversation or a text command. simply put, chatgpt is a chatbot, a computer program in the form of a virtual robot that can simulate human-like conversations. even though it is still a prototype, this dialogue-based a.i. chatbot is considered capable of responding to natural human language and responding to it automatically. this platform is considered to be able to replace google because it can answer any problem. chatgpt from openai can answer difficult questions with comprehensive answers. therefore, chatgpt has extraordinary intelligence compared to other chatbots. chatgpt openai is a model of instructgpt, which is trained to quickly follow instructions and provide detailed responses. interestingly, chatgpt from openai is designed to remember questions that have been asked before and can correct themselves according to feedback. there are several previous studies related to chatbots. there are currently numerous cloud-based chatbot services accessible (rahman et al., 2017). fadhil & gabrielli (2017) states that chatbots are an innovative strategy that simplifies and facilitates long-term commitment to health promotion programs. benedictus et al. (2017) state that the chatbot helpdesk application can help users by answering questions about the use of applications in the sam ratulangi university integrated information system. astuti & fatchan (2019) and hakim et al. (2020) state that chatbot applications can handle questions, provide answers and act as customer services. it is supported by chen et al. (2021) state that the chatbot's usability had a good effect on the extrinsic values of customer experience, while its responsiveness had a favorable effect on the intrinsic values of customer experience. while nugraha & sebastian (2021) states that chatbots can be used for companies or institutions that do not have specific resources to handle this work to question and answer services. kadaton & soekarta (2019) state that line chatbot service is a medium for delivering information on tourist attractions that can be interactive. then, melindah (2020) states that the mobile spare parts information chatbot application is useful for facilitating communication between humans and computers in terms of searching for information, so buyers can find out about cellphone spare parts by asking questions to chatbot. stoilova (2021) states that chatbots give benefit businesses, employees, and customers by providing rapid support and automating repetitive tasks. based on the previous studies above, it shows that chatbot can be used in any various purposes, such as to promote program, promote business. besides, chatbot as as helpdesk information, and customer service. netizens created various content created using the openai gpt chat. after being launched last week, the artificial intelligence-driven chatgpt platform has amassed over a million users in a matter of days. even so, chatgpt also gave rise to various debates and controversies that sparked online discussions about its benefits and potential harms. discussions about the chatgpt bot were launched, and it immediately became popular and received a lot of attention. this is also the success of openai, as a service developer. one of openai's artificial intelligence, chatgpt, has become a hot topic of discussion on social media twitter. twitter users are excited about chatgpt's ability to answer all questions flexibly. the point is, chatgpt can understand the context of a conversation and give answers according to context so that even though chatgpt is an artificial intelligence, its technology is not as rigid as a robot. one of the twitter accounts that reviews chatgpt through a thread is @huedaya. in his thread @huedaya explained what chatgpt is, he also did some trials. tira nur fitria | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 47 figure 1. a thread taken from @huedaya's post on twitter based on @huedaya's post, the first try was carried out by giving several tricky questions to ask to correct english grammar or grammar in a lift format complete with error reasons. he tested chatgpt to correct english grammar. second try: he tried giving a sentence that had a grammatical error and asked a.i. to decipher the error. chatgpt seems to be able to find the correct statement which is e. interestingly, not only did the answer but also the a.i. gives reasons why each answer could be right or wrong. chatgpt also managed to find some mistakes in his writing completing with error reasons. the researcher is interested to know about chatbot, especially in education. therefore, the objective of this study is to describe the use of chatbot in the english learning process. methods this research uses a descriptive qualitative method. qualitative methods emphasize more on observing phenomena and examining the substance of the meaning of these phenomena. the analysis and acumen of qualitative research are greatly affected by the strength of the words and sentences used. qualitative research is typically not directed by a hypothesis (privitera & ahlgrim-delzell, 2018), thereby emphasizing the absence of the use of statistical tools in qualitative research. in this research, the researcher describes the use of chatgpt in the teaching and learning process. this research uses documents and observation. a document is any recordable or retrievable symbolic representation that may be analyzed (altheide & schneider, 2013). the type of document used is taken from the twitter post named @huedaya related to chatgpt. besides, the research also uses observation. the researcher should visit the research site to observe how they (research elements) behave (memory, 2021). in this research, the researcher simulates the use of chatgpt related to english learning. the method of analyzing data in this research is by using three steps of qualitative analysis as proposed by miles et al. (2018) including data reduction, data display, and conclusion. in the reduction stage, the researcher removes unnecessary data so that the data can produce appropriate information. at the display stage, the researcher presents data in the form of pictures or narrative text to make it easy to understand. next, the researcher looks for the meaning of the data collected by looking for relationships, similarities, or differences to conclude answers to existing problems. findings and discussion findings this platform chatbot has gone viral on twitter related to its ability to provide comprehensive written information. one user who tried this artificial intelligence platform even said finding information on chatgpt was easier than googling. on social media, many people share stories about using chatgpt to write code, draft blog posts, write academic essays, and compile work reports. the researcher also tried to use chatgpt to see how the experience provided by this artificial intelligence platform. openai stated that the chatgpt model was trained using a machine learning technique called reinforcement learning from human feedback (rlhf). the a.i. technology embedded in this platform focuses on making it easier for users. the user interface is that of a simple instant messaging application. we can simply type our question or command into the text box and chatgpt https://twitter.com/huedaya/status/1598305562147819520 tira nur fitria | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 48 will respond to our question. how to use chatgpt is very easy, we can open a browser on our device. we visit the chatgpt site at https://openai.com/ or https://chat.openai.com/. figure 2. the view of chatgpt figure 3. the view of log in and sign up chatgpt account we can log in easily via google or microsoft account. if we do not have an account yet, we can register first. select the sign-up menu. then, click create an openai account. we can register via email, google account, or microsoft account. select the for personal use menu. we will receive a confirmation number, then enter the number on the registration page. after having an account, we can immediately log in. after the account has been successfully created, you can log in using that account. now you can log in and use the chatgpt platform. figure 4. the chatbox service in chatgpt https://openai.com/ https://chat.openai.com/ tira nur fitria | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 49 there is a chatbox service on the chatgpt site that we can use freely. there is also a column at the bottom of the main page where we can fill in our questions. even though the chatbox uses the default english, we can also write questions in indonesian. the answers that will be given will be adjusted to the grammar that is easy for the user to understand. we can ask several questions from various aspects, such as english essays. the answer will also appear quickly in a split second. figure 5. the first question in chatgpt the figure above shows that the researcher as a user greets and wants to ask a question to chatgpt, and chat gpt answers. the user says "hello, good morning. can you help me in doing my english assignment?", then the chatbot replies "of course! i'd be happy to help you with your english assignment. what do you need help with? do you have a specific question or task that you're working on, or is there a broader topic that you'd like help with? it would be helpful to have some more information so that i can better understand how i can assist you". the user asks a chatbot to give an english essay of descriptive text about solo, central java in 3 paragraphs. chatbot replies as stated by the user and writes an essay about solo in 3 paragraphs. it answers "sure! here is a descriptive text about solo, central java". it states more about solo in 3 paragraphs. the 1st paragraph tells about the location, history, palace, and tourist destination. the 2nd paragraph tells about traditional fabrik or batik. the 3rd paragraph tells about cultural attractions, popular destinations, cuisines, and traditional and modern culture. in this paragraph, chatgpt also considers the writing order such as using main and explanatory sentences, and the last paragraph is ended with a conclusion. it also uses two different voices such as active and passive voice. besides, it considers tense uses, such as using the more simple present tense. the user asks a chatbot to give an english essay of descriptive text about “my family” (see figure 6). chatbot replies as stated by the user and writes an essay about “my family” in 4 paragraphs. it answers “sure! here is an english essay about "my family". the 1st paragraph tells about the family members which consists of parents, younger brother, and herself/himself. the 2nd paragraph tells about the parents (mother and father), the 3rd paragraph tells about the younger brother, and the 4th paragraph tells about the writer’s pride in her/his family. in this paragraph, chatgpt also considers the writing order such as using main and explanatory sentences, and the last paragraphs ended with a conclusion. it also uses two different voices such as active and passive voice. besides, it considers tenses use, such as using the more simple present tense. the user asks a chatbot to give an english essay of a recount text about a personal experience during a trip or vacation in yogyakarta in 3 paragraphs (see figure 7). chatbot replies as stated by the user and writes an essay about yogyakarta in 3 paragraphs. it answers "sure! here is an english essay about a personal experience on a trip or vacation to yogyakarta:". it states more about my personal experience in yogyakarta in 3 paragraphs. the 1st paragraph tells about yogyakarta. the 2nd paragraph tells about temples such as borobudur and prambanan. the 3rd paragraph tells about tira nur fitria | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 50 local culture and cuisine. in this paragraph, chatgpt also considers the event order and writing order such as using main and explanatory sentences, and the last paragraph is ended with a conclusion. it also uses two different voices such as active and passive voice. besides, it considers tense uses, such as simple present tenses but uses the more simple past tense. figure 6. the second question in chatgpt figure 7. the third question in chatgpt the user asks a chatbot to make an english essay on "unforgettable moment during trip in semarang?" (see figure 8). chatbot replies as stated by the user and writes an essay in 3 paragraphs. it answers "sure! here is an english essay about a personal experience on a trip or vacation to yogyakarta:". it states more about an unforgettable moment during a trip to semarang in 5 paragraphs. in this paragraph, chatgpt also considers the writing order such as using main and explanatory sentences, and the last paragraph is ended with a conclusion. it also uses two different voices such as active and passive voice. besides, it considers tense uses, such as past perfect tenses but uses the more simple past tense. tira nur fitria | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 51 figure 8. the fourth question in chatgpt figure 9. the fifth question in chatgpt the user asks a chatbot to give an english essay about my resolution for next year in 2023. the clue is "i want to be an english teacher after graduating from the university". chatbot replies as stated by the user and writes an essay about solo in 3 paragraphs. it answers “sure! here is an english essay about your resolution in 2023 to become an english teacher after graduating from university". it states more about the resolution of 2023 in 3 paragraphs. the 1st paragraph tells about the ambition to be an english teacher. the 2nd paragraph tells about the plan when to be an english teacher. the 3rd paragraph tells about self-confidence to be an english teacher". in this paragraph, chatgpt also considers the writing order such as using main and explanatory sentences, and the last paragraph is ended with a conclusion. it also uses two different voices such as active and passive voice. besides, it considers tenses use, such as a little of past perfect, and simple present tense but using the more simple future tense. tira nur fitria | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 52 figure 10. the sixth question in chatgpt the user asks a chatbot to give an english essay about “my future career to be a good indonesian and english translator". chatbot replies as stated by the user and writes an essay about the future career in 3 paragraphs. chatbot states more about the resolution of their future career to be a good indonesian and english translator in 5 paragraphs. the 1st paragraph tells about the idea to be a translator. the 2nd paragraph tells about the educational experience in learning english. the 3rd paragraph tells about a hope to be a professional translator. the 4th paragraph tells about the commitment to continuing education. the last paragraph is the conclusion of the text. in this paragraph, chatgpt also considers the writing order such as using main and explanatory sentences, and the last paragraph is ended with a conclusion. it also uses two different voices such as active and passive voice. besides, it considers tense use, such as a little past perfect, but using the more simple present tense. discussion recent developments in artificial intelligence (a.i.) and machine learning have opened the path for the expanding use of chatbots in language learning (belda-medina & calvo-ferrer, 2022). with the development of artificial intelligence (ai) in the field of education to help process daily activities including teaching and learning (fitria, 2021a). good english skills will certainly be a competitive capital, both in the fields of education and work. chatbot technology is a technology that can be used as a solution to problems in the educational sphere. several studies have proven the use of chatbots as learning media, especially in learning english (afrianto et al., 2019). chatbot technology can be an interactive learning media solution, one of which is as a medium for practicing english conversation while through the two conversation modes provided, users can practice both spoken and written conversations, and with the existing error correction features and self-evaluation features that can help users improve their english conversation skills. this artificial intelligence (a.i.) based conversation platform has attracted the admiration of many netizens because of its ability to answer questions automatically, quickly, and in detail. a gpt chatbot is a software application designed to emulate human-like conversations based on user requests. artificial intelligence technology in it can understand human natural language and produce written text that is similar to human creation. the platform was just released at the end of last month. however, in just a little over a week, the number of chatgpt users has reached more than 1 million. as we know, chatgpt has suddenly become the talk of the social media world. in fact, on twitter itself, many people talk about how chatgpt is capable of producing text in various formats—be it formal, informal, or creative writing. its ability to write is human-like in terms of content, coherence, and style of language. since the chatgpt prototype became available for public testing in late november, many people have been amazed by the program's ability to think and generate text. chatgpt is released by openai, which is based in san francisco. in simple terms, the chatgpt chatbot is an a.i. that can answer all user questions, with the most satisfying answers. this tira nur fitria | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 53 software application is designed to emulate human-like conversations based on requests from users. chatgpt is trained using a machine learning technique called reinforcement learning from human feedback (rlhf). this learning technique allows chatgpt to simulate dialogue, answer questions in context, admit mistakes, challenge wrong premises, and reject inappropriate requests. in early development, a.i. was even trained directly by human a.i. trainers, by testing the two sides of the chatbot as both a user and an a.i. assistant. in short, this machine can respond to questions with indepth answers just like human-written text in a conversational format. previous a.i. technology could only literally answer questions without considering the context of the conversation that was going on. chatgpt is an artificial intelligence (a.i.) language model developed by openai, a company engaged in the development of a.i. technology. chatgpt is a chatbot based on gpt-3.5, a natural language model that uses deep learning processes. natural here means the style of text produced by openai's chat robot, which is similar to a natural human writing style, not rigid like a machine or bot. like chatbots in general, chatgpt made by openai allows users to send questions or instructions which chatgpt will respond to later. currently, chatgpt also supports indonesian, so that users can submit and receive responses in indonesian. interestingly, chatgpt from openai is designed to remember questions that have been asked before and can correct themselves according to the feedback provided by the user. however, the questions asked should not be over the line. this is because chatgpt is also trained to reduce inappropriate questions from users. so far, openai has only opened the bot for beta testing and evaluation. meanwhile, new api access will be available next year. chatgpt is the latest model chatbot from gpt (generative pre-trained transformer) which is included in the openai text-generating artificial intelligence platform. chatgpt has a working system like dall-e that uses machine learning and algorithms to make users feel like they are messaging real people. by leveraging chatgpt, we can ask countless questions and will often get helpful answers. the chatbot is currently in "research preview" status, which means that the public is allowed to use the platform for free while the company gathers information about user experience. there are several features in chatgpt open a.i. they are question answers, solving math equations, writing text (basic academic articles, literary texts, film scripts, etc.), debugging and fixing (for example, detecting and fixing errors in any code block), translation between languages, summarize text and detect keywords in the text, classification, and make recommendations. chatgpt engine can simulate dialogue, answer follow-up questions, admit mistakes, challenge faulty premises, and reject inappropriate requests. early development involved a human a.i. trainer providing a conversational model with development from both sides the user and the a.i. assistant. the version of the bot available for public testing attempts to understand questions asked by users and responds with in-depth answers that resemble human-written text in a conversational format. tools like chatgpt can be used in real-world applications such as digital marketing, online content creation, answering customer service questions, or as some users have found, even to help debug code. even though the chatbot service uses english, users can also write questions in indonesian. the answers given are also following grammar that is easy to understand. several users who have accessed this platform state that chatgpt is an alternative to the google search engine. the platform is even capable of providing descriptions, answers, and solutions to complex questions. chatgpt can help users create content for websites, answer customer questions, provide recommendations, and create automated chatbots. as if that was not enough, the app allows writing lines of code, short essays, and even pieces of music. openai admits that chatgpt can give completely wrong answers, and even present wrong information as fact. they stated that this problem was also still difficult to fix. on the other hand, there is speculation that chatbotgpt will make jobs related to content production, from writers, journalists, and academics, to programmers, irrelevant. that can happen because of the application's ability to produce written text that is similar to the results of human writing (and thoughts). however, at least until now, these chatbots have limitations in that they lack an understanding of the context, critical thinking skills, and the ability to make ethical decisions. on the other hand, a.i. technology as a whole runs the risk of perpetuating societal biases such as race, gender, and culture. tech giants like alphabet inc. parent of google and amazon.com (amzn.o), have previously acknowledged some of their projects experimenting with a.i. are "ethically uncertain" and have limitations. in some companies, humans have to step in and fix a.i. havoc. despite these concerns, a.i. research remains exciting. in using chatgpt, users just have to access the official openai website. from there, all they have to do is select the 'try chatgpt' option, then log in to start asking questions. so, users don't need to install applications from google play or the app store. 1. open the site tira nur fitria | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 54 https://chat.openai.com on a p.c./laptop or smartphone. 2. next, log in before using chatgpt. 3. if you don't have an account, you can register using email or directly use a google account 4. after success, please enter a question or statement in the existing conversation column 5. finally, send it and within 1 to 2 seconds, chatgpt will send a response. with its very high popularity, it is reported that since the first day chatgpt was launched, more than one million users have tried to use the a.i. service. at first glance, the use of chatgpt is not much different from the google search engine because users can type or ask anything on chatgpt. however, before using it, you need an account first which can be registered on the chat.openai.com page. if we don't want to register an account with chatgpt openai, we can also log in using the google or microsoft account that you already have. after that, you are asked to enter a phone number to register with openai as well as get a confirmation number. then, you will be informed of several rules, from how openai collects data, to how users send feedback. 1. visit the page https://chat.openai.com/ 2. we will be asked to log in if you already have an account or sign up if you don't (you need to verify your cellphone number to register). 3. if we have just registered, you will be redirected to the https://beta.openai.com/overview page. return to page https://chat.openai.com/ 4. we only need to type a command on the main page to give chatgpt a write command, for example, "write about indonesia." 5. chatgpt will immediately provide information according to the command given. if chatgpt has no information regarding the given command or question, then the system will provide the most relevant information. the development of artificial intelligence (a.i.) has indeed been very rapid in recent years. the implementation is also very broad, including making a bot that is ready to be chatted with. one of them is a dialogue-based a.i. called chatgpt which was recently released. this bot was developed by openai which of the course focuses its research on artificial intelligence. what makes chatgpt special is the use of gpt-3.5 natural language generation technology. this technology allows later users to have friendly conversations with the a.i. openai has developed this new generation of a.i. with strong restrictions on the possibility of abusive or hurtful conversations. the good news, users can try this chatgpt for free now. gpt allows a.i. to create any text. apart from that, this a.i. intelligence can also make a general knowledge of a statement or prompt. using chatgpt, we click on url and the register for an openai account using an active email address and register or log in to our openai account. at the bottom of the screen, we can see a type box in the chatgpt interface. type whatever we want to know to start chatting with chatgpt. chatgpt is software in the form of a generative language that uses technology to predict the next sentence or word in a conversation or a text command. chatgpt from openai can answer difficult questions with comprehensive answers. therefore, chatgpt has extraordinary intelligence compared to other chatbots. the dialogue format allows chatgpt to answer follow-up questions, admit mistakes, challenge wrong premises, and reject inappropriate requests. users can simply visit the chatgpt website and log in using their openai account. after that, users can directly chat with the bot, or rather give orders or questions. chatgpt has a structured conversation system so that users can ask the a.i. to write poetry, correct coding errors with detailed examples, write new code, make orders for ai-based artwork, and various other algorithms. it should be understood that chatgpt is made more like a digital library or an intelligent answering machine. chatgpt cannot answer questions that are evaluative or subjective. chatgpt will also refuse to answer questions that lead to negative topics. thus, users will not be able to ask or instruct chatgpt to talk about hate speech, violent content, etc. there are several advantages provided by chatgpt to a variety of users (haque et al., 2022). however, because it is a new technology, understanding early adopters' feelings is crucial for several reasons. first off, early adopters are frequently the most enthusiastic and influential consumers of a product, and their views and feelings can influence how the general public perceives new technology. this data can offer crucial insights into the product's likelihood of success or failure. the openai chatgpt chatbot can respond to a query with prose that appears astonishingly smart (frye, 2022). perlman & open a.i.’s assistant (2022) explain that chatgpt emphasizes the potential of artificial intelligence, particularly it's capacity to change our lives in a variety of ways, from the subtle to the profound. many individuals may afraid that a.i. text generators like chatgpt will pose a significant difficulty for educators, as it will soon be hard for them to distinguish between student and aigenerated texts. currently, technology has become a threat to the world of education, where theft of ideas and plagiarism is increasingly easy to do. perhaps the threat is chatgpt, a program created by the tira nur fitria | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 55 microsoft-backed company openai that can shape arguments and write convincing english essays. technology has raised widespread concerns that students will use software to cheat on written assignments. what is needed right now is a better way to evaluate students in the future. lecturers and universities recommend that students handwrite or use typewriters to avoid cheating. this further strengthens the argument that artificial intelligence technology, in the hands of the wrong people, will make students lazy to ‘think’ and write based on their ability. with this application, maybe plagiarism will continue to exist and develop unless we as educators instill the values of integrity and respect. more than that, understand that technology is not made to commit fraud, but to make life easier. there are many other interesting innovations driven by a.i., but not without a doubt. chatgpt is an artificial intelligence technology that leverages language and is trained using millions of data points, including text and books. this technology produces convincing and coherent writing for questions by predicting the next plausible word in a word sequence, but often the answers are less than accurate and require fact-checking. openai acknowledges the tendency for tools to respond with answers that sound reasonable but are wrong, a problem that has been deemed difficult to fix. despite the many concerns originating from a.i., the chatgpt chatbot has been successful in attracting the public's attention. like many ai-driven innovations, chatgpt is may not perfect. unfortunately, this chatgpt still has many limitations. openai admits that sometimes answers from machines sound reasonable when they are wrong. it still needs constant improvement. a.i. technology also has the potential to be 'insensitive' or biased in sensitive matters in society such as race, gender, and culture. because the a.i. technology itself has only been trained since 2021, there are also many gaps in this a.i., including explaining a topic inaccurately. but chatgpt has a very long future. likewise, the potential of its ability is said to be useful for various fields in the future. openai acknowledges that the app has a tendency to come up with answers that "sound reasonable, but are incorrect or illogical". the problem is a challenge that must be resolved. in addition, artificial intelligence technology can also continue social biases, for example, biases in race, gender, and culture. conclusion using chatbot is easy. we can access chatgpt on https://openai.com/ or https://chat.openai.com/ on the browser. we will be asked to log in before using chatgpt. if we do not have an account, we can register via email or a google or microsoft account. after successfully logging in, enter a question or statement in the conversation column provided. next, send it and chatgpt will respond and the answer appears quickly in a split second. the user says "can you help me in doing my english assignment?", chatbot replies "of course! i'd be happy to help you with your english assignment. what do you need help with? do you have a specific question or task that you're working on, or is there a broader topic that you'd like help with? it would be helpful to have some more information so that i can better understand how i can assist you". based on several tries, chatgpt can answer all user questions on various topics such as english essays including “descriptive text about solo, my family, personal experience, an unforgettable moment during the trip, resolution on 2023 to be an english teacher, and future career to be a good english translator”. one of the famous products from openai is gpt chat. this chatbot uses advanced ai technology to understand questions and provide accurate answers. these chatbots can be used to help find information, answer questions, or even just chat with friends. one of the famous products from openai is gpt chat. this chatbot uses advanced ai technology to understand questions and provide accurate answers. these chatbots can be used to help find information, answer questions, or even just chat with friends. by using this chatbot, users can save time and effort in finding the information they need. this chatbot can also help understand a topic better because it can explain things in an easy-tounderstand way. apart from that, this chatbot can also be updated regularly to ensure that the answers given are always accurate and up-to-date. funding statement the author received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article. tira nur fitria | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 56 references afrianto, i., irfan, m. f., & atin, s. 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(2022). paraphrase identification with deep learning: a review of datasets and methods (arxiv:2212.06933). arxiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2212.06933 tira nur fitria | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 58 putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 72 elt forum 13(1) (2024) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt designing digital storytelling books for tpack development of indonesian preservice elt teachers tifani yuris signori1, nur arifah drajati1, kristian adi putra2 1universitas sebelas maret, indonesia 2prince sattam bin abdulaziz university, saudi arabia article info ________________ article history: received on 9 january 2024 approved on 29 march 2024 published on 31 march 2024 ________________ keywords: digital storytelling book; tpack level development; design of technology; enhanced learning ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ in today's educational system, the need for teachers to acquire technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge (tpack) has already become a mainstream transformation. therefore, it is necessary to find a suitable strategy and approach to develop pre-service elt teachers’ tpack, in which one of them is actively engaging them in the design of technology-enhanced learning. this study sought to investigate indonesian pre-service elt teachers’ tpack level development after designing digital storytelling book. narrative inquiry was adopted in this research. the data were obtained from the preservice elt teachers’ reflective notes and semi-structured interviews. the findings of the study show that all participants are in the tpack level of “accepting”. in the level of accepting, pre-service teachers form a favorable attitude toward teaching and learning english with digital storytelling. the implication derived from this study is that it is necessary to carefully design a project in teacher education program that can improve the pre-service teachers' tpack level. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 universitas sebelas maret indonesia e-mail: tifaniyurissignori@student.uns.ac.id http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& tifani yuris signori, nur arifah drajati & kristian adi putra | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 73 introduction the ongoing development of technologies has made them more accessible for education (lai & bower, 2019). therefore, the knowledge that teachers are expected to possess does not only include pedagogical knowledge related to principles, classroom strategies or simply knowledge of the scientific field they teach, but they are also expected to manage effective teaching using technology (asad et al., 2020; ghavifekr & rosdy, 2015). however, not all teachers can handle and incorporate technology into the teaching-learning process since successfully integrating technology into the teaching of specific subjects is a complex endeavour (herring et al., 2016). therefore, globally, teacher education programs now prioritize developing teachers’ tpack (voogt et al., 2013; wang et al., 2018). to enhance the pre-service teachers’ tpack competence, creating digital story is one of the potential ways (sancar-tokmak et al., 2014). it is because in implementing digital storytelling, teachers must also have the knowledge of technology, pedagogy, and content (tpack) and an understanding of the multimodal nature of digital texts and environments (gregori-signes, 2014; shinas & wen, 2022). over years, digital storytelling (dst) has been employed as a method for teaching english skills including vocabulary, spelling, punctuation, and verb tenses (del-moral pérez et al., 2019). as a result, dst seems to be a suitable solution for teachers to meet the need of engaging instructional techniques for teaching english (yang et al., 2020). in the teacher education setting, pre-service teachers gain benefit from the chance to design and produce digital storytelling book as its process includes thinking about how to engage their target students' reading habits and include them in the development of authentic content creation (ozüdogru & çakir, 2020). therefore, digital storytelling is being used more frequently to help pre-service teachers develop their digital literacies and skills (shinas & wen, 2022) and to prepare them to integrate technology into the classroom better (cetin, 2021; kirikci, et al., 2020). related to this context, yuksel-aslan (2013) has indicated that tpack is related to the digital storytelling creation process: subject matter selection is ck, message selection is pk, scenario writing is pck, selection of materials is tpk, software use is tk, story board creation is tck, and all of the creation process is tpack. yuksel-arslan (2013) explained the relationship between tpack domains and each step of the digital storytelling creation process: 1) subject matter selection: subject matter selection for creating digital storytelling is related to the ck domain; 2) message selection: an appropriate message selection for students’ level is related to the pk domain; 3) scenario writing: pck includes knowledge about the practice applied to teach a specific content; 4) material selection: this step includes selection of visual and audio materials in line with the scenario and target student level. tpk is in line with this step since tpk is knowledge about how the technology affects or supports the selected pedagogy; 5) story board creation: the storyteller creates a storyboard using tck, which is about how content can be represented by technology; 6) software use: in this step, the storyteller prepares the scenario and materials and decided the pace of the narrative. the only thing to do in this step is to use software to create digital storytelling book which is also in line with tk domain; and 7) digital storytelling: the whole complete process is called digital storytelling creation and requires the storyteller to use tpack. hsu (2012) emphasized the significance of the structure of teacher preparation programs and how they relate to professional placements for the development of tpack. in addition, a good structure might include general tpack development in the program and context-specific tpack knowledge development prior to and during the professional placement (hsu, 2012). furthermore, the pre-service teacher preparation program requires "many opportunities to observe, practice, and reflect on student-centred, technology-enriched lessons" in addition to an integrated and continuous focus on learning and teaching with information and communication technologies (icts) across the curriculum (sutton, 2011, p. 44). as a result of teacher education and training program, there are five levels to describe the tpack development process of the teachers (niess, 2015). those levels include (1) recognizing: where teachers are able to use technology and recognize an alignment of the technology capabilities with the content knowledge; (2) accepting: where teachers form a favourable or unfavourable attitude toward teaching and learning of specific topics of subject matter with technology; (3) adapting: where teachers engage in and implement in their classroom activities that lead to a choice to adopt, or reject teaching and learning topics of subject matter with technology; (4) exploring: where teachers integrate technology as learning tools, when teaching and learning of multiple topics of subject matter, and where they consistently explore opportunities to use technology as learning tifani yuris signori, nur arifah drajati & kristian adi putra | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 74 tools in content topics; and (5) advancing: where teachers evaluate students' understanding using technology as learning tools and where they actively support the decision to integrate teaching and learning the specific topic of subject matter with technology. most previous studies on dst only frame the use of digital storytelling to teach pre-service teachers in their education programs as well as their preparation to teach using dst in the future classrooms (islim et al., 2018 ozüdogru and akir, 2020; shinas & wen, 2022). meanwhile, related to the use of digital storytelling done by teacher educators in pre-service teachers’ tpack competence training, several researchers have done studies in that context (kukul, 2023; wang, 2016). however, studies which focus on how designing digital storytelling book develops the preservice teachers’ tpack competence is still underexplored. thus, this study explored the preservice teachers’ tpack level development after designing digital storytelling book. teachers’ tpack development level framework by niess (2015) namely recognizing, accepting, adapting, exploring, and advancing was used in this study to determine the pre-service teachers’ tpack development. methods the present study applied narrative inquiry because the aim of this study is suitable with the purpose of narrative inquiry which is to understand how pre-service teachers as the participants 'organize and reflect' their experiences (barkhuizen et al., 2014). this study was conducted at digital literacies and language education course in the faculty of teacher training and education of a university in central java, indonesia. this study involved three pre-service elt teachers named dewi, ambar, and wati (pseudonyms) who have narrated their experiences after designing digital storytelling book in the course project. the age range of the participants is 24-26 years old. they were included as the participants in this study because they were the leaders or coordinators of the groups. the pre service teachers were divided into three groups, therefore there were three group leaders and three of them were willing to be the participants of the study. coincidentally, all pre-service teachers who take part in this course activity are female. all of them were pursuing their master’s degree in elt. both dewi and wati have been teaching english informally as tutors for 2 years. meanwhile, ambar has not been teaching english at all. her only experience of teaching english is only 3-month-internship which she did when she was an undergraduate student. in this study, the researchers followed the ethical guidelines prepared before conducting the study to maintain the partnership between the researchers and the participants until the study was completed. before conducting the study, the researchers asked for the gatekeeper’s permission, in this case, the teacher educator or lecturer. after getting permission, the researchers explained the study conducted to the pre-service teachers directly. after they got the understanding about the study, the researchers offered them a consent letter through whatsapp. therefore, the pre-service teachers could decide whether they want to participate in the study. the researchers briefly described her study in the consent letter, just in case the participants need further convincing. furthermore, the researchers stated in the consent letter that they would uphold the confidentiality and privacy of the participants. in this study, the researchers adopted pseudonyms to protect the participants’ identities to prevent those identities from being found or identified by others. table 1. the profile of the participants no name age gender educational background 1 dewi 24 female english education 2 ambar 25 female english education 3 wati 26 female english education the data collected in this study was in the form of stories retold by the pre-service teachers. therefore, to collect the data, reflections and semi-structured interviews were used to collect the data in the present study. reflection: pre-service teachers were asked to write one reflective note after completing their whole activity. reflections or reflective notes were formed with narrative frames. narrative frames were used because they offer direction and support regarding the organization and content which should be written (barkhuizen & wette, 2008). therefore, the researchers also provided tifani yuris signori, nur arifah drajati & kristian adi putra | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 75 some guiding statements to make the pre-service teachers easier in completing the reflection. however, the pre-service teachers were still advised to retell their whole story and reflect on their overall experience. this reflective note was taken once. the researchers sent the files of formatted reflective notes through e-mail and whatsapp. all participants sent back the reflective notes which they have filled completely to the researchers in 2-3 days. semi-structured interviews: semi-structured interviews were conducted online through zoom meeting with three pre-service teachers who have recalled detailed experiences after reflective note was taken. the questions asked in the interview were related aimed to explore pre service teachers’ experiences in designing digital storytelling book and their tpack level development after completing the activity. the guiding statements of the reflective note and questions of semi-structured interviews were formed by considering both theories of the relationship between tpack domains and each step of the digital storytelling creation process by yuksel-arslan (2013) and tpack development process by niess (2015). thematic analysis involving a careful and systematic sorting of the interview was used for the data analyses of interview data. the data analysis included a series of processes including familiarizing with the data, generating initial codes, defining and labeling themes, and producing the report. in the beginning, themes were created from the research questions; however, the researcher had to move back and forth between the data and its codes and categorize forms to develop themes and theoretical relationships (barkhuizen et al., 2014, p. 76). in analyzing the data in this research, the researcher coded and categorized the participants' stories under several specific themes related to their experiences. afterward, the researcher described, narrated, and reorganized the participants’ stories sequentially and thematically. findings and discussion using dst book in my future class because it is beneficial before designing dst book, dewi explained that the pre-service teachers were asked to join a workshop of designing digital stories organized by the teacher educator. in the workshop, the preservice teachers conveyed that they received the detailed explanations from an invited expert about how to design digital storytelling book in english. “i got an explanation regarding examples of steps on how to design a digital story by joining a workshop organized by my lecturer, mrs. x. the expert of digital story in the workshop is prof. y” (dewi) the expert demonstrated directly on how to arrange digital storytelling from the scratch on the workshop. the pre-service teachers watched the process step by step as the expert explained. the expert gave example by creating digital story entitled “the sunflower seeds” directly from the cover until the last page of the story. “the expert of the workshop specifically demonstrated how to create scenario of digital story. at that time, he gave example by creating digital story entitled “the sunflower seeds”. he started from creating the cover until writing the last page of the story. we watched the steps from beginning to the end.” (dewi) he told the pre-service english teachers that they may use several application, software, and tools for editing digital stories. he also gave example how to make hyperlink for video. moreover, he shared a blog which contains several links of webs or software which can help them to edit the images and the pictures for digital stories. for audio, he suggested google voice over and bigspeak.ai. meanwhile, for images, pre-service teachers can use autodraw. “well, so the expert initially shared a blog which contains links of webs, software or application to help us creating digital story. as i recalled my memory, the expert demonstrated directly in the workshop on how to use several applications such as google voice over, bigspeak.ai, and autodraw if i am not mistaken.” (dewi) tifani yuris signori, nur arifah drajati & kristian adi putra | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 76 dewi also added that her group decided to write a fable since it is in the syllabus. moreover, she and her group also have opinions that the topic related to fable is interesting, suitable for the level of their targeted students, and simple to design into a digital storytelling book. during the planning process, the teacher educator (the lecturer) also monitored their works by asking and making sure that the topic suits the syllabus and the level of target students. “after discussing together, my group decided to choose a digital story topic related to fable. we decided to choose the topic because it was interesting, suitable for the level of the targeted students and easy to make into a digital storytelling book. the lecturer also agreed on our topic after checking and confirming that fable is in the syllabus.” (dewi) in designing the dst book, dewi’s group faced several the technical problems. dewi stated that she intended to put the narrators’ sounds as well as the background sound together in one page but it did not turn out well. it also happened with the character dialogue which cannot be played together with the background sound. “during this design process, we experienced difficulty in which we cannot play the background sound at the same time as the character dialogue audio in the digital story.” (dewi) from dewi’s experiences above, she felt that she has understood well about the use of digital story in teaching after learning about and designing one. in her perspective, she may use digital story as a media to deliver the materials to her students in the future classroom. “i already understand the use of digital storytelling book for teaching english. i think i can use it as as a learning medium so that i can deliver my materials easily” (dewi) furthermore, after finishing the dst book project, she also has an idea that digital storytelling book can be a learning product produced by students in a project because she was inspired by how the teacher educator arranged the project and made dst book as the product or artifact that became the students’ learning outcome. “after finishing this dst project, i think that i might also use dst book as a learning product in the future. it will be good if my students are included in a project where they produce digital storytelling book” (dewi) related to the attitudes towards the use of digital storytelling book in teaching english, she conveys that she builds a positive attitude towards it. she agrees that digital story can help her to deliver english lesson in class. she also thinks that digital story has many benefits for students. it can facilitate them to obtain english skills since they can speak, write, and read in using digital story. moreover, if the students use book creator account, they might also learn to work collaboratively in different time and places. therefore, dewi thinks that digital story is helpful, fun, and able to keep students’ learning motivation. “i agree that digital storytelling book can help me as a teacher and are suitable for use in delivering lesson in the english class. in my opinion, digital story can facilitate all students' skills because they can add their own voice, write, and if they look for sources beforehand it can also facilitate reading. so, i think it's flexible and can be used for many english skills. digital story, if using the bookcreator account, also increases student collaboration because it can be opened on several devices at once if they want to work in groups that work together at different times and places. i think that's really helpful and fun too, it can keep students motivated.” (dewi) however, dewi has not adapted dst yet in her classroom because she thinks that dst is not suitable with the teaching materials which she taught in her teaching practice. furthermore, since there is not any step of teaching practice in this project, the teacher educator only suggests and encourages the preservice teachers to practice dst outside of the classroom. dewi, however, conveys that in teaching the students of her private english course, she has not found the suitable teaching materials to implement tifani yuris signori, nur arifah drajati & kristian adi putra | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 77 dst. nevertheless, she strongly believes that she will try to adapt dst that she has learned in the project to teach her future english classroom because she found that dst will be so interesting for students and can be a media for students to collaborate. “after learning about digital storytelling and how to design the digital story, i have decided to try to adapt dst in my future english classroom because i think it is interesting and has a potential to be the media for the students’ collaboration.” (dewi) dewi’s statements that digital storytelling book can help her as a teacher to deliver materials as well as become a learning product produced by students in a project show that she is in the tpack level of accepting digital story to teach english. it is in line with the statement of niess (2015) that in accepting level, teachers know of the technologies that can be used in their courses and have a general positive or negative attitude about using the technology or not. in this case, dewi has positive attitude about using digital storytelling. keeping my future students engaged by using the dst book slightly different from dewi’s experience, ambar stated that besides workshop, the pre-service english teachers also received examples, demonstration, and follow up explanations directly given by the teacher educator in the next meeting of class. “we were asked to join a workshop about digital storytelling by our lecturer. after joining workshop, we also got examples of the steps on how to create digital stories through our lecturer’s demonstration in the next meeting of class.” (ambar) during the process of designing, the pre-service teachers also obained feedbacks from the teacher educator. the feedback was constructive so that the pre-service teachers could revise their digital stories based on the feedbacks. the teacher educator’s feedback regarding the designs were mostly about the number of pages and the use of animations to make the designs look more attractive. “the lecturer gave feedback regarding our design that our design is already pretty good, but it would be better if we add more pages and animations to make it more interesting.” (ambar) in reflecting the process of designing and the results, ambar stated that she needs to work on their visual of the designs more. she agreed that in their future class, she wants to improve the visuals of designs by adding more various aspects such as animations and videos into the designs so the dst book can be more interesting, creative and interactive. “in my opinion, what i can improve or improve in designing digital stories for teaching in the future is to be more creative in choosing image and animation designs and including supporting videos so the digital story can be more interactive.” (ambar) when explaining her understanding about the use of dst after going through the process of designing one, ambar gave a specific example about the use of dst as a media to enhance the students’ listening skill. it is because she thinks that in designing digital storytelling book, she may input the audio of a native speaker narrating the stories that can improve the students’ listening skill. “by using the stories narrated by a voice of native speaker from the tools, i think digital storytelling book may stimulate the students’ listening skill.” (ambar) when talking about how to use dst to teach topics and skills in english, she gave an example that the most important thing is that to select an appropriate story board which suits the materials and target students’ level of understandings well. “i already understood about how to use digital storytelling book to teach english skills. for me, choosing the appropriate story board which suits the materials and the level of students’ understanding is the most important thing to do” (ambar) tifani yuris signori, nur arifah drajati & kristian adi putra | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 78 after designing dst book in the project, ambar also builds a positive attitude towards the use of dst in english class. she stated that digital storytelling book is suitable medium to be used in teaching english because they can attract students’ attention and keep them engaged. moreover, she also conveyed that by using digital storytelling, the students can also practice their information and communication technology (ict) skills. “i agree that digital storytelling book can help me to teach. they are suitable to be used to deliver english lessons because they may attract students' attention, keep them engaged and make them practice their ict skills as well.” (ambar) in ambar’s case, she has not implemented dst in her class because she has not taught yet at all. however, along with the lesson plan she has arranged, she seemed to already has a structured plan related to how implement dst in her future classambar’s tpack is still also at accepting level. however, ambar tended to view digital storytelling as a motivating factor for engaging students in the topics rather than as a tool for learning english. it is in line with the finding of a study done by niess (2013) that sometimes, at the accepting level, pre-service teachers tended to view the technology as a factor that can motivate the students instead of a main tool for learning english. using the dst book to teach reading skill in the future based on dewi’s experiences, first of all, the pre-service teachers were given explanation that digital story is suitable to be used as english teaching materials because it can improve the students’ engagement since it is interactive. moreover, it was also explained that digital story can be designed using several kinds of technology by considering the targeted students’ needs. “i received an explanation that digital stories are suitable to be used in learning because they are interactive media which can improve students’ engagement. i can also use any technology which suits my students’ needs” (wati) wati personally finds the explanation given by the expert regarding dst book and how to design it is insightful and interesting. the expert of the workshop explained that the pre-service teachers could input the images and the audio which are already provided in the book creator application or from their devices in creating dst book. moreover, he also gave tips and suggestions on how to avoid copy rights from the chosen images. “this is very interesting. i really got insights from the expert of workshop. the way he explained how to use book creator explanation is very detailed. he even explained how to choose the image and the audio there. there were also some recommendations of how to avoid copy right because of our chosen images.” (wati) in the process of constructing dst book, wati’s group developed their own method to make outline before finally jumping into the book creator app to design it. they made outline by using table matrix. on each column, there are pictures followed by the suitable narratives that will be included in digital stories. “in my case, my group decided to make a table matrix. so, on each column, there will be the picture as well as the narrative.” (wati) after going through the steps of designing dst book, wati is confident that their designs of digital story would result in the desired outcomes of learning in their future class because she thought that their designs were already interesting, interactive, and suitable for targeted students’ level. “i am sure that our design of digital storytelling book will produce the targeted learning outcomes because it is already interesting and interactive. it also already suits the students’ level.” (wati) wati also shares her understanding about the use of digital story and how to use it in teaching english by referring to the lesson plan she made based on the digital storytelling book she designed. tifani yuris signori, nur arifah drajati & kristian adi putra | elt forum 13(1) (2024) 79 therefore, she talked about its use in reading and how to teach it to students. she conveyed that in her lesson plan, she used digital storytelling to teach reading with the topic of narrative text. in her opinion, digital story is really useful to explain the structure of narrative text as well as the storyline to the students. besides, similar with other pre-service teachers, wati also has a positive attittude towards the use of dst in teaching english. she conveys that dst can increase students’ motivation and creativity in learning, especially in reading. “i agree that digital storytelling book can help me as a teacher. i think that they are suitable to be used in teaching english because they can increase students' learning interest and students' motivation to learn reading creatively” (wati) although having positive attitude toward dst, wati has not thought about implementing dst in teaching english yet. it is because first, she thinks that dst will be most beneficial and suitable if it is used to teach reading. however, she has not had any chance yet to teach reading skill to students using dst. considering the data obtained from wati, it can be seen that she is also at accepting level. the way wati thinks that digital story is suitable to be used in teaching reading is in line with the finding of a previous study done by niess et al. (2014). in their study, the teachers’ conception was to use the technology for motivation to study only specific topics. conclusion the results of this study show that in tpack level development, each of the preservice teachers was experiencing the same level which is accepting although they had slightly different experiences in designing digital storytelling book and finishing the project. it can be said that the activities in digital storytelling book project did not support the pre-service teachers in achieving the full tpack level development: recognizing, accepting, adapting, exploring, and advancing. however, the tpack of pre-service teachers was a bit developed after designing digital storytelling book. although the primary findings show that the pre-service teachers’ tpack was developed until the accepting level, their tpack development seemed not significant during the project. therefore, it is necessary to carefully design a project in teacher education program that can improve the pre-service teachers' tpack level. in using dst book project in the context of teacher education, it will be beneficial for teacher educators to provide pre-service teachers with chances of direct teaching practice so that they can explore more to really apply digital storytelling book in teaching after getting the chance to design it. by having the opportunity to directly apply dst in the teaching, pre-service teachers may have bigger chance to develop their tpack into the other levels. funding statement the authors received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article. references asad, m. m., hussain, n., wadho, m., khand, z. h., & churi, p. p. 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(2013). creation and use of digital storytelling book for educational purposes: an example of tpack based science education course. in t. yanpar-yelken, h. sancartokmak, s. özgelen, and l. i̇ncikabı (eds.). technological pedagogical content knowledge (tpack) based course design in science and math education, 105–128. anı publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/20427530231156173 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2729.2012.00487.x https://doi.org/10.1080/21532974.2018.1498039 putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 157 elt forum 12 (3) (2023) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt novice english teachers’ knowledge about assessment of learning, assessment for learning, and assessment as learning eka anastasia wijaya1 1akademi pariwisata denpasar, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received on 22 november 2022 approved on 22 november 2022 published on 30 november 2023 ________________ keywords: assessment as learning; assessment for learning; assessment of learning; novice english teachers ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ this study aimed to investigate the novice english teachers’ knowledge about assessment of learning, assessment for learning, and assessment as learning in the context of bali. framed within a qualitative design, the study employed the qualitative method with a questionnaire and an interview guide as the instruments to collect the data. the obtained data were analysed using interactive model analysis consisted of data collection, data display, data reduction, and verification or conclusion drawing. in the preliminary informal interview done towards several novice english teachers, it indicated that not all novice english teachers have heard about assessment of learning, assessment for learning, and assessment as learning. therefore, this phenomenon led the researcher to conduct this study. further, the results of this study showed that the novice english teachers’ knowledge about assessment of learning, assessment for learning, and assessment as learning are limited to the basic concepts only. even, several novice english teachers never heard about those assessment types. it implies that the school principals and other stakeholders need to emphasize the concept of assessment of learning, assessment for learning, and assessment as learning for novice english teachers through teacher training, workshop, or seminar. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 akademi pariwisata denpasar jalan tukad balian nomor 15, renon, denpasar, 80226 e-mail: eka-anastasia@akpar-denpasar.ac.id http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& eka anastasia wijaya | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 158 introduction as one of the crucial parts in teaching and learning activity, the teachers need to understand deeply the concept of assessment (amua-sekyi, 2016; padmadewi & artini, 2019; rahmawati, utomo, & ahmadi, 2018). according to brown (1999), assessment is a related series of measures used to gather and interpret information related to the students’ achievement level. in line with that, kurniawati and sukardiyono (2018) and susilaningsih, khotimah, and nurhayati (2018) defines assessment as systematic and sustainable activities to obtain information about the students’ knowledge and work. in this case, assessment could be used to measure the students’ improvement along the process as well as evaluate the students’ strengths and weaknesses. gultom (2016) and nurdiana (2020) added that language teachers have to be able to choose or select the most appropriate assessment for the students. besides, the teachers urgently need to be literate to language assessment especially the way to make a good test or the most appropriate method to assess their students. it is because the minimum assessment literacy could not lead the teacher to help the students to achieve the maximum results of their performance (nurdiana, 2020). the same opinion comes from nikmard and zenouzagh (2020), who stated that one of the important factors in english teaching is the teachers’ assessment literacy. however, the preliminary situational analysis in forms of observation and informal interview found that the teachers’ assessment literacy is limited to formative and summative assessment. meanwhile, there are various types of assessment such as assessment of learning (aol), assessment for learning (afl), and assessment as learning (aal) that being emphasized in this 21st century era. saragih (2016) and volante (2006) divides assessment into informal assessment and formal assessment. in the informal assessment, it is conducted incidentally with unplanned comments and responses. meanwhile, in the formal assessment, it specifically planned the procedures to know the students’ skills and knowledge. in addition, yambi (2018) states that assessment could also divided into formative and summative assessment, continuous and final assessment, process and product assessment, as well as divergent and convergent assessment. there are also assessment of learning, assessment for learning, and assessment as learning as the approaches to assessment (yambi, 2018). assessment of learning is also known as summative assessment, in which it summarize and report the students’ achievement at a certain time (mutch, 2012). in this case, the form of assessment of learning could be seen in the result of test or in form of rapport of the students’ learning outcomes at a certain time (lee & mak. 2012). meanwhile, assessment for learning deals with the process of assessing the students’ progress, the learning process, and the existence of on-going assessment to improve the students’ achievement (padmadewi & artini, 2019). assessment for learning is also called as the enlargement concept of formative assessment (sardareh & saad, 2013). for assessment as learning, it closely related with assessment and sustainability (mutch, 2012). assessment as learning deals with the students’ process in monitoring their own learning, achievement, and progress. the form of assessment as learning could be seen in self-assessment, peer assessment, or discursive feedback (dann, 2014). the terms of assessment of learning, assessment for learning, and assessment as learning are being emphasized in today’s era. however, based on the initial informal interview with several novice english teachers, it showed that not all novice english teachers have heard about assessment of learning, assessment for learning, and assessment as learning. in this case, novice teachers are teachers who have teaching experience less than three years or up to two years and have just implemented their teaching skills with basic classroom routines (anggraini, 2019; barrett et al., 2002; hayes in ahmed, faizi, & akbar, 2020). novice english teachers were chosen as the subject of this research because the researcher wants to know the teachers’ knowledge and readiness as a new teacher. besides, the result of this research is expected to improve the teachers’ quality as the frontliner in education. the fact that not all novice english teachers have heard about assessment of learning, assessment for learning, and assessment as learning indicated that several novice english teachers are illiterate about those three assessments. it is the same as a study conducted by nurdiana (2020) who found that the teachers did not practice the knowledge of their assessment literacy in the classroom. even, some teachers are illiterate to assessment about the way to assess the students’ language performance. however, the previous study found not present a vivid description of how the teachers’ understanding about assessment of, for, and as learning. therefore, this phenomenon led the researcher to conduct a study that investigate the novice english teachers’ knowledge about assessment of learning, assessment for learning, and assessment as learning in the context of bali. in eka anastasia wijaya | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 159 conclusion, the presented study could improve the novice english teachers’ knowledge of those three assessments as well as improve the teaching and learning process by considering those three assessments that could not be offered in the previous study. methods research design this study employed qualitative research design. hancock and algozzine (2006) stated that qualitative research describes social phenomena that happen naturally. in this case, the social phenomenon was the novice english teachers’ lack of knowledge about assessment of learning, assessment for learning, and assessment as learning in the context of bali. thus, this research examined the novice english teachers’ knowledge about assessment of learning, assessment for learning, and assessment as learning in bali. settings and participants this research was conducted in the context of bali. specifically, the novice english teachers as the participants of this research are teaching in gianyar regency (1 respondent), badung regency (2 respondents), jembrana regency (1 respondent), bangli regency (1 respondent), buleleng regency (2 respondents), karangasem regency (1 respondent), klungkung regency (1 respondent), and tabanan regency (1 respondent) with consent as the participants of this research. therefore, ten novice english teachers with teaching experiences from 2020-2022 were chosen as the participants. data collection method and analysis in collecting the data, the researcher used qualitative method with questionnaire and interview guide as the instruments. the researcher used questionnaire to find the data about the novice english teachers knowledge about assessment of learning, assessment for learning, and assessment as learning. the questionnaire was in form of open-ended questionnaire and consisted of eight questions. it is designed in form of open-ended questions to allow the respondents to provide answers in an unlimited variety. in designing the questionnaire, the researcher used the theory about assessment of, for, and as learning especially the nature and the characteristics of those assessment. those aspects were used because the researcher wants to know the novice english teachers’ knowledge in terms of definition and characteristics of those three assessment. in order to validate the data, the researcher also did unstructured interview via telephone and chat messages toward the respondents. further, the data were analysed using interactive model analysis consisted of data collection, data display, data reduction, and conclusion drawing. miles and huberman (1994) stated that there are three flows in data analysis, namely data reduction, data display, and verification or conclusion drawing. after collecting the data, the researcher simplified and transformed the data to be analysed in the data display. in the data display, the data were displayed in form of tables and description. the next flow is verification or conclusion drawing, in this flow the researcher elaborated the obtained data into one general conclusion. findings and discussion novice english teachers’ basic knowledge about assessment of, for, and as learning figure 1 indicated that seven out of ten novice english teachers as the participants have heard about the terms of assessment of learning, assessment for learning, and assessment as learning. meanwhile, three out of ten novice english teachers never heard about those three assessments. in this case, further explanation about the novice english teachers’ knowledge about assessment of learning, assessment for learning, and assessment as learning are described as follows. eka anastasia wijaya | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 160 figure 1. novice english teachers’ basic knowledge about the assessment types in addition to it, table 1 shows that seven out of ten novice english teachers defines assessment of learning as the assessment process that conducting after the learning process or in the end of the learning process. further, the kinds of assessment of learning used by the participants were varied from quiz, fort-polio exam, written test, spoken test, and multiple-choice test in the end of semester, topic, or chapter. moreover, the participants make sure that the assessment of learning conducted by the teachers were valid and reliable by adjusting the test with the students’ level and learning material, checking the validity and reliability of the test with the school principals, and combining with the result of other assessment such as assessment for learning and assessment as learning. table 1. novice english teachers’ knowledge about assessment of learning subject data basic knowledge kinds of assessment validity and reliability t1 aol is the assessment done after completing the learning process summative test adjusting the test level and combining with other assessment results t3 aol is the assessment done in the end of the learning process formative test checking other assessment done t4 aol is the assessment that collecting the students’ learning result reward conducting summative test t6 aol is the assessment conducting in the end of the learning process test or quiz adjusting the test or quiz level t7 aol is assessment done during the learning process written and spoken test combining several results of test t9 aol is the assessment conducting after one semester summative test discussing with school principals t10 aol is assessment done to after the learning process fortpolio, summative test, formative text checking the students’ progress in the class 70% 30% novice english teachers' basic knowledge about assessment of, for, and as learning have heard never heard eka anastasia wijaya | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 161 table 2. novice english teachers’ knowledge about assessment for learning subject data basic knowledge kinds of assessment validity and reliability t1 afl is the assessment during the learning process discussion using personalisation technique t3 afl is the assessment during the learning process quiz and project checking the students’ progress t4 afl is the assessment that collecting the result of students’ learning students’ activeness checking the students’ progress t6 afl is the assessment in form of project project or worksheet adjusting the project or the worksheet t7 afl is the assessment during the learning process students’ activeness looking at the students’ improvement t9 afl is the assessment during the learning process task and quiz double-checking the students’ work t10 afl is the assessment that could improve the students’ cognitive and social performances discussion and qna table 2 above shows that seven out of ten novice english teachers defines assessment for learning as the assessment process that conducted during the learning process or alongside the learning process. it is also said that assessment for learning usually used to improve the teaching and learning process. further, the kinds of assessment for learning used by the participants were varied from discussion, quiz, fun worksheet, and project. moreover, the participants make sure that the assessment for learning conducted by the teachers were valid and reliable by using personalisation technique (discussion), giving each student the same chance to involve in the discussion, looking at the students’ progress and improvement during the learning process, having additional note of the students’ progress, and double-checking the students’ work. table 3. novice english teachers’ knowledge about assessment as learning subject data basic knowledge kinds of assesment validity and reliability t1 aal is the assessment that involving the students actively in the assessing process self-assessment giving feedback t3 aal is the assessment that involving the students in the process not yet implemented not yet implemented t4 aal is the assessment for the students toward their learning reminder discussion and reflection t6 aal is the assessment in form of self-assessment not yet implemented not yet implemented t7 aal is the assessment during the learning process not yet implemented assessing daily activities t9 aal is the assessment that involve the students in the assessing process peer assessment comparing peer assessment t10 aal is assessment that could improve the students’ cognitive and social performances self-assessment table 3 above shows that seven out of ten novice english teachers defines assessment as learning as the assessment process that conducting during the learning process and involving the students’ active participation during the assessment process. further, the kinds of assessment as learning used by the participants were commonly in form of self-assessment and peer assessment. eka anastasia wijaya | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 162 moreover, the participants make sure the assessment as learning conducted by the teachers were valid and reliable by make sure that the students clearly understand the self-assessment given as well give feedback toward their self-assessment to improve the learning process. however, the result also showed there were several participants that have not implemented assessment as learning during the learning process. table 4. novice english teachers’ knowledge about other types of assessment subject other types of assessment examples validity and reliability t2 traditional and authentic assessment in form of multiple choice, lkpd (lembar kerja peserta didik), observation sheet considering the result from those three examples t5 assessment based on learning objectives (various) performance test (speaking test), discussion or question and answer by asking for feedback from the students about the teaching and looking for the students’ improvement t8 not really know the other types of assessment question and answer, discussion, self-assessment considering the learning objectives and outcomes in line with figure 1 above, the result indicated that three out of ten novice english teachers never heard about assessment of learning, assessment for learning, and assessment as learning. therefore, table 4 above shows the novice english teachers’ knowledge of other types of assessment and the examples as well as the validity and reliability of the assessment used. in this case, the other types of assessment used by those participants were traditional and authentic assessment and assessment based on learning objectives. the examples could be seen in form of multiple choice tests, lkpd (lembar kerja peserta didik or students’ worksheets), observation sheet, performance test (speaking test), discussion, question and answer, and self-assessment. to check the validity and reliability, the teachers considering the result of all assessment given during the learning process, asking for feedback from the students, looking for the students’ improvement, and considering the learning objectives and learning outcomes. discussion on novice english teachers’ knowledge about assessment of, for, and as learning assessment of learning based on the obtained data, the novice english teachers defines assessment of learning as the assessment process that conducting after the learning process or in the end of the learning process. the same opinion comes from lee and mak (2012), in which assessment of learning usually occurs at the end of the learning process. lee and mak (2014) added that assessment of learning aims to measure the students’ learning outcomes as well as report the outcomes to the students and the other stakeholders. because assessment of learning focusing on measuring the learning process and reporting the students’ competency level, the teachers are the key assessor in assessment of learning and there is no participation of assessing from the students (lee & mak, 2014). further, mutch (2012) stated that assessment of learning closely related to assessment and accountability. because of that, the assessment results are the key evidence in the process of making judgements. in this case, the form of assessment of learning could be seen in the result of test or in form of rapport of the students’ learning outcomes at a certain time (lee & mak. 2012). therefore, assessment of learning usually found in form of test or quiz that resulted certain score based on the students’ ability. it is as the same with the novice english teachers’ answers about the forms of assessment of learning that they used in their teaching process such as quiz, fort-polio exam, written test, spoken test, and multiple-choice test in the end of semester, topic, or chapter. as it is mentioned above, the teachers are the key assessor in assessment of learning. therefore, the teachers need to make sure that the assessment given are valid and reliable. denman and al-mahrooqi (2018), mcmillan (2000), volante (2006), and yousuf (2018) has the same opinion, in which assessment need to be reliable and valid. thus, the assessment itself must give consistent and accurate results. in this case, the novice english teachers make sure that the assessment of learning conducted were valid and reliable by adjusting the test with the students’ level and learning material, checking the validity and reliability of the test with the school principals, and combining with the result of other assessment such as assessment for learning and assessment as learning. in line with that, norcini et al. (2011) and palomba and banta (1999) added that assessment need to acceptable, in which the stakeholders have to find that the assessment process eka anastasia wijaya | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 163 and results are credible. besides, the content and the form of assessment have to be associated with the learning objectives and the learning outcomes. assessment for learning based on the obtained data, the novice english teachers defines assessment for learning as the assessment process that conducting during the learning process or alongside the learning process. the same opinion comes from padmadewi and artini (2019), in which assessment for learning deals with the process of assessing the students’ progress, the learning process, and the existence of ongoing assessment to improve the students’ achievement. it is also said that assessment for learning usually used to improve the teaching and learning process. in line with that, mutch (2012) supported that assessment for learning closely related with assessment and improvement. sardareh and saad (2013) added that assessment for learning is used to improve instruction and learning through assessing the students’ progress, providing feedback for students, and deciding the next step in the teaching and learning process. assessment for learning is also called as the enlargement concept of formative assessment (sardareh & saad, 2013). in this case, sardareh and saad (2013) stated that frequent testing at the end of each unit is helpful enough for the students but it is not really emphasize the importance of formative thinking. therefore, the new concept that called as assessment for learning is developed to provide the students continuous evidence of their progress. it could be seen in how the teachers asses the students in assessment for learning through classroom interaction and group discussion. it is as the same with the novice english teachers’ answers about the forms of assessment for learning that they used in their teaching process such as discussion, quiz, fun worksheet, and project. in this case, the novice english teachers make sure that the assessment for learning conducted are valid and reliable. the assessment must give consistent and accurate results in order to be called as reliable and valid (denman & al-mahrooqi, 2018; mcmillan, 2000; volante, 2006; and yousuf, 2018). the findings showed the novice english teachers make sure that the assessment were valid and reliable by using personalisation technique (q&a and discussion), giving each student the same chance to involve in the discussion, looking at the students’ progress and improvement during the learning process, having additional note of the students’ progress, and double-checking the students’ work. assessment as learning based on the obtained data, the novice english teachers defines assessment as learning as the assessment process that conducting during the learning process and involving the students’ active participation during the assessment process. in line with that, mutch (2012) stated that assessment as learning closely related with assessment and sustainability. further, assessment as learning deals with the students’ process in monitoring their own learning, achievement, and progress. the same opinion comes from lee and mak (2014) who stated that the learners are involved in the process of assessing as well as becoming the part of learning in assessment as learning. the form of assessment as learning could be seen in self-assessment, peer assessment, or discursive feedback (dann, 2014). lam (2018) added that the students are expected to actively engage in monitoring their processes through self-assessment and self-reflection. it is as the same with the novice english teachers’ answers about the forms of assessment as learning that they used in their teaching process such as self-assessment and peer assessment. however, the results also showed that not all novice english teachers have conducted assessment as learning in their teaching. several novice english teachers have not conducted assessment as learning during the learning process. in line with the explanation above, it is said that the assessment conducted by the teachers need to be reliable and valid (denman & al-mahrooqi, 2018; mcmillan, 2000; volante, 2006; and yousuf, 2018). in this case, the novice english teachers make sure that the assessment as learning conducted by the teachers were valid and reliable by make sure that the students clearly understand the self-assessment given as well give feedback toward their self-assessment to improve the learning process. mutch (2012) added that the students have to understand their learning and the things they have to improve. further, denman and al-mahrooqi (2018), mcmillan (2000), volante (2006), and yousuf (2018) stated that feedback must be available and easily understand by the students. novice english teachers’ knowledge of other types of assessment eka anastasia wijaya | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 164 based on the obtained data, it indicated that not all novice english teachers know the concept of assessment of learning, assessment for learning, and assessment as learning. in this case, the other types of assessment used by those novice english teachers were traditional and authentic assessment and assessment based on learning objectives. the traditional and authentic assessment were chosen depend on the learning situation. it is as the same with the assessment chosen freely by the teacher based on the learning objectives. in this case, the various kinds of assessment could be chosen as long as it suit the learning situation. therefore, the teachers need to choose the most appropriate assessment. gultom (2016) and nurdiana (2020) added that language teachers have to be able to choose or select the most appropriate assessment for the students. the forms of the other assessment types used by the novice english teachers could be seen in lkpd (lembar kerja peserta didik), observation sheet, and performance test as in speaking test. to check the assessment validity and reliability, the teachers considering the result of all assessment given during the learning process, asking for feedback from the students, looking for the students’ improvement, and considering the learning objectives and learning outcomes. conclusion from the study, it could be concluded that the novice english teachers knowledge about assessment of learning, assessment for learning, and assessment as learning are limited to the basic concept of those three assessment. it could be seen from the answer written in the questionnaire and the interview done that limited to the basic concept only. even, several novice english teachers never heard the terms of assessment of learning, assessment for learning, and assessment as learning. further, not all novice english teachers have conducted assessment as learning in their teaching. therefore, it is suggested for the school principals and other stakeholders to emphasize the existence and the concept of assessment of learning, assessment for learning, and assessment as learning for the teachers, especially the novice english teachers, to maximize the teaching and learning process. it could be done through teacher training, workshop, or seminar about assessment of learning, assessment for learning, and assessment as learning. funding statement this research received no specific funding from any agency. references ahmed, g., faizi, w. u., & akbar, s. 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(2018). principles of assessment – leader’s perspective. the reformer. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 216 elt forum 12 (3) (2023) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt exploring critical digital literacy in a higher education efl classroom: teachers’ views and practices hapsari mutya rini1, salim nabhan1 1universitas pgri adi buana surabaya, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received on 29 may 2023 approved on 22 november 2023 published on 30 november 2023 ________________ keywords: critical digital literacy; efl classroom; higher education ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ critical digital literacy is increasingly an issue in today’s technology-driven world, and it has been implanted into the indonesian higher education curriculum to equip students with the ability to critically engage with digital information. research related to critical digital literacy, especially in efl settings at a higher education level is still under-explored. therefore, in this study, the researchers aimed to explore teachers' views on critical digital literacy and their practices in integrating critical digital literacy in efl classrooms at the university level. this research used a qualitative case study approach. the researchers collected data from three efl classroom teachers at one of the universities in surabaya, indonesia. to validate the data, the researcher used data triangulation, where the data were collected from semi-structured interviews, observation, and document reviews. the data were then analyzed using thematic analysis. the data revealed two main themes including teachers' views on critical digital literacy in efl classrooms and teachers' practices on critical digital literacy in efl classrooms. teachers’ views on critical literacy in efl classrooms included their understanding of the critical use of technology, their recognition of the importance of students’ critical digital literacy, and the inclusion of critical digital literacy in language learning in accordance with technology development. additionally, teachers’ practices of critical digital literacy entail the provision of various online materials and platforms, the analysis of the internet sources for students’ digital materials, the involvement of multimodal text in the learning process, and the students’ identity development in digital media. the findings of the study shed light on the various dimensions of critical digital literacy, suggest practical insight on the integration of literacy in efl classrooms, and call for further development on effective instructional approaches that support the use of technology that promotes critical digital literacy at the university level. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 universitas pgri adi buana surabaya, indonesia e-mail: salimnabhan@unipasby.ac.id http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& hapsari mutya rini & salim nabhan | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 217 introduction the development of the 21st century brings changes to various aspects of life. one of the most visible changes is the revolution in digital technology. the digital age has dramatically shifted the advancement of communication tools and the internet-based information landscape. the users of news and information have changed ways, from accessing news at a particular place and time to accessing news at a place and time that can suit their desires. the impact of this digital reform has caused people to only rely on online information and carry out literacy practices based on online digital platforms (silvhiany et al., 2021). in the indonesian higher education context, the government has implanted the 21st century skills including critical and digital literacy into the newest curriculum (junaidi et al., 2020). therefore, the study is relevant to explore the university teachers’ views and practices of critical digital literacy in higher education level. in the area of literacy, the ecology of new media and a globally interconnected world has given new definitions of what it means to be literate. nabhan and hidayat (2018) explained that in the traditional era, literacy was defined as the ability to read and write, however, because the 21st century brought advances in technology, literacy has a more complex meaning. scribner and cole (1981) emphasized that literacy competence does not only consist of the ability to read and write but includes the ability to apply knowledge to certain goals and contexts. because of the ecology of literacy, competence that involves knowledge and skills in using digital media, as well as the ability to search, identify, evaluate, and use the information obtained is called digital literacy. the presence of digital literacy is in line with the special skills that students must have in the 21st century. due to the massive expansion of digital media, individuals are required to have special skills, namely critical thinking, creativity, communication, problem-solving, technical, and information literacy (van laar, 2020). although digital literacy has dimensions for critical thinking, this does not guarantee that students have critical abilities in accessing digital media. several skills are needed that must be trained and carried out continuously. moreover, in this digital era, many teachers want to provide space for students to get to know digital media better through multimedia projects and multimodal practices (sadaf & johnson, 2017). especially in the efl classroom, which allows students to understand all cultural and social issues in various countries, they need to be equipped with critical thinking in accessing digital media. therefore, pangrazio (2016) specialized again in the critical understanding of digital media as critical digital literacy. critical digital literacy (cdl) is becoming a field of study that stems from critical literacy and critical media literacy, among other fields. critical digital literacy is not just about developing technology or critical thinking skills but is preparing students to live in a digital world. therefore, critical digital literacy plays a role as skills and attitudes needed to access information, analyze various multimodal texts, consider information, and create narratives and counter-narratives (hidayat et al., 2021). several studies have discussed the issues of critical digital literacy in general. hidayat et al. (2021) conducted a study on the understanding and knowledge of efl students regarding critical digital literacy. the results of this study indicated that efl students were not aware of critical digital literacy. additionally, the results of the relevant study were shown by silvhiany et al. (2021) indicating that students’ critical digital literacies were not sufficient to evaluate and analyze the online sources. martinez (2019) revealed that teachers utilized online sources through discussion with their students in the classroom. however, little attention has been given to the investigation of teachers’ views and practices of critical digital literacy in an efl setting particularly in a higher education. therefore, this study aims to explore teachers' views on critical digital literacy and their practices in integrating critical digital literacy in the efl classroom at the university level. digital literacy and critical thinking according to hague and payton (2010), digital literacy is an understanding and knowledge that can engage people in critical thinking, creativity, and security awareness when engaging with digital technology. in addition, digital literacy is not just a technical skill in operating digital devices but also pays attention to technology's critical and wise use. therefore, hangue and payton (2010) created eight dimensions of digital literacy in which all dimensions are interrelated: functional skill, creativity, critical thinking and evaluation, cultural and social understanding, collaboration, effective communication, and e-safety. technology education that often occurs in schools focuses more on technical skills, such as how to use computers and software (gainer, 2012). indeed, honing students' skills in operating digital technology is one of the core things. however, a critical thinking approach is needed to implement skills such as making and consuming multimodal (share et al., 2014). hapsari mutya rini & salim nabhan | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 218 critical thinking is a core skill in education, especially at the higher education level. sulaiman et al. (2008) added that the key to professional success in higher education is to prepare students' critical thinking skills because it will foster good-quality graduates. ennis (1993, p.180) provides a view of critical thinking skills, in which it generally becomes a set of "ability" and "disposition" but critical thinking has never been practiced in a general sense. therefore, critical thinking must focus on something specific to be effective. from the theories put forward by experts, koh (2002) defined that critical thinking involves special skills, desires, and tendencies toward the importance of thinking and requires promotion for critical thinking. the practice of critical thinking will depend on other dimensions of thinking which include the practice of critical reading and writing (koh, 2002). if critical thinking skills can support the professional quality of students in college and can have many opportunities in the future workplace, then it must include a conception of thinking that moves away from problem-solving towards critical literacy. teaching critical literacy as a thinking tool can produce active, creative, and critical learning. critical digital literacy pangrazio (2016) examined critical digital literacy in education, observing three broad approaches: (i) a critical literacy approach (i.e. ethical analysis) that focuses on the critical use of digital; (ii) a critical media literacy approach that focuses on individuals' personal experiences and (iii) digital interface design. pangrazio (2016) states that it is difficult for any of these three models to fully account for the increasing complexity and diversity of practices, especially when applied to teaching and learning contexts. pangrazio (2016) offers a practice that focuses on exploring and expanding human interpretive and related processes associated with the use of digital media. within the “critical digital design” framework, techniques for “visualization”, “critical self-reflection”, “transcendentalism”, and “interpretation and re-articulation of digital concepts” were used to reconceptualize the cdl approach to education. hinrichsen and coombs (2013) developed critical digital literacy resources that can be integrated into the curriculum. however, these five resources are interrelated: 1) decoding: practical and operational engagement. decoding resources or coding practice involves the ability to parse and generate text in different modes such as modes found in videos, games, computers, and social media. 2) meaning-making: narrative complexity in the digital. making meaning is a process of reflection in which the content, style, and purpose of the text as in dialogue are based on the experience, knowledge, and previous responses of readers. in this resource, learners need the ability to follow and create narratives from a variety of elements. the ability to make good connections between new knowledge and existing knowledge is also required. these resources also involve students' ability to express goals or intentions, or ideas in digital form. 3) using: producing and consuming digital texts. these resources hone the ability to gather the right information, resources, and tools for a particular purpose. this includes the process of requesting, searching, filtering, and sharing. a variety of tools such as applications and modalities may be a solution, but students also need an understanding of the functions, constraints, and advantages of consuming applications. 4) analysing: becoming discerning practitioners. learners need to develop skills in assessing and selecting digital information. in addition, students must be able to apply critical, ethical, and aesthetic perspectives when producing and consuming digital materials. learners may also need the previously referenced decoding skills to trace and trace their origin. 5) persona: identity issues and the digital. in this persona resource, students are directed on how to form a multimodal identity on digital online wisely, both personally and in the community. this also requires an awareness of the ethical and cultural challenges posed when interacting and cooperating with others via digital. the practices of critical digital literacy in a language classroom some of the critical digital literacy practices found by researchers are related to the dimensions of digital literacy and critical digital literacy initiated by experts. in the findings of silvhiany (2019), educators practice critical digital literacy in reading activities. educators provide several applications to analyze the credibility of information sources that have been read by students for example, checking the author's background through linkedin, checking claims in articles by comparing them with scientific articles, and other features. these activities relate to one of the critical digital literacy dimensions, namely 'analysing' which is argued by hinrichsen and coombs (2013) that critical evaluation is to determine individual authorship. hapsari mutya rini & salim nabhan | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 219 in writing activities, silvhiany (2019) also provided references to critical digital literacy practices by evaluating online information designed by scholars from the stanford history education group. the assessment, which includes both paper and electronic versions, measures various areas of online resources, such as news analysis on facebook, news analysis on twitter, evidence evaluation, news search analysis, claims on youtube analytics, and many other types of information from social media sites. although intended as a tool to assess students' ability to evaluate online resources, the assessment can be used as material for teaching critical literacy. critical digital literacy can be integrated into listening activities by reflecting on the use of the internet (martinez, 2019). the teacher displays several videos, then gives questions to students such as, "listen to the language they are using! how are they speaking? what are they saying? does this feel okay?", "what can you tell others about yourself? is this person really like they said?”. in this way, the teacher promotes reflection on the suitability of various types of media use in daily life and encourages children to connect and analyze their emotions concerning media representation. this kind of discussion with students about their online communication, and issues related to safety, encourages reflection on how digital media are used in daily life, and how the media can be used differently (buckingham, 2015). in speaking activities, martinez (2019) explained that the teacher integrated critical digital literacy through critical discussions with students about information sources on the internet. this activity is associated with one of the dimensions developed by buckingham (2006) namely 'representation'. the teacher gives an illustration of how to encourage students to question the truth of information and think about the author of the message (martinez, 2019). pandya (2018) described students' critical digital literacy practices in video speaking activities showing that the author invited students to contribute to producing civic media literacy. the results obtained in this practice, some students used literal and representative images that match the words they say. however, within and throughout the video, students experimented with images by using metaphorical images. methods this research applied a qualitative case study since this research explored a phenomenon regarding the emergence of the field of study related to the development of digital media and critical digital literacy that are practiced by several english teachers at the university level. in addition, considering the research question formulated in this study, a qualitative case study focused on answering the condition or quality and used various sources of evidence to triangulate so that the case can be understood clearly (yin, 2003). the data used in this research were qualitative data that were taken from efl university teachers in english language education department, at a private university in surabaya, east java, indonesia. there were three teachers who were selected purposively and willing to be the respondents of the research. one teacher taught technology-enhanced language learning (tell) subject, and the other two teachers taught the subject of critical visual literature. the selection of participants was determined from the considerations of the teachers who have been teaching minimum 3 years at the university level and experienced in integrating critical digital literacy in their efl classrooms. in addition, they also run their classrooms using digital media and multimodal texts. in collecting data, the researchers used interviews, observation, and reviewing documents. the data triangulation was involved in order to increase the validity of the study. the researchers used semi-structured interviews since they have the flexibility of allowing the interviewer to ask unstructured questions and allow the researchers to explore issues related to the topic spontaneously. this approach allows open-ended questions to generate unexpected responses (tod 2006, as cited in ryan et al., 2013). the researchers developed the interviews related to the questions of the research. the interviews questions consisted of several questions including their perceptions of critical digital literacy and how they implemented the literacy into their efl classrooms. the interviews were delivered in indonesian language. the indonesian transcribed data derived from the interviews were then translated into english language to be included into the quotations. to get more data, the researchers observed the english teachers when teaching a classroom at the university level whether during face-to-face class or online classes. the observations were done both face-to-face and online since the teachers used hybrid learning. in addition, document reviews were also administered. the hapsari mutya rini & salim nabhan | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 220 documents reviews were in the form of lesson plans used by the teachers in the learning process related to the digital literacy integration. to analyze the data that had been collected, the researchers utilized use thematic analysis. the researchers adapted the steps of maguire and delahunt (2017) in doing thematic analysis . the first step was recognizing and understanding through reading and rereading the transcript data. in the first step, the researchers learned the data obtained from the respondents and selected the quotations. the second step was the step to generate the initial code. coding was the reduction of data into meaningful few words in a significant and systematic way. in this step, researchers created codes from the selected quotations. the third step was to find a theme. small data sets allowed overlap between the coding stage and the initial theme identification stage. at this stage, the data were checked and paired with several themes. in step four, the initial themes identified in stage three were reviewed, modified, and developed. the fifth step was the final step in improving the theme, identifying the essence contained in the theme. the final, sixth step was writing up the endpoint of the research. findings and discussion this research aims to explore how efl classroom teachers perceived and practiced critical digital literacy at the university level. the analysis of the data obtained from the interview, observation, and document review revealed two main themes including: 1) teacher's views on critical digital literacy and 2) teachers practices of critical digital literacy in efl classrooms at the university level. teacher's views on critical digital literacy in efl classroom the results of data analysis regarding efl teachers’ understanding of critical digital literacy, the researchers divided these findings into three sub-themes: 1) teachers' understanding of critical use of technology, 2) teachers' recognition of the importance of student's critical digital literacy, and 3) the inclusion of critical digital literacy in the language learning in accordance with the technology development. teacher’s understanding of critical use of technology several respondents defined critical digital literacy as the wise use of technology and utilized digital technology critically. this was shown from the responses of teachers 1 and 2: jadi perlu crtical ee apa namanya bagian kritis disitu untuk mengkritisi mana yg baik dan mana yang buruk (so critical is needed, well, what's the name, the critical part is there to criticize what is good and what is bad) (t1). lantas, ee critical literacy itu juga berkaitan dengan digital literacy. sehigga kita harus bisa berfikir kritis terhadap pemberdayaan dan juga penggunaan teknologi digital (so, citical literacy is also related to digital literacy, so we must be able to think critically about empowerment and also use of digital technology) (t2). another response defined critical digital literacy as a student's ability to designed english skills that were integrated in digital media: kemampuan mereka gimana caranya mengemas. kalau kita kan bahasa inggris ya, jadi mengemas semua ini, baik itu skill, bahasa skill, kemudian komponen nya menjadi sebuah kalau bisa dibilang apa ya, menggunakan teknologi, pastinya menggunakan teknologi... (their ability how to design. if we speak english, yes, so we design all of this, be it skills, language skills, then the components become one thing, if you can say what it is, using technology, definitely using technology ...) (t3). from the statements given by the respondents, critical digital literacy was defined as the ability to think critically about the use of technology and the ability to design certain components in the form of digital media. hapsari mutya rini & salim nabhan | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 221 teacher’s recognition of the importance of students’ critical digital literacy regarding the importance of critical digital literacy in the learning process, several respondents showed their awareness of the importance of implementing critical digital literacy. the critical role of digital literacy made students independent learners, as explained by one of the teachers: nah, dengan adanya critical digital literacy ini diharapkan ketika mereka faham apa yang harus mereka lakukan itu akan lebih baik. karena kuatirnya ketika mereka itu ketika belajar nya di luar kelas, seperti itu kan tanpa kontrol langsung dari dosennya, atau mungkin dari gurunya untuk siswa. itu kalau mereka tidak dibekali critical digital literacy, itu kan lumayan membahayakan, sehingga ketika nanti mereka tahu, atau mereka memahami terkait critical digital literacy, nanti ketika mereka belajar sendiri di luar, itu lebih aman karena segi keamanan itu juga salah satu yang menjadi prioritas dalam pembelajaran. (so, with critical digital literacy, it is hoped that when they understand what they have to do it to be better. because the worry is when they study outside the classroom, it's like that without direct control from the lecturer, or maybe from the teacher for the students. that is, if they are not equipped with critical digital literacy, that's quite dangerous, so that later when they know, or they understand about critical digital literacy, later when they study on their own outside, it's safer because in terms of security it is also one of the priorities in learning. (t1) focusing on students' abilities to utilize the digital world, another teacher explained that critical digital literacy helped students to be more selective in consuming digital media online. moreover, considering as future teachers, students were required to promote using digital media wisely. pentingya cdl itu adalah membuat kita lebih waspada, lebih bisa selektif, terhadap informasi, terhadap apapun yang telah didistribusikan atau disumbangkan,atau diberikan oleh dunia digital terhadap kita ... saya berharap mahasiswa pendidikan bahasa inggris yang merupakan calon guru bahasa inggris memiliki wawasan kompetitif untuk berpikir kritis karena mereka adalah calon guru .. calon guru bukanlah orang yang memberikan doktrin, tapi membuka pikiran siswanya sehingga mereka harus tau cara menggunakan sosial media, cara menggunakan media digital yang bijak yang bisa bermanfaat dan dapat berguna bagi siswanya nanti. itu harapan saya. karna sekali lagi, berpikir kritis ee dalam dunia digital itu adalah hal yang sangat crucial dan mereka adalah jembatan untuk meluaskan cdl itu sendiri. (so, the importance of cdl is to make us more alert, more selective, to information, to anything that has been distributed or donated, or given to us by the digital world... i hope that english language education students who are prospective english teachers have competitive insights to think critically because they are prospective teachers. prospective teachers are not people who provide doctrine but open the minds of their students, so that they must know how to use social media, how to use digital media wisely which can be useful and can be useful for their students later. that's my hope. because once again, critical thinking in the digital world is very crucial and they are a bridge to expand the cdl itself) (t2). on the other hand, critical digital literacy was also able to train students' higher order thinking skills in criticizing the material being discussed as explained by another teacher in the interview: di sekolah-sekolah itu sekarang sudah harus harus higher order thinking skills itu harus.. kita sebagai dosen harus bisa ee gimana caranya itu.. itu mahasiswa bisa bisa kritis terhadap materi, terhadap materi yang akan kita bahas gitu. (in schools now, they have to have higher order thinking skills... we as lecturers have to be able to do that... how can students do that? critical of the material, of the material that we will discuss) (t3). from the above statements, the respondents emphasized that the importance of implementing critical digital literacy did not only affect students' ability to select everything in digital media, but also trained students' higher-order thinking skills so that students can learn independently outside the classroom. hapsari mutya rini & salim nabhan | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 222 the inclusion of critical digital literacy n the language learning in accordance with the technology development the application of critical digital literacy in the learning process certainly adjusted between material needs and also developing technology. in this finding, critical digital literacy can be applied in all materials or courses, considering that technological developments in the world of education can make the learning process more interesting, as explained by the teacher: jadi apapun bentuk mata kuliahnya, apapun bentuk pelajarannya, saya kira diiringi dengan perkembangan teknologi itu akan lebih menarik ya... shg ketika kita menggunakan media digital, ya pasti akan dibarengi dengan critical digital literacy itu tadi, gitu. (so whatever the form of the course, whatever the form of the lesson, i think accompanied by technological developments it will be more interesting... so i'm sure when teaching using digital media is interesting, so when we use digital media, yes, it will be accompanied by critical digital literacy, like that) (t1) likewise, teacher 3 argued that critical digital literacy can be applied to every subject. jadi setiap pertemuan, sebelum kita ketemu, mereka itu sudah membaca. mereka sudah mencari tau ee entah itu dari bahan saya, ini loh saya punya link.. contoh nya gitu. ini loh, saya punya materi di bambozel, saya punya materi di kahoot dan sebagainya, baca.. jadi ketika kelas, langsung gimana kerjaanmu? langsung diskusi dan lain sebagainya gitu. (so every meeting, before we met, they had already read it. they've already found out whether it's from my material, here i have a link... an example like that. here you go, i have material in bambozel, i have material in kahoot and so on, read it.. so during class, immediately "how is your work?" direct discussions and so on) (t2). from the explanations given by the teacher, it can be seen that critical digital literacy can be implemented in every lesson or every course that uses technology, especially internet-based technology. teacher's practices of critical digital literacy in efl classroom the results related to the practices of critical digital literacy are classified into four sub-themes, including: 1) providing various online materials and platforms, 2) analyzing the internet sources for students’ digital materials, 3) the involvement of multimodal text in the learning process, and 4) building students’ identity on digital media. providing various online materials and platforms in promoting critical digital literacy, the main things that teachers did were providing some online digital resources and platforms, as explained by several teachers in recommending students to be assisted in doing assignments: misal nih, kita mau paraphrase ... sekarang itu sudah ada artificial intelligence yang membantu kita. nah seperti itu, kalau mau cari ya salah satunya di sebutkan dengankata, miisal dengan quilbot, dengan parahraser, gitu ya. (for example, if we want to paraphrase ... now there is artificial intelligence that can help us. so, like that, if you want to search, yes one of them is mentioned with the word, for example with quilbot, paraphraser, that's how it is. that i'm sure they are easy to find with those keywords) (t1) furthermore, one teacher also facilitated online digital platforms for the continuity of the learning process. a teacher stated: jadi mungkin selain hal itu seperti penggunaan lms juga jadi kalau materi-materi yang terkait mungkin ehh.. perlu referensi biasanya saya berikan referensinya di materi tersebut trus saya upload di lms seperti itu (so maybe other than that, like using an lms too, so if related materials might need references, i usually give references to the material, then i upload it on the lms like that) (t1). hapsari mutya rini & salim nabhan | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 223 in supporting students to always be creative in digital online, another teacher provides assignments to work on digital platforms, as the following statement: e-story, e-story gitu.. jadi kita dengan bebasnya membuat story disitu, kayak buku gitu, e-book.. storyjumper nah kita kan bebas ya disitu.. ada apa itu namanya gambar-gambar dan sebagainya.. kan bebas.. pernah juga pakai quizizz, kahoot, banyak banget (e-story, e-story like that.. so we freely make stories there, like books like that, e-books.. storyjumper, so we're free right there.. there are pictures and so on.. it's free.. have you ever used quizizz, kahoot, many more) (t3). in addition, the result was also supported with the document review of the teachers’ lesson plan indicating that teacher provided several online materials and platforms online digital. in this case, it can be seen that in the scope of education, various digital platforms are needed to create creative and innovative learning, as to make it easier for students to complete their assignments. analyzing the internet sources for students’ digital materials considering that everything contained in the digital world is not always trusted, the teacher also taught their students how to evaluate sources of information. the following is the teachers’ response: kalau di aplikasi misalnya ini ratingnya berapa itukan keliatan selain itu dari review kan keliatan, itu mungkin perlu disampaikan kalau reviewnya nah dibaca kalau reviewnya ndak baik yaa.. cari yang lain gitu.. kalau di web sendiri itu sebetulnya kalau penilaiannya karna dari jumlah kunjungan juga terlihat yang pertama, yang kedua ketika posisinya yang di atas biasanya dia banyak yang akses gitu (in an application, for example, what's the rating, you can see that apart from the review, it looks like it might need to be conveyed read the review, if the review isn't good... look for something else... on the web itself, actually the rating is because of the number of the visitors was also seen, the second when the position above usually has a lot of access like that..) (t1). focusing on writing about research and articles that are trusted and have high value, teachers also told students how to assess a source can be used as a credible reference. a teacher stated: kalau jurnal bagaimana? kita punya semuanya patokan patokan nya misal kalau di internasional kita mengenal adanya scopus, di indonesia kita mengenal namanya sinta, sehingga ketika nanti kita menulis itu kalau bisa ya cari jurnal-jurnal yang terbitannya yang ter-akreditas (how about a journal? we have all the benchmarks, for example internationally we know scopus, in indonesia we know sinta, so when we write later, if possible, look for journals whose publications are accredited) (t1). another teacher responded: secara garis besar, saya memberikan wawasan tentang ee website yang sangat berguna ee untuk mereka, terutama websiite sperti ee apa itu, saya lupa, sci-hub, nah itu, dan juga misalnya library genesis, lib-gen itu ya, ya, atau juga book finder dan sebagainya itu. (in general, i gave some insight about the website which is very useful for them, especially websites like sci-hub, well that, and also for example library genesis, lib-gen, or also book finder and so on (t2). additionaly, it is supported by other teacher statement: kalau mau cari sumber, mungkin cari artikel atau apa.. itu ee.. coba ee ke ini, ya kalau lower nya ke google scholar lah tapi kalau lebih high mungkin ke research gate.. kayak gitu.. itu di awal sudah saya jelskan.. ee kemudian di.. di ee eric, terus di garuda, itu terus kan ada banyak.. banyak sekali.. apalagi yang scopus-scopus itu. (if you want to find a source, maybe look for an article or something.. that's um.. try this, ok if it's lower, go to google scholar, but if it's higher, maybe go to the researchgate ... i explained that earlier. um, then... eric, then garuda, there's still a lot... lots of them... especially the scopus ones) (t3). hapsari mutya rini & salim nabhan | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 224 based on the explanations by the teachers, it can be seen that in higher education, students needed more guidance on how to find credible and trusted sources, so that students are assisted in completing their writing. the involvement of multimodal text in the learning process not only teaching students how to utilize digital media wisely, but also teachers encouraged students to produce creativity by involving multimodal elements on digital platforms. the teacher stated: mata kuliah literatur saya juga meminta untuk membuat film pendek yang mana sebelumnya merka menjadikannya sebagai suatu naskah kemudian dituangkan dalam film pendek saya membantu mereka untuk menyeleksi naskahnya membantu mereka untuk mempercantik alur ceritaya dan juga mempertajam konflik yang ada didalamnya, jadi saya sempet membimbing mereka tapi kalau untuk urusan editing vidio dan sebagainya itu mereka sudah memiliki kompetensi itu. (in literature courses i also asked to make a short film which before they made it as a script then poured it into a short film. i helped them to select the script helped them to beautify the storyline and also sharpened the conflicts in it, so i was able to guide them, but when it comes to video editing and so on, they already have that competence) (t2). aiming for students to be able to utilize and involve social media in the learning process, the teacher gave assignments related to the material being studied and then uploaded them on social media platforms. the teachers responded: jadi di kelas tourism ini ssaya minta mereka untuk membuat instagram kan, membuat instagram tentang travel agency nya mereka.. gitu. jadi mereka harus mengisi instagramnya itu dengan ee postingan-postingan, dan pastinya gambar juga. (so in this tourism class, i asked them to make an instagram, right? make an instagram about their travel agency... that's it. so they have to fill their instagram with posts and of course pictures too) (t3). moreover, based on the observation, it was showed that the teacher involved multimodal texts by facilitating students in making portfolio designs related to the material being discussed. in this practice, the teacher provided critical digital literacy by giving assignments or encouraging students to be creative with multimodal text elements. in addition, the teacher also encouraged students to utilize student social media as a learning platform. building students’ identity on digital media being wise in consuming and producing digital media is also necessary, not only because students can sort and find sources of information to support the learning process, but critical digital literacy is also present so that students can form a good identity in the digital world, especially in social media. t1 provided a reason why students must be wise in publishing everything on digital platforms, which greatly influences the assessment when students take part in selection at a corporate agency. sekarang sistemnya hrd minta apa, sosial medianya apa, dan disitu akan dilihat track record nya seperti apa di sosial media ... saya sampaikan menggunakan linkedin, mereka saya minta untuk mengumpulkan semua ee aktivitas terkait akademik di situ, supaya nanti ketika kita melamar kerjaa itu salah satu sosial media yang kita bagikan itu, mungkin kita punya instagram, tapi instagram kita mungkin begejekan, ya nggak usah dibagikan, linkedin nya aja yang dibagikan. tapi, ee sejauh ini saya sampaikan sosial media dirawat dengan baik, maksudnya dirawat dengan baik itu ya diisi dengan halhal yang postif ... dan itu akan mepresentasikan siapa diri kita, seperti itu. (now what is the hrd system asking for, what is your social media, and there you will see what the track record is like on social media... i conveyed it using linkedin, i asked them to collect all academicrelated activities there, so that later when we apply for jobs that's one of the social media that we share, maybe we have instagram, but our instagram might be ridiculed, so don't share it, just share linkedin. but, uh, so far i've said that social media is well cared for, meaning it's well cared for, yes it's filled with positive things... and that will represent who we are, like that) (t1). hapsari mutya rini & salim nabhan | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 225 focusing on the use of social media, t2 explained the importance of paying attention when uploading something on student social media. yang saya bahas dimata kuliah kreatif writing dan industry menjadi bijak di sosisal media itu krusial karna apa sosial media itu adalah ruang publik yang selalu saya sampaikan, jadi sosial media akun yang anada miliki memang pribadi milik anda tapi ketika akun itu sudah anda lemparkan ke sosial media maka itu bisa dikonsumsi oleh publik sehingga anda harus bisa memisahkan antara urusan pribadi dengan urusan publik, tunjukan kreasi kalian daripada urusan personal ... penting untuk menjadi dewasa dengan cara menseleksi apa yang kita posting dan apa yang seharusnya kita posting dan apa yang seharusnya tidak kita posting. (what i discussed in creative writing and industry courses, being wise in social media is crucial because what social media is a public space that i always convey, so the social media account that you have is privately yours but when you throw that account on social media then it can be consumed by the public so you have to be able to separate between private affairs and public matters, show your creations rather than personal matters ... it is important to be mature by selecting what we post and what we should post and what we should not post) (t2). in addition, the result of the observation revealed the practices of teachers in promoting selective use of social media and explaining the impacts of social media, one of which was that social media can brand identity, whether it's good or bad. integrating critical digital literacy can be in the form of teaching students to form a good identity by guiding students to always pay attention and select what should and should not be published. discussion teacher's views on critical digital literacy in efl classroom the results of the research show general views, from teachers defining critical digital literacy to the importance of critical digital literacy to be applied to the learning process. several teachers have elaborated on their views on critical digital literacy. not only regarding the ability to use technology, but critical digital literacy is also a competency in using digital media by being critical in assessing the good and bad things about the empowerment and use of digital technology. as stated by pangrazio (2016), critical digital literacy requires rethinking digital practices. other teachers defined critical digital literacy as an extraordinary ability to package various components in the digital world. moreover, avila and pandya (2013) defined critical digital literacy as abilities and practices that can lead users to be creative with digital technology and integrate digital multimedia text. after defining critical digital literacy, teachers realized the influence of critical digital literacy will have a very important impact on the learning process. this is in line with the results of research conducted by armanda and yosintha (2022) which show the results of teachers' views regarding the importance of critical digital literacy considering the increase in internet use which has both positive and negative sides. thus, after integrating a critical digital literacy approach during the learning process, teachers expect students to be able to consume and produce everything in the digital world wisely and independently. in integrating a critical digital literacy approach, in which technology becomes an intermediary so that its application can be well understood by students. some teachers stated that it was undeniable that every type of learning always involved technology. because basically, the use of technology in the learning process will make learning more interesting and meaningful. as stated by brown and lee (2015), the use of various technologies is an invaluable tool for teachers and language learners. this is also in line with the results of research conducted by aleayoglu et. al., (2008) that provide technological implications for educational practice, one of which is that teachers need to combine technology that is appropriate to the course and digital material pedagogy. teacher's practices of critical digital literacy in efl classroom meanwhile, in integrating critical digital literacy, teachers practiced critical digital literacy by providing internet resources and digital platforms, selecting good and credible sources, involving multimodal texts, and encouraging students to form a good identity in the digital world. teachers practiced critical digital literacy which is related to several frameworks developed by hinrichsen and coombs (2013). as demonstrated by teachers in the interview results, teachers provided a critical hapsari mutya rini & salim nabhan | elt forum 12 (3) (2023) 226 digital literacy approach by providing online digital resources and platforms. related to a framework called "using", this practice is intended to use or utilize digital in an appropriate, effective, and innovative manner. as well as providing online resources such as quilbot to assist students in paraphrasing writings and provided english government websites that aim to find credible information so that students can carry out their assignments in english tourism courses properly. in addition, the teacher also provided digital platforms such as story jumper which is a place for students to be creative freely. this is also in line with the findings of research conducted by silvhiany (2019) in which teachers provide websites such as libguide to assist students in selecting information sources found on digital online. besides providing online digital resources and platforms, teachers also taught students how to analyze whether these resources were suitable for supporting the student learning process. this practice is related to hinrichsen and coombs’s (2013) framework, namely "analysing". one of the teachers told me how to assess reliable sources of information through the "review" feature. focusing on sources that can assist students in finding credible references, teachers provide recommendations for journals that have been accredited by sinta or scopus, such as research get, eric, and lib-gen. this finding is also in line with the results of research conducted by rinekso et al., (2021) indicating that students access credible journals in finding reference sources. meanwhile, another study by martinez (2019) revealed that teachers analyzed online sources through discussion on the veracity of information online with their students. critical digital literacy also involves the practice of producing multimodal text elements which are contained in the framework made by hinrichsen and coombs (2013), namely "using". the teacher encouraged students to produce multimodal text elements on digital media. in this case, the teacher also involved collaborative aspects between students. such as activities in making a short film that requires creativity and collaboration from several students. in addition, the teacher also encourages students to take advantage of student social media. another study conducted by pandya (2018) revealed the way teachers practice critical digital literacy by giving their students a project in the form of making a video about students’ life stories. how students produced things in digital media was also a discussion in critical digital literacy. based on hinrichsen and coombs’s (2013) framework called "persona". this framework discusses how students build their identities well in digital media. this can affect an individual or group's identity value in the digital world. therefore, students must pay attention to what they share on digital media. teachers lead students to always share positive things such as being creative and not being too personal. pangrazio (2016) also added that critical digital literacy has emerged which seeks to explore individual personal experiences. in this regard, potter and banaji (2012) suggested the theory of self-curatorship to understand the production and representation of identity through digital media. conclusion this research has explored teachers' views on critical digital literacy, as well as how teachers integrated critical digital literacy in efl classrooms at the university level. the results show that teachers perceived critical digital literacy as students' ability to use technology critically, which can select reliable resources in digital media. thus, teachers assumed that a critical digital literacy approach made students more selective in using digital media so that students were able to become independent learners. integrating critical digital literacy required technology as an intermediary. teachers thought that it was very possible if the critical digital literacy approach was applied in all courses, considering that technology in education was increasingly developing and attractive. in integrating critical digital literacy competencies, teachers had several ways to implement them in the learning process in efl classrooms, including providing various sources and internet platforms that can support and assist students during the learning process, analyzing credible and trusted sources of information and references, and encouraging students to produce creativity from multimodal text elements. moreover, teachers also taught students awareness of the identities they formed in the digital world. in addition, future studies are suggested to explore the application of the critical digital literacy approach in more specific language competencies in efl classrooms. funding statement this research project was conducted without any financial support from any funding institutions or agencies. hapsari mutya rini & salim 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(2020). determinants of 21st-century skills and 21st-century digital skills for workers: a systematic literature review. sage open, 10(1), 215824401990017. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244019900176 https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244019900176 putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 125 elt forum 11(2) (2022) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt students’ practice on autonomous language learning behaviors: a narrative inquiry ai fatmawati1, yanty wirza1 1universitas pendidikan indonesia, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received on 15 june 2022 approved on 29 july 2022 published on 31 july 2022 ________________ keywords: autonomous; behaviors; challenges; learner autonomy ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ the ability of learners to take an active role in their learning has attracted attention in foreign language learning as the focus of language teaching practice and theory have shifted to a student-centered approach. thus, this study aimed at exploring how students employed autonomous language learning behaviors, such as planning, monitoring, and evaluating their learning, including the challenges that the students may find. by applying a narrative inquiry, this study focused on examining students’ experience in doing autonomous language learning behaviors and their challenges. the data were obtained using a semi-structured interview with four bilingual students who live at private islamic boarding school. the findings revealed that they implemented autonomous language learning behaviors, yet they met some difficulties in doing those behaviors, such as the dilemma in determining the goals or the priorities to learn, the lack of motivation in doing those behaviors, the need of others to help them doing the behaviors and misunderstanding of the autonomous behavior concepts. the findings imply that the participation of the teacher's assistance and encouragement in implementing autonomous behaviors is crucial. due to the limited data obtained in this study, future research can be done to explore more about autonomous behaviors. the findings of this study are expected to shed some light on autonomous behaviors implemented by students living in islamic boarding school, specifically who are bilingual. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 universitas pendidikan indonesia jalan dr setiabudhi no 229, kota bandung, 40154 e-mail: aifatma96@upi.edu http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& ai fatmawati, yanty wirza| elt forum 11(2) (2022) 126 introduction indonesia’s recent curriculum, the 2013 curriculum, has required teachers to use student-centered learning in the classroom. it has been promoted for about seven years. since the focus of language teaching practice and theory has switched to a student-centered approach, the ability of learners to take an active role in their learning has received attention in foreign language learning. however, in asian societies, language learning is still known to be teacher-authoritative, encouraging obedience and reliance on the teacher (hsieh & hsieh, 2019). although it is difficult for some teachers to implement student-centered classroom, it still cannot be ignored due to the significance. one of the purposes to implement student-centered learning is to make students become autonomous learners. it has been argued that active participation in learning outside of the classroom is vital especially for foreign language students (hsieh & hsieh, 2019). learner autonomy is mostly known as the ability to take responsibility for their own learning (holec, 1981, cited in little, 2017). it includes the responsibility for determining the objectives, setting the content and progress, choosing the methods and techniques to be used, monitoring the acquisition process, and evaluating what has been obtained. cotterall & crabbe (1999) argued that students will be autonomous when they are: (1) promoted to self-monitor and self-assessment; (2) promoted to objectively focus on their learning process; (3) provided opportunities to choose content and learning activities, as well as opportunities to assess their own progress: and (4) promoted to find their own language knowledge and build their own learning assignments. the term ‘promoted’ shows that teachers need to foster autonomy to the students. it is stated by lengkanawati (2017) that no matter how experienced a teacher is, if the students do not make efforts by working independently outside the classroom on their learning and by becoming active participants in the teaching and learning process, the good learning outcome will not take place. geddes and strurtridge (1997, cited in kemala, 2016) argued that autonomous learners decide what they want to learn or why they need to learn, and then decide how to tackle the problems. furthermore, dang (2012) divided the characteristics of learner autonomy into three categories: initiating, monitoring, and evaluating. understanding personal learning preferences, defining goals, preparing study plans, and providing learning opportunities are all aspects of the beginning learning process. the monitoring learning process, which is likely the longest and where the majority of learning occurs, comprises traits linked to learning engagement and maintenance, such as selecting appropriate tactics, adjusting learning paths, and bargaining with others. the evaluating learning process predicts characteristics such as proofreading an assignment and evaluating a piece of writing while reviewing learning results. however, fostering learner autonomy is still difficult. nakata (2014) states that fostering learner autonomy in efl contexts face full of constraints and limitations and thus there is no much freedom because of, for example, fixed curricular goals, large class sizes, textbook and exam-oriented teaching, and teacher-faced instruction. another clear challenge is the socio-cultural background in which students respect the teachers and make them reluctant to speak up about their wants. as harmer (2007) asserted that for certain students from some educational backgrounds and cultures who have been led to believe that it is the teachers’ role to provide learning, this message can be challenging. tomita & sano (2016) investigated students’ needs in developing their learner autonomy by dividing them into low and high proficiency levels obtained from their toeic scores. the findings revealed that the students need the support of the teachers in developing their autonomy levels. research conducted by tuyen & an (2019) also studied the challenge in fostering autonomy. the findings of a study encountered that students themselves might be one of the challenges that the teachers find in promoting learner autonomy. the students with a low level of proficiency prevented the teachers from implementing strategies in their teaching. that can also be because the students are not motivated. some previous researchers in indonesia such as agustina and fajar (2018), khotimah et al. (2019) and ramadhiyah and lengkanawati (2019) discovered how learners view autonomy in language learning. for example, agustina and fajar (2018) found that although students believed that being autonomous and independent is important, they have not been able to sustain their autonomy as english learners because of a variety of reasons, such as their lack of motivation, consistency, willingness as well as supportive atmosphere. the findings are supported by chan et al. (2002) who said that motivation is an important aspect in determining whether or not a student is ready to learn independently. similarly, ramadhiyah and lengkanawati (2019) discovered that despite the fact that the students believed they were capable of controlling their own learning, they delegated that responsibility to their teacher. it could be due to socio-cultural factors in the indonesian environment, ai fatmawati, yanty wirza| elt forum 11(2) (2022) 127 which keep teacher-centered learning in place. a study conducted by khotimah et al. (2019) discovered that not all students comprehend the concept of autonomous learning in english lesson. they also found that among the autonomous behaviors, the monitoring phase, according to the thirdyear students in the study, was more important than the other two stages. other findings by kemala (2016) showed that independent learners are primarily impacted by their own desires, followed by the environment, learning activities, teachers, and materials. the majority of high autonomous learners were motivated to study english by their desire to advance their careers in the future, as well as other factors. the findings above indicate that being autonomous learners is influenced by many factors. since students may have various backgrounds and cultures in language learning, it will sometimes provide different situations in implementing autonomous language learning behavior. the students may have their own reasons why being an autonomous learner is challenging for them, especially the students in the dormitory area. it then becomes significant to be studied since students studying and living in islamic boarding school have many agendas outside their study at school which can be one of the factors to influence how they implement autonomous learning behaviors. the author, then, had curiosity on how students’ studying in private islamic boarding school who are in bilingual class implement their autonomous language learning behaviors. the previous studies had not covered autonomous behaviors from students living in islamic boarding school, specifically who are bilingual. this study is going to search how students who live in private islamic boarding school, specifically who are bilingual, do autonomous language learning behaviors, and the obstacles that they encounter in implementing the behaviors by using a narrative inquiry. hence, the research questions of this study is ‘how do the students plan, monitor, and evaluate their learning?’. methods this study used a narrative inquiry method. it is the study of the ways in which people experience the world (connelly & clandinin, 1990). demarrais & lapan (2004) claimed that narrative inquiry represents the researcher who wishes to understand a phenomenon or an experience rather than to formulate a logical or empirical theory. a narrative captures human experience through the creation and reconstruction of personal and social stories; and learners, teachers, and researchers are storytellers (connelly & clandinin, 1990; webster & mertova, 2007). in language teaching, narrative research attempts to recount the learner’s perspective with his language learning experience (barkhuizen et al., 2014). it is relevant to the purpose of this study, which was to explore the students’ experiences in planning, monitoring, and evaluating their learning, including the challenges they encountered. this study asked the participants to share their experiences by letting them tell their stories, which was a part of a narrative inquiry. as this research aimed at exploring students studying and living in islamic boarding school doing autonomous language learning behaviors, this study was conducted in private islamic boarding school in central java with four bilingual students that speak arabic and english for their daily activities. the school was purposively chosen because it provides two languages to be used by the students. it also provides autonomous learning environment in terms of english or arabic study club after the school hours. two of the students were in the second grade and the rest were in the third grade. all the names in the findings were pseudonym. they were chosen because of their availability in participating in the study. according to hamied (2017), in qualitative data, the participants can be based on the researcher’s convenience, hence the number of participants is insignificant. the data were collected using semi-structured interview. as connelly & clandinin (1990) stated, interview can be a tool to collect data in narrative inquiry. the interview questions were the elaboration of the questionnaire created by karababa, eker, & arik (2010) who had studied the skills of autonomous learning notion in turkey. the items covered students’ planning abilities, monitoring abilities, evaluation abilities, and the obstacles that they encountered during the process of autonomous learning behaviors. during this study, covid-19 pandemic was arising. the study in the private islamic boarding school was still conducted offline. yet it could not receive any visitors. since the researcher could not visit the school, the researcher contacted some students who were going back to their homes because of their individual reasons. at first, the author asked the students to be her respondents. they were going back to their home because of certain conditions so the author could reach them through phone. the collection of the data was done from 16 to 19 november 2020. after they agreed, the author sent the list of the questions to them by whatsapp. the author focused on asking how the students plan, ai fatmawati, yanty wirza| elt forum 11(2) (2022) 128 monitor, and assess their learning and the challenges in implementing it. the researcher allowed the students to answer using english or indonesian language depending on their preferences. adhikara and nanda answered using indonesian language, and rijal and rohman answered the questions using english. adhikara, rohman, and nanda answered the questions by typing them. meanwhile, rijal answered the questions by sending the researcher a voice note. some of the answers were not clear enough, so the researcher clarified it by validating the answers or by asking the participants another question regarding the answer to avoid misunderstanding. for instance, when the researcher asked rohman about how he evaluated his learning, the researcher asked another question to validate his answer. after the data had been gathered, the interview data from the voice note were transcribed. the transcription and the data in written response was coded and arranged into certain themes, such as planning the learning, monitoring the learning, and evaluating the learning; and based on the themes a further interpretation was developed. according to kim (2016) data analysis involves interpretation. analysis implies objectivity and interpretation implies subjectivity. after the narrative was created, to ensure the trustworthiness (developed by lincoln & guba, 1985 as cited in elo, et. al, 2014) of the data analysis, the author sent it back to the participants to check whether it represented their ideas correctly and to have their comments and feedback. the participants stated that the interpretation matched to what they have told the researcher. findings and discussion planning the learning students’ autonomous behavior was discovered by asking them how they planned their learning. from the six participants’ answers, it can be seen that they plan their learning by setting goals and priorities to be learned. they have different goals and priorities in learning english. for example, some of the participants stressed their english learning in memorizing new vocabularies, and some of them prioritized mastering the grammar. adhikara, rijal, and rohman shared their experiences: adhikara: “yes, before learning a language, i set goals and priorities. the first priority for my learning, i stress in memorizing new vocabularies that i didn't know before. usually in the beginning i always try to memorize new vocabularies as much as possible, after that i begin to think about how to pronounce it, then understand grammar and study english literature.” rijal: “i set a goal to be able to speak to native speakers fluently. another goal that i set was to watch a movie without any subtitles. to reach the goals, what i did was memorize as many vocabulary words as possible. rohman: “yes, the first goal i plan is mastering english grammar, then speaking.” planning a learning is one of necessary aspects that students studying and living in islamic boarding school must have to become autonomous learners. thus, they can manage what to learn and do first among many agendas they have. in relation to the question regarding the importance of planning students’ learning, they all agreed that planning their learning is essential to their english learning. adhikara, for example, asserted that planning his learning was important since he thought it was difficult to learn many things at once. so, he needed to plan his learning to see the first to the least learning priorities. then, he could start to learn english based on the priority. although the participants believed that planning their learning was important, they often found difficulties in planning their learning, determining the priority to learn, and deciding the strategies to reach it. for instance, rijal said that there was a lack of media as the source of learning in the dormitory to support his learning. so, it sometimes makes a little bit difficult to plan what to learn. meanwhile, rohman thought that it was difficult to find the methods that suited him the most. monitoring the learning in monitoring the learning, most of them would compare their progress by talking to their friends. for example, adhikara would compare his friends’ ability to his or listen to a song or watch a movie to know whether he understood the story. he thought that he would be good in english when he understood what the native said. it is also stated by rijal and nanda who often talked to their friends to see their progress. rijal usually observed his speaking and writing ability day by day to check his weaknesses to improve it. rijal said that: ai fatmawati, yanty wirza| elt forum 11(2) (2022) 129 “i often had a discussion with my friends. i write and i speak to find out my weaknesses. i observed it from my friends’ and my point of view so that i will always develop my english ability.” meanwhile, rohman observed his learning progress by doing a test, to what extent he could answer the test at school and how long he could speak english fluently. from the four participants, only one who was aware of his weaknesses and strengths. rijal said that his ability to speak or talk about a topic in front of many people was his strength in learning english, while his weakness was that he still found obstacles to watch a movie without any subtitles. the rest of them was not certain about it. adhikara: “sometimes i am aware and other time no.” rohman: “to be honest, i know a little about my strengths and weaknesses. i feel i am strong in grammar and analyzing a structure of a sentence. while my weakness is in vocabularies. nanda: “yes, i am aware that i am not really good in learning english. english is something relatively new for me.” regarding the question about who took the responsibility of monitoring their learning, adhikara thought that it should be the teacher’s task. he thought that the responsibility of his learning was not solely his job, but it needed a connection between him and the teacher. meanwhile the other participants believed that it was their own responsibility to monitor their learning. nanda put in words like “of course my learning is my responsibility. no way it is going to be another person’s responsibility.” rohman, in contrast, said that his learning is his responsibility, but he did not give much attention to his language. the participants also shared the problems that they found during monitoring their learning. it seemed that all participants could not monitor their learning well. adhikara said that he needed other people to monitor his learning. he told the author that only a few of his friends could monitor his english mistakes and progress in learning. adhikara: “yes. there is no person who can always monitor my english mistakes and see my progress during my studies.” rohman thought that monitoring his learning was challenging since he did not know his ability well. in the meantime, rijal and nanda argued that laziness was what made monitoring their learning did not work well. being able to monitor their learning by themselves is one of the characteristics of autonomous learners. in this part, students studying and living in islamic boarding school must be able to see how far they have made the progress. evaluating the learning evaluating the learning is the last autonomous behavior that is discovered in this present study. it was revealed that all the participants evaluated their learning. from their story, it can be seen that they evaluate their learning in different ways. adhikara sometimes evaluated his learning with his friends who were smarter than him to ask the materials that he did not understand. he understood that by evaluating his learning, he would get a maximum score. rohman evaluated his learning by doing a test, such as the toefl test without brushing up the materials. when he was able to finish it, it meant that he learned it well. however, when he did not do well on the test because he did not know or forget the materials, he would learn it again. he put in words “usually i do practice with some questions such as toefl without brushing up the materials. if i do not know or forget about some of them, then i will open my english book again. if i can answer the questions, it means i still remember the materials.” some problems appeared from the participants’ story. the same problem that adhikara and rohman encountered was they were too lazy to evaluate their learning so that they did not do it regularly. adhikara: “i did not regularly do it because i was not so serious in learning. that was why the difficulty of evaluating my learning was the continuity since i evaluated my learning depending on my mood. rohman: “yes, evaluating my learning important. but usually, i am still too lazy to do it. i did not evaluate my learning very often. maybe around once in two months. it was also because i ai fatmawati, yanty wirza| elt forum 11(2) (2022) 130 studied many subjects at school, so i found difficulty in seeking the time to evaluate each subject, including english subject.” in contrast, rijal told the author that he often evaluated his learning, even when he was at home having his holiday. he could play on his mobile phone when he was at home. rijal: “when i was at home where i could play on my mobile phone, i usually uploaded my speaking or writing so that other people could see it and could give comments to it. when other people gave comments about my speaking or writing, i could evaluate it.” while he was at the dormitory, he usually evaluated his learning with the groups for learning english, such as english daily mistakes, english debate group or the other small groups. lastly, nanda usually evaluated his learning progress by checking whether he had reached the targets in the time he planned. it can be seen that the participants need help in evaluating their learning. for example, rijal stated that he believed that evaluating his learning was important because it helped him know what he would do next. he said that he should develop himself from many sides. yet, he still found difficulty in evaluating his learning. he needed other people to help him evaluate or appraise his learning, but he could not find it easily. he was sure that he made a lot of mistakes, but no one reminds him. therefore, he thought he should be brave to ask them in person. meanwhile, nanda thought that evaluating his learning was not difficult. on the contrary, he also said that what was difficult for him was to find out why the targets were not reached and how to fix it. he put in words “for me, evaluating is not difficult. what is difficult is to observe why the goals are not reached and how to fix it, or i am too lazy to fix it.” he believed that evaluating his learning was important because it could help him realize what he had done or learned. students studying and living in islamic boarding school must have the ability to evaluate their learning since they cannot depend on their teachers or friends to check on the progress that they have made. discussion from the participants’ story, it can be perceived that they planned, monitored, and evaluated their learning, and they encountered some challenges in doing those behaviors. some participants did autonomous behaviors due to their needs in reaching something. for example, rohman has planned what to learn because he wanted to successfully speak to foreigners when he joined school outing program (sop) conducted by his school. it is in line with the finding discovered by kemala (2016) who stated that the majority of high autonomous learners were driven to study english for a variety of reasons, including a desire to enhance their jobs in the future. in planning their learning, some of the participants have difficulties determining the goals and methods they should use to reach them. it is aligned with the study conducted by cirocki, anam, & retnaningdyah (2019) that revealed students in indonesia were not ready to set learning objectives and choose learning resources for classwork or home study. whereas planning is a thinking skill that helps them develop strategies to reach their goals and take full control of their own learning. therefore, both parents and teachers need to guide the students to plan effectively including their learning strategies; since as stated by jin and cortazzi (1996, cited in talley, 2014), students are skeptical of changing their learning methods, as these changes may have a direct effect on their learning outcomes. monitoring and evaluating learning are two behaviors that are also crucial to do. from the participants’ story, it can be understood that most of them could not monitor their learning well. adhikara, for example, believed that monitor his learning is one of his teacher’s jobs. it is similar to the finding of ramadhiyah and lengkanawati (2019), who found that while believing they were capable of regulating their own learning, students assigned that task to their teacher. most of the participants. in monitoring students’ own learning, it is important to be aware of their strengths and weaknesses. from the participants’ stories, two of them are aware of their strengths and weaknesses. however, two the rest are sometimes aware and sometimes no. hermagustina & anggriyani (2019) argued that by being able to evaluate their own strengths and weaknesses, students will note other materials that they still need to improve and materials that they have already mastered. besides, gardner (2000) stated that self-assessments help students track their level of progress in particular learning tasks. similarly, pitaloka (2008) stated that self-assessment increases awareness among learners of students’ own learning the errors and accomplishments and gives them a tangible sense of ai fatmawati, yanty wirza| elt forum 11(2) (2022) 131 involvement in the learning process. as a result of aforementioned findings, it can be concluded that being autonomous learners is important because students who study and live in islamic boarding school are fostered to be independent. when they do the aspects of autonomous behaviors, they can manage their time to study more effectively. however, from the participants’ story, there are two kinds of obstacles that they encountered. firstly, some of the participants felt too lazy to monitor or evaluate their learning. the laziness may come because they had a lack of motivation. it is aligned with the finding discovered by agustina and fajar (2018) who stated that one of the factors hindering learner autonomy is the lack of motivation and consistency. whereas the lack of motivation can prevent students from being autonomous learners. therefore, before promoting learner autonomy, it is crucial to develop students’ motivation because motivation is a prerequisite for learning and responsibility development (scharle & szabó, 2000 as cited in talley, 2014). similarly, a study conducted by chan et al. (2002) revealed that students with greater motivation could achieve a higher level of autonomy. another problem that this study found was that the misunderstanding of autonomy conception. for example, nanda thought that evaluating his learning was not difficult, yet he said that what was difficult is to observe why his goal was not successful and how to fix it. the previous statement shows a contrary. it can be because he does not grasp the attributes of evaluating a learning. this finding is in line with what khotimah et al. (2019) found that not all students in this study comprehend the concept of autonomous learning in their english classes. secondly, the participants may have not understood how to do those behaviors, in which they need others to do so. it is assumed that since the ability to take charges of one’s own learning is not innate, learning to organize their work on their own must be taught. students need a great deal of an encouragement and input from the teachers (hermagustiana & anggriyani, 2019; masouleh & jooneghani, 2012). it implies that a teacher plays a great role in encouraging and guiding students to do autonomous language learning behaviors. conclusion this study was conducted to explore bilingual students’ experience in doing autonomous behaviors, such as planning, monitoring, and evaluating their learning as well as the challenges that they discovered during implementing the behaviors. using the interview, it revealed that the students usually plan, monitor, and evaluate their learning. when the participants planned their learning, the problems they faced were the difficulty in determining the goals or the targets, the methods to apply in reaching the goals, the lack of the media to support the learning, and the lack of motivation, such as laziness. during monitoring their learning, the students encountered some difficulties, such as the need for other people to help them monitor their progress, the doubt on their abilities, the desire to move on to the other plan/ the inconsistency in the first plan, the lack of motivation, such as laziness. while in evaluating the learning, the problems that students encountered were the need for other people to help them appraise their learning, the limited time, the lack of motivation, such as depending on moods. students who live in islamic boarding school are being assisted to be independent. they are not watched by their parents directly. moreover, the participants of this study are bilingual who often held some agendas by themselves to learn english or arabic together. thus, they need to be able to implement autonomous behaviors, such as planning, monitoring, and evaluating their learning. from the explanation above, it is assumed that in doing autonomous language learning behaviors, students still find many challenges. some of them thought that monitoring a learning is not their task but the teacher’s. yet, there is also misunderstanding about the concept of evaluating a learning. it seems that the participants are still not comprehend autonomous behaviors well. therefore, the participation of the teacher’s help and encouragement is needed the most. the author believes that this study has many limitations. firstly, due to the limited time and media, far distance, and unavoidable situation such as covid, the data was too little. in the future research, it can be carried out by having broader questions to have more data. secondly, this study only explored the challenges that the participants found. further research should be carried out to examine the solutions to the problems this study encountered. funding statement this research received no specific grant from any funding agency. ai fatmawati, yanty wirza| elt forum 11(2) (2022) 132 references agustina, d., & fajar, d. a. 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(2007). using narrative inquiry as a research method: an introduction to using critical event narrative analysis in research on learning and teaching. routledge/taylor & francis group. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203946268 https://doi.org/10.25073/2525-2445/vnufs.4402 https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.4324/9780203946268 microsoft word 1. ele students" preferences for written correctiv putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 74 elt forum 12(2) (2023) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt college students’ preferences for written corrective feedback lucia geneviave bella shinta1, utari praba astuti1, nova ariani1 1universitas negeri malang, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received on 22 juni 2022 approved on 23 july 2023 published on 31 july 2023 ________________ keywords: preferences; feedback; written corrective feedback ____________________ abstract ___________________________________________________________________ although written corrective feedback (wcf) is provided to give students information about their writing which intends to help them make improvement, students may have different expectations of how wcf should be delivered. this study was focused on investigating english language education (ele) students’ preferences for the wcf covering the preferences for amount of feedback, writing aspects to focus on, correction techniques, and tones of feedback. a number of 188 ele students participated in this study. using mixed-methods design to collect data, the study revealed that the students expected to always have wcf on their errors as they have desire to always make improvement. having wcf is considered essential as some students had difficulty analyzing errors independently. besides believing the importance of all aspects of writing, the students mentioned some reasons related to their weaknesses that require focuses on all feedback. most of the students preferred direct feedback and indirect feedback with location and indication of error types as they valued detailed feedback. the students saw feedback in negative tone and suggestive tone as the source of improvement, while one in positive tone increased positive feelings towards writing. the findings suggest the importance of increasing the students’ awareness of how to get benefits from different wcf techniques while still accommodating their preferences. correspondent address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 universitas negeri malang jl. semarang 5, kota malang, 65115 e-mail: luciabellashinta@gmail.com lucia geneviave bella shinta, utari praba astuti, nova ariani | elt forum 12(2) (2023) 75 introduction the benefit of wcf is supported by some studies that investigated the effectiveness of wcf (e.g. marzban & arabahmadi, 2013; saeb, 2014; zareil & rahnama, 2013). as defined by previous researcher (leng, 2014), written feedback is an action of writing comments on students’ compositions as responses to students’ efforts as well as a guide for them to improve as writers. specifically to written corrective feedback (wcf), it is a written response that provides information on students’ writing performance, mainly in the form of comments and also corrections on mistakes and/or errors so that the students can make changes for the betterment of their writing.saeb (2014) found experimental groups that received wcf on all errors and feedback only on the use of verbs got improvement on their writing, while the results from group that did not receive the feedback were not significantly different. another study by marzban and arabahmadi (2013) found that direct wcf was significantly effective for students’ writing accuracy. it was supported by zareil and rahnama (2013) that direct feedback was significantly more effective for students’ improvement on writing than indirect feedback using coded correction. the result of students’ grammar accuracy after receiving indirect uncoded feedback was also better than the control group. these studies reflected how wcf, though it is delivered in different ways, can contribute to students’ improvement compared to if students do not receive any inputs from teachers on their works. however, there are still debates over how feedback should be provided so that it may be advantageous for students’ improvement. for instance, many researchers agreed with the idea that teachers should give feedback on content and organization before any comments on grammar (tom et al., 2013). in contrast, there also has been evidence that numbers of errors decreased on students’ writing which received feedback on grammar (diab, 2015), and that correcting grammatical errors on students’ writing promoted better writing skill (sarvestani & pishkar, 2015). along with the arguments about what constitutes effective feedback, the socio-cultural theory believes that corrective feedback is beneficial when it is tailored to students’ needs in their development (sheen, 2010) since what is perceived as a benefit for one student may not be for others. consequently, the problem is not about whether to deliver the wcf, but rather about how the wcf can give students access to learn from their errors during the writing process (wan mohd yunus, 2020). this is the students’ preferences that are also considered as the foundation of students’ attitude that may drive the way they response to the feedback (riemer et al., 2014). there is a possibility that students will appreciate feedback they wish to receive and ignore the one that they do not expect. for instance, if students prefer indirect feedback where the teacher underlines the errors and give some clues, they may pay more attention and use that type of feedback in writing more than the type that they do not expect. it has also been proven that students who received their preferred type of feedback were more successful at eliminating errors than the students who did not (rummel & bitchener, 2015). nevertheless, since teachers have their own beliefs and the students also have their preferences for the feedback, there might be a gap between teachers and students’ expectations of the feedback to be provided that should be bridged (diab, 2005). when there is mismatch between what teachers provide and what the students expect to obtain, it can result to students’ confusion on how to handle the feedback in the revision process. thus, the implication of this problem is students’ dissatisfaction that can affect their motivation in learning process (brown, 2009, as cited in black & nanni, 2016; mungungu-shipale & kangira, 2017). the researchers went from feedback provision where ele students in a state university in east java were involved in regular writing tasks. the representative from cohort 2019 reported they frequently got feedback that was provided differently by different lecturers. some of the students received feedback personally after they finished the essays, while some others received it at the prewriting stage after they submitted the topic, thesis statement, and supporting points, and it was only about the content they were about to discuss. in contrast, others from cohort 2018 said that they rarely received feedback on their written tasks. a student from one class said that they got feedback on content, and it was delivered generally through google classroom, while another student said they sometimes got feedback on all errors in the assignments of one course, and it was sent personally. similarly, some students from cohort 2017 received feedback that is given generally to all members of the courses they attended or sometimes without feedback at all. relevant to this issue, many researchers have conducted research on students’ wcf preferences in the scope of efl (e.g. al hajri & al-mahrooqi, 2013; chen et al., 2016; irwin, 2017; mungungu-shipale & kangira, 2017; orts & salazar, 2016). however, in indonesia, the researcher lucia geneviave bella shinta, utari praba astuti, nova ariani | elt forum 12(2) (2023) 76 found limited recent research-based articles that reported investigation on ele students. previous studies mainly focused on feedback provision for students in high school level and major other than ele. the available studies on students’ preferences are also limited to preferences for particular types of feedback. the examples are ones conducted by iswandari (2016), tursina and chuang (2016), and aridah et al. (2017). the research conducted by aridah et al. (2017) aimed to investigate preferences of 54 elt students for types of wcf that was limited to direct, indirect, focused, and unfocused feedback. previously, tursina and chuang (2016) and iswandari (2016) had conducted research on the same topic to explore ele students’ preferences, and it was also limited to preferences for direct and indirect feedback. therefore, based on the issues on limited studies and the real application of wcf provision that varied, there has been an urgency to conduct a study that focused on preferences of ele students viewed from different aspects of preferences. it was relevant to the importance for the lecturers to be aware of the students’ expectations and also the possible consequences if these were not in accordance with their own expectations (amrhein & nassaji, 2010). furthermore, referring back to diab (2005) about the gap between teacher and students’ expectations regarding feedback provision, failing in obtaining information on students’ preferences for wcf might cause mismatch between the two parties in providing and responding to wcf, which may result to problems in the revision process. after reviewing previous studies on wcf (e.g. al hajri & almahrooqi, 2013; amrhein & nassaji, 2010; fithriani, 2017; iswandari, 2016; orts & salazar, 2016; raza, 2019), four aspects of preferences for wcf were identified, namely preferences for the amount of feedback, preferences for aspects of writing to focus on, preferences for correction techniques, and preferences for tones of feedback. the amount of feedback refers to how many errors and/or mistakes the students expect to get mark on and how frequent students expect to receive feedback from the lecturers. aspects of writing are components that are important to be focused on writing; correction techniques refer to different ways that are used to locate or indicate errors and/or mistakes; and tones of feedback refer to how lecturers’ opinion or responses towards students’ writing are expressed through comments. these aspects were also based on the dimension of wcf in nakamura (2016), namely types, focus, scope, and tone of feedback that respectively refer to correction techniques, amount of feedback, writing aspects to focus on, and whether the comments are delivered in positive or negative tone. there is also the suggestive tone where comments are in the form of suggestions that direct students to know how they should improve their writing (ghazal et al., 2014). besides contributing as complements for previous studies on efl students' preferences for wcf in indonesian efl context, the explanation about preferences for wcf of ele students can be a reference for the lecturers to achieve the balance between students’ preferences and their practices. it will help them to consider how they should provide the feedback in future writing courses or any writing assignments. this study was conducted specifically to investigate students’ preferences for the amount of feedback, for writing aspects to focus on, for correction techniques, and for tones of feedback. methods concerning the needs of investigating students’ preferences for wcf as well as the reasons behind those preferences, this study utilized mixed-method research design to provide better, more meaningful understanding of the phenomena to be obtained (cohen et. al, 2018; creswell, 2013). to be specific, explanatory sequential design was chosen in which the quantitative data were collected utilizing questionnaire, and it was followed by qualitative data that were collected from interview. this design was selected as the researchers wanted to first obtained and analyzed the quantitative data on students’ preferences so that they could identify which parts of the data that needed further explanation, how the data needed to be explained, and who from the participants that should be interviewed (cohen et. al., 2018). respondents the subjects of this research were students of the ele study program of a state university in east java, indonesia who were involved in different courses in which the main activity was writing. the writing activities were considered because they include frequent feedback provision during the process, which was in line with the focus of this research on wcf. the students were taking the lucia geneviave bella shinta, utari praba astuti, nova ariani | elt forum 12(2) (2023) 77 argumentative writing (cohort 2019), thesis proposal (cohort 2018), and were also in the process of writing undergraduate thesis (cohort 2017). to have the appropriate sample size, the researchers used slovin’s formula (fadilah et. al., 2017) for the calculation, in which the n represents population and e is the level of significance of .05 or 5%. from the result of calculating the sample size, a number of 188 out of 356 students became the participants of this research. this process was followed by stratified sampling procedure to have the participants from the three cohorts mentioned previously. the students were proportionally chosen using the following formula that was cited from demokrawati (2014). nh in the formula represents the members of each year; n represents the population; and n represents the sample size. the calculation resulted to participants comprised of students from cohort 2017 (63), cohort 2018 (62), and cohort 2019 (63). instruments the questionnaire focuses on preferences for tone of feedback, preferences for feedback amount, preferences for correction techniques, and preferences for writing aspects where the items were adapted with modification from al hajri and almahrooqi (2013), orts and salazar (2016), iswandari (2016), and fithriani (2017) respectively. it consists of 2 multiple-choice items and 21 likert-scale items that range from 1 to 4 with descriptors strongly disagree to strongly agree and not useful at all to very useful for some numbers. the adaptation was done by carefully analyzing and matching the item formations from the aforementioned scholars with the dimension of wcf in nakamura (2016) and the definition of suggestive feedback in ghazal et. al. (2014) to be arranged in accordance with the preferences for amount of feedback, for writing aspects to focus on, for correction techniques, and for tones of feedback. in addition to the questionnaire, follow-up interview was also conducted to elicit reasons for the students’ preferences reported through the questionnaire. the instrument validity was ensured through expert validation by an ele lecturer whose expertise is in writing courses. the instrument items of the questionnaire were revised based on the feedback on the item clarity and the appropriatness of the wordings. after getting validation, the questionnaire reliability was also tested and showed cronbach alpha value .799, which means that reliability is considered strong (jackson, 2009). data collection procedures the distribution of online questionnaire was done in four days. as the number of participants reached more than 150, the researcher reviewed the data and listed some names as the candidates for interview after reviewing their responses. as data from all participants was collected, the data percentages were re-reviewed and the names were sorted. eight students from the three cohorts were selected as the interviewees. these students were selected because their questionnaire responses showed that they chose the scales on items that needed further explanation due to the highpercentage rating as it brought up questions of why the scales that were chosen. this number of participants was also taken after considering the minimum number of qualitative research participants proposed by morse (1994, as cited in omona, 2013), which is a minimum of six. after being contacted, the interviewees responded positively to the invitation and agreed to provide more information on the interview through whatsapp call. data analysis to analyze data obtained from the questionnaire, the researchers utilized descriptive statistical analysis by calculating the frequency, percentage, and also the mean of the responses to each item as what has been suggested by brown (2011) to include these results of calculation for individual likert items. the means were included so that the interpretation of the results would not be based on too lucia geneviave bella shinta, utari praba astuti, nova ariani | elt forum 12(2) (2023) 78 heavy interpretation of only one particular response. for the purpose of data interpretation from the means, interval computation was done based on the 4-point likert scale. the use of mean range and interpretation table was adapted from jinowat and wiboolyasarin (2022) and adjusted to the scale used in and the focus of this research—preferences. the range was first obtained by subtracting the lowest scale from the highest (4-1). this value was then divided by the highest scale (3/4), which resulted to obtaining a value of .75 as the final range. each of the mean range with its interpretation is presented in table 2 below. table 2.how frequent wcf is expected to be provided mean range interpretation 1 – 1.75 very low preferences 1.76 – 2.50 low preferences 2.51 – 3.25 high preferences 3.26 – 4 very high preferences it was followed by the analysis of data from the interview. the researchers used thematic analysis, which aims to identify, analyze, and reporting themes—similar ideas or patterns of meaning that appear repeatedly—of participants’ responses that are found in collected qualitative data (braun & clarke, 2006). interview data were read and reread to clearly understand the ideas delivered by the participants, which then was followed by color-coding the key words and phrases that are relevant to the interview questions. these codes that were found similar or reflected the same ideas were grouped into categories. these categories were then reread and analyzed to create the appropriate themes that could represent the main reasons behind students’ preferences. findings and discussion preferences of the amount of feedback the first two items in the questionnaire aim to answer the first research question about preferences for the amount of feedback. in response to item 1 whether the students always wanted to receive written corrective feedback, most of the participants have shown how they would like to always have their errors and mistakes marked by the lecturers (m=3.7). this finding is supported by the interview result where the participants explained their reasons behind this preference. table 2. how frequent wcf is expected to be provided item responses sd 1 d 2 a 3 sa 4 mean i would like to always receive my lecturers’ written corrective feedback whenever there are mistakes and errors in my writing. 1 (0.5%) 6 (3.2%) 44 (23.4%) 137 (72.9%) 3.7 desire to make improvement for future writing the result of interview from five students revealed that they wanted to always receive written corrective feedback for their writing improvement. “if lecturers do not give feedback on the errors, i will not know whether it is already right or not. anything from the feedback is important for me. i use it to improve my writing.” (student 2) lucia geneviave bella shinta, utari praba astuti, nova ariani | elt forum 12(2) (2023) 79 following the first item, in the next question where the participants were asked about how many errors they expected to be marked, and the response has shown that most of them reported high preference for mark all errors (70%, n=132). others also indicated their preferences for few marks on only some errors (16%, n=30) and marks on only errors from one language component (14%, n=26). figure 1. number of errors to be marked marks mean ‘something is wrong’ from the interview, it was found that students who expected all errors to be marked tended to focus on only the marks without trying to find other parts of their writing that may contain mistakes and/or errors. “by marking all errors and mistakes, it can help me to understand where i have made mistakes in my writing. if only mark some, i tend to revise only the errors being marked, and i don’t revise other mistakes that may be there in my writing.” (student 3) desire to learn autonomously as for those who chose to mark only some or only errors from one language component, they reported that they wanted to have opportunity to learn and improve their knowledge and skills by themselves. three students agreed that by having only particular errors marked, there would be more space for them to find mistakes and analyze errors on their own. “i want to learn more independently. sometimes when we find what mistakes we made by ourselves, it is more likely for us to remember the types of errors and how to correct them. the feedback is important, but not all should be given feedback.” (student 4) preferences for writing aspects to focus on to answer the second research question about students’ preferences for writing aspects to focus on, the researcher analyzed the responses on the 3rd to the 14th item. as presented in figure 2, the means for each writing aspects range from 3.0 as the lowest and 3.9 as the highest mean score. these scores has clearly shown that students’ preferences for writing aspects to be prioritized by the lecturers starts with focus on grammatical errors (m=3.9), followed by organization (m=3.7), mechanical errors (m=36), and vocabulary choice (m=3.6). the participants also showed their high preference for writing styles (m=3.4) and content of writing (m=3.0), although they apparently should be the latter focus during feedback provision. lucia geneviave bella shinta, utari praba astuti, nova ariani | elt forum 12(2) (2023) 80 figure 2. writing aspects to focus on by lecturers to see whether what the students expected from the lecturers is in line with the aspects that they personally focus on, another similar item was also provided. the results that are presented in figure 3 show the consistency of students’ very high preferences for wcf on grammatical errors (m=3.7) that is followed by organization (m=3.6) and mechanical errors (m=3.6). however, there is switch of position between preferences for content of writing (m=3.6)—that in the previous item ranked the lowest—with vocabulary choice (m=3.5). as for the wcf on writing style (m=3.3), it is still in accordance with the result of previous item that the students had high preference for it although it is put as the last aspect for them to pay attention to. figure 3. writing aspects that the students focus on the importance of each aspect for writing from the interview, the students addressed the importance of paying attention to written corrective feedback on all writing aspects for processing their writing. two students answered the interview questions with explanation that the aspects listed in the questionnaire are all needed to write and rewrite a good piece of writing text. “i think when we write, we also think about the content we want to write and also the grammar and the vocabulary, so all aspects are important for our writing. when lecturers give feedback on grammar, i always pay attention to the feedback, and when it is about vocabulary, i also focus on it. so whatever writing aspects are given feedback on, i always pay attention to it.” (student 3) student’s weaknesses-related factor besides acknowledging the importance of all writing aspects to produce a good piece of writing, four students explained how their weaknesses on particular aspects contributed to the way they focus on lucia geneviave bella shinta, utari praba astuti, nova ariani | elt forum 12(2) (2023) 81 written corrective feedback from the lecturers. three students reported how they felt that their knowledge about grammar, vocabulary, and other aspects were still lacking and needed more improvement. two of them said how they usually forgot to use particular punctuations and right spelling of words. they also found it difficult to focus on the topics they were discussing. “i think my ability using the aspects is very low. i still don’t understand the right way to use correct grammar, vocabulary, and others. that’s why i think all aspects are important and i focus on all of them.” (student 7) preferences for correction techniques in response to the question on preferred correction techniques, 46.8% (n=88) of participants chose direct wcf, followed by indirect wcf that locates and indicated erros (37.2%, n=70). the three least preferred correction techniques are indirect wcf that only locates errors (10.1%, n=19), the one that indicates errors at the margin (3.7%, n=7), and questions as clues (2.1%, n=4). figure 4. preferred correction techniques the preferences for correction techniques are also seen from the participants’ responses on the usefulness of each technique. in figure 5, the means range from 1.9 showing the least preferred correction technique to 3.7 as the most preferred one. the participants showed a very high preference for direct wcf (m=3.7). this technique was followed by indirect wcf that locate and indicate the errors (m=3.0), which still represents a high preference for it. indirect wcf that only locate the errors (m=2.6) still belongs to a high preferred technique, while indirect wcf that indicate errors in margin (m=2.1) and questions as clues (m=1.9) are the least preferred strategies. table 3. correction techniques and the examples correction techniques examples used in the questionnaire direct wcf indirect wcf (locating the errors) indirect wcf (locating and indicating the errors) indirect wcf (indicating errors at the margin) questions as clues lucia geneviave bella shinta, utari praba astuti, nova ariani | elt forum 12(2) (2023) 82 figure 5. students’ opinion of the usefulness of correction techniques feedback that allows students to learn from the interview sessions, the students explained the reasons behind preferring and considering direct feedback and indirect feedback that locates and indicates the errors useful. these two correction types are considered helpful because they show the error location and give reason why that particular part is wrong. besides, with direct feedback that directly provides the students with correct forms of the errors, the students felt that these attributes allow them to learn from the feedback given. “when i’m learning, i think it is best for me to know why i’m wrong rather than finding what i did wrong because finding stuff doesn’t make me learn anything, but looking for the reason, that’s gonna make me open my grammar book, my dictionary, and that is much more helpful.” (student 1) needs for clear and detailed feedback interview revealed that five students have similar opinions regarding the needs for having feedback that is clear and detailed. it is because the students find it difficult to identify their own errors with indirect feedback that only locate, indirect feedback that only indicate, and feedback in form of questions. clues that are actually given by underlining, indicating the errors, and questioning are considered not enough to make the students make use of the feedback for their learning and improvement. “it is because what my lecturer means with just the underline? i don’t know the mistake is about grammar or … i even don’t know why it is wrong, whether only about grammar or any aspects. it’s just not clear for me.” (student 2) preferences for tones of feedback in response to items on preferences for tones of feedback, the students reported very high preferences for all the three tones. suggestive tone became the feedback tone that most of participants preferred (m=3.8). suprisingly, suggestive tone has been followed by negative tone (m=3.7) that was preferred more than the positive tone (m=3.5). the reasons behind it are presented in the form of interview excerpts below. lucia geneviave bella shinta, utari praba astuti, nova ariani | elt forum 12(2) (2023) 83 figure 6. students’ preferences for tones of feedback increasing positive feelings towards writing when being asked about the reasons of expecting the lecturers to give positive comments, the students expressed similar opinions related to the positive feelings they received towards writing. four students told the researcher how the comments are perceived as rewards and the reasons why they feel motivated, happy, and confident about their writing. “i think the comment on strength of my writing helps me to be motivated. it helps me to know the characteristic of my writing or in what part i am good at writing.” (student 4) the sources of improvement based on the interview, the students found that comments on weaknesses of writing and suggestions are interrelated as both are the sources of their improvement on writing. not only do the comments with negative tone show what are still insufficient from students’ works but also function as motivation for the students to always improve. the suggestions are also important for the students to support them in this process as they allow the students to know what step they need to do after receiving notes on their weaknesses. six students gave their opinions, one of which can be seen as follows. “if the lecturers keep telling me “you need to do this to make it better”, basically it means that i still have so much to learn and i still need to improve myself more and more.” (student 1) discussion preferences for amount of feedback based on the findings presented in table 2, the fact that the students value lecturers’ written corrective feedback by expecting to always have it on errors and mistakes found in their writing is supported by previous study (see irwin, 2017). they addressed the importance of having wcf to identify which parts of their writing contain errors so that they can avoid making similar errors and/or mistakes in the future writing. the reason for this preference is also in line with what gredler (2016) and irwin (2017) found that students have desire to improve their writing skills from the feedback given. the majority of the students, as presented in figure 1, also showed how they preferred unfocused feedback to focused feedback, which means that feedback on all errors was more favored. focused feedback is feedback focusing only on certain type of errors in a time (e.g. only errors in grammatical aspect), while the unfocused feedback is feedback given on all types of errors that are found in the writing. students in this study reported how they had difficulty to locate their own mistakes and errors, and they had tendency to focus only on the marks. without marks on other parts of writing, the students will be unsure whether the writing is already fine or not because mark can be seen as the sign of mistakes and/or errors. thus, when the wcf is on only some errors, lucia geneviave bella shinta, utari praba astuti, nova ariani | elt forum 12(2) (2023) 84 other errors left are hard to identify. a similar pattern of results was obtained in previous studies (alkhatib, 2015; amrhein & nassaji, 2010; hamouda, 2011; orts & salazar, 2016; shahrani, 2013). students’ reason behind this preference confirmed what alkhatib (2015) found in her study that the marks could make the students think that the marked ones are the only errors, which also affected their improvement to be slower. from the findings of this study, it can be inferred that majority of the students are still reliant on the lecturers for pointing out their errors. they may also share similar thought that the more written corrective feedback means the more useful it is for their learning (amrhein & nassaji, 2010). similar to what rashtchi and bin abu bakar (2019) found, the students seem to not place high value on learner autonomy when it comes to the amount of feedback. while this feedback is found beneficial by the students, marking all mistakes and errors will be very time consuming. furthermore, if all repeated errors in students’ writing are marked, there will be very little room for the students to selfcorrect, which would be unfortunate since the students also need to be able to deal with less direct feedback as the indication of their l2 development (storch, 2018). some students that wanted to receive feedback on some errors believed that by giving them chance to analyze their own errors, they would be more independent. they would also more likely remember the errors and feedback; thus, the benefits of the wcf may exist for longer time. previous researchers, according to al hajri and almahrooqi (2013), agreed that focusing on particular errors at a time can have better results for short-term and long-term accuracy in writing. preferences for writing aspects to focus on in this study, the students, in figure 2, has shown how important lecturers’ feedback on all writing aspects is, and they also reported on figure 3 that they always focused on each feedback that was provided. this result is in the contrary with the result of other studies where students mainly valued feedback on particular aspects, namely errors on grammar (hamouda, 2011; kagitci, 2013; mungungu-shipale & kangira, 2017; panhwar et al., 2016; shahrani, 2013; tom et al., 2013) and vocabulary (kahraman & yalvaç, 2015; irwin, 2017) more than other writing aspects. it was proven by the percentages of participants in those studies that chose grammar and vocabulary much higher than other aspects such as mechanics and content. it might be because feedback on grammar is perceived to be more important as students see it helpful in making sentences and composition clearer (tom et al., 2013). the findings that indicated slightly similar result with what is found in this current study is by fithriani (2017) which indicated that students took feedback on all aspects seriously although they expected teachers to focus more on giving feedback on ideas and organization. in this current study, some students explained how their weaknesses on all writing aspects contributed to their decision not to choose only one or some but all of them. although the percentages of students that rated strongly agree on grammatical aspects are the highest among others, the overall results of students who chose other aspects indicated high preferences for each. students being interviewed told that their problems in using grammatical aspect and their limited vocabulary were the main causes of the importance of wcf on these two aspects. some of them also addressed how frequent mistakes on mechanics, their inability to constantly focus on one topic, and their overall low ability to integrate these aspects in writing made them cannot ignore one of these aspects when the lecturers provide feedback. this result is in line with the finding in previous study (horbacauskiene & kasperaviciene, 2015) that students’ confidence of their writing skills in overall contributed to their preferences on what kind of feedback is important. besides, instead of just acknowledging grammar as the most important part of writing like what some students in other studies did (e.g. kagitci, 2013; tom et al., 2013), the awareness that all writing aspects are essential and inseparable parts to produce a quality writing may be a factor that contributed to students’ preferences in this study. preferences for correction techniques most of the students, as reported in figure 4, preferred direct feedback and indirect feedback that locates and indicates the types of errors. direct feedback got the highest percentage of being preferred, which is consistent with studies (aridah et al., 2017; irwin, 2017; mungungu-shipale & kangira, 2017; shahrani, 2013; tom et al., 2013) showing that most of the students chose direct feedback for their writing. direct feedback is provided on students’ works with the correct forms of the errors, while the indirect feedback is given using some clues to help the students find the errors lucia geneviave bella shinta, utari praba astuti, nova ariani | elt forum 12(2) (2023) 85 by themselves. indirect feedback with location and indication of error types, however, was found by the students in this research to be more beneficial than the other types (see figure 5). the fact that these feedback techniques provide the students with correct form and more information on the errors is the main reason why they are favored. with the nature of these techniques, the students said that they were allowed to learn and get benefit from the feedback. it seems that although there is no exact type of wcf that suit all students, their views of what they think useful are usually defined by the same principles (al hajri & al-mahrooqi, 2013). for instance, although some of the students were not able to use feedback that only underlines errors, some others may still consider it useful. as proven in this study, the students shared similar point of view of how clarity and details of the feedback are crucial. their responses to the indirect locating feedback, indirect indicating feedback, and also questions showed that these types of correction could not let most of them revise, learn, and improve the writing independently, which was consistent with previous study by ferris (2006). the students expressed how these types of correction techniques made them confused and questioning on what was actually wrong and why it was wrong. it corresponds with what students in wan mohd yunus (2020) reported that mostly they could not understand the reasons behind indirect feedback that underlined their sentences. the need to be assisted with clear explanation proved that students in this study found indirect feedback challenging. this may support students’ self-reflection that they had problems in using particular writing aspects or all writing aspects in general. black and nanni (2016) also said that this might be a sign that students might have lack of confidence in the ability to identify their own errors and make corrections of indirectly corrected errors independently. furthermore, when the students said that they would like to receive feedback that allowed them to learn (i.e. direct feedback and indirect locating and indicating feedback), it somehow revealed that the students focused only on learning from their lecturers. although wcf is provided to help the students identify which part of their writing works that contains errors, why the part is incorrect, and how they can revise, it should be highlighted that feedback is also provided to build students’ awareness, knowledge, and strategic competence to develop skills to monitor their own writing (bitchener & ferris, 2012). thus, it is believed that to actually learn from the feedback, students’ participation is needed by allowing them to find out their own errors and make guesses about the correct form (atmaca, 2016). for this issue, previous researcher suggested that types of feedback should be varied according to different types of errors by paying attention to whether the errors are “treatable” or “untreatable” (ferris, 2006). he explained that “treatable” means that errors can be corrected based on fixed rules (e.g. subject-verb agreement, run-ons), while the “untreatable” errors refer to ones that do not have set of fixed rules to consult (e.g. word choice). this point was in line with van beuningen et al. (2012) that grammatical errors and non-grammatical errors benefit from different techniques of corrections. direct feedback is better for grammatical errors, while the indirect one is better suited to the non-grammatical errors. based on this idea, lecturers can be more selective in providing feedback on students’ errors to address both students’ preferences and their learning needs. preferences for tones of feedback when explaining their responses for preferences for feedback tone that was presented in figure 6, the students conveyed that comments on the strength of their writing were essential and needed as rewards of what they did in their writing. it helped them develop positive feeling towards writing, and gave them a sense that they could actually perform well in parts of their writing after processing it for some time. this is in accordance with the result of ghazal et al. (2014) that encouraging comments from lecturers made students feel good and that what they wrote was not so bad. it hints that positive comments may help the students to grow their self-confidence and interest in writing as the comments also show the students in which aspects or part they do well. the use of positive tone in wcf is also considered important by previous researcher (amara, 2015) that the feedback can be a learning channel where lecturers tell the students about their performance and praise them for their good work in writing. while ghazal et al. (2014) found how students did not like criticism on their writing, and macdonald (1991) said that students tended to get disappointed and ignored the negative feedback, this study found the opposite result in which students highly valued comments with negative tone. they saw it as motivation for them to improve their skills and performance in processing their writing. students’ questionnaire responses and interview results did not indicate any disagreement lucia geneviave bella shinta, utari praba astuti, nova ariani | elt forum 12(2) (2023) 86 about comments with negative tone on their writing, yet they found it helpful as the source for their improvement. from their responses, the students pointed out the first thing that made comments with negative tone was essential was that they helped the students to find what they actually had to improve from their writing and drove them to process future writing in a better way. nakamura (2016) said that negative comments might cause negative emotional reaction and lead to lower motivation of continuing learning. it is the reason why the tone needs to be balanced by providing students with comments on the strength of their writing. however, after analyzing the students’ responses, the researcher in this study interpreted that the balance are more between comments with negative tone and suggestive tone as they were seen by the students as interrelated and inseparable. it is because comments that point out the weaknesses of students’ writing are perceived as more beneficial when students know what they should do next for the improvement. suggestion helps students by providing them with new ideas and new ways to rewrite as it functions as guidance to organize better writing draft (tom et al., 2013). when the lecturers provide only what is lacking in students’ writing, it seems that the students will less benefited from the feedback given. on the other hand, when negative comments and suggestions are included there, it can be more constructive, and the openness to constructive criticism needs to be promoted to the students so that errors and mistakes are recognized as opportunities for improvement (brookhart, 2017, p. 79). conclusion as ele students in this study may have various preferences for wcf provided by the lecturers, it is essential to investigate how the feedback delivery is expected. an important insight served by the findings of this research is that, although the students view lecturers’ wcf for the betterment of their writing, they are somehow very reliant on the wcf, and it is proven by their preferences for unfocused feedback, all writing aspects to be focused on by the lecturers, as well as direct feedback and indirect feedback with location and indication as the highly-preferred correction techniques. this suggests that the lecturers should increase the students’ awareness of how they can actually get benefits from different wcf techniques, and at the same time accommodating their preferences so to motivate them in writing process. increasing students’ awareness can be done by providing students with different forms of wcf and giving them opportunity to make their own efforts for understanding the feedback given. what is also found unique is that the students viewed negative tone of wcf as motivation to make improvement, while some studies pointed out negative impacts of this tone of feedback. thus, the lecturers may focus on facilitating the students with this feedback tone along with the other tones to create motivating, constructive wcf. although this study have uncovered the ele students’ preferences for wcf, the researcher did not include students’ characteristics (e.g. gender and proficiency level) to be analyzed whether they contribute to the preferences or not. since some of the students also related their preferences to their writing skills in general or in some writing aspects, it will be beneficial to conduct further study to reveal whether students with different proficiency levels or writing achievement also have different preferences for wcf. funding statement the authors received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article. references al hajri, f., & al-mahrooqi, r. 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(2013). the effect of written corrective feedback modes on efl learners’ grammatical and lexical writing accuracy: from perceptions to facts. international journal on studies in english language and literature, 1(3), 1–14. putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 59 elt forum 12(1) (2023) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt interpersonal written corrective feedback: a case study of reading log feedback xiaomei sun1 1english department, china foreign affairs university, beijing, china article info ________________ article history: received on 15 november 2022 approved on 30 march 2023 published on 31 march 2023 ________________ keywords: error correction; interpersonal feedback; reading log; teacher-student relationship; written corrective feedback ____________________ abstract written corrective feedback (wcf) has been given considerable attention in the past few decades in english as a foreign language (efl) writing. however, few studies have focused on students’ written works and examined how their writing performance change in response to teachers’ feedback and comments. this paucity of data from students’ actual works is problematic. accordingly, this study scrutinized eight secondary school students’ reading log entries written in efl and the feedback their teacher provided. data were also collected from semi-structured interviews with the students and the teacher. findings indicate that the combination of direct error correction in in-text feedback and mitigation strategies in end comments could lead to effective integration of interpersonality into wcf. specifically, mitigation strategies such as using suggestions, expectation, and encouragement in lieu of criticism contributed to constructive and effective feedback. demonstrated effects on students’ writing include lengthened text, decreased grammar mistakes, enriched content, and increased exam marks for writing. meanwhile, teacher-student relationship was reported to have improved due to the application of interpersonal wcf. practical implications of the findings include specific strategies that efl teachers could adopt to effect interpersonality in wcf and thus enhanced student written works. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 5# nansan road, shahe town higher education park, changping district, beijing, china, 100039 e-mail: sunxiaomei@cfau.edu.cn http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& xiaomei sun | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 60 introduction in second/foreign language (l2/fl) writing, feedback, especially written corrective feedback (wcf), has been given an increased emphasis among classroom teachers and language teaching researchers. feedback is a ‘constructive judgement of a text’, essentially providing informational, pedagogical, and interpersonal responses to the text (hyland & hyland, 2006a, p. 1). thus, feedback could be regarded as a type of communication between the writer and the reader regarding the content and form of language of the text, and this collaborative pedagogical activity could facilitate and enhance learning. wcf, as a most common form of feedback, makes responses to linguistic errors and content-related issues in the writing (ashwell, 2000; bitchener & storch, 2016). the effectiveness of wcf could be influenced by various factors. in a broad sense, learner differences, situational and methodological factors exert influence on the efficacy of wcf (evans et al., 2010). teachers, as part of the situational constitution and the pivot of methodological decisions, take varied stances in giving feedback shaped by their sociocultural and political backgrounds (hyland & hyland, 2006a). despite differences in style and focus of attention, wcf provided by teacher, compared with that by peers, is usually given more weight by students and tested more effective in language improvement and teacher-student relationship enhancement (ruegg, 2015b; van ginkel et al., 2017). in recent years, interpersonal aspect of written feedback, as well as the sociocultural perspective of feedback, has been gaining currency in research and classroom practice (chong, 2018b; storch, 2018). from this perspective, feedback interaction is deemed as a dynamic co-constructed process in which teacher and student negotiate meanings, alongside structural and linguistic issues (anderson, 2021). however, previous research into this field mostly explored students’ and teachers’ perceptions, for example, the effect of feedback on student-teacher relationship or how this relationship affected students’ response to teachers’ feedback (chong, 2018b; crimmins et al., 2016; skipper & douglas, 2015). there is a scarcity of research that examines students’ written works with the intention of discovering changes in their works and whether/how these changes are related to teachers’ wcf. in china where the educational system is comparatively exam-oriented (rappleye & komatsu, 2018), interpersonality in wcf and its effects on students’ efl writing is a poorly studied topic. the current study intends to fill the gap by scrutinizing a writing-after-reading program in a chinese secondary school. through analyzing eight students’ reading log entries and the teacher’s feedback including intext feedback and end comments, and conducting semi-structured interviews with the students and the teacher, this study aims to answer the following two questions: 1. how could interpersonality be integrated into wcf on reading log entries? 2. what effects could interpersonal wcf have on efl writing? literature review written corrective feedback written corrective feedback (wcf) is defined by bitchener and storch (2016) as ‘a written response to a linguistic error that has been made in the writing of a text by an l2 learner’ (p. 1), which denotes that wcf takes the form of a written account. different from this interpretation, li and vuono (2019) maintain that the definition of wcf should be based on the modality of l2 production rather than the form of feedback. that is to say, verbal (written and oral) feedback on students’ written production is regarded as wcf. this article follows bitchener and storch’s (2016) definition of wcf so as to differentiate the written and oral feedback the teacher participant gave students. more specifically, only the written form of feedback is regarded as wcf in the current study. despite the disparity in defining wcf, commonality can be identified in the specification of wcf targets: both content and language (ashwell, 2000). this being the case, the vast majority of research has focused on languagerelated errors rather than content issues (li & vuono, 2019). with regard to how teachers point out errors, feedback could be categorized into direct error correction (i.e., teacher makes the correction) and indirect error correction (i.e., teacher locates the error for students to make the correction). alternatively, teachers may also provide meta-linguistic information, or codes as indication of linguistic rules, to help students correct errors (ellis, 2009). research and discussion regarding the efficacy of different types of wcf are still ongoing, and to date no clear-cut differences have been ascertained between various forms of wcf (kang & han, 2015). however, empirical findings evidence that compared with other types of feedback (e.g., peer feedback), teacher written feedback is xiaomei sun | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 61 upheld as more helpful by students and tested more effective in promoting writing abilities in certain cases (mulati et al., 2020; ruegg, 2015a, 2015b, 2018; van ginkel et al., 2017). regarding factors that may influence the effectiveness of wcf, evans et al. (2010) highlighted three contextual factors: learner, situational, and methodological variables. respectively, learners’ individual differences (ids), sociocultural elements (including teacher, physical environment, and wider contextual factors), and pedagogical design and activities are regarded as contributory factors for the efficacy of wcf. partly overlapping the last two categories, hyland and hyland (2006b, p. 166) used the term ‘recognized social purpose’ to stress the influence of sociocultural and pedagogical elements on feedback formation and function. for instance, feedback might be recognized as a tool to evaluate or give feedforward to students’ works. the perceived purpose of feedback comes into play when teachers make decisions on how to provide wcf. in an exam-oriented teaching environment, for example, where written accuracy is closely linked to academic performance therefore highly prized by various stakeholders, wcf concerning error correction may be given the most attention and emphasis by teachers, students, and parents as well (lee, 2016). shaped by socio-political factors and the dominant discourse of their backgrounds, teachers’ personal, educational, and working experiences influence the stances they take when giving feedback, such as focus on content or form, praise or criticism, and positioning themselves as remote or involved in the pedagogical activity of giving feedback (hyland & hyland, 2006a). interpersonal feedback in recent years, a shift from the dominance of wcf research to a socio-constructivist or sociocultural perspective of feedback has been discernible (storch, 2018). from this perspective, feedback could be defined as ‘an interactive process in which students engage in assessment dialogues with the teacher’ (chong, 2018a, p. 186). during this dynamic co-constructed process, both the feedback provider and the receiver are involved in meaning-making mediated by implicit and explicit messages within and beyond the feedback (anderson, 2021). moreover, this two-way communication provides students with a sense of audience who expresses the expectations of the communities students are writing for (hyland & hyland, 2006b). in the short term, the audience awareness may spur students to carry out linguistic revision of the writing; in the long run, it could promote their self-monitoring, evaluation, and regulation of learning (ajjawi & boud, 2017; merkel, 2018). furthermore, the dialogic interaction draws on teacher-student relationship and in turn nurtures and develops this relationship (chong, 2018b). hyland and hyland (2006a) put forward the concept interpersonality in feedback, referring to ‘the relationship that participants construct, confront, and deal with as they engage in the situated processes of giving feedback’ (p. 14). this concept highly stresses the notion of responding to ‘a person rather than a script’ when giving feedback; otherwise, the feedback cannot be effectively taken by students (hyland & hyland, 2006b, p. 165, emphasis in original). in actuality, it is often the case that student emotional response is not given adequate attention when teachers provide wcf (mahfoodh, 2017). to draw teachers’ attention to such aspects, xu and carless (2017) introduced the concept – enabling construct of teacher feedback literacy which refers to teachers’ awareness and skills of developing students’ cognitive, affective and relational capabilities to bring about effective feedback practice. while the three dimensions are essential for feedback exchange and effect, it is worth noting that the two-way communication, in which teachers and students are equally important, and their awareness and capabilities in these aspects are both conducive to positive change through the activity of giving/taking feedback. aligned with this perception, it is legitimate to investigate both teachers’ and students’ attitudes and opinions regarding interpersonal wcf. thus far, research into students’ perspectives of wcf is scant, even less with l2 learners (chong, 2018b). this study adds to the existing body of literature by exploring both teacher’s and students’ perspectives of interpersonal written corrective feedback on reading log entries. relevant research skipper and douglas (2015) conducted a study that investigated the effects of praise and criticism in reading feedback on students’ perceptions of student-teacher relationship. student participants were british children of 9-11 (n=45) and 7-11 (n=98) years old, respectively participating in two stages of the experiment: experient 1 – experience of praise; experient 2 – experience of criticism. each experiment involved person feedback (i.e., attributing success or failure to stable factors or personal features), progress feedback (i.e., attributing success or failure to unstable factors such as efforts made xiaomei sun | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 62 in the task), and no feedback at all. findings indicated that praise and experiences of success positively affected students’ perception of student-teacher relationship while types of feedback did not significantly impact the perception. in a tertiary institution in australia, crimmins et al. (2016) explored students’ and teachers’ perceptions of the effect of written, reflective and dialogic feedback (wrdf) on the relationship between the two groups. this study collected data with the tools of pre student survey(n=414), post student survey (n=342), student focus group (n=8), and post teacher survey (n=12). results showed that wrdf helped address issues caused by dissatisfaction with assessment feedback, therefore valued by students and teachers as constructive for academic achievement and teacher-student relationship building. from the perspective of community college students as l2 learners in hong kong, chong’s (2018b) study focused on the interpersonal aspect of written feedback. a combination of open-ended questionnaires (n=93) and interviews (n=12) collected data that indicated the importance of sociocultural factors (specifically in this study, students’ impression on teachers and student-teacher relationship) for students’ response to teacher feedback. meanwhile, two mediating factors, that is, students’ trust in teachers’ professionalism and students’ responsibilities, were brought into the limelight as potential compensation for relational factors stated above. building on the existing literature, the present study utilizes student reading log entries and teacher feedback, coupled with interviews with students and teacher, to provide further insight into interpersonal wcf. methodology this study is one of the ten cases that my doctoral research investigated. the teacher participant, fang (pseudonym), had been teaching efl for 25 years in a county in jiangxi province which used to be a poverty-stricken area. fang was the only teacher among the ten of my doctoral research participants that provided students with reading-log feedback and comments, thus fulfilling the research aim of this study. during the data collection period, fang was teaching two senior one classes (students aged 15-16), one of which was an experimental class. considering that students of the experimental class were more academically competent than the other class fang was teaching, fang decided to incorporate reading newspapers and keeping reading logs into her efl teaching in this class. fang chose 21st century (teens version) as the reading material for the following reasons: to expand students’ vocabulary; to enrich and increase their language input; to motivate students with interesting topics in the newspaper. for most of the students, this was the first time to read english materials other than textbooks. fang’s writing-after-reading program lasted for eight weeks following these procedures: students read the weekly newspaper and chose one article (approximately 300 words) to comment on in their reading logs. the reading log included four sections: basic information (including source of reading, reading time, theme, and topic), language accumulation, summary, and my opinions. at the beginning of each week, fang collected the reading logs and gave feedback. in order to gain a relatively multi-layered view of students’ feedback and evaluation of this writing-afterreading program, eight students of different english competence from the experimental class (with code names s1-s8; 2 girls and 6 boys) participated in the study on a voluntary basis. the data were collected through three main sources: interviews with the teacher and eight student participants, the eight students’ reading-log entries, and teacher’s written feedback on the writing. the interview protocols were developed based on the two research questions (rq). specifically, rq1 (i.e., how could interpersonality be integrated into wcf on reading log entries?) shaped the teacher interview questions, while rq2 (i.e., what effects could interpersonal wcf have on efl writing?) guided the design of student interview questions. semi-structured interviews were conducted with each participant, teacher and students alike. the interview with fang lasted for approximately one hour, while interviews with each student lasted 20 minutes or so. to enable participants (particularly students whose spoken english was limiting) to fully and freely express their opinions, all the interviews were conducted in chinese, l1 for participants and the researcher, then transcribed and translated into english by the researcher. in addition, eight students’ reading logs (eight entries in total from each student) with fang’s feedback on each entry were analyzed as another source of data. each reading log entry was named with student’s code name and the ordinal number of the entry. for instance, the entry labelled as s4-4 refers to the fourth reading log entry of student participant 4. xiaomei sun | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 63 the data from interviews were analyzed with the approach of thematic analysis (braun & clarke, 2006). initial codes (e.g., encouragement, interaction, and communication) were developed into emergent themes including teacher-student relationship building, mitigation strategies, effects of feedback, students’ expectations, interpersonal aspects etc. based on the emergent themes, final themes were identified and framed the subheadings of the findings chapter. to answer rq1 (i.e., how could interpersonality be integrated into wcf on reading log entries?), teacher’s feedback, including in-text feedback and end comments, was analyzed following frameworks used in related research. first, in-text feedback was analyzed drawing on the four categories adopted in a study of similar nature: organization, vocabulary, content, and grammar (ruegg, 2015b). second, fang’s end comments were analyzed following the three categories used in hyland and hyland’s (2001) seminal study (i.e., praise, criticism and suggestions). to answer rq2 (i.e., what effects could interpersonal wcf have on efl writing?), data from student interviews and reading log entries were analyzed to identify changes in terms of vocabulary, grammar, content, and structuring in the writing. findings and discussion findings fang’s feedback and the rationale behind her decisions fang’s in-text feedback was mainly composed of error corrections. subsumed under the category of ‘error correction’, four aspects were identified: organization, content, vocabulary, and grammar (see proportions in table 1). among these four subcategories, corrections of grammar mistakes took up the largest percentage—more than 50 percent of all the error corrections, followed by vocabulary— approximately one third of the total. organization and content corrections respectively accounted for 8% and 5% of error corrections. table 1. components of in-text feedback on students’ reading log entries organization (%) content (%) vocabulary (%) grammar (%) s1 2 (6) 2 (6) 12 (36) 17 (52) s2 2 (8) 2 (8) 12 (50) 8 (33) s3 3 (15) 1 (5) 7 (35) 9 (45) s4 2 (11) 0 (0) 9 (50) 7 (39) s5 2 (6) 2 (6) 4 (12) 27 (77) s6 1 (8) 1 (8) 3 (25) 7 (58) s7 3 (14) 2 (10) 5 (24) 11 (52) s8 0 (0) 0 (0) 6 (50) 6 (50) average 2 (8) 1 (5) 7 (32) 12 (55) in end comments, however, fang exercised great caution when expressing criticism compared with giving praise and suggestions (see table 2). this result mirrored her concern about giving negative feedback: ‘if i point out too many mistakes, it may affect their enthusiasm for learning. some students are particularly sensitive…i try to find their merits and encourage them instead.’ (fang, interview) in comparison, fang was much more generous when giving praise and encouragement, which was not only reflected in the data (see table 2) but also demonstrated in what she said: “when we give students feedback, we need to understand them and think from their standpoint… to dig out their strengths, and encourage them over and over again’ (fang, interview). table 2. feedback acts in end comments on students’ reading log entries praise (%) criticism (%) suggestion (%) s1 3 (50) 0 (0) 3 (50) s2 6 (75) 1 (13) 1 (13) s3 2 (40) 0 (0) 3 (60) s4 4 (57) 0 (0) 3 (43) s5 7 (78) 0 (0) 2 (22) xiaomei sun | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 64 s6 3 (75) 0 (0) 1(25) s7 6 (86) 0 (0) 1 (14) s8 4 (80) 1 (20) 0 (0) average 4 (63) 0.3 (5) 2 (32) another feature of the wcf fang gave students was that she provided individualized feedback in accordance with students’ personalities and used different types of feedback based on students’ varied language competence. fang elaborated on this: ‘according to students’ english level, i make the decision whether to correct the mistakes, simply underline them, or talk with students about the mistakes face to face in private.’ (fang, interview) it was indicated that fang complemented wcf with oral feedback, and she used both direct and indirect error corrections in her feedback. in rare cases of making criticism, fang adopted mitigation strategies. for instance, following a criticism-like comment ‘it seems that this passage comes from last issue, doesn’t it?’, she praised the student with ‘you did a good job with this article!’ (fang, s2-2) in a longer feedback, feng made a harsher criticism: it seems that you are doing this job carelessly! because in my eyes you are able to write this much better if you make enough efforts! remember: success equals hard work, right approaches of working and less empty talk! i expect to meet a new different alex! (fang, s8-1) in this 47-word comment, every sentence ended with an exclamation mark, which indicated fang’s disappointment with the written work. however, it is easy to note that this comment culminated with an expectation, and importantly, the name of the student was added to create an effect of personalized comment and dialogic communication. another strategy that fang employed was expressing immediate recognition of students’ progress. two weeks after fang gave the critical feedback above, fang made such a comment on the student’s writing: ‘i am very pleased that a new and different alex is now in front of me :)thank you for your efforts you put into reading and writing, which makes your article better worth reading :)’ (fang, s8-3). this strategy could also be identified in a comment on another student’s writing (see fig. 1). in the first entry of the student, fang’s suggestion for writing down ‘more phrases or sentences’ in the language accumulation section was responded to in the other entry with sentences copied from the reading and application of the sentence patterns in my opinions section. fang praised the student with quite long comments and four smileys scattered in different sections. figure 1. an example of fang’s immediate recognition of student’s progress xiaomei sun | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 65 fang’s immediate recognition of students’ progress was prominently displayed in her sensitivity to students’ use of newly learnt linguistic items. for instance, she gave the comment ‘i especially appreciate the proper use of some newly-learnt sentence structures, like, “not to mention”, “we can’t ignore”, “your chances of survival are small”, “given that”. well done :) :)’ (fang, s5-6). in great detail, fang listed all the items that the student had recently learnt and used in the writing, ending with two smileys, which did not commonly occur in her feedback. another mitigation strategy that fang applied was using suggestions or expectations rather than criticism to point out aspects that students could improve on. in such cases, fang might also praise students first. for example: ‘i find you’re good at language learning actually. maybe if you put more efforts into reading and writing english, you can present a perfect paragraph, making it a bit longer and more profound!’ (fang, s3-1) the beginning remark was a general praise, or fang’s evaluation of the student’s capability to learn english as a foreign language. following that, fang indicated that the writer had not exerted her full potential yet; therefore made the suggestion she should read and write more, followed by detailed instructions. this praise-suggestion pattern was extended in another comment: reading your writing is a pleasure as usual. nothing can hold the progress of exploring new technology; however, experiment on human beings should be forbidden. that’s it! i suggest that you should make your expressions various about language, for example, “think”. (fang, s3-6) this comment started with an emotion response expressing praise, followed by a content response related to cloning, after which fang gave a precise suggestion about variety of expressions. expectation, as an alternative or complement to suggestion, was also commonly used in fang’s feedback. for instance: good summary! as for opinions, i am attracted by it as usual. however, maybe a little more attention should be paid to grammar, which i believe you are able to show me in your article next time :) by the way i can understand the charm of single’s day when people just can’t help with all the flash sale, pre-sale, group-buying, red envelopes and coupons. however, we really should shop rationally so that less waste may be caused :) (fang, s5-4) this comment combined praise (‘good summary!’) which was supported by emotion response (‘i am attracted by it as usual’) and content response (‘i can understand the charm of single’s day…’), suggestion (‘maybe a little more attention should be paid to grammar’), and expectation (‘which i believe you are able to show me in your article next time’). it is important to add that the student presented a 73-word summary of the newspaper article, while fang responded with a 76-word comment which was rich in vocabulary associated with online shopping fever. it is arguable that this comment per se could be regarded as a source of language input. however, this is not the longest comment fang gave students. in the following feedback, fang used 119 words to express her feelings and opinions based on a student’s writing: you leave me the good impression that you’re a very diligent and intellectual girl. however, what flatters me today is your really profound and unique share of your opinions about different kinds of prejudice in our real life. both racial prejudice and sexual prejudice make the world not so perfect, as we all know. to change this situation, people have a long way to go. what’s more, a different prejudice happens more and more. i guess maybe only when everyone in the world helps can we create a world where all people are equal. so, work hard enough to be an influential woman so that your voice can be heard in the world and you can change the world :) (fang, s5-5) this comment covers aspects such as gender discrimination and racial prejudice. in addition to the richness of content, this feedback is also spiritually uplifting: fang encouraged the student to become an ‘influential woman’ to effect change in the world. such encouragement was mingled with emotion response, which fang perceived as having a reciprocal effect and she as a teacher benefited from it as well: ‘i think it (giving feedback on students’ works) is an emotional harvest, which makes xiaomei sun | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 66 a teacher persist’ (fang, interview). this ‘emotional harvest’ was fully embodied in the following emotion response fang gave to another student’s writing: ‘your genuine and sincere feelings are expressed in those fluent sentences, which really touched me. i can see a gentle and emotional girl by reading the lines. so this piece of writing is a success :)’ (s3-5). such emotional exchange was regarded as a source of happiness by fang: ‘the greatest happiness, or worthwhile thing, is to see the changes of students as a result of the communication between them and myself… the mutual trust built between us is the happiest thing’ (fang, interview). while enjoying students’ progress and the ‘emotional harvest’, fang encountered challenges as well. she introduced some difficulties she met with when giving feedback on students’ reading log entries: sometimes i have to think about what to say…occasionally i do find it hard to find proper and new language in my feedback…i cannot do it (giving feedback) at school…i need a quiet place at home…i usually do it in the evening…basically i need three and a half hours to finish it for the whole class. (fang, interview) fang seemed to be indicating that giving feedback was not an easy task; rather, it could be timeconsuming, environment-demanding, and language-challenging. students’ expectations and responses to fang’s feedback according to the interview data, all student participants regarded error correction as an essential component of feedback (see table 3). s1 plainly expressed that if the teacher could point out his mistakes, he would be ‘happy’. in more detail, s2 revealed his attitude towards error correction: ‘if i make some mistakes and the teacher points them out for me, i won’t make the same mistakes again.’ (s2, interview) in terms of how they expected teacher to respond to their mistakes, five out of eight students showed preference for direct comment while one said she hoped teachers could be ‘euphemistic’ because she did not have a ‘strong psychological endurance’ (s4, interview). corroborating this notion, s1 held that teachers needed to be euphemistic only if they intended to say ‘something really harsh’. similarly, s6 believed that feedback should be person-specific: he personally preferred direct comment but he advised that teachers should be euphemistic when interacting with sensitive students. among those who showed strong preference for direct comment, s7 gave the reason that he wanted to understand teachers’ points quickly and correctly. students’ expectations of directness in teacher’s feedback were slightly different from fang’s intentions: ‘i only give full-blown criticism to those who are exceptionally good in english but don’t take the writing seriously’ (fang, interview), by which she seemed to be indicating that mitigation strategies were necessary for students whose english was not quite good even though they made many mistakes in the writing. table 3. elements of feedback that students expected for their reading log writing error correction suggestion direct comment extended comment s1 √ √ √ √ s2 √ √ s3 √ √ √ s4 √ √ x √ s5 √ √ s6 √ √ s7 √ √ √ s8 √ √ √ √ surprisingly, five out of eight student participants explicitly expressed their expectations of extended comment. s1 said he would be delighted if the teacher wrote ‘a lot’ in the feedback. s3 valued longer comment even more: ‘i would have a sense of being recognized or achievement when i got long feedback.’ (s3, interview) if the feedback was short, some students might ask themselves questions such as ‘why is it so short?’ (s2, interview) or ‘does it mean my writing is not good enough?’ (s4, interview) fang seemed to have conjectured students’ expectations in this respect: ‘if i xiaomei sun | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 67 write a short comment, i would have the worry that i might disappoint the student…if i could write longer, we might have better communication’ (fang, interview). when asked to make a choice between praise, criticism, and suggestion in teacher’s feedback, five students selected ‘suggestion’ against the other two options. s3 provided an explanation that rather than purely criticizing or praising students, teachers could more helpfully provide students with specific instructions or suggestions as to how to improve. while s1 selected ‘suggestion’, he added that criticism and suggestion could be combined to achieve better effects. interestingly, s8 revealed that he liked suggestions which he thought might lead to further discussion between him and the teacher and he liked this type of communication of ideas. regarding how feedback is related to teacher-student relationship, three students in different ways expressed that constructive feedback could enhance the relationship. one student thoroughly expressed her understanding of the effect of feedback on teacher-student relationship building: in fact, there are two advantages. one is to increase students’ enthusiasm for learning english; the other is to deepen the relationship between teacher and students, and students may feel that teachers pay close attention to them. my english is not good compared with others in my class, but if i know the teacher cares about me, i will feel touched and work harder in my studies. (s3, interview) similarly, s5 expressed that teachers’ feedback was a ‘a type of encouragement’ for him, while for s7 feedback was a channel to get a touch of teachers’ feelings. the importance that students attached to the emotional and psychological aspects of teacher’s feedback mirrored fang’s understanding: it is also a type of interaction between students and the teacher. i think we need this interaction to get closer and students will be more motivated to continue reading and writing…it is a kind of communication to help us get emotionally closer. (fang, interview) changes in students’ writing according to fang, ‘obvious changes’ took place in students’ reading log writing, and she provided such details: there used to be seven or eight students whose written english was too poor for me to understand. now there is one or two such students. when they are given a composition title, they can express properly, even though they can’t use complex sentence patterns yet. (fang, interview) for students of higher english competence, improvement in writing was also evident. fang presented one example: ‘it’s quite obvious in his article because he basically didn’t use such complicated sentences before. now he uses a variety of sentence patterns, and he can use them quite naturally.’ (fang, interview) analysis of students’ reading logs showed that the most conspicuous change in students’ works was the length of writing. as shown in fig. 2, the first and fifth reading log entries of s8 demonstrated stark difference in length, from 35 words to 197 words in the section of my opinions. figure 2. change in the length of writing (s8-1 & 5) xiaomei sun | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 68 meanwhile, changes in the complexity of sentences were manifest. for example, in s2’s first entry, he wrote the following in the section of my opinions (fang made the corrections shown in square brackets): views: a family should be [˄in] harmony. we shouldn’t just do as ourselves [→we like] instead of taking care of others. no matter how busy we are, it’s important to spare some time to talk with family, then we will be closer. lesson: it’s important to use a good way to get closer with [→to] our family. (s8-1) this 54-word writing is comprised of four sentences, with the average length of eight words in each sentence. one clause (i.e., ‘no matter how busy we are’) was used, and three errors were identified and corrected by fang. seven weeks later in the same section of the entry, however, this student wrote the following: although it may be a good idea to give out gifts in christmas, the receivers can’t regard this good act as something that others owe to them and the donors shouldn’t do this thing in the hope that others must do something turn [→to give] back. all those actions are bonded [→ based] on kindness and love. what’s more, a little gift doesn’t help. after christmas, the children become poor and unhappy again, so it may be a better idea to care about their regular life and mentle [→mental] health. (s8-8) this piece of writing contains 85 words with four clauses. the first sentence is complicated in that the 45-word sentence, with three clauses led by ‘although’, ‘that’, and ‘in the hope that’, was effectively used to elucidate the relationship between the doner and the receiver of christmas gifts. changes in paragraphing and structuring were also evident in some students’ writing. take s3 as an example. in her first entry, she wrote the following in my opinions section: ‘hayao miyazaki is a master of animation. his film like spirited away, howl’s moving castle and so on have a great influence on me and thousands of children and teenagers. i really want to be him.’ (s3-1) fang commented on this 36-word writing in this way: ‘work towards this goal! i find you’re good at language learning actually. maybe if you put more efforts into reading and writing english, you can present a perfect paragraph, making it a bit longer and more profound.’ (fang, s3-1) two weeks later, this student wrote a much longer passage in this section: i really really really disagree with this method which is in order [which is in order] to let our pets come back. nobody can guarantee the cloned dogs can be identical as the lost ones, both shape and personality. my family used to have lots of dogs. however, most of them were died [→dead], sold or lost. only two dogs are still in my home. i have to say that it’s very painful and sad to see them leave away. but, all of them still live in my heart. i won’t forget them forever. and no one could replace their positions even though their clones. thank these dogs for staying with me in a period of time. maybe learn how to let it go is the best way to remember them. (s3-3) this is a 125-word writing, presented in three paragraphs. it seems that the first paragraph is the author’s general attitude toward animal cloning; the second paragraph states the main reason for the writer’s position; the third paragraph introduces the writer’s personal stories and reflections on this issue. compared with the 36-word passage she wrote in week one, this piece of writing is much longer and ‘more profound’ as fang expected. in addition, it is legitimate to conclude that compared with the 36-word writing, the 125-word one is much more persuasive and livelier. for students of higher english proficiency, changes in their writing were also significant. take s5 as an example. in his fourth entry (see the left picture in fig. 3), the student’s overall english competence was well demonstrated with complexity and variety of linguistic constructs; meanwhile, various grammatical mistakes dispersed in almost all sentences. by contrast, four weeks later, in this student’s eighth entry (see the right picture in fig. 3), fang only pointed out one vocabulary mistake (i.e., see→read). although if we examine the writing more closely, another one or two inaccurate xiaomei sun | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 69 expressions could be identified, it is fair to say that grammar mistakes significantly decreased compared with the one written four weeks before. figure 3. change in grammar mistakes in the writing (s5-4 & 8) discussion integration of interpersonality into wcf interview data of this study evidenced that student participants exhibited strong preference for error correction in teacher’s feedback on their reading log entries, which is reflective of the exam-oriented teaching environment (lee, 2016). in addition, five out of eight students explicitly expressed their expectations of extended comments from the teacher. these findings corroborate the results of another study carried out in mainland china among tertiary efl learners (chen et al., 2016) rather than secondary students as is the case in the current study. students’ preference for extended comments once again foregrounds the importance that students attach to wcf and the emotional factors that they value in teachers’ feedback. findings of the present study also indicate that while students valued encouragement in feedback, they attached greater importance to directness and straightforwardness in teachers’ feedback, particularly in error correction. most of the student participants regarded mitigation strategies in feedback as unnecessary, with only one exception (s4) who expressed her fear of receiving harsh comments from teachers due to her sensitive personality. mirroring findings of another two case studies that explored university efl teachers’ and students’ attitudes and perceptions of written feedback respectively in saudi arabia and malaysia (alshahrani, 2014; mahfoodh, 2017), the current study collected evidence from secondary efl learners who shared similar perceptions: direct error correction was preferred compared with other forms of written feedback. on the teacher’s part, direct error corrections were provided in most parts of the in-text feedback she gave students, which means mistakes were not only pointed out but also corrected by the teacher. in this sense, teacher’s perception and students’ expectation of direct error correction converged. however, when giving end comments, fang largely employed mitigation strategies which demonstrated a range of formats. first, in lieu of making blunt criticism, fang exhibited a preference for giving suggestions or expressing expectations. common patterns identified in fang’s end comments include praise-suggestion, praise-criticism, and praise-suggestion-expectation. this finding replicates hyland and hyland’s (2001) research in which various types of feedback patterns were applied to teacher feedback often in the form of paired act patterns (e.g., praise–criticism and criticism– suggestion) or act triad (e.g., praise–criticism-suggestion). another similarity between hyland and hyland’s (2001) study and the present one is the finding of students’ choice for suggestions which provide students with ‘explicit recommendation for remediation’ in preference to other feedback acts (p. 186). adding to the existing literature, this study identified another commonly used feedback act – expectation. compared with suggestion which is more content-oriented, expectation entails interpersonal communication. even more emotionally provocative than expectation, encouragement in a general sense was commonly used in fang’s feedback, sometimes expressed with empowering remarks, for example, ‘work hard enough to be an influential woman so that your voice can be heard in the world and you can change the world!’ (s5-5) moreover, fang quite often made emotion response in her feedback with expressions such as ‘touched’, ‘glad’, ‘really like’, and ‘amazed me’. the emotion response was commonly blended with content response which either deepened or broadened the discussion of the student’s writing, signaled by expressions like ‘i truly agree with you that…’, ‘you’re absolutely right in believing that…’, and ‘i side with you about…’. analysis of xiaomei sun | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 70 students’ artefacts also indicated that the persistent written communication between teacher and students had brought about effect on students’ increasingly longer and profounder writing. in sum, fang integrated interpersonality into wcf by means of using direct error correction in in-text feedback and a blend of content and emotion response with mitigation strategies in end comment. resonating with the ‘enabling construct’ of teacher feedback literacy put forward by xu and carless (2017), that is, fostering students’ cognitive, affective and relational capabilities conducive to effective feedback uptake, the current study highlights the interpersonal strategies that teachers could adopt in wcf, which in fang’s case took the forms of suggestion, expectation and encouragement in the feedback. effects of interpersonal wcf due to fang’s persistent and consistent feedback, students’ reading log entries demonstrated evident changes in a range of aspects. first, in almost all the students’ reading logs, the length of writing manifested an increase (see an example in fig. 2). a direct factor for the improvement could be the expectation fang expressed in her feedback (e.g., ‘can i expect a little longer summary and opinion from you?’). such interpersonal communication was responded to by students with lengthened and content-enriched writing as previously presented. second, some students’ writing demonstrated a decrease in grammar mistakes (see an example in fig. 3), which might result from fang’s close attention to error correction in her in-text feedback. third, some students’ writing displayed a wider range of vocabulary in their later reading log entries. a contributory factor to this change could be fang’s immediate recognition of students’ use of newly learnt vocabulary from the reading. conceivably, fang’s recognition and timely praise spurred students on to further and broader application of newly learnt linguistic items. this result echoes skipper and douglas’ (2015) finding in that immediate praise for students’ progress could effect positive changes in their academic performance. fourth, both students and the teacher reported progress in the ‘naturalness’ of reading log writing, as one student (s4) said: ‘it (teacher’s feedback) makes my english more natural and fluent.’ fifth, content of students’ writing was broadened in a more packed structure, partly due to the extensiveness of fang’s feedback in terms of content coverage. one student revealed the mechanism of the student-teacher written communication like this: ‘the teacher recognized my views expressed in the reading log, and then she sometimes put forward her own views.’ (s3, interview) sixth, the continuous reading and writing raised some students’ english scores. one said with pride: ‘the obvious effect is my writing scores: previously, i only got 10 plus; now it’s 20 plus.’ (s5, interview) adding to the finding of a previous study which evidenced that students’ perception of teachers’ feedback was a significant factor in their academic enhancement (crimmins et al., 2016), the present study demonstrated specific aspects of improvement in l2 writing in part due to students’ persistent reading and writing, alongside teacher’s wcf integrated with interpersonal elements. regarding the construction of teacher-student relationship, this study also showed positive effects. three students explicitly mentioned that teacher’s written feedback was able to enhance their relationship, which was what fang had expected through providing interpersonal wcf on students’ reading log entries. this finding corresponds to the result of chong’s (2018b) study (i.e., studentteacher relationship influenced feedback effect) in a converse manner by providing evidence indicating that interpersonal feedback could in turn impact the relationship between teacher and students. the enhanced relationship was reified in deeper communication between the two sides which covered various aspects including cultural, socio-political, and technological topics. moreover, the strengthened bond consequently increased students’ motivation for l2 learning, reflected in their improvement in various aspects of reading log writing as noted above. hyland and hyland (2001) stated that suggestions could turn ‘a blunt criticism into a proposal for improvement, thus adding a more effective pedagogic and interactional dimension’ (p. 195). findings from fang’s situation confirmed and broadened this notion with evidence that in addition to suggestion, other forms of interpersonal communication in feedback (e.g., expectation and encouragement) could also bring about positive pedagogical and relational changes. conclusion by examining eight secondary efl learners’ reading log entries and the teacher’s written feedback on the writing, in tandem with interviewing these students and the teacher, this case study addresses the questions of how to integrate interpersonality into wcf and what effects the interpersonal wcf could have. findings from the study answer these two questions with specific strategies the teacher adopted xiaomei sun | elt forum 12(1) (2023) 71 and the influence on students’ reading log writing. the implemented strategies could be summarized as follows. first, in-text feedback mainly took the form of direct error correction, covering content, lexical, grammatical, and structural aspects. second, mitigation strategies were vastly used in end comments in the form of combined feedback acts. one typical example was using possible combinations of suggestion, expectation, and encouragement, rather than criticism, to provide guidance or specific directions for the writer to make improvement. third, content response and emotion response were commonly integrated in a way that not only enriched and deepened the written communication between teacher and students but also enhanced their relationship. the effects of interpersonal wcf were observable in the following aspects in students’ reading log entries: increased length of writing; wider range of vocabulary; fewer grammar mistakes; more natural expressions of english; richer content; increased marks in english exams; closer student-teacher relationship. it is important to note that these effects were concluded from changes in the eight student participants’ writing, which does not mean all effects were reflected in each student’s works. one empirical implication of the study is that l2 teachers may selectively use the strategies presented and tested effective in this study in their teaching contexts. admittedly, the variation of teaching environments and teacher personalities impose limitation to the transferability of these strategies. however, the essence of interpersonal feedback, as hyland and hyland (2006b) stressed, making response to ‘a person rather than a script’ (p. 165, emphasis in original), was beneficially adopted in the given context and worth further experimentation in wider communities. there are some limitations to this study. first, the teacher participant implemented this writing-after-reading program in an experimental class consisting of 27 students, a size much smaller than the average class size in chinese secondary schools. the small class size made it possible for the teacher to give extended comment which was highly recognized and valued by some student participants. therefore, the practicality of giving interpersonal wcf for teachers of bigger class sizes is worth research and investigation. future study may also extend the discussion in the direction of testing the possibility of involving peer feedback in interpersonal wcf. funding statement the author 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(2017). ‘only true friends could be cruelly honest’: cognitive scaffolding and social-affective support in teacher feedback literacy. assessment & evaluation in higher education, 42(7), 1082-1094. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2016.1226759 microsoft word 5. the implementation of gamification in teaching putri anggraeni, et al / journal of english language teaching 6 (1) (2017) 122 elt forum 12(2) (2023) journal of english language teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt the implementation of gamification to teach grammar in higher education rahmatul jannah1, hidayah nor1, raida asfihana1 1universitas islam negeri antasari banjarmasin, indonesia article info ________________ article history: received on 7 january 2023 approved on 17 july 2023 published on 31 july 2023 ________________ keywords: gamification; gamification in education; student response; teaching grammar ____________________ abstract teachers today must create strategies or techniques that meet both the demands of students and the times since we are today grow and develop alongside technology. a gaming technique called gamification can be used in non-game environments, like education. in addition, many students continue to believe that grammar is uninteresting and contains a lot of content. the purpose of this study is to better understand how the lecturers utilize gamification in the classroom and how students react to it when it is used to teach grammar in higher education settings. a qualitative case study methodology is used in this research approach. data were gathered through observation, interviews, and documentation; they were then condensed, displayed, and used to make inferences and conduct verification. twenty-three students and a lecturer took part in this investigation. the findings are broken down into two points based on the research objectives. the implementation of gamification in grammar instruction can be done in ten phases and is supported by current theory. the second discovery is that there are five possible student reactions to gamified learning, each of which relates to the positives and negatives of utilizing gamification. the results of this study should help provide further light on how gamification might be used to teach english, particularly grammar. correspondence address: p-issn 2252-6706 | e-issn 2721-4532 jl. ahmad yani no.km. 4 universitas islam negeri antasari banjarmasin hidayahnortbiuin@gmail.com rahmatul jannah, hidayah nor, raida asfihana | elt forum 12(2) (2023) 123 introduction speaking and writing both follow the rules of grammar. to write phrases and paragraphs with clarity and good structure, proper grammar must be employed. grammar instruction is crucial for students to master since it is necessary for them to acquire grammar before they can become proficient in reading, writing, speaking, or listening. by learning and understanding grammar, students' communication with one another will be more accurate. ibrahim (2016) pointed out that language learners in one of the language systems that must be taught are grammar. there are two ways to teach grammar structures, deductive and inductive. the way of teaching deductive grammar is that the teacher teaches and explains new knowledge of grammar structures to students so that students can conclude the material that has been introduced. the way of teaching with inductive grammar is that the teacher explains the new structure of grammar and adds text so that students can take the meaning and understanding of grammar from the text. scrivener (2013) believes teaching grammar explanations must be exciting and fun, with the teacher providing motivational encouragement and new things for students to learn so they don't get bored studying at a higher level. some of the ways of teaching grammar can be done by using visual media card (solichin & faizin, 2017) and by using story grammar strategy (hamidah, 2016). as richards and renandya (2002) believes grammar is impossible for today's learners to ignore because it is essential to learn with good knowledge. currently, the development of methodologies in teaching english varies greatly. in teaching grammar, teachers can use various approaches with their respective positive and negative aspects (tuan & doan, 2010). in addition, teaching grammar using gamification is combined with several approaches such as communicative language teaching (clt), grammar translation methods (gtm), or task-based language teaching (tblt), and some of them can help teachers teach grammar rather than applying it separately (cam & tran, 2017). students today grow and develop together with digital technologies. as a result, they develop distinct learning styles, a new perspective on the learning process, and a desire for improved instruction and learning. due to their obligation to change with the times and respond to the needs of their students, teachers face additional challenges. to increase students' interest and engagement in the classroom, teachers must employ a variety of strategies or techniques. according to tobias et al. (2014), many students spend more time playing video games on their computers than they do learning in class. utilizing one of the trends, gamification in education, can therefore be the solution to this issue.gamification is a method of implementing game elements into non-games, one of which is education (deterding et al., 2011). gamification is becoming more popular in educational and development applications. several aspects are involved in using educational gamification, including educational context, game elements, and learner profiles, gamified environment, and learning outcomes (dichev & dicheva, 2017). in addition, gamification applies game mechanics to many aspects, one of which is teaching and learning to make it more fun and make students more interested in learning (villagrasa & duran, 2013). some examples of applications in gamification that can use are quizizz, kahoot, and duolingo. the gamification system focuses on levels, leaderboards, adding points, and badges or achievements (reiners & wood, 2015). compared to points and control groups, leaderboards have been shown to drive participants to maintain their achievement longer (mekler et al., 2013). reiners and wood (2015) point out that gamification has many advantages that can make learning in the classroom more accessible. the benefits of gamification are as follows: the attraction of competition in a game that makes the winner satisfied against other players who lose; maintaining student focus by bringing the atmosphere and creativity to life in the games being played; students who play the game will feel happy and not easily bored; and games can make students more social and able to work together, or there is an attitude of healthy competition between students. in addition, reiners and wood (2015) pointed out that gamification is known to have many advantages, besides that gamification also has several disadvantages, which can be described as follows: internet costs must be incurred by teachers and students when completing the gamification process; the implementation is quite complicated because you have to do many things, such as preparing questions in the game, ensuring all students are logged in to a game, turning on the lcd projector so that the leaderboard is visible, etc; gamification requires training because not all students understand the game to be played, and the teacher must be proficient in running the game; and obstacles when playing games, such as unstable internet signal constraints so that the gamification process is disrupted. jusuf (2016) outlined the following stages for putting gamification learning into practice: putting the information in various systems with tiers; maintaining a record of the points achieved in each category so that pupils can concentrate on improving their scores; offering satisfying physical benefits and is rahmatul jannah, hidayah nor, raida asfihana | elt forum 12(2) (2023) 124 demonstrable so that students can check it every day for a fresh challenge; attaching the level sensor to the date or time; assembling a task group so that students may cooperate to complete the project; encouraging students to generate meaningful work that supports learning requirements in their quest for meaning; by offering rewards for students who comment on their classmates' work, the teachers can enhance the culture of information sharing; when students complete new challenges, they are pleasantly surprised with bonus incentives; on several quizzes, use a countdown timer to simulate pressure; take a badge or prize if the learner fails a particular challenge; if a game process is unsuccessful, make a new situation or redo it; introducing characters that both assist and obstruct students' learning; allowing students to look for play characters; dividing the material into several sections and giving the quiz after each round; setting a virtual badge as a reward if the student passes; and including a leaderboard that shows all students' performance to foster a spirit of competition and cooperation. apart from the theory above, singhal, hough, and cripps (2019) pointed out that gamification has several steps that teachers can take, and they provide suggestions for teaching using gamification as follows: prepare the necessary devices; monitor student progress; using the narrative structure; experience from learning; generating students' extrinsic and intrinsic motivation; teachers focus on collaborative learning. encourage healthy competition to drive students. group work can enhance learning and allow students to socialize more with their peers (forslund frykedal & hammar chiriac, 2018). competition, according to friedlander et al. (2011), induces stress, but it does so in a way that encourages students to succeed in the game. due to their inherent appeal, curiosity, and increased control, competitive games can help students feel less anxious about playing those games (wei et al., 2018). this is connected to its beneficial impact on competition (sepehr & head, 2013); repetition of learning; integration of student talents; and student progress via instructor feedback. teachers that give excellent and efficient feedback can produce high-quality instruction (rowe & wood, 2008); gamification is also employed frequently. applying gamification will require more effort and time than traditional teaching methods (lee & hammer, 2011) and also the students are able to develop suitable materials with ict based (muthmainnah, et al., 2021). to produce acceptable learning outcomes and experiences for second language learners, dehghanzadeh et al.'s research from 2021 offers some guidelines for the use and design of gamification. in addition, dehghanzadeh et al. (2021) suggest that future studies concentrate on the connection between various gamification characteristics and the aforementioned learning outcomes. with new programs that have more features and an emphasis on english grammar, researchers can fill this gap in their research. to teach grammar in islamic higher education, academics are interested in gamification. methods a case study approach is used in this research. case studies are a type of qualitative study in which particular people or groups are utilized as research objects to comprehend phenomena relating to what research subjects experience, such as behavior, motivation, perceptions, actions, and so forth. according to moleong (2007), this is carried out holistically and makes use of verbal and linguistic descriptions in a special natural environment. the following steps were used in this case study research: create a broad case to investigate, specify the research questions, select the appropriate case, choose data collection and analysis techniques, get ready to collect the data, collect the data, analyze the data, and get ready to prepare the research results. at an islamic higher education in banjarmasin, the researchers conducted their current study.the researchers conducted research for one month or approximately four weeks. the participants in this study are one lecturer and the students of the english language program. the researchers utilized purposive sampling which is a non-probability sampling technique that involves selecting participants based on specific criteria that are relevant to the research question or objective to choose participants. in this case, the researchers likely used criteria such as enrollment in the english language program and previous experience with gamification to select the participants. this was done to guarantee that the sample accurately represented the target population, that the most important information was gathered, and that the informational sufficiency and appropriateness of the data were permitted. students at local 97 in uin antasari banjarmasin language development unit make up the study's sample. the data collection techniques that the researchers used were observation, interviews, and documentation observations were conducted four times to examine the process of teaching and learning grammar using gamification with observation guidelines. this study uses non-participant observation, meaning that a researcher is not directly involved in the observed situation. researchers only see grammar teaching and the learning process using gamification in the classroom. then, the researchers used interviews as an instrument in this study. the researchers used an interview guide to interview a teacher by in-depth rahmatul jannah, hidayah nor, raida asfihana | elt forum 12(2) (2023) 125 interview and interviewed eight students via an online interview. to understand the study subject intimately, see the world through their eyes and enter through experience, the researchers described how human subjects' experiences work. the researchers used a flexible, open, unstructured, and unconventional approach to conducting this in-depth online interview. as a means of gathering data, the researchers used interviewing protocols. by interviewing a lecturer about teaching and learning gamification and conducting documentation to support the data by gathering field notes, textbooks, and photos, the researchers sought to investigate the implementation of gamification in teaching grammar and students' responses to this learning. this will aid in determining the subsequent steps when applying gamification to grammar instruction and student responses after instruction. there are five questions for the students to answer in order to gauge their reactions to the use of gamification in grammar instruction at the language development unit, based on the theory from jusuf (2016). english textbooks from the language development unit and a few images were used by a researcher in this study as study-able data. additionally, this study employs supporting evidence from field notes, books, and images to provide context for the data and provide answers to research questions. the data analysis used by the researchers is based on the model developed by miles, huberman, and saldana (2014). in miles, huberman, and saldana's (2014) data analysis paradigm, the phases of data condensing, data displaying, and deriving and validating findings are all completed. the first is data condensation, in which the researcher chooses, clarifies, concentrates, and modifies the data from interview transcripts, field notes, papers, and empirical data collected. in this study, data condensation was done by direct observation and interviews with the lecturer and students at the local 97 (ninety-seven) of the language development unit of uin antasari banjarmasin, to provide data that had been chosen and made easier. based on the data collected, the researchers seek trends, facts, and themes that are more significant to write about, while discarding data that they deem unneeded. following the data presentation, the researcher provides the data that has made it through the condensation stage. this is used by the researchers to make it simpler to comprehend the issues discovered throughout their investigation, after which they may move on to the next phase. the research team has finished gathering information about the use of gamification in grammar instruction at location 97 (ninety-seven) of the language development unit of uin antasari banjarmasin and is now ready to present and discuss in-depth the findings of direct observations and interviews. drawing and verifying conclusions comes last; after completing the procedures for condensation and data display, this is the last thing that has to be done. the findings serve as support for the research that was done. the researchers wrapped up the process of applying gamification in teaching grammar after presenting the data linked to the implementation of gamification in teaching grammar that was carried out at the local 97 (ninety-seven) of the language development unit of uin antasari banjarmasin. the data were thoroughly examined and verified by the researchers to make sure they were accurate, reliable, supported by evidence, and valid. finding and discussion in this section, the researchers present and describe an overview of the implementation of gamification in grammar and student responses about learning using gamification in grammar at the language development unit of an islamic higher education in banjarmasin. in addition, the findings in this study are discussed based on the results of observations, interviews, and documentation. the implementation of gamification in learning grammar in higher education based on data obtained through observation, interviews, and documentation, there are ten steps to implement gamification in the language development unit, as follows: defining big game ideas in this study, the teacher teaches grammar using the quizizz application. teachers use the quizizz program, an online tool that serves as a student assessment when they are teaching. making use of the quizizz app, which features questions, images, points, stages, leaderboards, and badges (reiners & wood, 2015). additionally, the teacher explains something to the class before telling them to use quizizz at the start of the lesson. quizizz was employed as a method of grading student work, and the teacher stated that the quizizz score will be used as an indication of their worth. this demonstrates that the task-based language teaching (tblt) approach is being used by the teacher in english class 97 language development units. gamification can be used in conjunction with the tblt technique to teach grammar (cam & tran, 2017). rahmatul jannah, hidayah nor, raida asfihana | elt forum 12(2) (2023) 126 grammar is taught by the teacher using inductive grammar. games provided by the teacher with the student's knowledge help students comprehend the material from assignments (ibrahim, 2016). the content of each game is then divided into some stages or levels by ms. s (jusuf, 2016). multiple-choice questions, checkboxes, fill-in-the-blanks, and selection are just a few of the features that can categorize pupils into different levels in this program. the teacher organizes the questions into several levels, such as starting with multiple-choice questions, moving up to the next, more challenging question with questions that fill in the gaps, and so on. preparing required devices singhal, hough, and cripps (2019) suggest that the teacher must prepare whatever he needs during learning. on the findings, ms. s ensures that students bring smartphones and have an internet network. the statement from ms. s below can prove this: "i give students advanced notice via the whatsapp group that tomorrow is the day of quizizz learning, and i ask students to get their smartphones or laptops ready so they can access quizizz." monitoring student progress the theory from singhal, hough, and cripps (2019) claims that during the game, the teacher monitors the progress of the students. the teacher keeps track of the student's progress through the quizizz leaderboard based on the findings once the game has begun. the instructor also walks around the classroom to check on the progress of each pupil. to confirm that they can play it, the teacher speaks with each pupil one-on-one. observe the following claim made by ms. s as evidence: i asked some students about quizizz and whether they were having problems as i walked around the room to check their smartphones. dividing students into several groups the theory from jusuf (2016) pinpointed that gamification can be taught by dividing students into several groups. the researcher discovered that the teacher used gamification to teach grammar by setting up small groups for two meetings based on the findings of the four observations they made. even though students are in groups and are only permitted to discuss to receive answers, the teacher asks each student to participate in the game. the teacher splits the class into numerous groups. this is based on the following statement by ms. s: "by planning small-group activities where students participate only within their specific groups, i foster interactive discussions and encourage collaborative learning among students." students can mingle more with their peers and learn more through group projects, according to forslund frykedal and hammar chiriac (2018). students can interact with other pupils during the game in a good way while also constructively competing. using gamification to teach language, can enhance positive relationships between students. using a countdown timer on several quizzes to create fake pressure according to friedlander et al. (2011) idea, pupils are both motivated and stressed out by the teacher's simulation of pressure throughout the game. the pressure to perform well is a good pressure that comes from the game's stress. according to the findings, the teacher first develops the learning application before beginning to teach grammar through gamification. the teacher typically creates some graded questions and inquiries of different types. then, based on the teacher's preferences, a different or the same time restriction is set for each level or question. the researchers discovered that the teacher used several countdown timers during the observation period when students worked on quizizz in groups and individually. the teacher's countdown timer aims to put fake pressure on students so they can focus more on the questions and can give the best results. creating a new situation if a game process is unsuccessful reiners and wood (2015) claim that in the learning process using gamification, the main obstacle is the obstacle to an unstable internet signal. things that teachers and students cannot predict. in the second rahmatul jannah, hidayah nor, raida asfihana | elt forum 12(2) (2023) 127 observation finding, it was raining heavily, and several providers had unstable internet networks, so the teacher took action. evidence from ms. s below: “the majority of the time, issues are caused by a frequently lost internet connection; otherwise, everything goes smoothly.” if the game method doesn't work, ms. s. takes steps to aid in the learning of the students (jusuf, 2016). students who are limited by the internet network are first given options by the teacher, and they can hotspot the internet with others who wish to share. the teacher is unable to work on this because the class does not have a wifi network. the next option ms. s offers to students who have issues with the internet network is to have them collaborate with friends to complete quizizz questions on a single device. according to ms. s. below: "normally, if students are unable to participate due to an internet connection, i provide them with other possibilities. they can hotspot their pals or request that all of their friends respond on the same device.” including a leaderboard that displays all students' performance to encourage a spirit of competitiveness and teamwork mekler et al. (2013) suggested that leaderboards can encourage and motivate student competitiveness. in the quizizz game held by ms.s, the leaderboard was not shown but was mentioned orally when students were answering questions. the teacher continues to share the results of the leaderboard during the game and motivates students to give their best. this is also in accordance with the theory of singhal, hough, and cripps (2019), namely that including a leaderboard can encourage student competitiveness and teamwork when they are divided into small group progress. the results of the student leaderboard in a class of language development units are below. figure 1. leaderboard encouraging healthy competition to motivate students according to wei et al. (2018), as students can have intrinsic interest, curiosity, and more control in competitive games, they can lower anxiety related to games. the competitive attitude of the pupils usually shows during each game. only when provided with the correct motivation, the students will be inspired. ms. s informs the class at the start of the game that the quzizz scores they receive will be used to grade their assignments. students become more competitive as a result, which motivates them to achieve good marks. competition in video games can be beneficial (sepehr & head, 2013). the following statement by ms. s provides evidence: "yes, by stating at the start of the game that the grade they receive will determine the importance of the task. students will undoubtedly be motivated by this and be able to concentrate better while answering, which will help them give thoughtful answers to the game.” rahmatul jannah, hidayah nor, raida asfihana | elt forum 12(2) (2023) 128 developing students from the feedback rowe and wood (2008) pointed out that good quality teaching can be achieved by teachers who provide high-quality and effective feedback. the teacher provides feedback to develop student’s learning abilities. in the finding, as she declared the game's winners from first to third place, ms. s. took a peek at the leaderboard. verbal congratulations were given to the winner who received the highest score, and ms. s. requested the children to applaud the winner. the teacher instructs the class to pay close attention to the game's outcomes once the winner has been declared. by evaluating the quizizz questions, the teacher will offer comments after the game. when a topic is deemed difficult, the teacher may typically ask the class about it or look at the leaderboard results to identify questions that have a lot of incorrect answers. following a second round of explanation, the teacher assesses the students' comprehension by posing some learning-related questions. the statement made by ms. s below provides evidence: "i generally look to see which question they answered incorrectly. after quzizz is finished, the students and i will jointly evaluate the questions. i re-question pupils after providing comments to ensure that they comprehend. by using quizizz's evaluation option, students can occasionally also rate themselves." the evaluation files on the leaderboard allow students to evaluate themselves in addition to receiving criticism and clarification from the instructor. students can view their prior incorrect responses in the evaluation function to see which ones were correct. the evaluation feature differs since it does not explain the solution. figure 2. evaluation feature using gamification on an ongoing basis the final stage followed by the teacher, according to singhal, hough, and cripps (2019), is to combine the skills of the pupils and conduct ongoing games. according to the research, ms. s exclusively uses quizizz as a teaching tool when gamifying her lessons. to use gamification, a teacher must first create a game, play it, and then instruct pupils on how to play it. this takes a lot of time. this is strongly tied to the implementation of gamification, which takes more time and effort to teach than conventional approaches (lee & hammer, 2011). the teacher utilizes the gamification software frequently if the students are familiar with it. as ms. s. explains below. “yes, i exclusively use quizizz because the students are accustomed to it, but doing so requires me to first learn how to use it, which takes time. i use quizizz to teach almost every week, especially grammar because it takes a lot of practice for kids to become familiar with it, and quizizz provides elements that assist me.” rahmatul jannah, hidayah nor, raida asfihana | elt forum 12(2) (2023) 129 in addition, the teacher does not give physical awards for game winners that can be shown to others (jusuf, 2016). students that achieve the highest score in the game's final score receive prizes from the teacher in the form of verbal praise and physical gestures, such as applauding. this has something to do with the fact that pupils who do poorly in games or who receive extra rewards for completing difficult challenges do not receive badges. then, the topic being taught is different, and the teacher's gamification is done at each meeting with a distinct set of levels or question types. teachers don't provide level sensors for students to check daily for new challenges at the time or date specified by the teacher. additionally, the instructor doesn't introduce figures who could be helpful or harmful to the students. as evidenced by this, pupils are unable to identify the game's protagonist (jusuf, 2016). the final method involves gamification that is implemented through a narrative structure (singhal, hough, & cripps, 2019). instead of creating a narrative structure for the game, the teacher employs multiplechoice questions or sentences that look like questions. in each step of the language development unit's gamification implementation for grammar instruction, you can see the steps that can be implemented and prepared by future teachers before implementing them. there are advantages to be gained from learning using gamification, such as, students becoming more motivated, learning is fun, and so on. in addition, the implementation of gamification still has drawbacks such as learning with the potential to be unsuccessful due to unstable signals. student’s response to the implementation of gamification in learning grammar in higher education in the language development unit, the teacher might incorporate gamification into grammar. the students' reactions after using gamification, however, can be used to determine whether gamification is successful. according to the data gathered in the field, the top five student responses—which include the benefits and drawbacks of gamification implementation—are described below by the researchers. feel happy and not easily bored one benefit of gamification, according to rainers and wood (2015), is that it makes learning enjoyable for pupils and prevents them from being easily bored. the results showed that ms. s's adoption of gamification in this class was successful in demonstrating to the pupils that learning can be entertaining and not boring. the interview following shows that while the students' responses varied, there was only one meaning and supporting evidence. "i find it fascinating. i don't get easily bored because it feels like playing a game even though i'm answering questions, and the information is simple to retain. (s1) "makes learning more enjoyable for me and keeps me from getting bored fast. in addition, i have the capacity for quick thought. (s2) very enjoyable, and i enjoy learning in class. (s3) "very fun and exciting" (s4) "i'm joyful and enjoying myself" (s5) "so much fun" (s6) "i'm pleased because it's simpler to understand." (s7) the learning process is entertaining and not tedious. (s8) villagrasa and duran (2013) have highlighted how gamification might boost students' enthusiasm for studying. this is consistent with research that shows gamification can help students learn while having fun. gamification can be taught to students through online games that have a variety of features. then, according to scrivener (2013), teaching grammar explanations must be engaging and enjoyable, with the teacher offering inspirational encouragement and fresh material for pupils to learn to prevent them from becoming disinterested in their higher-level studies. according to the findings, the teacher vocally motivated and encouraged the students to learn grammar and gave them fresh material to learn to prevent boredom while they were learning at a higher level. motivated to focus on learning rainers and wood (2015) inferred that learning using gamification could motivate students to focus more on learning. students are often caught off guard in their studies because they are distracted by their smartphones. in the findings, students revealed that they were motivated to focus more on learning by implementing gamification in grammar learning. the countdown timer feature serves as a leading indicator for encouraging students to concentrate. the pressure or incentive of the countdown timer will help students concentrate more. the teachers will keep the students on their toes, making sure they are attentive and rahmatul jannah, hidayah nor, raida asfihana | elt forum 12(2) (2023) 130 paying close attention to every question. according to friedlander et al.'s (2011) theory, this pressure may develop as a result of competitiveness to win the game. different comments came from the eight pupils who were questioned. the use of gamification can encourage students to concentrate more on their studies, according to seven out of every eight of them. the student interviews listed below provide evidence for this. “yes, it helps me concentrate more, and knowing how to utilize quizizz makes the subject feel like guessing games even when i'm answering questions.” (s1) "yes, the fact that there is a time limit and gamification (quizizz) is entertaining and motivates me to concentrate on answering questions." (s2) "yes," you reply, "because i can concentrate on studying the material and play games at the same time." (s3) "i'm motivated because i can concentrate more on current questions" (s4) "when i study, i focus better and have more fun." (s5) "yes, i am driven," (s7) "yes, playing helps me concentrate and feel like there are opponents." (s8) one of the eight students had a different response. that is, he did not feel motivated to focus more on learning. evidence can be seen below. “i feel normal, not motivated” (s6) easy to work well with friends the use of gamification in grammar can be done either individually or in groups, according to rainers and wood (2015). students that play games can become more collaborative and social. the researchers discovered that during the observation period, two of the four observations were conducted in groups. four small groups of four students each were formed by ms. s. when students collaborated in small groups to respond to quizizz questions, researchers received a variety of replies from them. in this instance, six students responded favorably because they could collaborate effectively with their peers when learning grammar in a group setting using gamification. the findings of the interviews with students are listed below. "my group members are compact, so i can work well with them” (s1). “exchange of ideas allows us to collaborate” (s2) “yes, we get along well, we frequently share our thoughts on the best course of action, and being in a group makes me feel less anxious” (s4). yes, we cooperate and can carry it out successfully” (s5). “as a result of our answer-exchange system, we collaborate effectively.” (s7) "yes, both of the group members and i work well together." (s8) two students had different responses and felt less able to cooperate with their group mates. in addition, they think that groups need help to help them. "i can cooperate sometimes. i don't always rely on my group members.” (s3) "i am unable to collaborate with my friends. i believe that participating in quizizz groups does not improve my ability to respond to questions.” (s6) satisfied with the results of the game according to rainers and wood (2015), the appeal of competition in a game makes the victorious player happy in comparison to the losers. different student reactions emerged from the use of gamification to teach grammar in english lessons at the nearby language development unit 97. one of these concerns is the degree to which the game's outcomes satisfied the students. the accomplishments made by the winners will make them feel content. researchers investigate the reactions of students to pleasure. eight students were surveyed, and four of them were very happy with their grades. the results of the interviews with the pupils revealed that four out of eight were still occasionally satisfied and other times not. “yes, i'm happy with the outcomes since they show how much we've progressed in our english learning. “(s1) "i'm not always happy with the results of my score because i answered the questions incorrectly, but sometimes i am." yes, i am happy with the effort i put in on my own.” (s2) “the score is pretty high, therefore” (s3) "i feel satisfied." (s4) rahmatul jannah, hidayah nor, raida asfihana | elt forum 12(2) (2023) 131 "occasionally satisfied, occasionally not" (s5) "my results are generally satisfactory, but occasionally just so-so." (s6). "i'm happy with my quizizz score," said respondent (s7). "not bad" (s8) disappointed with the unstable internet signal according to the data, the english language development unit's gamification of grammar instruction only encountered one issue: internet signal issues while playing games. this is strongly related to the negative effects of gamification, which include barriers in unstable signals that interfere with the game's mechanics (reiners & wood, 2015). the pupils gave a variety of answers and explanations during the interviews. the majority of students—four out of every eight—have trouble getting an internet signal while using it to play games. the data below comes from interviews conducted to get feedback from students. "yes, at times it is challenging to acquire a reliable internet signal. i will request a theme with a better signal from the hotspot as a workaround.” (s1) "if the network is unstable, i may occasionally ask friends for a hotspot or collaborate with friends to complete the questions." (s2) “occasionally, yes. for me, the solution is to briefly log out of quizizz and then sign back in.” (s3) “the quizizz application is working flawlessly, thank allah.” (s4) “i haven't experienced any network problems or anything like that, so far.” (s5) "i don't have any issues,"(s6) “never” (s7) “none” (s8) students are always smooth while utilizing gamification to enhance their learning because they cannot predict or modify their signals. some pupils have had this experience, according to the student response data that was gathered. three things happened to resolve the issue: first, they requested an internet hotspot from friends who had a more reliable and powerful internet signal; second, with the teacher's ok, they engaged in studying with pals on one device; and third, they quit the game and logged back in. there are several types of replies from each student, some of which are favorable and others which are negative. this relates to the benefits and drawbacks of gamification that teachers in one of the locations in the language development unit adopted. conclusion this study intends to examine the process of gamification in grammar instruction at the university level and assess how well students respond to this cutting-edge method of instruction. in the language development unit, the study suggests ten essential elements for successfully incorporating gamification into grammar education. these steps include creating a multi-stage compilation of learning materials, creating a tiered system, providing necessary tools, continuously tracking student progress, strategically grouping students, incorporating countdown timers into quizzes to simulate time pressure, adapting to new scenarios in case the gamification process runs into difficulties, and including a leader board to promote motivation, competition, and teamwork. the study analyzes student responses and identifies five main outcomes, including increased happiness and decreased boredom, increased motivation and concentration, improved peer collaboration, satisfaction with game outcomes, and frustration brought on by unreliable internet connections. future researchers are urged to investigate gamification in a variety of disciplines and look at its effects on learning outcomes beyond grammar in order to advance this field of study. funding statement this is a non-funded study. references adams, s. p., & du preez, r. 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